It's hard to explain in 2007 what it feels like for music to be both uniting and important. Having spent nearly three years of the '90s living in London, it's with honest nostalgia and wonder that we examine Rhino's The Brit Box. The set's mission is rather broad: it attempts to examine the whole of UK indie rock from 1985-1999 and devotes a disc each to '80s indie, shoegaze, Britpop, and the late '90s. One......

Division Day Beartrap Island (Eenie Meanie) Formed in Santa Cruz in 2001, Division Day honed their craft in a small sound-proofed bedroom. They put together an EP, The Mean Way In, in 2005, and have earned a bit of blogosphere recognition since then thanks to their catchy indie pop hooks and knack for a good cover song. Beartrap Island, their first full-length, is full of toe-tapping, old fashioned sing-a-long start and stop rock'n'roll that......

In an unusual turn of events, Denton's Midlake were heralded as the next big thing in the UK before anyone had really ever heard of them here in Texas. Signed to The Cocteau Twins' label Bella Union (which is also home to Explosions In The Sky), Midlake toured Europe behind lo-fi debut album Bamnan and Slivercork before returning home to create a defining work. They finally received some domestic notice with the release of......

1990s Cookies (Rough Trade/World's Fair) The 1990s "play music like a blond gets out of a car." This, we assume based on listening, means something like, "Our sound is snotty, a little fucked up on we-don't-remember-what, and always f-u-n." While John McKeown (Yummy Fur) won't make any news showing his knickers to paparazzi during a limo exit, he will succeed in promoting the display of everyone else's underthings on the dance floor, as Cookies......

The Boggs Forts Forts is quite possibly a modern breakthrough in the use of fusing modern sampling and eclectic songwriting. The Boggs create a stirring soundscape of both cut-up and collage and multi-cultura pop songs around foreign noise with traditional rock elements (guitar, bass drums etc). There are elements of '60s influence in tunes like the left field "Kinkesque", "Little Windows" and bouncy glam rock ala "Arm In Arm". However, the album really starts going......

The background - Spawned in pre-Madchester UK by bands such as Dinosaur Jr, the Cocteau Twins, and My Bloody Valentine, shoegaze rock developed into a fairly prolific genre in the late 80's and early 90's. Characterized by its subdued vocals enveloped in heavily distored guitar riffs and an underlying sense of melody, the term "shoegazing" itself refers to the tendency of these rock proprietors to stare at their feet while playing. In more recent times......