bedsitter23

Titus Andronicus is a new Jersey band that got a lot of buzz around their second album 2010's The Monitor.

I only recently discovered them via Iowa Public Radio, which plays a lot of good (read: college and public access) music in the evenings.

A band named after a Shakespeare play and that released a concept album around the Civil war is sort of a scary proposition.

TA are ambitious and that ambition shows in all aspects of their music.

I find it hard to categorize. Rolling Stone compared them to Thin Lizzy and The Replacements.

I probably wouldn't have went with those particular bands, but the genres are pretty spot on.

My favorite TA moments are when they sound like The Clash circa 1978. (Lead vocalist Patrick Stickles has a bit of a Strummer vibe). They also do carry a bit of that Recent Generation Springsteen Influenced Sound of The Gaslight Anthem or The Hold Steady. At other times, it's just a bit of classic stadium rock (which i suppose is where the Thin Lizzy comparison comes in).

I always told you that I would bring you the best new music. I never promised that you would be able to "google search" for those bands at work.

My Maximum Rock N Roll-phase was short-lived, if I ever had one at all. However, I do appreciate that mag's championing of unheard bands around the country.

This is one of those bands, and they've just released a self-titled album on Deranged Records. They also are on Bandcamp.

The Bay Area band gets most compared to the Wipers, which I suppose is fairly accurate. I can't quite categorize them myself, but I would put them in the TSOL/Long Beach hardcore category.

Pure punk energy.

I have one more band to throw your way.

The Golden Boys share a name with a song by the Germs/Pat Smear, and covered by No FX. I am not sure if the band took their name from any of those reference points, but it would not be surprising. They have a love for punk.

That said, this band from Austin, Texas probably gets their biggest influence from their Texas-based garage rock forefathers. They are as good as any punk band, but they have a love for the 13th Floor Elevators and Sir Douglas Quintent that informs their music. They also bring a certain folk rock vibe (the kind that seem to be perfected usually by Australian bands), and on top of all of that, they are championed by Thurston Moore.

That means they are right down my alley, and possibly yours.

Here's a song that is on the shortlist for 2012's best. "Dirty Finggernails".





Lead singer John Wesley Coleman III was actually on my radar a couple of years ago with his solo effort Steal My MInd. If you find the Golden Boys too polished (which is barely), maybe you will like his solo output.

Some of you have lamented that there's no new music out there. I am here to help solve that issue. Look for a handful of bands to be posted here soon.

If you are one of those looking for new music, I need only point you to Sacred Bones Records- an incredible record label that seems to have their hand on the pulse of the best new music.

While the idea of buying the artists of a certain record label seem like an idea that went away with Netscape and Friends, you will have to trust me on this one.

Sacred Bones gave us Crystal Stilts (on their way to become one of this decade's best bands) and two artists that made my "Best of 2011" list - Slug guts (the last in a great lineage of Aussie sleaze-core bands) and The Men (a band who embraces No wave as well as noise's Goo/Green Mind/ Doolittle's heyday). On this year's Open Your Heart, the Men are making a lot of best-of lists already, by marrying their love for NYC noise with their inner Westerberg.

One of Sacred Bones's newest artist is Wymond Miles.

Miles plays the kind of psychedelic rock that I can't get enough of (and oddly, I don't spend that much time around pharmaceuticals.)

Spin lets you stream the album here.

I sense a lot of Bowie-style prog, but you can also find a bit of the Cure's gothier moments and a bit of Nikki Sudden's heroin chic.

This song is pretty amazing as his most of the album.




Along the way researching Miles, I figured I ahd to check out the band he used to play in , the San Fran-based The Fresh and Onlys.

They have a new album on the horizon, and although I am not sure if they are now Miles-less (I don't think so, but I could be wrong), it gives some good psychedelia as well (with indie pop appeal, think Dandy Warhols) .

Burning Hearts are a Finnish duo that has been on the scene for at least three years now, but I am just getting round to discovering them.

They have a new album out called Extinctions.

They remind me of a band that would have been an 80s pop hit. However, the critic reviews I have read don't say that. Instead, they say they sound like 21st century bands that listen to a lot of 80s pop hits.

Fans of twee pop and yes, 80s radio should check them out

RIYL: Magnetic Fields; Camera Obscura; Peter, Bjorn & John

I missed the boat on the Coral. In fact, I still kind of never went back and spent the time with the band, even though i have liked what i have heard.

Bill Ryder Jones was the guitarist for the band, and has left for a solo career where he makes soundtracks and soundtrack-sounding music.

That's not always my thing, but I like Ryder-Jones's work a lot. It recalls a bit of the Durutti Column -orchestral rock. 

RIYL: Durutti Column, Nick Drake,  Jonny Greenwood's solo soundtrack work.

Gaslight Anthem lead singer Brian Fallon is working on a solo album. Despite all appearances, this is not it.

Despite the presence of producer Ted Hutt and a cover that would win a Design Yr Own Gaslight Anthem Album contest. The name even sounds like a solo project.

For those wondering what the Anthem would sound like if they stopped writing songs about wanting to grow up to be Joe Strummer, Hearts and Arrows is pretty close; but they are not Fallon or his gang. Instead they are a British band and this is album #3 after trafficking in Americana and Mumford-style folk rock.

Springsteen-influenced rock is hip, as The Arcade Fire and the Hold Steady can attest, and D&CoW definitely are influenced by the Boss.

Still, one does not simply just wish to be an earnest rock star and it happens, but D&CoW do generally gall closer to Petty & Bruuuuce than they do to Seger or Bongiovi.

Hearts isn't quite Nebraska, but it is pretty good and I have already seen it on some Best-of-the-Year lists. Undoubtedly, a couple of songs on the album are as good as anything in recorded music for 2011.

Still, like the last GA album, Hearts suffers a bit from Coldplay syndrome (Enjoyable enough songs that you can't for the life of you, recall 20 minutes later).

That said, I have mostly good things to say about these guys, and you will probably like them too.