The Truth About Music

"What's hot, what's not, and whats next in pop music"

Topic: Artist Profile

Artist Profile: Ticktockman

By Kevin posted January 18, 2012 at 20:35

Seattle-based band Ticktockman are on a mission: to bring the super heavy, challenging but super catchy rock of their city’s forefathers back to mainstream ears. As the band themselves say, “the aggressiveness of our sound is inspired by the frustration of what’s popular in our region today. We want to bring loud music back to Seattle and make the younger generation feel alive through that sound.” Continue...
Artist Profile: The Town Monster

By Kevin posted December 14, 2011 at 19:02

Columbus, OH-based quartet The Town Monster stir up a deliciously twisted concoction of synthesizers, distorted guitars, keyboards and growled and falsetto vocals to create a sound that is equal parts synth pop cool and rock aggression. Continue...
Artist Profile: Sleeping In The Aviary

By Kevin posted September 06, 2011 at 13:42

Combining the sweet sounds of doo-wop with the crunch of distorted guitars sounds like a recipe for disaster, but somehow Minneapolis-based band Sleeping In The Aviary make it work, melding juke box melodies with alt-rock aggression and angst-ridden lyrics about heartbreak. Continue...
Artist Profile: Y LUV

By Kevin posted July 26, 2011 at 13:52

L.A.-based band Y LUV have added their own twist to the typical west coast indie rock sound, combining energetic guitar roar with ambient sounds and the occasional dance-driven bass line. Continue...
Artist Profile: The Demos

By Kevin posted May 31, 2011 at 12:54

Indie pop duo The Demos, formed by Jason Milton and Callan Saunders in 2002, channel their love of modern indie rock acts like The Strokes, The Beatles, and their favorite subject matter–fast cars, girls, and reckless romance–into something that sounds like a 21st century take on classic sunny 60′s pop. Continue...
Artist Profile: Big Black Delta

By Kevin posted May 12, 2011 at 14:00

Electro pop act Big Black Delta began as an experiment, when LA transplant and Mellowdrone founder Jonathan Bates decided he needed a break from the band aesthetic. Buying a used laptop from friend Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails, Sonoio) and began playing with sound, twisting, bending and contorting to create a musical style not bound by gravity or any one instrument. “Give me anything, and I’ll make it work. Especially if it’s stringed,”Bates says. Continue...
Artist Profile: Clara Engel

By Kevin posted May 04, 2011 at 11:00

Canadian avant garde folk/blues artist Clara Engel combines sparse instrumentation and biting, deeply personal lyrics about love, fear, loss and betrayal to create songs that are the equivalent of an emotional tsunami. On “Lick My Fins,” she channels early PJ Harvey with vocals that are both vulnerable and erotically charged. Starting off with a slow build up of drums and strings, the track fleshes out into a seductive groove, punctuated by tense stab of horns and ghostly harmonies. Engel spins a twisted web of desire with lines like “I want to crawl back to the ocean for you/Lose my limbs and my lungs/My agility of tongue/For you.” “Trembling Dust” takes a less sensual, but no less haunting approach, with Engel bending and twisting certain words to wring all the feeling she can out of them. Singing with a tender, quiet resolve, she tells her lover to “eat the dream from [...] Continue...
Artist Profile: The Gromble

By Kevin posted April 29, 2011 at 14:23

California-based indie rockers The Gromble was formed by four friends in the summer of 2009. While they’ve only been together for less than two years, they show a talent for melding hooky riffs and melodies with intimate, dense lyrics about relationships.The emotional nakedness seems to impact the musical as well. Continue...
Underdog Josh Charles Highlights New Orleans JazzFest

By Robert posted May 05, 2010 at 08:00

Josh Charles is a complicated person. Lost between the flux of nice guy singer-songwriter and rabid piano fondler, it’s hard to know exactly where someone’s music can lead the person playing it when the songs themselves are beautifully sociopathic. Plainly put, no matter if you’re into technical playing or soulful brooding, both are covered and executed with exacting skill. His music isn’t Jazz and it’s not blues, I don’t know if people still apply the term “Boogie Woogie” in the later thousands or whatever you want to classify the time frame we live in but, it’s honest and that’s what counts in a world knee deep in garbage music flooding pop radio by the minute. Continue...
“Volume Two” Is Perfect For You

By Jon posted March 28, 2010 at 09:00

It’s been a little more than two years to the date since the release of “Volume One,” the obvious first album of the aptly named duo She & Him, consisting of movie star Zooey Deschanel and singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer extraordinaire M. Ward. As you may have guessed, “Volume Two,” their sophomore album, was just released on March 23, and this “Indie Pop”, “Indie Folk”, “Alt-Country” duo has done it again. Now if you’ve read my bio, you know that I absolutely detest country music, but for some reason I have absolutely fallen in love with every song this band has ever recorded, they can do no wrong. This is the exception to my hatred for the country music genre. Continue...