Cass McCombs Shares New Song “The Great Pixley Train Robbery”

Jan 16, 2019 Christopher Roberts

Cass McCombs is releasing a new album, Tip of the Sphere, on February 8 via ANTI-. Now he has shared another song from it, "The Great Pixley Train Robbery." According to a press release the song is "based on a newspaper article McCombs uncovered from the 1800s."

16th Annual Artist Survey: Mass Gothic

Jan 16, 2019 Web Exclusive

For Under the Radar's 16th Annual Artist Survey we emailed some of our favorite artists a few questions relating to the last year, plus some fun personal questions. We asked them about their favorite albums of the year and their thoughts on various notable 2018 news stories involving either the music industry or world events, as well as some quirkier personal questions.

We Were Promised Jetpacks on “The More I Sleep the Less I Dream”

Jan 14, 2019 Web Exclusive

"I think we just got lost." Adam Thompson cannot pinpoint exactly what went wrong in the creation of his band's latest album, The More I Sleep the Less I Dream, except to say that, collectively, the four members of We Were Promised Jetpacks looked up and realized they were sonically lost.

SASAMI Announces Debut Album and Tour, Shares Video for New Song “Jealousy”

Jan 09, 2019

SASAMI (aka Los Angeles based musician Sasami Ashworth) has announced her self-titled debut album and shared a self-directed video for the new song "Jealousy." She has also announced some tour dates.

Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2018

Dec 30, 2018

And here we are, the end of another year. The last 12 months tried the patience of anyone who longed for civility in politics, with divisive policies and a president beloved by only his most ardent supporters. Both fueled a cable news cycle that's become one long panel show with continuous "breaking news" about the latest Washington scandal and investigation, none of which are likely to end the Trump presidency much sooner than the 2020 election (if then). As Macbeth once said, it's all "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Many would thus say that 2018's been a bad year, and sure there is much to worry about, including the threat of authoritarian rule across the globe, escalating trade wars, continued income inequality, government shutdowns, immigrant children in detention centers, and more dire unheeded warnings about global warming. But it could also be so much worse.

What of those newspaper music critics who might have wrapped up 1929's best albums, setting up a survey of the year's new music by Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and others with an intro about the recent stock market crash of October 29 and the beginning of The Great Depression? Or the critic writing about 1941's best new music from Lead Belly and Glenn Miller only weeks after the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor? History is littered with truly terrible years: 536, when an extreme weather event triggered by either an asteroid or an Icelandic volcano eruption led to an atmospheric dust veil that cooled the Earth and resulted in widespread famine and drought, 1347, when the Black Death pandemic hit Europe, 1914, when World War I began, 1918, when a flu pandemic began that killed 100 million people, and so on, and so on. 

But was 2018 a good or bad year for music? That's what we're really here to talk about. If you search hard enough can't you always find some worthy new music each year? Still, for me personally (and I've heard this from others too), there were a lot of albums I really liked in 2018 but few I fell head over heels for. My #1 album of 2018 could have just as easily been any of the albums in my Top 10, as I liked them all fairly equally. And if any of my second, third, fourth, or fifth favorite albums of 2017 had been released in 2018 then I think they would've surely topped my 2018 list as I liked them all more than any album released this year.

Under the Radar's Top 100 Albums of 2018 list, thankfully, doesn't just reflect my opinion; instead 27 of our writers and editors (including myself and my co-publisher/wife Wendy) each submitted a list of their favorite albums of the year and were encouraged to turn in at least a Top 45. All-in-all 473 different albums were submitted for the vote, but to make the Top 100 an album had to be picked by at least three or more separate writers (the Top 6, for example, were all picked by at least 20 or more of our writers). We then did a tiebreaker vote for our #1 album between the two at the top, to make sure we were all in agreement on our #1 (the vote was still close, so you could almost call it a tie for the top spot). Then we did another vote to determine the bottom three from a list of 17 albums that almost made the Top 100 (check out our list of Honorable Mentions for 36 albums that came close). For those of you who might complain that this is a very indie rock-centric list, well we are an indie rock-focused magazine and website after all. You wouldn't expect a hip-hop, metal, or dance music website to include albums by Father John Misty, Beach House, and Courtney Barnett on their favorite albums of 2018 list, would you? 

Barring a pandemic, world war, asteroid strike, or another disaster, hopefully 2019 will at least be another average year that's not the worst, but one we can dream is populated with truly classic albums. We'll have to see where we are at in December 2019. For now, here are our 100 favorite albums of 2018.

Flasher and Public Practice at St. Vitus Bar, Brooklyn, NY, December 7, 2018

Dec 19, 2018 By Max Freedman

Brooklyn venue St. Vitus Bar is a metal venue, except when it isn't. Artists including Girl Band, an act noisy enough to please many metal fans, and Mitski, who is a decidedly non-metal musician, have played the bar's 300-or-so capacity back room. 

PLAYlist 32: Everdell

Jan 10, 2019 By Austin Trunick

Who knew worker placement could look this good?