A couple of weeks ago we posted this video of the Secret Colours song “Faust” from their latest release “EP3“, which was described as a “fly-as-fuck listen,” and rightly so.  Secret Colours is an offbeat band, combining sounds reminiscent of the White Stripes and Arcade Fire all at once.  The Chicago-based band describes itself as “psychedelic pop rock,” and although this qualifier is definitely appropriate on some levels, it also misses some of the more subtle nuances of their sound (although in most instances, they’re far from subtle.)

The EP is a guitar-fueled five-song roller coaster ride, with each track being significantly distinct from the one before it.  And today we’re premiering the second track from it, titled “Legends Of Love.”  The track, unlike its proceeder “Faust” starts off intensely and only builds in momentum as it continues.  With distant vocals, it builds a sound that suggests that Secret Colours are honing in their instrumental craft, and doing a great job of it.

“Legends” leads into a funner, more lighthearted track titled “Tender Pretender,” which strongly calls to mind Julian Casablancas and The Strokes. In fact, Secret Colours seem to channel from guitar greats: Red Hot Chili Peppers in their prime, Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Strokes, are all obviously audible in their sound.  ”EP3″ finishes off with “Sunny Afternoon,” a track whose upbeat sunniness recall a Beatles-Shins lovechild, which may actually be the best kind of love child.  Secret Colours aren’t afraid to experiment, resulting in such musical variation in EP3 that can only leave us waiting for their next full-length release.

Connect with Secret Colours: Facebook | Bandcamp | Website | Twitter

Secret Colours – “Legends Of Love”

Buy the album on Amazon – MP3 | CD

Hailing from New York, The Postelles are fresh on the scene, but they’ve actually been around for a while. There were a some missteps along the way which delayed the release of their debut album by a few years.  In 2008, they failed to sign with Capitol, and in July of 2010, they were dropped by EMI, much to the disappointment of the band itself as well as many people at the label.  It’s exciting, then, to finally get a debut album from them, an album worth the years of anticipation.

Their self-titled debut starts off loud and rowdy, with the track “White Night,” featuring a persistent electric guitar resemblant of The Strokes.  This is no wonder, as the band has strong connections with Albert Hammond Jr., who helped them to flesh out “123 Stop,” the third song on the album and one of its gems.  It’s upbeat and quirky at the same time, and frontman Daniel Balk’s vocals even veer on a Julian Casablancas like drawl.

But despite their similarities to rock all-stars The Strokes, The Postelles very much have a distinct personality. They’re moody and sunny at once, with songs like “Can’t Stand Still,” which pairs lyrics like “I’ll be on my own if you’re running from the people you used to call” with catchy “oh-oh-oh”’s and a jaunty guitar.

The second half of the album begins to slow down with “Hold On”; with a strumming guitar and softer vocals, it’s almost a California-cool track, and leads effectively into the dance-worthy “Stella,” another upbeat, Strokes-like track which could find a home in “Is This It” but also fits perfectly before the youthful “Hey Little Sister.”

The album strongly fades out with “Blue Room” and “She She,” both songs in which The Postelles seem to mature into a richer, lusher sound.

The Postelles are a band with great talent and great connections, so it’s almost unbelievable that we’ve had to wait this long for their first full-length release.  And it seems that although they’ve been equally as impatient, they’ve also taken the extra time  to really craft “The Postelles”. It’s an album which leaves us wanting more and hoping that this time the wait won’t be nearly as long.

Connect with The Postelles: Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Website | Last.fm

Connect with The Strokes – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Last.fm | Website

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Andy Cabic’s Vetiver are normally bundled into the ‘freak folk’ scene, probably a result of the fact that Devandra Banhart, the prolific master of freak folk and a longtime friend of Cabic, played guitar on Vetiver’s first two albums. In those days Cabic was the only constant member in Vetiver’s lineup, and that lack of stability might well have been the cause of their former looseness in sound. Their last album, though, was called “Tight Knit“, and there’s a reason for that: Vetiver’s lineup settled down on tour in late 2006 and they’ve just got tighter and, well, less freaky ever since.

“The Errant Charm” doesn’t buck that trend, although the opening track might deceive you into thinking otherwise: the opening note of “It’s Beyond Me” is almost indistinguishable from the start of The Flaming Lips’ “In The Morning Of The Magicians”, and though it never gets as far out as that particular track, its spacious and drifting sound might seem like a return to the psychedelic tinge of Vetiver’s first two albums.

