Christmas bells are a powerful weapon. They can be wielded to inspire mid-season gift-slacking guilt, to grate at the ears of weary mall shoppers, or to strike dread into young adults who just realized they're going to have to hang out with their parents for the better part of a week. They can also be used to dress up some seriously dreamy guitar pop. Manchester's complement to the Dum Dum Girls, PINS slide their buzzy vintage aesthetic into a mellower holiday mold on "Kiss Me Quickly (It's Christmas)." The result's...
Remember Q and not U, those tight-jeaned, stage-stomping art punks that followed Interpol on tour midway through the aughts? They've since dispersed into memory, but half of their roster has teamed up again to churn out new tunes of a mellower stock. In contrast to Q and not U's frenetic, thrashy post-hardcore, Paint Branch (the collective moniker of longtime friends and collaborators John Davis and Chris Richards) stir up spacious, meditative alt-rock that's just barely spiked with their Dischord heritage. Between...
![Crooked Fingers - Bad Blood [Video]](/thumbs/post/320x152/crooked-fingers.png)
What happens when chain-smoking cherubs grow all the way up? Like most child stars, the angel on the cover of Van Halen's 1984 inherits a miserable, broken adulthood populated by day-drinking and unquenchable loneliness. The newest video from Crooked Fingers for "Bad Blood" (off their 2011 record...
![Jack Davey - L0-F! D'lux [Album Stream]](/thumbs/post/320x152/jack-davey1.png)
The electric Jack Davey, one half of electronic soul duo J*DaVeY, has kept busy this year with the release of two solo EPs and the recent premiere of the visuals for "Shit Gets Deep" here on EARMILK. Today marks the release of Davey's crown jewel, her debut solo project, L0-F! D'lux. The creative...
![Jack Davey - Shit Gets Deep [Video Premiere]](/thumbs/post/320x152/jack-davey.png)
J*DaVeY's magnetic frontwoman Jack Davey raised many eyebrows when she announced plans to embark on a solo career. With plenty of talent and charisma to boot the move was a logical one and opened the door for Davey to showcase her versatility as singer-songwriter and offer listeners something...
Well this is all a bit self-referential. Once upon a time, Danger Mouse placed himself on the map for-ever when he came up with the idea of putting a capella Jay-Z tracks over beats he created from samples off the Beatles' The White Album. His final product? The Grey Album, probably one of...
![Sigur Rós - Varúð [Video]](/thumbs/post/320x152/sigur-ros.png)
When the last of the bombs stop falling, what'll you do with the world that you're left with? Ask the inner visions of Björn Flóki, the latest director featured in Sigur Ros's wild and varied Mystery Film Experiment. With Valtari's third track "Varúð" as both inspiration and...
![Bad Cop [CMJ Band]](/thumbs/post/320x152/bad-cop.png)
Tennessee does a different sort of blues rock, and Bad Cop has taken the southern, hot-amp sound to a place most people wouldn't take it. Adam Moult entered the elevator of blues rock, ran his fingers up and down all the buttons, threw a Molotov cocktail into the roof, and let the fire rain down...
