I have often argued that Sweden’s The Sounds just might be the best band of my generation.  The synth-heavy, hyper-danceable rockers are impressively well-versed in their understanding of the beauty of post-punk, but they’re also just as competent at producing the infectiously popular aesthetic of the best kind of...

“This is one of the first bands I’ve played in where music is the primary thing.  In previous projects, it used to be music is just the excuse for me to go crazy.”  Dennis Lyxzén is characterizing the live experience of his latest project, INVSN.  However, he later goes...

There’s not a lot that’s sexier to a culturally transgressive American than artistically-inclined foreigners that refuse to adopt the customs of the Land of the “Free” and Home of the “Brave.” (i.e. speaking to us in our native tongue)  And the rejection of the current state of “culture” only...

So for the first time since this whole “playing-the-whole-album” craze has come into fashion with bands that have been around the block at least once or twice, I’m going to be seeing a band play an album whose tour I actually attended the first time around, …And You Will...

Nicole Atkins’ latest LP, Slow Phaser (released last month), represents the songstress’ widest array of musical capabilities to-date: the most soulful psych rock, the sultriest Americana, quirkily empowering piano pop… and most of the things that would fall in-between.  She’s beginning to remind me of Chrissie Hynde at her...

Ages and Ages are a rare entity that is able to acknowledge the hardships and atrocities associated with the human experience… yet remain hopeful, positive, and even confident in their ability to find beauty within it.  In fact, their music manages to be profoundly uplifting, despite its dealings with...

Casey Dienel, aka White Hinterland, has the most enlightening and empowering story about moving back in with her parents that I’ve heard in quite some time.  Two and a half years after the release of her sophomore LP, 2010’s Kairos, Dienel decided to move back to her family’s Massachusetts...

Norwegian songstress Susanna Wallumrod, but usually just known as Susanna, is a lovely enigma of indie pop.  Her somewhat avant-garde aesthetic borrows from the worlds of the baroque, jazz, and even a few ‘90s electronic genres… but she’s also famously covered the likes of AC/DC, KISS, and Rush (in...

I feel like Chicago’s Dead Rider are a band for people who like bands that fuck shit up (And I mean that in the best way possible.)… Hopefully they take that as a compliment.  They evade genres better than pretty much any other band in existence… Well, Black Moth...

While a lot of critics have been calling dreamy folk singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler’s sixth studio LP (July, released last month) a step in a new direction, in my most recent chat with the Boston-residing chanteuse, she clarifies that she actually sees the album as a logical evolution of her...

The last time I caught up with Orange County indie poppers The Colourist, last June, they’d only recorded two songs — which they characterized for me as “Paranormal California Tropic Rock” (If that could use a bit of context, they are all “avid hunters of the paranormal.”)  Since then,...

“We want it to be energetic, engaging, and interactive.  The parts of this record we wanted to pull out for the live show were the really joyful and uplifting parts, the things that ignore all the bullshit that’s imposed on women by society,” Caroline Smith tells me.  The Minneapolis-based...

The last time Philthy Mag caught up with The Belle Game they were at 2013’s SXSW, where pianist and backing vocalist Katrina Jones explained to me, “At night, 6th street kind of feels like the Apocalypse, like there are no rules, anything can happen.  It’s madness.”  My recent chat...

Philthy Mag recently chatted with Ellia Bisker, songwriter, ukulele-player (among other things), and main force behind Brooklyn’s Sweet Soubrette, a vaudeville-inspired outfit that expands and collapses anywhere from a solo-project to an eight-piece.  However, Sweet Soubrette is only one of many of Ellia’s musical endeavors.  She’s also a member...

Lake Street Dive is a decade into their career, yet they seem more youthfully passionate and irrepressibly enthusiastic about their current state than any other point of their career.  The Jazz-and-Soul-inspired Boston-born, Brooklyn-based indie pop quartet recently made high-profile appearances on both Colbert and Letterman and their fourth full-length,...

I recently had my first chance to chat “professionally”/”critically” with Those Darlins, the Nashville outfit that I’ve regularly touted as “My favorite band of recent years.”  The band’s self-titled debut LP dropped in 2009, which boasted, in my own words, “A crass and intentionally-in-bad-taste take on garage country.”  The...

While Dawn Landes is best known as a folk singer/songwriter, she’s also a noteworthy engineer and producer, who also indulges in indie pop in her trio, The Bandana Splits, and even recorded an album of original songs in the style of French Ye-Ye girls.  But, during our recent chat,...

Philthy first met The Casket Girls a year ago.  I chatted with Phaedra Greene about how she and sister Elsa were “discovered” and enlisted by Ryan Graveface (of Graveface Records, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dreamend, etc…) to be his postmodern take on the Shangri-las.  The three released their debut,...