The bulk of the album, though, is hook-filled folk that’s made for the summer. Songs like “Hard To Break” and “Can’t You Tell”, with their simple guitar parts and boy-girl lyrics like “Oooh, never knew you’d be the one”, are easy pleasures. Cabic sings like a mellowed out Julian Casablancas: his vocals are low and effortlessly cool, but completely free of anger. They never rise that high above the mix but, especially when supplemented with lush group harmonies such as on the beautiful “Fog Emotion”, they wrap every track with a reassuring warmth.

The problem with this middle section, though, is that the tracks are so undemanding on the listener, so instantly familiar, that many of them can fade into the background. Save the high chimes of “Wonder Why”, with its soaring, joyous, but still not forceful guitar solo, and the T-Rex-alike classic rock guitars of the equally fun “Ride Ride Ride”, nothing much stands out. The last two tracks on the album mark a return to the floatier sound of the opener, particularly the enchanting drone of “Soft Glass”, underpinned by a repeated guitar line that lapses into a “Dear Prudence” like rhythm for the bridge. It makes for a nice bookend effect, though “Faint Praise”, the penultimate track, suffers like many of the jauntier numbers for being pleasant but completely unspectacular. In fact, this ballad is only just short of sickly.

But to condemn “The Errant Charm” to the dreaded lobbies of background music would be unfair. It’s certainly easy-listening, a great soundtrack for summer fit to accompany a glass of cider, but, given time, the stronger tracks will nag at you until they burst out of the background and command your attention. Hopefully Vetiver can marry their ever more accessible sound to some songs that are a little more immediately arresting next time around. Check out the album stream below and judge for yourself.

Connect with Vetiver: Myspace |  Facebook | Last.fm | Website

Yeah…….no.

Still not feeling this new ish from the brothers Fab, and the video does nothing for me either.  I think it’s unfair for the rest of The Strokes to have to be all dolled up only for Julian to be prancing around in his after-work-jammies throwing cards around and disrespecting tables, but what do I know?

You’re right, I do know a lot.  I’m glad that I don’t know how their new album will sound because I’m hoping to hell and back that it’s not like this and “You’re So Right” because they’re not that good.  They lack some serious punch or reinvention, some kinda “Honest guys, we really do give a shit” vibe, but so far nothing.

Connect with The Strokes – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Last.fm | Website

The fuck?

No seriously, the fuck?  Hey, The Strokes!  What the hell is this?  I’m glad this is a b-side because it’s pretty piss poor, but thankfully it’s only a couple of minutes long because if it lasted for anything more than that I’d picking up pieces of speakers from my floor, and floors are bad, mmk?

Out tomorrow with the a-side “Under Cover Of Darkness”, it’s……..it’s…….I don’t fucking know.  It was played on the radio over the weekend and again today, so you’ve got a radio rip to listen to until they release the proper version tomorrow sometime, along with the video for UCOD.

Connect with The Strokes – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Last.fm | Website

Five years in the making and the waiting (and for a lot of us the wait was agonising) we now have the first piece of new music from The Strokes’ newly-announced and hopefully-awesome new album “Angles”.

Unfortunately, on first listen, it kinda sucks.

I saw The Strokes at the Reading festival in England back in 2001 just as the hype surrounding them was reaching its height.  They were everywhere, not only in the musical press but the mainstream media too; TV shows, news shows, newspapers, smoke signals, and planes trailing blown up pictures of their faces across the sky. They were initially scheduled to be playing on The Radio One Evening Stage under a tent, but due to the amount of buzz surrounding them there were thousands upon thousands of people trying to cram their wee bodies underneath this fairly small canopy that they moved them to the main stage.

When they made the announcement it’d been moved everyone legged it to the main stage and tried to push their way as close to the front as possible.  I managed to get about halfway in, right in the middle and the atmosphere was intense before they even got onto the stage. People were already singing their songs and chanting “Strokes! Strokes!” until they walked on as pandemonium ensued; everyone singing every word back at them (and the album hadn’t even been released yet).

