Listen Before You Buy

The Decemberists have a brand new song on the new soundtrack to The Hunger Games which you can hear right now.

You don’t see many bands with roots in traditional folk music making much of a stir these days. Even less often will you see them on major record labels with releases debuting at Billboard #1. If it isn’t Mumford & Sons that have sprung to mind by now, odds are worth betting it’s The Decemberists. [...]

This group has managed something I didn’t think possible, pull off both an effortlessly smooth Motown number and a rocking song that has a hook Led Zeppelin would be proud of, on the same album!

Buy the album from Amazon – Vinyl / MP3 / CD This band popped up on my radar via the Saddle Creek Records Facebook page, where they’ve been teasing a video for the single “Muscle Relaxants” for weeks. It’s not my favorite song on the record, but after watching all the teasers I’m kinda pissed [...]

Now come on, when you open up an email and it tells you that the music has been created “as an electronic ‘thank you’ card to those who have dedicated countless hours to provide an opportunity for independent music to be discovered by those who seek it out”, i.e. us bloggers, then you’ve got to feature [...]

Let’s be honest, the title of The Decemberists‘ 2011 offering, “The King Is Dead,” looks like it unwittingly described a band in decline. Not that The Decemberists were ever king, but they clearly have ascended to indie royalty over the last decade. Over that time, the band has assumed many roles: folk saviors, bookish rockers, [...]

Ah, youth.  George Bernard Shaw once said, “Youth is wasted on the young” and in most cases he’s right.  What we have here however, is a prime example of what happens when the young decide to do something with that youth. Yo Soybean is an alternative folk band from Athens, Georgia (yes the same Athens, [...]

On Monday The Decemberists released another video teaser for their upcoming album “The King Is Dead” and at the same time announced a brand new 7″ single that’s available now, but only from participating record stores and is not available online (yup, that means you’ll have to go outside to get it until they show [...]

Unleashed on the world yesterday afternoon without a word of warning, at first glance I thought it was a cover of The Drums’ song of the same name, but on first listen I was both pleasantly surprised and mildly disappointed. Surprised that it wasn’t a cover, and disappointed because it’s not that great of a song.  It’s [...]

If you’re unaware of what Music Monday is, it’s a Twitter recommendation system where users of Twitter share their favourite music, artists, genres, etc in order to not only find new music themselves but help others find new music too.  Using the hashtag (#) followed by “MusicMonday” you can easily find new music posted by [...]

If you’re unaware of what Music Monday is, it’s a Twitter recommendation system where users of Twitter share their favourite music, artists, genres, etc in order to not only find new music themselves but help others find new music too.  Using the hashtag (#) followed by “MusicMonday” you can easily find new music posted by [...]