Abzinq

A while ago my in-real-life pal Griffin finally decided to put together an "album" of a bunch of his miscellaneous recordings and uploaded it to Demonoid. Most of it is pretty silly and light-hearted. Sometimes they're acoustic singer-songwriter bits and others are electronic instrumentals and some are just him fucking around. Of course I'm biased because he's my bestest buddy. But yeah it's pretty good for sixteen-year-old-kid-in-his-bedroom-core. That's a thing now.

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George Clooney Takes a Bath

Those Poor Bastards

I know what you're probably thinking. "Oh, Country music? It must suck. I mean, Johnny Cash was alright, but country music is all the same abomination." I thought that way too, then I finally caved in to a friend telling me about Those Poor Bastards, and now I can not be grateful enough for introducing me to one of my favorite bands.

These fellows are a Gothic Country duo, and their production value sounds like they recorded it in a 1950's recording studio, though all of their releases are post-2000. They have a somewhat minimalistic approach to musicianship, but their composition and the way they arrange their music is simply so powerful, so heartbreaking, it's hard not to find these people amazing. From their heartbreaking lyrics of loss and destruction from the bands 'characters' of Old West ministers who enjoy the more decadent ways of life and have been trodden and cursed by their 'god', to their crooning and even screams of pure desperation (that's right, they include screams in this country band), I can not recommend these people enough. Though all of their records are amazing, I'd say their weakest is Plagues and the best albums to start with is either Songs of Desperation or Satan is Watching.

Enjoy wanting to kill yourself, folks.

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Album: Lonesome Wyatt and the Holy Spooks - Sabella (2001)

EP: Those Poor Bastards - Country Bullshit EP (2004)

Album: Those Poor Bastards - Song of Desperation (2005)

Album: Those Poor Bastards - Hellfire Hymns (2007)

Album: Those Poor Bastards - Plagues (2008)

Album: Those Poor Bastards - Satan is Watching (2008)

Album: Those Poor Bastards - Abominations (2009)

Album: Lonesome Wyatt and Rachel Brooke - A Bitter Harvest (2009)

Mutiny on the Bounty

This Luxembourg Quartet is quite the band. They're an extremely fun mixture of Math Rock. Quite reminiscent of The Fall of Troy and Blakfish. Their riffs are unpredictable and all over the place, but keep their catchiness, and the yells and vocals are something to sing and/or scream along to. Their time signatures are something I wouldn't recommend even trying to keep up with. I'd recommend this band to anyone who likes fun music with loads of talent involved.

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Danger Mouth

Ad Astra Per Aspera

72 Musicians is a documentary about twenty bands in the Kansas City indie scene. Yeah, I had no idea such a thing existed either. On the website for 72 Musicians, they have a free download album of twelve live songs by bands in the documentary (which is also something I highly recommend you download). The band that piqued my interest most was fronted by a guy in a lab coat screaming whilst accompanied by noisy guitar parts and synthesizers(!!). I immediately went and found their full length Catapult Calypso. A bizarre experience highly recommended for fans of The Blood Brothers, Foxy Shazam, Neon Blonde, etc.

72 Musicians Official

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Catapult Calypso

Black Eyes

These dudes are an experimental Post-Punk band that pulls their inspiration from all over the music spectrum. From Post-Hardcore, to Jazz, to even Noise Rock, this DC quintet is actually simply incredible. They're also known for their dual vocal system, not unlike the Blood Brothers. With one vocalist who has a high, screechy voice, and the other having a more yelly, masculine voice, and they pull it off amazingly. They have two full length albums. The first being their self-titled albums, which is amazingly good, with incredibly catchy songs like 'Deformative' and 'King's Dominion'; but then they found perfection when they released their second album, Cough, two months after their disbanding. It's a difficult listen at first, but when you ease into it, you see how incredible it is.

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Self-Titled

Cough

Chotto Ghetto

I found these guys out while looking at QuoteUnquoteRecords.com, the Label that the dude from Bomb the Music Industry! owns. I expected these guys to be little cutesy ska-punk or folk punk, but I was extremely surprised when I downloaded 'Walk is Godlike' off of their website and found a Progressive Hardcore album that blew my mind, with talent and composition all over the map, I'd definitely suggest this to anyone.

QuoteUnquoteRecords Page - You can download it for free, here. Please do. It's a lot easier, faster, still free, and shows the artist that you care.

Chotto Ghetto Website

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Walk is Godlike - Here's the link to Pirate them on Mediafire, but you might as well download off of their page on QuoteUnquoteRecords. It's still free, it's faster, AND the band can see that you care and are interested in their work.

Brother/Ghost

I saw these guys in Austin, opening for Native and La Dispute. And I must say that these guys are my favorite Post-Rock group that I've heard ever. I just wish I could've known about this album earlier, so I could fall in love with it sooner and put it in my top of 2009 list while it was still 2009. These experimental post-rockers/shoegazers are incredible, and succeed at putting as much emotion as they can in every single note they play, keeping it all genius at the same time. Simply incredible. A definite must-listen, then please please please buy from these guys!

Bandcamp - You can stream/download for free/buy the album and/or tracks here.

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Black Ice - Here's the album on Mediafire, though I REALLY suggest you at least download it at Bandcamp for free if you want to pirate it. At least that way the band knows people are interested. (Just enter 0 in the price after clicking 'Download')

La Dispute

I thought I'd kick off the New Year with La Dispute. These guys are an awesome Michigan-Based Post-Hardcore band with influences from all over the map. From neat art rock, to classic Post-Hardcore, to even emotional hardcore and screamo. They've released a bunch of EP's, and currently only one Full Length, which is Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair.

They've recently released an EP to their Hear, Here series, which is more Spoken Word and minimalism that shows off their lyrical beauty and poetic side of the band. I also wanted to post this since I'm seeing them tomorrow live in Austin with Native. Whoo!

Oh, and if you want, they give all their albums for free on their Bandcamp site.

Bandcamp - Here you can buy/download for free/stream to their entire discography

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Vancouver EP

Untitled 7"

Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair

Hear, Here III EP

I didn't post a couple of Demos and the other two Hear, Here EP's, but you can go to their Bandcamp site or demand them if you really do want to download them.

Dirty Projectors

So these people are the Dirty Projectors. I initially discovered them through their 2007 album Rise Above, a cover album of Black Flag's Damaged. Then their album Bitte Orca was incredibly acclaimed this year, for good reason. It's a pretty awesome album. Not entirely sure how I would describe their sound to someone, though.

The Getty Address

Rise Above
Bitte Orca

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The Blood Brothers

These dudes are seriously awesome. They're an influential Experimental Post-Hardcore band that was around for about 10 years. They're most known for their mixture of chaotic dual vocals (Jordan Billie is deeper, and Johnny Whitney sounds like an abused 5 year old, in the best sounding way possible) and their off-beat and unorthodox guitar by Votolato. They started out as a mixture of Mathcore and Hardcore-Punk, then as they progressed, they became more and more similar to Post-Hardcore, with more poppy and experimental moments. Though that doesn't make them bad, they're still an amazing band, throughout every single album. I really recommend you check them out, or better yet you buy their recently released reissues of all of their LP's.
(The Reissues have all of the original content, plus some B-Sides, Live Content, and DVD's! Each is only for $8! I really recommend buying these and supporting them)

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Buy It (Please Do)
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This Adultery Is Ripe
March On Electric Children
Burn Piano Island, Burn
Crimes
Young Machetes