With as much bombast as you've heard since Matt and Kim's "Daylight", Phantogram's surprise new single, "Don't Move" rises and falls, heaving with energy and possibility. The band's trademark guitars - here, think of the warmth of "Mouth Full of Diamonds" - creep in the back of the mix while a buzzing, snapping downbeat maintains a benevolent dictatorship amongst horn punches and vocal samples that spill from every angle like MC Escher free-hand drawing a waterfall. The edict is about stasis, a laughable prospect as the song comes out of its final break with the lyrics, "all I know how to do is shake, shake/ keep your body still, keep your body still". The arrangement swells and moves with a force of nature, your head now part of the equation, moving up and down in time.
"Home" was the last song LCD Soundsystem would ever make, the final track on their allegedly final record. This fatalism rang appropriate. For most Americans 2010 was an age of increasing anxiety and for James Murphy, it was a year he sold the most records of his career and wrote, "Home," about his dead friend Jerry Fuchs who fell down an elevator shaft in Bushwick in late 2009. It was a modern answer to David Byrne's "This Must Be The Place," a dissatisfied take on satisfaction, or a very sophisticated translation of the platitudes about being happiest right where you are. But, Byrne was trying to talk himself into a women, a slacker's manual for how to fall in love. Murphy was just squinting to see the cocoon of human relationships that surrounded him. He spent most of 2007 asking where the hell his friends were. In 2010, James Murphy figured out they were there the whole time.
The verses address Murphy's place as a weary social meteorite on the New York scene, the coolest of the late night kids who aren't kids anymore. He reflects, "Yeah, do it right/and head again into space/so you can carry on/and carry on/and fall all over the place," his take on Byrne's blithe, "I guess I must be having fun." These late nights have worn him down, if not out. You see him nodding his head in a DJ booth at 3am, a mixture of champagne and bourbon in his glass, while he confides his need to "shut the door on terrible times, this his "trick to forget a terrible year." The keys and synths remain amoral, neither supporting this misery nor the nights out that Murphy used to overcome it.
Amidst all this pain lies a complicated pathos. Murphy knows he is actively ignoring his age and his emotional fragility on the wrong side of 40, divorced and too many empty bottles left under the colored lights. Yet, he asks the central question: "What would make you feel better?" The answer is a self-directed admonition as Murphy pleads, "You might forget the sound of a voice/still you should not forget/yeah, don't forget/the things that we laughed about." We rolled on the floor like children, he muses, but then you need to get home safely because we can't afford to lose each other. People make this work. People fill his life.
In his most obvious nod to Byrne's search for "Home," Murphy reaches the same conclusion in almost the same words, "So I guess I'm already there." He closes with a promising reminder, "If you're afraid of what you need, look around you/you're surrounded/it won't get any better ... until the night." It took a less naive melody to arrive at this final song about being surrounded by friends. What makes him feel better is this invisible fabric he has taken all too often for granted. These long nights out aren't the sound of impending age and death; they are the life blood of a man who has built and tied his life to this scene and these people. He sees it now in the final moment. His friends are right here.
This is one of those stories that deserves a full narrative arc. It starts in the spring of 2009 when demo versions of Marina's seminal meditation on Humanity, "I Am Not A Robot" drop through UK publicists to US music outlets. The song is, of course, a complete stunner and crushes us immediately. The remixes prove just as valuable. This will later be a running joke: Guess what? Still not a robot.
Fast-forward to the winter of 2009-10 (Frightened Rabbit will suggest this is The Winter of Mixed Drinks, a name for which the jury is still out), and Marina's debut record leaks on the US market like a hurricane leaks into a major metropolitan area. People are destroyed, concerned parties look for shelter. And it is into this mess that another voice steps. Rumors begin to circulate about a remix of "Robot" so good it will get its own single release. We are used to the hyperbole and yet, this is different. The rhetoric is that of earnestly surprised, stunned insiders. Clock Operareflects overhis twitter about the profound excitement surrounding this recording. This is not particularly surprising. But like a bad teen murder movie about a cursed cassette tape, anyone who hears this thing is immediately killed by it. We wait.
Minutes before heading to the airport in late March, a copy of the remix hits my hard drive. It is a complete recasting of the original with a chopped, stunning chorus made of found parts. Never pick up. Anything. You don't ring ring run. The nonsense speaks. Guess what? Still not a robot. Prepare to be human, remixed.
