LOVE IT - Switchfoot, Vice Verses.

Switchfoot seems to be in a constant state of change. No album sounds exactly like its predecessor. No song is interchangeable with another. No lyric tastes stale. After 15 years and eight albums, Switchfoot is still asking questions, still growing and surprising.

Vice Verses ebbs and flows with rockin' anthems, rap (what?! but yes!!), and ballads so tender they will tug every last string from your heart. A band that found its footing on Christian radio, Switchfoot has earned a spot in the mainstream spotlight (anyone remember "Dare You To Move"?), and has plowed through label changes and personal struggles to keep getting their message out.

As lead singer Jon Foreman says, "We wanted to write about the polarity of what it means to be human, the lights and darks. I'm always intrigued by the tension that exists between life and death. When making Hello Hurricane, there was a graveyard right by the hotel we were staying at while we were mixing it, and I spent a little bit of time there each morning walking through and sorting it out…really Vice Verses started there. This record is as much about loss as it is about what we still have while we're living.”

Each song on Vice Verses is a hard-hitting dose of common sense. Songs like "Thrive" and "The War Inside" are painfully convicting; you feel the guilty sting in Foreman's voice when he says there's "no killer like pride" and "the fight begins beneath the skin." But then he gently croons that it's never too late to course-correct, that "every day a choice is made," and you can choose to "thrive, not just survive."

And yes, Foreman and Co. are now among the ranks of rock artists dabbling in hip-hop. "Selling the News" is an anti-slanted media bash a la Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry." Not a highlight - maybe because it so jarringly stands out among the rest of the album's beautiful melodies - but it's interesting, and is definitely a refreshing reminder that the men of Switchfoot aren't resigned to settling on one genre. They are excited about music, about growth, and about inspiring people to be as awesome as possible. So go be awesome, and stick Vice Verses in your CD player for a little audio-injected gumption. (Out Sept. 27 via lowercase people/Atlantic Records)

LOVE IT - Blitzen Trapper, American Goldwing.

If you were to gift your friend with a mix CD full of legendary 60s/70s country-rock (something akin to The Very Best of Eagles-meets-Lords of Dogtown soundtrack), and you happened to slip in a little Blitzen Trapper, your friend would jam along never knowing the difference.

"American Goldwing is us letting our loves and early influences hang out for all to see. We entered into the sounds we grew up with - the hard guitar rock and country picking of our younger years mixed with glimmers of our usual space-aging technology and pawn shop Casios," explained vocalist Mark Earley recently. So, although I'm not obsessed with any of these songs like I am their older tune "Furr," this new batch of Americana has been an excellent addition to my playlists.

LOVE IT - Brandi Carlile, Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony.

I love this woman's music. I love her melodies, I love her Melissa Etheridge-y pseudo-yodel when she gets into a song, and now I love the fact that she's captured the feeling of a concert performance with a symphony filling out her thumping rock-pop sound.

This is the best live album I've heard in a super long time. It opens with the tuning of the symphony, and highlights Carlile's breathtaking covers (John, Simon, Cohen) and beefed-up originals. The audience-participation harmonies on "Turpentine" tug at the heart strings; I can't imagine how cool it must have been to be in the theater at that moment. The energy and emotions projecting from the speakers for the disc's hour running length will linger with you long after you've finished listening.

LOVE IT - Washed Out, Within and Without.

The chillwave movement has wrapped me in its ambient embrace and I've been most recently floored by Ernest Greene's one-man electroproject, Washed Out. The musician dishes out four-minute servings of synthy, 1980s-inspired audio sugar and pulls me into a Cinderella-style bubble of soothing happiness. For those four minutes, the world stops and nothing exists but the smeared paint swooshes of sound floating around. It's all so warm and fuzzy and zombificating that I don't even notice it's gotten dark in the kitchen, the album has looped twice, and I've washed only three spoons and a coffee mug.

Washed Out follows two promising 2009 EPs with his first full-length, Within and Without (out today via Sub Pop), and it's something to scream for ice cream about. More consistently palatable than some chillwavers (Neon Indian, I'm talking to you), Greene's buzzing, lyrically-unintelligible harmonies are like passive distress signals coming up from a very deep well, through the water, and they express something to the effect of, "We may have some heavy feelings, but we don't have to get pinned under them. Let's forget about what's outside for 40 minutes." Greene makes a mood, not a point.

