Ashbury Keys - Wake Up EP

Ashbury Keys is a Texas-based alternative rock band centered around brothers David and Darwin Keys. David Keys acts as the band’s principal songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist, while Darwin Keys provides drums and vocals. Bassist and vocalist Bill Walter rounds out the band’s core lineup. With a premium placed on strong melodies, Ashbury Keys has assimilated the sounds of such influences as the Beatles, Radiohead and the Smiths to produce its own brand of rock that has garnered critical comparisons to bands ranging from the Foo Fighters, All-American Rejects and Weezer to the Cure.

The band’s catalog contains three full-length cd releases: Ashbury Keys, Dancers and Growing Up. The releases resulted in multiple nominations for Best Alternative Rock Band by the Houston Press, performances on nationally syndicated television shows, song placements in MTV's The Hills and Degrassi, featured tracks on industry websites such as kings of a&r and notlame.com, and significant airplay on college and internet radio. The band has provided live showcase and conference performances in venues from Los Angeles to Chicago to Austin, and shows supporting acts such as Oleander, Evan Dando, the Deftones, Splendor, Blue October, Bob Schneider, and the Subways.

Ashbury Keys released a new EP this year titled Wake Up. Engineered and produced by Louie Lino of Nada Surf and Matt Pond PA acclaim, the new recording provides yet another sample of the superb melodic rock of Ashbury Keys. The band just completed successful shows in Liverpool, England supporting the EP as part of the 2012 International Pop Overthrow Festival, and will perform additional IPO shows in San Francisco and Austin later this year.

Stream the EP in its entirety here: Pure Volume

Buy the EP here: cdbaby itunes amazon

Official website: http://www.ashburykeys.com/

Contact, befriend, follow, like and love Asbury Keys here: facebook

Gavin Guss - On High

Known in the Northwest as the front man for TubeTop (debut album co-produced by Peter Buck of R.E.M.) and The Tycoons, Guss has toured extensively as a member of Nada Surf, and playing piano for Jon Auer (The Posies/ Big Star), Fountains of Wayne, and Harvey 
Danger. On High is Gavin Guss’ second solo album, and follows a recent 7” single from Fin Records, “Riga in the Fall,” [FIN-LE7-028] – that was released in the summertime (always preparing for inevitable autumn) and this one comes to you in the Fall. This record cures both blues, and perhaps year-round, too. 

This is a fantastic album, on first listen it reminded me a little, well, quite a lot of Ken Stringfellows album "Touched" which I fell in love with on the first play and Gavin's album has had the same effect on me, although I am now hearing a few of his influences and discovering Gavin's own stylings, which are extremely pleasing to the ears of this listener.

The style is smart indie rock inspired by the classic melodic songwriting of the 60's and early 70's, wistful and humorous, often at the same time

Stream the album here: Bandcamp

Buy the album here: Fin Records

Download available here: itunes

Official Website: http://gavinguss.com

Los Autonautas - Los Autonautas

Some fantastic Indie/Power Pop/Surf from Madrid.  Los Autonautas, deliver a really delightful album full of cool breezy songs, jangly guitar, hooks and harmonies.

The album is sung completely in Spanish, but this doesn't detract in any way from the quality of the songs and if you don't speak Spanish, I am sure you will find yourself singing along anyway and becoming fluent in next to no time, even if you don't know what you are singing!

If we are to believe the bands bio, which I translated via "Google Translate," Los Autonautas met 4 decades ago when members of the band met after a mistake in interstellar travel and all landed in 1960's California, the band all took on human forms except for Mr Pazos, who, as a gas matter couldn't do this.  The band then took up playing instruments in order to study the youth of the planet and began writing songs of desire, love, despair, excitement and the desire to annoy.

Fearing the US government, the band returned to "Rhea" (13th Moon of Jupiter) where they penned their songs, which they regularly return to earth to share with us.

Ok, I think that Google translate is having a laugh too, but hey ho, this is a fine album, go check it out yourself.

Los Autonautas from "Rhea." (Honest!)

