Category: Indie

  • Brighton, England’s Royal Blood are here and they come with a question: who needs guitars anyway? You see, their sound simply consists of bass guitar and vocals, courtesy of Michael Kerr, and drums via Ben Thatcher. That’s right, just bass and drums. Yet their album packs more screeching riffs than anything The Strokes or The…

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  • Dances are an indie rock band that began in New York in 2011 by singer/guitarist Trevor Vaz. Initially a solo songwriting project, it turned into a collaborative trio in 2013 upon the addition of bassist/vocalist Sam Stoltje and drummer David Su. “Summer in the shade,” Vaz sings during “Doc Youth” and that’s exactly what the…

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  • SPC ECO: THE ART OF POP The best artists are those who are constantly changing colors like a chameleon if not downright evolving and SPC ECO make a great leap forward with The Art of Pop, an album that ditches all of those raw, distorted guitars in favor of delicious, pristine pop beats, uplifting melodies…

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  • review by Michael McCarthy all photos by Mary Ouellette In just a short matter of four years Neon Trees has released three superb albums and toured almost constantly, making them one of the hardest working bands in the business by far. Going into their show at the House of Blues in Boston last night, I…

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  • Capsule reviews — mini reviews — are something new here at Love is Pop.  Not only are they shorter, they’re written in a more personal, almost spontaneous, blogging style.  If you prefer shorter reviews like this, let me know.  My reason for doing this is so that we can cover more albums by not always…

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  • With vocals and lyrics ripped straight out of the Kurt Cobain songbook, Allusondrugs’ vibrant “I’m Your Man” proves that they stand at the top of the pile of post grunge bands competing for the Nirvana slot when grunge finally comes back around. Of course, nothing ever sounds quite like it used to when it comes…

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  • Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, the much buzzed-about indie rock darlings known as Stone Cold Fox consist of members from California to Maine. And when you hear how well they play together on their debut full-length, Memory Palace, you can’t help but think it was fate herself that brought them together. The album opens with…

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  • The Good Wives are a trio hailing from Seattle, Washington consisting of Jake Bruggman (vocals, acoustic guitar), Nicholas Alexander (Lead guitar, bass), and Shane Berg (rhythm guitar). The band started out as principal songwriter Jake’s solo project from 2005 through 2011 when Nicholas and Shane joined as full-time band members. Benjamin Lerner plays drums on…

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  • Little Racer is a band from Brooklyn, NY consisting of vocalist/guitarist Elliot Michaud, guitarist Wade Michael, bassist Ish Nazmi and drummer Dave Tedeschi. They formed and released their eponymous single, “Little Racer” in 2010 and somehow the single managed to cross the ocean to the BBC and London imprint Young and Lost Club, which wound…

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  • MisterWives must be feeling pretty happy with themselves, their new EP, Reflections, garnering them positive reviews in such publications as Billboard, Interview, Buzzworthy, NYLON and TeenVogue. Then again, the band seemed charmed long before the reviews came in. In February of 2013 the group — Mandy Lee (Vocals), Etienne Bowler (Drums), Will Hehir (Bass) —…

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  • I always liked the idea of sharing playlists with our readers but the idea never really took flight.  I asked my writers to contribute playlists as well as some musicians but nobody was into it.  I guess you need to be a big magazine like NYLON to get artists to share playlists with you.  In…

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  • In order to write as many reviews as I do here on Love is Pop, sometimes I only have time to give things four or so spins before writing my reviews… And that was the case when I wrote my review of The Glitch Mob’s latest album, Love Death Immortality… I haven’t read my review…

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  • Occasionally, since starting Love is Pop a year and a half ago, I will go into a panic mode when my favorite artists are releasing new albums because, one, I feel compelled to review them and, two, I dread the idea of possibly having to give one of my favorites a bad review. I experienced…

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