By Kyle Petersen
Mac Leaphart’s solo record, Line. Rope. Etc., is a songwriting tour-de-force, with tunes that draw from the best of the country-folk tradition (think Kristofferson, John Prine, Gram Parsons), and a few times allows himself to slip into the comfortable sweet spot between Southern rock n’ roll and pure honky-tonk bliss. As a songwriter [...]
Here are our top 11 favorite albums of the last 10 years. They differ from all of the other lists you’ve probably seen. I guess we’re not as indie as they are.
It was hard choosing which one of The Everybodyfields albums to go in the top ten. On one hand my favorite song is off [...]
By: Kyle Petersen
American Gun – Devil Showed Me His Hand Review
I owe American Gun quite a bit. If it wasn’t for the group, I might not be writing about local music today. As a young college student already fairly arrogant and smug in my musical tastes, I was skeptical to the idea that Columbia, SC [...]
By: Rob Lindsey
Kenley Young – Standard Candle
4.5/5
Polish and precision are two words that don’t often come to mind when you listen to local releases. The rush of a new band to get a product on the street or maybe the constraints of cost are most often to blame. That’s not the situation with Standard Candle, the [...]
By Jared Buchholz
Right before placing “What Will We Be” into the stereo of my car, I noticed the rather un detailed art surrounding the paperback case. It looked sort of dreamy eyed boyish at first, but upon a closer look it started to appear remotely along the lines of a malicious nature . I’m [...]
By Kyle Petersen
Austin Crane is one of many acoustic guitar-toting singer/songwriters hanging around college campuses across America, but the music he makes is anything but ordinary. Instead of the simple, often cliche-ridden songs about love and heartache that are standard fare of the twentysomething crowd, Crane tends towards weighty meditations on faith, doubt, God and [...]
Bob Dylan, Christmas in the Heart (Sony, 2009)
By Logan K. Young
While it’s probably a little too soon to bandy about the “d” word – “dementia,” that is – Bob Dylan’s bizarre behavior persists. Even a cursory look at the headlines will show that he’s been on quite the tear lately: leering at Victoria’s Secret underwear [...]
Treadmill Trackstar releases its comeback album I Belong to Me to the public today. To some that may not mean much, but for those of us who were paying attention to the Columbia music scene in the late-90’s it means a lot.
Switchfoot returns to Asheville and Charlotte with a brand new album and DVD.
Toro y Moi – My Touch
Genre: Electronic
RIYL: Discovery by Daft Punk, Justice, Funk samples
Picks: Lesson #223, Existance Music, Deep Routes, Effective Worthless, Take This
Toro y Moi is the solo project of Chaz Bundick, lead singer of The Heist and the Accomplice. The first time I heard a few of the cuts off “My Touch” I [...]
Continuing our our top ten of the 2000’s of local band members, today we present the Top 10 of Tyler Morris of Calculator. If you dig his top 10 check out his band. They are one of the hottest new bands in South Carolina and haven’t even released the Classic Acid EP yet. [...]
For our first installment, and after reading probably our most accurate installment of the Top 25 albums of the decade, Josh McDowell of The Dirty White weighs in on his top albums. With a new album and video in the works, we will be hearing a lot from the Florence natives in the coming months.
25. [...]
By Kyle Petersen
One of the most noted up-and-comers in South Carolina’s music scene over the past few years, singer/songwriter Cary Ann Hearst boasts one of the most powerful country/soul/punk voices you are ever likely to hear, with top-notch songwriting chops to boot. Her debut record Dust & Bones sounds like an alt. country classic and [...]
Album Review
David Bazan-Curse Your Branches
3.5/5
Having read a number of reviews of this album everyone seems to be focused on the “Christianity” aspect of this album. That does after all seem to be his central theme here. When talking about writing this album lyrically, Bazan said that he mainly writes the songs and then goes back [...]
By Kyle Petersen
The Magnetic Flowers, who have to be near the top of nearly anyone’s list of best bands in Columbia, recently released their excellent second full-length, and in doing so raised the bar pretty damn high for the rest of this year’s releases.
The band plays a kinetic brand of literate indie pop with disparate [...]