Every year SXSW yields a few bands who walk away with some real momentum. Of course, this over simplifies a process that includes many outstanding bands, label executives punishing their expense accounts and a ton of glad-handing and back-slapping. Ultimately, for all the business discussions and networking, we are left with the few bands who get to use this Brokedown Palace-business model to their advantage. Last year, we suggested that Local Natives would come stormingout of SXSW. This year, meet Blair.
Blair is one of those trans-continental stories, new to Brooklyn, from New Orleans, spent some time in LA. Her music is cute without being cloying, managing to deal in enough heartbreak to evoke a more modern and less slutty Liz Phair, or a substantially grungier Leslie Feist. "Heart" turns into a massive, whirring pathos, after a beginning of shabby 90s guitars and bright keyboards. The haunting pre-chorus, repeating, "it's different, I mean it, wake up, it's different," will stay with you well past the song's slated running time of just under four-minutes. The more straight-forward "Hello Halo" is a little slice of uptempo, lo-fi, showcasing Blair's vocals and a hook that unapologetically indicates, "Got a radio in my head." You absolutely have to believe her. Our radios are in our chests, and we're in love with this. Let's check back in December, but this is her year now.
Indie rock has undeniably been stumbling towards having some hints of hip-hop influences. Perhaps it began with Matt and Kim's "Daylight," only to continue with Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is The Move," and buoyed by Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks." Hell, even, The Big Pink's"Dominos" could have been turned into a slow-ride hip-hop cut. So it is no surprise that Ontario's First Rate People have churned out a bouncy, ebullient summer jam, "Girls' Night." The boy-girl vocals operate on different planes but eventually overlap, again and again, like two people having unrelated, and yet topically similar phone conversations in an airport lounge. The verses, a cold-medicine yip delivery, find themselves advancing behind picked guitars, whirring keyboards and a surprisingly layered arrangement. Hip-hop or not, "Girls' Night" is enough head-nod to break your neck off.
Julian Casablancasallegedly saved rock and roll in 2001. The Strokes hit New York, stummbled around on Ludlow, destroyed at the Mercury Lounge and rebuilt the downtown scene, or at least found an image of it that we liked to believe existed. By 2009, Casablancas wasn't interested in saving anyone, although, he was positioned uniquely to reflect on a decade he helped build. In this spirit, he released a solo record and this time, told us things we didn't want to hear.
If Is This It was the thesis statement for a whole generation of kids who didn't have one, Phrazes For The Young was the unfortunate afterglow of a generation that mindlessly accepted those truths. Casablancas no longer tried to define an epoch, he was almost beyond it and us. This go-round, the savior wouldn't have a message of hope and salvation; more likely a message of apocalypse and emotional superficiality. You aren't a generation of kids in skinny jeans. You are simply overprotected. You are behind bulletproof glass.
On Phrazes, Casablancas waited until track eight to unleash "Glass," the crashing and seminal statement of purpose. Sonically, it reflects the classic and futuristic influences that run rife through the record, its art, and its artist. It is a wheeling, synthesized meditation until it explodes into an arena-chorus. Casablancas' vocals soar behind us, as the biggest chord progression of 2009 pounds underneath. The bridge proves to be a massive, post-metal, baroque breakdown. Eventually, using a guitar in harpsichord fashion, we find the third verse. The final two trips through the chorus are the most moving, with Casablancas finally settling into mournful, "ohs." The track slips away from us and we wait for something else. There is no resolution, just this.
The message is simple: You can't be tough and delicate. You can't be protected and experienced. As a generation, if you've been cushioned from everything, you can't claim a wealth of pain and depth. If you've been kept behind bulletproof glass, you are little more than a display item. Casablancas encourages us, "pretty baby," to get behind our protective covering, "where it's safe." Later, he soars, "Bulletproof glass, you won't have any troubles now/But who knows?" The impact is clear. In our effort to protect ourselves, we have successfully cut ourselves off. We travel from place to place in our protective bubbles, occasionally bumping into one another, with little consequence or responsibility. I can't be hurt. You can't be hurt. We can't feel anything. We are all alone in our personal snow globes.
