Has bemused cynicism and ennui ever been so fun? Archie Powell & the Exports have made a career of grafting prismatic power pop and sardonic, dark looks at the world outside into guileless songs with hooks galore. Archie Powell makes it look simple; he is incapable of writing an un-danceable tune, whether he turns a jaundiced eye on the culture of self-medication orwhipping up a 3 minute heist story. Great Ideas in Action is the band’s third release of deceptively sophisticated songs. Blink and its killer catchy rock, blink twice and its social commentary that is sad, biting, funny but ultimately incredibly honest. Powell’s writing could easily come from someone twice his age but it never feels studied – his humanity just shines through and demolishes any doubts about where he stands.
It’s not hard to find stories in the news about the thousands of debt-ridden young people who are getting out of college and finding that there is nothing out there for them. While Archie claims he was an art student and knew what he was getting into, he’s written a pretty great protest song for his peers in “Job Fair”, singing “Hey baby, please can you cut some slack? You know I’ll settle up tomorrow if you got my back, I’ve been running out of luck cuz it’s about who you know, and all my resumes are fake and I don’t know where to go.” Some of the subjects of Powell’s songs are swimming in elicit pills – he gives bald depictions but from an obviously empathetic viewpoint.

Laura Stevenson was schooled in the traditional music of her grandfather and grandmother (composer of "The Little Drummer Boy" and vocalist for the Benny Goodman Orchestra respectively) from an early age. It wasn't until she started performing with Bomb The Music Industry in her teens, that she began writing on her own. Privately crafting songs on the softer side of indie rock and traditional folk, Stevenson was soon tapped as the band's opener and, with the addition of Mike Campbell and Alex Billig in 2007, Laura Stevenson and the Cans solidified. Their live band grew into a quintet, often times swelling to eight members, and the following debut LP, A Record, won them fans far and wide having been downloaded over 25,000 time since it's 2008 release.

Sit Resist, an album centered around never sitting stagnant, sees a matured band that has been continuously at work writing, arranging and touring for the past three years. Lyrically, Stevenson's pen has a sharp, poetic tone, making it impossible not to be taken in by her stories. Where A Record crackled with Stevenson's intimate voice alongside gentle acoustics, begging the listener nearer, Sit Resist commands the attention of all within earshot with its rich instrumentation and textured melodies.

Over the course of the album's thirteen songs, you'll hear the band weld a variety of musical styles that dreamily caress and nurture one another into a wholly unique rendering of Americana. "Master of Art" with its Phil Spector-esque, girl-group tease of an intro, explodes with the energy of Stevenson's voice - an instrument that is as strong as it is lovely. "Caretaker" conjures up ghosts and memories of homes inevitably / regrettably left behind. You'll find major-key resolution in the juxtaposed tale that is "The Healthy One," and "I See Dark" waltzes you, dear listener, into the lonely night, hand-in-hand.

The overall effect achieved by Laura Stevenson & the Cans is an album that's as invigorating and life-affirming as it is quietly emotional and delicate. This is an intelligent, literate album crafted of fragments of fleeting memories of time and place, yet it manages to convey volumes. Sit Resist is a true piece of art! Out now on Don Giovanni Records.

Hailing from the always fertile Athens, GA scene, Twin Tigers are ready to unleash their dynamic sound unto the universe. Along with other elements of the past five decades of rock music, Twin Tigers blend noise textures with pop structure and shoegaze overtones shaping a sound that's all new.
 
Formed by co-workers at the Michael Stipe-owned Grit restaurant, guitarist/vocalist Matthew Rain and bassist Aimee Morris began Twin Tigers as their previous bands dissolved. In February 2008,Curious Faces / Violet Future EP was released to great reviews. The band quickly started building a solid fan base throughout the southeast and played shows with Deerhunter, Dead Confederate, Jay Reatard, Black Lips, Dungen, Woods, Snowden and A Place to Bury Strangers.

After a slew of revolving guitarists and drummers the band debuted its current lineup with guitarist Forrest Hall, opening for Les Savy Fav at the Earl in Atlanta only a few weeks before their first trip to SXSW 2009. Upon returning from SXSW, the band began recording an album with Joel Hatstat in Athens, GA.
 
