Upon arriving around 2:50pm, we found quite a bit of chaos. An unfortunate propane tank explosion had injured four ACL staffers, so fire trucks, EMS vehicles, and golf carts were buzzing everywhere. Our tickets were stuck with a friend inside, so we found a shady tree and hung out until the dust settled around 3:15. We entered to the wafting notes of Peter, Bjorn, and John, who had attracted such a huge crowd we......

Two days remain in our ticket giveaway to see stellastarr*, Spoon, Alpha Rev and Morningwood at The Parish Room next Monday! Proceeds from the show go to "Habitat for Humanity for the rebuilding of hurricane-affected areas right here in Texas, Louisiana, & Mississippi," and the only way to get 'em other than winning ours is to sign up with the "101x Workforce." We still have no idea what that's all about, but it's available......

Brooklyn's Stellastarr* played a brilliant show at the Parish Room a few months back, replete with dazzling light show, explosive instrumentation and lead singer Shawn Christensen's powerful, dead-on Robert Smith wail. It was a set imbued with the same frenetic energy as their sophomore effort, Harmonies for the Haunted, an album brazenly inspired by any of a number of New Wave acts and whose ceaseless momentum makes it one of our guiltiest pleasures of......

Fusing filthy-gorgeous streams of artful patter to staccato jets of vocal mayhem, Ghostland Observatory blows up with a non-stop dance party Friday at Austin’s gritty reggae cellar, Flamingo Cantina. GLO evokes the seventies underground art-beat of Georgio Moroder, Sparks, Metal Urbain while infusing it with the dirtier glitter of Bowie, Eno, Mud, and Prince. Bring your diamonds, fishnet stockings, and dancehall spirit: it’s going to be a decadent time. Dallas group The Veldt, Haunting......

Austinist is very happy to celebrate the debut CD release party for local five-piece The Glass Family on Thursday night at the Continental Club. The incandescent musicianship featured on Sleep Inside This Wheel evokes Wilco, Gram Parsons, The Ponys, My Bloody Valentine, and Kent while suggesting that The Glass Family has achieved something uniquely their own in the space of ethereal alt-country and indie rock. The band produced Sleep Inside This Wheel over a......

A collection of emotionally-charged, jazz-influenced piano ballads, the debut LP by local band Hurts to Purr heralds the ascension of the trio to the upper echelons of Austin's music scene. Lead singer Liz Pappademas’ Norah Jones-meets-Nina Simone voice and soulful lyrics lend the self-titled album a surprisingly naked sincerity, refined to an impressive level of clarity by bassist Tom Benton and drummer Jeremy Bruch’s adept accompaniments. Coupled with a stellar production job that manages......

We stumbled upon the work of Sarah Sharp through a coworker, and initially thought nothing of it. In our defense, people recommend flash-in-the-pan bands to us all the time, so we rarely put much stock in any real listening quality. Myspace has ushered in an unprecedented wave of half-practiced hopefuls who just met each other through Craigslist three weeks prior, yet somehow already have an album out. The time and effort put into that......

Xiu Xiu's lead singer Jamie Stewart knows a thing or two about pain, heartache, and misery; one certainly assumes so from listening to his plaintive wailings on the band's latest record, La Forêt. The Oakland/Seattle-based experimental noise trio remain characteristically uncharacterizable, save for Stewart's verge-of-shattering crystalline voice. It's an album that takes several plays before any of the dozen esoteric, despondent tracks are even remotely comprehensible, but on our first pass we did a......

The Kingsbury Manx have had a hard row the past few years. While touring in support of 2003’s Aztec Discipline, a psych-pop romp that shared sonic territory with fans and contemporaries the Shins, the band got in a car accident that left the majority of their gear destroyed. Shortly thereafter, singer/guitarist Kenneth Thompson parted with the band on friendly terms. Two years later, the Manx have returned in phoenixlike fashion with The Fast Rise......

LA's Dios (Malos) - formerly simply Dios - like drugs. A lot. A least, that's what we gather from their latest album, dios (malos), which finds lead singer Joel Morales repeating things like "I get high! / So do I!" Catchy hooks, simple lyrics and a generally sunny disposition make this record a pleasure to listen to. And while it's not terribly revolutionary nor as invigorating as their first album - we particularly like......

Metric emerged a few years ago from Toronto's thriving indie scene, a fact which in and of itself seems to put a band on most hipster radar screens. To be fair, they're not technically from there - before and after forming in New York City in the late 90s, various members of the quartet floated around parts of Canada and the United States. They've collaborated extensively with Toronto staples Broken Social Scene, kc Accidental,......