Turks

Grant Hart (Husker Du, Nova Mob)
"Grant Hart's new solo record 'Hot Wax' hangs together in a remarkably cohesive fashion. It opens up with “You’re The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water,” which is a garage-band extravaganza. There is a great vintage organ sound on it, similar to that of the legendary Them’s “Gloria.” It is a great way to kick off a record.

The garage band vintage organ echo continues on a number of tracks, including, “Charles Hollis Jones,” and “Sailor Jack.” Actually, “Sailor Jack” is sort of an unholy spawn of The Beach Boys and Question Mark And The Mysterians.

I have always been hard pressed to describe Hart’s voice, as he uses different inflections depending on the song. But on Hot Wax, there is a notable similarity to that of David Bowie, certainly of the way he intones “Changes.” A quick listen to “School Buses Are For Children,” and “My Regrets,” will confirm this.

One of Hüsker Dü’s all-time greatest songs is “Diane,” off Metal Circus. Grant Hart wrote it, and it shows off his way with a melody spectacularly. He still has the gift, as “California Zephyr” shows. This is sort of a Big Star meets the Dü kind of tune.

Hot Wax is in its own way the perfect summation of what Grant Hart has always been known for. Great punk, great pop, and wildly provocative lyrics are what this record is all about. It really does have merit for those who exist outside of the Dü-obsessed like myself."

The Blank Stares

Off Campus

Punk Rock Sideshow w/DJ Tragic & the Duchess of Hazard, every Monday

Talk Normal
NYC's Talk Normal – drummer Andrya Ambro and guitarist Sarah Register – "create a nice racket that does a deft job of splitting the difference between harsh sonics and the essential song-oriented structures required of noise rock. Neither a band in which noise is merely a bi-product of a savage attack nor an overtly experimental outfit steeped in this or that high concept, Talk Normal come off as an organic self-contained unit that extracts as much as they can from their explicitly minimal approach. Sure, there are some obvious touchstones here – Sonic Youth, Magik Markers, Ut, Teenage Jesus – but the songs never feel derivative.

Though various sorts of processed sounds work their way in and out of the picture, the band’s aesthetic is built on a basic foundation of guitars, drums and vocals. The duo are clearly working within a dark, neo-now wave framework, yet there‘s some variety, too. They can sound both hyper and dirgey, calling to mind heat-soaked basement shows and cold moldy practice spaces alike. “Grinnin’ in Your Face” opens the album and establishes the Talk Normal template, squiggling moans of feedback, a simple lurching riff, and a dual vocal attack all buoyed by frenetic drumming. “Eureka” then uses a Branca-style guitarscape as foundation for a sing-speak vocal monologue direct from early ’80s downtown NYC. “Lemonade” rides a catchy little groove early on, and then builds to a drum-guitar/ freak-out zenith." - Dusted

Wet Hair
Iowa City's WET HAIR are Not Not Fun recording artists and also have split record out with Australia's Naked on the Vague. For those requiring more explication: "Wet Hair are continuing the Suicide-Doors-Of-Perception aesthetic they began with [their first album] Dream, caress, rather than cudgel, with their repetitions. The strange, quasi-religious, cultic feeling of the album is deeply and immediately felt. Glass Fountain could just as appropriately serve as the soundtrack to a Manson Family orgy as it could the setting for a Masonic ceremony. Shaun Reed’s depraved and surly vocals effectively defile the sanctity of the gorgeous keyboard work. Employed sparingly, Reed’s voice tethers Wet Hair’s music, keeping it from becoming too wispy to form any feelings about." - Tiny Mix Tapes

Midday Veil
"Seattle's Midday Veil brand of mind-expanding psychedelia rarely gets above a snail's pace, allowing you to experience every spiraling guitar run and droning bleat of the band's vintage synthesizers, as well as the fluttering arc of Emily Pothast's space-mother vocals. It's a sound custom designed to coax you down the rabbit hole, leaving you blissfully lost in wonderland." - Willamette Weekly

Sequin Trails

Silian Rail
Oakland's Silian Rail: "Landry excavates a wild array of combinations from the fret board, digging into deep reverb-drenched riffs that build from anthemic highs to rhythmic lows. Kuhn plays everything else: drums, synthesizers, guitar and even glockenspiel. It all comes together like a cathartic exercise in ascension, as the riffs build up a swooping tension only to swiftly descend into shimmering, finger-picked melodies.

Silian Rail are the logical offspring of a lineage that began with the 1991 release of Spiderland by Slint, the legendary nearly instrumental group out of Louisville, Ky., who perfected the quiet-loud dynamic later built upon by Mogwai and then Explosions in the Sky (though some might argue that this type of heavy riffing truly had its start with Black Sabbath, or if you want to dig really far back, with early Captain Beyond)." - Metro Santa Cruz

Grand Lake
Led by bassist-singer Caleb Nichols formerly of Port O’Brien.

Barn Owl
"A four-armed shaman clad in stags horn and wolf-skin, this record is an Ur-howl from the ancestral underworld." - Julian Cope

Eternal Tapestry (Portland)
"The first thing you should know about Eternal Tapestry is that they fucking shred. I usually try not to cuss in reviews, but that is the first thing that came to mind and it is way too true to omit. They have proven this already with a slew of strong releases on Not Not Fun, Digitalis, and Night People, but I firmly believe they are about to blow the doors off of all that was done previously. At a recent show, they dragged out a set of behemoth rock abstractions with a visceral hendrixian swagger all too often missing from current rock shows." - Foxy Digitalis

Real Estate
Woodsist recording artistes Real Estate: "sleepy rock sound, not as tropical, dense sample heavy as Ducktails, Matt Mondanile being a member of both of course. This is a more live sound, heavy on reverb, two-step drums. Nothing like I expected actually. It's a produced and really clean full band sound...hypnotic and repeating." - 7 Inches

Moon Duo (Ripley from Wooden Shjips)

Shuteye Unison

The New Trust

Grandchildren