Tag Archives: indie

Japandroids @ Rock & Roll Hotel – 3/29/10

Posted on March 30, 2010 | Leave a comment


Indie rock is defined by trends. Call it revival, tribute, or pastiche, but bands that fall under the generous umbrella of “indie rock” are constantly going back to the well of rockers past for inspiration. A current trend finds many bands aping the sound of shoegaze pioneers like My Bloody Valentine, creating huge walls of fuzz that wash over the listener like waves of static.

Vancouver’s Japandroids get fuzz, but rather than waves, they release blasts of distorted guitars like a fire hose. Playing Rock and Roll Hotel last night, the band captivated a packed house for over an hour with aggressive but fun garage rock.

Guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse split the stage like Solomon’s baby. Like other notable duos, chiefly Death From Above 1979, they compensate for the lack of a bass guitar with a full-frontal sonic assault, all muscular chords and non-stop drumming. Earplugs are necessary, but the sound is clear despite being extremely overdriven. The riffs are familiar and catchy, recalling alternative rock from the mid-90s and early 2000s, be it grunge or emocore. While they share vocal duties, King takes the lead, with a charming blend of mania and Canadian aw-shucks pleasantness. They’re genuinely appreciative but self-deprecating, like when King told the crowd that they didn’t deserve applause after an unsatisfactory (to the band) performance of “Hearts Sweats.”

Japandroids played most of their Pitchfork-approved record Post-Nothing, along with older material, including a cover of Mclusky’s “To Hell with good intentions” and obscure songs like “Body Bag.” After a brief intro, the band kicked into high gear with “The Boys Are Leaving Town,” where Prowse’s extended drum fills mirror the chorus: “will we find our way back home?” On “Rockers East Vancouver,” King took the opportunity to “dance around and play guitar like an asshole,” his favorite part of the set. After a bit of hypnotic sludge that bordered on stoner rock, the band launched into standout “Young Hearts Spark Fire,” with it’s sing-along chorus of “We used to dream / now we worry about dying / I don’t wanna worry about dying / I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls.”

Opener Love is All, a five-piece from Sweden, played a set of bouncy punk and pubhouse rock. Lead singer Josephine Olausson, looking like Steve Zissou in her striped shirt and orange skullcap, sings slightly off-kilter rallying cries, reminiscent of other Scandinavian singers like Ida Maria and Lykke Li. Unfortunately, the band was pushing into the red, and the resulting cacophony sounded unfocused and repetitive. The band could stand to take a cue from Japandroids and perfect the mixing; it’s a shame that the rollicking songs on the recently released Two Thousand and Ten Injuries were lost in a bad mix.

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Artist Spotlight: Little Bigheart and the Wilderbeast

Posted on February 19, 2010 | Leave a comment


As their name suggests, DC rockers Little Bigheart and the Wilderbeast is all about the chaos and juxtaposition of colliding influences. Attempts to classify their sound with a one-size-fits-all genre are futile; from freak folk to progressive rock, Little Bigheart distills the disparate influences of its four members into something soulful and vital.

At a recent gig at the Velvet Lounge, the band’s surprisingly robust sound was on full display. Bryn Bellomy (bass/keys/samples), Russell Joye (drums), Patrick Mulroy (guitar), and John Russell (guitar) cover a lot of sonic real estate while staying cohesive. Bellomy, Mulroy, and Russell share vocal duties, belting our three-part harmonies and soaring, theatrical melodies. Each brings a different character to the vocal sound: Bellomy’s is breathy and falsetto, Mulroy’s soulful and gravelly, Russell’s earnest and crisp. And while they don’t always nail the harmonies, they leave it all on the stage, like any rough-around-the-edges rockers worth their salt.

The band’s set kicked off with the four-part suite on their concept EP The Assassination of Julius Caesar and its Barbarous Aftermath. Little Bigheart moves from mournful Americana to funky, Thin Lizzy riffage and back again. Complete with epic lyrics (retelling the fall of the Roman Republic), the performance of the EP resembled a jam session, anchored by Roye’s steady, behind the beat drumming. However, the band sidesteps the pretension that usually accompanies prog rock or jam bands, and the medley simply rocks for 13 minutes.

