I have just four words for you. Play. This. Record. Loud.
I have been a huge fan of The Knew since first seeing them at a Larimer Lounge BBQ about a year ago and I am quite relieved to say that the latest release from the Denver-based group is fantastic.
These four fellas have an innate knack for blues based rock. It is classic without being tired. Energetic without being overdone. The addition of some more ambient sounds (fancy pants guitar stuff, harmonica, synth, and some sax I think too.) broadens their scope without detracting from their seemingly trademarked sound.
From the first song, By Yourself, the syncopation will start your feet tapping. And when the guitars kick in your non-dancing days just may be over. Coldblack, a track halfway through the EP, has even more haunting vocals and doesn’t slow down a bit. This album invokes dancing. It’s a whole record of wild, sweaty, exhausted and ridiculously satisfying music from beginning to end. Well done boys, well done.
MP3 - By Yourself
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
Dan Craig’s voice somehow manages to be both heartwrenching and uplifting in the songs on his latest release Skin Grows Thin and that’s probably my favorite thing about the album. It reminds me that even though bad things happen in life so do spectacular things.
The album as a whole is mellow, acoustic songs that you can listen to over and over again. Full of strings, horns, sweet harmonies and contributions by Erin Donovan and member of the Flobots, Hearts of Palm and Bela Karoli, the album is one that doesn’t really have a bad song in the bunch. If you like Ryan Adams or Damien Rice you’ll likely enjoy this album.
MP3 - See You Around
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
Sometime so long ago that I can’t quite recall when it happened (last year? 2 years ago? More than that?) I was fortunate enough to stumble upon 5 young men looking for a place to stay in Denver, CO. Perhaps it was reckless of me, but I offered up my small living room to the traveling musicians and I’m ever so glad I did because otherwise I may never have heard of a little band called Calico. And then I wouldn’t have heard a little CD called “Black Pyramid” and that would be sad indeed.
The music on this CD is simple and sparse yet poignant. It’s the kind of CD I could always have playing in the background of my life. Whether you’re having friends over for dinner and drinks, sharing your first heavy-breathing, toe-tingling make-out session with a potential love interest or just sitting on a patio contemplating the meaning of life (yours in particular) in the still hours of the night, smoking cigarettes until either you run out or the dawn comes, this CD somehow seems to fit the mood with its slow and dreamy feel.
As an person that tends to favor indie pop I usually get bored with songs that last more than about 4 minutes or so. The songs on Black Pyramid average around 7 which surprised me when I saw it because, not only did I not get bored even though they lasted longer than my usual tolerance, I didn’t even notice they lasted that long. And not all of the songs on Black Pyramid have singing which is usually another bad sign for me. But, somehow with this music it isn’t a bad thing. And when Calico finally decides to sing on a track there is something haunting in the voices that pleases me to no end.
Although Calico is based in Salt Lake City I hear they are planning another tour stop in Denver. If they do stop by do yourself a favor and check the show out. Until then buy the CD and get familiar with the music.
MP3 - Diamond
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
I want to preface this review by saying that I have this dreadful feeling that no matter what I write in this instance, nothing can convey how awesome I think this album is. Please, please, please buy it or borrow it and give it a listen…
A lot of records tell a story - that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? But, few do it in such an emotionally relatable way as d.biddle’s “Rabbit and the Moon.” Listening to this album creates something akin to what I imagine people on the verge of death claim to see – big flashes of the most impressionable moments passing before your eyes – the quiet, private times, the hopeful times, the times when you feel like the whole world is smothering you and you can’t get our from under its weight, the times when you rear up like a wild animal that has been cornered and fight back – coming out at least triumphant if not happy, and then the moments that you realize happiness is accepting what you have and what you can’t have and, of course, scarily intense in-love times.
This album is life’s memories put out in the harsh light without anyone trying to pretty them up. Sometimes it drags you down into a deep melancholy, but that’s just the honesty of the moment and I’d guess a little bit of Duncan Barlow’s outlook on life. If these are moments from Barlow’s own life or something the album created on its own, I couldn’t say. What I can say is it’s fierce in so many ways and I fucking love it.
I wish I could offer another artist as a comparison, but I’ve never been good at that sort of thing because to me each band sounds just like themselves usually. Instead I’ll leave you with the thought that if I know you personally you can expect me to make you listen to this sometime in the near future. If I don’t know you, I’ll just say this very well may end up being my favorite album of this year.
Come get a free copy at the CD release tomorrow night (Friday June 13) at the Hi-Dive. Tickets are only $10 – well worth it considering the show, CD and poster that are included.
MP3 - Laughter
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
I am a scooterist and a cyclist, and I have friends who are Derby girls. As a result, I have grown to know the significance of a truly beautiful bruise. And apparently, so have the boys in one of my very favorite local bands, Astrophagus. Their most recent album, “For Boating,” is a tribute to the beauty that can be found in what hurts, what lingers, what causes damage. And moreover, it is also a collection of songs that extol the highs and lows of healing from such pain.
Foregoing their past electronic experimentation for synth that slightly flavors, rather than dominates, their music, “For Boating” brings stronger elements of focus and solidity to the band’s sound. But what is comforting is that the band loses none of their eccentricities in the maturation process. Song titles taken from Mitch Hedberg sketches, theremin-esque synthesizer effects and emotionally-charged crescendos all make appearances on the album.
