Keeping Rock n' Roll Alive…
Lists
Does It Rock? July Round-up
Aug 3rd
We have uncovered some great albums of 2010 this month as well as appreciating the finest from July. So we here at DiR.net have hand picked the best tunes to bring you this handy Spotify playlist!
Listen now >>> DoesItRock.net – July 10 Mix
1) Fang Island – Daisy … Thin Lizzy guitars lines, indecypherable lyrics, abundance of energy and amazing musicianship make this my tune of 2010!
2) The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Love Turns to Hate … Close behind in #2 is 80′Matchbox’s, superb blues rock romper.
3) Avenged Sevenfold – Nightmare … Since spotify has mislaid the bestter moments from A7X’s much improved return LP, here is the lead single!
4) Foals – Miami … Oxford’s indie kids have created a genious set of slower melodic tunes for the thinking man.
5) FACT – Slip Of The Lip … Suprisingly impressive mix of styles from metal to pop-punk from this great Japanese band!
6) Audrey Horne – Down Like Suicide … underappreciated norwegians folk inflected hard melodic rock is captivating and catchy.
7) Drive-By Truckers – Drag The Lake Charlie … Americana’s deep south storytellers are back with more antics.
8) Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Pain (Feat. Iggy Pop) … Iggy guests on this rockin’ tune with an indie backbone.
9) Bombay Bicycle Club – Ivy & Gold … Folky acoustics, galloping melodies and fragile vocals are the staple of new album Flaws
10) Rolo Tomassi – Unromance … Experimentalists of crossover-metal unleash this unhinged crazed blast of intensity.
11) Sigil – Letters In Stone … Superb Finnish rockers love their Wah-Wah as much as their thundering hard rock!
12) My Epic – Lower Still … My Epic’s Epic track Lower Still is unsuprisingly…Epic! Pleasing slow building rock!
13) Seth Lakeman – The Watchman … Fiddle figures prominently on this english folk gem
14) The Rocket Summer – You Gotta Believe … MoR radio hit which is undoubtable uber-infectious
15) The Classic Crime – Vagabonds … Pop Punk Anthem of the month returns!!
Pavement ATP 2010 – The Spotify Playlist
May 13th
With the festival start of ATP curated by indie-legends Pavement looming tomorrow, we’ve put together a little playlist in case you haven’t had time to check out any of the bands or need to something to listen to on a long trip to Minehead!
Pavement ATP 2010 (Spotify playlist)
While you’re there, why not check out our little preview we did a few weeks back:
A Guide to Camden Crawl 2010, Part 4
Apr 24th
We concluse our DoesItRock Guide to Camden Crawl 2010 by pointing you in the direction of some of the more challenging “they’re much better live” bands who’s performances you wont want to miss!
Go see them Live: Spotify Sampler
Pulled Apart By Horses
Really hard to pin down to a single genre. they mix element of alternative, proggressive, noise-rock, post-hardcore & metal all bound with an aggressive in your face attitude. These guys demand your attention, their live shows are not suprisingly chaotic and highy rated. (Saturday)
Listen to: E = MC Hammer (on Spotify)
Pendulum
Standby for take-off as these electro-metal come drum & bass rockers are here for one purpose! Raving! (Saturday)
Listen to: Propane Nightmares [Live At Brixton Academy] (on Spotify)
KASMs
Brilliantly catchy off kilter rampant rock from group with alternative lo-fi leanings and plenty of wierd warping effects in their back pockets! (Saturday)
Listen to: Male Bonding (on Spotify)
Bo Ningen
Japanese Godzilla of progressive and experimental rock with mammoth riffs, crazy freakout vocals,. Epic sonic explosions of strangely enjoyable noise sure to leave you either stunned in amazement, or deaf! (Saturday)
Listen to: Koroshitai Kimochi (on Spotify)
Turbowolf
Seriously whacked out experimental rock with angry streak. Sure to be an intense show combining punk energy with electro fuzz riffing, Death From Above 1978 style.
