Autochrome with Nightmare Air and Boom Said Thunder | Great Scott, Boston | Aug. 4

[Flyer Design: Boom Said Thunder. Limited edition of prints will be sold at the show] Saturday evening is one of those all-too-frequent Boston nights when there are too many places to be. Of note in particular to Clicky Clicky readers is the Infinity Girl show at Precinct in Somerville [Facebook event page]. But the more hotly anticipated bill is the one listed above, which -- in addition to sets from the hotly tipped Nightmare Air and Boom Said Thunder -- features the debut of what is being referred to as Autochrome "2.0." Readers will recall the darkwave and post-punk-influenced Boston quartet issued its cracking debut Separation Realms in early spring, and feted it with a dominating performance at TT The Bear's Place at the end of March that we reviewed here. Fans were surprised to learn of the departure not long after that of founding guitarist Richard Murillo, whose prismatic guitar work was a key counterpoint -- the pull to the push, if you will -- to the forthright rhythm section comprised of fronter and bassist Jeff Bartell and drummer Patrick Florance. As Autochrome's long-player embraced elements of minimalism, every player's contribution was weighty (the fourth member, incidentally, is rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Katherine Murray).

So the question of what a new iteration of Autochrome will sound like has been something that occupied the minds of more than a few fans this summer. The band announced recently that Deborah Warfield, who has played with Swirlies and others, has joined Autochrome on guitar, keys and vocals. And additional social network buzz suggests the band has written all-new material for this weekend's show. What will it sound like? What will fans see this weekend? We don't know! Anticipation mounts. And it will certainly be exciting to go find out. What's more, we're also hearing that Swirlies fronter Damon Tutunjian may potentially sit in on some numbers. Which is kind of insane, as we think he lives in Sweden these days. More anticipation. While you're waiting for the weekend to roll around, check out the embed below of Separation Realms.

Forever Now: The Infinity Girl Interview

It's that they make it look so easy, that's what initially enticed us to approach the chaps in upstart Boston shoegaze unit Infinity Girl for an interview. With almost zero warning, the foursome issued in May a very impressive full-length debut, Stop Being On My Side, which we reviewed here last month. There were no singles and very few shows to serve as harbingers for the set, making the band's sudden leap into the vanguard of the city's expanding shoegaze scene all the more surprising. With its remarkable debut out, a personnel change brought on by the departure of founding bassist Ransom for Los Angeles, and some great live bills facing Infinity Girl in August, we thought it was high time to check in with the band, which is certainly among the most promising of Boston's current crop of startlingly good young bands. Fronter and guitarist Nolan Eley and drummer Sebastian Modak were very gracious with their time, and while we ultimately didn't learn why it is the songs seem to come so easily, we did get a feel for how the band did what it did and does what it does.

Clicky Clicky: You've just released a very good record. If you could choose another, released by anyone ever, that you wish Infinity Girl could have made itself, what would it be? And you're not allowed to say Loveless.

Nolan Eley: If I was answering this for myself I might say Emergency And I by Dismemberment Plan, but as a band we'd probably go with Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth.

Sebastian Modak: I think it would have been pretty nice to have made Yuck's recent record. Personally, I would be content with life if I had played drums on Fugazi's 13 Songs (yeah, it's a compilation, but whatever). I can't even imagine what it would feel like to play those songs live.

CC: There were very few shows and no singles leading up to the release of the record. And that's one of the things that made a big impression on me: no single, no fucking around, just a handful of shows and then BOOM, a wonderful, fully formed full-length. It reminds me of the genesis story of the Greek goddess Athena. Did Infinity Girl feel like it was important to make such a strong statement right out of the starting gate?

NE: Thank you, to be honest, it was kind of surprising how easily it happened. I think we just wanted to record the songs we had and at first we were thinking it was probably going to be a 6-track EP when we initially went into the studio. We had just learned "Void" at that point and decided trying to record it. We did a few takes that weren't that great, but listening back, the energy was so good we decided to include that on the record. Shortly after those sessions happened Seb and I wrote "By Now" and we were all like 'we have to put this on the record.' So we went into the studio and recorded that. So at this point we were sitting on 8 songs and thinking 'is this an EP or a full length?' Then "Pulling A Smile From A Drawer" happened almost on accident, I was messing around with this piano at The Record Company, it's an acoustic piano but it has electric pickups on it, so I was running it through a bunch of guitar pedals, just messing around. Thank God somebody hit the record button. Anyways, after that I got the idea to record some instrumental tracks. Those, I think, helped the record really flow together as a full length and brought it up to 11 tracks.

