It's time for the first Weekly Roundup of 2013, let's get to it!
Wyatt is a band that includes Maddy Wyatt, her brothers Paul and Alex, and two of their other friends Zach and Dana. They just put out a new single called "Trouble," and it's a good one. The song starts out with a very catchy combination of twangy guitar riff, minimal percussion of kick drum, snaps, and claps, and Maddy's voice. She details the situation of being incredibly attracted to someone but knowing it's a problem. Or, as the one-word chorus puts it, "Trouble." With the outpouring of music and the message of the lyrics, this single word says quite a lot. I think the band is gearing up to put out more in 2013 and they'll play January 24th at Spike Hill.
This one slipped by me during the holidays, but I really wanted to share it now. Lucius is a NYC act and they put out a live performance video of their song "Don't Just Sit There," which you can watch below. The clip is dynamically lit, making use of different colors and silhouettes. The band has two singers, Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, and the combination of their voices is quite a force. I like the live sound of the guitars a lot, too. They are powerful and textured but don't overtake the song. Lucius will perform January 18th at the Mercury Lounge.
This isn't NYC, this isn't an artist that has been on TWD before, and it's not even that new, but because Darwin Deez released a remix for his track "Free" this week, I was able to discover the video for the track that came out like 2 months ago. The song is pretty energetic, with some nice distorted guitar and a really big chorus, though it does have it's mellower moments too. The video is really great. It takes a sort of Groundhog Day, time-loop aspect to something very low-key: Darwin working in a convenience store, stocking shelves…over and over and over. I like how he breaks through to get out, and then how that starts looping. It's a good way to cover the message of the song and it successfully faked me out with the girl spilling coffee – I thought for sure he'd catch her before she did it, but no. His new album comes out February 12th and he will tour this spring, which includes a 4/3 date at the Bowery Ballroom.
Catching up with previously posted artists, another track I missed is from New Zealand band The Eversons, "The End of the World." Luckily the world didn't end so that I can share this lovely tune. It has a timeless pop feeling with the chord progression, melodies, and harmonies, as well as it's sweet delivery of heartbroken sentiment. A lot like "Who Loves the Sun?" by the Velvet Underground in that respect.
I also don't know how this track "Can't You See" from Steffaloo got by me, but here it is. I think she has a great voice, but what really gets me here is that the sentiment of the track is raw and transfixing. At first, you're thinking that a bare bones, acoustic guitar-only track makes perfect sense, but out of nowhere comes some minimal percussion (mostly drum machine I think) and strings. Each offers something different – the percussion gives a hip-hop groove and the strings heighten the dramatic element – and their subtlety does the song a great service. Check out Would You Stay if you haven't.