Lightspeed Champion - Dry Lips

For those of you familiar with Dev Hynes of the band Test Icicles (who will probably appear on here at some point or another), this is one of his solo projects. Quite the departure from Test Icicles' hardcore dance-punk, Lightspeed Champion is mostly in the acoustic, folksy, indie pop vein of music. While I enjoyed his previous work, Dev Hynes has clearly proved himself to be successful in multiple genres, and continues to do so in his new project Blood Orange (who will also appear later, where he does some simply awesome chillwave stuff).

Alexisonfire - .44 Caliber Love Letter

I started listening to Alexisonfire during high school. They are a post-hardcore band that had pretty turbulent and explosive songs. Vocally, they had a screamer and a singer, providing some interesting dueling vocals at times, as can be heard during this song. As with most bands that emerged as a combination of emo and hardcore in that post-hardcore time, most of their lyrics are related to relationship troubles, but with some of the intensity of hardcore punk. What I always thought made this song cool was at 3:18, the brief sentence of talking with no music in the background quickly spit out before going into the finale of the song. Also, though the band broke up to do individual acts, one that's done successfully in a different genre you should definitely check out is City and Colour, which is Dallas Green from Alexisonfire, doing some great acoustic folksy sounding work.

Cold Cave - Pacing Around the Church

If you like Joy Division/New Order, you should like Cold Cave. In my opinion, Cold Cave is the modern day Joy Division, they have a dark-ish feeling to them (esp. via the lyrics), even during their more upbeat songs, such as the one I've provided here, and are often categorized in the genre of dark wave due to it. While both of their albums are relatively chill, the live show is about 10x more intense than one would expect, probably due to his hardcore/noise rock past, and amazing at that (I hope to see them again Feb. 4). This is one of my favorites on the album and is a great followup to the opener "The Great Pan is Dead."

The Mall - Friends and Family

This is a cool punk band out of SF. The first time I heard of this band was from this video (MASH SF, the fixed-gear bike riding group), and not only was I addicted to the band, but I found it to be good pre-riding music as well. I personally like to play one song before I go bike riding so that I can get it stuck in my head for my trip to wherever I'm headed, and I most definitely used this one on more then a few occasions. The whole 13 track album is under 20 minutes long (go punk!), but it's fantastic in my opinion, and makes me want to go fast. This song is most definitely one of the highlights on the album, but should you enjoy this one, you should also check out "Acrid" and "Advantage Out". Enjoy!

Purity Ring - Belispeak

If there was any band I would want to pick to get popular and successful in 2012 it would be Purity Ring. There are only a few songs released by them (3, but 4-5 if you try really hard to find them), but they are all fantastic, their live performance is a great show, I've seen them twice already (you can read more about that in one of the older posts) and would gladly see them again. The music is dance-able electronic, with a sweet distorted female vocals, and catchy as they come. I assure you their first album will be played on repeat for a long while at least in my home, and any other home who cares about anything awesome. Also to note, the chick whose pic is on the video is not from the band, nor do I find it fitting for the song for that matter, but anyways, it's got the song.

CocoRosie - Werewolf

Now I'm not going to lie, CocoRosie isn't for everyone (Pitchfork even gives them scathing reviews for sounding too weird), but they are most definitely in my top 5 favorite artists. They are weird as all get out, most consider it overly so, and their earlier albums are often classified as being a part of the Freak Folk genre. Their lyrics are strange, voices other worldly, and instrument choice interesting to say the least, but it's for all these reasons that I love their music so much. If you are a fan of CocoRosie, I will most likely be your friend. Now, of all their songs (which are all great, btw), Werewolf is one of my favorites. It gives me this wonderful elated feeling similar wandering around a dark forest, sleep deprived, chasing unicorns, bits of light seeping through the tree tops, while I hear an old record player playing a scratched vinyl of classical piano.

