Depeche Mode
The Best of Volume 1
Label: Reprise / Wea
England’s New Wave pioneers Depeche Mode have had more top 40 hits in the UK without a #1 hit than any other artist. That’s what makes a Best Of album such a great idea.
But if you’re like us, you really only know “Personal Jesus”, “Enjoy the […]

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Los Lobos
The Town and the City
Label: Hollywood Records
Shut up. Yes, Los Lobos is actually still cool after 30 years.
The Beatles of East LA have released a new album that more than holds a candle to Kiko from the early 90s. Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since “La Bamba,” huh?
The Town and the […]

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Dead Leaf Echo
Faint Violet Whiff
Label: Year Of The Gallon
“She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet…”
-Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
New York’s Dead Leaf Echo are big big fans of the miserable 80s and resurgence of the sound in the early 00s, and judging from the band and album name, apparently they’re […]

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Charlotte Martin
Stromata
Label: Dinosaur Fight
We say this often and quite unapologetically, we don’t appreciate female vocalists in any genre like we should. It just doesn’t ring our bell, and we don’t know enough about other female artists to name drop comparisons.
But we have to hand it to Charlotte Martin for breaking through our cold, male […]

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Hopewell
The Notbirds EP
Label: Sunny Lane
New York’s Hopewell have a superb 6-track EP on their hands with The Notbirds. We read somewhere that this is the album the Flaming Lips and Grandaddy should have released this year, and that couldn’t be more true.
Psychedelic rock with alt-country sensibility, this EP sets up the group’s highly, highly, […]

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¡Forward, Russia!
Give Me a Wall
Label: Mute U.S./V2
Leeds-based post-punk rockers ¡Forward, Russia! are understandably tired of iForward confusion - iPods, iTunes, iMacs - that’s an upside down exclamation mark, people.
But why a UK band is using Spanish punctuation is just the start of the befuddlement that surrounds this group. Odd symbols and punctuation, nonsequential […]

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Download “CocoCloe” (mp3) from “The Man That Fell To Earth”by AutolectRequired

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Download “And Never Look Back” (mp3) from “From A Late Night High Rise”by Matthew Ryan00:02:59 LLC

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Download “What Kind of Life” (mp3) from “My Machine”by CrushedNo Relief Records

Buy at […]

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Europe
The Final Countdown Tour, Live in Sweden 1986 (20th Anniversary Edition) DVD
Studio: Music Video Dist.
Release Date: December 5, 2006
Europe, everyone’s Swedish prog metal band from the ‘80s, is one of the most successful Swedish bands ever - having sold more than 10 million albums worldwide. We’re positive you know the opening synthesizer riff from “The […]

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Softlightes
Heart Made of Sound EP
Label: Modular
San Diego folktronic four-piece Softlightes are the first US Band to sign with “it” label, Modular (Avalanches, Wolfmother, Klaxons, etc.), and have released a 5-track EP in anticipation of their full-length - due out in early 2007.
Formerly of the The Incredible Moses Leroy, the group’s sound is like a […]

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Bullets and Octane
In the Mouth of the Young
Label: RCA
“Light ‘em up and suck one down with me…”
Sporting fast, loud, GED-rock, Bullets and Octane spent 2006 opening for Stone Sour in the UK and Bullet for my Valentine and Papa Roach in the U.S. Not too shabby for a So-Cal rock group who’ve been paying their […]

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