Ragged guitar, lo-fi production, cool keyboards with slippage and astounding songwriting rescue State & Stereo from over-polished indie-rock oblivion … read more
Local Review: State & Stereo – The Reservoir
Local Review: Spooky Deville – Breathe Transylvania
Spooky Deville Breathe Transylvania Self-Released Street: 10.2006 Spooky Deville = Graveyard Shift + Conombre Zombi These boys play some decent psychobilly. They are pretty typical of what is going on in the genre right know, almost all psycho and no billy. They do a really good job at using lead singer Dozer’s booming voice. The
Local Review: Silent Sevens – Self-Titled
Silent Sevens Self-Titled Self-Released Street: 05.29 Silent Sevens = Fountains of Wayne + Smash Mouth Campy. It might not be the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the Silent Sevens’ self-titled release. No. Campy is definitely the right word. Simple instrumentation reminiscent of a Fountains of Wayne
Local Review: Sinthesis – Movement 4:6
Sinthesis Movement 4:6 Raincloud Records Street: 10.31 Sinthesis = Deep Puddle Dynamics + Red Hot Chili Peppers The vibrant underground hip-hop scenes of the east and west coasts have slowly permeated into the North American interior, sadly Utah has yet to learn from its Midwestern contemporaries how to foster an inclusive hip-hop community. Sinthesis is
Local Review: Skellum – Boxelders
Skellum Boxelders Self-Released Street: 05.28 Skellum = Infected Mushroom + Beats Antique Although a few of the songs on the album sound as if Zelda magically appeared in a rave, it is very well made and has a smooth, experimental electronic sound. The details in songs like “Covert Operations” and “Moments” make the album
Local Review: Spell Talk – Rough
Spell Talk Rough Self-Released Street: 09.26.12 Spell Talk = Black Keys + De Stijl–era White Stripes It’s too bad Spell Talk broke up following this release, because their down n’ dirty rock n’ roll went straight for the guts and would’ve won a “vintage sound” contest any day. Rough has a distinguished, antique sound that’s
Local Review: Starbass – Self-Titled
Steve Comeau, a community-involved Canadian transplant, launches us to Starbass with a great collection of futuristic, danceable dubstep tracks. … read more
Local Review: Simian Greed – Self-Titled
The album opens with the bass-heavy “Epic,” a song that took a moment to grow on me. What I initially took to be butt-rock vocals were in fact Lee Ving–styled yells and croons. “Different Circles” has the same aspects of Ving-meets-Danzig vocals. … read more
Local Review: Silver Antlers – All a River
It is really wonderful to hear some new work from Skyler Hitchcox, the guiding light behind Silver Antlers. To the uninitiated, Silver Antlers is heavily ritualized pop music that explores the endless possibilities of dreamy, shoegazy drone that seeks to communicate with something bigger than ourselves inside ourselves. … read more
Local Review: Spörk – Spörk 2.Ö
Sometimes good things come in twos, and the second release by local self-proclaimed “stoner rock” duo Spörk—the embodiment of synthetic, petroleum-based fast-food flatware—the musical equivalent of what passes for “journalism” in frontman Bill Frost’s television-addicted, sarcasm-singed, tube-top addled mind… … read more
Local Review: Sparx – Ignition LP
Despite being personally convinced that most people try to make electronic music just to be able to say they do—if I hear “Hi, I’m a DJ” one more time I may scream—there are exceptions when someone can legitimately produce something worth listening to a few times, which is the case here. … read more
Local Review: Sights – Sonder
Sonder is a great improvement on Sights’ still pretty great debut EP, Mammoth. From a pure songwriting perspective, I think these guys are catching up with Eons (R.I.P.) in the race for who can put out the best post-hardcore music in Salt Lake. … read more
