The Bottle Rockets - Bit Logic - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

It really was super natural, laughs Duncan Troast, explaining how he and Nick Corson came to form The Convenience, and though he means it was as organic as breathing, the music these two conjure is from an alternate reality. Pulling from a pastiche of 80's sounds and their own rolodex of future pop flourishes, their new album Accelerator sounds like a late-night disco party on a distant outpost, a sea of dancing bodies illuminated by an alien moon.The two met at New Orleans' Loyola University, where somewhat ironically, they ended up out of convenience. Troast grew up in a suburb of New Jersey, where he played piano until he Inchgot old enough to hate itInch, eventually drifting to jazz study, where his teacher became an early mentor. Nervous about the future, he stumbled on Loyola's music program, which you could apply to by simply submitting a performance video. Corson, on the other hand, was anxious to get as far away from San Francisco as he could, and figured he could find his way into a recording studio if he auditioned to study classical guitar.After orbiting each other for years, they ended up as supporting players in the local band Fishplate (whose principal songwriter, Grady Bell, now handles the iconic visual art for their band). It quickly became apparent that there was a special chemistry between the two, and they weren't the only ones to take note - while recording with Ross Farbe, the three struck up an immediate friendship, and he invited them to join his band, the rising pop group Video Age. The invitation couldn't have come at a better time - Corson had dropped out of school, and the two were fighting feelings of doubt, unmoored in their post-college lives. The offer to play in their favorite band and experience life on the road was the perfect antidote to their uncertainty. Before long, the two were spending the downtime between tours exploring what

Lean Forward continues the Rockets' creative resurgence ignited by 2006's ZOYSIA. Reunited with producer Eric Roscoe Ambel, The Bottle Rockets do what no other band does betterlook into the hearts and minds and faces of the dying small towns in America and crafts populist anthems with the sympathetic eye of Woody Guthrie and sonic stomp of Crazy Horse. They are songs that demand the windows be rolled down and the volume turned up. And with the hooks, you'll wonder how they make such problems sound so good!

In MX Lonely's world, monsters are multifaceted things. They're the creatures we used to imagine lurking in the shadows as a child; the all-too-real evildoers who abuse their power or line their pockets with sufering; the vices and flaws that we grapple with throughout our lives, and what we can become while under their grip. On their debut full-length album ALL MONSTERS, the Brooklyn-based band search dark corners, force open doors and exhume these monsters, via a heavy, murky alt-rock sound that's equally streaked with beauty. As their first entirely self-recorded , ALL MONSTERS sees the band - synthesist/vocalist Rae Haas, guitarist Jake Harms bassist Gabriel Garman and drummer Andy Rapp - capturing a live, immediate, analogue sound which embodies the feeling of their live show, while also creating a more longform and nuanced experience than they have before. Going forward, they aim to keep heading out on the road and building a community based on mutual catharsis. InchI think that's kind of the manifestation or the prayer in this, is for everyone to have the space and tools to work through their own monsters,Inch Haas says. Though committed to introspection, ultimately MX Lonely want to bring others into their world.