Joe's Big Toe

There are two Deport­ivos. The first, Déport­ivo, is an alt. rock band from Yve­lines, France. The other is an indie-pop five piece from West Lon­don, and this second group have attrac­ted a fair bit of industry atten­tion recently (they’ve been fea­tured on BBC Intro­du­cing; this single was mixed by Yoad Nevo, who’s worked with Sug­ababes, Girls Aloud, and Jem). The band’s EP, Girl Next Door, is made up of three tracks: Girl Next Door, a remix of Girl Next Door, and Cold in the Middle.
As the first track starts, there’s …

Another one to keep and eye on for 2010 will be Minnesota-based Owl City, who will be drop­ping “Fire­flies” the first single from their 2009 LP “Ocean Eyes” on 22^nd Feb­ru­ary. The single had its first air­play this week and I’ve been driv­ing people mad with it ever since. Adam Young has cre­ated a new breed of syn­thpop that’s gentle and easy to listen to, yet hugely infec­tious. Full of catchy hooks and simple yet soul­ful lyr­ics, this band will appeal to any cur­rent fans of Death­cab and the Postal …

Ellie Gould­ing, a 23 year old from Hert­ford­shire is a pretty hot tip for this year. Snapped up in Septem­ber by Polydor, Crit­ics’ choice at last year’s Brit Awards, top choice on BBC’s Sound of 2010, iTunes single of the week for Christ­mas 2009… you don’t really need me to tell you that when her album is released on the first of March, her voice is going to explode onto every radio sta­tion going.
I was poin­ted in her dir­ec­tion the other day, and I’ve found it dif­fi­cult to stop listen­ing to …

It would appear that I have missed out on the Sil­ver­sun Pickups. They are, accord­ing to Wiki­pe­dia and AMG, pretty well known, shoot­ing to fame with “Lazy Eye”, as part of the Gui­tar Hero fran­chise. They’ve been in heavy rota­tion on the music chan­nels, and they toured intens­ively in 2006/7 with OK Go, Snow Patrol, the Kaiser Chiefs and the Foo Fight­ers. Still, a couple of days ago, I was listen­ing to KROQ, and Panic Switch came on. I loved it, but, as per usual with KROQ, they didn’t announce …

Last night, I was driv­ing home from Don­caster. As I got to Derby, I was get­ting a little bored of Radio 1, so I star­ted flick­ing through — late night radio tends to be quite good, even if it is dis­pro­por­tion­ately chat shows over music. I stumbled upon Delerium’s Silence, one of my favour­ite songs a couple of years ago — I heard it for the first time in a tat­too stu­dio in Burnham-on-Sea, albeit a ridicu­lous techno remix of it. So, I star­ted warb­ling along, com­pletely fail­ing to hit …

One of the most ori­ginal acts in the post-hardcore scene. I’ve heard them referred to as trance metal and thrashy-dance in the past, and neither descrip­tion has been wrong. This single, although not as ground­break­ing as Return to Ener­giser, still stands out against any­thing else you might have heard. Moth­er­ship is a well con­struc­ted record although the bands decision to release it download-only is telling of the fact that the band run their own record label. The album, ‘OK, Time For Plan B’ will be released on their own label, …

Power-pop has always been inter­est­ing, but in no other rock genre have women been so suc­cess­ful. Bands like Tuuli, No Doubt and now The Hed­rons bring a little some­thing extra to the table with their catchy offer­ings. “Be My Friend” is a well-crafted, bouncy song, per­formed entirely by women. It’s a very strong track, and would make a great single for any band, let alone this rel­at­ively young glaswe­gian all-female band. The band formed only a year ago, but already have played Down­load this year, and received great reviews from …

With power­ful vocals and gui­tar work, the latest Under­oath single is a strong state­ment about the band’s inten­tions and dir­ec­tion. Their latest album has been fly­ing off the shelves in the U.S., enter­ing the Bill­board charts at num­ber two, and after hear­ing this record, you’ll under­stand why. There are hints of the old Under­oath under­neath the new, over­all more impress­ive sound. This track marks them as a strong force in the post-hardcore world, with a sense of pol­ished­ness that just wasn’t there in their pre­vi­ous releases. In short, a well-balanced …