Empire of the Sun‘s highly anticipated new album Ice on the Dune won’t be available until June 18, but right now you can score an indie exclusive vinyl flexidisc for only 99 cents at The Record Exchange!
The flexidisc, which includes the single “Alive,” comes with a $1 coupon that you can bring back and cash in on the new album courtesy of our friends at Record Store Day!
Rising stars Churchill‘s new album won’t be available until July, but right now you can score an indie exclusive CD for only $1.99 at The Record Exchange!
The CD, which includes four songs (three new tracks), comes with a $2 coupon that you can bring back and cash in on the new album courtesy of our friends at Record Store Day!
Do you like it hard and heavy? Then come to The Record Exchange and visit The Headbanger’s Wall, a listening station devoted to some of today’s best bands pummeling you with raw power and raw emotion.
The Headbanger’s Wall currently features Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, The Black Dahlia Murder, Anvil, Tesseract and Dark Tranquillity. Come melt your face with us.
Purchase Headbanger’s Wall titles HERE.
PREVIEW/BUY THE CD HERE
A band whose mastery of their own formula warrants almost universal praise, Camera Obscura’s latest record is no departure. Their preference for simple, well-executed pop music is one that has largely remained unchanged throughout their career; the songs themselves may have benefited from experience and maturity, but one can’t help but feel that, in essence, the Camera Obscura of today is largely the same as the one that formed in 1996.
Their naïve lyricism and innocent subject matter lend themselves perfectly to both slow balladry and upbeat, sunny pop. And the frankness of the lyrics makes for a certain originality which is rare in the tried and tested genre of twee indie – a genre which rarely benefits from the glistening production and varied instrumentation that Camera Obscura enjoy. The result is a band that are a cut above their contemporaries, one whose repertoire deserves far more recognition than it has so far garnered.
Consistent from the off, Desire Lines bears witness to a band that sound at ease with themselves; walking the line between their own DIY, ‘indie’ ethos and polished, luxurious pop. Each track is layered with interest, the instruments subtly interweaving with one another to create music that is somehow both complex and simplistic. This, coupled with Tracyanne Campbell’s excellent vocal, makes for a consistently concise, effective and moving record. — Drowned in Sound
PREVIEW/BUY THE VINYL HERE
The collaboration between Portugal. The Man (band) and Danger Mouse (producer) on the Alaska group’s eighth full-length album was one of those things that made perfect sense as soon as it was announced. P.TM frontman John Gourley and company have always been open to experimentation, always had the musical chops and always exhibited a Danger Mouse-ian undercurrent of gloom, but in recent years they’ve has struggled to find an edge. So who better to refine and congeal the strengths of a stylistically diverse group such as Portugal. The Man than a genius producer who has worked with everyone from Cee-Lo to MF Doom to James Mercer to The Black Keys?
Part of what makes the Danger Mouse/P.TM collaboration work is that Gourley’s natural progression as a songwriter plays right into Danger Mouse’s own strengths. Beginning with 2009’s The Satanic Satanist, Portugal. The Man’s music has skewed toward nebulous, life-affirming proclamations, evoking things like the sun and giving off a general sense of positivity. There’s nothing wrong with this, but there wasn’t a great deal that differentiated The Satanic Satanist, 2010’s American Ghetto and 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud, especially considering 2008’s ominous and hard rocking Censored Colors. On Evil Friends, the first album the band has taken an extra year to make, the songs are markedly darker, more sinister and more fun than anything we’ve heard from the band perviously. — Paste