Underground music has given me a lot over the years, from amazing shows to friends from all around the world I’ve met and kept. As a way of giving back I decided to try and shed some light on bands I feel are the future of modern music. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t just about metal, it’s about everything I think kicks ass. Each month I’ll choose five and give you the low down on why they deserve to be on this list.
Everybody gets a shot here, whether signed or not. One of the greatest achievements of my life would be to get an unsigned band onto a label or a band on a smaller label more exposure. I believe in all the bands I present and plan to present in the future. If you want me to check out your band just
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l. So without further ado, here’s our first list of Five Bands You Should Really Know About.
1. THE BROUGHT LOW - SMALL STONE RECORDS
If you don’t know about New York’s The Brought Low then it is time for you to discover their greatness. A stiff combination of southern rock, seventies boogie rock and modern indie rock, The Brought Low are a kick ass good time from start to finish. Born from the ashes of post-punk band Sweet Diesel, The Brought Low have honed their sound to a razors edge over the course of three albums and their latest, Third Record, is the band’s best effort to date.
There isn’t a bad song on the album and though the faster songs bring the rock even the slow jams make with ripping your face off. Producer Andrew Schneider brings the best of what The Brought Low do to the surface here and Third Record will be an easy entry to my top albums of 2010.
Live The Brought Low is a straight kick to the nuts that you can’t help but enjoy. This is music to drink to; fight to, get high to and fuck to, this is real rock n roll the way God or whoever was in charge meant it to be played. Loud, raw, groovy and laced with guitarist/singer Ben Smith’s wonderfully drawled vocals. I can’t express to you how great this band is, I can’t sing their praises enough and I only hope they hang on long enough to become as big as they should be. The Brought Low opened for the Dave Grohl/Josh Homme project Them Crooked Vultures so clearly the world is taking notice. There isn’t a better rock band out there right now, period.
2. MOTHERBOAR -
You ever wonder what the inner turmoil of Bigfoot would sound like if he got really pissed off and decided to start a mountain man tribal fight club? If so then look no further than Boston’s Motherboar for the answer and the sound you're looking for. This is aggressive music in its rawest form yet Motherboar is made up of such great players the music is still nuanced and layered. The band’s newest album The Beast Becomes The Servant is one of the most powerful records I’ve heard in a long time.
Crushingly heavy with weird guitar games being played and a rhythm section that you could use to kill a puma, Motherboar aren’t happy just being a heavy band they need to inject real weight into what they do. The songs push down on your body like a massive boulder, driving you to want to burn shit down until the record ends.
Live nothing comes close to Motherboar’s mammoth freight train performance. Frontman Kenny Irwin smashes across the stage like an animal unleashed. To be honest the entire band play as if it was for their very lives. Extreme music is so bogged down with gimmicks and scenes right now that it’s nice to hear a band smash through all that and just play because they have to. There’s a quiet and lethal desperation to what Motherboar do and it helps to produce some of the best extreme music out there right now.
http://www.myspace.com/motherboar
3. STEREO TELESCOPE -
Stereo Telescope is a hidden gem wedged inside the Boston music scene. Made up of dueling vocalists Kurt Schneider and Nikki Dessingue, Stereo Telescope is an electronic based band that somehow manages to remain warm and inviting. Most of that comes from the angelic voice of Nikki, which plays against the more earthy tones of Kurt’s vocals. The music is lush and otherworldly yet holds a melodramatic tone to it.
There’s a universal melancholy to what Stereo Telescope do, a sadness that somehow we can all relate to. So much of the current indie scene, especially those bands based in electronics, is devoid of soul. Stereo Telescope have somehow managed to sidestep that issue instead injecting their music with a cautious optimism, an infectious feeling that letting go will make everything alright.
The band has currently finished a dozen or more songs and between their constant touring schedules is shopping them around to labels. I rarely get behind unsigned bands but there’s something very special happening with Stereo Telescope. I can see them moving crowds into a frenzy at the Bonnarroo Festival, playing their hit soundtrack song at the Oscars and also being blasted from every sad teenagers room and college dorm across the country.
Stereo Telescope makes beautiful music that is easily accessible with out becoming trite or boring. It also helps that Nikki is approachably beautiful and Kurt look like the guy we all root for to get the girl in some Wes Anderson film. Great music, strong vocals and visually appealing, Stereo Telescope seems to have it all.
http://www.myspace.com/stereotelescope
4. MADE OUT OF BABIES -
Did you ever wonder what would happen if Juliana Hatfield or the girl who sang for Beat Happening got really fucking pissed off and decided she’d just had it with humanity on a base level? If so, or if you just like really interesting music, then Made Out Of Babies is the band for you. MOOB are nearly total catharsis, it seems here like each instrument as well as the vocals are screaming out for something. It’s rare when you hear a band where the whole is more valuable than the parts. Most bands, even great ones, focus on one thing or another. Guitar, Vocals, Bass, Drums, something is always at the forefront. MOOB would rather grind them all into one dusty soup.
I hesitate to call MOOB a metal band or even a heavy band, I’d put them more into a category of noise and experimental. I hear more of a Joy Division meets DNA meets Neurosis on the Hardcore Rock Freeway sound than one that you could label as “Metal”. Technically none of this should work but it does, somehow MOOB pull off all of these varied influences and create their own sound with them.
Live the band is a total wrecking machine not the least of which is super-burning-sun-hot vocalist Julie Xmas, the first female in a band I’ve lusted for while being equally scared of. The band has three albums out; the most recent, The Ruiner, was one of my top albums for 2008. Even with these three records this band isn’t as big as they should be, a fact I hope gets taken care of soon. Currently MOOB is writing new material for their next record and continuing to blow crowds away.
http://www.myspace.com/madeoutofbabies
5. DAUGHTERS -
Remember the term “Lock Up Your Daughters”? Well that saying would never apply to the band Daughters. This is frayed nerve, manic, and dark music but with a touch of the circus that brings about the insanity. I don’t mean actual circus music just that same frantic energy that comes when the lions step up or a trapeze artist stars flipping around with no net. For lack of a better idea Daughters turns the whole fight-or-flight syndrome into music playing high pitched, piercing guitar rock that lands somewhere between grindcore and the old AmRep bands. Imagine The Jesus Lizard on speed trying to calm it down with high-end weed.
Daughters are a band that thrives on chaos and their newest self-titled album is the best they band has done to capture that chaotic element. Extreme music by its very design should be violent, uncomfortable and at some points just hard to listen to. Daughters manages to tie those elements up into a sound that’s massive but more from a point of a wall of sound than something “epic” in the heavy metal sense. Live the band is the same constant rush of adrenaline-meets-insanity as well as something even more wonderful; Daughters don’t care.
Not that they don’t care about the music but more what parameters are being set by what idea or trend. Daughters vomits out what they want and invite you to come savor their mess. This isn’t music for everybody and I think that’s how Daughters want it. They thrive on making people uncomfortable, even their name is vaguely unsettling. This is the kind of music that will push the ideas of what extreme can be into the future and I for one welcome that apocalypse.
http://www.myspace.com/daughters1
