Findlay Brown | Heartbreaking Bravery

August 31, 2015

OBN III’s – Let The Music (Stream)

No matter how many times 2015 seems like it’s going to inevitably taper off in terms of outstanding new material, it confronts and defies that notion with an almost extravagant flair. The start of this week’s proved to be no different, making room for strong new full-length efforts from Blank Realm, Widowspeak, August West, Woolen Men, and Findlay Brown. So Young, Dave Monks, Gardens & Villa, Pookie & the Poodlez, Air Waves, and Sharkmuffin injected life into the music video format while a variety of acts unveiled powerful new songs, including Clearance, Frankie Broyles, Slight, Zulus, Wavves, The Garden, Christian Scott (ft. Elena Pinderhughes), and Siouxsie Sioux returned after an eight year absence alongside composer Brian Reitzell with a Bond-ian torch song for the jaw-dropping series finale of Hannibal, one of the most artistically inclined shows to ever air on television.

While it was tempting to throw caution to the wind and completely subvert this site’s established pattern to analyze (and wax ecstatic about) Hannibal and its legacy, the focus of today’s post instead falls to the fiery re-emergence of a band that’s earned praise on this site before: OBN III’s. Embracing a very evident Thin Lizzy influence this time around, full stop, they’ve delivered a rough-hewn reminder of their considerable power. Easily one of the band’s most accessible songs to date, “Let The Music” is seemingly a meta showcase that underlines the band’s own songwriting approach. Even this coy, though, the band finds a moment of deeply impassioned confrontation in the repeated line of “What about my voice?” At first, it’s a question in earnest, and then it’s a surprised echo before it finally becomes a rhetorical rallying cry before it gives way to a guitar breakdown that leads into a searing solo.

Everything packaged together comes off as a unique showcase for a band that’s already earned a devoted following thanks to some relentless touring and an incredible discography. All of the band’s best qualities are in place and the band’s zeroed in on those attributes, maximizing them to startling effect. Grimy, honest, tongue-in-cheek, and unabashedly rock n’ roll, “Let The Music” is the latest in a string of loud victories for OBN III’s and bodes extremely well for the band’s forthcoming full-length, Worth A Lot of Money. A small handful of fairly astonishing tracks from the album have been revealed and with the release date now just a few weeks away, September 14’s going to be a date to remember.

Listen to “Let The Music” below and pre-order Worth A Lot of Money from 12XU ahead of its September 14 release date here.

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August 26, 2015

Mike Krol – Neighborhood Watch (Music Video)

After a relatively slow start, the Tuesday push of new releases saw the content push rapidly accelerating and left us with a little under three dozen items to cover. Once again, there were some strong full streams from great artists like Infinity Girl, Modern Merchant, Wild Moth, Peterborough Pirates, and The Invisible Strings (as well as the 16th LAMC split, this time between La Luz and Scully). A handful of great music videos made their way out into the world, coming from acts like Potty Mouth, Findlay Brown, The Good Life, Django Django, Sea of Bees, Whitewash, and Floating Points. Then, of course, came the slew of single streams that included outstanding new entries from a field consisting of no less than Spencer Radcliffe, Low, Small Black, Sudakistan, Farao, Kevin Devine (covering The Cure), Varsity, Amanda X, Hurry Up, Blonde Summer, Library Voices, Antibodies, Active Bird Community, and Protomartyr. It was a lot to take in and literally everything linked above, as always, is worth checking out- but today’s focus falls to a name new to most but familiar to me: Mike Krol.

For years, Krol’s been involved with the DIY punk scene in the upper Midwest and found himself in frequent collaboration with the tragically under-appreciated (and sadly defunct) Minneapolis-via-Madison act Sleeping in the Aviary. It’s a collaboration that continues today (several of the band’s former members play on Krol’s upcoming Merge debut Turkey), which probably isn’t surprising considering how frequently they toured together (Sleeping in the Aviary was Krol’s backing band on more than one occasion) and the fact that Sleeping in the Aviary literally dedicated a song to Krol in its title on one of the best split 7″ records of the 2000’s.

Already a few great releases into his career, Krol’s deal with Merge has ensured a lot more eyes will be trained on his next few moves and so far, the songwriter hasn’t disappointed. After “This Is the News“, Turkey‘s fiery as hell lead-off track, it was abundantly clear that Krol’s wielding more power than ever- and doing it with an almost vengeful force. For his latest feat, he’s enlisted Rob Hatch-Miller and Puloma Basu to direct a screwball clip for Turkey highlight “Neighborhood Watch”. Adopting a vocal approach that has some uncanny similarities to Davey Jones of Lost Boy ? makes “Neighborhood Watch” sound immediately familiar (and endlessly enjoyable) on record, it’s the clip that pushes it over the edge. Emphasizing Krol’s penchant for irreverence and incorporating a barrage of winking edits, “Neighborhood Watch” infuses itself with enough self-effacing slapstick to make it one of 2015’s more enjoyable outings. For some tongue-in-cheek humor and yet another genuinely great song, this one’s going to be hard to beat.

Watch “Neighborhood Watch” below and pre-order Turkey from Merge here.

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July 21, 2015

Radioactivity – Intro/Battered/Slipped Away (Music Video)

The past handful of days have been keeping 2015’s embarrassment of riches trend alive via outstanding releases in all of this site’s regularly covered categories: single streams, full streams, and music videos. For the sake of brevity, these streams (and the following items) will be listed solely by the artists involved- though all of these links are well worth clicking and reflect strongly on the state of contemporary music.

In the full songs department we received great new items from a handful of artists that included: Reservations, Monogold, Total Makeover, Foals, Hinds, Cowtown, Lithuania, Drinks, Pearl Charles, Connor La Mue, and Museum Mouth. Full stream found strong representation through upcoming releases from Philadelphia Collins, Vundabar, Rat Boy, Ducktails, Feeling Feelings, and Dark Thoughts. Music videos, much like the preceding two categories, had an excessively strong haul with outstanding new clips from Screaming Females, Krill, S, Findlay Brown, Laura Marling, Aaron Taos, Dum Dum Girls, and Kurt Vile. The same feat holds true for today’s featured piece; Radioactivity’s minimal three-track music video that unifies Silent Kill tracks “Intro”, “Battered”, and “Slipped Away” as one visual presentation.

The entire affair, as noted above, is extremely minimal and the premise is incredibly simplistic: Radioactivity plays three songs in a garage warehouse. How its executed is what gives this clip its life; each song brings the cameras progressively closer to the band as they perform before finally drawing in so close that the frame starts incorporating the technicolor exterior tubes to divide the shot in a barebones special effect trick that provides a surprising amount of visual punch. Of course, this being Radioactivity, the songs don’t need a lot of visual finesse to carry through or offer some sort of elevation; they’re already just about perfect. A compact blast teeming with the band’s characteristically snarling energy, this is a video that embraces their no-frills attitude and emphasizes what makes the band truly great.

Watch “Intro/Battered/Slipped Away” below and order the band’s excellent Silent Kill from Dirtnap here. For those of you in the Brooklyn area, you can catch the band at Baby’s All Right on July 30. Tickets for the show can be ordered here.

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