It’s coming this spring: our first collection of short stories! We started up a Kickstarter to get a few books out there, and here are a couple stories in the collection (again): “The Sentence”“The Madness of the Gods” We’re going to print a (very) limited run so that we can do something crazy: give them away. Essentially. We’re going to set up a message board for the traveling books so that you can ship out your book to Nowhere, Nevada to someone who wants to read it. Hopefully not to the two unnamed women of “The Sentence.” All explained in our terrible iPhone-shot video (feelRead More →

You must’ve been expecting it. We definitely went out of our way to make these guys and gals feel comfortable on our blog (which is no mean feat, considering there are this many: Riders on the hill. Sun to their backs: strategic positioning. of them). We absolutely love the 11-piece’s orchestra rock, brilliantly written, full and vast. And writing is the strength of White Lighter, Typhoon’s debut full-length: it is dense and mercurial, it is writing for musicians, it is writing that bursts like a wave’s crest upon the sea, it challenges and envelops. It’s the reason why we gave the Portland, OR outfit ourRead More →

Lovely as stained glass: Patty Griffin’s voice is nothing short of beautiful. You know us: sometimes we jostle around the numbers and fudge them in all kinds of ways. Well, we couldn’t feel good about ourselves if we gave Beware of Darkness (a 4.5/5) a higher slot than Patty Griffin’s American Kid, which is just so replete with beautiful, home-spun harmonies (with Robert Plant no less) and dinner-evening storytelling that it would be criminal to go just by the numbers. Besides, maybe we could’ve gone a little higher on American Kid – an homage to her late Irish father – but better late than never.Read More →

Next it’s these LA’ers that we tip our hat off to. New to the scene, with just one full-length under their belts, we’re still gaga we mean crazy over their classic-rock inspired, no-holds-barred debut. Without further ado, Palm trees in a cemetery. How very LA of you. we present Beware of Darkness. The best way we can describe Orthodox is perhaps this: remember when you read Kafka and channeled Poe’s depression while blasting an emo Robert Plant while Christian Bale (who’s just intense, always intense) tells you about the time between Batman movies that he went for a drink and fought off half a dozenRead More →