Following the wrap up of their full length, the band was chosen for a nation wide tour with Minus the Bear and the Antlers in the fall of 2009, toured with the Hold Steady in the spring of 2010 and is hitting the road all summer with Interpol. Twin Tigers' debut album Gray Waves is out now via Brooklyn based Old Flame Records.

Tucked away in a basement somewhere on the outskirts of Boston, there is a secret lair filled with motley recording equipment, and a neatly organized cache of guitars, synths and other flashing electronics. The stockpile of gadgetry is owned and operated by three young gentlemen who call themselves Pretty & Nice. Hardly art (Sub Pop)

Trapper Schoepp has the ear of a troubadour, the eye of a journalist and the heart of a young poet. He began writing songs at a tender age with startling facility, distilling rock, folk and country traditions into tunes that are at turns spirited and melancholy. Themes ranging from pride of place, love and adventure shine with surprisingly sophisticated metaphors for a songwriter so young. Run, Engine, Run won’t be out of place filed next to other artists distinguished for their early talent like Justin Townes Earle, Ha Ha Tonka and Lucero. Trapper, his brother Tanner, and the rest of their band the Shades offer this album as a love letter to their beloved home state of Wisconsin, and SideOneDummy will release it internationally on September 25, 2012.

Like his namesake M*A*S*H surgeon Trapper John, the 22-year-old Wisconsin songwriter found himself prepping for surgery a month before recording his band’s third and latest album, Run, Engine, Run, the result of a gnarly BMX bike crash 6 years earlier. Fortunately, his mother gave him a guitar after the accident and Trapper was able to turn his experiences on the operating table at the MayoClinic (for spinal decompression surgery) into songs like the Stones-flavored rocker, “Pins and Needles.”

“'Run Engine Run’ has a lot of meanings for me. My grandfather’s way of life was tied to timeless farming traditions passed down from generation to generation, the same way a songwriter is tied to and nourished by traditional songs. Musicians need to keep the engine running, to keep moving forward. The song is not only an ode to the car our grandpa gave us, but a nod to the perseverance of farmers in the Badlands and to preserving traditions.” Tanner agrees: “It’s about inheriting something of value from the past in a way that is not nostalgic, but vital and never-ending. The album title is a request for resiliency, a way of honoring the past, without getting stuck in it.”

Trapper Schoepp & The Shades is comprised of Trapper on lead vocals and guitar, brother Tanner on bass and vocals, drummer Jon Phillip (Tommy Stinson, Limbeck), and lead guitarist Graham Hunt. Daniel McMahon (Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons, Cameron McGill) produced Run, Engine, Run and contributed keyboard during the sessions. Grammy-award winning engineer Geoff Sanoff (Fountains Of Wayne, Green Day, Nada Surf) mixed the album.

“As a rock n’ roll band, we play music that has absorbed a whole range of stylistic overtones,” Trapper says of the musicality he’s after with the help of his band, The Shades. “In a sound bite world, it’s crucial to regard certain music not as a static art, but one that transcends tidy categorization. A radio station once said our music is ‘as much Pavement as Parsons.’ I thought that was telling, because this album has a little bit of everything – rock, country, power-pop, even some punk.”

While it’s difficult to capture the band’s live charisma on record, Run, Engine, Run comes close with 12 well-crafted tunes that describe the everyday triumphs and tragedies of Midwestern life. As soon as the album hits the streets, The Shades will take to the road, bringing their heartland rock to the masses. “There’s a blues song by the Rolling Stones called ‘No Expectations’ that hits on a person moving forward and not looking back,” Trapper says. “I hear the song as the story of a young, lonely rambler or musician whose has lost wealth and love, but accepts the fact that there’s a whole world ahead of him. I’m young, so I look at this as an opportunity to press on and share songs. Right now I have no expectations other than to keep on keepin’ on.”

Look for Trapper Schoepp and the Shades on the highway in support of Run, Engine, Run this fall.

Death to false grunge