He closes with the following reflection: "Dominance and loyalty/Romance and security/Just stay behind bulletproof glass." We can't be dominant and completely loyal. We cannot have romance and complete security. These are the facts and Casablancas proposes no solution. After all, we've been stuck behind these walls for too long. Not only have we kept others out, we might have locked ourselves in. This time, we're not looking for a band to define us. We're being encouraged to define ourselves. Our greatest risk, to encounter risk for the first time. But who knows.
Marina and the Diamonds have been on our radar for a long, long time. In fact, it dates to a demo version of "Obsessions" we put on a mixtape in early 2008. The immediate feedback was something like, and I'm paraphrasing here, "It's good but it seems like a roughed around Regina Spektor." Well, it was a sort-of compliment and amazingly short-sighted. Today, we are leveled by the video for her latest single, "Hollywood" from coming epic, The Family Jewels. We don't write about much that has a chance to smash radio but this, this is going to be big. This song has a chance to go top ten at AAA and Hot AC radio. This song is about to be everywhere. But today, it's just here, for the moment, at less than 300 plays on youtube. Watch this blow up, I promise.
A more coherent, analytic assessment reveals why this is ready to explode. It has instantly singable lines with some cultural signifiers dropped in (the Shakira/Zeta line). It addresses the rapid decline and yet complete attraction of the American Empire. She is a Marie Antoinette for an infected American monarchy. And she's Welsh. Marina, as it happens, is stunningly beautiful and seems to relish every minute of the breath before being super-famous. Because that's what this is: The minute before things get completely out of control and you're suddenly performing at huge venues and playing late-night shows and the VMA pre-show. This is that moment, a breath before one of the most memorable choruses of the year. Soak. it. in.
High school yearbook pages are deservedly notorious for their questionable content. Mine committed none of the following common mistakes: 1) I did not profess my love to a girl that I would stop speaking to within months. 2) I did not make any inside jokes. 3) I did not post some picture of kids at a party under the supposed coolness of having a "party picture" in the yearbook with the school's name on the front. 4) I did not overly graciously thank people, though perhaps this would have been nice and appropriate. 5) I did not reference any athletic championships or ever use the phrase: "Champs! They can't take it from us, baby!"
I did, however, commit the following act of adolescent solipsism: I made clear my disdain for authority. To paraphrase: you're time is over, old people. Of course, I was singing the anthem of youth, something that can only fade and look somewhat ridiculous years later. So when The Ghost Is Dancing thud through your speakers or headphones, you need to hear it with a more youthful ear. We are fighting against something. These people are ruining our generation. Authority cannot be trusted implicitly. Like a more frustrated and poppy Los Campesinos, this is big-scale pop music, a battle cry for people for who can say, "let's fight those bastards down" without blinking. Pounding drums, a call to action and the youthful mistrust of everyone who has an ounce of power - it's frankly beautiful.
Back in January '09 we suggested that Two Door Cinema Clubwould be a good band to check out. We even suggested that this might be "their year." Of course, we were only dealing with demos and a crafty looking video back then. Now 10-months later, they've stormed the palace, taken the guards hostage and terrified the royal family with lead-single "I Can Talk." If commercial success can be viewed as a violent political coup (and yes, yes it can), this is what it would sound like.
"I Can Talk" is overwhelmingly slick on the first listen. A combination of vocal-loops, Editors-styled high-fret-board guitars and a stomping, Saturday-night chorus, the band discovers something larger than its previous angular, if delicate, songs. This isn't some indie rock song you put on your headphones when your brain is waxing existential and your heart all ripped up about something that almost certainly doesn't matter. This is a dance-song to storm your ears when the sun is down and the wolves are out. It's about the powers of speech. It's a little Bloc Party, a little Postal Service - choppy, dance-rock with a back-beat to kick your doors in. You know, if this was a coup or something.
We posted the video for Wolf Gang's newest single, "The King and All of His Men" last week but we've got the mp3 today. It is the end point, or maybe a beginning, of a months long process towards their debut record. "The King and All of His Men" delivers every ounce of the promise of previous demos ("Nightflying") and smash-single "Pieces of You." This is the sound of a break out. This is the moment right before a band gets very, very popular. I've been telling you to listen to this band for months. It's not entirely too late.
We wrote up Wolf Gang back at the beginning of March. We predicted that they would blow up this year or next. While it's hard to predict an exact timetable for success, new single "Pieces of You" is certainly a step towards that eventuality.
