Album: Magnolia Collective - An Old Darkness Falls

For a band whose Indy Southern rock accent has filled stage rooms like smoke over the Appalachians for the past five+ years, Magnolia Collective's new album An Old Darkness Falls, out on Potluck October 24th, is markedly Americana. Half-half stompers to ballads, the common prose is Magnolia Collective's talent for telling it like it is. No tears on this album, just confessions in the dead of night after every attempt to avoid breakdown and breakup has passed. The acoustic guitars get this part right every time and Rich McLaughlin, famous for ripping stages in half with his electric guitar, brings a darker melancholy to bear with the strummed strings this time around.

On An Old Darkness Falls, Magnolia Collective displays a higher understanding of the human condition. That is, there are things in life you can change for the better, and then there are things you write songs about. The grand tradition of Americana is to be painfully honest with the latter and these songs tell their story with a right hand in the air. Murder ballads and lost lovers are just primer topics for this album. The real tell-all's are the desperate missed chances romanticized in "Coldest Winter" and "The Doldrums". Magnolia Collective has always made heartbreak look pretty, these ten songs drift like swans upon a lake.

Magnolia will release An Old Darkness Falls Saturday, October 24th with a performance at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC. Nathan Golub and Maldora share the bill. --Carrboro Ninja

Preview: Shivery Shakes + Seabreeze Diner + The Charming Youngsters at The Cave 5/25 (Tonight omg!)

Driving in from Austin with an eye-smiling fuzzy surf vibe foot on the pedal, Shivery Shakes' van stops tonight when it firmly connects with The Cave in Chapel Hill. When they swing open the doors, be ready for overtly beach pop sounds, shooting melodies, and unabashed twang to pour out all over the place. Their 2014 release Three Waves & A Shake, is a dead giveaway that The Cave tonight will be reverberating with enough chime to make a grandfather clock put on a Hawaiian shirt and go listen.

Well adding to the fuzz+chime+vibe are local groups Sea Breeze Diner and The Charming Youngsters, whom are the newest crop of indie bands that would go in your basket if they were veggies and you you walking the isles at the farmer's market. Seabreeze Diner blasts infectious pop riffs at damaged crooning vocals until dancing is the only suitable response. The Charming Youngsters brilliantly layer stretchy fuzz, head banging down strokes, crisp harmonies, and bubblegum whimsy to their heart's content. Its a symphony of "yes!" and they always seem genuinly surprised when the audience responds with thunderous aplause...its totes adorbs. Tonight 5/25 at The Cave in Chapel Hill at 9 PM $5. --Carrboro Ninja

Preview: Leland Sundries, Ramblin' Andy - Slim's

Brooklyn based Leland Sundries borrows the nostalgia of generations who lived and loved before us and maintains their sweet remind with the jangle of folk rock guitars and the gravity of mellow baritone Nick Loss-Eaton. Their collection of songs presents Americana as if holding a pen to paper and listing that which they hold dear. In the lines they form, stories and melodies drift like clouds across a lifetime of skies which are colored neither blue nor gray, calm nor turbulent...just recalled with fondness and awe.

Setting out on a seven show run late February, Leland Sundries makes two stops in our neck of the woods. Wednesday March 4th at Slim's in Raleigh, and Thursday March 5th at Mystery Brewing in Hillsborough, a spot which continually makes a name for itself with their award winning craft brews and for bring a steady stream of talented Americana and folk rock artists from points unknown to entertain the locals.

Traveling with Leland Sundries is the crooner Ramblin' Andy whose call and warble is akin to the roots of country yet sophisticated enough to move to the city. -- @carrboroninja

Carrboro Ninja is Jeremy Blair,
Writer, people lover, and singer for The Affectionates.

Watch Leland Sundries' music video for their song "Elegy"

Compilation: Broken Hearts Broken Sounds

Carrboro, NC based promoter Michael Charles Wood has leagued with Raleigh label Silber Records to stack 18 South Eastern bands, give or take a couple from The West Coast and/or Mars...onto a compilation that's all about falling in (and out) of love. And its just in time for Valentine's Day...no shortage of romantics in this ensemble. The theme for this comp is the altered state of consciousness which is love, but you won't find any model citizens of Sweetheartville USA among the broken emotions and bittersweet send offs of this collection. For, if you ask an indie pop band within the envelope of Athens, Columbia, and Raleigh to write a love song, they will first write a beautiful melody, followed by an engaging arrangement, then rip shit about that last fucked up relationship they were in. These bands know love hurts and they like a dash of salt in the wound. Among its abundance, the comp offers a steady mix of overtly pretty songs (acoustic guitars and all), no talking-just action instrumentals...and the purely experimental. ...all in all a pretty good metaphor for the relationships of musicians, no? The full comp can be downloaded from Bandcamp in name-your-price format here: Broken Hearts Broken Sounds or at Silber's home page: Silbermedia.com/brokenhearts/. --Carrboro Ninja -- @carrboroninja

Here is a fine representative track by Feel No Other titled "Even The Blue"