1. Tell us about the band?

Marching Band was started by Erik and Jacob when we met our first year in college. We called ourselves Second Language back then, and played more acoustic stuff, but the focus on melodies and arrangements were there from the start. We released three home made albums before we got signed in 2007. Right now we’re about to release our second album with U&L Records.

2. Have you ever been fed up with playing music or with band members, why?

Music has been a natural part of our lives all our lives. Jacob had been playing in many bands before and had been recording stuff for several years. And we both have always liked, and still like, the process of making an album. When you get the final CD in your hand it always feels very rewarding and that it’s been worth the trouble of making it.

3. What was your first concert experience? Do you remember how you felt once the concert was over?

Jacob went with his family to a Manhattan Transfer concert i Stockholm when he was about 4 years old. It was held at the big amusement park Gröna Lund and Jacob got lost. It took an hour for the family to find him by the police office because they couldn’t call out for his parents during the concert. He was reading black and white comic books when his family found him. It was probably his strongest experience of feeling rejected and had a deep impact on his personality; always wanting to make sure everyone’s happy and getting along…

4. Did you grow up wanting to play music, or when did the whole making albums thing come about and how?

See #1 and #2.

5. What qualifies you guys to be in a band?

Nothing. We just try hard being one. But we’re OK at dealing with conflicts at least. You have to be when it’s just the two of you.

6. Do you have a favorite song you have ever written? Why?

Our first song “Car” is a really sweet country ballad about a car crash. That first record it’s on will become a collectors item.

7. What is your greatness weakness as a band?

We’re great at not allowing any weak parts in our songs. That’s how we made it this far. Our weakness is probably that our live band members have to tell us to rehearse.

8. What qualities should a successful label or manager have?

Be really, really good with people and no BS. You have to have a great music taste and business sense at the same time.

9. What’s the scariest thing that has ever happened to you in your life?

We’ve both lived very comfortable lives. In South Africa we had to reverse our way away from a flock of elephants standing in the road. That’s the only scary thing we can think of right now. But it was more exciting than scary actually…

Marching Band – For Your Love

10. What’s the first thing you do when the band arrives in a new town while on tour?

Feel confused. Grab whatever free food there is.

11. Have you ever had an audience member give you the willies because they kept looking at you all weird?

No. Only pretty, nice, middle class, well behaved boys and girls at our shows…

12. Have you ever cried while listening to music? If so what were you listening too?

In church when Jacob was about 5 years old he cried when an American gospel choir visited the church he grew up in. It might have been a spiritual experience or just the overwhelming atmosphere they managed to build up in the room.

13. If you could re-record, or re-write any song of yours what would that song be?

Jacob regrets he ever recorded a song called “Waiting” on our first demo. It’s a just a huge cliché.

14. What’s the worst place you have ever played a show at, and why?

We played a night club in Sundsvall in northern Sweden once. There were 800 people in the building, 20 of them were staring at us 30 m away at the bar while the rest were dancing to “Cotton Eye Joe” in the basement.

15. In a perfect world how many albums would you have to sell to be happy?

Just enough to make a living out of it. Real happiness comes from other things. Like friends. Or Swedes winning Olympic gold medals.

16. What do you guys have planned for the future?

The new release with the supporting tours.

17. What music do you listen to when you are having a bad day?

Anything that doesn’t make it worse.

18. If you had your life to live over again, what one thing would you change?

We sing on our new album that we “have no regrets, it’s so hard to accept”. Maybe do some more things we’d regret? Just to know how it feels.

