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5 Tracks You Gotta Hear

May 23, 2012 by Lucas Thomas in Featured, New Music with 0 Comments

You may know Jeremy Neale as a member of Brisbane purveyors of all that is garage Velociraptor. Considering there’s like 100 dudes in that band you probably do not. That in itself may be a good thing, because Neale’s solo project is worlds away from the garage punk that Velociraptor dish up. Combining his own wonderful croon with some awesome, squealy sax, Neale’s debut single ‘Darlin’’ oozes class. It’s a track that harks back to generations of yore and there is absolutely nothing floating around the Australian music scene (that we can think of) that is quite like at the moment.

If you are like anyone else in the history of the world ever, then you love the XX. The Londoners blew the world’s collective mind with their self titled debut a few years ago and they are on the comeback trail. As you would expect from the mysterious three-piece, there hasn’t been a whole heap of detail released about their much anticipated sophomore release. Following on from that, they announced a run of very intimate shows around their home city to flesh out some of that new material. Five brand new tracks have been captured from the shows and are circling around the internet. All are as yet unofficially named, but the one featured below is being tentatively titled ‘Devotion’ around the interwebz.

Some band names command more attention than others. I Know Leopard is one such name. Not sure why but it’s just really intriguing. What commands more attention than the name is their wonderfully crafted indie pop. The four-piece apparently have a release in the pipes and ‘Embers’ is the first taste from it. The song is available for free from their SoundCloud and is really worth surrounding. The melodies in this tune are glorious.

Hyping up a storm is almost more of a curse than a blessing these days. That hype can become a major Achilles heel for a lot of bands before they even get going. Lucky for The Japandroids they’ve already got started. Their critically acclaimed debut was a solid start and now with their second LP Celebration Rock due to be released at the end of June they are getting a shed load of love. Pitchfork, NME and Rolling Stone rarely all sing in one voice, but in the case of The Japandroids they sound they donned the white for that Qantas ad in the 90s. ‘The House That Heaven Built’ is single number one and it is both charming and punk. That sounds like an oxymoron, but the only moron will be those not punch dancing to this jam.

Adelaide lads Atlas Genius made a nice little splash a while ago with their track ‘Trojans’ and then delved into their shelves. Apparently the boys have been constructing their debut EP stateside and have finally dropped the first taste from it. From all reports four-piece have been drumming up a large amount of love from the yanks, with ‘Trojans’ having notching over 10,000 sales on the US iTunes. It’s high time we followed suit people. Cop an earful of the EP’s first taste ‘Back Seat’ and don’t forget to thank us later.