Mickelodeon 
We could have easily grown tired of this particular strain of indie rock with its dash of alt-country and even its grunge guitars by now, but today is not that day. Bands like Wednesday or Big Thief have walked a similar path, kickstarting their careers in dazzling fashion; however, in the case at hand—that of the Chicago-based (originally from Indiana) outfit, Ratboys—the trajectory has been somewhat different.
In today’s alternative landscape, some of the most intense, profound, and emotionally honest proposals are arriving at the hands of women exploring darkness from very different places. They do not do this as a pose or an aesthetic choice, but as an expressive space where songs burn on a slow fire, voices crack, and atmospheres that demand active listening take precedence.
With their latest release, Barry Johnson and company prove that you can grow up without losing the ability to synthesize high-stakes emo/pop/punk drama into less than two hundred seconds. Under the baton of Brett Gurewitz (the Epitaph big shot), the group dispatches nine cuts in a 20-minute breath, maintaining the brevity that has become their trademark.
In the early 2000s, independent cinema began nurturing a female character archetype designed to rescue emotionally stunted male protagonists from their own insecurities through eccentricity, vinyl records, and “cute” tunes: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl phenomenon. Notable examples included Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown, Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer, or Mary-Elizabeth Winstead in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Garden State (2004) didn’t invent the manic pixie dream girl trope, but it certainly popularized and fueled it in this scene between Natalie Portman and Zach Braff.
An Americana singer-songwriter releasing a 25-song behemoth clocking in at 1 hour and 18 minutes: cue the panic and cold sweats… Everyone stay calm, the ghost of an aimless Ryan Adams hasn’t possessed him just yet.
Disbanded is our tribute section to bands that are no longer active. Our small contribution to keeping their memory alive. My arrival at Archers of Loaf could be described as a stroke of luck, following a musical obsession defined by the sound of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate. That search led me to Madee, … Read more