He also offers frequent nods to what was best about Pet Shop Boys-era chart toppers like "Eyes Be Closed," "You and I," and splotches of just about everything else. The album builds to its peak of danceability by "Amor Fati," and slowly descends into the song destined to be a prelude to intimate moments and marriage proposals everywhere: "A Dedication," the sleepy piano-centric album caboose. Even if you don't normally wear chillwave, don't let prejudice dissuade you from trying on this particular set of sonic textures.

LOVE IT: Sondre Lerche, Self-Titled.

Sondre Lerche always looks like he's up to something. He has a mischievous twinkle in his eye that says he has several aces up his sleeve, and he's just waiting for the right time to use them. It seems he's played a few of those cards in the studio for his new self-titled album.

In the past, Sondre has proven that he sure can turn a pop hook - and although I'm not yet mindlessly humming any of his new tunes, his melodies and time signature changes are always more explorative and interesting than a lot of others' floating around. His sweet tooth for weirdly-worded-but-clearly-earnest lyrics and genre mashing makes him one of the most underrated cogs in the music machine.

His boyish, Chet Bakery voice sounds much more comfortable inside a slow strummer, but the sing-a-longness of his upbeat work is so distracting that you hardly notice. FYI, if you don't absolutely love his score for the film Dan In Real Life, there's something wrong with you.

LOVE IT: Death Cab For Cutie, Codes and Keys.

For a long time, I've been a complacent admirer of Death Cab's work, but after hearing this seventh album, my admiration has exploded into full-on passion.

Many songs meld into each other, so it's best to listen to it as one piece - pianos, synthesizers, organs, harmonies, and chest-thumping drums building upon each other to sweep you up in a sonic hug. Death Cab for Cutie has often been the go-to band for beautiful but intense guitar-driven melancholia (Narrow Stairs examines a bottomless pit of self-loathing and bitterness), but ladies and gentlemen, the fog has lifted.

The band's musicians are in new places mentally — lyricist and lead singer Ben Gibbard, especially — and the less tragic mood throughout Codes and Keys is proof that those new mental places are happier. Really exciting stuff.

LOVE IT: The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow.

The first time I heard The Civil Wars' breakout single "Poison & Wine," I about passed out from its all-around perfectness. Piano chords hesitantly keep up with a timidly thumping guitar, and two voices move in and around each other, seething with frustration but unable to untangle themselves.

This is a pair of musicians who knows that music can do what no other form of expression can. Like reading a book without illustrations, music is a meet-halfway experience. You have to close your eyes and hear in between the lines, weaving in your own backstory to smoosh together your own indescribable interpretation of the song as the energy swells and the lyrics unexpectedly wham you in the face.

It's this kind of tangible energy bubbling underneath visible emotions that drives the duo's debut album, Barton Hollow. Track by track, note by note, they build stories of regret, longing, and relationship claustrophobia that feel as dully constant as a car's engine buzzing through your body as you try to pay attention to the road. Melodies are often upbeat and sing-alongable, but always there's an undercurrent of what-ifs and should-have-beens. I keep hitting replay on "The Violet Hour," a hushed, pulsating instrumental conversation, a real masterpiece of simplicity.

The Civil Wars' genre is hard to nail down, which is great. The album melts the lines between John Paul White's Alabama front-porch folkrock with Joy Williams' big city background in Christian pop ballads, his buttery Eddie Veddery tenor growl and her Downy-soft soprano seemingly born to compliment each other.
I'll admit it -- I mistakenly decided they were mismatched when I looked at the Barton Hollow cover art. I chuckled that Dana Delaney had started a band with Johnny Depp's character from "The Tourist." Fifteen seconds in to track one, and I was put in my place. That's the magic The Civil Wars make. On paper, no one would put these two together. Just goes to show that opposites attract and can blend into something unbelievably awesome.

Barton Hollow was released February 1 by Sensibility Music. To get a listen to what a live show with The Civil Wars is like (a guy and girl joking around and singing their hearts out with a guitar), download their recording from Eddie's Attic in Georgia for free here.

LOVE IT - Eisley, The Valley.

