At the end of Alabama Shakes' set at Marymoor Park, there was a conspicuous absence: their biggest hit. "Hold On" just isn't the song that introduced the band to a wider audience, it's still one of their greatest moments. On paper, its omission is bewilidering to say the least. (Hell, even the noto…
At the tender age of 18, Arctic Monkeys leader Alex Turner first asked the girl across the room to stop making eyes with him in the opening line of the band's breakthrough song. Now at the significantly less tender age of 27, he's drunk dialing the same girl at 3 a.m., hoping that if he can't bring…
Yes, yes, we're all excited that the Postal Service is playing tonight at Key Arena. But did you know that long before the Postal Service there was a band from Chicago called The Service? Neither did I until just now, but based on Trouser Press's description, this sounds like an '80s college radio …
Seven years after their last record, Canadian band Wolf Parade are back with a new full-length record. Called Cry Cry Cry, the album follows 2010's Expo 86 and last year's EP entitled EP 4. They've shared with us the first single off the album, "Valley Boy." The band is made up of Spencer Krug (Moo…
Oh man, oh man. Last week, Sub Pop released the deluxe 10th anniversary edition of the full-length debut of Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary, on lush triple disc vinyl, pulling together all three of Wolf Parade's lead-up EPs and packaging it all in a glorious tri-fold of awesome. The same w…
When Lorenzo Cherubini began his career in the late 80's, the stage name Jovanotti (derived from giovanotto, meaning "young man") refered to his youth, but now, decades later, the name that increasingly became synonymous with commercial success in his native Italy is being renewed through his rebir…
Well, Seattle, it looks like we've corrupted Flight of the Conchords. Jemaine Clement, the gap-toothed glasses-wearing half of the New Zealand duo, confessed to the audience: he ate half a banana... and just left the other half sitting backstage! WHOA. "I'm the Iggy Pop of the band," he admitted ru…
“Boy, the come down here was easy, like the arrival of a new day.” That’s how Adam Granduciel chooses to open the new album from The War on Drugs after a minute and a half of dreamscape Americana. As the listener, you could say the same thing. The Philadelphia band have always found a way to worm i…
Nominations were announced this morning for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, and many KEXP faves were on the list, including Kendrick Lamar, who garnered 11 nominations for his latest To Pimp A Butterfly. Courtney Barnett was nominated for Best New Artist, while local boys Death Cab for Cutie will b…
"Connection... correction." If you summed up UK dance veterans Hot Chip in an obscure two word phrase, I think this bridge from "Love Is The Future" would do quite nicely. It's between these two poles of connection and correction that Hot Chip have operated for over a decade. From "I Was The Boy Fr…
It is nothing short of bewildering that it took Belle and Sebastian almost twenty years before they named an album with a title as on-the-nose as Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance. As a songwriter, band leader Stuart Murdoch is famously as self aware as he is garrulous, and despite being fascinated …
At the Paramount Theatre last week, Phantogram opened their set without even being on stage. After they performed two songs obscured from the audience, a screen fell shortly thereafter, revealing the New York duo behind the fourth wall to fervently shake the physical walls of the venue. Going from …
A couple of months ago, we were able to tease the forthcoming album by Fruit Bats, the "reunited" project of one Eric D. Johnson, who broke from his 16-year career under that name, recorded briefly as EDJ, and now is back. His forthcoming album's first song, "From A Soon To Be Ghost Town", which we…
Some singers can sing anything, and some of them practically do. Mark Lanegan has one of those voices that will stop you dead in your tracks no matter when or how you hear him. The former local boy (he's lived in LA now probably longer than anywhere else) began a series of deep, dark solo albums th…
