Because as album art goes this is pretty out there, team. We're talking about Islands' forthcoming Arm's Way, which has inspired a few gushes here and there. And by the LP's newly revealed artistic…   Read Story »

Diamonds are forever, although maybe not as stage names go. But if you haven't seen Islands since Nick went back to given name Thorburn -- and if you somehow missed our dispatches from Austin and…   Read Story »

In addition to shooting a ton of performances in Austin last week, we subjected many of our favorite acts to Texas music trivia. You saw part one. In this follow-up, we test the smarts of Islands, My…   Read Story »

It's in the blogger code to toss out superlatives with reckless abandon, but really -- we weren't lying when called Islands set at Cedar St. the best of this fest. (OK, maybe Fuck Buttons @ Volume…   Read Story »

Interested in filling a rock club to the rafters? Simple: Just have Nada Surf and Destroyer play back to back sometime. People were stuffed asses to elbows at Volume night club for the first day of…   Read Story »

Dinner time in Austin, time to munch tacos and figure the night sched. As the picture suggests, tonight's the night for Jens Lekman fans: y'all have two chances to catch the Swedish troubadour (Emo's…   Read Story »

Afterpartying on the last night of CMJ was sort of a doomed enterprise; after catching the Forms, we made our way out to Williamsburg, arriving well in advance of the Black Kids/Peter & Bjorn (no…   Read Story »