Eisley is a family band that gets it right. The DuPrees – three sisters, a brother, and a cousin – rise above the occasional Partridge Family stereotypes to create radio-friendly pop infused with just-odd-enough metaphors and symphonic twinkleness that they can’t seem to please the big wigs controlling the airwaves. And that’s what I love about them. They will never sell out or try out whatever’s popular at the moment or create a Bieber Fever-type frenzy. They’re staunch enough to turn down a contract renewal with a label that basically ignored them because they didn’t make enough moolah (Warner Bros.), and they’re true enough to their fans and their art to keep on keepin’ on in the underground by joining the ranks of an indie label (Equal Vision).


With their third LP, The Valley, Eisley comes off as more orchestrated, more mature, and more inspiring than ever. In the four years since their last album, each of the respective DuPrees experienced a low personal valley (hence the title), and most of the songs reflect shock, bitterness, resentment, and recovery from sudden heartbreak. The musicians make you feel their raw but eventually optimistic pain with relatable lyrics crafted around airy layers of melodies and a few tracks marked by the sort of wailing solos that bring you down to the depths of the moment the despair hit. Plus, Sherri and Stacy DuPree have ridiculously clear, angelic voices that even sound pretty when they’re fuming at “you and all your friends who didn’t like me” and “that apocryphal wedding.” Harmonies abound, as usual – a highlight being the Fleetwood Mac-esque vocal layering of “whoas” in “Oxygen Mask.”

Don’t assume this is entirely an angry-chicks-using-art-to-emotionally-murder-their-wrongdoers album. Granted, a small portion of it is. You’ll definitely want to leave a copy of “Smarter” on your ex’s doorstep, and nothing will chill your bones if “Please” doesn’t. But what you’ll really hear on The Valley is a family re-grouping following low points in their lives. What is music if not cathartic? As they realize in “Ambulance,” “I’m gonna be ok, but it doesn’t seem that way.” Not all anger becomes twisted into an “Adam’s Song” miasma of depression and giving up. This album presents proof that music can help get anyone through anything.

The Valley is due out March 1 via Equal Vision Records.

LOVE IT - The Wind, Harum-Scarum.

The Wind’s Harum-Scarum is the best album I never would have heard this year had it not been for the band contacting me personally (because they’re good friends with The Fling, whom I reviewed earlier). Word of mouth, people. That’s the way to get things done.


A self-produced 23-track debut album is ridiculously ambitious, but this project has paid off. Instead of teasing us with 10 or 12 spoonfuls now, then an antsy two-year wait for more, The Wind introduced itself with one huge dose of excellence, infusing the Beatles with Harry Nilsson’s cheeky lyrics and the harmonics of modern-day indie-folk rock acts like Dr. Dog.

Highlights include “Hathor,” “Distractions,” and “An Astral Dance and a Shared Dream.” Go shout it from the mountaintops that the Wind is the shiz. Perhaps they’ll blow our way someday.

LOVE IT - The Fling, When The Madhouses Appear.

I’ve had The Fling’s When the Madhouses Appear on repeat for a few weeks now, and am having a ridiculously hard time putting its awesomeness into intelligible words. Since I am bursting to share these guys with the world, I’ve decided that few words are better than no words at all.

At once recalling Fleet Foxes, Delta Spirit (a band I previously reviewed and whose lead singer, Matt Vasquez, contributes guest vocals on this album) and Rubber Soul-era Beatles, The Fling have produced a debut EP full of beautifully melodic and well-textured songwriting — instantly sing-alongable yet arranged complexly enough to warrant multiple listens.

The swishing layers and impassioned vocals stand out, even above the lovely poetic (yet thankfully un-melodramatic) lyricism; their angelic harmonies left me speechless the first time they soared through my speakers. If you listen to only one song from the album to convince yourself whether this band is worth your time or not, please make it “Strangers.”

Everything about this album screams “give us worldwide fame,” so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the masses take notice. If I had it my way, the radio would only play heartfelt music like that purveyed by The Fling. This is the kind of aural pleasure that ears were invented for. (Out now on Lady Monk Records)

LOVE IT - People Eating People, People Eating People.

Seattle is one lucky city. Not only do they get coffee and rain and Tom and Meg and the Space Needle, but they also boast one of the most interesting songwriter/pianists hovering around the indie circuit: Nouela Johnston.

