My, oh my.

When was the last time you heard a voice quite like this? Spouting lyrics like these? Over such beautifully confusing sounds like these?

Honestly, the last time I could remember my curiosity was prickled in this way was when I heard Seward, about this time last year. And then I remembered I said the same thing about Sturle Dagsland about three weeks ago.

Maybe it’s the month of May. Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe The Warp/The Weft are brilliant. Who can say?

Chances are, The Warp/The Weft are, in fact just brilliant – …

It’s not often that my jaded ears prick up at a song simply because it’s so downright unusual, but today I’m skipping the preamble and getting right to the chase, because Sturle Dagsland did just that.

The last time this happened, it was Seward who reached through my lugs into my brain, tickled the Parahippocampal gyrus, and ended up as ANBAD’s band of 2012.

And what was so unusual about Seward – their unique application of sound and language into music – is also the devastatingly enthralling trait in Sturle Dagsland’s terrifyingly brief Mokèlé-mbèmbé.

Well. Here’s a unique song.…

Quick, what do you think of – what sounds play in your febrile mind – when you think of Brooklyn bands?

I’m probably thinking of the same sounds as you – something a bit echoey, a bit “reverb-drenched”; something with vibes. You know, a bit dreamy. Maybe you can see the artists too, and maybe they’re wearing clothes that ought to really be on the corpse of your long-dead grandma.

A couple of things are unusual about all this: the fact that these crass generalisations are often close to the truth, and how much these things actually matter. They …

Here’s a thing: ANBAD rarely features cover songs.

Not because covering another artists’ song is a particularly gauche thing to do, or anything, but it’s just that there’s so much great “original content” (as New Media Specialists say) out there, that there simply isn’t room for re-trodden stuff.

By now, you’re probably sensing a “but…”, and rightly so. (Also: minus points for anyone who sniggered at any unspoken “sensing a butt” gags.)

Moreover, the above sentences form an entirely unfair precis to Bridie Jackson and The Arbour, who has released a beautiful song written by, it turns out, Official …

A New Band A Day’s Best New Bands Of 2012 by Joesparrow on Mixcloud

ANBAD is running through the best new bands of the year. For explanation of why and how, click here. For the Top Ten, try here (10-6) and here (5-3) and for the great bands that just missed out, here (15-11).

And so, for the second time in three years, ANBAD’s New Band of the Year is from the Iberian peninsula: after Youthless won me over with their pristine clatter-pop in 2010, here, from the stridently different city of Barcelona comes Seward, defiantly obtuse, thrillingly inventive and stubbornly odd.

And here’s an equally odd disclaimer: You may not love Seward …

ANBAD is running through the best new bands of the year. For explanation of why and how, click here.

For the Top Ten, try here (10-6) and here (5-3) and for the great bands that just missed out, here (15-11).

One of the (many) things that keeps me mentally writhing in pain when picking the year’s Best New Bands is that often, one of them is a band I blogged about recently.

I worry that the only reason I’m singling them out as being especially good is that they are still pinging the synapses of my very short …

ANBAD is running through the best new bands of the year. For explanation of why and how, click here.

Yikes, we’re rattling through the Top 10 now, aren’t we? If you missed the fascinating and fabulous artists that made up numbers 10 – 6, check them out first, because there are definitely some new bands you won’t want to miss, honest guv.

Once you’re down to the final five, as we are now, the margins get both tighter (why is Band X in second place two spots better than Band Y in fourth?) but also, in a …

ANBAD is running through the best new bands of the year. For explanation of why and how, click here.

Yesterday, I began the slightly ludicrous task of ranking this year’s best bands from, apropos of very little, the number fifteen. There are some really good, inventive and outré bands that didn’t make the Top 10, so it’s really worth a look, even if I say so myself.

Do bear in mind, of course, when scrolling through those and these, that the fifteen bands are the best of the approximately 250+ that get featured on ANBAD in various forms …

ANBAD is running through the best new bands of the year. For explanation of why and how, click here.

Why pick 15 bands as the Best New Bands Of The Year? (Actually, it was 16 – yesterday’s post had a Super Special Bonus Band)

Well, as for most of the exciting things in life, and like some of the bad things too, there are no reasons. There were fifteen great new bands that stuck out over the year, and who am I to argue?

Although it appeared a tough job, it was actually mostly a breeze – …