Little Bigheart’s songs are well crafted, and again, while most feature some soloing, it isn’t unnecessary noodling: the band puts the song over the solo. Standouts in the set included “Little Boat,” a rollicking crowd-pleaser, and “Metropolis,” which alternates between throwback hard rock and a worldbeat jam, a la Vampire Weekend. Playing for a crowd of fans, friends, and family, Little Bigheart put on an impressive show and left the crowd wanting more.

Catch Little Bigheart and the Wilderbeast at DC9 on Wednesday, March 17 for a show that promises to be experimental but soulful, with something for fans of honest rock music of all flavors. This is definitely a band to watch in the DC scene.

“The Assassination of Julius Caesar and its Barbarous Aftermath, pts. I-IV”

“When I Went Down”

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The Drive-by Truckers and the Southern Rock Opera

Posted on January 13, 2010 | Leave a comment


Part of TGRI Goes Country Week at TGRIOnline.com.

I’ll admit it. The idea of a country music week on TGRIOnline took the form that many ideas on this site do: entirely out of left field, counter-zeitgeist, yet totally necessary. We’re all music snobs to some degree, and if you answer “what type of music do you listen to?” with “everything… but classical/rap/country,” that’s a deal-breaker. So, with my musical depth of country music knowledge in the shallow end of the pool, I decided to let a band that understands country music to do the heavy lifting.

The Drive-By Truckers released The Southern Rock Opera on September 12, 2001, when Ground Zero was still an open-wound on the American psyche. Ironically, the album’s dramatic arc focuses on a plane crash that happened nearly 25 years earlier: the October 20, 1977 crash of Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s charter in Gillsburg , Mississippi. The album is a meditation on Southern history, culture, mythology and music: a meta concept album very much of the 2000s but heavily rooted in the generations preceding it.

The Truckers are based in Athens, Georgia, but most of its members hail from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a place where some truly classic soul, R&B, and country rock music was made. The Shoals even show up in “Sweet Home Alabama:” “Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers, and they’ve been known to pick a song or two.” And since band leader Patterson Hood is the son of Swamper bassist David Hood, the Alabama-Skynyrd -Truckers connection is deeper than any concept record gimmick. Call them alt-country, call them southern-rock, but the Drive-by Truckers haven’t just lived the Southern, country music experience – they’re a part of it.

Like many great concept albums, The Southern Rock Opera tells a familiar story: the rise-and-fall of a band called Betamax Guillotine (a stand-in for Skynyrd), formed through Hood’s life experiences. Act I is about a Southern kid growing up in Alabama, trying to reconcile his love of the South and Southern rock with the ghosts of the South. In Act II, the kid grows up and gets to be like the rock stars he idolized, with the same bad decisions and tragic consequences.

The music is a modern take on the Skynyrd tradition: a three-guitar attack that lays down crunchy riffs and soaring solos. Hood’s vocals have the gravelly, whiskey-washed tone of classic country, not the pop-twang of anything on CMT . And when he’s not singing, Hood’s spoken words literally narrate the story. The lyrics hit the traditional cultural touchstones: hard living and hard drinking, joy riding with loose women. But the greater story is an honest look at class and poverty that informs the Southern experience, laid out as the “duality of the Southern Thing:” the pride and shame of a region (and country) still feeling the repercussions of centuries of racism. “The Southern Thing” is Southern Rock Opera’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” paying tribute to rock operas past, and can be summed up in one lyric: “To the fucking rich man all poor people look the same.”

If Lynyrd Skynyrd / Betamax Guillotine are the heroes of the opera, the villain is George Wallace, Alabama’s governor for life who will forever be known for his work for the segregationist cause. Wallace’s eponymous song is a bluesy number, narrated by the Devil (a fellow Southerner, according to Hood), who welcomes him to Hell, not for his political record, but for his blind ambition and for being a pawn for most of his life. Hood knows that racism will forever be associated with the South because of men like Wallace; for this, he cannot be forgiven.

The album is filled with musical and lyrical references to the greats of the arena rock era, before it got silly and bloated and turned into cock rock and hair metal. “Ronnie and Neil” explores the controversy between Ronnie Van Zant and Neil Young (another look into the duality of the South). And while the narrator never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd , he saw .38 Special, AC/DC, Molly Hatchet, Ozzie Osbourne (with Randi Rhodes), and dropped acid at a Blue Oyster Cult show. A life both saved and doomed by rock and roll.

