SHARK-FIN AWARDS

With a swift kick in the drums and a heartily swinging guitar riff to lead the way, Mike Dekleva’s Psychedelia opens up with a title cut that is as entrancing as its name would suggest it to be, and inside of the song’s three minutes and change, we’re introduced to a funkier …

Though as powerful as the riffs beside it in “Fuck Yeah” and yet approachably melodic in the title track from Kingdom Illusion, the lead vocal in Whiskerman’s all-new album is hardly the conventional linchpin some would expect it to be in a record as ambitious as this one is, but it’s …

In a powerful stomping beat as potent as any I’ve heard this year, Tonne’s new EP Bridey Murphy kicks into gear with its opening cut, “Jesus, Julie Christie!,” and instantly fills the air around us with a textured, riff-driven melody that could make anyone into an indie rock fan. The rolling …

True grit has always been an important element in the creation of a solid country album, but for that matter, so has pastoral melodicism, with the best kinds coming from a songwriter who can sing as well as they could compose – taking that into account, Carlos Washington’s Steel Horse …

A psychedelic-tinged melody fills the air around us as “Breathe In,” the first track in Gallery 47’s new LP East Street begins to play, a subdued but menacing guitar weaving together a harmony that will linger in our minds long after the music has ceased to play. This intriguing introduction to East Street indeed …

“Took a train to Brooklyn, but Harlem was on my mind,” David Yim croons in the opening lines of his solo endeavor Mount Hudson’s new single “Write a Book,” his words cascading across the gentle acoustic backdrop the music is generating. Yim’s confidence is contagious, so much so that the …

Creeping out of the silence with a hesitant sonic slither, “Circle of Sixes” is waiting for anyone brave enough to enter its groove-packed gateway into Darren Michael Boyd’s virgin instrumental LP Lifting the Curse, and in the next four minutes that follow, the track will set the stage for everything …

When You Coming Home, the debut album from Ruark, doesn’t take very long to get us started with a righteous rhythm at all; in its opening title cut, we don’t have to wait for the wallop of gentle harmonies to come oozing out of the speakers at all – it …

A ghostly piano harmony follows every word Thomas Charlie Pedersen sings to us in the balladic “Green Plateau,” but as strong an impression as this song makes, it doesn’t dwarf the ensuing emotion we’ll soon embrace in the guitar-driven “The World is Not Your Oyster,” the tune that immediately follows …

2019 was a really awesome year for independent rock groups, with acts throughout the American and British underground making an impact worth writing home about. Stateside, New York/Florida-transplants Kings County issued a debut album that got a noteworthy reaction from critics and fans largely on the strength of star-caliber songs …