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There's a delicate balance that is struck with Brute Heart: feathery violin and vocals are buoyed by a strumming bass line and skipping drums. The combination at times reaches a hypnotic hum, and at other times approaches a rousing folk backbeat. What most often reaches the forefront is this intriguing
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Sometimes a band will come along with a series of songs that sound naggingly as though you've heard them many times before ... hazily, quietly from a nearby speaker, or lurking in the background of a movie scene. Even though you've never heard the song before, somehow it seems to
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Can I be honest with you? Good. My brother loves Rishloo. He is a fan of metal in a way I cannot quite wrap my brain around. Whenever he tries to talk to me about metal, he always brings up Rishloo - a band he is convinced I will like
Music
Sometimes a band will come along with a series of songs that sound naggingly as though you've heard them many times before ... hazily, quietly from a nearby speaker, or lurking in the background of a movie scene. Even though you've never heard the song before, somehow it seems to
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Plateau exhibits a heart-warming fondness for the harmonious, swaying pop of early Beatles, and the lovesick serenades of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Lead singer Adrian Tuohy's voice occasionally resembles the rougher edges that Valli's voice had when he dipped down into a lower range. He has a tinge
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With James Jenkins of Mama Loves Daddy moving to Portland; the increasing irregularity of Drug Purse and Paris Spleen shows; the switch ideologically and title-wise from the Elephants to the Nightgowns; and with lots of people just getting their shit together-it seems as if the last vestige of the dirtbag,
Music
With James Jenkins of Mama Loves Daddy moving to Portland; the increasing irregularity of Drug Purse and Paris Spleen shows; the switch ideologically and title-wise from the Elephants to the Nightgowns; and with lots of people just getting their shit together - it seems as if the last vestige of
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American Astronaut is a bizarre new film classic, celebrating American underground rock, made by and starring Cory McAbee and other affiliates of the Billy Nayer Show, which has long stood as a shining example of the collision between alternative rock, filmmaking and performance art. A perpetually rotating stable of New
Music
As the years of music's existence drag on, different eras and time periods are increasingly cannibalized and morphed into new, unsteady amalgams. Profoundly specific subgenres spring up with the rapacious frequency of weeds through cracks in the sidewalk. Musical ground-breakers are summoned up and recontextualized in the manner of Fred
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The songs on Princest’s EP are foreboding, lo-fi post-hardcore rock that hint at fearsome live performances just out of range of the recording equipment’s ability to capture. Slinking bass lines provide a wobbly platform upon which all of the songs shakily stand. Frontman Ben Farr’s vocals are pitched halfway between
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Mal De Mar make absurdly catchy indie pop, which, on Saturday, will be served along with the considerably more caustic Pioneers West and the experimental hard rock of Musuji. It’ll be a strange grouping, to be sure, but a bill so intriguing in its strangeness that one should hardly be
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For all the writing we do about indie rock acts and folky, sad-bastard music in this fine rag, there's a fairly vibrant jazz, funk, blues and big band scene that has remained strong in these parts for years. Saturday is a day to take a dip in those brassy waters-perhaps,
Music
For all the writing we do about indie rock acts and folky, sad-bastard music in this fine rag, there's a fairly vibrant jazz, funk, blues and big band scene that has remained strong in these parts for years. Saturday is a day to take a dip in those brassy waters
We Recommend
Bread & Circuses make lyric-heavy songs that generally tell a story, and many times lead singer and songwriter Marcus Buser allows himself to be the de facto bad guy in his own tales. "I'm very OK with not being the hero," says Buser. "In fact, a lot of
Music
The notion of an unreliable narrator is a classic tool utilized by storywriters and songwriters alike. This idea-that you would doubt the validity of the claims being made by the only person who has a direct line to your mind-is endlessly intriguing. Of course, most of the time the narrator
Scene It
I get to Malarkey's a little before midnight on Friday the 13th, thinking this will be the ideal time to sift through the crowd and get some good people-watching done. Unfortunately, attendance is sparse in the rather huge space Malarkey's boasts. I'm greeted mainly by the deep green walls and
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The Hard Way share their name with what is perhaps one of the most ridiculously fun action movies ever. The Hard Way, the movie, is big, dumb and silly, and it stars Michael J. Fox as an actor researching a role as a cop by going on a ride-along with
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At first blush, Yarn Owl sound perilously similar to other backwoods-embracing, beard-sporting, indie-folk poseurs like Fleet Foxes. In my mind, there is nothing really wrong with those kinds of bands (despite the arguments you could make about their credibility - if credibility need ever really be present in a discussion
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Chicago's All Eyes West make radio-ready pop-punk - an odd change of pace for a Tacoma show, I know. They seem to draw from the same well as bands like Rise Against. It's all about pummeling, yet tuneful, riffs and snarling vocals. The punk edges have been smoothed over on
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Every time you worry that If Bears Were Bees are becoming a little too precious, they go and do something fucked up, like on "I Don't Know What I Expected," which ends with a rousing chorus of people singing, "I've been making jokes about my dead friends!" This subverting of