The Nocturnal Broadcast – Insomnia
Similar artists: Pinegrove, Ratboys, Marietta, Hikes, Colour Revolt
Genre: Math Rock, Indie Rock
Statistically, if you’re like most people, you’ll spend the best part of your life alone, and you’ll hate a good chunk of that spent without any comfort. What’s worse is that if, again, you qualify as a Joe/Jane Doe, you won’t ever find the right way to communicate to others the kind of hardships you’ve gone through.
The Nocturnal Broadcast have turned to music in their desperate bid to strike a connection and they know that not just any kind of song construction will do. After all, it’s when alone and at their worst that people feel the most confused, abandoned by their true selves and by the world. It’s hard to make sense of it all, let alone get a stranger to get it so that they feel sorry for you.
The Nocturnal Broadcast’s “Insomnia” isn’t just a rock tune dedicated to sleepless nights; it’s a psychodrama meant to draw you directly into painful, small, seemingly unending hours. A pure pop tune would simply not achieve its mission, so The Nocturnal Broadcast ended up creating a concoction built equally from math rock guitars, pop melodies, and emo cries and shrieks. Someone better understand this.
shira – always easy
Similar artists: The Strokes, Dinosaur Jr., Arctic Monkeys, my bloody valentine
Genre: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Flirting and flattery. Appealing to sympathy. Telling incredible stories about yourself. Those are all ways to get noticed. All will help you to try and seduce others. And, in the wrong time and wrong place, all would get you thrown in jail, or, at least, would bring you to the attention of authorities.
Rock music works in much the same way. But audiences, for the most part, are willing participants and hopeful victims. This is what older bands and new ones, like, shira, attempt to do. They try to get people to fall in love with them. Without it they’d not only be without someone to whom they could tell their dreams and their troubles. Without them, they’d be out of business.
Yes, shira’s 2000’s indie-rock-inspired “always easy” is a very charming song. This is not merely sulking over power chords, either. Like any good con artist’s story, this too has peaks, valleys and moments designed to catch your interest and release it. And like con artists, bands get by on how well easily they manage to make themselves remembered. In a world populated by many bands fascinated with 2000s NYC bands, shira are doing their best to stand out.