12.6.2011

Touring behind their sixth studio endeavor, Circuital, the funkified, visceral sonic daredevils better known as My Morning Jacket continue to test the hinge strength on most venue doors with the sheer...

Hometown: Athens, Ala.Members: Brittany Howard, Heath Fogg, Zac Cockrell, Steve JohnsonAlbum: Alabama Shakes EPFor fans of: Janis Joplin, Sharon Jones, Led Zeppelin, Otis Redding To call the ascent of...

There’s too much pressure on New Year’s Eve. As a holiday, it’s in a league with Valentine’s Day and Mother’s/Father’s Day, those weighty times when you never feel quite like you’re living up to...

Ralph Fiennes makes a bold directorial debut with this contemporary adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s later, lesser-known tragedies, transplanting the Bard’s original poetry to a modern-day city rife...

Despite the acclaim surrounding the name Alexander Payne, the new drama from the celebrated director doesn’t live up to the high standards usually associated with him. Due to a flat performance from...

With the convict-redneck missing and the wife-beater redneck eaten by zombies (and brained by his wife to prevent a return), this show needs a real-live villain whose face isn’t peeling off. Oh,...

Seven episodes in, New Girl finally gives us an episode that focuses on Winston, the late arrival to the group and, as past episodes have shown, one of the more interesting yet overshadowed characters...

It seems like this season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been the most self-referential, for better and for worse. In this penultimate...

Last night’s episode of Community had two plots but one of the main things connecting them was their reliance on old sitcom stories. This isn’t Abed going into a Christmas wonderland in his mind here,...

The third Assassin’s Creed game in three years wraps up Ezio Auditore’s story while introducing tower defense elements.The Assassin’s Creed series has...

December is usually a slow month for new games, so over the next few weeks we’ll look back at notable Fall releases that we haven’t reviewed yet....

EpochPlatform: iOSDeveloper: Uppercut GamesPublisher: Uppercut GamesRelease Date: 11/10/2011Price: $5.99 With the Infinity Blade franchise showing the world that the Unreal engine can be handled...

Eric Earley, Marty Marquis and Brian Adrian Koch came to the Paste office in Atlanta, Ga. for a session back in October in support of Blitzen Trapper’s American Goldwing tour. Their latest album is a...

Back in June, Rhode Island folk rockers The Low Anthem graced the cover of our first-ever mPlayer issue. Around that time, the group were in full stride touring behind their 2011 record Smart Flesh. A...

2011 has been a great year for Dawes. Frontman Taylor Goldsmith collaborated with Deer Tick’s John McCauley and Delta Spirit’s Matthew Vasquez in the Americana supergroup Middle Brother, worked with...

The past couple months have been quite busy for indie-pop outfit Mates of State. Coming off release of their latest album Mountaintops, the husband-and-wife partnership of Kori Gardner and Jason...

Donald Glover seems to have made it his personal mission to permeate every form of popular culture imaginable. From his humble beginnings with internet-based comedy troupe Derrick Comedy, Glover has...

My Morning Jacket are in the middle of a global tour in support of their latest album release. The band played a show in Atlanta this August and Paste was there for the soundcheck. Perhaps in an...

While The Head And The Heart were the last band we filmed and recorded as this year’s Newport Folk Festival came to a close, they certainly weren’t the least by any measure. The Seattle outfit brought...

Few bands have more fun playing together than Middle Brother. It’s something that was quite evident throughout this past weekend’s Newport Folk Festival as Taylor Goldsmith, John McCauley and Matt...

DeLuna Fest went down in Pensacola Beach, Fla. from Oct. 14-16, where Paste recorded and filmed takeaway sessions throughout the weekend. We met up with Adam Granduciel and David Hartley of The War on...

Seryn’s live presence—with each member swapping instruments and all five singing choruses at the top of their lung—can best be described as “joyful,” causing Paste to name their performance the best...

Watch Detroit indie-pop duo Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. showcase a compelling blend of infectious harmonies and catchy hooks during our Paste Party in Austin at last year’s...

Weeks after playing the first Live from Paste session in our new offices in Decatur, Ga. earlier in the year, The Civil Wars played a nine-song set at the Paste Party in Austin, Texas, during SXSW,...

Kori Gardner and Jason Gammel, better known as Mates of State, have spent a good portion of their 14-year career recharging whatever super-strength black market battery powers the married couple’s...

He probably wouldn’t admit it, but Drake’s stardom was pretty predictable: A good-looking Torontonian with an ear for beats and a willingness to embrace his middle-class origins—almost matching Kanye...

Last year, Beach House released an album called Teen Dream that won over critics and fans alike, proving that chill, beachy dream pop could hold its weight next to the best and biggest in indie pop...

Whether you thought they were a quirky-obnoxious novelty act or a gang of infinitely charming, boots-are-made-for-rockin’ Americana party girls, forget your initial impression of Those Darlins....

Since 2009‘s Childish Prodigy, Kurt Vile’s been likened to artists that range from Sonic Youth to Bruce Springsteen. And while it’s true that the songwriter’s vocals recall a less-haggard Springsteen...

The Big Roar couldn’t be a more aptly titled debut for The Joy Formidable. The album’s first song “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie” is such a tidal wave of crashing drums, heavy guitar and lead...

British dubstep-minimalist artist, James Blake, has brought his unique sound Stateside with the release of his self-titled debut album. His trio of 2010 EPs—Klavierwerke, CMYK and The Bells...

