Listening to Narrow Sparrow's debut EP is a little bit like floating through space in your jammies—part bedroom pop and part dreamy space adventure. more ›

On Wednesday, the band revealed the first single from their upcoming third album Pre-Language, titled "Replicate." Download it here. more ›

The Chicago kids in Unicycle Loves You won't let you hear all of their new album, Failure, until February or so of next year, but they're more than happy to give you a preview of what to expect with "Wow Wave Cinema." Between it and "Sun Comes Out (And I Don't Care)," streaming on their website, it appears they're hoping to share a nice huge bonfire on the beach while enjoying the Wavves tickling their toes. Given the grey days and blustery chill that's settled over the city, this is an enjoyable reminder that you can always enjoy a summer day through a good tune. more ›

Pretty Good Dance Moves may operate our of Brooklyn but they were born here. We've got a taste of what to expect from their next album LIMO, due next February. more ›

I'm still digesting the self-titled debut from Mwahaha, but judging by the fact I've listened to it five or six times bodes well for my opinion of it. Admittedly after the first listen I was ready to delete it from my hard drive, thinking it was just another woozy, semi-psychedelic pop group -- a genre I truly enjoy but am noticing it's also becoming the default for an increasing number of musical groups -- but something stopped me from doing so. OK, full disclosure; I DID delete it, and then added it right back moments later due to the nagging feeling I was making a mistake by writing it off so quickly. This happens. One pitfall (oh man, here come the tears) of writing about music for OH SO VERY LONG is that you have SO MUCH to listen to!* But the upswing is that you're well aware of the pitfall so you develop an internal radar that keeps you from dismissing the good stuff too quickly. Sadly this doesn't stop you from adding not-so-good stuff to year-end lists prematurely but that's a whole 'nother story. more ›

In which we take a quick look at a few recent or upcoming musical releases. more ›

Local folk-pop project Está Vivo has been keeping it quiet since his January debut, but he’s back now with a new track, “Wonder Away,” and word of an upcoming album. more ›

Billy Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins™ are on tour and we suspect that all that time spent digging through unreleased material for their reissues has awakened some sort of nostalgia in The Bald One. The group's set in Las Vegas recently was steeped in golden oldies (and, c'mon, who out there is hoping that's still the case when the band comes through town this Friday at The Riv?) and their nascent Smashing Pumpkins Record Club is giving us glimmers of the nuggets we can expect from said reissue campaign. Last night Corgan released an early version of a classic Gish track, titled "Rhinoceros Version Two (Reel Time Sessions)," into the wild and it casts the guitar burner in a slightly different, organ dominated light. more ›

Nnamdi Ogbonnaya is a 21-year-old drummer/songwriter out of Chicago’s South Side. We don’t know much else about the guy, except that he’s involved in a bunch of other acts we’re not familiar with (The Para-medics, Nervous Passenger, Richard Def and the Mos Pryors, Albatross, Pisces at the Animal Fair, and Water House). Oh, and that he recently released a ridiculous album called Rotissabooty. more ›

Liturgy brings brings their raging turmoil to The Empty Bottle tonight. These kids may hail from Brooklyn but don't insult them by calling this hipster metal. This is the real motherfuckin' deal and it's beautiful. Their latest album, Aesthethica, is the sort of record you can really get lost within and have a good time. Of course we're assuming you're idea of a good time is standing in the middle of a tidal wave bound in barbed wire. The band doesn't form songs as much as they create ridged instruments meant to knock you off your feet and leave you as disoriented as possible before strapping you back in for a brief moment of stability before taking you out for a second round in a twister. more ›

Stepdad formed in Chicago a few years ago and then moved away but they return to town tonight for a show at Subterranean. You should go see them play. more ›

Little Red hails from Melbourne, Australia and craft the kind of dance rock fellow countrymen Cut Copy have already made familiar to most Americans. They'll be hitting these shores next month to promote their album Midnight Remember but we have a sneak peek for you to enjoy to whet your appetite and get your mouth a' waterin'. more ›

Ume is based in Austin but you might think they hail from an English factory town. They traffic in a sound that fits rather nicely in the midst of the current revival of all things '90s the music world is currently in the throes of. They're particular specialty is crafting big guitar songs that are equal part shoegaze and frenetic shredding and tops it off with floating, sweet female vocals. This is definitely band brought up on equal parts 4AD and alt-guitar majesty, and while some could fumble that mixture Ume pulls off the trick of making it all their own. Their sophomore album Phantoms carries a familiar feel to it and its easy to fall prey to its charms as the songs blend together in one furious, churning wash. more ›

We miss when Deerhoof used to give their music away like it was a ticking bomb. That was back in the day before the San Francisco experimental rockers blew up to their current state of renown. But yesterday was just like old times when they dropped a free, downloadable album, 99% Upset Feeling. more ›

The guys from Finding Fiction work fast. This Brooklyn-based indie-pop quartet formed through Craigslist in 2008 and by the next year had toured the country, dropped their debut, and begun to cause a stir among bloggers. Now a couple years and albums later, they’re still going strong and celebrating the release of a new EP, Try This At Home. more ›

Tokyo Police Club is remembering the first decade of the Aughts by recording a new cover daily to correspond with each year. Today's cover lines up with 2008 as the band tackles M83's sublime "Kim & Jessie" and they do it up right. It's slightly sloppy but that meshes well to offset the pristine perfection of the source material and allows Tokyo Police Club to stake their own claim to the tune. more ›

Team Bayside High are mainstays of the Chicago club scene and to celebrate a prime slot at this weekend's North Coast Music Festival the duo's released a new song for free. more ›

