Thrillhouse – Que Sera, Sera
Genre: Indie Rock
Thrillhouse’s music sits comfortably at the intersection between dad rock and mad, drunken poet. It’s rock music for people who treasure books over a Kindle and metaphors over slogans.
It’s hard, for the most part, to listen to your favorite rock stars as they mature. It’s almost like watching your favorite football player trying to do the same tricks a couple of decades into their career. Most of them are simply not meant to last. Most of them simply don’t have enough things to say or reasons to try and find relevance.
Still, there are some that are designed for thoughtful meditations. Thrillhouse’s “Que Sera, Sera” is the work of rockstars who’d rather stay indoors in the evenings, smoke a pipe, and try to make sense of the trials and tribulations of life.
“Que Sera, Sera” is a convincing, low-key meditation that will please fans of bands like The National.
The Pilot Waves – Patterns
Similar artists: Cage The Elephant, Sonic Youth, Built To Spill
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
The Pilot Waves are an indie-rock band second and, firstly, a group of young people fighting to find themselves and managing to capture their beautiful identity crisis on tape.
The fact is that unless they’re in a tribute band or in AC/DC, musicians can’t be expected to make the same kind of music for the entirety of their lives. Strapping a guitar for long enough periods of time, it’s impossible not to get better or to get bored. Either way, artists are easily swayed by the promise of finding something novel and interesting in their future work.
The Pilot Waves’ “Patterns” sounds like the work of a band that is beginning to think in new ways and trying to bring abstract notions to their pleasing indie-rock. Their points of reference continue to be the kinds of friendly indie guitar bands that dominate the stages of Summer festivals. But something’s happening underneath the hood, and as “Patterns” suggests, these tribulations are, thankfully, finding their way onto The Pilot Waves’s recordings.