Portugal. The Man hasn’t sold out. Sure, they’ve signed with a major label. But if the new record is any indication of what that means for the Alaskan psychedelic-rockers, the outlook is good—very...

“Some girls are bright as the morning, some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind” If you’re an artist who plays music that sounds as if could have been written a century ago, what difference...

When all is said and done, Kurt Vile’s exit from The War on Drugs might be the best thing that’s happened to the band. Sure his songwriting talent can’t be understated, but the long-haired, post...

Indie-Rock Supergroups: Sometimes they work (see: psychedelic goof-offs GAYNGS); sometimes they underwhelm (see: high-brow romantics Swan Lake); sometimes—more like rarely—they change music forever...

Man, why does every black actor have to rap some? / I don’t know – all I know is I’m the best one Those lines from Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire,” the first single off of his first release on Glassnote,...

While technically released by the band prior to 2011, The Head and the Heart’s self-titled debut found its proper release in the middle of spring this year and it couldn’t have come into our lives at...

I’ve talked to more than one person who is concerned that a happily married Ryan Adams, one without destructive forces compelling him from within and without, one who is as focused as a person who...

What Michael Benjamin Lerner did on 12 Desperate Straight Lines is what listeners wish for on every artist’s sophomore effort. Partnered once again with Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla, the group...

The very qualities that make Leslie Feist such a distinctive pop artist are also the very things that make her too easy to dismiss: Her understated melodies, restrained performances and thoughtful...

“Shoo-wop shoo-wah.” “I’m your prostitute.” “Dance while you can.” At the drop of a programmed snare hit, Lykke Li, the Swedish princess of off-beat art-pop, can turn from sugar-coated sweetheart to...

Drinking champagne out of Mark Ronson’s Grammy Award may be the best move that the Black Lips have ever made. In addition to continuing their badass reputation, it sparked a collaboration between the...

It’s not often a band promises to scale down their dramatics on only their second label-released album. But then again, it’s not often a band starts a career with an immense, devastating concept...

I imagine, from a creative standpoint, the hardest part of being in TV On The Radio — a band adored due in large part to its innovation — is the insane expectation of always doing something new, the...

There’s nothing particularly complicated about The Belle Brigade. The band, made up of brother/sister duo Ethan and Barbara Gruska, writes simple songs about common themes like being in love,...

Over the past decade, Daptone Records has established a reputation not only as a cohesive record label, but also as a cultural institution responsible for curating a neo-soul revival with a distinct...

Zach Condon’s Beirut is in a funny position. He’s cut his teeth on staunchly outsider Balkan folk, but he’s also one of the premier indie-Billboard crossover successes. His band spans 11 members, but...

When Cults first received recognition for their summer anthem “Go Outside” last year, it created a relentless hype around them and painted them as an easygoing, carefree duo with an irresistible indie...

The Civil Wars seems like the moniker for a band exploring overt, loud disagreement. But the brand of longing, melodic chamber-pop and folk from the duo of John Paul White and Joy Williams puts the...

Yuck has been pegged as a band to watch long before any sort of physical release was even announced. Successful debut records remain a tall order, even more so amid overbearing expectations and...

John McCauley’s career in music has been fixed on a path of steady evolution ever since the release of Deer Tick’s studio debut War Elephant in 2007. With each subsequent record, his band has risen to...

Radiohead has never been a band that can be accurately judged on the first listen. Sometimes it even takes years for a Radiohead album to fully reveal itself. When Kid A was first released in 2000, it...

When the San Francisco band Girls released its debut album, simply titled Album, in 2009, frontman Christopher Owens’ backstory threatened to eclipse his musical accomplishment. He had grown up in a...

Sam Beam makes his major-label debut with a bang Purists might believe that saxophones and funky basslines have no place on an Iron & Wine album. Well, hold onto your beards and get ready for a rude...

Stripped of both mythology and prog-rock, Oregonians shine. The Decemberists’ medieval rock opera The Hazards of Love pitted the band’s die-hard supporters against those with little tolerance for...

Maybe Anthony Gonzalez is just working his way back through the years, one album at a time. On his 2005 breakout as M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, he took the shoegaze guitars of My Bloody...

The men of Dawes have certainly grown up since their debut album was released just two short years ago. After letting North Hills out into the world, the band hit the road for near-continuous touring....

The Detroit-based duo Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott) is hard to classify. The label calls them “indie-pop.” If you were going to coin one of those annoying, overused and mostly...

Putting the Super back in Supergroup Very rarely does a supergroup manage to come up with something as good as the sum of its parts. Just like a movie starring a crowd of A-listers doesn’t necessarily...

At times, Merrill Garbus is Annie Lennox, and at others, she’s Prince. One thing’s for sure though—she’s always entertaining, and her powerhouse voice makes W H O K I L L one of the year’s must...

Sweet and sly, Fleet Foxes make stellar second album After their eponymous debut album earned a well-deserved standing ovation from critics, Fleet Foxes set the bar high for their sophomore album. The...

Not since a creek drank a cradle in 2002 had anyone so quietly overtaken the indie-music community as Justin Vernon did in 2008 with Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. That post-break-up album was...

I jumped before I even realized that the cut-scene had ended and I was in control again. I didn’t stop to consider my options. I didn’t stop to think about how the gap was obviously wider than I could...