Craft Spells - nausea, 2014

"Craft Spells is an American indie rock/dream pop band from Stockton, California, formed in late 2009 by Justin Vallesteros. To date, Craft Spells has released two studio albums, Idle Labor (2011) and Nausea (2014) on the Captured Tracks label."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - the asp at my chest, 2014

"Listen to the way “The Asp at My Chest” closes out the whole affair with a waft of brass, and you’ll hear a new kind of dusk glowing on Pains. It’s not particularly ambitious, but it’s incredibly pleasant, and you’ve got to hand it to a guy who can keep a smile up even as he’s skipping through his melancholy."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - life after life, 2014

"This was one of the first Pains tracks to prominently feature Peggy Wang on backing vocals less (she left the band before the album cycle), marking the shift to a slightly new lineup and poppier direction."

The New Pornographers - born with a sound, 2014

"In “Born With a Sound,” Bejar casts his purring voice against Amber Webber’s, and the resulting vocal layers are delicious, like a cake that looks just too perfect to eat."

The New Pornographers - another drug deal of the heart, 2014

“Another Drug Dealer of the Heart” has Newman’s niece Kathryn Calder on lead. I definitely recommend this one."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - coral and gold, 2014

"Coral and Gold" and "Beautiful You" feel really towering and fragile at the same time - which is something I really like in music, sonic and emotional"

The New Pornographers - marching orders, 2014

"Most recently, I heard Electric Light Orchestra’s “Turn to Stone” on the radio, and I thought of the New Pornographers. If there’s any significant difference between this album and previous ones, it seems to be a heavier emphasis on electronic sounds, like the vocorder at the beginning of “Backstairs,” the synthesizer on “Marching Orders” and “Wide Eyes” The opening of “Hi-Rise” sounds a little new-agey to me. Band leader A.C. Newman has said that this is basically a celebratory album, as he’s gotten over some issues that he was dealing with. As usual, most of the lead vocals are Newman’s, but with Dan Bejar taking lead on his own compositions."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - beautiful you, 2014

"A brighter, more polished synth-pop/indie-pop sound compared to their earlier shoegaze/dream-pop roots."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - kelly, 2014

"The new record is the band’s most musically sophisticated to date, channeling the gilded pop optimism of bands like Aztec Camera, The House of Love and The Lightning Seeds, while maintaining The Pains’ penchant for earworm melodies and emotional candor."

The New Pornographers - backstairs, 2014

"after periods of difficulty, I'm at a place where nothing in my life is dragging me down."

My Sad Captains - in time, 2014

"Best of Times is the third studio album released by the English band My Sad Captains on 17 March 2014 through Bella Union Records. The album was recorded in London and mixed by Larry Crane in Portland (OR). A single, 'Goodbye' was released on 29 January with a video directed by Dan Davis featuring Vincent Meehan (aka Lavinia Co-op)."

James - quicken the dead, 2014

"A line in the bible – “the quick and the dead” – refers to the living (quick probably being similar to animated) and the dead. The title of the song “Quicken the Dead” refers to this. It is an appeal for (the dead) people who don’t know what they are doing with life to understand that they are living, and do so fully (quicken/reanimate)."

My Sad Captains - goodbye, 2014

"The track is the opener, and it's got that quiet storm energy—languid guitars, even-keeled instrumentation, and lyrics that feel like a gentle wave of regret and resolution."

James - all in my mind, 2014

"The mixture of dark, tortured and hedonistic lyrics, the throbbing synths raining down on the beats and Tim’s superb vocal delivery; utterly irresistible."

James - interrogation, 2014

"‘Interrogation’ mixes post punk with subtle electronics and you know what? It works pretty well, injecting the song with a memorable dose of urgency and desperation."

Coldplay - o reprise, 2014

"For a long, long time I've been begging the band, "Please could someone else start a song!" I've been given that gift from the universe, or from God or whatever you want to believe in that ideas for songs get sent through wherever they get sent from, and then I take them to the rest of the band and then we layer it up and that's how we do it. I was so grateful. It made me so happy and that was kind of a sample of the album as a whole, "We'll help each other out here". There were lots of songs but that was the first point where I thought, "Everyone is invested in this, everyone knows what we're trying to do; go a bit more personal". — Chris Martin"

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - wrapped, 2014

"A long time ago, probably 1994, a friend and me got caught in this torrential downpour while walking the parking lot at high school. We took cover inside her Ford Taurus and we tried to have a long conversation about nothing and everything to idle the storm’s duration. Well, the rain fell so hard that our conversation was drowned and instead we just turned up the radio and heard music that got transformed by a dreamlike wave of white noise created by the raindrops hitting the roof of the car. Letting Up Despite Great Faults‘ Neon brought that memory back. The car stereo was loud enough to help the music prevail over the rain noise, but you still had that distant sound enveloping everything. Conversely, the songs in Neon do have a sizeable portion of Shoegaze, but it’s a lean serving, just enough to make it more of a warm hug and less of an awkward cuddle."

James - walk like you, 2014

"The tracks on La Petite Mort were influenced by the deaths of frontman Tim Booth's mother and his best friend Gabrielle Roth. It included more pianos and keyboards, drawing comparison to Elbow and Coldplay, with some of the guitar parts were compared to Muse."

Coldplay - a sky full of stars, 2014

"Quite honestly it sounds more like a Zedd or Avicii offering than a Coldplay one, and it's certainly the loudest and most joyful cut we've heard from the album so far"

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - shift, 2014

"Shift" is a track from the 2014 album Neon by Letting Up Despite Great Faults, an American indie pop/dream pop band founded by Mike Lee in 2006. The song, with a runtime of 2:56, is the opening track of the 13-song album, released on August 12, 2014, and characterized by its dreamy, shoegaze-infused indie rock sound. Critics have noted Neon for its shimmering, danceable melodies and New Order-inspired basslines, with "Shift" setting the tone for the album's ethereal vibe."