
I Am Strikes – Paper Tiger
Genre: Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Dead Sara, White Stripes, Black Keys, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, twenty one pilots
Say what you will about modern rock bands that achieve success. Sure, some of them have relatives in high places. Of course, some of them have bought their way to success. Others are, even, simply riding a wave that is bound to soon break. Yes, there’s a lot of corruption in the music industry, but not more than in any other field.
However, most of the rock bands that achieve great success are able to make the complicated seem simple. They are able to distill a million different influences and tendencies into three-minute songs that resonate with people. These bands are able to look at the past and reinterpret the story rather than go about reinventing the wheel.
I Am Strikes’ Paper Tiger is incredibly effective at telling you the story of nasty blues-rock as if you’ve never heard it before. It’s not that they make The White Stripes or Black Keys obsolete. It’s that for the three minutes you’ll hear them, you won’t find a need to reference them. I Am Strikes are that direct and difficult to ignore. There’s a snotty confidence to their playing, like a group already confident of its own greatness. It’s hard to argue with these kinds of things in the rock game.
THE CABBYS – In You We Crash
Genre: Indie Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Radiohead, Silversun Pickups
Rock music is a really powerful parasite. While other music genres are comfortable with having their moment in the sun, and, then fading away graciously, rock music is not a graceful loser. Instead, it sponges off whatever exciting new sounds appear naturally, and utilizes them for its own needs.
The start is always burdensome and the actors are uncomfortable with their place in the grand show. But, from electronic beats to operatic singing, to desert-rock escapades, modern rock has taken all the trends with which it has intersected and has eventually made them part of the act.
THE CABBYS’ In You We Crash are a great indicator of what’s going on in modern rock. The beats are slick and ready to come launching out of the speakers of your automobile. The production gives the tune an ethereal vibe as if your car is now cooking in desert weather. And, the vocals echo Matt Bellamy or Thom Yorke at their most opera-friendly. THE CABBYS have a subscription to modern streaming services and are sure making the best of it.