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THE CANT TELLS

BROOKLYN, NY
MEMBERS: Blaze McKenzie, Michael DiSanto, Jonathan Smith

Once the drums and distorted vocals hit on Lying to Myself, The Cant Tells single off their upcoming debut full-length record No Television, the track lets loose into a Strokes-like work of art. With a little grit and sweat, The Cant Tells boast just the right amount of genre-bending eclecticism, with prominent hints of punk, shoegaze, and pop. The tracks are lyrical with simultaneously strong and raw instrumentation, and we cant stop hitting replay. MELODY KITCHENS
PLAY THIS: Lying to Myself photographed by will rahilly and allison pearce.

FLYING HIGH
JOE CARDAMONE AND THE ICARUS LINE UNLEASH A BARNBURNER. BY DREW TEWKSBURY. PHOTOGRAPHED BY EMILY BERL
WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED, that swooshing sound in the distance could be the ocean, the crash of a wave tumbling into the coastline. But open your eyes, and youre in sun-blanched Burbank, and all you hear is the moan of cars racing on the I-5 freeway. Its a concrete desert where broken glass shimmers on the asphalt. But hidden among the tombstone-colored warehouses is ground zero for the gnarled, frenzied rock of The Icarus Line. Come around back and Ill let you in, instructs Joe Cardamone, lead howler for the incendiary troupe, over the phone. I comply and find him standing in the doorway of his studio, Valley Recording Co. He could be a P.J. Harveyera Nick Cave, with an unbuttoned shirt and leopard-patterned shoes. Inside, its dark and hot. Plywood walls lead to spartan recording rooms, where amps and cords are implements of combustion for the bands latest album, Slave Vows. You cant design chaos, says Cardamone, sitting before a mixing board. It is the most instantaneous record that weve ever made. It was like speed dating. The band, including guitarist Alvin DeGuzman, drummer Ben Hallett, and original-lineup bassist Lance Arnao, recorded it live in the adjacent room. The album is raw, dynamic, and arguably the strongest in The Icarus Lines 15-year existence. An 11-minute opening track, Dark Circles, begins with amp hum and feedback, like that moment of tension before a symphony starts, where instruments tune up before coalescing. A circular guitar riff begins, then grows in volume and velocity as the band adds layer by layer. It explodes in a conflagration of noise, then the instruments fall away, leaving Cardamones voice to lurch and swagger both urgently and honestly. The journey to Slave Vows has been long and turbulent. Like the sneering punk groups that graced pages of Slash magazine, whose poster hangs on the studio wall, The Icarus Line is something of a legend in Los Angeles. Founded in 1998, Cardamone and his crew tore through venues when they were just teenagers. We were probably part of the last gasp of bands who got signed as a tax-write-off-slash artistic-project, says Cardamone of their time on V2 Records, which released their critically lauded second album, Penance Soiree, in 2004. They rode the wave of rock resurgence and left clubs smoldering in their wake. We were kids who never had anything, so when we got something, we ran with it, he remembers. They set us loosethey put these maniacs on tour and enabled their fucking insanity. Then, guitarist Aaron North, whose place in the annals of rock was codified when he smashed the display case holding Stevie Ray Vaughans guitar in Austins Hard Rock Caf, left the band for Nine Inch Nails in 2004. In the subsequent years, Cardamone and the band listed without direction. We spent a long time trying to figure out where we stood in the world, says Cardamone. We were a band that people loved to hate, and we put ourselves in that position. The money soon disappeared. For Cardamone, who grew up in the mostly Latino, working-class L.A. neighborhood of Highland Park, the do-it-yourself ethic is the connective tissue of the bands body of work. I have friends who have had some success, then they dont know how to deal when things go wrong or the money dries up. For me, there was never anything anyway, so whats the difference? Then the man who brought them on their first tour in England so many years ago, Agitated Records founder Simon Keeler, stepped back into their lives to help release Slave Vows. On the brink of destruction, The Icarus Line are back with a newfound sense of focus. I dont know why I didnt quit, says Cardamone. I just know Im supposed to be doing this. Even if this is a lost cause, Im going down with the ship. Everythings fucked anyway, so let this one thing be pure.

JUNIOR ASTRONOMERS
CHARLOTTE, NC
MEMBERS: Terrence Richard, Philip Wheeler, Colin Watts, Elias Pittman

Nashville indie icons The Weeks love them, so what else do you really need to know? Self-described as gritty and jangled on some occasions, mangled and diverting on others, Junior Astronomers are just plain badass. Their recently released debut full-length album, Dead Nostalgia, is full of serious rock laced with heavy guitar, raw vocals, and never-feelsforced rhythm. Basically, think Nirvana if they were Southern and emerging today. MK
PLAY THIS: Touching War photographed by mitchell kearney.