I woke up this morning in a little bit of a funk.  I rolled out of bed, made a cup of peppermint tea and started to reflect a little bit on my past.  Invariably, I was met with images of both positivity and negativity, some lovely and others heart wrenching.  I checked my inbox, and found the video for Kill your Darlings, and, as I watched the visual interpretation of the melody, felt oddly at peace with my decisions in life.

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The Pierces took the stage at Hollywood’s Hotel Cafe this past Tuesday evening. The crowd was a-plenty, standing room only, bubbly and eager in anticipation of, seemingly, their girls. Walking onto the stage from the front, the stunning pair were helped onto it by their band, and instead of introducing themselves via spoken word, they launched into the first song of their set. The bond between them was more apparent than ever in support of any previous statement uttered as such, yet even through shared vocals and stage presence, both were able to convey an individual style in their appearance and attitude.

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Funk. Soul. Disco. Low-fi.

Casxio’s first album, three years in the making, is not for everyone. The sound is very familiar in this indie-electro scene, but with a hint of something new. You’ll definitely find a song you can dance to on the album, but you know what else you’ll find… synthesized jazz flute.

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Melancholic, indie pop group, The Clientele made their way back to Los Angeles again on Saturday. This time they specifically made it to the Echoplex and we were there to capture all the folk-oriented rock acts of the night. Los Angeles based band, Gangi, opened up the night with Icelandic singer-songwriter, Lay Low, serving as a nice mellow thread in the night’s cohesiveness.

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The fourth studio album from eclectic Melbourne rockers, The Cat Empire’s Cinema is a pleasantly poppy version of the band’s consistent brand of festive multi-genre musings. Ranging from Reggae and Ska tinged two-step beats to Latin influenced horn heavy sequences, Cinema covers a broad gamut of world music. However, the eleven cut record plays more like a soundtrack than a headliner. The cinema of this album is more garden variety “coming-of-age in Manhattan in the 80s” than, say, the epochal and emblematic “Gallipoli” or “Mad Max” and it suffers from its failure to break the mold.

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A crisp blend of classic soul, traditional rock, and Americana — Jarrod Gorbel’s Devil’s Made A New Friend is a breezy listen time and time and time again. This solo project bears the undeniable Blake Sennett (Rilo Kiley, The Elected) stamp: heartonthesleeve and dreamy lyrics about solitude and love buttered up by floating keys and days and days in a willowy falsetto that begs for the girl to come back and for that girl to stay.

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The debut from Oxford-based alternative rock group A Silent Film has been long-anticipated since their 2007 EP, The Projectionist. Fleshed out in full, The City That Sleeps has given them enough leg room to branch out with their melody-heavy distinction. Their style is polished, relatable, and well-thought out – one that is interestingly not over-produced to the point where it’s so glittery its blinding. Might as well get it out of the way. We, for one, never claimed to not like shiny things. It’s the try-too-hards we have a beef with, and A Silent Film must have known that listeners deserve a little more than the standard.

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The Melvins and a roaring crowd stormed through The Showbox Tuesday night and performed two 50 minute sets back to back with a short intermission to give the band and their wild fans a well-deserved rest. Powerhouse drummers Dale Crover (pictured above) and Coady Willis were stationed in the front center next to each other. Dressed like Vikings, Crover and Willis synchronized their drum beats perfectly.

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Some things never lose their charm, and quite thankfully, art enthusiasts have made sure of that. Thanks to revivals, covers, and remakes, life has remained within or has been breathed into the classic and original, but there’s nothing quite like resuscitating the original itself. Such is the case with Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo’s Jazz Raga, which, remastered and fresh as ever, sounds like it was released just yesterday. We should probably mention that “just yesterday” was 44 years ago.

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