Over again amiland: Britpop/Shoegaze as its pure plantation...

These five guys are based out of brooklyn, new york city. They have managed to create a truly infectious album. On their debut "Gone Faded", released last autumn 2007 , Soft struggles to give old school Britpop new life. All songs combines an enjoyable warmly voice. Their evident guitar dominant but never to untrusive sounds throwback to the shoegaze world of British rock. Songs like "Gone Faded", "Higher", "100 days" or "Ring On" heat up my mind and sneak almost unnoticeable in the auditory canals. If you're looking for a flashback to '80s Britrock or '90s shoegaze, you should attend to these musicians more than a few minutes. For Example here...

Pay attention, the ultimate perfection of noise pop...

...further on todays fishbowl: The Early Years. For the most part still unfamous but further an excellent one from london. Formed in 2004, the juvenescent trio stands for psychodelic beats, acrid acoustic feedback and harmonical shoegazed melodies. The single outcome "all ones & zeros" opens furiously their self-titled lp "The Early Years". Guitar streams, which loses themselves in outer space spacious and high in effects. Bass lines, which defines the spheric scenery only as a tall whole. Melancholia in its most beautiful art presentation of music. Please take a quick look at their MySpace page and enjoy their amazing work to the full. Ladies and gentleman, we are floating in space!

Anti-Anti indeed !

Snowden is an indie quartet based out of atlanta. In 2006 jade tree records signed figurehead Jordan Jeffares and the other band members and released their debut album "Anti-Anti." Here someone suffers again. And he jingles so hopeless, as he strikes with his head against the wall while he`s singing. Once again the guitar and drums always drive on the songs vibrant. Snowden presents a fascinating mish-mash of indie rock, dance-floor beats and shoegaze borrowings. Wether with the bittersweet track "Black-Eyes" or with the cranky pulsative and together innocent blackly "Stop Your Bleeding": Every now and then you have the feeling, radiohead meets clap your hands say yeah and themselves meets arcade fire again. One`s tone labyrinth joined the other one`s imploring straightness. Altogether a dolefully fine sound creation. Album number two can’t come quick enough!

Our problems are just going to reappear again...

When you hear the name and the music of I Was A Cub Scout, there`s no need to think about a huge band. No, rather it`s about two very young musicians - Todd Mariott (vocals, guitar and Synthie) and William Bowermann (drums) from long bennington and collingham, england, which delivers some emotional delightful sounds. At first sight their debut lp "I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope" sounds a little bit fragile and not like these typical ones from england filled with hype and brightness. Anyway, it contains catchy volumes (e.g. the veritable hitsingle "Pink Squares") as well, but rather this is an album, that comes along with somebody. In the car, when the rain falls down on someone, before bedtime after an exhausting day, with friends or during a fine dinner. I recommend you warmly to listen to their dumpish lyrics ( "...don`t be pulled down/do not look back/maybe tings are gonna change/keep your chin up/try to hold your smile/maybe we`ll see better days...").

But some story draws to a faster close you may even think. In february 2008 I Was A Cub Scout have published their debut album yet, there`s no room for hope currently. On their MySpace page Will and Todd announced the band won`t continue any longer. After a uk-tour they split in June 2008. What a crying shame! Absolutely!

How does it feel to be pure at heart?

Is it very painfull? Maybe The Pains of beeing pure at heart from New York can answer this question? Man, this band really catched me. What an incredible sound. Dreamy, melancholic melodies with guitar walls, great lyrics and vocals that reminds me about love, rebellion and a lot of pain.

The bands career started at the birthday party of Peggy. Peggy (vocals, keyboard), Kip,(guitar, vocals) Alex(bass) and Kurt(drums) formed to play at her Party. And thank god, that this was a lot of fun for them and they continued playing music. You don't eaven have to hear the songs to know that this band has to be great. "Doing the things that wouldn't make your parents proud", "This love is fucking right", "Orchard of my eyes" and so on are song titles that say everything. This band combines love, pain rebellion, guitars, vocals and gives us music that really catches our hearts and don't lay them to rest. Come on, check it out! You can download several songs from theire MySpace Page and listen to "This love is fucking right". and this great line of the song: "You are my sister and this love is fucking right!"
In September 2008 the band will come to Sweden to play some gigs and in early 2009 their debut should be release. So hopefully the four are shipping over the great lake and give us some pain and gigs in Germany.

Some kind...

...of Electronic in the air... Yes. Today its going to be electronic. I 'm talking about Headphone from Belgium. Well, actually Belgium is known for it's great electronic scene and this band is another great step for Belgium up to the olymp of electronic music! The band released their debut album "Ghostwriter" in May this year. It 's a great mixture of electronic and indie elements with great vocals. So, if you want to lay back after a hard day, listen to this great songs. I really recommend you to go to their Myspace Page and listen to the songs "Ghostwriter" and "She is electric". Wow, this are really the best electronic / low fi songs I heard for weeks, months or even years. The mixture of guitars, slow bass and the vocals of Ian Marian is so catchy and awesome that I could'nt stop listening to it the whole day - incredible! So give Ian Marian, Nico Steenkiste, Gerd van Mulders, Tom Barbier and John Goosens some attention and the possibility to creat more catchy songs and listen to their debut album.

The poorest band in Birmingham...

"We are fucking poor, give us stuff; food, equipment, money, your watch ... anything."

Well, maybe they are fucking poor, but I don't think this will last too long. Who I'm talking about? Telegramme from Birmingham. I found their song "Dance" on the awesome Summer Sampler - yes, another one - "A sketch for summer" from CatCutterRecords. You should download it! But back to the band. Today I listened to their MySpace Page. They say, that they are influenced by Interpol, CatPower, Radiohead, Elbow... just to mention a few. Indeed, their music is a great mixture of all of these influences and bands. Faye, Andrew, Christopher and Danny performing some great Indie ballads like the 2007 released "Hot Blues" but are also smashing their guitars into the ring and fighting with beats, guitars and the great vocals of Faye like it is in "Dance". What an amazing song. Fayes vocals reminds me a little bit of swedish artist Annika Norlin (listen to her SoloProject "Säkert" here or to her band "Hello Saferide").
So if the band carrys on with this mixture of ballads and smashing hits I don't think that they will stay as poor as they pretend to be. The only question that remains is, how poor are they right now?