-Visit Marching Band

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Score: 8.2/10
Written By: Bear

Salt Lake City post rock outfit I Hear Sirens blew minds with their first S/T EP. After a three year hiatus they are back with Beyond the Sea, Beneath the Sky and have cultivated their music to the point of near perfection. Every guitar line, drum beat, key note, and bass run is masterfully constructed to form a story book of songs that is easy to get lost in and ripe for wild imaginations. What the band does best is layering instrument upon instrument, while building waves of emotion within the listener with well thought out song structures. Their sound isn’t entirely original, but what is nowadays? Read the full story

We searched the web, and our emails to compile this list that will never quite be finished. Sites we give credit for helping us out are: metacritic.com, punknews.org, thesilentballet.com, pauseandplay.com, and billboard.com. If you are a band or label and would like to see your Album Release up here please contact us at – info at indierockreviews.com

February
2/15/10 – Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson – Puzzle the detective
2/16/10 – Carta – An Index of Birds
2/16/10 – Moon Duo – Escape
2/16/10 – Juliana Hatfield – Peace and Love
2/16/10 – Tindersticks – Falling Down A Mountain
2/16/10 – Motion Turns It On – Kaleidoscopic Equinox
2/16/10 – Wu-Tang – Return of the & Friends
2/17/10 – V/A – Duskscape Not Seen
2/19/10 – Her Name Is Calla – Long Grass EP
2/22/10 – And So I Watch You from Afar – Letters EP
2/22/10 – Efterklang – Magic Chairs
2/22/10: Elephant9 – Walk the Nile
2/22/10 – Robin Guthrie – Sunflower Stories EP
2/22/10 – Koss aka Kuniyuki Takahashi – Ancient Rain
2/22/10 – Valgeir Sigurdsson – Dreamland (Soundtrack)
2/22/10 – Souvaris/Sincabeza – Clown Jazz EP
2/23/10 – Balmorhea – Constellations
2/23/10 – Alkaline Trio – This Addiction
2/23/10 -  Dan Black – ((un))
2/23/10 – Fang Island – Fang Island
2/23/10 – Brian Jonestown Massacre – Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?
2/23/10 – Fan Death – A Coin For The Well (EP)
2/23/10 – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim – Here Lies Love
2/23/10 – Candle Nine – The Muse in the Machine
2/23/10 – Deru – Say Goodbye to Useless
2/23/10 – Alexandre Desplat – The Ghost Writer (Soundtrack)
2/23/10 – N.A.M.B – BMAN
2/23/10 – Danny Elfman – The Wolfman (Soundtrack)
2/23/10 – Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
2/23/10 – Mark Isham – The Crazies (Soundtrack)
2/23/10 – Alan Licht & Loren Connors – Into the Night Sky
2/23/10 – Eluvium – Similies
2/23/10 – Melodium – Palimpse
2/23/10 – Past Lives – Tapestry Of Webs
2/23/10 – Quasi – American Gong
2/23/10 – Jack Rose – Luck in the Valley
2/23/10 – subtractiveLAD – Life at the End of the World

March
3/1/10 – Errors – Come Down With Me
3/1/10 – Loscil – Endless Falls
3/1/10 – Aaron Martin – Worried About the Fire
3/1/10 – Polar Bear – Peepers
3/1/10 – Sone Institute – Curious Memories
3/1/10 – These Monsters – Call Me Dragon
3/2/10 – Clogs – The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton
3/2/10 – Danny Elfman – Alice in Wonderland (Score)
3/4/10 – Stray Ghost – Nothing, But Death
3/9/10 Hadoken – Luminary
3/9/10 – The Knife/Mt. Sims/Planningtorock – Tomorrow, in a Year
3/9/10 – Jatun – Blanket of Ash
3/9/10 – John Powell – Green Zone (Score)
3/9/10 – Simulacra ~ There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood
3/10/10 – Jan Jelinek & Masayoshi Fujita – Bird, Lake, Objects
3/12/10 – Shaking Sensations – This Is Your Hellfire Religion! EP
3/22/10 -  Architect – Consume Adapt Create
3/22/10 – Autechre – Oversteps
3/22/10 – Fabio Orsi – Winterreise
3/22/10 – Harold Budd & Clive Wright – Little Windows
3/26/10 – Greg Haines – Until the Point of Hushed Support
3/29/10 – To Rococo Rot – Speculation
March TBA – Hammock – Chasing After Shadows … Living With the Ghosts
March TBA – Loveliescrushing – CRWTH (Chorus Redux)
March TBA – Metavari – Studies Volume One