Listen to: Ancient Snake (on myspace)
TubeLord
Alternative frenetic riff rock resurgance has spawned this cracking band in the same vein as Dananananaykroyd. Live show is sure to be great! (Sunday)
Listen to: Night Of Pencils (on Spotify)
Kap Bambino
Crazed use of the synth machine and samples galore are the signature of this fiesty electro band. Rather like Scooter only with some credibility. Hard and heavy electro mixes and yelped (out of tune) vocals are probably best for the dance mad!
Listen to: Took Life (on Spotify)
Right Hand Left Hand
This duo use looped instrumentals to create anarchic post-rock which is at the same time catchy as totally bonkers. A glorius rock and roll mess!
Listen to: Stanislav Petrov (on myspace)
That Fucking Tank
Strap your progressive ears on for these superb instrumental rockers. Their comical song titles are worthy of a gander at the least.
Listen to: Keanu Reef (on Spotify)
For those of you who have been keeping track, here is the complete playlist for all our featured artists in a single handy Spotify Playlist:
Camden Crawl 2010 Highlights
Im afraid thats all from me here at DoesItRock.net…the choice is now yours. Go forth, check out these bands and head down to Camden on the May Bank Holiday Weekend. We’ll be there, stay tuned for the review…coming soon!
A Guide to Camden Crawl 2010: Part 3
Apr 23rd
There are plenty of bands playing both days at the festival giving you ample opportunity to catch them. Here’s a bunch of highlights from those groups on Crawl’s extensive lineup.
Sat/Sun Highlights: Sat/Sun Spotify Sampler
Midnight Juggernauts
Spacemen who sound like the electro pop incarnation of David Bowie. These Aussies are maving waves in the electronic scene, time to check them out.
Listen to: Into The Galaxy (on Spotify)
Calories
Their live performance supporting Dananananaykroyd split the DiR team with Marmite like efficiency. So i’m afraid i’ll leave this one down to you! This tune is infact quite good!
Listen to: Adventuring (on Spotify)
Eliza Doolittle
Lilly Allen, Kate Nash move over Eliza is in town. Sounds exactly the same as the previously mentioned artists, witty social commentary with sugary sweet pop.
Listen to: Moneybox (on Spotify)
Betty & the Werewolves
Racious female fronted DIY punk with girl power flowing through their souls. Rapidfire vocals are full of amusing lines and are extremely catchy.
Listen to: Euston Station (on Spotify)
Chickenhawk
Rampaging rock and roll riots! Chickenhawk wont stop till they have torn down the building or you have run scared of their unrelenting experimental riffing!
Listen to: I Hate This, Do You Like It? (on last.fm)
Kurran & the Wolfnotes
Impressive layered arrangements for a young folk band who ahre similarities with bands like The Shins.
Listen to: Whatabitch (on Spotify)
Lonelady
Riding high on a hype wave there is sure to be a crowd here for this indie rock darling, for good reason too. She’s very Madchester and the scratchy guitars and sombre vocals sure to leave a lasting impression.
Listen to: Intuition (on Spotify)
Veronica Falls
Indie as you like with a dictinctly surf pop sound. If it’s floaty vocals and fedback guitars your after, check them out.
Listen to: Beachy Head (on Spotify)
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo
A beautiful voice in amongst all the rock and roll this folk rising star could provide the most peaceful string loaded show of the weekend
Listen to: This Is How It’s Meant To Be (on myspace)
Surfer Blood
Dripping with indie credentials and comparisons to Pavement & Built To Spill, possibly trying too hard to be hip.
Listen to: Swim (on Spotify)
Alex Metric
Calvin Harris has serious competition in the form of Alex Metric. His electro-pop is dance heavy but never fails to produce a hook heavy melody.
Listen to: Head Straight (on Spotify)
The concluding post follows tomorrow…
A Guide to Camden Crawl 2010: Part 2
Apr 22nd
Welcome back to part 2 of our guide to London’s premier new music showcase festival, The Camden Crawl….