Stream and buy the album here: Bandcamp

Contact, befriend, follow, like and love Los Autonautas in Spanish, English and Rhean here: Facebook

Official Website: http://www.losautonautas.com

Riccobellis - Booze-Up with Dee Dee Ramone

Right, let's kick the week into gear with something uptempo and a bit noisy, in a good way of course!

Riccobellis, from Italy, are by their own admission, "Infected by Ramones." You could say they wear their influences openly on their sleeves and yes they do, they also wear it on their T-Shirts too with the "Infected by Ramones" being the bands logo.

The bands original songs are short and sharp, with just one of them on this album going over the 3 minute mark.  Plenty of songs on here (naturally) referencing The Ramones like, "Now I wanna be a bad boy," "Julie is a Punk Girl," "Dreaming of R'nR High School" and let's face it, if you are going to be infected by a band , you should be infected by something fun and exciting like The Ramones.  You may also find little nuggets of other classic bands slipping in here and there, for example, there is a feel of "Another Girl, Another Planet" in the intro of "You don't know why" but it is all good!

Riccobellis aren't out to break any moulds here or take originality any further than their song writing, just paying homage to a great sound, having some fun, so jump aboard and join them!

Stream and buy the album here: Bandcamp

Contact, follow, befriend, like and love Riccobellis here: Facebook

Kjarr - Kjarr

KJARR is the new, rather psychedelic pop project by Kjartan F. Ólafsson, formerly songwriter and producer with acclaimed Icelandic group, Ampop and currently also keyboard player with Icelandic rockers, Leaves.

The bands debut album was carefully crafted over three years in Iceland and Scotland and serves up a lovely twist of psychedelic pop with traces of The Beach Boys, Wings, ELO and later Beatles arrangements.

The albums comes to life with one of two tracks sung in Icelandic, "Beöiö eftir sumrinu" which translates as "Waiting for Summer" a rather glorious production which had me thinking  of The Beatles, "A Day in the Life" in terms of production only, followed by the song "Lottery" which Ray Davies himself could have penned and performed, however this song and the rest of the album are certainly not devoid of originality, there is a certain deftness of the songwriter and musicians here, creating an album that won't have you bouncing around the room but will certainly grab your attention and draw you in and leave you wanting more.

Album available to buy, stream and download: Bandcamp

Contact, befriend, follow, like and love Kjarr: Facebook

Research Turtles....EVERYTHING IS FREE!

As from yesterday (18th of October) those generous guys the "Research Turtles" made all of their albums and music available for FREE Download, including frontman Jud Norman's solo debut LP which was only released yesterday.

Download everything for FREE here:  http://www.researchturtles.com/music

Contact, follow, befriend, like and love Research Turtles here: Facebook

The Electric Stars - Sonic Candy Soul.

With musical reference points that stretch from the 60's era to the present day, but floating comfortably around the late 60's early 70's, but also very much in the now, this is, as the band so eloquently put it, "Beautiful music for beautiful people!"

The Electric Stars have chosen the perfect title for this album with "Sonic Candy Soul" there is power, sweetness and plenty of soul in every track.  If you could imagine a supergroup created from The Small Faces, T-Rex, Bowie, Stones, early Pink Floyd, New York Dolls, only better, then that is exactly what you have here in this band, this is, without any doubt, one of the best releases this year, if not the best!

Andy Bee – Guitar
Keef Whitehead – Bass
French Jonny – Drums
Damien Lawson – Guitar
Jason Edge – Vocals/Songwriter
Backing Vocals – Denise Johnson (Primal Scream)

This is an album of absolutely epic proportions in every aspect, from the songwriting, musicianship, right down to the production, everything is right about this album and with the promise of a new album next year, one can only wonder where The Electric Stars will take us on their next trip.

If you only buy one record this year, buy this one and then buy everyone else you love a copy too! 

Contact, follow, befriend, like and love The Electric Stars here: Facebook

Official website: http://www.theelectricstars.com

Buy the album here: Detour Records 

Follow the band on twitter: Twitter