Qúetzal Snåkes - Lovely Sort Of Death

Qúetzal Snåkes from France play a creative blend of garage rock, psych punk, and spacerock. "Lovely Sort of Death" is a spacey jam with wailing guitars sprinkled throughout before fading into a psychedelic stint at the close of the track. "Cosmic" is a bit quicker paced and gets closer to a powerpop song covered in gloom and the guitar here brings to mind The Smashing Pumpkins. "I Trip Through Love" is a light romp through heavy garage rock tinged with psych for flavor. The Lovely Sort of Death EP is a solid effort for this band that settles them somewhere between the spectrum of The Black Angels and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Waiting to hear what's next.

Burnt Ones - Gift

San Francisco's heavy psych beach rockers Burnt Ones are back with their new album Gift. Though, clearly a Burnt Ones album at it's core, a change has been made. The heavy in their heavy psych sound has been turned way back and the band seem to be focusing more on the psych and ramping up on the bubblegum pop that was always buried in a haze of sleaze on previous albums. For die hard fans of Burnt Ones brand of rough around the edges pop songs, Gift may not be what you were hoping for. That's not to say that they've cut it out completely as "Money Man" still has it's fuzz guitar, pounding drums, and aggressive presentation. Songs like "Submarine" and "Is It Over?" start off with a strong pop presence but finish with fuzzy guitars being choked into submission. However, even with the changes, Burnt Ones have created what should be considered their most concise and musically sound album to date. The future seems promising for Burnt Ones as they continue to build on their newly well crafted sound.

Lantern - Rock 'N' Roll Rorschach

From the dirty basements and foulest sewers of Philadelphia comes lo-fi rock n roll wizards Lantern. On past releases we found Lantern churning out fearsome rock n roll punk tunes that we knew were catchy and fun but ended up being buried under walls of fuzz and reverb. This time around, Lantern has swapped in the fuzz and reverb for straight up rock n roll. Starting off the album is "Evil Eye", a track of full frontal rock from the seas of the 70s with the vocals being handled by Emily Robb. An instant classic in it's own right. "King of the Jungle" kicks off with a nod to early doom and groove that drips with enough Swag to make Mick Jagger blush. "Where Are We Now" brings to mind driving ragers like Deep Purple's "Highway Star". "She's A Rebel" is a slow burning track led again by Emily that lulls you into a hypnotic trance. "The Conjurer" is a sneering bluesy jam rattles on and is punctuated with a sultry harmonica solo at the close. "The albums closer, "Heart In Your Tongue" is a nod to the days when Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band were grinding out rocking tracks with major saxophone sway in their favorite local bars. From beginning to end, this album bleeds booze and leaves you feeling drunk as funk. Best album of 2013.

Nerve City - Asleep On The Tracks

Nerve City has a special place for me in my musical history as being one of the first lo-fi, blown-out, punk fueled forces that I was really taken by with the release of the Red Tops 7" in 2009. Those first few chords of Windows had me sold but there was always that wish that you could hear it just a bit better. The self-titled long player in 2010 brought those desires to life but the vocals of Jason Boyer still seemed a bit too far away, which always seemed a shame. However, as time went on, the production seemed to be steadily improving until the sound was fully realized on Asleep On The Tracks. All of your favorite things about Nerve City are still there but, this time around, you can actually hear it all. What really brings this album into it's own though, is the introduction of a new backing band that bring to life the great songs being written by Boyer. The vocals have been pulled into the forefront and are no longer slightly buried under everything else that happens in these songs. From Velvet Underground-esque pop songs like "Rifle Of Peace" to southern-fried rockers like "Nothing Nothing", there is a little here for everyone and should definitely not be slept on by fans of not just the lo-fi scene but also psych heads who dig Dead Luke or Pink Reason's catchier moments. It seems that Nerve City's music gets better and better and Boyer is still as sharp a songwriter as he's always been.

Juleah - Entangled And Entwined

Regular Fucked Up People - S/T

Killer Moon - Live @ Chicago Psych Fest

Family Curse - Twilight Language

Weites Luftmeer - O.S.T.

The Prefab Messiahs - Devolver

Where do I even begin with this album. Kris from The Prefab Messiahs sent me this as a submission a while ago and I just never got around to checking it out until very recently. Some of you may have heard these guys from that 7" that came out on Almost Ready Records early 2011. Both tracks are excellent gunk punk songs and would fit right in with any of the modern day gunkers trashing it up all across the world recently. The only problem with that release was it left you wanting to hear more and didn't show the true variety that TPM have unleashed on Devolver. This collection of songs ranges from 1981 to 1983 and shows the band evolve from lo-fi drum machine punk songs like Beyond All That and the cover of 13th Floor Elevators to tracks like The 16th Track which sounds like Tame Impala meets Mi Ami covering the B-52s or the song Prefabedelia that sounds like it basically inspired the sound for the band Naked on the Vague. This collection of songs is the equivalent for this site of the feeling a noise rock fan gets when they finally check out Sonic Youth or a krautrocker hearing Hawkwind for the first time. That realization that the band you've always wanted to hear stopped playing before you even knew you were looking for them. Don't make the same mistake I did by passing this up for even another day. And the holidays are coming up so go over to Burger Records and buy a copy of this for yourself and everyone else you know.