Browsing Tag

garage rock

Growing up with Pops: Slow Coyote are at their groovy best on honest single ‘Terrible Dad’

Taken off their lighter-sparked eight-track album called ‘Family Man‘, Slow Coyote saunter in the door with a new single about the strains of fatherhood called ‘Terrible Dad‘.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based indie band Slow Coyote, make that slam-the-door-down grungy garage rock music for the soul to blaze with, on the laid-back grooves that gets the mellow even more chilled.

This is the story of growing up with a stressed-out Dad, who wasn’t the best sometimes and you learnt some bad habits along the way. The crazy ones always teach you something however and you did learn a few tricks on the way, but wish you had a better role model whilst growing up.

The kick-drum beat stomps the enjoyable rhythm into action, as we are treated to a band that jive into the night with only good intentions. They make that genuine type of smokey music that fills your lungs with a hazy gaze feel, to make everything okay again. After a stressful year, this is exactly the tonic to cool everything down inside your frustrated body.

Terrible Dad‘ from Slow Coyote is a terrific new single from the indie-garage rock act from New Hampshire in the USA, who must be itching to get on the road again to play their likable brand of original music, to their adoring fans all over the country.

This is an honest single that opens the door to childhood and how impressionable we are while growing up and how it can possibly define us at times, even if we wish the opposite to be true.

Stream this vibrant new single on Spotify and see more on their IG.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Did I Hear Dare? – timeless alt-rock with ‘I Can Feel (You And I)’

Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Did I Hear Dare? smash out that brand of mid-Western alt-rock that seems timeless and at the same time bang up to date. ‘I Can Feel (You and I)’ could just as easily be from 2001 as the first month of 2021, and that’s no bad thing at all. Think Killers, Kings of Leon, and maybe a little Arcade Fire for good measure. There’s a definite Brandon Flowers touch to the vocal, a cracker of a bouncy lead guitar line, and a perfect pop-indie-rock lift coming into the chorus, itself an absolute earworm of a radio-friendly-unit-shifter.

The follow-up to their 2020 EP ‘The Ghost Stories’, ‘I Can Feel (You And I)’ is a perfect prelude to 2021 for Did I Hear Dare?.

You can check it out on Spotify now, and follow on Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes

Antalai has dropped their riotously dynamic Alt-Rock debut ‘Spilling My Guts’

If alt-rock fans take a chance on any debut single in 2021, they should make it Antalai’s euphorically-charged unapologetically feisty track ‘Spilling My Guts’.

There is a real sense that there was no pretence for Antalai to hide behind in her debut. Her authentic voice resounds as her visceral poetic rage rips through high-octane hit which will leave you rhythmically arrested by the end of the first verse.

Through the addition of the punchy pop-rock chorus which puts a modernist twist on 00s Pop Punk, Spilling My Guts became a riotously anthemic hit which you would be lucky to hear if you wandered to the front of a crowd at a festival.

You can check out Antalai’s single for yourselves by heading over to Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Embrace your insanity with House of Weirdos’ timely Alt Rock hit ‘Climbing up the Walls’

On Christmas Eve, the adept alchemists of Alt Rock, House of Weirdos, delivered the ultimate antidote to the claustrophobic restlessness with their Psychedelically-layered Garage Rock track ‘Climbing Up the Walls’.

If you could imagine what Queens of the Stone Age would sound like if they incorporated more absurdity, chaos and psychotropic synths into their sound, you might be able to get an idea of what is on offer. Yet, Climbing up the Walls could easily enamour fans of everyone from the Misfits to The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster.

Climbing up the Walls is façade-less, it’s relentlessly ingenious, it’s a visceral invitation to shake off pretence and relinquish shame for the fact that 2020 did a number on your mental health.

The playfully despondent track was made even sweeter with the pairing of the music video which will fill you with gratitude for House of Weirdos, just one of the irreplaceable artists who looked into the stir-crazed frustration and found inspiration so we could be hit with that invaluable feeling of connection and resonance.

You can check out the official video to Climbing up the Walls by heading over to YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Captain Klas & Secret Circus give us a taste of freedom with their dark, menacing new single.

Deep, dark, menacing, with an infernal groove and sounding like the devil’s own rock band, Captain Klas and Secret Circus deliver a stunning, brilliant ode to – dare we say – psylocibin mushrooms and the power of hallucinogens in general with this absolute stormer of a lockdown track.

Opening with a threatening telephone call sample, ‘Once You Taste Freedom’ is part psychedelic electro-pop banger, part minacious alt-rock grind, all ominous synth bass, dotted delay, grindy guitar parts and a mildly distorted drum sound, all hemmed dangerously behind the oh-too-easily-breached cage bars of Captain Klas’ gruff, gravelly low-down vocals.

In keeping with the avant garde experimental nature of Secret Circus, there’s not just one video for ‘Once You Taste Freedom’, but six (count ‘em), all then composited together into one YouTube vid. This can’t be stressed enough, ‘Once You Taste Freedom’ truly is the real thing, an absolute gem of a track amongst the humdrum daily monotone of 2020 Lockdowns. Freedom’s one thing, for sure, but more pertinently – once you taste Secret Circus you definitely won’t go back.

See the video for ‘Once You Taste Freedom’ on YouTube, and follow Secret Circus on Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Alex Holmes

Is It Safeway or Woolworths? Only The Gaffs really know.

