The band Adulting, a four-piece unit from Portland, picked a fine band name, not because of the cleverness of that word (which went bankrupt a couple years ago after innumerable wailings from the Boomer generation), but because it betrays nothing about the sound of their band. Are they a too…
The three-piece Bully Mammoth have been one of Portland's more mercurial rock acts for years now, hurtling between noise, cathartic drone, fuzzed-out college rock, and weird freakouts weaving in and out of pop conventions. Amassing several years’ recording output, including last year’s ambit…
“You don’t even notice me when I’m not around, when I don’t seem down,” Sonia Sturino sings on Weakened Friends’ new album Common Blah. The lyric is meant to be personal in the context of the track, the angsty “Aches,” with its stretchy, taffy-like guitar riffs and plaintive vocals. But if v…
"I am reborn now baby, haven’t you heard?” sings Jakob Battick over the stark and affectless opening chords of “Brand New Thunderbird Blues.” It’s the opening track from his new album To Be Born Again & Again, and his hopeful, mournful, slow-boiled croon is familiar to Portland ears.
Before the release of The White Album, The Beatles had embarrassed themselves in the greater pop culture eye with their Magical Mystery Tour made-for-TV movie. They had stopped touring. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were doing their David St. Hubbins and Jeanine Pettibone thing, George Martin was…
Portland Phoenix | Onward, Stallions: Hessian's 'Mercenary Retrograde' revives the Maine metal ideal
The occult metal band Hessian is one of Portland’s more storied musical organizations. Anchored by the songwriting, guitar playing and singing of Angus McFarland, Hessian could be called “throwbacky” or “old school,” but there’s a dismissiveness about both of those labels that feels wrong. M…
Golden Rules the Thumb is the self-titled debut from Portland songwriter/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Tyler Jackson’s new project, a seven-piece collective that includes fellow and former Foam Castles/Endless Jags bandmates Shannon Allen (bass, keys) Peet Chamberlain (bass), and Jonas Eule…
They say good design makes everyday items seem invisible, transparent. Whether it’s an umpire or a refrigerator, when something is doing its job, you don’t notice.
Billed as an alt-country group from Maine, the Mallett Brothers Band have always seemed like an exercise in a multiple identities. Beginning in earnest in 2009, the band’s early albums occupied a space between heartland country — always a bit of a stretch for Portlanders — and something call…
The last time we checked in with Armies, it was 2015 and the duo of Anna Lombard and Dave Gutter had just put out their first record. At that time, their narrative was that the music was inspired by “French pop duets of the '60s,” a great place from which to draw inspiration (if not entirely…
There’s something inherently mysterious about womanhood. As a woman, I feel it, I know it intimately, and it still seems to defy me. Emotions arise that I had no idea belonged to me. Shadow sides ebb and flow alongside very pragmatic facets of my day to day life, messing with me like some ki…
el malo. el malo! Finally! Get on up here boys, it’s your turn to take a sweet sashay across the stage! Like a good natured pack of huskies mere seconds away from starting their first leg of the Iditarod, el malo are the earnestly enthusiastic, frothing and tenacious crew behind the pulsatin…
Ok, I had no idea what I was getting into with Buddusky, the Peru, Maine-based duo of Jeshua Doyon (guitars and vocals) and Dean Arsenault (drums and vocals). Theirs is one of my favorite local band names; every time I see it on a poster or something I get kind of happy about how fun it is t…
Max Garcia Conover’s new album Stagger, out this Friday via a release show at One Longfellow Square, is my first exposure to Max Garcia Conover. I hear his name around town a lot, he’s always doing a little solo gig or opening for someone who rides a similar set of indie folk or Americana ra…
Armed with legit credibility and one of the best band names in the state, Cushing’s new album Blood of Cushing is a satisfying stretch of music, the kind that most rock fans have forgotten how to play. Led by guitarist and songwriter Serge Vladimiroff, the trio play a dark, sulky noise-rock …
ROAD TRIP, Y’ALL! Put all your best leggings and t-shirts in a backpack, make a sweet-ass mixtape with some Tom Petty on it, jump in my old hooptie and let’s hit the highway! Caroline Cotter’s latest collection of introspective Americana, Home on the River, captures this bright momentum of a…