Van Hunt's What Were You Hoping For? isn't out until late September, but tickets for his show at Lincoln Hall on October 7 go on sale tomorrow at noon so this is as good a time as any to try and get you excited about him. We're big fans of folks who push against boundaries and manage to concoct thick stews of sound with conflicting influences. It's the ability to bring all those separate pieces together into a singular rhythm that separates the merely sonically experimental from the gifted alchemist of melody. more ›

Brontosaurus may be new to the local music community -- the band formed just last year -- but its members are no strangers to music. Both multi-instrumentalists, Nicholas Papaleo was raised on classical and indie rock, while Nicholas Kelley grew up to the sounds of metal and prog rock. The duo has already developed a solid sound, merging their musical backgrounds into sometimes charming, sometimes ominous experimental pop, and yesterday they released their debut album. more ›

Mutts are a rawk-and-roll duo. Ah, but there is a twist! As soon as you started to think "great, another guitar-drum combo, like we need another one of those" your preconception is proven wrong by the fact that they are a PIANO-drums duo! And a loud one, no Billy Joel or Ben Folds to be found here. Instead we suggest putting in your mouth-guard before listening since the low rumbles and loud racket these two gents conjure up might just rattle your teeth out of your jaw. more ›

We gushed about U.S. Royalty when they passed through town a few months ago, and in the time since then their album has only grown more satisfying the more we play it. One reason for this is that the songs are richly layered, incorporating so many different eras of rock and/or roll it's easy to just lose yourself in the endlessly shifting layers. There's also a precision at work here, shades of mid-'70s AOR are unavoidable, punched up by a bright melancholy to add greater heft even in U.S. Royalty's more delicate sonic moments. more ›

We're still a few months away from the physical release of the new album from Chicago's Scattered Trees, but we do have a taste of what to expect (if you haven't already bought it digitally) that we can share with you. "Four Days Straight" has been in heavy rotation and powering us through the last few weeks, keeping us aloft even as we continued to doubt warm weather would ever arrive. The songs hopeful buoyancy was just the tonic our souls thirsted for and now that the summer has finally (and oh-so forcefully) arrived we find the song continues to resonate. So does tat make it a song for all seasons? You tell us. more ›

The easiest way to describe Hooray To Earth would be to point out that their debut, True Loves, sounds like the album everyone wishes MGMT's Congratulations had been. And you know what? We're going to take the slightly lazy route on this one. Why? Because you've already heard this music before practiced by all the different bands that jumped on the electro indie rock bandwagon in recent years. This isn't really a negative criticism of the band, it's a statement of fact; that bandwagon is pretty big and has proven plenty sturdy enough to support an amazingly large number of variations on the formula. more ›

Santah's debut White Noise Bed has been out for over a year, but it's only now that it's getting an "official" label release. So forgive us if our exclusive download from the band has already met your ears; you may consider yourself ahead of the buzz. Pat yourself on the back for already ferreting out a local gem that seems headed towards wider acclaim. more ›

Damon & Naomi have steadfastly explored the dreamier edges of music making. Their songs often feel like phantom images burned onto your aural retina, hinting at layers of greater truth conveyed through utter simplicity. We know that sounds high falutin', but if you give any of their songs a spin we think you'll understand what we're talking about immediately. Their arrangements may be sparse but the reach of each song is far deeper than a few simple chords would suggest. Give "Shadow Boxing," off their latest album False Beats And True Hearts, a listen, fall in love and then check them out tonight at Lincoln Hall. more ›

News that the great pumpkin, Billy Corgan, finally has control of all of The Smashing Pumpkins back catalog and plans to reissue all of it and stuff the re-releases with unreleased tracks and b-sides is actually pretty exciting news. No word on whether Corgan's announcement had any effect on Boston's Bad Rabbits' choice to tackle The Smashing Pumpkins' "1979" for the latest installment of their Live Covers Sessions Series, but we'll use the Pumpkins' reissue news as an excuse to post the resulting video and MP3. Check 'em out. more ›

Part of Jamaica Plain collective Whitehaus, Many Mansions began in 2005 with the recording of their debut on 4-track cassette. Since then, the band has blossomed into an amorphous eletro psych-pop assemblage known locally for their home-made releases on cassette and CD-R and collaborations (with acts like Chicagoist favorite Truman Peyote). Unfortunately, they don't often wander far from their Boston neighborhood, so their off-kilter grooves go largely unheard around these parts. more ›

Grails are an instrumental rock band from Portland, Oregon, with an extensive discography suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, Portland is not where young people go to retire. Rather, Portland is where you go to make eclectic, genre-busting instrumental music. Deep Politics, the trio's latest, is a blend of down tempo electronics, expansive arrangements versed in film music, cutting-edge cut-and-paste composition techniques, and prog-rock. more ›

When sub-genres become popular amongst a wider musical audience, two possible outcomes can occur. The first is that a style of music that's influential, if rough around the edges, gains a greater melodic focus and recording fidelity previously non-existent. For instance, contemplate the musical lineage between a Flipper record and Nirvana's Nevermind. That's a good -- nay, a great -- outcome. The second, and far more common, unfortunately, outcome, is that those influences are diluted to pablum sold to the masses. Without naming names, emo fans know how their scenario turned out. Luckily, the best revivalist bands can return a wayward genre to its economic roots without releasing the musical equivalent of a purist's screed. This is where the new release from Chicago's The Part Five comes into play. more ›

Chicago son Dan Savage has a rather successful little career answering people queries about sex and relationships. Perhaps you've heard of him? And if you listen to his weekly podcast, the Savage Lovecast, you've surely heard him. And if you've listened to that podcast you've also surely heard The Popovers, contributors of the program's ultra catchy theme song. more ›