It would be oh too easy to dismiss The Gaffs’ ‘Is It Safeway Or Woolworths?’ as one more in a long line of dreaded ‘novelty singles’, but that would totally disservice the superbly crafted chorus hook, exquisite guitar work, and the obvious quality of the song-writing and musicianship here. Insanely catchy and sing-along, beneath the gonzo lyrics is a solid indie-pop song, reminiscent in place of the Kings Of Leon’s ‘Sex On Fire’ or, just maybe, Sultans Of Ping FC’s ‘Where’s Me Jumper?’.

The Gaffs cite themselves as ‘some of the greatest thinkers of their time and are willing to ask the big questions around consciousness, existentialism and the difference between Safeway and Woolworths’. While that may be pushing it, they’re certainly a quality indie-pop band, and ‘Is It Safeway Or Woolworths’ is definitely a quality pop tune.

Check out the video for ‘Is It Safeway Or Woolworths’ on YouTube, and follow The Gaffs on Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes

The Tazers’ ‘Dream Machine’ – trippy, fuzzed up retro rock from South Africa

If Kasabian, the Strokes, Jet, or The Vines had come from South Africa and taken a little more acid, they’d probably have sounded pretty much like The Tazers on ‘Dream Machine’; a fuzzed-up, retro garage-rock psychedelia with a ton of drum fills, vocal harmonies, and mosh pit-fuel.

There’s some trippy, reverb-and-phaser-soaked slowed breakdown sections, some proper heavy riffing, a ton of paradiddles and flams, a little dash of the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured’, and maybe some smatterings of proper 70’s Hawkwind or Deep Purple in the mix too. Nonchalant vocals, that repeating distorted guitar riff, and a wash of hi-hat tambourine across the track, giving ‘Dream Machine’ a sleazy, groovy old-school rock feel from the South African three-piece – make no mistake, this is proper rock’n’roll.

Check out ‘Dream Machine’ – and the accompanying video – via the Tazers’ Facebook page.

Review by Alex Holmes

Feeling lonely in this distant world: Ireland’s Dubh Lee evolves her sound on ‘Carousel’

Set for audio release on the 20th November 2020 and with the music video dropping in December, this has an honest Bluesy-Rock feel that means you are hooked tight, with the intimate feel presented. The start is full of rhythmical melodies that you feel are so pure and fresh, just the way you like it. Soon we are thrown into a story of loneliness that is so way too normal this year, with the exquisite voice of Irish singer Dubh Lee’s new song called ‘Carousel‘.

Her voice grabs you and feel her pain, the year has been a whirlwind of emotions that has tested the patience of even the most chilled person in the world. The story of being by yourself, trying to be smart and keeping safe, soon you just can’t take it anymore, and you desire that human touch again from friends and your future lover.

With a Blues-Rock Garage style that has so much appeal, the bass-lines are so hot you might need to have a cold shower to cool off. You can’t help but feel the sadness attached, the frustration paramount, in this wild year of 2020. Her voice echoes through your soul, this is a musician that has evolved from Indie-Folk, to a more edgy and gritty sound.

Carousel‘ has that extra bit of quality attached and that fat bass is a blessing to our lonely hearts, the cries are heard loud and clear as Dubh Lee is so honest as so many of us can relate to her current predicament.

Life has been turned upside down so we need to find good habits to hold onto, and keep them close when the world resembles some sense of normality in 2021.

Hear this tremendous talent on her Soundcloud and follow her Facebook for more releases.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

The Kid and I tackled the sufferance in grief with their Indie Garage Rock hit “White Feather”

The Kid and I’s latest Indie Garage Rock track, “White Feather”, is a tender extension of compassion orchestrated to reach out to anyone who knows how hard the grief hits while validating the struggles of anyone coming of age and attempting not to slip through the cracks.

Their exuberantly raucous Garage sound which is laden with scuzzy hooks amps up the energy while the imploringly empathetic vocals offer a grabbable olive branch of connection. I can imagine it will be a fair while befor the infectiously charismatic chorus stops reverberating around my mind, but the earworm to the epic infusion of Pop Punk, Alt Rock and indie will always be welcome.

You can check out White Feather which dropped on November 13th via SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Take a cruise with J. Moriarty’s reflectively smooth Indie single ‘Ride Side’

J. Morarty has, in recent years, lived in Morocco, the Maghrib, the West Bank, and Appalachia and now resides in Ohio. ‘Ride Side’ takes in this rootlessness and lack of stability, mixing it all up in a Covid Quarantine-induced haze into a transpositional, transportive piece which puts the listener into the time and place Moriarty occupied when composing.

Gently acoustic, beautiful strummed guitar chords pushing the melody along behind a vocal from Moriarty steeped in sixties or seventies Gram Parsons Americana mixed with Evan Dando’s ‘ All My Life’ or the quieter, chilled moments of the ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ album – think ‘Hanna & Gabi’ or ‘My Drug Buddy’ and you’re pretty close – before the suddenly off-tempo slapped-percussive ‘ooh ooh ooh’ bridge catches you unaware, bringing in the full psychedelic Leslie-cabinet instrumentation and reminds you that this is a modern, thoroughly grown-up track that twists and turns stylistically through handclaps and bass-line led pop, but all held together masterfully by Moriarty’s soulful vocal delivery.

Hear ‘Ride Side’ on Spotify, and follow J. Moriarty on Instagram and Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes