Top 5 New York Bands

This is a small piece I wrote for Nicoles Topshop thing -

A Place to Bury Strangers
If you're going to a A Place To Bury Strangers gig, its probably worth taking ear plugs. Not in a bad way, but just so your ears are suitably protected enough so that the next time you go to a gig they are actually working. Their extremely loud sound gives nods to The Jesus and Mary Chain and XTRMNTR era Primal Scream, with layers of guitar fuzz and feedback, and a dark, nihilistic atmosphere.

Yeasayer
Remember those student musicians who used to sit underneath the trees outside their University Halls, strumming a guitar, reeking of incense and talking about how much they love Fela Kuti maaaan. They wish they could be even a tenth as inspired as the eclectic, multicultural sound of Yeasayer. The chants and rich instrumentation of their album All Hour Cymbals build a really amazing atmosphere without ever resorting to cheap grandiose melodrama.

Les Savy Fav
Having kicked about for over a decade, Les Savy Fav arent a new band, or even a massively successful one, but are very much worthy of your attention. Their style seems to shift dramatically with every track, sometimes sharp, dreamy indie pop, sometimes blisteringly hard rock, perhaps due Tim Harringtons superb if slightly crazed stage persona. Imagine a toughened up 70s era Elton John who started life as a beer swilling lumberjack, and you're probably not that close.

Amazing Baby
If there was one song from the current New York indie scene that you simple must go out of your way to listen to, it would be Amazing Baby’s ‘Supreme Being’. Woozy, ethereal, and electrifying all at the same time, it really is a great way to spend four minutes. The bands other work seems to jump between sounding like either MGMT’s dropout buddies (which they are), or Vampire Weekend doing T.Rex, which when you think about it, could never be a bad thing.

Crystal Stilts
They are probably the least accessible of the bands mentioned here. Their singer cant sing. Their name is absolutely awful. Their sound isn’t even particularly original, and is heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground, Brianjonestown Massacre, and (again) The Jesus and Mary Chain. But somehow, Crystal Stilts really, really work. At the very least, you will never, ever hear their music scoring an advert for a crap hatchback.