Discovering new music (free samples inside)

Call this an offshoot of the What Are You Listening to Now? thread.

Come across any bands lately that just changed everything? I admit, I'm old-school: Gimme my Ramones, Maiden and Cannonball Adderley. I'm also very yes/no when it comes to music: Either I love it or I pass. There's little middle ground.

But I'm also totally willing to listen to new stuff--could be an opening band, could be something that turns up on YouTube, could be a recommendation from a friend. (By the way, if Alan at Eclectic Motorworks recommends something, odds are strong that I’ll be digging it.)

So, some recent finds, complete with handy links:

Fever Beam: Cowpunk threesome from St. Pete. Saw them as an opener a while back. No recordings (so far), no Facebook page. 

A Place to Bury Strangers: YouTube recently served up this after some Pylon. Not sure how to describe it--really loud shoegaze, maybe? Just a brutal live performance and, yeah, I immediately bought their stuff.

Ume: Saw them open for The Sword a little while back. I think I now own their entire collection.

A Pale Horse Named Death: The PR person just reached out to us because the frontman is a car guy. Sludgy and heavy, just the way I like it. 

Tancred: Saw them last week--they played after my friends' band. After the show I walked over to their merch table: "Sell me what you got." Way more poppy than my usual and props to them for working an R107 Benz into their video. 

God Is an Astronaut: Heavy. Like, really heavy. Another gem from Alan. 

Plini he’s an Aussie who plays instrumental jazz-metal. 

This is new to me. 

David S. Wallens said:

Sludgy and heavy, just the way I like it. 

I'm trying to think of other things that are best when sludgy and heavy.

I've been digging the Reverb Syndicate of late. Gotta love a band that calls an album "Last of the V8 Interceptors". They call themselves "Spy-fi", but if you go in expecting surf you won't be far off. Neither sludgy nor heavy.

Tancred reminds me of The Cardigans for some reason. They are pretty talented!

A group called Emphatic was just a small local band when I lived in Omaha. The local radio station (89.7 The River) used to give them lots of play time. They are a post-grunge, hard rock group. They got signed in 2010?

Also, a group called Venaculas started out in Omaha. They were just high school kids when they started out. I bought all of their albums. Check out their album Therapy. I used to blast their song "Out of Time" in my beater van while driving around. They are pretty hard.

Sadly, I never saw either play at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha before it closed. That was like the epicenter for underground rock and metal in Omaha. 

Hawkeye Pierce:  "I read the dictionary.  All the books are in that."

Knurled:  "I listen to The Kleptones.  All the other music is in there."

These guys came across my Spotify: Mother's Cake. I'm a mostly metal kinda guy but these guys caught my ear. They are an Austrian blues/funk/hard rock band. 

A few that I recently started listening to:

Hands Off Gretel - Grunge band from England that reminds me of Nirvana and Janis Joplin

Emma Ruth Rundle

Death Valley Girls (Mildly NSFW video) - I had never heard of them until I saw them open at a show I went to halloween before last, now they are one of my favorite bands.  Iggy Pop likes them too.