CC: Who does the bulk of Infinity Girl's songwriting?

NE: I've done most of the songwriting so far, but the songwriting process is evolving as we play more.

SM: [When t]he band started [it was] based around songs Nolan had already written. We were already friends and I heard him playing at a weekly songwriter's circle that some close friends of mine used to run at All Asia [in Cambridge, Mass.]. I immediately started fantasizing about how great the songs would sound, louder and with a full band. What you hear on the record is mostly from Nolan's existing songs. But as the band has evolved, so has the songwriting process. I wrote the lyrics to "By Now," while I was in Spain and sent them to Nolan while he was in China... So, it's not always just Nolan. But most of the time he'll be the one that turns our ideas into something that sounds kind of like a song.

CC: The reason I ask about songwriters is that, from a songwriting standpoint, there seems to be a tension in your music between the more pure shoegaze stuff and something like "Cellophane And Gold," which is more uptempo and has almost a punk edge, or the lyrics to the chorus of "Cannons," which is surprisingly up top of the mix and pretty emo?

NE: I think the reason for this is that most of the songs on the record did not start out as a band writing them together. I have always just written and recorded music for fun. Sometimes I would keep the songs hidden on my computer, sometimes I would put them online for my friends to hear. Creating an album with a consistent aesthetic was not my priority. I just wrote the songs how I felt that day or that week. Some of them were straight-up shoegaze, some of them with complex orchestral arrangments, some folky, some electronic. I guess the songs that made it onto the record and into the Infinity Girl catalog were the ones that translated over to a four-piece rock band the easiest.

SM: It's also a product of what we're listening to. Sure, a lot of what has influenced us comes from the same time period, but when you're (subconsciously or otherwise) thinking about "Big Day Coming" by Yo La Tengo and "The Leper" by Dinosaur the result can be all over the place. And I think that's a good thing.

CC: Did you heavily demo Stop Being On My Side? I'm just curious to know how hard you had to work to get the sounds on the record? Did you bring a record to the producer and say "make it sound like this?"

NE: About half the songs I had recorded beforehand, for my own personal enjoyment, so this gave the producer and the band a pretty strong idea of what certain songs were going to sound like. Also we recorded some live demos in our practice space so we could all listen to the songs and share ideas about them. From experience I gained recording my own music, I already had a lot of ideas as far as the sounds for the record. I just had to get these ideas across to the other people involved in making it.

SM: Once we got the idea in our heads to make a record, we reached out to our friend (and new bassist) Mitch Stewart to produce. He and Pat McCusker engineered it at The Record Company -- they're both close friends of ours (I went to high school with Mitch and play in another band with both of them called Friendly People). We did a couple of demos in our practice space as well and I think both Mitch and Pat knew what we wanted in terms of sounds by the time we spent two insane nights at The Record Company. It was a really open, not to mention surreal, experience, considering the time of night we were able to get recording time, and the sounds kind of shaped themselves along the way.

CC: Shoegaze, or at least shoegaze influences, certainly seems to be having a moment in the Boston music scene right now. Does that sort of external influence, what you are seeing out in clubs and basements, factor into what you do at all?

NE: I've been mostly unaware of the local shoegaze scene until recently, and I'm pretty excited about it. I would say that the music we make mostly just comes from us liking the music we like and being friends enough to share a few hours a week together playing what we like playing.

SM: It helps that people are into it right now, but we're just a band that is doing what we individually and collectively love to do. If it turns out that people are into it, then that's fantastic and we really appreciate it. But we'd be doing it anyway if we were the only noisy band in town. It's just that ALL our shows would be at the Elks Lodge, if that was the case.

CC: The common conception is that a band in the early part of its career focuses in and settles on a style in time. Do you guys step back and think about where you are heading, about where you might be stylistically two years from now?

NE: We don't really think about this too much, I know I'll always keep writing music that reflects the music I'm currently listening to, and what's happening in my life, and we will always want to play music, so wherever that takes us is where we'll end up. As long as everyone else in the band doesn't hate me and I don't hate them we'll keep on doing this thing.

