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North Collins – North Collins

November 23, 2015

You know the saying—“Another day, another rad album of the week from Rochester.” Pretty sure that’s how it goes. At any rate, it holds true this week; Rochester pop-folk duo North Collins having dropped a wonderfully-composed nine tracks of lush experimental folk. With its uplifting male-female harmonies and striking, appropriate orchestration, the self-titled debut fits nicely on a shelf between an Illinois-era Sufjan Stevens and indie-folk contemporaries Mates of State. When Mac first sent me the link to the duo’s bandcamp, I thought perhaps he was making reference to the project’s name; North Collins is also the name of a town neighboring my hometown of Eden, a Buffalo suburb. “Heh, a suitable listen for an Edenite,” I thought, as I opened the link and plugged in my headphones. All novelty aside, North Collins is the real deal. From the very first track, “Western Sky,” I was drawn immediately to the[...]

A Relative Term – The Quiet End of the Space Age

November 16, 2015

Atmosphere isn’t an easy aspect to apply to folk music. The predicament almost becomes a matter of mathematics; include too many layers, and the ambiance detracts from the songwriting itself. But for A Relative Term—the musical project of Mark Longolucco—a sound atmospheric ratio comes naturally. When that ratio is applied to the contemporary folk songs on the project’s latest LP, The Quiet End of the Space Age, we’re left with an immersive collection of tracks that melds thoughtful musicianship with a warm-hearted nature of songwriting that makes it difficult to remain unaffected by. Mathematics aside, The Quiet End of the Space Age has an alarmingly natural feeling to it, despite the lush offerings of keyboard often found filling out the ten tracks. It’s a pretty unique balance—think the rusticity of an early Iron and Wine meets the haunting ambiance of the latest Sufjan Stevens album. Folk contemporaries Mutual Benefit strike[...]

Bethlehem Steel – Docking

November 9, 2015

This isn’t the first time we’re writing about Bethlehem Steel (BS), so by now, Becca Ryskalczyk’s move to Brooklyn has been well-publicized. We like to take care of our own, even when they move out of town after all. In case you’re unfamiliar, Becca was Buffalo-born and educated at SUNY Fredonia. You may have caught her several years ago on a solo trek across the US with fellow Buffalonians A Hotel Nourishing. Either way, we consider Becca an honorable Buffalonian, even as she’s busy making waves in the Brooklyn independent scene. Docking is the new EP (out via Brooklyn’s Miscreant Records) from this talented three-piece. Though they’ve always had a knack for fuzzy indie-pop (see “Guts” from their last EP, Grow Up), BS has really stepped up their fuzz game on Docking. Opening track “One Giant Fuck Machine” is a poppy, apt introduction to this EP, showcasing the groups’ loosely-wound, borderline lo-fi tunes. Most notable is Becca’s[...]

The Naturalists – Home Honey, I’m Hi

November 2, 2015

If you’ve ever seen The Naturalists live, you might know what I mean when I say their live set feels like a party scene straight out of a cult classic 90’s movie. They’re gritty, loud as heck, there’s a lot of fearless guitar riffs and hair being flipped back and forth. This three piece, grunge-soaked Buffalo band is the perfect lovechild of that golden era of 90’s alt-rock and modern, fuzzy garage rock. Lead singer and guitarist Craig Perno has this unique Raine Maida quality to his voice that is equally piercing as it is haunting. He has a solid grasp of when to kick it into high gear and when to hold back for a mysterious, brooding effect. The rest of the band, consisting of Zach Russell on bass and Perno’s twin brother Travis on drums, exudes the same confidence and dark allure when performing. The camaraderie between these[...]

Andrew Biggie – Mementos from the Living World

October 26, 2015

The description for Mementos from a Living World by Andrew Biggie states that this EP has made Anselm Kiefer’s children dance. Investigating this fascinating artist (and bold claim), I discovered a quote by Kiefer that resonated with me, “Art really is something very difficult,” he says. “It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand … A part of it should always include having to scratch your head.” Drawing from several ever-changing and cyclical sources, many have tried to pin down Kiefer’s art with no avail. This rings true for Andrew Biggie.  Outside of producing solo material, he participates in the spoken word Bourbon and Coffee series and the freak-folk band Helen. Biggie’s album appears on the bandcamp page for “Super Rad Great Times,” which doubles as a blog, showcasing music, writing and art books. Some songs are straightforward. You know what they’re trying to[...]