First, the minuses. The recording quality is still low. We'll imagine this is intentional or maybe necessary. We'll imagine that at some point, someone will give these guys enough money to clean up the recordings. Remember the first Black Kids' demos? They showed promise but sounded like they were recorded in a bathtub. Wolf Gang, for all its ambitious sound and arrangement, will need to clean up their records. Bear this in mind when one of your friends plays you an over-produced version of this song (or another by the band) in 9-months. This is the fun part. You were there at the beginning ... sort of.
The pluses: This song is great - really great. Wolf Gang is perfectly lush and flourishing, while never losing momentum. The verses have a no-nonsense down-beat and the chorus is soaring. The lyrics: "You think that you understand/I've got pieces of you in my hands" don't do justice to the sweeping melody which might be one of the best of 2009. Let me put it simply: if you're not listening to this now, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't ask for a lot. Listen to this.
I don't know anything about Alex Metric. If you rewind 72 hours, this song was blaring out of enormous speakers on the third-floor of a walk-up house in Central Pennsylvania. Some girl walked in and told us to turn it down. Excuse me. It's awfully loud. Can you just turn it down ...
No. Get your head straight. This is the new Young Love. This might be the song of the year.
Nothing inspires heated debate quite like the Middle East. Let's clarify: nothing quite inspires heated debate like Israel and Palestine. And no place is more at the center of this debate than Jerusalem. So, the idea that a band would claim ownership by proxy of their name is a lot to handle. Frankly, would you even want the responsibility of it being "your" Jerusalem? My Jerusalem? Without being too offensive, wouldn't an American example be "My Detroit?" It's broken. It's yours. Now fix it.
Now that every Zionist and Liberation front nightmare is on edge, this is the most moving piece of indie rock I've heard in a while. It reminds me a of a National record slow-dancing with Beulah's catalogue. You could even make the Wilco comparison when comes to the sad-sack horns. But this isn't Jeff Tweedy's painkiller hangover. Listen to the shrieking pre-chorus before the arrangement spirals into something vaguely orchestral. This is what indie rock is supposed to sound like. The National reference is a piece of creepy deja-vu in the bridge as the lead-singer repeats: "we will not suffer mistakes of our fathers/chariots take us away." It's not "I won't fuck us over/I'm Mr. November" but it's damn close.
In a moment that is right out of Pela'sAnytown Graffiti, the arrangement erupts into churning strings, resolving organ chords, and then, finally, an incredibly moving (and rough) set of double-tap drums. It's almost the last thing you hear as the whole mess fades to black. It's not perfectly recorded but it's not supposed to be. This is about taking responsibility for something that is intentionally not perfect.
The Joy Formidable is a tempting bit of pronounciation. Is it the strict and tight English version? The. Joy. Formidable. Or is it the French, loose and mouth-full-of-marbles? Four-me-da-bleu. La Joix Formidable. It's possible.
But forget what the name sounds like, the band sounds like a more chunky Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but if Karen O and Nick Zinner split some vocal duties in some kind of boy-girl democracy. It's intense. It's a little over-the-top. It's the kind of thing that could be extremely important in Europe and never make it here at all. So say it how you want to say it. And say it a little louder. The Joy Formidable.
In a few hours we're going to roll out the beginnings of our Top 50 Songs of the Year. It's not an exact science and you can be sure some mistakes will be made. But in this crazy cocktail of indie-pop, alternative rock, and electro-clash/smash/disco whatever, you've got something that looks like a Power Poll. These are the songs you want to go to war with, in order of strength; taking into consideration quality, pop-aesthetic, and emotional impact. We want to be lifted up or broken down and these 50 had a little something to do with both. A few things are immediately clear, so here are some observations and rules before we get started:
1) It was a hell of a year for music.
2) In order to qualify for the list, the song has to be from an album released in calender year 2008. This means that songs that came out in another form or leaked before 2008 are still eligible. Does this mean I'm late to the party on all this stuff? Absolutely not. Go back and check the record. So, I'll use their official release dates for ease and simplicity's sake - but when it comes to stuff like (oh ... I don't know) Vampire Weekend, yes, sadly, most people just got to know them in 2008. Making them eligible whether you like it or not. It also means that Radiohead is out. Official release dates for digital and physical releases of In Rainbows were both in 2007. This is just full disclosure.