April
4/1/10 – Ef – Mourning golden morning
4/5/10 – FNS – FNS
4/5/10 – Jonsi – Go
4/6/10 – Red Sparowes – The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer
4/16/10 – Dustin O’Halloran – Vorleben
4/19/10 – Manual – Drowned in Light
4/20 /10 – When the Clouds – The Longed-For Season

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Score: 8.8/10
Written By: Bear

Once when I was a younger man than I am now, my local cd store had me on hands and knees a couple times a week, squinting at album titles while hoping for a special find. One of these times I happened upon One For The Ride by Rocky Votolato’s first band Waxwing. If I was an archaeologist it would be similar to discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun…. eh, maybe not. But it was exciting, and that release made a huge impression on me with it’s unique orchestrations and wonderful musicianship (Rudy Gadjadhar is one amazing drummer), but what took hold of me most were the vocals. Since that time Rocky’s music and I have had time to grow together. With each release I find myself eager to hear what he has created. Unfortunately Waxwing called it quits around 2002, but, and this is a big “but”, from what I hear the guys have gotten back together and are working on new songs -and so the rumors begin. Let’s return to the task at hand, and that is getting the point across to you, dear readers, that True Devotion finds Rocky Votolato in his finest form. Like a race horse trained solely for the purpose of winning the big prize, so does Rocky Votolato spend months and years, pouring his heart out into songs that once released will hopefully have a huge impact on his fans. Read the full story

Click here to listen to – For Your Love

“For Your Love” is from Marching Band’s superb masterpiece of a debut album Spark Large. We are posting the song as a nice reminder to all of you that the band will be releasing a new full-length album in May via U&L Records entitled Pop Cycle. The vocals of Jacob Lind and Erik Sunbring have affected us with swelling hearts with Spark Large, now the only question is what will they be affecting this time around?

Yessss! It’s time to open up your eardrums and let the glory that is Bluebrain step on into your hearing holes because their delightsome new album Soft Power is released today! It is record release Tuesday ya know. Funny Business is their latest video and I can’t see how it ever got done with all that couch surfing going on.

Directed by Chase Heavener
Produced by: Fiction in association with Jordy Klein Film and Video

-Buy Soft Power
-Visit Bluebrain

Broken Social Scene are releasing a new album, the name shall rename a mystery for now, but the album will arrive on the 4th of May on their long-time label Arts and Crafts label. This time around Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Andrew Whiteman (also of Apostle of Hustle), Charles Spearin, Sam Goldberg, and Reverie Sound Revue vocalist Lisa Lobsinger are the designers of sound. The album was produced by John McEntire of Tortoise and Doug McCombs. Of course there will be a ton of musical guests on the album, like  Feist, Stars’ Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, and Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, Jason Collett, Do Make Say Think’s Ohad Benchetrit, John Crossingham, Marty Kinack, Julie Penner, Leon Kingstone, Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop, Pavement’s Spiral Stairs, Death From Above 1979’s Sebastien Grainger, Poi Dog Pondering’s Susan Voelz, Helen Money’s Alison Chesley and The Weakerthans’ Jason Tait.

Tour Dates announced:

5/1	San Francisco, CA	The Fillmore
5/3	Los Angeles, CA	Henry Fonda Theatre
5/7	New York, NY	Webster Hall
5/13	London, UK	Brixton Academy
5/14	Minehead, UK	All Tomorrow’s Parties
5/17	London, UK	Heaven
5/18	Amsterdam, Netherlands	Melkweg
5/19	Cologne, Germany	Burgerhaus Stollwerck
5/21	Paris, France	La Maroquinerie
6/19	Toronto, ON	Toronto Island Concert

A year and a half after releasing the acclaimed Alopecia LP, WHY? returns with their fourth album, Eskimo Snow (released Sept. 22, 2009). The two records are each other’s perfect foil: While last year’s release found Yoni Wolf and the gang delivering a tight set of intricate rhymes, live loops, slurred hooks and acerbic wit, Eskimo Snow offers a sung, sobering take on mortality that unfurls in lush waves of Americana and pop-infused psych-folk. Pre-mixed in Nashville by Lambchop’s Mark Nevers (Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico) and worked over by Alopecia engineer Eli Crews, this album is WHY?’s most live-sounding yet – a shadowy and sprawling piece as intimate in subject matter as it is handsome in timbre.

