Listen Before You Buy » Madeline Follin

[Download] – Guards – “Do It Again”

Frank — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:35:08 +0000

Listen to and download the new Guards song “Do It Again” below.

Guards are one of those bands there seemed to be a lot of in 2010. They came out of nowhere with ass-jammin’ music with very little information to go on and impressed almost everyone who heard them.

As time progressed it became known that lead singer Richie Follin is the brother of Madeline Follin from Cults, which is how I heard about the band late one night when she tweeted a link to their Bandcamp page. Fast-forward a year or so and they’ve played their first live show and a bunch since, released EPs and singles, videos and whatnot, and as we jump into 2012 they’ve dropped their last new song of the year.

Being released via White Iris, “Do It Again” is their new 7″ single backed with “Feels Like That”, and below you can hear the lead track from the single. If you’re into buying vinyl (get started if you haven’t already) then up the wax from White Iris. I just bought it on sexy blue vinyl and it only cost me $9 with a free download of both songs!

Connect with Guards – Bandcamp | Twitter | Facebook

Guards – “Do It Again”

[Watch] – New Video By Cults – “Go Outside”

Frank — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:19:30 +0000

[Listen/Download] – Cults – “Cults”

Frank — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:30:41 +0000

Click on the image to listen to the entire album for free.

[Listen] – New Album By Cults – “Cults”

Frank — Mon, 23 May 2011 03:20:18 +0000

For those of you (mainly bloggers and writers) who’ve had this album for the last few weeks you’ll know just how good this is. For those of you who haven’t then you’re about to be bedazzled.

It’s been over a year since Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin sauntered onto the scene as Cults with their hot-damn-how-good-is-this-sugary-sweet-dream-pop three-song Bandcamp posting. Nobody knew anything about them, they didn’t post their songs to blogs or sites and just uploaded them to their Bandcamp page, but within a week they were blowing up from here to the indie blogs in Timbuktu.

Between then and now they’ve released 7″ singles on Forest Family Records, they’ve toured the U.S and Europe, they’ve released other singles on Record Store Day, they’ve posted remixes, videos, b-sides, collaborations with family members, and everything else you can think of in between. Oh, they even signed a major fucking record deal with Columbia/Sony, but now we have the entire album to make our ears salivate and our mouth blister. It’s been delayed for a little but finally comes out next week and thanks to NPR the entire jovial thing is streaming below.

Album of the year contender? Damn right.

[Listen] – New Song By Cults – “Make Time”

Frank — Sun, 15 May 2011 11:00:26 +0000

I think it’s only fair that since they pushed back the release date of their eagerly-awaited debut album, that they put a new non-album track out there for us to hear, right?

The song “Make Time” is listed on the Irish iTunes store as a single with a release date of May 6th meaning it’s been around for about 10 days without anyone knowing. You’d think that when you release music for people to buy that they’d make an announcement that it’d been released so that, you know, people can buy it and stuff, but I guess not with Cults.

Maybe they’re already millionaires? Maybe they’ve already moved into their Scrooge McDuck Money Bin and don’t need the cash? Oh, and I resent the generalisation that Scottish people are tight with their money, we’re actually a very charitable people and spend more money at Christmas than any other country in the U.K. Granted that most of it’s on alcohol, but still.

Anyway, the song in question is beateriffic with handclaps flowering over the edge of Madeline’s feathery echo-tinged voice as it flits across their now-de facto-upbeat-twinkly sound. You can grab it from iTunes for a buck or so (it’s not available in the U.S. but you can get it from the Irish iTunes store apparently) or you can just listen to it on repeat below.

(via)

[Watch] – New Video By Cults – “Abducted”

Frank — Fri, 13 May 2011 05:47:55 +0000

(via)

[Listen] – New Song By Cults – “Abducted”

Frank — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:33:50 +0000

With every new song that I hear from Cults, my anticipation-chubby gets that little bit more anticipatory.

Does that even make sense? I don’t fucking know, but with the rash of new bands that came out last year and released/are releasing an album this year, Cults and Yuck might be the only two who are consistently good. Tennis kinda fell by the wayside after releasing their debut album in January and new artist Panda Bear’s album “Tomboy” literally sucked.

Well now the kindly dudes at NPR are streaming another new track from Cults’ debut album and presumably a week before the release of the album they’ll have the whole thing to listen to, two, too. to. tu.

Updated with a Soundcloud stream. ~~Check it out below at around the 26 minute mark.~~

[Listen] – New Song By Cults – “You Know What I Mean”

Frank — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:00:06 +0000

Unless you’ve seen Cults live in the last 12 months then this new song is the first in close to a year (except that “Oh My God” one they did with accompanying weird video). This time in 2010 they had only just come bounding onto the scene, layered-guitar-driven-dream-pop in tow. They had upload three songs to their Bandcamp page and as soon as one blog got a hold of them they ended up everywhere, and rightly so, those three songs were gems.

They’ve done a few guest appearances on other artist’s work, most notably DOM’s “Bowl Cut” and featuring alongside Caroline Polachek and singer Madeline’s brother Richie on Guards’ debut EP, but that’s likely the extent of recorded new music from them. Today, however, they uploaded a brand new song to their Soundcloud page and if “Go Outside” was the best of those three (it was), this new one is the second best; it starts off like a 60′s Motown crooner and drifts off into a bit of a wall-a-sound jam-sammich.

Presumably it’ll be on their major label debut LP coming out in a few, but give it a listen over at their soundcloud page or below thanks to Will.

[Watch] – Guards Perform Five Songs For MTV Hive

Frank — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000

In an effort to try to become more relevant, not necessarily to their name but just towards music in general, MTV have launched (March 16th) a new site called MTV Hive which is aimed at music discovery with a slant towards the indie side of things.

Just looking at their homepage you’ll see artists such as tUnE-yArDs, Sleigh Bells, Kurt Vile, Warpaint, and the above mentioned Guards adorning all four corners. When was the last time you can say you saw Kurt Vile on the front page of an MTV site? The page seems unfinished and empty, maybe we’ll see it fill out more, but one of the first acts to perform a few acoustic numbers for them were Guards, complete with singer Richie’s sister Madeline from Cults on keyboard-synth-thinger.

No new songs were played but considering Guards’ first live performance was at CMJ in Oct 2010 it’s cool to see them playing live and pulling it off. The vocals started off being a little drowned out but he picks it up, so check ‘em out below.

Connect with Guards – Bandcamp | Twitter

[Listen/Download] – New EP By Guards – “Covers!”

Frank — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:16:59 +0000

Subscribing to a new band’s Bandcamp RSS feed sometimes has its benefits.

Usually they’re dormant, or at least the ones I subscribe too, but every now and again you’ll see them update and boom, an entire new album or EP to listen to for free and you’re one of the first to hear it. This afternoon Guards did just that, uploading three new songs to their Bandcamp page under the “album” title “Covers!”, part of a digital 7″.

The three new songs don’t have any information in regards to who they’ll be released through or if they’ll get a physical release and it just has the same information it’s had for months about their release on Small Plates and the other on European outlet 3 Syllable Records. The first two songs are good (covers of “Motorbreath” by Metallica, and “Taxi Cab” by Vampire Weekend respectively) but not quite as striking as the ones we heard last summer, slower, more atmospheric and etheral, but the third song is a cover of M.I.A.’s “Born Free”, a far-off rocker; fast-paced and brazen.

Check out “Motorbreath” and “Born Free” below and head on over to their Bandcamp page for the other track.

Connect with Guards – Bandcamp

Guards – “Motorbreath” (Metallica Cover)
Guards – “Born Free” (M.I.A. Cover)