Music

If there was ever a time for good ole throwback hip hop, 2006 is it. However, the usually dependable Jurassic 5 do not quite quench the thirst like they’re usually known to do. On their third LP, Feedback, the group strays from tradition and give us an album with mixed results and feelings.

Hailing from California and conceived in upstate NY, the Rosewood Thieves‘ debut, From the Decker House, reeks of Lennon, Dylan, The Band, and the glorious early ’70s as seen through the lenses of a twenty-year-old kid who has to look back thirty years to find kinship with the sounds in his head.

In the early to mid-’90s there was a crew that brought nothing but hard rhymes and grimy beats. Collectively they were known as the Boot Camp Clik; independently, they included the likes of Black Moon, Heltah Skeltah, O.G.C., and Smif-N-Wessun.

The sophomore EP from Texas’ Bosque Brown (a royal sounding moniker behind which Mara Lee Miller resides) is a touching and soft, yet short sampling of her small town folk songs.

The exquisite Honeysuckle kicks off with smoky songstress Suzie Kerstgens proclaiming, “This is for everyone.” And truth be told, the part English, part German album is. Eighties nostalgia seekers will revel in the New Order and Faint smatterings of “Gold” and the krautrocky “My Secret.”

Of all the unlikely sub-genres to gain notoriety as of late, the female indie pop star searching for her inner Emmylou Harris gang has gotten tremendously bloated. Jenny Lewis’ Rabbit Fur Coat opened the floodgates for coy chanteuses who are dying to don cowboy hats, and that’s not a good thing.

If the March release of a new Mogwai record makes you feel as though life is just a little bit too happy-go-lucky, and you feel like there is just not enough depressing sense of imminent doom in your life, bop on out to the record store again to pick up the new instrumental masterpiece from Japan’s Mono.

Where do you go when you’re a heavy contender on the early indie/emo/hardcore scene that has spent years pummeling kids in sweaters and heavily patched up backpacks with your aggressive brand of rock? You throw in the towel or try to hide your rock roots and you let your freak flag fly by finally saying “Fuck it” and deciding to sound like AC/DC.

The third release from Oklahoma avant-garde pop band Starlight Mints delves even deeper into obscurity. Armed with an arsenal of musical instruments that far surpasses your run-of-the-mill indie pop band, listening to Drowaton becomes more of a musical journey than you may have bargained for.

Imaad Wasif has been making some of the most heartfelt, creative and emotionally intense music for over a decade, you might just not recognize his name. What you might remember was the sometimes two-piece, sometimes three-piece gloomy indie rock institution known as Lowercase that Wasif headed as vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, or more recently you may have seen him touring with his band alaska! or playing guitar for the New Folk Implosion.

Eloquence and sunshine swirls about in the latest from this cherubic Scottish outfit. Like water off a duck’s back, the miseries of the world are repelled by The Life Pursuit, a plucky foray into Burt Bacharach territory.

Following an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” motto,  The Sounds unleash another ovaries-out barrage of New Wave female furor. Front woman Maja Ivarsson can simultaneously seduce an audience while conjuring up a saucy feminist spirit.