Glenwood – Long Days, Lonely Nights

October 19, 2015

Winter is coming. I realize it might sting a little to read that, but just know that you have options. You can pretend it’s not coming, approach the chilly days with an air of nostalgic denial, imagining yourself back at (the now endangered) Canalside concert series under the Thursday sun or swimming at your own risk in the chancy waters of Lake Erie. Or, if you’re like me, you deal with the cold snap and find something to warm yourself up. The acoustic songs found on Long Days, Lonely Nights, the October debut from Rochester folk outfit Glenwood, deliver a certain loneliness—as the title suggests—but at the core of each track are the warm embers of something that once was. Those embers serve as the perfect heat source for the chilly seasonal shift, songs self-proclaimed as “whisky-drinking tunes that are there for you on those rough nights.” The description holds[...]

California Cousins – George’s Bridge

October 2, 2015

Rochester emos California Cousins are no stranger to buffaBLOG. We’ve been following them and theirs since the dissolution of Keeler last year. Luckily, Cali Cousins are still hanging around, blessing us with a new EP full of noodly emo jams that they’ve christened George’s Bridge. I’m sure you can all reminisce of a time where you and your high school friends jumped off an old derelict bridge or had a clandestine rendezvous by a graffiti-laden abandoned structure. California Cousins tug on your nostalgic heartstrings in that way (and boy am I a sucker for some good emo jams). “Soft Earth” kicks off this EP with some twinkly guitar riffs reminiscent of Snowing, Del Paxton, or Tiny Moving Parts. Guitarist Christian Ortiz is a twinkle daddy for sure (it’s a Facebook group for twinkly guitar-riff lovers, so get your mind out of the gutter). Drummer Juan Ortiz skillfully weaves his rhythms in between  Christian[...]

KOPPS – The Sound of Music

September 27, 2015

One of my favorite shows this year was easily !!! with Rochester’s KOPPS downstairs in the Ninth Ward at Babeville this past May. If the acoustics in Asbury Hall are dodgy, the acoustics in that brick basement are downright sublime, and that was a show you felt in every cell of your being, the energy created by both bands a thing felt that night. After being dogged by sound issues earlier in the week at Waiting Room, KOPPS in particular sounded spectacular, getting the crowd moving and playing new songs pointing to an even denser, ambitious sound to go with their never secret weapon, vocalist Patricia Patron. This latest iteration of blog favorite KOPPS is on full display on The Sound Of Music, a four track EP co-written with Joywave’s Daniel Armbruster released last Friday via Cultco which fulfills those ambitions and then some. “My Gold” was a huge hit live[...]

Dumb Angel – Antenna

September 21, 2015

Bands are kind of like stars. A band is born, a band implodes or dissolves, and a new band is reborn. In the local sense, this cycle of dissolution and rebirth happens all the time. In the case of Rochester garage-pop trio Dumb Angel, their star was born four years ago from members of The Instruments Band, and the resiliency of the new project has shone through multiple rebirths (Howlo, Europa & The Great Red Spot, Rochester Chip to name a few) over the span of those four years. This is an impressive bout of longevity considering most of these projects are ongoing, and now, after years of writing, recording, and mastering, Dumb Angel has dropped its debut—an impressive eleven tracks of sunny psychpop titled Antenna. If you’ve listened to Howlo, you should immediately recognize the voice of vocalist Ben Morey; Antenna capitalizes big on soaring vocal harmonies similar to the[...]

Pappy Stardust – All Around Sound

September 14, 2015

Whether or not “Pappy Stardust” is a silly homage to a David Bowie album doesn’t really matter, Steve Leszyk, the man behind Pappy Stardust, has released a killer LP called All Around Sound, this week’s Album of the Week. “Space Gospel” is what the band’s Facebook page describes its genre as, and I dare you to find a better descriptor than that. The music features blues riffs swimming around under a ton of distortion and compression, while managing to stay heavily melodic. And while the album has an extremely uniform sound, each song is still completely it’s own entity. All Around Sound carries the heavy blues-driven riffs akin to those of early Black Keys, combined with Tobacco-like compression and in-your-face noise, and Guero-era Beck interludes. It’s all tied together with a hint of Mac Demarco-esque “no fucks given” attitude buried in there, one that especially comes out on “Memory Of You,” the[...]

