“Golden Isles” new off Portland band Grandparents’ FUMES is GREAT. Sure it’s a little bit derivative (see if you can pick some of the influences out yourself.) but any of that derivative-ness (derivaty?) is of things we really like. It’s jangly, but it’s also sort of surreal sounding, it’s poppy (there are some excellent melodies from chorus to verse) but it’s also dark. Get familiar below.
Grandparents 
(Facebook)
Rating 8.6
Fidlar is showing up on various lists of bands to watch for 2012, including the NME. LA Weekly has them as #1 on their Top Local Bands To Be Huge in 2012. They’ve been smoking it at various live shows, including a sleepless run at CMJ 2011 in New York. They recently came to hang on my Moheak “Go Deep” show tracked at Wavaflow in Los Feliz. More on the live set and interview here or check it out below. – Bruce
Check out Bruce’s “Go Deep” show on Fridays 1-3 pm Pacific, 4-6 pm Eastern, 9-11pm GMT. Also listen to past shows at Bruce’s blog and follow Bruce on Twitter.
“Young Heart” comes from new Brooklyn collective Fast Years. The track goes near polar-throwback in it’s tendencies towards nostalgic Garage and Pop. Especially for those letting a renaissance of bands like The Vaccines still sink in. Fast Years will be opening for Howler in their hometown later this January.
Fast Years – Young HeartFast Years 
(Facebook)
Rating 7.9
Bands like Houndmouth are why rock and roll can never die. When there’s great songs involved, there will always be people that can pick up their guitars and channel the sounds that we’ve heard for decades in exciting ways. Keeping cuts like “Houston Train” and “Penitentiary” on repeat makes me want to dig back in my record collection to listen to some of the classic rock records that got me into music in the first place. With only three tunes to their name and a debut EP expected in early spring, Houndmouth are well worth the 10 minutes of press play that you see below.
Houndmouth 
(Soundcloud) (Facebook)
Rating 8.3
By Erin Routson
Some music is undeniably written by women. Contend that if you will. Seeing Lightyear (aka Lauren Zettler) open for Mitten and Allison Weiss at Brooklyn’s Glasslands merely hit the idea home. Sometimes there are places that only women can go.
Taking the stage with her band, she launched into a set that ranged from the gentleness of lullabies and near-whisper sung lyrics to the punk vibes of yelping “Oh my god!” and being unable to contain her energy. Her songs are culled from the subject matter that any woman as a diarist would recognize. Love, loss and finding one’s own way all work their way into her lyrics.
It sounds like a complaint, but it isn’t. If all of these ideas are swirling around in our brains, why shouldn’t women sing them? Why shouldn’t all of that creative force be channeled into music? Isn’t the point so that I relate?
While Lightyear’s debut EP All of the Miles is sometimes soaring, sometimes intimate, but always polished, her live show presents a more raw take on the same kind of expansive and constricting sound. This might’ve been partial credit to her under-the-weather slightly croaky voice, but the songs took shape live. “Lose Yourself” and the opener “When You’re Alone” capitalized on the full band rougher sound. They were more human and more powerful. Even the songs that were just her alone onstage with a guitar were bigger than what that idea connotes.
As she closed with “It Beats” Zettler seemed to almost want to climb out of her own body, seeking the “sea change” she sings about. Maybe only a woman could write those lyrics, but it’s also true that maybe only a woman could deliver them and do them justice.
The rest of the show carried through this theme of our innermost thoughts being broadcast backed with guitars, keyboards, or both. Mitten, weaving their way through dance tracks and dreamy vocals, got the crowd moving. By the time Allison Weiss took the stage (with Mitten as her supporting band), she could’ve read her diary out loud and it would’ve been enough. Her earnest and borderline comical delivery made her set charming as she took us back to summer camp, to awkward nights out beyond curfew, to feeling so many feelings.
It was a night to embrace all of those feelings and remember: it isn’t a shame to turn them into a song at all. It’s a gift.
Lightyear (Facebook)
Mitten (Facebook)
Allison Weiss (Facebook)
By Chris Gedos; Photos: Jillian Prado
Voxhaul Broadcast gave their LA legion plenty to shout about on Wednesday night, January 11th, as night #7 of Satellite Nights was a rousing success. It’s quite a thank you from a venue to its patrons to host nine straight nights of free music! And I stayed away from the bar, so it really was a free night, even though all had fun whether they were imbibing or not!