The final three songs of Act II, “Shut Up and Get On the Plane,” “Greenville to Baton Rouge,” and “Angels and Fuselage” find Betamax Guillotine following the path of their idols to the logical conclusion. When life is “dirty needles and cheap cocaine / some gal’s old man with a gun,” death is a cold bitch right around the corner, and there’s no use fighting it. So as the engines start failing, our narrator can only think of “smoking by the gym door, practicing my rock-star attitude,” and how for a Southern man, your dreams can only take you so far.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists @ The Black Cat, 12/3/09

Posted on December 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

Hometown heroes Ted Leo and the Pharmacists returned to a sold-out Black Cat on Thursday armed with a set heavy on new material from their upcoming record The Brutalist Bricks (their first album on new home Matador Records). Opening the night were DC’s Title Tracks, fronted by scene veteran Jon Davis, and Brooklyn’s Radio 4.

Title Tracks’ set delighted the early crowd with a mix of surf rock and jangly powerpop that would fit in a 60s AM radio playlist. Their Dischord debut It Was Easy drops early next year. Radio 4, with a dual-guitar/dual-vocal attack and danceable rhythms that owe much to Davis’ old band (Q and Not U), got the crowd moving to some serious dance-punk.

Forever DIY punks, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists took the stage and setup their own instruments. Their two hour set, marred by some early technical difficulties, was a treat for the Pharmacist faithful in the audience, even if twenty something songs didn’t allow for one of the frontman’s renowned stories. Still, Ted was engaging as ever (I’ve seen him a half a dozen times, both with the band and solo, so I’m pretty sure that warrants first-name-basis). “Fuck the public option,” he sneered. “I want free health care.” And to the incessant fans who request set staples, “Do you really think we’re not going to play [“Timorous Me”]?” This one garnered a round of applause, although he later remembered that the song was not on the setlist in Philly. Oops.

After kicking off with the raucous punk rockers “Heart Problems” and “Me & Mia,” bass amp problems led to a solo cover of the Pogues’ “Dirty Old Town.” The bittersweet nostalgia of those lyrics was a constant throughout the night, whether on their 2003 Thin Lizzy-riffed tribute to the Specials, “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” or brand new stand-out “Even Heroes Have to Die.”

The band put on a powerpop clinic, with the urgency of punks from a bye-gone era. When singing, Ted looks like every note physically pains him; it isn’t pretty, but from the barked out chorus of “Army Bound” to his trademark falsetto, his singing is spot-on as he nails the tone of each song. Ted is joined by rhythm guitarist James Canty, playing with a ferocity that makes you believe in the power of 16th notes. The locked-in rhythm section of Chris Wilson and Marty Key provide an insistent, driving groove throughout the set. Wilson’s drumming is particularly astounding, as he effortlessly rocks out with speed and precision, so fast at certain points that astute listeners were sure he was using a double bass kick.

And while their technical skills are impressive, the strength of the work is definitely in Ted’s songwriting. New songs like “Where Was My Brain?” rock just as hard (or harder) as anything he’s ever written, returning to the well of DC hardcore from which he sprang. But it’s songs like “One Polaroid A Day,” with its infectious pop hook, where they really shine. Watch Ted play it at CMJ, and try not to sing and dance along. It’s impossible.

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Amanda Palmer @ the State Theatre, 11/19/09

Posted on November 22, 2009 | Leave a comment


(Photo courtesy Don Whiteside)

Sometime during her Thursday performance at the State Theater, Amanda Palmer joked that, “We’ll see where the fucking spirit takes us, yo.” Her tone was facetious, but the sentiment was true. After opening the night with an enlightening music business Q&A before openers Nervous Cabaret took the stage, Amanda Fucking Palmer (as she’s affectionately known to her fans) embarked on an evening of pure Brechtian punk cabaret brilliance. Whether solo or accompanied by the Nervous Cabaret, playing songs off her solo debut (last year’s Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and crowd-pleasers from the Dresden Dolls catalogue, Amanda Palmer gives the crowd what it wants.