The Cansecos - Raised by Wolves

I've written about this album before on this blog about 4 years ago, and this remains a fantastic song for me. The Cansecos are this awesome electronic band from Toronto (the city where a large amount of my favorite groups originate). They have a sound with smooth vocals over a poppy electronic beat. The best comparison would be if you found the happy medium in between Hot Chip and The Whitest Boy Alive. Also, if you get a chance you check out the whole album, I think it's one of the most underrated albums I keep listening to.

Listen Here!

Blazo - Dock Ellis ft. the 49ers

I only recently started really getting into Blazo, he's this really awesome Polish producer whose beats are some of the most addictive things I've heard in a while, and this new release is simply spectacular. His music lies mostly in the realm of Jazz-hop, often with a relaxing piano, trumpets, saxophones, etc. And for this track, this isn't to even mention the great rap on it, my favorite lyric being the opening: "I put the needle to vein, closed my eyes to maintain, and enjoy the sensation as it shoots to the brain." as it continues to describe an addiction to music, something I easily sympathize with.

Red Knife Lottery - So Much Drama

This is a hardcore band out of Milwaukee who sadly broke up about a year ago. I'd wanted to see this band ever since I found out about them during Freshman year of college. I have a thing for the few hardcore bands that have a female vocals, and this one is one of my favorites. I played the hell out of this EP, and this one was one of the better songs, upbeat, and to me sounds something along the lines of a more violent Yeah Yeah Yeah's circa Fever to Tell.

Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) - Keep What You Have Built Up Here

They're probably my favorite post-90's emo-esque band. Admittedly, their name is a bit ridiculous, it began as a solo project that wasn't expected to turn into a full band. Overall, I really enjoy the amount of emotion in the vocals and guitars for this song, and for the album as a whole really. It quickly jumps from gentle vocals and soft guitar melodies into screams and heavy guitar creating a dichotomy akin to short intense thunderstorms on a calm summer's day.

Creaky Boards - The Songs I Didn't Write

I actually found out about this band via a friend who was telling me about a band that claimed Coldplay's Viva La Vida was partially stolen from one of their songs, "The Songs I Didn't Write", and to be fair while it does sound very similar, evidence shows that Coldplay had recorded a demo of Viva la Vida long before the supposed plagiarism had occurred. Regardless, this whole fiasco has introduced me to yet another band I thoroughly enjoy, and though this isn't my favorite song by them (which is SOS, which I couldn't find anywhere happily link-able online for you all), it's a good one, and fun since it was the one at the center of the controversy.

Sneaker Pimps - Bloodsport

Chris Corner is one of my favorite music artists, he has a certain je ne sais quoi when he makes music and even claims to be a different person when he performs as IAMX. Anyways, one of the songs under that name will come up in the near future undoubtedly, but this one is from his trip hop group Sneaker Pimps, that started circa the mid nineties, and it is fantastic.

Drake - HYFR

Drake released one of the best albums of last year, hands down. And on that album, this is my favorite song by far (so much so, I've sadly memorized the whole rap) on the album, primarily due to the flow, and Lil Wayne's part is pretty good as well.

Unfortunately none of the youtube videos do this song justice, they are all sped up or slowed down to avoid copyright, so here is the grooveshark link.

Refused - Liberation Frequency

Here's a great song by the hardcore punk band Refused, in honor of their reunion announced yesterday as well as their appearance in Coachella this year. The Shape of Punk to Come is a timeless album of it's genre, and knowing that once again it will be played live makes me a little bit uncontrollably excited inside, I hope it's a good performance, whether I'm there or not.

Nero - Crush On You

An awesomely pop-ish sounding dubstep song by Nero. This, along with Guilt and Doomsday are my favorites from the album Welcome to Reality, another great album of 2011. As far as dubstep that has very strong DnB ties go, Nero are probably my favorite of the bunch. They manage to do it with a healthy balance in my opinion. They will also be performing with a ton of other awesome artists this year at Coachella.