Lav's Music Corner

For this bulky rapid-fire reviews segment I gathered together 5 bands who to varying degrees of commercial success and critical acknowledgment, occupied the blog-driven world of indie and alternative rock in the late 2000s. Many of their contemporaries have fade, but these five are still going strong to extremely varying degrees of success in 2024.  All Hell  - Los Campesinos! Verbose indie-punk outfit Los Campesinos have been quiet with studio albums since 2017, but their presence has never faded. Whether that's due to the many bands who are obviously influenced directly by their vibrant, youthful sound and lyrical snark, or because they dropped an EP a few years ago and some compilation material since then, the band still feels much more relevant than others from their era. I was on board with this new record right out of the gate when I heard the fantastic lead single Feast Of Tongues . It sees the band channeling their righteousness into pinpoint catchy songwriting with nu...

I couldn't quite finish this on time yesterday. I have a great excuse but I can't tell you about it so you'll have to take my word for it. 5.  Rag  - Porches Consider me surprised. It's been a while since I REALLY enjoyed a Porches single but I found myself hooked on this one pretty quickly. I love the slurring indie rock style and some of the incredibly evocative lyrics. For a song so intense it's also impressively catchy and has been stuck in my head basically all week.  Listen 4.  Differ  - KMRU, Kevin Richard Martin Normally ambient singles don't really have the kind of pull to stand out on their own the way they do when compellingly assembled into a full album, unless you're Tim Hecker. But the most I listened to this song the more I was impressed by its gentle washes of sound and how impactful they were despite the minimalism. After becoming a big fan of KMRU in the past few years, seeing him collaborate with Kevin Richard Martin of The Bug fame is a c...