After taking three years to release their previous two albums, Earlimart did what you might not expect these loping Los Angeles dream-pop vets to do: The duo picked up their pace, releasing their sixth album, 'Hymn & Her,' within 12 months of last summer's 'Mentor Tormentor.' "We sought to do the opposite of the last record this time, so we ...

Though Wolf Parade hasn't released a new album in three years, its members have been far from dormant -- after dropping blog-busting 'Apologies to the Queen Mary,' principal songwriters Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug moonlit in various side projects. Pausing from recording the second Handsome Furs album in hometown Montreal, Boeckner tells Spinner ...

Identical twins Chandra and Leigh Watson were vaulted into the indie limelight after supporting Jenny Lewis on their one-off 'Rabbit Fur Coat.' But the connection to Rilo Kiley's songstress shouldn't detract from what the Watson Twins are doing now on their own, not to mention their decade-long history of making and recording music. To wit: they ...

David Berman isn't known for his joie de vivre. On his last album, 'Tanglewood Numbers,' he mused on burnouts, k-holes and depressed ponies. And before that, the Nashville songwriter/poet seemed wholly disaffected, once singing, "In 27 years, I've drunk 50,000 beers/And they just wash against me like the sea into a pier." But with his sixth ...

U.K. crooner Ed Harcourt considers himself a cat person -- he even has one, named Wolfie -- but dogs were on his mind when he penned the first three tracks on his sixth album, 'The Beautiful Lie.' There's a crying canine in 'Whirlwind in D Minor,' a deceased pooch in 'Visit From the Dead Dog' and a mournful pup in 'You Only Call Me When You're ...

Your Vegas do not hail from their titular city, or anywhere else in the United States for that matter. They're five lads who sound like they're from across the pond because, well, they are. On the Leeds-bred band's debut LP, 'A Town and Two Cities,' singer Coyle Girelli emotes not all that unlike Bono, and his band's bombastic anthems nod to, as ...

The songs on Jamie Lidell's pseudo-eponymous third album, 'Jim,' may sound like they've mined groove-inducing moves from decades spanning Motown through early Prince, but the Berlin-based Brit's songwriting process is firmly entrenched in the present. "I took advantage of my mobile phone to write songs," he tells Spinner. "Whenever I felt creative, ...