Jax Deluca – Wither Without You

September 9, 2015

I’m always a sucker for a play on words. The title of Jax Deluca’s first solo release, Wither Without You, embodies the strength of defiant independence and the honesty of underlying defeat. The toss and turn of an addiction: to a lover, a friend, a long-gone identity, a habit. Combining meditative melodies and insightful lyrics, Deluca weaves a collection of songs that foretell the in-between feelings we all experience. It’s what good poetry does–expresses the collective through a seemingly personal lens. Recorded in the Karpeles Manuscript Museum during business hours, one can imagine bodies gazing at the current boxing exhibit, while Deluca strums the ukulele and Kyle Marler works the pipe organ, creating a dual experience of artistic coercion. Even though live albums aren’t particularly rare, the audio engineering by Benjamin Jura, and the mixing by Damian Weber, nuance the sounds so that it’s (almost) impossible to tell where they[...]

Aircraft – 7 Gems From the Sparkling Void

August 31, 2015

Aircraft is the band you’d picture being propelled 200 years into the future and selling out venue after venue in Saturn’s ringside (presumably flourishing) psych-pop music scene. It’s spacey, surf-like indie rock that maintains a tastefully flashy appeal, but it’s stuff that all of us earthlings can cut loose to in a grungy basement or bar, also. The Buffalo quartet (comprised of Justin John Smith, Tyler Skelton, James Warren, and Matt Cosmann) released their long awaited sophomore album, 7 Gems From the Sparkling Void, through local label Admirable Trait Records this past weekend. It’s a neatly packaged seven song album that offers a clean sound with modish aftertastes. The album had a slower build for me, but I often discover that to be one of the greatest qualities an album can have. I found myself humming the first tune to myself by the time I got to the last and wanting to[...]

A House Safe for Tigers – A House Safe for Tigers

August 24, 2015

It’s been an album of the summer since it’s release at the end of June, but in honor of it’s delayed and now hot anticipated album release party this Saturday at the Mohawk, the eponymous debut from WNY supergroup A House Safe for Tigers is our Album of the Week. The resoundingly succesful collaboration between WNY music scene stalwarts Brandon Delmont (Girlpope, Son of the Son, Lindburgh Babies) and Mark Constantino (Exit Strategy, Returners), A House Safe for Tigers hits a variety of sweet spots From the opening vibrations of the w’sm Mercury Revesque instrumental “Entrance” that kicks it off, A House Safe for Tigers immediately signals it’s attention to sonic detail and keen sense of history, a point driven home by lead single “Ann Marie.” A shimmering ode to Brian Wilson’s lifelong affection for the sonic architecture of fellow troubled by brilliant savant Phil Spector, “Ann Marie” is a[...]

Hieronymus Bogs – The Angel

August 17, 2015

With a name like Hieronymus Bogs, eclecticism is almost expected. The Rochester folk artist and group of musicians that embellish his craft—the appropriately-named Bogs Visionary Orchestra, or BVO—harbor few inhibitions and fully live up to their respective monikers. Bogs’ unique vein of rootsy outsider folk enmeshes poetry and performance, nearly evading traditional classification altogether. The end result is an art form equal parts unconventional and embraceable, a sonic tizzy of spoken-word poetry and folk-tinged orchestration. On his latest release, a nine-track collection of songs and poems titled The Angel (titled after a William Blake poem of the same name), Bogs (and company) keeps the instrumentation delicate and organic while his often interpretive lyrics remain soaked in folklore. The album’s title track introduces the main theme with a tenderly played piano backdrop, Bogs singing longingly over top—“I dreamt a dream, what could it mean?” The very opening line captures the album[...]

Comfy // Skirts Split

August 10, 2015

It can be difficult to view a split release as a singular piece of work, and in some sense, it’s much more common and appropriate to view each artist’s contribution of songs as an individual creation. Comfy and Skirts’ latest joint EP release from Miscreant and Dadstache Records seems way more accessible as one harmonious album than usual. These two bands work well on their own, but are also incredibly compatible with one another. To me, Comfy is the unkempt, rebel of a sibling and Skirts is the slightly more ordered, quirk-ridden one. Both are deliberate in their sound. Both are equally expressive. I saw Comfy, a lo-fi garage pop band out of Utica, for the first time at Nietzsche’s not too long ago. Their live performance involved swaddling a fake baby fashioned from a blanket full of red string and disassembling it in a frenzied manner (the fake baby was[...]