Maybe it was the hype, maybe it was the attitude, maybe it was their chic New York style, maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe it was the music, or maybe it was all of the above that made that show so special.  It’s rare to be part of something huge like that, watching a band live amongst so much buzz and for them to deliver on that buzz, you could tell they were going to be big.  When I got home all I wanted to do was listen to the album but I didn’t have any money until the week after, but when I finally got my hands on the CD the Monday after I got paid, it blew me away.

“New York City Cops” was one of the strongest tracks on “Is This It” but that song took on a completely different meaning less than 24 hours after I got the album; I was laying on my bed the next afternoon listening to the radio when I heard about a plane crashing into a building in New York…

“Under Cover Of Darkness” is the first single from “Angles” due out March 22nd.  It’s a radio rip since their site is down, (updated with the official MP3) but at least you get to hear.

Connect with The Strokes – Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Last.fm | Website

The Strokes – Under Cover Of Darkness by ListenBeforeYouBuy

A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I’d be interested in a contest to give away a Funeral Party 7″ and a copy of their new EP, but I’d never heard of the band.

So I gave them a listen and hot dayum, these guys can rock the fuck out!  I’ll probably get around to doing an introduction piece, but in the meantime here’s what you need to know to win.

1. Follow us on Twitter and retweet this (you can follow us here and you can click that “Tweet” button above to retweet it)
2. “Like” this post and share it on Facebook (you can click that “Like” button above”
3. “Love” the song on The Hype Machine (just click the little heart next to the song)

The contest is for ONE vinyl and ONE EP, both going to ONE winner, and you can do all of the above or just do one of the above to enter.  If you haven’t heard of the band and wanna know what you might win, check out the tune below from their debut album “Golden Age Of Knowhere”.  Oh, and below is a wee bit of a press release if you want some background on the guys.

Connect with Funeral Party – Facebook | Twitter | Website | MySpace

Funeral Party – “Giant Song”

Funeral Party is a five-piece out of the east LA suburb of Whittier. Their worldwide recognition as a force in the party scene has garnered them a place on NME’s 50 Best New Bands of 2010, a spotlight feature on UK’s famed Q Magazine, and a spot on Zane Lowe’s “Hottest Record in the World” playlist on BBC radio.

Their energetic live acts have also led to opening slots alongside the likes of Yelle, Trail of Dead, and Julian Casablancas.

Golden Age of Knowhere, their debut album, is set for release on January 25, 2011 on RCA.

Upcoming tour dates and other news from the band can be found on their MySpace and Facebook pages.

The Strokes haven’t released an album for almost 4 years now, their last being “First Impressions Of Earth” in 2006, but they’ve been speaking about that followup and playing live this summer at various festivals.  I wasn’t a huge fan of “First Impressions Of Earth” with only a few standout tracks, but I really liked not only Julian Casablancas’ solo album “Phrazes For The Young” that came out last year, but also Albert Hammond Jr’s solo album “¿Cómo Te Llama?” from 2008.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1, drummer Fab Moretti said that they’re planning to have their as yet untitled new album out by September:

Moretti also stated the group intend to release their four years in-the-making new album in September.

Despite reports to the contrary, the band are enjoying working together again on the follow-up to 2006′s First Impressions Of Earth.

On getting back in the studio, he told Radio 1’s Zane Lowe: “It was really good in fact. We’re friends before we are band members, so it’s not like we spend too much time away from each other.  ”Coming back in and playing music together, it was like riding a bicycle.”

The band posted on their official site at the start of February that they have been working with Beck and U2 producer Joe Chiccarelli in New York.  Gus Oberg is engineering the album, which they are recording at New York’s Avatar Studios.

They’ve also announced that they’ll be playing at the RockNess festival in Inverness, Scotland, alongside Doves, Fatboy Slim, Leftfield, and more. RockNess is on from June 11-13 and then they’re heading to the Isle Of Wight on the same weekend.

“I’m nervous as hell,” he said of their live return. “It’s giving me butterflies in my stomach. To be honest, I haven’t really been thinking about the old songs as we’re so into recording these new ones.

“It’s less the songs themselves and more the response from the band that I miss terribly. I’m excited.”

If their new album can have a mix of “Phrazes For The Young“, “¿Cómo Te Llama?”, and old-school Strokes (“Is This It”), I can easily see this being one of the albums of the year.

(via BBC 6)