When I first listened to this band, my first though was that they sounded a LOT like Relient K. And, come to find out, it was for good reason, as their latest album was produced by Mark Lee Townsend. Townsend has produced nearly all of Relient K’s material, along with being credited to producing The O.C. Supertones and The Wedding.

Even though they come from the (great?) state of Arkansas, Deas Vail is straightforward indie rock band with a southern California slant. Andy Moore’s guitar work reminds me of bands like Phantom Planet, or even Chris Walla’s guitar work on a older Death Cab For Cutie album.

Vocally, Wes Blaylock doesn’t flirt with falsetto like most front men. He takes it out to a seedy dive bar and then on the way home, he has his way with it. That being said, it would be remiss of me to not mention the keyboards/synth work of Wes’s better half, Laura Blaylock, or the rhythm section comprised of drummer Kelsey Harelson and bassist Justin Froning.

Deas Vail is on an upward momentum, touring with acts like Mae and Owl City over the next few months (and probably coming somewhere near you). You can find the latest album, Birds & Cages, on AmazonMP3, and it’s available starting today.

Out of the ashes of three Texas bands comes Houston’s Holy Fiction. Previous band experience has made the members a tight, professional outfit even in their early stages of development. Despite only an EP and a single South By Southwest show to their credit (a full length LP is due by the end of the year), you’d never know it from their polished, pop-oriented sound and driving live performances.

Combining the drone and delay of 90′s shoegaze with jangly guitars, soaring strings, and falsetto-inflected vocals, Holy Fiction’s music is difficult to fit into a clean category, but impossible to call anything but rock.   With roots in Waco’s post-punk Ethan Durelle and Lake Jackson’s pop-punk Hemyah, epic bridges peak into percussive breakdowns that simultaneously recall Mono or early-career Jimmy Eat World.

Emo is something of a dirty word in modern musical lingo, but there was a time in the late 90′s that it was less invective when bands like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate melded West Coast punk with the crushing power of My Bloody Valentine to create brooding, beautiful music.  How that music somehow became synonymous with whiny kids in hoodies is best left to true professionals, but what is encouraging is that folks who grew up as fans of those bands are now taking those influences and distilling them into something new and exciting.

Currently, their EP is only for sale at their live shows, but a majority of its tracks, along with unreleased pieces from their forthcoming full-length, are available on their MySpace page.  They tour in and around Texas, too, so if you live near there, be sure to check them out live!

Can’t Miss Tracks: More Than Ever; Two Small Bodies

Three artists for you to check out today, and they are all from Canada in honor of Canada Day.

1. Metric – female-fronted band, kind of reminiscent of the 90s chic-rock movement. Here’s Monster Hospital by Metric.

2. Broken Social Scene – Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably already know who they are. They are, however, a band that I have really come to like recently. Check out Lover’s Spit by Broken Social Scene.

3. Mother Mother – Here’s a band with a catchy tune called “Wrecking Ball“. Cool stuff if you like folkier indie rock.

Does Canada measure up to the US and the UK when it comes to indie bands? Personally, I think there is a strong showing. However, I want to hear what you have to say. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

I think Flodner over at IndieBands.ws sums it up nicely:

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that primarily exists in the independent underground music scene. Indie rock musicians are typically unsigned, or have signed to independent record labels, rather than major record labels. Genres or subgenres often associated with indie rock include lo-fi, post-rock, sadcore, C86, and math rock, to list but a few; other related (and sometimes overlapping) categories include shoegazing and indie pop. Indie rock artists place a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels (sometimes their own) and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, and airplay on independent or college radio stations for promotion. Some end up moving to major labels, often on favorable terms won by their prior independent success.

From Last.FM

Late of the Pier are an alternative electronic band formed in “The Home of Metal”, Castle Donington, England, in 2001.
Their main success has been throughout London and the new clubs and scenes in the area, especially in the under-18 scene with shows such as Way Out West and the more recent All Ages Concerts.
They have been met with considerable interest and released their bedroom recorded debut single Space & The Woods on Way Out West Records.
Their debut album, ‘Fantasy Black Channel’ was released on August 11th 2008 through Parlophone.

Lead singer Samuel Eastgate also has a side-project, LA Priest. He has numerous productions and has made several remixes, as well as having the song “Engine” being remixed by Erol Alkan and released via Erol’s Phantasy Sound label.

Free MP3: Late of the Pier – Space and the Woods (right click to save) courtesy of Last.FM.

Manchester Orchestra is an new indie band which formed in Atlanta, Georgia, United States in 2005. They consist of Andy Hull (vocals, guitar), Robert McDowell (guitar), Jonathan Corley (bass), Christopher Freeman (keyboards) and Jeremiah Edmond (drums). The indie rock band has released two independent albums – 2006’s “I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child” and 2009’s “Mean Everything to Nothing” (released April 21, 2009). Manchester Orchestra is currently signed to Favorite Gentlemen Recordings.

Their single “Wolves At Night“, was featured in the video game NHL 08.

Rogue Wave is an indie rock band signed to Jack Johnson’s label Brushfire Records (they released 2 previous albums with Sub Pop). Rogue Wave is headed by Zach Schwartz (aka Zach Rogue), who created the band after losing his job in the dot-com bust. Their first independent album was Out of the Shadow which was written, recorded and produced entirely by Zach Rogue (except the drums) – released privately in 2003 and finally re-released in 2004 on Sub Pop.