The Melloncollies may share their name with a Smashing Pumpkins album, but their bouncy optimism is as far from Chicago’s alt-heroes as Tuvan throat-singing. With a sound inspired by the punk-flavored crooning of the early ‘70s, The Melloncollies bring us Goodbye Cruel World, with lyrics worthy a teenage girl’s diary,…

Legendary for their confrontational and bizarre music, Osaka’s own Boredoms are a cult phenomenon, and deservedly so. Over the span of their 20-year career, they’ve created a highly fluid and original combination of noise, psychedelia, and electronic music that’s influenced artists like Sonic Youth, John Zorn, and the Flaming Lips,…

Vandaveer is the project of Mark Charles Hedinger, a singer and multi-instrumentalist. Influenced by his long family history and a love for folk, his music is expansive, sparse, minimalist, and challenging to listen to. While it doesn’t always work at its full potential, his vision is nonetheless inspiring, and…

Toronto’s latest contribution to indie-rock is the puzzlingly-named Still Life Still, who’ve delivered an ambitious debut album with gentle melodies and a huge, reverb-drenched sound. Are these gentlemen harkening the Canadian Invasion? Not with this record. But Girls Come Too is a worthy first album that makes up in audacity…

The dirty South has never sounded quite as dirty as on Vulture Whale’s basic and vicious eponymous debut. With British Invasion spunk mixed into their story-driven lyrics of such diverse topics as days at the beach and politicians on the run from police, Vulture Whale has rock energy in spades,…

Short but sweet, Jupiter is the second album from the shockingly prolific Starfucker. In a world inundated with harsh and distorted dance music, inspired by the success of Daft Punk and, more recently, Justice, Starfucker’s music is sweet and agreeable, with bouncy disco rhythms that gently flow between sampled voices…

Jersey punk outfit None More Black took their name from a line in This Is Spinal Tap, and, at times, their career has seemed like it was borrowed from a music documentary. With internal drama and personal problems dissolving the band’s original line-up in 2007, the band has recently reformed…

In the grand tradition of alternative bands humping New Order’s leg, The Penelope(s) have struck with an album that sounds, from top to bottom, ripped straight from a late-night radio show in Manchester, circa 1987. I’m as big a fan of New Order as you’ll ever find, but on this…

Half-Icelandic and half-Italian, singer-songwriter Emiliana Torrini is all soul. Everyone’s heard bands from Iceland, but influences reach far beyond the music her country is known for, with influences from folk, hip-hop, and psychedelia. Catch her at Highline Ballroom on Aug. 14 for a show in support of her third album,…