Today’s video interview is with Caamp.
Caamp is an Americana act on the rise with their recent release of By and By coming out last Friday. In this chat from the Firefly Festival, the band talks about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the music business.
Now three albums into their career, Of Monsters and Men have all but abandoned their happy-go-lucky and charming takes on indie rock in favor of stadium-ready pop anthems on Fever Dream. The first lyrics on the LP are telling as lead singer Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir opens with, “I see color/Raining down/Feral feeling/Swaying sound/But I don’t know what you want.” The entire record is filled with much brighter moments than we have come to expect from the Icelandic band, and this album turns out to be their best to date.
Coming off of two successful records in My Head is an Animal and Beneath the Skin, Of Monsters and Men could have very well made a similar sounding record for their third effort. However, never ones to be complacent with what they have accomplished before, the band took it upon themselves to push themselves to their creative limits on Fever Dream. Co-produced by the group and under the trusted tutelage of Rich Costey (Frank Turner, Foster the People), Of Monsters and Men have fully embraced the pop underlining that were embedded in their earlier work and made a record worthy of the size of the venues they are playing this fall.
Josh Chambers of Sloppy Meat Eaters has put together a “makeshift documentary” about the band and their travels. The first three episodes are up on YouTube.
Chain Gang of 1974 has released the new single “From Here Who Knows” to streaming services.
Cassadee Pope joined Third Eye Blind on stage in Nashville to perform “Losing a Whole Year.”
The Coverups, a Green Day side project, performed a surprise block party over the weekend. Some fan shot footage has been uploaded to YouTube.
Sum 41 has announced some new fall tour dates.
Chance the Rapper has announced some new tour dates.
Lizzo performed a new NPR Tiny Desk concert.
Ten Foot Pole have shared a video for “Everything Dies.”
This week’s newsletter has thoughts on new songs from Blink-182 and The 1975, early impressions of The Faim’s new album, and some random thoughts about other music I’ve been enjoying this week. Then there’s my weekly media diet rundown which including a spoiler-filled rant about the new Veronica Mars. I was frustrated. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I loved this week and a little recap about the current health of this very website. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.
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Sun Cycles, the solo project of Jessica Hottman of The Hottman Sisters, released her latest single “Bang Bang” last week. Today we’re excited to premiere the track’s video. “Bang Bang” is, if you’ll excuse the pun, something of a banger, and I think fans of artists like Betty Who or Halsey would find a lot to love in the indie pop song. Hottman describes the song as:
A song about falling fast in love. It tells the tale of how we often play youthful games, in an attempt to ignore how we really feel. The bridge of the song is that moment when we let go and dive headfirst into those feelings we have, which are often inescapable anyway.
Today’s video interview is with Grizfolk.
Grizfolk is a Swedish-American rock band that is making waves with their recent release Rarest of Birds. In this interview from the Firefly Festival the band talks about why music streaming is so dominant in 2019.
The Dirty Nil have dropped the third installment in a series of cover sets, You’re Welcome III, on all streaming platforms today.