Known these days under the moniker People Eating People (chosen from a friendly contest for the worst band name of all time), Johnston’s complex melodic structures and varying tempos put her somewhere between the likes of Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor and Amanda Palmer.

That wide medium is ground not often covered, yet Johnston covers it all on her eponymous debut LP. Accompanied by little more than drums and guitar, Johnston’s duet of piano and vocals–raw and real and probably untrained but who cares–are a mesh of sounds I can only describe as confusingly enjoyable. One can sense the typhoon of emotions in her voice, but to hear that with breezy classic piano arrangements is disarming and invigorating.

Her songs paint images of human stupidity, embarrassment, unrequited love, alienation, and anger with an overall sense of black humor and realism. The production quality is often stark–delicate and suddenly pounding, and never glossy–but this only enriches the experience, as if we are standing in the room with her as she plays.

Standout tracks include “I Hate All My Friends,” “For Now,” and “Supernatural Help,” but all 11 songs have something beautiful and cleverly painful to offer.

LOVE IT - Sea of Bees, Songs For The Ravens.

Sea of Bees is the best thing I’ve discovered so far this year. Code name of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Julie Bee (Baenziger), Sea of Bees is a one-woman act whose debut LP, Songs For The Ravens, has left me spellbound. No kidding, I was thisclose to a car accident this morning because I was zoning out to the insane lilting harmonies of “Willis.”

It’s hard to believe that Songs For The Ravens is Bee’s first full-length. She displays such technical mastery and her musical arrangements are exquisite — layers upon layers of wooshing piano, glockenspiel, slide, and marimba, with the ebb and flow of drums in the background. Some songs are sad, some are hopeful, some are pissed-but-trying-to-rise-above-it-through-this-beautiful-chorus-you-sucker. There are stompers and siren-songs, dark shadows and twinkling lights, intimate acoustic diary entries and anthemic electricity; it’s this smoothly blended diversity that keeps the album experience fresh and intriguing.

And her voice. Good grief, could anything be more enchanting? Imagine, if you can, Sherri DuPree of Eisley and Camila Grey of Uh Huh Her singing a duet. The control, range, sweeping tenderness and swelling force of those two voices are somehow trapped inside of Julie Bee. Restrained and then let loose at a moment’s notice, Bee seems to intuitively know just what to say and when to not say it, just humming or ahh-ing along with her gorgeous melodies to lull the listener into a calm-induced blackout … and a conversation with their Geico representative because of a mysterious crushed fender.

If you find you can’t get enough of Sea of Bees, check out her five-track Bee Eee Pee EP, which she recorded in one day right after learning how to use ProTools. This chick has got something.

Sea of Bees is the best thing I’ve discovered so far this year. Code name of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Julie Bee (Baenziger), Sea of Bees is a one-woman act whose debut LP, Songs For The Ravens, has left me spellbound. No kidding, I was thisclose to a car accident this morning because I was zoning out to the insane lilting harmonies of “Willis.”

It’s hard to believe that Songs For The Ravens is Bee’s first full-length. She displays such technical mastery and her musical arrangements are exquisite — layers upon layers of wooshing piano, glockenspiel, slide, and marimba, with the ebb and flow of drums in the background. Some songs are sad, some are hopeful, some are pissed-but-trying-to-rise-above-it-through-this-beautiful-chorus-you-sucker. There are stompers and siren-songs, dark shadows and twinkling lights, intimate acoustic diary entries and anthemic electricity; it’s this smoothly blended diversity that keeps the album experience fresh and intriguing.

And her voice. Good grief, could anything be more enchanting? Imagine, if you can, Sherri DuPree of Eisley and Camila Grey of Uh Huh Her singing a duet. The control, range, sweeping tenderness and swelling force of those two voices are somehow trapped inside of Julie Bee. Restrained and then let loose at a moment’s notice, Bee seems to intuitively know just what to say and when to not say it, just humming or ahh-ing along with her gorgeous melodies to lull the listener into a calm-induced blackout … and a conversation with their Geico representative because of a mysterious crushed fender.

If you find you can’t get enough of Sea of Bees, check out her five-track Bee Eee Pee EP, which she recorded in one day right after learning how to use ProTools. This chick has got something.