The Nervous Cabaret is a Brooklyn-based band that looks and sounds like they belong in a Bayou blues bar. Their name is misnomer: there is nothing “nervous” about these guys, who are all swagger, in their thrift-store suits and pork pie hats. Bandleader Elyas Khan, somewhere between Lemmy and Johnny Depp, spits and howls without abandon, his vocal runs tinged with Middle Eastern melodies. The band has a keen understanding of dynamics, knowing when a guitar or trumpet riff is enough, and when the entire band should scream like their heads are on fire. They’re also the perfect opening act, hyping the crowd for what for what is sure to be a total bacchanalian affair: what else explains the bassist’s creepy goat mask?

Emerging from the back of the house in a procession resembling either a funeral or a wedding, and decked out like a goth Moulin Rouge performer, Amanda Palmer launched into the dour tale of unrequited (and forbidden) love, “Missed Me,” off the Dresden Dolls eponymous debut. Predictably, the crowd went wild.

While last year’s tour with the Danger Ensemble tended towards performance art, Palmer’s utilization of such a versatile backing band in the form of the Nervous Cabaret pushes the performance into rock show territory. Songs on WKAP that were either stripped down or dropped altogether the last time around benefit from this arrangement, with horns standing in for strings on powerful, rollicking songs like “Astronaut” and “Runs in the Family.”

Fittingly, the band left the stage, as Palmer keyed the intro for “Ampersand,” a song that finds an empowered Palmer soldiering on alone; it’s impossible to not read into the lyrics some of the underlying tensions that led to the dissolution of the Dresden Dolls. After “Ampersand,” it was time for Ask Amanda, where Palmer takes questions from the audience. Palmer is a performer 24/7, and no facet of her life is off-limits or out-of-bound; her engagement with fans, directly and through social networking, serves as a template for other “noncommercial” artists who struggle to push units and stay solvent.

The jazzy swing of “Mandy Goes to Med School” allowed the band introductions to veer into solos by the talented five-piece. Sandwiched between covers of the Ting Tings’ “That’s Not My Name” and the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun” was fan-favorite “Coin Operated Boy,” with the lyrics taking the transgressive twist they always do.

A special, DC-metro-area-only treat was Palmer’s duet with her father Jack, doing his best Johnny Cash impersonation, on the haunting Leonard Cohen classic “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong.” For the second encore, Palmer brought the band back on stage for “Oasis,” the tongue-in-cheek, major key ode to date rape, molestation, and abortion. Replacing the bridge with a rousing cover of “Twist and Shout” reminded the audience what they love about this talented performer: she’s hilarious, she’s inappropriate, she’s Amanda Fucking Palmer.

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Brand New @ Sonar, 11/11/09

Posted on November 12, 2009 | Leave a comment


It is rare that a rock band transcends the musical subculture from which it spawned, simultaneously surpassing its peers and expanding its musical scope. Most acts ride the wave of a certain sound, tying their success to the ebb and flow of ephemeral interests. This is not the case with Brand New, the Long Island band that has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the early-aughts emo scene a stronger, more complete band.

Brand New, joined by melodic hardcore acts Crime in Stereo and Thrice, took the stage at Sonar in Baltimore on Wednesday night. The rain soaked, capacity crowd ranged from veterans like myself (first saw Brand New back in 2003) to a new generation of kids with X’ed out hands and body modification.

Since their 2001 debut, Your Favorite Weapon, Brand New has crafted increasingly complex songs, fusing their early pop-punk-emo with elements of acoustic singer-songwriter, prog rock, and post-hardcore music. The compositions require, at times, three guitars, a bass, two drummers, and two vocalists, allowing the band focus on elements lost in the mix and giving older songs a denser sound. Jesse Lacey, lead singer and guitarist, varies the vocals enough to frustrate the sing-along crowd, while adding a new level of screaming that makes you wonder how many more go-rounds the band has.

Lacey has always had a strained relationship with certain elements of his fan base. He’s well aware that his scraggily good looks bring out the teeny-boppers, and this (unwanted?) attention has been a frequent subject of his lyrics; on Deja Entendu’s “I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light,” he muses: “Watch me as I cut myself wide open on this stage / Yes, I am paid to spill my guts … Oh, I would kill for the Atlantic / but I am paid to make girls panic while I sing.”

