Seeing Noah And The Whale at SXSW this year was one of innumerable high points — it was simply one great but minor experience in a week packed with great but minor experiences of what ultimately would be one of the best, albeit exhausting, weeks of my life up to this point. Despite the greatness of their performance, they disappeared from my peripheral until this weekend when I picked up Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down.

I don’t know about the rest of his library of material, but “Drowning” by Chris Flew (MySpace) really reminds me of one of my favorite acoustic folk-pop duos. No, I’m not talking about Simon & Garfunkel, though they’ve been related to them — I’m talking about Kings Of Convenience. It can be heard in the lightly-strummed acoustic guitar, as well as the compiled vocal harmonies.

Within the Portland scene, there are many bands like No Go Know. And Sleeping Is Winning could sound as familiar as a collection of your favorite Dandy Warhol tracks. But, there is a darkness that resides within their entire vibe that distinguishes them as a strong competitor in the underworld of the City of Roses.

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The animation in the video for “Molten Light” by Chad VanGaalen reminds me a lot of the animation signature of the late 80s and early 90s. You know the kind — gross for the sake of being gross; a sort of, well, faux art. There were plenty of bands from that era that slapped the crap on their album covers — Ugly Kid Joe and Big Black are a few that come to mind. But here, there’s a key “fortunate” element, and that is its …

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Bathed in orange light from an Ikea touch-lamp, I sat down at my kitchen table a few evenings ago. On the table I placed three things: 1) a box of organic ginger snaps, which was to be my dinner as I did not feel like cooking, 2) my white MacBook, 3) a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. I set forth with a task — to pare my inbox down from its more than 300 emails to under 200. It was going to be a long night.

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Arliss Parker (aka Chris Parker) is slated to release his debut EP, Handsome Like A Lion, on November 25 via DAG! Records and, not to brag, I have the beautiful, artistically designed yellow-and-white case in my hands. Well, not technically in my hands — it’s sitting next to my MacBook as I type this review. Displayed on the yellow background is a simple white image of what looks like a girl, face scratched away. Printed vertically are the artist and album names in clean orange …

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Very few groups can consider themselves a true girl group, especially if their numbers are greater than three, let alone four. But The Organ boasts five. After a very well-received debut release in Grab That Gun, the ladies of The Organ sadly parted ways. Luck for us, they decided to patch things up long enough to finish recording their followup EP, Thieves — or else, at least, treat us with a posthumous little gift.

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I get a lot of email. I also get a lot of promo albums. The combination of the two mean that FensePost can sometimes be more a second job than a hobby. As much as I hate to say it, sometimes I get a lot of crap for writing overwhelmingly positive reviews and features. But the way I see it, why do I want to promote something I think is bad? In other words, I get a lot of promo crap as well. …

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It’s been almost a month since The Lemurs (MySpace) dropped Million Little Bits on us via Thirty Tigers, and it’s already gaining much traction across the country. But that’s no real surprise; The Lemurs’ music is of a very accessible note — it’s catchy, filled with various hooks and packed with riffs that easily get stuck in your head.

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My god man! Did someone declare 2008 the year of the lovable pop gem yet? If not, I may just have to do it because this year has seen so many great bands release so many great tunes, and the latest to succumb to the awesome curse is Canadian Invasion with their song “Three Cheers For The Invisible Hand”. It joins the ranks of Pomegranates, Fredrik, Grand Archives, The New Year and many, many more than I’m sure I’ll kick myself later for forgeting — …