Sunday Highlights: Sunday Spotify Sampler
LostProphets
Welshmen who are positioned at the top of the Post-Hardcore tree. Energetic punk rock with infectious melodies and a whole host of brilliant songs.
Listen to: Last Train Home (on Spotify)
Gang Of Four
The genre defining & influencial 70′s post-punk band with spiky angular guitars and a political message. The original lineup has been reformed and set to play their extremely catchy rock. Not to be missed!
Listen to: Damaged Goods (on Spotify)
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Underground rockers have been around the block many times but are still making thundering blues alt-rock with a dark twist.
Listen to: Rise Of The Eagles(on Spotify)
Invasion
Huge heavy metallers with scorching female vocals are sure to start ears bleeding with their bludgeoning QOTSA-esque sludge metal. Riff roaring, fast and furious noise. They do sing about wizards and sci-fi alot though!
Listen to: In The Midst Of Madness (on myspace)
The Blackout
Have risen to be big players in the UK Post-Hardcore scene, the double header with these and LostProphets is a rockers dream ticket.
Listen to: The Fire (on Spotify)
Rolo Tomassi
Insanely intense live performances are the trademark of these hardcore techno infused in your faces technical metalheads. These youngsters can be too much for the pop fan and the slightly scary female screaming vocals back up this fact.
Listen to: I love Turbulence(on We7)
General Fiasco
Generic indie rock which is perfectly enjoyable, not going to set the world on fire but worthy of a mention.
Listen to: We Are The Foolish (on Spotify)
SHARKS
Punk rock and roll which is high in DIY production and rough around the edged charm. Vocalist is reminicent of Joe Strummer and this has an overall Clash like ramshakle-ness to it.
Listen to: It Threatens (myspace)
Wintersleep
Indie rock from this Canadian collective is briming with exciting energy, great floaty vocals and a multitude of hummable melodies.
Listen to: Archaeologists (on Spotify)
Sunshine Underground
Indie rock infused with electro effects and a funk ethos. Produce very slick catchy tunes which can fill a dancefloor in double quick time.
Listen to: Coming To Save You(on Spotify)
Kassidy
Armed with Acoustic guitars their complex melodies are pretty damn cool if slightly folky. Yet their catchy riff writing is well worth a listen.
Listen to: Stray Cat(on Spotify)
We Are Scientists
Great live band who play uplifting pop-rock based on superb blues riffs and catchy chorus’s. Made a splash with brilliant debut album.
Listen to: The Great Escape (on Spotify)
The Delays
Brit-poppers who lace their tunes with a dreamy indie pop sensibility. The pop is unashamed but and know how to pen a cathcy melody or four.
Listen to: Long Time Coming (on Spotify)
Lightspeed Champion
Dev Hynes, the ex alt-rocker of Test Icicles turned folk and croons sweet pop melodies.
Listen to: Galaxy Of The Lost (on Spotify)
More to come tomorrow, peeps!
A Guide to Camden Crawl 2010, Part 1
Apr 21st
With the line-up for the 2010 edition of the award winning urban new music festival almost finalised, it is time shed some light onto the artists set to make (or break) their names up in Camden Town. With a massive lineup of 174 extremely eclectic acts confirmed thus far all sharing the same passion for producing great music and dream of making it big in the industry. With so many new bands to see we’ll try to pick out a few bands for you to keep an eye on, ones to avoid, and the odd song to give you an idea of what you’re getting in to.
Saturday Highlights: Saturday Spotify Sampler
Slow Club
Girl, Boy vocal pop duo that play simple cheery melodies but excel with their enthusiastic vocals and captivating wordplay. As simple as it is effective! Highly Reccommended!
Listen to: Me And You (on Spotify)
Calvin Harris
Leading the UK popular dance scene at the moment with his superbly catchy syth heavy electro. All over the radio and here to steal the show!
Listen to: Acceptable In The 80′s (on Spotify)
Teenage Fanclub
It’s all jingle jangle for this 60′s recalling scottish power pop group. Hard not to enjoy, poppy melodies dry like cement in your memory!