CC: Assuming people can agree on what the term shoegaze really means anymore, it's hard to think of a lot of examples of shoegaze bands that have had long, continuous careers -- much to my own disappointent, I'll say. This is sort of a loaded question, but as songwriters and music fans, do you think shoegaze is too limiting a style to sustain a band creatively over the course of, say, a ten-year career?

NE: Shoegaze is such a niche genre. Loveless simultaneously created and destroyed it. Everything that can be said in that language has been pretty much said on that album. I think the only way shoegaze bands can survive is if they have something else to offer along with it. It's not really straight-up shoegaze bands that are surviving but mostly bands with shoegaze influences; bands like Deerhunter or Yo La Tengo that have these undoubtedly shoegaze moments but are diverse enough in their arrangements to avoid being pigeonholed as just a shoegaze band.

SM: Whenever I'm describing Infinity Girl to people, I'll use the word "shoegazey," and immediately feel like an idiot. But it kind of makes sense. It's true that the term "shoegaze" has lost a lot of its significance over time, but I don't think bands like ours are making shoegaze music, in the most traditional sense of the word. Sure, we're inspired by bands like MBV and JAMC but we'll never be them or even sound like contemporaries. That music came out of a very specific time and place, both literally and culturally. What's happening now is its own beast and I think it will develop in its own way, independent of nostalgia. I think we're part of that and that will definitely sustain us creatively. The risk comes only if we box ourselves in, and I don't think that has happened or will happen any time soon.

CC: You've got two shows coming up next month. Will these be the first with Mitch Stewart playing bass live for you?

SM: Yes. Having spent so much time with the songs -- producing, engineering and mixing the record -- it was very easy having him take over on bass. I think he knows the parts better than the rest of us do at this point. Surprised he's not too sick of them at this point. That being said, Ransom is a big part of what has made Infinity Girl what it is and I hope he hates LA (joking... sort of).

CC: What's next for Infinity Girl after the shows in August? What do the next six months look like for you guys?

NE: We are just trying to play as many shows as we can around the area, and get people listening to our record. We've got an EP (probably) still in the demo stage, we haven't started recording anything yet. The songs sound summery and less dark than Stop Being On My Side does, so it would be nice if we could get it done while it's still warm out. Obviously though we're not going to compromise anything just so we can rush it out before the next equinox.

CC: Thanks so much for giving this interview, guys.

SM: Thank YOU. It's fantastic what you are doing for the Boston music scene with your blog. Far too few people are pointing people towards good music with the consistency and eloquence that you do. It's humbling to be included in all of that.

NE: Thank you for taking an interest in us! Seriously, we've all been fans of this blog for a while now and it's so cool to be included in it.

See Infinity Girl live at Precinct in Somerville Aug. 4 [Facebook event page] and at TT The Bear's Aug. 30 with the mighty Soccer Mom and serial face-melters Young Adults [tickets].

Infinity Girl: Internerds | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube

WFNX Boston Accents Funeral Party Night Two DJ Sets

Well, that was quite a night, wasn't it? Mean Creek covering The Replacements' "Left Of The Dial." Mellow Bravo covering J. Geils Band (which was awesome, but we won't pretend to know the song, the catalogue is deep). The hardcore breakdown in the first of two amazing brand-new songs that Soccer Mom played to end its blinding set. Tons of awesome flying V bass from Dirty Virgins. We think we are just starting to get feeling back in our face, which was most steadfastly rocked off. OK, no we're not. Thanks, too, of courses, to The Boston Phoenix's Michael Marotta, for having my compatriot Brad Almanac and I on for the night. Below are the songs Jay/me/I/not you played between sets and after Mean Creek yielded the stage; we expect it shan't be too long before you can check out Brad's DJ sets over at The 'Nac right here.

Putting our playlists together was a blast, as it allowed us to look at about 20 years of Boston music, to relive all of our wonderful associations with it. From a 1995-or-so live set from Orbit at Northampton's Loud Music Festival, to Westport beach weekends at the turn of the century soundtracked by that Pedal Faster Bicycle Rider Holiday Matinee comp, to riding the T in the rain to The Pernice Brothers, we could go on and on about all of these songs, although the temptation to do so is making us feel very old in a way that hurts a little. So let us just say: we hope you were able to hear at least some of it last night above the din of the capacity crowd. We hope it made you pump your fist, we hope it made you smile, and we hope it made you realize what a special thing we had in the late, lamented WFNX.

