5 Piece band calling themselves Polecat out of Bellingham, WA has been blending a variety of styles to create their unique sound for the past four years or so.  You can find yourself skipping around to grassy licks and the next moment bouncing to reggae influenced jams with these folks.  I have really enjoyed catching them play from time to time this year and recommend giving them a try.

As much as I love heavier music, my greater love is for passionate & bold music in general!  So here are a few personal favorites of mine.  I hope you enjoy!

My Epic from Charlotte, NC.  Post-Hardcore Rock with just enough Experimental touch.  Every album with this band changes, and honestly I can't say I dislike a single one.  Great songwriting, 4 albums deep, I have to give it up! 

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Andy McKee from Topeka, KS is an American fingerstyle guitarist.  Beautiful instrumental songwriting. A must listen!

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Ben Howard born in London, is a Singer-songwritier worth listening to!  Check it out for yourself. The video is awesome alone.

Thanks for looking!

Just recently, I curiously went to a bar to hear a band from Portland, Oregon named Hillstomp. This two man band absolutely killed it, bringing a flurry of energy with a Northwest edge.  Their music is a bluegrassy, rockin, grungy, stomp style hoedown needed to be enjoyed by all.  The drummer plays on a drum/bucket/can set and the guitarist will play numerous styles. Check them out!

I was recently listening to some Alabama Shakes and realized I do not have many women musicians in my music collection (compared to the other gender).  Also, I have not seen many of them live, Grace Potter being the most recent in 2013.  As I was emerged in Brittany Howard's vocals, I remembered the name Andrija Tokic.  He produced Boys & Girls for Alabama Shakes and also recorded an album for another band who has a female lead singer.  Andrija produced the album Look Out Mama for Hurray for the Riff Raff, which is a band based out of New Orleans.  Both of these bands are now with ATO Records, which is a great place to be.  

All this lead to the decision that I have a sexist music library and I feel I need to post some tunes by a few rock'n soulful women, so enjoy!

When my loves 1,2,3 split up a while back, my poor lil' heart hurt for quite some time. There's nothing like watching a band that you love makes it's first few steps towards something big and then stumbling back into the dark. As music fans, we have all have had that band that you want to see make it (and to continue releasing new albums!). 1,2,3 is mine and they are back with their new album Big Weather out on May 27th via American Hermitage records. The band announced that they are going to offer a pay-what-you-can option for all digital copies, so there's no reason this album shouldn't be in your collection by the end of May!

If you had a chance to listen to their 2011 debut album New Heaven, then you will know that their singles are unpredictable, raw, and full of adventure. Please listen to this album at least once, for you will find yourself wanting to listen to it again and again. Personally, I find every song is different and defiant of traditional genres, and that is what I am looking forward to hearing on Big Weather.

It is very interesting to me that this album is inspired by a tornado that hit the lead singer and guitarist Nic Snyder's Aunt's house. 1,2,3 seems to have a passion for weather and climate changes, seasons, and the like. You hear it in their previous album in songs such as Heat Lightning. Here's to another wild ride with 1,2,3. Can't wait. Please listen to their first two new singles "Big Weather Pt. 1" and "Leave Me in the Sky With the Lawnchair" below and let us know what you think!

Thank You Scientist has a very unique yet strangely familiar sound.  It's like every band I absolutely loved in 9th grade suddenly formed a supergroup.  They effortlessly bounce around from tight ska horns to emo-punk choruses to hardcore-like breakdowns.  With songs averaging well over five minutes each, you never know where Thank You Scientist is going to take you.  Check out "Feed The Horses" from their newest album Maps Of Non-Existent Places below.  Welcome to your new guilty pleasure.

New York based reggae-punk band Viva Mayday may sound like a Dispatch/State Radio rip-off, but is that really such a bad thing? Check out "We Will All" and "Monsters" below for good times.

I'll just leave this here.  [Via glorieband.com]

     "Instrumental band, Glorie, was formed in Memphis in the spring of 2009 by former Satyrs frontman, Jason Paxton, after an eight year hiatus from playing music. The other members of Glorie (Jonathan Kirkscey, Rob Brimhall, Andy Saunders, and Jeff Hulett) come from diverse musical backgrounds and have performed with an impressive array of artists such as Cat Power, Jay Reatard, The Bloodthirsty Lovers, Snowglobe, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Al Green.

     The band started as a desire to create more substantive, engaging instrumental music with a strong focus on melody.  Their music blends acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds and draws inspiration from many genres including rock and instrumental hip- hop. Texturally, the instrumentation is diverse including layers of strings, synthesizer, guitar, piano, and vibraphone creating an entrancing thick wall of sound with a cinematic quality."

