News
More Top Stories
Best New Music
After a brief hiatus Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen has revived the Department of Eagles project, , enlisted some of his bandmates, and created a sprawling pop record (complete with guitars, piano, horns, banjo, and more) that evokes Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sung Tongs, Van Dyke Parks, and Gene Clark. Ambitious and complex, it's stuffed with cocooning harmonies and shimmering, sunlight-smacking-the-Pacific melodies.
Vivian Girls, an all-women trio who've become overnight sensations among critics and underground rock fans, deliver a lively, lovable debut album that taps fashionable aesthetic wellsprings from Phil Spector to C86 to Nuggets and, without risking pastiche, turns them into an armful of kick-ass songs.
Reviews
After a brief hiatus, Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen has revived the Department of Eagles project, enlisted some of his bandmates, and created a sprawling pop record that evokes Sgt. Pepper's, Sung Tongs, Van Dyke Parks, and Gene Clark.
[Amanda Petrusich]
The ninth Pretenders album and the first for Santa Monica-based indie Shangri-La Music features a new lineup that includes members of the Pernice Brothers and Son Volt. Resituating the Pretenders' sound in a roadhouse, the new band infuses leader Chrissie Hynde's lefty-righteous rockers with bar-band bravado.
[Stephen M. Deusner]Combining the straightforward thickness of Corrosion of Conformity with the spaciness of Hawkwind, this L.A. five-piece shows much promise on their debut full-length.
[Robbie Mackey]Bursting with melody but overorchestrated and overthought, Deleware's the Spinto Band have ideas and hooks in spades.
[Marc Hogan]We'd love to say that the latest album from this plodding band, out last year in the UK and just now being released stateside, is a surprising career renaissance. However...
[Ian Cohen]Mon: 10-06-08
Fri: 10-03-08
Thu: 10-02-08
Wed: 10-01-08
Forkcast
- Pitchfork.tv: Department of Eagles: Live on "Don't Look Down" Part 1
- New Music: The Fireman [Paul McCartney & Youth]: "Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight" [MP3/Stream]
- Video: Jay Reatard: "See/Saw" (Live on "The Interface")
- Videos: TV on the Radio: "Golden Age" / "Dancing Choose" (Live on "Later... With Jools Holland")
- Video: Fleet Foxes: "Silver City" (new song; live in New York)
- Video: Love Is All: "Wishing Well"
- Video: Kanye West: "Heartless" (new song; live in L.A.)
Features
Interview: Lambchop
We talk to Kurt Wagner about Lambchop's 10th full-length, OH (Ohio), how his background in visual art has informed his music writing, and the unintentional competition he launched between the new album's two Nashville-based producers.
[Stephen M. Deusner]
Interview: Girl Talk
We talk to Greg Gillis of Girl Talk about the ethics of sampling, being an album-based artist in a predominantly mp3-based medium, and the death of the guilty pleasure.
[Mark Richardson]Column: Puritan Blister #40: Moving the Chains
When indie rock meets college football.
[William Bowers]Guest List: Saint Etienne
Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley has been researching pop music's history, filming a documentary on the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall, and staying up past his bedtime to watch the U.S. Open. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]
Column: Show No Mercy
This month we speak to John Cobbett, leader of San Francisco's Hammers of Misfortune [above], and Mikko Lehto from the folk-leaning black metal band October Falls.
[Brandon Stosuy]Column: Through the Cracks: Lovely Music Ltd.
Tiny labels selflessly nourishing a pouch of devotees isn't news-- this is how the indie ideology logically plays out. But Lovely Music Ltd.-- a label whose records are too understated to grip avant-garde fetishists, too peacefully bizarre to be embraced by most classically oriented audiences-- is an anomaly even in indie mythos.
[Mike Powell]