3) This is not a list of singles. Songs don't have to have been released as individuals. Which means, I'm free to pick songs that never got the single treatment - even leaving off the true "single" from the record. Call The Stills and apologize now: "Being Here" didn't make the cut but something else did. Same goes for Bloc Party, Mates of State, Friendly Fires and a few others. The singles you put out weren't the best songs on your record. True story.
4) It was a hell of a year for music and this selection process was more than difficult. Now, let's rock and get to the bottom of what was the deepest year since 2004. Let the arguments begin ...
A) I would disappear for days, maybe even weeks on end. Well, there it is. I left and now I'm back. I told you the absence would be unexplained so ... there it is. No explanation. Take it or leave it.
2) That I would post major label leaks. And get threatened. Notice that Killers post about "Spaceman" just up and disappeared? Yeah, thanks Island Records and Blogger.com. Great work everyone. Good hustle all around. If you're clever you can still find the song out there.
D) I said I would find a good band that a lot of you didn't know about. I said it would rocket me out of my blog malaise and get me, somehow, against the odds, excited about music again. That band is here.
I'd by lying if I said this band would be huge. I can't promise that. In fact, in an alternative rock universe already over-saturated with dance-rock bands who abuse their keyboards like ADD-kids and their action figures, I can't promise this band will ever even tour extensively in the United States. Their closest musical relative is The Winter Kids and we saw them once in New York and then they never came back. There was no real excuse for them not getting bigger than they were. So, we've been burned before. But, it's worth noting that Official Secrets Act has that same level of energy and that same level of excitement. And with all of the above being said: This should. still. be. big.
"So Tomorrow" has the most frantic high-hat dance-rock beat you'll hear this year. It's going to be absolute murder on their drummer when they have to close their set with this night in and night out. Add the urgency of a keyboard riff crying out fire in a crowded movie theater and you've gotten yourself part of the way there. Yelling background vocals and a chorus that is as repetitive as it is infectious make this one of the better rock songs of the last 10-months. And all of it is only the loose, rather skeletal organization of a song that relies far more on its energy than the brilliance of its design. This song is far more hustling swingman than 7-foot center with a mid-range game.
By the time you're in the home stretch and the lead-singer is yelling, "all this waiting/just might kill me" you've hit a level of frenetic that is usual reserved for seizure, neon dance parties, and Japanese children's early morning cartoons. The facts are that this song is going to absolutely level you in the its final 90-seconds and it doesn't have to be rational. After all, this is just a little dose of insanity. The first lyrics? "Are you out of your mind?" Answer: Yes. No. Yes.
Empire Of The Sun sounds like it should come directly after a colon and the words "The Mummy 4." Actually, they're another synthed-out (potential) waste of space, throw-back. I mean, at what point are we going to get sick of all this 1980s revivalist shit? No matter how well it's being done now, it's definitely been done before. Duran Duran was awesome. We already had Human League. I already like Depeche Mode. What's your policy of truth?
Problem is, this song rips. Really, really rips.
Like a cut out of Phoenix's early career (there are shades of "If I Ever Feel Better," although that is insulting to both parties), Empire Of The Sun have strung together as effervescent a song as you'll hear this year. It glides over, above, and sometimes through its own arrangement with a propulsive hum, hiding just at the back of the mix. Simple synth-resolutions end up giving the quality of a heaving chest. By the time we come to the lyrics, "we are always running/just for the thrill of it (the thrill of it)," it's decided. You'll drive the car until it runs out of gas and then you'll get out and sprint until you pass out. It's that kind of motion - sea-sick with color and completely out of oxygen
Bloc Party's new record, Intimacy hit the digital retail world yesterday and it's huge. A near perfect combination of Silent Alarm and sophomore effort, A Weekend In The City,Intimacy might be the best rock album of the year. But most of that is riding on the last six-minutes and 33 seconds. The song is called "Ion Square," track 10. It's the album closer every record needs.
It's about loops. The song opens with a looping piano riff before absorbing some classic Bloc Party back-beat. Packaged snares and high-hats squeeze in. Synth-jabs syncopate and intertwine, as an angular guitar starts to bring up the bottom of the mix. Everything stays in place and nothing leaves. Every loop, every layer, is built upon the last. Your ears start to strain to pick up all the pieces and just. like. that: you're exploding into the first chorus. It's an exuberant affair and lyrically easy. "I carry your heart with me/I carry it in my heart." Is it poetry? Not quite. Maybe.
