Sleepyhead- Never Trust A Label

Sleepyhead is a punk band from Minneapolis/St Paul. Their sound combines the Americana-punk of RVIVR with a twinge of melancholy only possible in the midwest.  Never Trust a Label is four songs of beer swilling, anthemic pop punk. Overvalued carries a dark kind of subtle energy. It's all highly reminsicent of How Do We Jump This High? or Get Bent. I was immediately hooked listening to this, and would recommend this to anyone into pop punk at all.

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Infinity Girl - Just Like Lovers

When my band was booking our first tour, we needed to find support for our first date in Lowell. I explored the Boston tag on bandcamp and in the process found a band called Infinity Girl. Though they couldn't play the show, I fell in love with their sound. Shoegaze is making somewhat of a resurgence and I think Infinity Girl does the sound so well. The vocals are dreamy/heavily 'verbed and the guitar leads are catchy and prominent. I don't really have any bands to compare this to that I think would make it clear what this sounds like. Think of a mixture of 80's jangly pop, modern shoegaze, and loud indie rock and I think you'll get the idea. I look forward to what they do next.

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Iron Chic- Spooky Action

Iron Chic has done it again. The Long Island group's discography has been really solid thus far, even with relatively little change.  Just good reliable pop punk.

Spooky Action is almost a more compressed version of 2010's "Not Like This." The opener "Spooky Action at a Distance," starts with a wayward guitar intro, transitioning into a driving drumbeat, reminiscent of songs from their LP. I'd criticize this for being formulaic, but the formula works so well. "Less Rest for the Restless" is another driving pop punk anthem about not sleeping and thinking about death and general good stuff to yell about.  The only outlier here is their cover of Butthole Surfer's "Goofy's Concern" with a guitar intro that I can only call spooky. The rest of the song isn't too far removed from the band's sound. Overall, solid EP. And at only 3 songs, its the perfect length for listening to between classes, on the bus, on the toilet, etc. Pay this band money.

-Daniel

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Yusuke- Demo 2013

Yusuke is a three piece screamo band from the Bloomington-Normal area of Illinois. They're composed of members of Short Stories About Their Distance, Kaworu, and Mammoths. They play fast, shriek-y screamo/emo violence along the lines of Tristan Tzara, Louis Cyphre, Jerome's Dream, and мища.

The drummer Ryan sent me the link a couple days ago and asked me to play bass. It immediately clicked with me. Yusuke is very much "true screamo" and carries on the gauntlet of the chaotic '90's bands that are so revered within the scene. I definitely enjoy it and anyone into screamo (or "skramz" if you want to be a nerd) should download it for free.

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Burglary Years- Demo 2012

Burglary Years is a shoegaze/dream pop band from Boston. They share members with Cerce, I Kill Giants, Native Wildlife, and probably some other bands. They have something like 7 members live, I think, but no more than 3 people on any of the demo songs. They have a demo on bandcamp for free (or donation) and they're in the process of mixing a LP and a split with Procession.

They sound like a perfect mixture of The Smiths and dream pop and it's incredible. I think that this band is absolutely incredible and has the potential to blow up once they release more material. The singer's voice is gorgeous and Zach Weeks is unfairly good at music. Plus, they covered Bruce Springsteen. I cannot recommend this highly enough, especially if you like shoegaze, dream pop, The Smiths, or "indie" (whatever that means to you).

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Hate Vacation - Vol. 1

For the most part, bands that have formed in the ashes of Snowing sound nothing like the emo band that broke up two years ago. Hate Vacation is no exception. Also containing members of Storm The Bastille and Cassilis, the debut from Hate Vacation is 6 mostly brief, always heavy as fuck, hardcore songs. This release is coming out on vinyl and I can assure you I'll be first in line to purchase because this absolutely rips. Don't sleep on this release, very good sludgy hardcore.

	1.	Family Pet 01:51
	2.	Exhaust 00:39
	3.	American Sulfur 01:27
	4.	Morphine Baby 01:57
	5.	Men With Cat Heads 01:46
	6.	Of Mice 03:01

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NAH- DIFFICULT

NAH dropped a new album the other day. For those that aren't familiar, NAH is the experimental, instrumental, hip-hop project from the drummer of 1994! It's noisey with lots of drumming and weird shit going on. Highly recommended. I don't listen to much electronic music or hip-hop, but this dude fucking rips. There really isn't anything else that sounds like this (at least, that I've heard) so just go check it out and download it for free. Word.

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