There is no mistake that this is from the same guys who used to fashion instruments from auto parts in their previous incarnation as The Moths. But there is such a great leap between “Causalite” and “For Boating,” This is a band that has had a bit of time to find the beauty in new hurts, and the poetry in the healing process. This is not truly a sad album, but a hopeful one. There is a humor to “For Boating,” a sweetness, a resolve to try again no matter what the cost. And as with the case with any good injury, physical or emotional, there is that element of showing-off, of proving what you’ve been through and what you can survive.
Widowers won me over at last year’s Denver Post Underground Music Festival last year with their Elephant-6-inspired sound. And with their self-titled album, they have succeeded in keeping me more than interested.
The album spans most of the band’s career (the recording process was a very long, painstaking one) and so it is a bit on the uneven side. The songs run an emotional gamut from slow and dysphoric to bright and sanguine. But the quality of the songs is consistently good, and is a solid representation of the band’s live shows (which, in my mind, are everything a local indie rock show should be).
The Widowers really don’t have a weak point so far as musicianship goes. The tinkly keyboarding on “Bone Collecting” is spot-on for its strangely Beach Boys-esque sound, and the dulcet guitar picking on “I-80″ is perfectly evocative of the emptiness of that loooong stretch of Midwestern highway.
Most of us who grew up in the greater Denver area point to the late 90s, and the rise of the Elephant 6 collective, as the “coulda woulda shoulda” point in Colorado music, where we had the chance to become one of America’s Important Music Cities. But if the spirit of the collective continues to be carried on by bands like The Widowers, we may just see such an opportunity again.
MP3 - Shine A Light
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
Soundpool has an undeniably lush, pretty sound, the kind that would be perfect for a scene in a uber uber hip indie flick during an intensely sensual love scene, or perhaps a good soundtrack for a bizarre, oceanic dream. With “Dichotomies and Dreamland,” the band pulls and molds this sleepy sound through a full-length album. To be honest, it can be a little much at times, this whispery, synthy stuff. The new album delves ever-so-slightly into more dancey, beat-driven music, but Soundpool mostly maintains a low-level dreaminess, with the languid effects of red wine on a warm day.
The band has gleefully adopted the label of “psychedelic,” and definitely have that trippy, directionless sound where the songs tend to bleed together. But the expansive and ethereal music they produce, with its myriad synthesizers and guitar, is cool enough that it provides a nice, inobtrusive background. I might just throw this one on the iHome tonight, I’ve had a little trouble reaching my REM stages lately.
MP3 - PLEASURE & PAIN
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
When I gave De Novo Dahl’s Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound the first listen I happened to be driving. That is unfortunate because I really did want to move every muscle. Even the ones that had been shredded by kickball the previous day. My fellow travelers must have thought that I had escaped from some sort of half way house with my spastic and confined motions of complete and utter rock-out.
I have seen De Novo Dahl multiple times, and I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about writing a review about this album because the live shows have so much energy, so much heart and are just plain fantastic. It can be very difficult to turn that live personality into a studio album, but over the 13 songs I never lost interest. De Novo Dahl flows seamlessly from softer, lyrical love songs to the pop rock tunes that make you want to run around your apartment ’till your neighbors call the cops.
With vocals that bring to mind Billy Idol, percussion and guitars that make ya want to move, and keys that add depth, Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound will be one of those albums that stays in my rotation for a ling time. Thanks, guys.
Summertime is just around the corner. At least that’s what I keep telling myself even though it keeps snowing here in Denver. Seriously, what the f is that all about. Anyway…
Summertime for me means lots of bike-riding, picnic-having and outdoor time in general. As a music lover of course I need a soundtrack for all of those happenings. This Is Ivy League’s self-titled release is definitely going to be featured on said soundtrack. The band’s sound is perfect for idyllic afternoons.
The label mates of Pelle Carlberg offer up a lot of what I find so enjoyable in Carlberg’s music, but with more of a surfer rock/Beach Boys feel. Its the kind of pure sunshiny pop that I adore - a little raw, completely wholesome.
If you are a fan of Belle and Sebastian or Simon and Garfunkel (and I mean, come on who isn’t?) then give them a listen.
MP3- London Bridges
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
A word on the name change.
Being that bands are at liberty to name (or re-name) themselves anything they wish, Nathan and Stephen were within rights to rename themselves however they saw fit. However, I am also within my rights to say right here and now that I think it was a silly move to reassign this salad-bar moniker to a band that was just gaining some serious momentum under their previous, adorable, ironic-small-name-for-a-big-band sobriquet. That is all.
As for the new EP, The Bridge brings a new, darker flavor to a band known for joyous, “Polyphonic Spree”-esque anthems. It’s not a big turn (we’re not talking Feist turning into The Smiths or anything) but there is a pronounced depth to the new songs that expose just a bit more of the band to the listener than the Crayola-bright tunes on “The Everyone.” Songs like “Give Em Hell” are battle cries of triumph past the trials of every day life. A little like a second act in a Shakespeare play, the album takes time to tell the meat of a story that “The Everyone” merely overtured. The tone and grace of the album is not only enjoyable and artistic as a stand-alone EP, it is a chapter in a continuing story I’m excited to follow. No matter what these musicians call themselves.
MP3 - Farewell Valentine
*All songs posted on Wayward Panties are for promotional use ONLY. If you like the music let the band know by purchasing their music (and shirts and tickets). If you are the owner of this MP3 and would like it taken down please contact us at waywardpanties@gmail.com and we’ll remove it immediately.
Editor (Tiffany’s) note - I may be one of the few, but I like the new name.
