Nu Rave Brain Wave

I love doing year end roundup coverage and I’m still waiting to put up the bands to watch list, so I thought we’d highlight some of the great bands we discovered over the past year. Some of them made our 2011 bands to watch list, some of them didn’t, some of them aren’t even NEW but rest assured they all rule. As per the usual, you can download a great mp3 from each of the bands at the links.

The Strangers Family Band
Les Rallizes Denudes
Best Coast
Happy Birthday
Neverever
Caitlin Rose
Eternal Summers
Wild Palms
Harlem
Exlovers
White Fence
Spectrals
Cloud Nothings
Hey Sholay
The Invisible Hand
Fair Ohs
Monster Rally
Family Trees
Silver Machine
Tennis
Hot Spa
Fergus & Geronimo
The Jim Jones Revue
Superhumanoids
Jeffertitti’s Nile
Mind Spiders
Shimmering Stars
Young Sinclairs
Son of Rams
Guards
The N.E.C
Balkans
Velvet Davenport
Dominant Legs
The Splinters
Unouomedude
The Vaccines
The Babies
Ducktails
Las Robertas
Heavy Hawaii
Francois & The Atlas Mountains
Myelin Sheaths
Pete Drake
Mess Folk
Black Mekon
Man The Hunter
Navajo Bixby
Wetdog
Demon’s Claws
Cheveu
French Kissing
Whatever Brains
The Castillians
Bass Drum of Death
Dead Ghosts
Swampmeat
Sonny & The Sandwitches
Fanzine
Crusaders of Love
Wombs
Moonhearts
Bleeding Knees Club
Straight Arrows
Hello My Name Is Red
Sauna Youth
School Knights
Tree Hopping
The Meanest Boys
Friends
Ghost Outfit

And due to high demand you can download a track from each artist put into a zip folder right here.

Just got a really rad tip on this Australian band, from my favorite tipster, you know who you are, thank you, and keep them coming. Straight Arrows actually just a few days ago released their deut LP, It’s Happening, via Rice Is Nice Records out of Sydney . You can pick up your copy of this excellent disc at the Rice Is Nice Shop. Both tracks I have off these guys are pretty much all my favorite things: fun, fast, sweaty punk with overarching 50s pop melodies, and tons of fuzz. Reminds me a lot of early Black Lips, but with a shade more control over what they’re playing — they’ve got a really rad way of practically perfecting the sub-2:30-minute-song with their infectuous-bordering-on-obnoxious (and oh how I love that) vocals and their small touches of surf mixed with that 60s garage sound. Fitting that it was recorded on 1950′s equipment in some little studio. Get on this. So if we buy enough records, maybe someone will pay for them to come entertain us in England.

mp3 | Straight Arrows - It Begins