He’s just barely past the legal drinking age, yet Alex G (born Alex Giannascoli) has created more songs than some musicians do in a lifetime.
Bandcamp
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Poolboy — Soda Kids
Guitarist Michael Loveland, bassist Sean Barker and drummer John Calvin are no strangers to the local scene, nor are they, apparently, strangers to good, old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. The band’s debut EP, Soda Kids, clocks in at less than six minutes, with four capricious and impassioned tracks that mimic a bygone golden era of punk […]
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Married with music
And it’s all done in a way that sounds devoid of polish or stuffy flamboyance. The project is the brainchild of Wil Norton and Danny Davis, two Oklahoma Christian University graduates who bonded over Super Smash Bros. and a common musical thread — though their histories wouldn’t suggest the latter. Norton, 26, cut his teeth […]
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Go Limp
“We wanted to make a band that was so over the top and ridiculous and over-confident that no one could possibly take us seriously. So we had to throw an ode to Limp Bizkit,” singer Taylor Young said. “There’s nothing more punk rock than misspelling a word like Bizkit or Wizurdz and talking about skinning […]
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Tallows — Memory Marrow
When Tallows’ two-song demo surfaced on their Bandcamp site last November, expectations mounted in anticipation for a proper full-length. This was understandable, given the promise exhibited by these four fresh-faced locals on both “Soft Water” and “Small Talk” (the aforementioned demo), songs that were staggering in their conceptual ambition. Nine months later, we have Memory […]
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Leaf Hands — Your Imagination
The lazy guitar and the clickity-clack percussion loom like the bastard child of Jandek and Belle and Sebastian, grown up and obsessed with mild folktronica. It’s ominous, comforting and beautifully introspective. This bleeds nicely into “Drift,” which takes that sullen ambiance and swirls it left to right with singer Cooper Whitson’s off-kilter voice acting as […]
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The Hitt Boyz — AlphaCat
While it’s not exactly clear whether this Oklahoma City quartet is hopelessly self-aware or merely revels in modest drollery, what is clear is that AlphaCat sounds nothing like you’d expect — which is to say, it’s actually pretty damn good. Clocking in at just under 11 minutes, it consists of only three tracks: “Best Catt,” […]
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The Grown Ups — Dark Hearts
Take “Catalina,” for example: the consummate portrayal of the group’s strengths. The song’s first half consists of a hushed guitar strum, sparkling piano and a steady, mid-tempo rhythm to guide them. It’s morose and contemplative in a way that’s almost reminiscent of the dampened grandeur Modest Mouse perfected on The Moon & Antarctica. Yet at […]
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Cave in
“They say no news is good news,” sing The Caves, and given the six-year gap between the Kansas City, Mo., band’s loose formation and the release of its first record, Duplexiaville, maybe they’re right. The Caves find its players abandoning their earlier ties to harder rock, instead spending their lengthy off-season honing sweet harmonies, subtle […]
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Lost Empires — Death and Evil Beasts
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:1″> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal”> From the title alone of its new EP, Death and Evil Beasts, you get a feeling of where this six-song affair is going: This ain’t no Taylor Swift. Clocking in at around 20 minutes, the disc covers a lot of ground, musically. The old-school punk noise of […]