The School is the latest band to debut on the beloved Minty Fresh label, and it’s easy to hear what attracted them to this band. Their style of pop is extremely uplifting, with tempestuously quick beats and the luscious beauty of 60s girl pop with back-up singers and instrumentation that’s as pleasant as a cool breeze in summer. The School takes the harmony vocals of The Pipettes and smooths out the rough edges, combining it with the melodic instrumentation of masters like Belle And Sebastian. “Let It Slip” …

Something in the world has shifted because yet again I am finding myself setting aside the mastery of electric guitars and songs for slower, seemingly simpler sounds, such as those of the folk band Uniform Motion. While we miss out on their rock art concept of sketches and soundscapes created during live performance, we still manage to experience a layer of unfamiliar, emotional imagery not yet touched upon by the majority of folk artists. The acoustic guitar is doused with melodies reminiscent of Jose Gonzalez, yet the intimately wispy vocals …

Some Beans, aka Andy Fonda, aka ¼ of Noise Annoys Simon, is a pretty soulful cat. It’s a bit spooky at times, but it is always funky. His debut album, Fear and Loathing in Tipton St. John, might actually be a very well-planned dance track tribute to the honorable Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Or not. Either way, this is electronica at its very finest. And that is perfectly alright.

Sometimes a song can just make perfect sense. There comes a time when a pretty indie pop song can be exactly what you need to spawn the most wonderful of memories. Don’t believe it? Then check out A Fine Day For Sailing and their absolutely gorgeous album My Baby Loves Pop Music. You have to be heartless to not recollect your finest moments in life while this Exeter, UK-based group jingles and jangles through finely tuned, low-key symphonies.

Archie Bronson Outfit‘s single “Shark’s Tooth” seems to be set in a time and space completely separate from existence we know. Its drastically elevated tempo is dance-floor worthy, though precisely too high. It is surf music taken to a brand new, quite radical level. Archie Bronson Outfit has this beat-driven euphoria that is sure to whisk you away to a heavenly place buried in your subconscious, where all you care to do is dance until your feet blister and fall apart. A fair warning needs to …

The always musically vigilant singer/songwriter Thom Carter has some stories to tell on his third release as Menhirs of Er Grah, Billy Cross’s Daughter. And they are amongst the best he has even told. Thom has announced that he has tried to “bury his Eric Clapton CD’s in a casket under the sea”. But, even he will admit that he still has subliminal nods to the king of Cream throughout this amazing album.

Punk is dead. This is, more or less, a fact. Save for the rare new group to break out or the senior citizens out there still rocking hard (Bad Religion, Henry Rollins, etc.), the whole idealism and solid truths of punk rock is long and gone. It seems as though the best we can hope for is a solid pop punk group swaying their spiked hair and stretched earlobes all over the stages of The Warped Tour (Broadway Calls seems to be the elite in this category). …

What in the hell has happened to alternative pop music? There was a time when sweet guitar riffs and soft-spoken lyrics reigned supreme. Even misery was an exciting topic when a cat like Dave Pirner would spill his guts on a record about runaway trains and frustration as a business plot. The anger of today may have substantially seeped into pop music, but not in every case. Definitely not in the UK’s rising pop stars Noise Annoys Simon. These guys bring back the glory days …