JAY DJ SETS

SHORT SET AFTER SOCCER MOM

1. Orbit -- Paper Bag -- Libido Speedway (1997)
2. Sebadoh -- Sixteen -- Bubble And Scrape (1993)
3. Juliana Hatfield -- Raisans -- Forever Baby EP (1992)
4. Varsity Drag -- Summertime -- For Crying Out Loud (2006)
5. Lemonheads -- Paint -- Favorite Spanish Dishes EP (1990)
6. The Beatings -- Villains -- Holding On To Hand Grenades (2005)
7. Chandeliers -- Bigshot Weekend -- Bigshot Weekend EP (2012)
8. Earthquake Party! -- Pretty Little Hand -- vs. Pizza (2011)

SHORT SET AFTER MELLOW BRAVO

1. Night Fruit -- Dark Horse -- Dark Horse (2012)
2. The Dismemberment Plan -- The Ice Of Boston -- Ice Of Boston (1998)
3. Piebald -- Grace Kelly With Wings -- Holiday Matinee Compilation 001 (2000)
4. The Wicked Farleys -- Fitchburg, MA -- Holiday Matinee Compilation 001 (2000)

LONG SET AFTER MEAN CREEK

1. Dinosaur Jr. -- Whatever's Cool With Me -- Whatever's Cool With Me (1991)
2. The Pernice Brothers -- One Foot In The Grave -- Yours, Mine & Ours (2003)
3. Jon Brion -- I Believe She's Lying -- Meaningless (2001)
4. Buffalo Tom -- For All To See -- No Alternative (1993)
5. The Elevator Drops -- Be A Lemonhead -- Pop Bus (1996)
6. Speedy Ortiz -- Taylor Swift -- Taylor Swift single (2012)
7. Autochrome -- Hands Over The City -- Separation Realms (2012)
8. Bedroom Eyes -- Garmonbozia -- What Are You Wrong With (2012)
9. Drop Nineteens -- Winona -- Delaware (1992)
10. Karate -- New Martini -- In Place Of Real Insight (1997)
11. Come -- Yr Reign -- Don't Ask, Don't Tell (1994)
12. The Dambuilders -- Colin's Heroes -- Encededor (1994)
13. Cathode -- Sleeping And Breathing -- Sleeping And Breathing (1999)
...and the following songs got a victory lap...
14. Orbit -- Paper Bag -- Libido Speedway (1997)
15. Sebadoh -- Sixteen -- Bubble And Scrape (1993)
16. Juliana Hatfield -- Raisans -- Forever Baby EP (1992)
17. Varsity Drag -- Summertime -- For Crying Out Loud (2006)
18. Lemonheads -- Paint -- Favorite Spanish Dishes EP (1990)
19. The Beatings -- Villains -- Holding On To Hand Grenades (2005)

This Is Happening: WFNX Boston Accents Funeral Party Three-Night Throwdown Tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday

So this, quite obviously, and to quote the late, great LCD Soundsystem, this is happening. Three nights, twelve bands, DJs, beers, tea, pickles, and everyone you've ever known, sweating it out to the newies to celebrate the life and times of Boston's WFNX and the station's long-running local music showcase Boston Accents. In a fitting tribute, live sets the next three days will come from the titans of Now Boston, including Clicky Clicky faves Earthquake Party! Monday night and Soccer Mom Tuesday night. It's all going to be epic.

We are honored to have been asked along with our usual new-music disc-slinger Brad Almanac to DJ between the live sets of the Funeral Party Tuesday night. And we've already curated killer playlists that sum up our favorite Boston music of the last 20 years. Not exactly easy to do, but certainly a lot of fun. We're guessing that you can't guess what the first song we play will be. Here's an anagram: Bagpiper Abort. How is there not an actual Boston band called Bagpiper Abort? Life, man smh...

There was a time when you could buy a three-day pass to this titanic soirée, and that time may have passed you by: we don't know. What we do know is attendance to this is non-optional. We all felt the icy grip of the lobotomized radio overground Friday at 7PM when WFNX's final DJ signed off and the station went on terrestrial death-support. We can rock that feeling away. Be at Great Scott tomorrow night when the FP kicks off, stick around through Wednesday to feel the full effect of the high, and then, well, take the rest of the week off, because face it, you're going to be wasted at that point.