This tongue-in-cheek, finger-in-eye understanding of the audience manifests itself in the song selection, as the band moves between the pop-punk of their debut album, to the macabre melodies of Deja Entendu, through the layered, bordering-on-progressive jams of The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, ending up in the raucous screeching of their newest effort, Daisy. “I am not your friend / I am just a man who knows how to feel / I’m not your friend / I’m not your lover / I’m not your family,” he belts on “Sowing Season;” Brand New does this for them, and if you happen to share in the catharsis, good for you.

Which doesn’t mean the show was without a fair share of fan service. Breakthrough emo anthem “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad” has returned to setlist after several years in exile. And a bit of a Nirvana medley, along with some sarcastic banter, demonstrated the band’s sense of humor for an appreciative audience.

The highlight of the set was Lacey’s solo interpretation of “Limousine,” only joined by the band for the finale: the crashing, vibrato-heavy outro. The song, based on the real life tragedy of Katie Flynn, takes on a new poignancy and emotional depth; unfortunately, this was lost on members of the audience who kept shouting for “Moshi Moshi” (the emo-punk equivalent of “Free Bird,” I suppose).

Which is basically the main problem facing Brand New: if they have moved beyond the easy accessibility of Your Favorite Weapon, why can’t they move beyond the fans of that album? Instead of growing with them, the audience is perpetually 18 years old, a tiresome fact for a band that has done all it can to move in new musical directions. The irony of their name has come full circle, as a crowd that has come to see Brand New isn’t ready for something that is just that.

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Nicole Atkins @ the Rock N Roll Hotel, 11/6/09

Posted on November 7, 2009 | Leave a comment


I am a believer in the restorative powers of a good rock show. Most nights, some combination of DJ, MC, and whatever samplers or instruments are lying around will suffice, as the pulsing rhythms of electronic music or the flow of a skilled rapper gets a party going. But sometimes, what you really need is the catharsis only provided by tried-and-true rock and roll, a genre that has been declared dead (and subsequently revived) more than hip-hop.

Such was the case this Friday, as Nicole Atkins descended on the Rock N Roll Hotel, headlining a bill of straight-up rock music. Opening the night was Foley, a New York based singer-songwriter who treated the audience to some bluesy coffeehouse rock, including a pleasant cover of the Beatles’ “Something in the Way.” The simplicity of a man and his guitar set the tone for the rest of the show. Scott Liss and the Sixty-Six continued the festivities, engaging the crowd with some psychedelic folk rock, showing the DC audience what’s brewing in the Asbury Park scene.

Of the openers, the standout band was definitely The Hymns. Opening their set without fanfare, they launched right into some jangly, psychedelic rock, with front man Brian Hardings’s vocals drenched in reverb. This decade has been overrun with bands that are determined to re-visit the Beatles in increasingly tiresome ways. The Hymns, however, look instead to the Rolling Stones, mimicking the raw, rollicking sound of the anti-Beatles. At times, the Brooklyn four-piece also owes a lot to the Eagles and the Band, relying on dual riffage and harmonies that evoke a simpler age of rock music. Their set was a slice of Southern-fried blues rock (not surprising, considering their North Carolina and Texas roots), aesthetically and sonically reminiscent of the Kings of Leon, before their GQ makeover and Top 40 success.

As Krisma’s “Black Silk Stocking” played overhead, Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea took the stage. Bathed in thick smoke and green and purple lighting, the ambience was perfect for an evening of “noir pop,” the descriptor that the Jersey-based songstress has given to her melancholy, orchestral stylings.

As a front woman, Atkins is unparalleled in engaging the crowd. She’s a singular force on stage, making every single person feel like she’s singing directly to and only for them. With new backing back The Black Sea, Atkins played a set that introduced the audience to the songs that will appear on the follow-up to her breakout album, 2007’s Neptune City, while hitting the highlights of her early work.

