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South Rail Presents: Top 20 Albums of 2011

January 3, 2012 2 Comments

Happy New Year! What a way to start-off 2012 then to reflect on all the great music 2011 had to offer. So much in fact that we decided to make our Top 15 list and Top 20!

As always, next to each album title is a “Purchase from he artist or label” link, which takes you directly to the best possible way to purchase each album… directly from the band! If the artist doesn’t sell directly, the link will take you to their label. Support the arts, and keep these great musicians’ careers in-check for 2012!

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01

Those Darlins: ‘Screws Get Loose’
Buy directly from the band

On their debut, selt-titled LP, Those Darlins delivered to the world a fantastic album smothered and covered in deep-country roots blended with that perfect dosage of rock n’ roll. For the band’s sophomore effort, ‘Screws Get Loose,’ they show us that they’re a band who is here to stay, offering us nothing but growth, sustainability and song writing gold. If you don’t know of this Nashville 4-piece yet, they are soon to be a house-hold name and this LP is the proof.

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02

Middle Brother: ‘Middle Brother’
Buy directly from the label

So, what do you get when you put three great up-and-coming band front-men and songwriters into the studio? One hell of an album! Add a dash of Corndawg and call it a classic.

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03

Hunx & His Punx ‘Too Young To Be In Love’
Buy directly from the label

Shannon Shaw of Shannon of the Clams + Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) are the perfect song writing team! Even thought Hunx and his Punx’s Punkettes played their last show this Fall due to the band’s other 2 members leaving this fall and with Hunx releasing a solo album in February, we hope this isn’t the last we hear from this Shannon/Seth project.

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04

Black Lips: ‘Arabia Mountain’
Buy directly from the label

Mark Ronson producing Black Lips. Yeah, we had our doubts too… but just seconds into the LP’s first track ‘Family Tree’ and this full 16-track album became the jam of the summer.

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05

Ranch Ghost: ‘Live at Mt. Swag’
Buy directly from the label

Who needs a studio album?.. here is some live rock n’ damn roll at its finest! With a live show this promising, Ranch Ghost is one of our main bands to watch for in 2012.

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06

Natural Child: ‘1971’
Buy directly from the label

A killer follow-up to several amazing 7-inch releases and the perfect soundtrack to start and end the party. (The songs streaming below are only 4 select tracks from the LP).

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07

The Coasts: ‘The Coasts’
Buy directly from the band

A two-piece from Little Rock do good with their diverse self-released debut. Only available via Bandcamp this year, expect to hear a lot more from The Coasts in the coming year. You can download the full album for only $5 (above or below) and a portion of the record sales will go towards the Hope For Haiti’s Children Foundation.

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08

Secret Cites: ‘Strange Hearts’
Buy directly from the label

A stellar sophomore effort that was released less than a year after their debut LP, 2010’s ‘Pink Graffiti.’ If you ask us, with 2 great full length albums in under a year, that’s pretty impressive!…  and the perfect formula for future success.

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09

Nikki Lane: ‘Walk of Shame’
Buy directly from the label

A wonderful debut LP, Nikki Lane gives a fresh take to country’s roots while giving it a modern twist that is refreshing to hear.

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10

Jeff the Brotherhood: ‘We Are The Champions’
Buy directly from the band

Look out world, the Jeff-bros are hear to stay! And this album says nothing but that. Recently signed to Warner Brothers (for the follow-up to this LP) and dropping an amazing 7-inch with Jack White via Third Man Records, we can’t wait to see what 2012 has instore for this 2-piece.

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11

The Features: ‘Wilderness’
Buy directly from the band

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12

Royal Bangs: ‘Flux Outside’
Buy directly from the band


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13

Jonny Corndawg: ‘Down On the Bikini Line’
Buy directly from the band

Stream the full album below:

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14

Prussia: ‘Poor English’
Buy directly from the band

Stream ‘Poor English’ Vol 1, 2 & 3 below:

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15

The David Mayfield Parade: ‘The David Mayfield Parade’
Buy directly from the band


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16

Big Kitty: ‘Florence’
Buy directly from the label

Stream a couple single from the LP below:

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17

Wanda Jackson: ‘The Party Ain’t Over’
Buy directly from the label

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18

Bass Drum of Death: ‘GB City’
Buy directly from the label

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19

Colossal Gospel: ‘Circles’
Buy directly from the band

Stream the full album below:

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20

Gold Leaves: ‘The Ornament’
Buy directly from the label

Music

Blackfoot Gypsies: Dandee Cheeseball

December 27, 2011 0 comments

Blackfoot Gypsies have given us a wonderful treat to end the year… A free 5-song EP! Recorded at Fry Pharmacy earlier this summer, ‘Dandee Cheeseball’ is this Nashville duo’s second EP to drop in 2011 and is available for stream below and for download HERE… Not sure for how long, so get it while it lasts!

Download: Blackfoot Gypsies ‘Dandee Cheeseball’

BONUS: And if you missed them last month here at Chattanooga’s The Honest Pint, check out Blackfoot Gypsies ‘Coming Through the Pines’ live at Graveyard Tavern‘s The Basement in Atlanta and see what you missed. Great stuff!

Music

Night Sun: ‘On My Way’

December 7, 2011 2 Comments

Last week Black Lips’ Cole Alexander introduced a side-project he has been working on with Curtis Harding, formally known as Cee Lo Green’s back-up singer/writer. The band is called Night Sun, who played their first show for free last Tuesday night at Atlanta’s 529 with opening act Bradford Cox performing solo.

