by Ronald Walczyk | Mar 20, 2017 | Album of the Week
Buffalo dream-pop quartet Coral Collapse has barely allowed a year to pass before offering up some fresh new material, and nobody’s complaining. Drawing comparisons to airy indie contemporaries like Wild Nothing and DIIV, Coral Collapse has built their platform...
by Ronald Walczyk | Mar 17, 2017 | Preview
With the Spring season fast approaching, Buffalo’s concert season begins to ramp up right alongside the nice weather. And what better way to help melt the remnants of Stella than a performance by SoCal indie heroes Local Natives? The band has made more than a name for...
by Ronald Walczyk | Feb 13, 2017 | Album of the Week
Solo artist Zach Hallenbeck, under the name Drive Me Home Please, creates lo-fi synth jams that explore the inner confines of his mind. Channeling the stylistic elements of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, and armed with little more than what sounds to be a...
by Ronald Walczyk | Jan 27, 2017 | Album Review
There’s something about the songcraft of downstate-based singer-songwriter Julie Byrne that appeals to more than just the ears. Her music, at once spectral and tangible, whisks the listener to Byrne’s weightless place of soft melodies and personal experience. And it...
by Ronald Walczyk | Dec 12, 2016 | Album of the Week
I drove home in the snow tonight (Sunday). And no, not just a dusting, Buffalo’s first semi-legitimate accumulation this December. The roads were mostly awful; it took me about double the amount of time it normally does to get home from work. But amongst all the...
by Ronald Walczyk | Dec 5, 2016 | Album of the Week
Evan Meulenmans crafts songs for people who hold optimism to a high standard. His music seems to be an effortless offering—a mere extension of his obvious inner positivity. The Wisconsin-bred, Rochester-based folk musician’s latest release, Lilac Drive, combines...
by Ronald Walczyk | Nov 21, 2016 | Album of the Week
Through being cool? Well try being Cooler. Buffalo’s emogaze-alternative all-stars return for round two with Phantom Phuzz, a six-track EP of regret, carbonated soft drinks, and that sweet, fuzzy thickness. The album’s carefully crafted tones compete vigorously with...
by Ronald Walczyk | Nov 14, 2016 | Album of the Week
With such an active, buzzing music scene, collaboration between Buffalo’s local artists is practically unavoidable. Once you take into account the sheer amount of comradery, diversity, and artistry within our fine city, you’re left with nothing but unbridled...
by Ronald Walczyk | Aug 8, 2016 | Album of the Week
Rochester-based indie rockers Northern Spies, a project featuring members of several other prominent Rochester bands, have been on the circuit for a few years now. Last year’s Nothing But Static EP wasn’t quite what the effort’s title suggested. The...
by Ronald Walczyk | Jul 18, 2016 | Rochester
Pleistocene rises! Rochester’s coolest named-after-a-geological-epoch surf-punk outfit has dropped a new single off of the band’s forthcoming LP Spear, due out on Pleisto-tour cassette via Casual Punks on 7/22 (and beyond, if you happen to catch the 5-piece on their...
by Ronald Walczyk | Jun 14, 2016 | Rochester
So yeah, we slept on this one for a bit. But anticipation has an strange way of making things better—and that was just the case for Dream News, Attic Abasement’s first full-length since 2010’s Dancing Is Depressing. A project once unabashedly saturated in lo-fi...
by Ronald Walczyk | Jun 4, 2016 | Preview
Following a tour van mishap that led the band to cancel its most recent hometown appearance, Brooklyn-based trio Bethlehem Steel will finally make it back to its origin city of (as their bandname may suggest) Buffalo tonight. Sharing cues from Rochester-based fuzz...
by Ronald Walczyk | Apr 11, 2016 | Preview
Is your Monday in need of a little color? These gray skies have a stranglehold on your morale, you say? Well I’ve got your remedy right here: Atsuko Chiba. The Montreal outfit specializes in dark and gripping experimental prog rock similar to what you’d hear from a...
by Ronald Walczyk | Apr 4, 2016 | Album of the Week
Making music is not an effortless endeavor. But Rochester’s The Demos sure make it seem that way. Their polished blend of indie powerpop is unabashedly catchy and clean, and the music just seems to flow from them. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve heard a collection...
by Ronald Walczyk | Apr 3, 2016 | Preview
Philadelphia punk rockers Sheer Mag are more than a fresh voice to the scene. Their freshness precedes them—the 80’s tinged beefy riff slinging, frontwoman Christina Halladay’s Joan Jett-ish tigress growl, exceptionally grooveable rhythms, all of this coalesces into...