Do stop by the DJ booth Tuesday night. We'll play one for you (sort of/not really). And speaking of playing: Boston Accents' own Michael Marotta pieced together a digital comp to celebrate and promote the Funeral Party, with one track from each of the 12 acts performing. You can stream the whole thing via the embed below. Turn it on. Turn it on, turn it on again. Here's the Facebook event page. And because we just can't help ourselves: here's The Cure performing "Funeral Party" from their epoch-defining, absolutely un-eff-withable 1981 album Faith. It's not "Let's Go To Bed," but it is the more appropriate number. Maybe?

Today's Hotness: Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson, Sun Airway, Michael Quinn

>> We only discovered it about 12 hours ago (as of this writing Friday night), but we're already on our seventh listen to the massive forthcoming 10" EP from Norway's towering post-rock heroes, Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson. The Oslo-based septet's new collection Small Changes We Hardly Notice, exclusively premiered at Alternative Press here Friday, touts four spine-tingling numbers that deftly synthesize orchestral post-rock sounds with desperate and beautiful, classic midwestern-styled emo. Earnest and intense opener "All I Remember Is Punk Rock" pairs punchy rhythm tracks with shimmering guitars and reverbed horns and strings, but it is the powerfully evocative vocals that will unleash cascades of goosebumps across the listener's skin as gears shift, crescendos blossom, cymbals tear across the top of the mix, horns call like far-off sirens. It's mind-blowing; it's what you wish Built To Spill or Modest Mouse sounded like in this millenium, instead of what they've been doing (you know you do). We last heard from Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson way back in 2010, when the collective issued a self-titled sophomore set that we wrote about right here. Small Changes We Hardly Notice is being released domestically by Count Your Lucky Star Records, which is taking pre-orders for an August release right here. The Count Your Lucky Stars release is in a limited edition of 500 discs, 150 black and 350 electric blue, that come packaged with a download code. We found an embed of the opening track at Soundcloud (which we hope is legitimately posted there, guys), so do yourself a favor and stream "All I Remember Is Punk Rock" below, and then click over to Count Your Lucky Stars to pre-order the full-release.



>> Long-time readers will recall that we thoroughly enjoyed Pennslvania's scruffy, under-appreciated The A-Sides, a combo that burst out of Scranton in 2005 with a peppy, mod-sprung sound hard to resist. After two full-lengths (the second released by Vagrant), the band splintered and principal members Jon Barthmus and Patrick Marsceill formed futurepop concern Sun Airway, a band also familiar to these electronic pages. We are pleased by recent news that that musical concern will issue Oct. 2 a second full-length of its own titled Soft Fall. The set, which we expect will be packed with gentle electropop boasting big, radio-ready hooks and gauzy atmosphere, will be released by Dead Oceans and a preview track, "Close," surfaced 10 days ago; it has already garnered some 25,000 streams on SoundCloud, and we've embedded the dreamer below. It commences with a revved-up snare drum and faraway but insistent staccato guitar riff before Barthmus layers in syrupy vocals; the sum total could almost be mistaken for some sort of Top 40, Hollywood stadium production. However, a liberal application of plush synths and other tasteful trappings steer "Close" firmly toward the happily emotive, Ecstasy-approved vibes of later New Order, circa their 2001 comeback Get Ready. Sun Airway don't forget their previous '60s influences, either, allowing "Close" to lapse into flashes of psychedelia via some backward guitar noodling and soft cooing. It all makes us eager to hear the entirety of Soft Fall, which you can pre-order from Dead Oceans right here. -- Edward Charlton



>> When we last heard from Michael Quinn he was doing his rootsy indie rock thing in Scranton (that's two blurbs referencing Scranton in a row! Amazing!); he released that Steely Dan cover at the beginning of the year and a year ago he issued a full-length Magico. Mr. Quinn recently got in touch to share his new collection Youngs. The set features recordings Quinn made in the last couple years with collaborators including players from his prior bands Okay Paddy -- which released one of our favorite records of 2006 -- and ...And The Moneynotes. Youngs is a varied set that is perhaps more rock-oriented than Quinn's prior work (we swear there is a sort-of perceptible Joe Walsh thing going on here in a couple places); it also touts a stronger focus on groove, from the strangely electro rhythm of "Hippie Girl" to the jab-and-thump of "Roomy." The clear album highlight is the swinging and melodic, mid-tempo album opener "Ring-in." It's an incredibly pleasing romp with ear-catching vocal melodies, a guitar rave-up just past the two-minute mark, and a recurring and odd little melodic reference to James Taylor's "Your Smiling Face." Youngs is intended in a sense to clear the decks, as Quinn recently relocated to California and is currently in the process of formulating a new band with which to seek auditory nirvana. The album was released via Bandcamp July 2; stream "Ring-in" via the embed below and then click over to grab the entire set.