At the time of this article, there was nothing out in cyberspace that documented this debut, but Night Sun gave Atlanta’s Creative Loafing a first taste of the band’s debut EP, which is set to drop sometime in mid-2012… Download & stream the track ‘On My Way’ below for a limited time:

Download: Night Sun: ‘On My Way’

Music

Bowerbirds: New single, LP + Spring Tour

December 6, 2011 0 comments

This summer we spoke with Beth Tacular of Bowerbirds who dropped us a line to let us know the band was in the studio working on their follow-up to 2009’s ‘Upper Air.’ Well, album number 3 is now officially in the bag and the mixing and mastering process has begun! The LP is entited ‘The Clearing’ and hits shelves March 6th via Dead Oceans Records.

Check out the album’s first single, ‘Tuck the Darkness In,’ below along with Bowerbirds’ 2012 Spring tour dates… Oh, and Dear Bowerbirds: I know Monday nights are not the greatest days to stop by smaller cities that are located between 2 larger cities.. but a 4-16 Chattanooga date would be pretty killer… just sayin’

Download: Bowerbirds ‘Tuck the Darkness In’

03-17 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
03-21 Washington, DC – Black Cat
03-22 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
03-23 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
03-24 Boston, MA – Paradise
03-26 Montreal, Quebec – La Sala Rossa
03-27 Toronto, Ontario – The Garrison
03-29 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
03-31 Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Centre
04-03 Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
04-04 Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
04-06 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
04-07 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
04-08 San Diego, CA – Casbah
04-11 Austin, TX – The Parish
04-12 Dallas, TX – The Loft
04-14 Birmingham, AL – The Bottletree
04-15 Atlanta, GA – The Earl

Music

GET TO KNOW: Shapes Have Fangs

December 6, 2011 1 Comment

Austin’s Shapes Have Fangs was one of our favorite discoveries at this year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest. A great psychedelic lo-fi garage band to catch live (in the tradition of Black Lips, Night Beats, etc etc etc) with a debut full-length to match. We were stunned that this was our first encounter and look forward to of hearing more from these guys in 2012. The band is currently working on their follow-up to debut LP, ‘Dinner In The Dark’ that dropped earlier this year (3/8) via The Black Angels’ Reverberation Appreciation Society and is only available digitally and/or on vinyl HERE… Stream the full album below along with a couple videos:

Shapes Have Fangs – The Desert from ImagineLive on Vimeo.

Shapes Have Fangs – Rattle And Confuse Me from ImagineLive on Vimeo.

Music

Bad Cop: ‘I Can’t Slow Down’ EP

November 22, 2011 2 Comments

Last week Nashville’s Bad Cop announced the release of their new EP ‘I Can’t Slow Down’ via a 6-pack teaser video (shown below) which drops TODAY (11/22) on Prince Cook Records!.. Best part, the EP is available for FREE download… just for a simple trade of an email address! Here was last week’s trailer:

The EP download contains 3 MP3s along with a video for each track. The tracklisting includes the songs ‘Animal,’ ‘Maniac’ and ‘Gloom Bank.’ Great stuff! Download yours now!… Also check out 2 of those 3 videos below:

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Music

Ranch Ghost: Lookin’

November 21, 2011 4 Comments

Last week, a new track from Nashville’s Ranch Ghost emerged on SoundCloud and slowly creeped its way around the internets. We recently spoke with the band who said “That was literally the first time we had played that song beginning to end.” And believe it or not, it was recorded in one take using an iPhone! Pretty awesome, check it out:

Lookin’ by Ranch Ghost

As we reported in September, the band was at Battle Tapes Recordings this summer… Well, we should be getting us our first taste from those sessions in early 2012! “The Battle Tapes stuff should be coming out early next year as a three or four song 45. An LP will hopefully be in the works soon after that.”… Lookin’ forward to it fellas! Until then, the band made a video for one of their newer songs, ‘Won’t Bother Me.’ This should hold us over till next year:

Music

Get To Know: Ultras S/C

November 14, 2011 7 Comments

Dear Ultras S/C,… You’re our new favorite!… No, seriously!

We were at Nashville’s Third Man Records Friday (11/11/11) for the The Black Belles‘ record release party, celebrating their debut, self-titled LP. Opening for them was Ultras S/C, a band we heard about this summer, but never had a chance to listen. At the time of this article, there are no videos or samples of their music available online, and Friday night was the first time the band performed as a 3-piece… But the 3-piece part is what had our jaws dropped…

The band consists of Ben Swank of Detroit’s The Soledad Brothers (and Jack White’s right-hand-man at Third Man Records) on drums, Chetley “Cheetah” Weise of Immortal Lee County Killers and Silver Lion’s 20/20 on vocals/guitar, and Jemina Pearl of Be Your Own Pet on vocals/guitar…. A big line-up that we hope get into big things for 2012!… Since there’s not any samples of Ultras S/C, not even a website or Facebook page, we’re just gonna give you a ‘best-of’ of all the members previous work (see below) because their new material is just a great continuation of what each member does best, gritty punk/rock/blues goodness!.. There was some press photographers there, so we’re sure some photos will surface soon… we’ll keep you updated:

And by-the-way… for the record: The Black Belles are a fantastic live band you MUST see soon! Gimmicks aside, their debut album kills and their live show is legit. We can’t wait to see them again, especially with a better crowd! A crowd who is there to see THEM and not just standing around simply purchase a limited-edition LP and sell it on eBay… Their self-titled debut is available NOW! Pick up a copy HERE

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