Listen to: It’s All In My Mind (on Spotify)
The Drums
Hot indie scene buzz band play Surf Pop with a twee indie edge producing simple carefree whimsical tunes.
Listen to: Lets Go Surfing (on Spotify)
Dead Meadow
Rough around the edges Floyd influenced psychadelic with a dash of sabbath and plenty of guitars are stamped across the Dead Meadow. Guitar fans are sure to enjoy, as are the hippies listening to the blissed out vocals and fuzzy six stringed lo-fi noise.
Listen to: What Needs Must Be (on Spotify)
Shy Child
Funky electronic keyboard tickling from this NYC dwelling duo. They are a hoot live!
Listen to: Liquid Love (on Spotify)
Stricken City
Female vocaled indie rockers with plenty of melody and jangly pop harmonies. Multi intrumentalist layering without breaching pretense.
Listen to: Small Things (on Spotify)
The Like
LA girls play indie rock with a sweet side. Breezy melodies, beautiful vocals and catchy guitars line their pop-centric appeal, they are certainly above your average all girl group. Think the Corrs with guitars!
Listen to: What I Say And What I Mean (on Spotify)
We Are The Ocean
Essex born and bred Post-Hardcore punk rock and roll with bite and vigour. Clean vocals are terribly american, but an oversight which can be ignored! These guys pack a mean snarling punch!
Listen to: Look Alive (Spotify)
Cornershop
“Brimful of Asha on the 45″, “Everybody need a Bosom for a pillow, everybody needs a Bosom”, One hit Wonders are worth catching for ‘that’ classic song alone!
Listen to: Brimful Of Asha (The Norman Cook Remix) (on Spotify)
Straight Lines
Uplifting power/pop-punk/rock from these welshmen showing the british can do good time guitar pop as good as the Americans. Immediate and incessently catchy rock music!
Listen to: Runaway Now (on Spotify)
The Chapman Family
Would be Maximo Park-a-likes if it wasn’t for their indie grunt and thrashy noise rock freakouts keeping things interesting!
Listen to: Kids (on Spotify)
The Lost Levels
Chaotic indie guitars on a progressive electro mission. A real genre bender who produce some fine (if a little bonkers) tunes.
Listen to: Power (on Myspace)
Art Vs Science
Funcy hard hitting beats from this Australian Dance rock outfit. Thumping keys and fun lyrics keep them interesting.
Listen to: Parlez Vous Francais? (on Myspace)
House De Racket
Racquet sport gimmick wielding Frenchman, who like fellow dance music countrymen Daftpunk & Justice, really rock out!!!
Listen to: Synthétiseur (on Spotify)
More to come tomorrow, folks!
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 4
Mar 22nd
We finish off our DoesItRock perspective on this year’s ATP curated by Pavement by looking at some of the more challenging bands to listen to at the festival.
Worth a listen:
The Clean
An indie band with a few decent tunes, although they can be a little forgettable.
Listen to: Starting Point (on We7)
Marble Valley
Electronic and vocoder action with a decent beat (not bad, considering Westie cannot drum) mixed into the stoner moments.
Listen to: Pneumonia (on Spotify)
Saccharine Trust
A progressive version of Sex Pistols-esque punk; their anarchic cover of Express Yourself is fun.
Listen to: We Don’t Need Freedom (on We7)
Sic Alps
A bit 70s prog-rock; they have their bluesy moments, but predictably with an avantgarde streak.
Listen to: L. Mansion (on Spotify)
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are an all-female experimental, lo-fi band who originally formed in the 70s. Style-wise, they’re reminiscent at times of The Velvet Underground. They’ve got melodic songs, but the stripped down mechanics of their style can make you wish there was some kind of hook to pique your interest.
Listen to: Balloonacy (on Spotify)
The Bottom of the Barrel:
These are a struggle, unless you’re a hardcore underground music fan. And if you call yourself that, then your friends might not be telling you how pretentious you are:
Atlas Sound
Lift music.
