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Cold weather and final exams suck, but guess what doesn’t? Discovering wicked indie bands while they’re still young and hipster-worthy! Seriously. If there’s anything that can warm your heart more than rum eggnog this holiday season it’s these eight bands.

Yeah, they have pretentious names and yeah, they’ll probably all sell out in the end…but I’ll be damned if they’re not burning up the underground in 2009.

So, quickly now! Stuff your playlist and your friends’ stockings with these obscure titles before everyone finds out how awesome they are and they all inevitably become (gasp!) mainstream. I mean, that’s the whole fun of it, right?

8. Honeycut

Honeycut has spent the last few years prolifically trashing the cliches of the electronica genre. Describing itself as an ‘experimental soul’ band, the San Francisco group produces electronic music which smacks alternately of acts like Klaxons and, well, Gnarls Barkley. On their innovative debut album, The Day I Turned To Glass, Tough Kid mixes hip hop beats with Darren Hayes-style falsetto vocals, while songs like The Day I Turned To Glass and Shadows have a heavier nu-rave sound. With its diverse range and somewhat inarticulable ethos, Honeycut can best be described as creatively fearless.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/honeycutmusic

7. Colourslide

Not only do we love this band because they spell colour the Canadian way, but also because they produce some of the most magical and elaborate electric rock songs since early Killers. Lost Again is the beautiful, surging piece that got me hooked on Colourslide, but their album is full of brilliantly mixed tracks like Suddenly Everything and Crave You. The Gainesville four-piece released their amazing self-titled debut early last year, and are currently working on a follow-up album with renowned indie producer Ted Comerford which is sure to be just as mesmerizing.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/colourslide

6. Gasoline Heart

Being an indie rock band from sunny Florida, you wouldn’t expect Gasoline Heart to embody such a tortured down-home rural vibe. With Louis DeFabrizio’s scratchy, whiskey-gargling vocals swimming in folk acoustics, the band’s feverish ballads like When Big Girls Grow Small and Paralyze positively swell and overflow with syrupy cowboy heartache. It’s amazing. They couldn’t country-rock harder if they were old school Matt Mays. The band’s new album, What Now, is being released this December, so let’s hope they’re planning a big North American, um, ‘hootenanny’ for the spring.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/gasolineheart

5. Scattered Trees

All I have to say is Blackbirds in Autumn. This song is complete cathartic emotional therapy in three minutes. The velvety, evocative vocals on Blackbirds will have chills dripping down your spine and send your heart lurching into your mouth. Listen, die inside, repeat. Oh, and Heart of Glass is pretty enchanting too. The band’s new album, tentatively entitled Sleep Don’t Weep drops in April 2009.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/scatteredtreesmusic

4. Halloween, Alaska

Melding haunting industrial background tracks with James Diers’ ethereal, breathy vocals, the boys of Halloween, Alaska have created some seriously dreamy industrial lullabies. I Can’t Live Without My Radio is their most popular song, but if you crave something more intricate and atmospheric, the languorous You’re It and Des Moines are truly captivating. Early 2009 will see the release of the band’s much anticipated third album, Champagne Downtown.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/halloweenalaska

3. Elevation

Absolutely not to be confused with the U2 cover band of the same name, Elevation is a five-piece rock band from Atlanta, Georgia with a way-grown-up Jimmy Eat World vibe and vocals to die for. You’ll fall in love with Nathan Smith’s voice - a rich, deep, satiny murmur which is forever falling off into a delicious whisper. Elevation just released their first album, Strangelove, with Minneapolis-based indie record label 50 Records. With its undulating piano, smooth electric guitar riffs, and gypsy cymbals, Wallflower is my favorite track on the album, but the heavier Facedown is a very close second.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/elevation

2. The Damnwells

If Bob Dylan and Sarah Harmer had a love child who sang languid country-influenced indie rock, that child would be Alex Dezen from Brooklyn’s The Damnwells. I spent all summer listening to the twangy acoustic strings, husky vocals, and bittersweet ballads of Air Stereo and now I’m completely obsessed with these guys. Louisville is a beautiful, apathetic love lament and Heartbreaklist is, well, just depressing. Amazing though. The band’s new album is due to be released in early 2009.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/thedamnwells

1. Doubting Paris

Doubting Paris’ self-titled debut album is devastatingly beautiful. Devastatingly. Timothy Lindberg’s achingly hoarse, cried-myself-to-sleep-last-night voice is stunning coupled with silvery keyboard and dulcet guitar riffs on songs like Good Intentions, Reflections, and August. If you’re heartbroken right now for any reason, The Weapons of the Tongues of Lovers will kill you. If you aren’t, you will be after you hear it. The Doubting Paris boys don’t have any big tours planned right now, but they’re from Vancouver so maybe they’ll head out across the country next year and render us all starry-eyed and breathless with their dreamy melodies. (Canadian indie owns!)
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/doubtingparis

Posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 4:19 pm by Vanessa Reid and is filed under Music & Videos.

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