When we first mentioned Nicole Atkins, back in October, we genuinely loved her unique sound calling it "...an incredibly beautiful masterpiece of songwriting and story-telling." Almost six months later, we still agree with our initial reaction - if anything, it's grown on us even more. Our friends over at Noise: SFBG are totally into her as well. "There's always room for more melodrama in my life - just as long as it's strictly of......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?: We were first introduced to British Sea Power when we were checking out the bands that are coming to the Noise Pop Festival (which we remind you is in two weeks). It's being heralded as the "...first contender for Album of 2008." Not bad, for this indie-rock band from Brighton,......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Nada Surf - Lucky: Judging, merely on their live acoustic performance at Swedish American Music Hall, we have to say that we are gonna love this new album. We have to admit: we are new fans of Nada Surf (even though they been around since 1992). For whatever reason, we've completely missed out. Lucky for us, we had......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend: We've been spouting praise about Vampire Weekend's newest release since early December, when we heard their album for the first time. Since then, we've seen them live at The Independent, put them on our "Albums We're Looking Forward To in 2008" list and finally featured them (once again) in "This Week in Le......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Magnetic Fields - "Distortion" - From what we can tell, Magnetic Fields are a huge hit in San Francisco as their two-night stint at Noise Pop 2008 has been sold out since December. (The only way to get tickets is to buy a badge!) Now we haven't had the pleasure to actually preview/review this album, but with a......

Back in December, The Lovemakers, a glam-rock outfit from Oakland, decided to stay put and forego their national tour to record their next full-length album entitled "Love is Dead." (For a band called "The Lovemakers," that's quite a title!) According to their blog, they've also decided to "be a 3-piece [band] again for the next while live. Scott, Lisa and Michael Urbano on drums. Back to basics. Very cool. Very fun." What we didn't......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Sia - "some people have real problems": Back in October, we had the chance to see Sia live at the Fillmore. Her press agent emailed us and told us that she was trying out new songs from her upcoming album "some people have real problems." At first, we were kinda bummed; we wanted to hear the music we......

Back in October, we featured Josh Groban in our holiday section of New Tunes Tuesday. We suggested that it would be "perfectly Grobanized - gorgeous string accompaniments, long high notes, huge endings, orchestral arrangements, different languages and of course several collaborations..." It seems that everyone needed to be Grobanized this Christmas season especially after Oprah Winfrey's suggestion that Noel is "the one Christmas CD every family should have." Since then, Josh Groban's Noel has......

New York Times, in their weekly Critic's Choice: New CDs column, introduced us to four different musicians we have never heard of: Lupe Fiasco, Jaheim, Birdman and Steve Lehman. We think that it has nothing to do with the "critic's choice", but rather there is nothing significant to write about this week - seems like a repeat of last week. We're patiently waiting for the January releases of: Radiohead (the actual CD), Kate Nash, Sia,......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Trying to decide what to feature this week was rough. Our choices were slim to none, ranging from the Wu Tang Clan to Bow Wow/Omarion; we just weren't feeling it. Then, we were checking one of our favorite blogs, Stereogum and we came across Vampire Weekend's new song, "I Stand Corrected." We got all excited since we're still reeling from......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Eric Hutchinson - Sounds Like This: A couple of weeks ago, our previous editor at Phillyist texted us from Hutchinson's concert saying, "Have you heard of Eric Hutchinson? You'll love him." We promptly checked out his Myspace page and instantly downloaded his impressive debut, "Sounds Like This." He became an overnight sensation when bitchy blog queen, Perez Hilton,......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: This week is worst than last week. Really though, there's nothing (except the Original Cast Recording of Lovemusik). Even on the Amoeba Records website, they only have two, we repeat, two records on their list. With the holidays approaching, one would think that there would be an avalanche of CDs being released but again, there's only a few. Please......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: (There are no major standouts this week) Please Let Us Know What You Think About: 1. Amy Winehouse - Frank: Winehouse doesn't have much luck - her last single, "Rehab," was so deliciously repetitive that it apparently drove her into exhaustion rehab. Will her next single be "Fuck Me Pumps" or "Amy Amy Amy"? We hope that nothing gets......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. The Hives - The Black and White Album: The first song, "Tick Tick Boom" opens up with clanging of the drums and guitar tuning following with a huge guitar and drum entrance. Instantly your head starts to bob up and down. As the song progresses the bobbing turns into a rocked-out-90's-head-bang. We absolutely love the climax into the......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. All bands this week featured in our Standout section are from the Bay Area. Standouts: 1. Arp - In Light: Pop minimalism aren't two words that aren't often placed in the same sentence, let alone right next to each other, but Arp, based out of San Francisco, has fused pop and minimalism together to something organic and exciting. Also categorized......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Nicole Atkins - Neptune City: This New Jersey native, reaches down deep to relate stories of her hometown, Neptune City on her debut release. "From the time I was a kid I started collecting these sad little tragically beautiful personal stories from the people in my life, and my own as well. That sense of history really appeals......

Recently we featured The Kin in the weekly music column, New Tunes Tuesday #4. We did this for a reason - they've recently become one of my favorite bands. Just as we were impressed when we saw them for the first time at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia in June, we were equally impressed with their West Coast debut performance this week at The Independent. Instantly the audience responded positively to the well-blended vocals,......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Serj Tankian - Elect the Dead: With his newest single, "Empty Walls," System of the Down's front man sings a passionate protest against the war. He cleverly sets his newest video in a daycare juxtaposing the violence of day-to-day objects such as silly-string, bubbles, helmets, doll houses and even a fun-dome filled with hundreds of plastic balls. His......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Thrice - The Alchemy Index, Vol 1 & 2: The juxtaposition of fire and water is felt on these two separate EP's that Thrice entitles, "The Alchemy Index." Thrice's investigation into nature doesn't stop with Volumes I & II - they'll continue on with Volumes III & IV in Spring of 2008. Pushing their musical boundaries, Volume I......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Plumb - Blink: Plumb, on her website, defines her inspiration for her latest album thusly: "I have tried to make albums that reflect where I am at the time and right now my cup overflows with the inspiration of [my] two little boys...so they are evident in this project." Clearly. From the waltz-lullaby in "God Will Take Care......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Dashboard Confessional - The Shade of Poison Trees: Acoustic is back. Chris Carrabba returns to his "roots" with the new release of The Shade of Poison Trees. Basically if you are a long-time Dashboard Confessional fan, then you already know all about this album and probably have already pre-ordered it. As a newer fan of Dashboard Confessional we......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Eskimo Joe - Black Fingernails Red Wine (w/ Bonus DVD): Hands down, one of the best CD's of 2007. Eskimo Joe released "Black Fingernails, Red Wine" as their debut single in the US in August. Their CD already went quadruple platinum in Australia (it was released in 2006). The quiet application of the piano combined with the melodramatic......