Rock Over Boston: Joe Pernice | Lizard Lounge | 7.19.2012

[Joe Pernice, Bob Pernice, and Tom Shea; with Frank Padellaro of King Radio at the Lizard Lounge, Cambridge, MA., 7/19/2012. Photos by Michael Piantigini].

Great new info on busy Joe Pernice's current activities, including new recordings with the Pernice Brothers, Scud Mountain Boys, and with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake(!) as New Mendicants over here. In the meantime, I'll never get tired of this one:



King Radio have also been working (for, uh, awhile now. Like, almost as long as The Wrens, even) on a follow-up to 2004's (see?) soulful chamber pop Are You The Sick Passenger? epic. Hopefully there will be some news on that one soon too. Internet presence is scarce, but they're on Spotify too:

Today's Hotness: White Laces, Soccer Mom, Airiel, Kestrels

>> White Laces are set to re-emerge next month, when Speakertree Records -- best known for releasing the LP version of Cloud Nothings' Turning On -- will issue the Richmond, VA-based space-pop quartet's hotly anticipated full-length debut Moves Aug. 21. The first single from the long-player is the track "Crawl/Collapse," a video for which is forthcoming and an embed of which you can stream below. The song serves as a tidy mission statement for where White Laces is in 2012, pushing and pulling at the parameters of well-crafted guitar-pop numbers until they start to lose their shape and shimmer like a noble gas under extreme pressure. And so we hear "Crawl/Collapse" almost immediately begin to rise off a rigid foundation of choppy guitar chords, getting lighter and lighter and stretching further and further until it is released into an ascending shaft of light for the song's final two-thirds. There is as yet no pre-order information for Moves, but watch the Speakertree Records blog here for signs of movement. White Laces have kept very busy over the past year writing and putting out a startling number of releases. For those of you keeping score at home, there was a split single with Philadelphia's Arches on Worthless Junk; a split 10" with fellow Richmond scenemates Snowy Owls on Harding Street Assembly Labs; and a cassette release of a live set put out by Bad Grrrrl. It's kind of exhausting, right? Dudes should sleep more. But that said, we are extremely eager to get our mitts on Moves when it comes out next month.



>> Let's gaze into our crystal ball at what's happening a month from tomorrow. No, not that... not that... uhhhhhmmmm.... right, this: Boston noise-pop heroes Soccer Mom are on a titanic bill at PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA on Thursday, Aug. 16. Shoegaze vets Airiel are on the bill, making what we imagine is a fairly rare local appearance, and C86- and emo-inspired Canadians Kestrels perform as well. A fourth act is being arranged, but this evening already qualifies as remarkable. Airiel is touring in support of the reissue of its Kid Games EP which will be released by Shelflife July 31; the original pressing was released in May and, apparently, sold like hotcakes made by someone without the foresight to have made more hotcakes in the first place. Kid Games contains four tracks, including the shimmering dreamer "Flashlight Tag," which is embedded below, and which is wholly beautiful. It helps that fronter Jeremy Wrenn sounds a fair bit like Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant. But that's just one dimension of the Chicago-based quartet, whose music boasts brilliant energy and sublime melodies. You'll find "Flashlight Tag" encased in vibrant reverb, appointed by tasteful synths, dense guitars jangling under six inches of echo into infinity. It's a brilliant song, and you would be well advised to buy the entire EP right now, right here. But wait! There's more! Kestrels will also be supporting a new release, the full length A Ghost History, which was issued by Sonic Unyon June 5th. You already know this because you read Chromewaves like a good little indie rock girl or boy, right? Just in case, click this link and read Frank Chromewaves' assessment of the full-length. Hint: if it is as good as the promo track "Dumb Angel," which is embedded below and which sounds like it hails straight from Slumberland Records' first heyday, then the entire record is tremendous. Soccer Mom, for its part, has begun recording new material, but there have been no publicly stated release plans as of yet. The Boston foursome issued its crushing 10" EP You Are Not Going To Heaven last October.