Listen to (if you really have to): Quarantined (on We7)
Grails
An instrumental psychedelic rock band; they can create some interesting guitar-based soundscapes, if you can stay awake long enough to appreciate it.
Listen to: Take Refuge (on Spotify)
Faust
Instrumental ambient guitar noise at their proggiest – jazzed up songs embodies some of the trippier moments of the 70s. Requires an open mind – scoring some LSD might help.
Listen to: The Sad Skinhead (on We7)
And that’s the end of this far from definitive guide to ATP 2010 curated by Pavement. We haven’t looked at every band in the lineup: we’ve missed out the highly rated Wooden Shjips, Japanese hard rock band Boris and Scott Kannberg’s solo material (playing as Spiral Stairs) to name a few of them, but we’ll have to leave finding about them as an exercise for the reader…
Previously, on A Guide to ATP…
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 3
Mar 21st
Our penultimate look into the lineup at Pavement’s ATP; here’s today’s homework – more bands you should definitely listen to:
The Drones
Sound like a deadlier Nick Cave. It’s blues with an edge, a scowling singer, a hot bassist, and guitar riffs among noisy feedback.
Listen to: The Cookeyed Low Life Of The Highlands (on We7)
The Fiery Furnaces
Toured with Ted Leo, and Franz Ferdinand sort of gives you an idea of the company they keep in the indie world; a brother and sister combo, playing experimental rock. Some of their earlier stuff is a bit poppier, if the later, more eclectic stuff goes over your head.
Listen to: Tropical Iceland (on We7)
The Walkmen
A blues rock band. The croaky singing harks back to when Bob Dylan still sounded like Dylan, and not some weird choking caricature of Bob Dylan. Their earlier stuff sports a lot more fast paced style, as they seem to get progressively slower with new releases.
Listen to: The Rat (on We7)
Tim Chad & Sherry
This is an indie band whose style ranges from folk, pop, country and the blues, with a penchant for humorous lyrics.
Listen to: Caller I.D. (on Spotify)
Times New Viking
These noise rock maestros could if anything be a bit LOUDER at times. But if you appreciate a bit of fuzzed up noise with a nice melody, you’ll find Times New Viking right up your street.
Listen to: (My Head) (on We7)
Wildbirds & Peacedrums
A folk band who will remind you of artists like Bjork or Joanna Newson; pretty, minimalistic songs mixed with powerful drum-driven jazzy numbers, but always melodic.
Listen to: The Way Things Go (on We7)
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 2
Mar 20th
In part 2 of our trilogy in 4-parts, we’ll be looking at some of the best bands playing in this coming May at everybody’s favourite festival at a family resort.
Pavement
The headliners need no introduction, especially since the festival sold-out with only Pavement in the line-up.
Listen to: Gold Soundz (on We7)
Quasi
A two/three-piece indie pop band; slightly reminiscent in style to Grandaddy, and characterised by some excellent drumming.
Listen to: Our Happiness is guaranteed (on Spotify)
Still Flyin’
Energetic indie pop; they’ve got multiple singers (always good), the odd ska track, and a big fun sound. The list of musicians in the band reads more like a small country then an indie band.
Listen to: Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here (on Spotify)
Terry Reid
This hard rock nearly-was brings his down-to-earth, classic Rhythm and Blues rock to ATP – probably to balance out all that sickening alternative rock music at this festival. Think Led Zep.
Listen to: Dean (on We7) / Superlungs My Supergirl (on Spotify)
The Authorities
Their punk version of Ballroom Blitz is a hoot. They have some great classic-style punk songs.
Listen to: Ballroom Blitz (on Spotify)
The Dodos
An indie band in the vein of The Shins – that means they’ve got a good ear for those slow-paced pop songs.
Listen to: Small Deaths (on We7)
Stay tuned to this series for more bands to look out for, and we’ll also have a look at some of the ones you might want to avoid…
