The Happy Somethings: Consolation Street

English twee trio The Happy Somethings take a good-natured swipe at a pretty girl wandering down around town on their new single Consolation Street. Sure enough the lads take notice, while she confident that she is way out of their league: "With your sparkling teeth and your lips bright red // and your tired eyes saying time for bed, // you don’t leave much to the imagination." Of course this won't last, because beauty tends to be only skin deep. The band must have been having a lot of fun, punching holes into her inflated ego. It is a track from their forthcoming album A Healthy Dose Of Hope, which will be available on August 7th.

The Fierce & The Dead: The 1234

English experimental rock band The Fierce & The Dead delve into hard-hitting psychedelic and stonerrock on their new single The 1234, their first new studio release since 2023. Its message is plain and simple: playing music may have saved their lifes and by sharing their art with the audience, it can make you feel a whole lot better as well. Alternating between full-throttled mayhem and tinkling short, post-rock interludes, they play a game of tension and release. It comes with a slowed down Brass Dragon Ritual remix that sounds like they were playing underwater.

La Cerca: tour dates

photo: Chris Carpenter

Tuscon based alternative rockers La Cerca have a bunch of show lined up, playing their smart version of Americana meets indie rock.

Live dates:

• 04 Charlottesville ,VA @ Crozet Pizza
• 05 Wilmington, NC @ Satellite Bar and Lounge
• 07 Beckley, WV @ Jimmie's Place Beckley
• 08 Cincinatti, OH @ The Comet

» lacerca.net

Conrad Freling: Through The Glass Of A Radiostore

Multi-instrumentalist Conrad Freling and member of Dutch dark noir band The Bullfight goes out on his own with his second solo album Through The Glass Of A Radiostore, a concept album of sorts about trying to make sense of the women he has encountered. It is about love, loss and feeling out of one's depth, but not in an unpleasant way. Using lush, cinematographic baroque pop and indie-folk arrangements - listeners will lose count trying to keep up with all the tasteful diminished chords he has managed to fit in - he looks back on his first crush as a teenager, holiday flings (Sonya From Yugoslavia) and girlfriends who keep lingering as ghosts in the back of his mind in the title track.

It is not all melancholy however. Mustering up his courage he also shouts to his lover to commit (I Need You Now!) and in hindsight he gets mad at his sibling (Hey Sister). Through The Glass Of A Radiostore is a stylish take on neo-classical inspired pop songs that will strike a chord with fans of Rufus Wainwright and Jonathan Spottiswoode. With singer Bette Schindler acting as a one-woman Greek choir, Freling's questions are not answered as such - how could they - but as a quest it is a fascinating journey.

DOPPLeR: "The Screening Stops" video

French progressive noise rock trio DOPPLeR have made a video for The Screening Stops, the opening track from their new full-length Pourquoi Ce Disque?: "It is an album that will have mainstream lovers running to the emergency exits, with their ears covered - they must have missed the warning tag line "Ils font une musique que personne ne danse", but people with a working knowledge of bands like Tool and a penchant for shifting time signatures and songs that can incorporate full-on metal and pastoral interludes without missing a beat, are in for a treat."