WHY? actually recorded Eskimo Snow at the same time as Alopecia, at Minneapolis’ Third Ear studio, with Fog’s Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson rounding out a live quintet. The vision for two separate albums emerged on a snowed-in night after a hot toddy or two. If Alopecia, however inexplicably, maintains a summery tone, then Eskimo Snow captures the bite and resignation associated with the Midwestern winters that these Cincinnati boys grew up with.

“These Hands” opens the album up rich and with deliberate pacing, Doug matching Yoni word-for-word (you’ll find no vocal overdubs here) and the rhythm section operating under heavy reverb. Vibraphone likewise duets with piano, windy wordless vocals fly around the atmosphere, and wet footsteps soon carry us to “January Twenty Something.” Here, you’re in the room with WHY?, listening to the bass rattle the drums and the drums rattle the vibes. Amid this folksy grandness, the whole crew sings for the chorus, bending their harmony into a gorgeously warped drawl. Next, “Against Me” brings the album’s brightest moment yet: a crescendo of bells that eventually dips into an aural whirlpool while Yoni spins picturesque observations like a countrified Dylan.

Across Eskimo Snow, Yoni weighs his ability to create a legacy against life’s transience. On the luxe, pedal-steel-drenched “Even The Good Wood Gone,” he transposes himself with a mummy in a museum, begging, “No flash photography,” drawing a line from the dubious promise of fame to the brittleness of antiquity. For “Into The Shadows Of My Embrace,” he explores sex and decay while the track vacillates between a live wall-of-sound and spare church organ passages. “One Rose” is gentler, sporting a Western stride and dark piano hits whose echoing blackness mimics Yoni’s wistful poems. Toward the song’s end, the chorus of Alopecia’s “A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under” makes a stormy reprise.

Most impressively, this record presents a band uninhibited, but evermore accomplished at imbuing sound with mood. “On Rose Walk, Insomniac” rolls forth on a tempestuous din, Josiah drumming hard through the chorus, where Yoni’s voice sounds like its running through a Leslie speaker. “Berkeley By Hearseback” comes in so soft, the guitar tones feel like waves of grain next to the splashy cymbals and that Jim James-worthy cowboy croon ricocheting through the background. “This Blackest Purse” weaves a melancholy that shirks dourness for a curious smile. And when the titular song brings the album to a hushed close, Eskimo Snow’s place in the narrative becomes clear. Rather than spit at death or threaten it with suicide, Yoni stops bucking against the inevitable. In the process, the band discovers a rich place that the rest of us can happily live within.

WHY?

05/27 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret *#
05/28 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom *#
05/30 Eugene, OR WOW Hall *#
06/02 Oakland, CA New Parish of Oakland *#
06/03 Pomona, CA Glass House *#

* = w/ Josiah Wolf
# = w/ The Donkeys

WHY?
Eskimo Snow
(Anticon)
Sept. 22, 2009

1. These Hands
2. January Twenty Something
3. Against Me
4. Even The Good Wood Gone
5. Into The Shadows of My Embrace
6. One Rose
7. On Rose Walk, Insomniac
8. Berkeley By Hearseback
9. This Blackest Purse
10. Eskimo Snow

WHY? LINKS:

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/whyanticon

Press materials: http://www.anticon.com/pr/why.htm

This is an album with weight. It’s wrapped in a gauze of fuzz, but a fuzz that’s neither yesteryear nor painfully now. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is neither overly modern nor awkwardly vintage, and it contains a depth and bombast that’s not only absent in Frog Eyes’ previous work, it’s absent from most contemporary music.

Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer is equally informed by Scott Walker and Roxy Music, Nuggets collections and the Everly Brothers. But in truth, Frog Eyes’ recordings sound like nothing else but Frog Eyes. In the past the band has lived in a no-man’s-land reserved for musical anomalies, making music championed by discerning critics and discerning artists (fans of Mercer’s songwriting have included at one time or another, John Darnielle, Spencer Krug, Dan Bejar, Jonathan Meiburg and Carl Newman, to name a few). With due respect to the above, the scope and vision of Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is triumphant because it busts so thoroughly out of the ghetto of the clever.

It gets there, in part, because all of the basic tracks, including many of the vocals, were recorded live off the floor, and this approach has captured a rawness, a punk rock spirit too often smother by Pro Tools. Singer/songwriter Mercer’s instantly recognizable howl is ever-present, soaring above the frenetic beats of drummer Melanie Campbell. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is in the canon of “two-guitar” records: the majestic shredding between Mercer and Ryan Beattie recalls everything from Neil Young/Danny Whitten’s work on early Young recordings to Tom Verlaine and even, occasionally, Hendrix. The synths weave in and out of this buzzing wall of sound, and new Frog Eyes member Megan Boddy’s sweet backing vocals are a kind of foil for Mercer’s wail. Mercer’s lyrics are a continuing refinement of warnings and prophecies, threats and terrors, and what he calls “contrapuntal sharp blasts of hope.” As Carl Wilson of Pitchfork put it in his [glowing] review of their 2007 album Tears of the Valedictorian, “[Frontman Carey] Mercer stands in the lineage of rock frontman as half-carnival-barker, half-gnostic-preacher that Greil Marcus describes as the ‘crank prophet,’ from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins through Arthur Lee of Love, Captain Beefhart, David Thomas of Pere Ubu, Tom Waits, and the Pixies’ Frank Black.” Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is Mercer – and Frog Eyes – at their most powerful and self-assured.

We are pleased to share the mammoth opener from Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph. “A Flower in a Glove” encapsulates everything we love about Frog Eyes in just over nine minutes – an epic beginning to a monstrous album.

Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph will be released on April 27th (April 26th in the UK) via Dead Oceans.

Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph Tracklisting:

A Flower in a Glove
The Sensitive Girls
Odetta’s War
Rebel Horns
Lear, in the Park
Styled by Dr. Roberts
Lear in Love
Violent Psalms
Paul’s Tomb

On the heels of their debut release last week, LA art-rock trio, The Happy Hollows, have also premiered their latest video, “Death To Vivek Kemp” today!  Directed by Benjamin Hoste, the stop motion animation clip is accentuated by a barrage of random shapes, paint splatter and a simple water color palate throughout.

Spells is available now courtesy of Autumn Tone Records.

Upcoming Tour Dates: 2/18 Los Angeles, CA – The Smell
3/3 Washington, DC – Black Cat
3/4 Philadelphia, PA – The North Star 3/12 Los Angeles, CA – The Troubadour 3/13 Phoenix, AZ – Trunk Space
3/17 – 3/20 Austin, TX – SXSW   Artist: The Happy Hollows
Album: Spells
Release: OUT NOW!
Label: Autumn Tone Records Myspace: http://myspace.com/thehappyhollows iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/spells/id326185030

Sherwood, purveyors of feel good California rock, will be hitting the road launching a U.S. headlining tour in support of its most recent effort QU. The tour kicks off February 17 in Los Angeles at the famed Roxy Theater.

A Beach Boys-inspired power pop band hailing from San Luis Obispo, California, Sherwood came together in 2002 while the band members were still students at the local university. Now signed to Myspace Records, they’ve released their debut Summer EP followed by two full length releases (Sing, But Keep Going in 2005 and 2007’s A Different Light). Read the full story