Around about 3:30, Kele vocally cuts loose and says the f-word. He says "slow it down" but you know damn well he doesn't mean that. The mix starts to get dangerous and the song is getting louder and louder in your ears. Each loop has taken on a hypnotic quality and you're nodding your head without thinking. As Kele is reaching into his upper register for "let's stay in/let the tv be our stars," this song finds a down-beat that could be the last 10-meters of an Olympic sprint. It's pounding. It's relentless. It's frantic. I carry your heart here with me.
At 5:09 it changes into the most uplifting piece of rock this year. As the final chorus erupts, no, becomes something else - all rising into a series of loops and Kele's escalating "ahhhs." They seem like the final ebullient part of an amazing design. The guitar is finding the top of the fret-board. The whole hypnotic mess has come to this: A 26-second piece of mp3 and stereo. 5:09-5:35. You vibrate. You lift off the ground. You just have to.
And then it's over. The loops unravel - an intentionally exposed design. You've either experienced 6:33 or 26. And either way, you've gotten some of the best bits of music this year. Because if those last 26-seconds don't make you feel something - don't take you somewhere special - I don't know what to say. Because I carry it with me.
Well, folks, we have a late entry into our singles of the year contest. It's been a synth-heavy affair and frankly, we have no regrets- sort of like a Saturday at Arrow. We debated not considering this song because it was technically written and released in 2007, but it only recently got distribution in America and so we're going to throw it into the crazy bag of cats that is our song of the year run-off. The Clips, a fully-loaded synth barrage from Vancouver have given us "Space Kidz." It builds. And builds. And finally collapses into a synth breakdown that would leave MGMT thinking, "dude, it's not 'Kids' but it might be in the same zip code." Or "how is it that we got a six-figure advance from Columbia Records?" Time to pretend.
"Space Kidz," despite its bitter disregard for correct spelling, does have some of the best lyrics of the year to go with its unstoppable kick drum:
"This one goes out to the wasted space kidz/'cause everyone knows that you're coast-to-coast kid/'cause everyone hopes that she knows she knows shit."
Read that one. more. time. You could argue this is nonsense but you'd be wrong. There's a play on the old cliche of someone being a waste of space. Get it? But they added a "z" instead of an "s" to indicate irreverent plurality. Try them again because they're bouncing from coast-to-coast like an untethered tetherball. Honestly audibly, singing, "she knows she knows shit" is just meta enough to be cool and just rhythmic enough to make you elevate. And thematically, while we're talking about kids and their late-night disenfranchisement, it might not be a bad impulse to hope that she knows she knows shit. I hope everyone knows what they're doing, 'cause if you're not flying this plane, no one is. Coast-to-coast, kid.
As a new running feature, we're debuting Late To The Party to spotlight an artist that is already fairly well-known that we either previously refused to like or simply didn't know. When it comes to this band, this isn't like being late to a party. It's like showing up for a June wedding in November. It's not just that this band is already sort-of-famous in the UK - they actually don't exist anymore. On June 6, it was announced that I Was A Cub Scout will cease to be. They'll be honoring their tour dates and a few festival gigs but after that, they'll only exist as the zeros and ones you download. So maybe this is less being late to a party and more like trying to write a feature article on someone who's dead. The spotlight becomes a eulogy.
I Was A Cub Scout reminds me of a British Death Cab For Cutie (no coincidence, they're opening for the band later this summer). But the songs are both more and less cloying than Ben Gibbard's all-star, major-label shit-show. No ones soul is meeting anyone elses body. But, it's got the same level of emotional frankness (and childishness) that makes Gibbard, at the very least, a compelling and polarizing figure. There's a little bit of The Black Kids rip-off Cure synths and some of the esoteric electronics of MGMT. That's three major label name-drops in one paragraph. Columbia and Atlantic! I can't breathe! The walls are closing in!
Important: the choruses wait but they're worth it. These songs unpack themselves fast and slow. They are immediately satisfying but you'll find yourself coming back. "Pink Squares" might be the best song I've heard in a long, long time. We're bringing you a few songs and a video. Enjoy it and pour some out for your fallen indie-rock homeboys.