From the walking bassline of “Kill the Headlights” to the Queenesque sing-along “Brooklyn’s On Fire,” the songs of Neptune City take on a new dimension in a live setting. The spaced out riffs are pitch perfect, bending and pulling directly on your heartstrings. Atkins’ voice, a sultry mix of Patsy Cline and Jenny Lewis, is seductive yet vulnerable throughout. New songs like “Civil War” and “Cry Cry Cry” are thematically consistent with her discography, retelling tales of failed relationships and broken hearts in the language of soulful pop songs, equal parts Motown and Nashville.

On “Maybe Tonight,” Atkins sings, “Search the dial for what I need to know / They don’t play those songs on my radio,” which perfectly encapsulates the plight of modern rock music. If you have two ears and a soul, Nicole Atkins should be on your radio.

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GOSSIP @ 9:30 Club 10/7/09

Posted on October 14, 2009 | Leave a comment


You never know what kind of audience will show up at a late show at the 9:30 Club, especially on a weeknight. But to kick-off Gossip’s first US tour in three years, last Wednesday’s crowd brought their A-game: their dancing, singing, and overall loss of control turned the 9:30 into a queer revival meeting. And it rocked.

Apache Beat, a five-piece band from Brooklyn, began the night with their brand off spaced-out indie rock, but suffered from a muddy mix and the usual early-night ambivalence that plagues openers (especially in DC). I’ll reserve judgment, but they could stand to tighten their sound, as the instruments seemed to be competing with each other behind lead singer Ilirjana Alushaj’s vocals (I’ll admit, I couldn’t resist working such an exotic name into this review).

MEN fared a bit better, with a pop-disco sound more in-tune with what the crowd was ready for. The Le Tigre side project features JD Samson on vocals and samplers, with the dual-guitar riffage of Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi. Samson has abandoned the political electro-clash of Le Tigre for this jaunt into electro-pop revivalism, but the lyrics (and possibly the entire project) are very tongue-in-cheek. Lead single “Off Our Backs” is appropriately catchy and a good sing-a-long, although the band would be better served if Samson sang directly into the mic, with the vocals higher in the mix.

At just after 12:30, Gossip (formerly The Gossip) took the stage, where Hannah Billie’s pounding, insistent drumming and a swaggering bass line from tour bassist Chris Sutton on “Dime Store Diamond” kicked off the set. The angular, bluesy riffs of guitarist Brace Paine joined the mix, and from somewhere offstage came the soulful voice of Beth Ditto. The crowd erupted with excitement, even without seeing the singer, so the energy is that much more frenetic when see saunters onto stage in a tight, bright dress and a neon pink dye job.

For all intents and purposes, Gossip is Beth Ditto. The front-woman is a singular force on-stage and off, and a genuine superstar in the UK, where the band’s following far surpasses its stateside one. No point in beating around the bush: much has been made about Ditto’s weight, and we don’t live in the perfect world where it wouldn’t be an issue. Suffice to say, she carries it well and doesn’t let it affect her performance: Ditto struts across the stage, reaches out to adoring fans, and oscillates between belting and shrieking out tunes like a disco-punk Janis Joplin.

The night’s set list is heavily loaded with tunes from the new album “Music for Men,” with enough old favorites to please long-time fans. Older songs that fit the new album’s dance-orientated style are included, but the set eschews the garage blues of songs like “Sweet Chariot.” The result is a set list that does one thing, but does it well: this is a show to dance at.

In between songs, Ditto seems genuinely grateful for the turn out (about 800-1000, short of a sellout) and the support, revealing an understated personality behind the confidence she wields while performing. Still, she’s not afraid to let out a burp or have Brace adjust her spandex. It’s evident why this crowd of outsiders feels a connection with this charismatic for honest singer.

As the night continues, Brace stabs a few synth lines, and the bass continues grooving to the four-on-the-floor beats. For Gossip, it may be their first US tour in three years, but this is just another party. The songs melt into one high-tempo jam; while this would be repetitive on a record, it works perfectly in a live setting. Highlights of the show include Ditto’s interactions with fans, including a stroll through the audience and a particularly impressive crowd surfing jag.

From “Love Long Distance,” with verses that could be part of Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” to anthems like single “Heavy Cross” and an encore cover of “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” Gossip do dance-punk right. With a renewed interest in the type of music they’ve perfected on their latest album, here’s hoping their European success finally crosses the pond.

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