Any doubts I harbored of Voxhaul sinking into the quicksand of anonymity vanished about four measures into their set. They’re a good band prima facie, as they say in the legal profession (upon first glance, literally ‘first face’). Three generations of music snobs could be in a restaurant, hear this band play over Sirius XM and all have the same immediate impression: “This is good shit!” During a brief, approaching half-hour set, the band knocked out “Cheetah” and “Leaving on the 5th”, both from the Timing is Everything LP, along with “Broken Nerve”, from their Between Love and War digital EP. Voxhaul Broadcast’s contrasting styles of bluesy, roots rock and Springsteen-esque indie were in harmony throughout. My only gripe is that it was difficult to move around on Wednesday night, so you’d better get there early when Voxhaul hosts the Satellite residency every Monday in March.
Voxhaul Broadcast – Broken NerveVoxhaul Broadcast 
(Facebook)
Rating 8.29
By Chris Gedos
“A Light Above Descending” calls to mind The Decline of British Sea Power, back when “Remember Me” spoke for a sub-generation and band members were getting injured at every other show. I recall with fondness Wayne Coyne’s quote from my old BSP poster: “They’re just a good band. They have trees on stage and they’re doing something really exciting. I wish they’d take more care on stage though. If they carry on like that they’ll injure themselves.” Coyne may very well have been at the Grog Shop with us in 2004, when Yan infamously swung on the rafters from the stage to the soundbooth and back. Maybe the past isn’t a foreign country.
British Sea Power 
(Facebook)
Rating 8.5
By Bruce Rave
The B3Sci bros have already alerted you to this new album with the track “Feel to Follow”. Here’s another taste from this album, which has created a sizable British buzz.
The Maccabees – PelicanThe Maccabees (Facebook)
Check out Bruce’s “Go Deep” show on Fridays 1-3 pm Pacific, 4-6 pm Eastern, 9-11pm GMT. Also listen to past shows at Bruce’s blog and follow Bruce on Twitter.
By Chris Gedos
Testosterone was at max capax Tuesday night for Fidlar at The Smell, on Main St. between 2nd and 3rd in Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown LA, for those of you unfamiliar, is a sort of platform 9 ¾ where one can escape from the rigmarole Hollywood wheel of fortune. One can go to the Smell, soak up the grittiness and easily imagine themselves in Milwaukee, Cleveland, or Rochester, N.Y., discounting the January evening in the high-50’s.The graffiti-laden walls and sawdust floors provide ideal environs for Fidlar, who are first and foremost a punk band.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys each drank a couple cans of Monster before their set! To say they played with a fiery intensity would be an understatement. They play louder and more abrasive than on their EP, DIYDUI (great name). But they’re a punk band who can make serious inroads with the indie rock tastemakers. We can all get down with young punks who tip their caps to Iggy and The Stooges. And if you’re a real punk and stuck in suburbia, Fidlar might be a band to change your modus operandi. I can see these guys playing Coachella just as easily as Warped Tour, which is no easy accomplishment.
I nearly saw a fight break out in the mosh. The lead singer’s mic was stolen for thirty seconds. And Fidlar even covered Blink 182’s “Dammit”, a great song whatever your predilections. Vice was on hand to video all the debauchery. Just another night at The Smell for Fidlar.
FIDLAR – Max Can’t Surf
Rating: 8.444
By Trevor Meyer
La Sera will release her new LP, Sees The Light, March 24th. “Please Be My Third Eye” is a guitar-driven ensemble of punk, fuzz, pop, and garage. Laden with a purposeful melody throughout, “Please Be My Third Eye” stands out among the masses of the surging indie/shoegaze/fuzzpop circus. La Sera is playing at the Echo in LA, Jan 12, so make sure to catch her live.
La Sera – Please Be My Third EyeLa Sera (Facebook) (Hardly Art)
Rating 8.3
“Jungle Song” from Brooklyn band The N’ere Dowells is a nice slice of poppy garage rock with some really killer melodies. We’ve got it in rotation. See what you think.
The N’ere Dowells – Jungle SongThe N’ere Dowells (Facebook)
Rating 8.1
“Something Or Nothing” comes courtesy of new London based band Pale Seas (formerly Netherlands). The group’s pleasant well-crafted Dream Folk is already in rotation at b3sci HQ and will no doubt make it’s way in our next road trip mix. The band recently recorded their debut EP with respected production team Jimmy Robertson and Demien Castellanos whose credits include Florence & The Machine, Anna Calvi, and Exlovers to name a few. You can pick up “Something or Nothing” as a limited Edition 7″ through Fear & Records on March 5th.
Pale Seas – Something Or NothingPale Seas 
(Official) (Official)
Rating 8.4