 Glorie's debut album is an amazing journey of beautiful driving instrumentals.  I highly recommend.  Head over to their Bandcamp page to grab Glorie, and if you like what you hear be sure to donate to help them get the next album going here.

Glorie - Looking Through the Mirror from LFM Films on Vimeo.

 They're called She Keeps Bees.  Here's the Hype:

“An album of fire, spirit and sweat –and sometimes that’s all you need.” -BBC 

  “A soulful duo that fluently burns through rough-hewn and potent blues-rock stompers.”  -The New Yorker

 "Smokey, subtle, single malt - @shekeepsbees is superbly whiskylike" —Ryan via Bandcamp

Yeah, it's good stuff.  Check out "All Or None/Dark Horse" below and grab Dig On Here.

In preparation of their upcoming album The Mars Volta have started leaking new material.  The album will be called Noctourniquet and will hit stores on March 27th.  So far two songs have been leaked.  "The Malkin Jewel" is a slower song that oozes psychedelics and sounds like something went horribly awry in a Beatles recording session, while "Zed and Two Naughts" is more in the classic Mars Volta psych-jammy fashion. Thanks to Warner Music Group we can not post the new songs here, but be sure to check out the links above.

 Aside from being hard at work in the studio and touring with Iron Maiden, prog rockers Coheed and Cambria have been nice enough to cut down the wait on their upcoming sixth studio album.  Today they are giving us a nice juicy taste of whats to come.  Front-man Claudio Sanchez gives us the deets:

   "instead of making you wait until the album is released, I thought I’d share my excitement for this song with you now. I decided with this piece to video document it’s creation. This is literally the first time I played the song through in its entirety. His name is Sentry The Defiant. - Claudio"

Like what you hear? Then fly on over to their official website and grab the track for FREE!

Click Here To Listen

Bush is back for more with their first album release in 10 years! The band has a new lead guitar and bass player but it sounds like old school Bush. The new single "The sound of winter" has been putting a familiar sound back on the radio and the rest of the album will sound like a homecoming to old fans of the band.  Here's what the critics are saying about it:

"The Sea of Memories is easily the most enjoyable collection of songs released under Bush's name"

"The Sound of Winter", "She's a Stallion" and "Stand Up" stating "The Sea Of Memories" is every bit as good as classic Bush"

"Ultimately, Bush's return is far from perfect, but still proves to be a welcome return"

"Whether the songs edge towards the old Bush alternative rock style or go for more of a pop-rock approach, they remain catchy and full of hooks, with Rossdale’s voice at the forefront, as strong as ever."

 

Click here to listen

For those of you who have a history of listening to hard rock/metal and have enjoyed the dubstep movement that has been exploding lately, I have something that will probably be right up your alley. Korn's latest release pairs them with some of the biggest electronic music producers going today. The list includes Skrillex, Noisia, Excision, Downlink, 12th Planet, Feed Me, Kill the Noise, and Datsik. Hard hitting guitars meet grinding synthesizers, John Davis' screams team up with abrasive wobble bass, and the final product is something uniquely different from the majority of what you've been hearing lately. Speaking of John Davis, he has labeled this new hybrid sound as "Future Metal" and claims that the new release is "very well-rounded, with a mix of mellow, upbeat tracks; possibly the most well-proportioned Korn album of all time." While it does sound like a Korn album overall, it's made refreshingly new by tastefully substituting distorted guitars and fret-rattling bass with elements from dubstep. Korn's label, Roadrunner Records released the following statement to describe the album:

The Path of Totality is unlike any previous Korn release; it's an experimental record which finds the band shifting gears and exploring new territory. The result is something completely new, yet utterly and definitively Korn.

So call it "dub-metal", "Korn-step", "metal-step", "future-metal" or just plain awesome; it's worth a listen. "We're mixing metal and electro music, and you're not supposed to do that. Since day one, Korn has always been all about going against the grain, experimenting, and trying to take music different places."

In a mysterious tweet on their twitter page, it would seem post-hardcore princes At The Drive-In have finally announced their long awaited reunion!  Bonnaroo? Coachella? What do you think?  The time and place is anyone's guess at this point.  All that can be certain is wherever it may be, faces will be melted. Via @AtTheDriveIn_:

 "¡ ATTENTION ! To whom it may concern: AT THE DRIVE-IN will be breaking their 11 year silence THIS STATION IS …NOW…OPERATIONAL"

This is going to be good!

*Update:  It seems ATDI are officially confirmed for Coachella! Keep it coming boys!

I was cleaning up my hard drive's files today and came across some old Modest Mouse tunes I hadn't heard in years.  I had almost forgotten how hard some of their older stuff rocks.  It's crazy to think its been almost fifteen years. With pleasure I now share with you "Shit Luck" off their 1997 release Lonesome Crowded West.