New Music: Wild Cub- Drive

Wild Cub are a dream pop band from Nashville Tennesse who recently released their debut album  Youth. The group have also just released a video for their single Drive. The beautiful romanticism of the song more than compliments the black & white music video that features a couple enjoying each others company as they watch fireworks and spend a day at the beach. Watch below.

Wild Cub's debut album, Youth, is available now and you can pick it up on the duo's Bandcamp page.




Wild Cub "Drive" (Official Video) from Wild Cub on Vimeo.

Favourite Songs: Slowdive- When the Sun Hits

Slowdive are a band that have been off my radar for a long time and I didn't think I would ever really here about this group again.  Band leader Neal Halstead and Rachel Goswell seemed content on touring with Mojave 3 and who knows where some of the other members of the band ended up. That's why it was surprising to hear Halstead state in a recent interview with MTV Hive that he was open to a Slowdive reunion. He went on to say that he is still on good terms with the other band members and keeps in regular contact with them. The interviewer asked Neal what it would take to get Slowdive back together and his response was "shitloads of money, you know." I hope he was joking.

I am of the opinion that if a band has a reunion they should record new material and not just tour to cash a big pay cheque. So may bands have gotten back together lately including The Stone Roses, Pulp, Peter Hook & The Light (Joy Division), and The Pixies and they have not given us any new songs. The only exception is Blur.

Anyways, while reading the interview it reminded me how great of a shoegaze band Slowdive were and it prompted me to re-visit the band's best album Slouvaki. Slowdive formed in 1989 and they rode on the coattails of other great shoegaze bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. After the release of their first album, Just for a Day, the band were critically maligned because there seemed to be a backlash against shoegaze at the time with the rise of Britpop in England.

In 1992, Slowdive started to record their new album Souvlaki with the help of Brian Eno. Eno was brought in after the original batch of 40 or so songs that were written were scrapped and the band had to start all over again. Creation Records head Alan McGee wanted the group to make a pop record and Halstead agreed. Eno was brought in-not to produce-but to collaborate, but only ended up playing on two songs-Sing and Here She Comes. The album was a critical and commercial failure and in America the record label SBK abandoned the band by pulling all of their funding halfway through their U.S. tour.

Most of the tracks on Slouvaki seemed to be written as love songs and the lyrics showed a growing maturation in the songwriting of Halstead. Nowhere is this more clear than on the single When the Sun Hits. The lyrics aside, the swooping guitars really make the song into a shoegaze masterpiece. I think the single is one of the best Dreampop songs ever written. Listen to the song below.

I think most people today agree that critics who got swept up in the Britpop movement in the early 90's were a little too harsh on Slowdive. Today they are a respected band and have influenced countless of modern day groups including M83, The Pains of Being Pure at Heat and Asobi Seksu. If they get back together and they play Toronto I will be there in a heartbeat. Lets hope they also record some songs.

Souvlaki was re-issued on vinyl in 2011 which you can buy at Amazon or check your local record store. Also, you can buy the album on iTunes.

Slowdive- When The Sun Hits

Her Vanished Grace- Star Crossed

It's always fun to discover what you think is a great new band but isn't actually new at all. This is the case with Brooklyn dream & power pop band Her Vanished Grace who have been making music for close to twenty years and are just as contemporary now as when they first started.

Married couple Charlie and Nancy Nieland started as a duo in 1987 that played goth and new wave music. Over the years they added new band members to evolve into it's current incarnation which is a mix of alternative rock, dream pop and shoegaze. The band have released twelve albums to date and one of the couple's biggest accomplishments was scoring the Dermot Mulroney/Glen Close movie The Safety of Objects.

Star Crossed is Her Vanished Grace's latest album and features a mix of big hooky pop songs backed by thundering drums and a haze of swirling guitars.

The first single off the album is called Car Crash and reminds one of Brit bands Ride, Lush or even early Blur. The music video for the song has the band playing against a backdrop of psychedelic images which you can watch below.

The second track on the album, Fade Away, is an anthemic duet between Charlie and Nancy that sounds an awful like Joshua Tree era U2, if the Edge used a lot more distorted guitar.

Another favourite track from the album is the song Turn it Over which features Nancy Nieland living out her inner Elizabeth Fraser fantasy. The Cocteau Twins like song is easily the beautifulest of all of the dream pop tracks on the album.

After hearing this album, I am now a big fan of Her Vanished Grace and will be checking out their back catalogue. Not sure why these guys didn't break out like some of their Brooklyn contemporaries but they do deserve a bigger listening audience.

You can stream Star Crossed below via Soundcloud or on Bandcamp which also has the band's back catalogue. You can also buy a physical release of the album over at CD Baby.

New Music: The Luyas- Fifty Fifty

Montreal band The Luyas have released a new song called Fifty Fifty, which is the first single off of their upcoming new album Animator. Featuring lead singer Jessie Stein's sugar sweet voice, it sounds like the band have evolved from experimental pop to a more accessible dream pop sound.

The follow up to last year's Polaris long listed record Too Beautiful To Work, Animator features production from Pietro Amato, Jase Lasek of Besnard Lakes and horn and string arrangements from Arcade Fire's Sara Neufeld.

Animator will be released October 16th via Paper Bag and on Dead Oceans outside of Canada.

Download the new song Fifty Fifty below via Soundcloud.

New Raveonettes Single

Danish Shoegazers the Raveonettes have released a new single called Observations. The single's sound indicates that nothing has changed much musically from their last few albums. Who is complaining....it is still Sharin Foo's beautiful voice backed by Sune Rose Wagner's jangly guitar.
The band have announced a new album called Observator to be released on September 11th. They have also announced a tour and will be at The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto on October 2nd. I plan to be there!!!

Listen below


Raveonettes-Observations