Made In America - MODERN VICES, "Modern Vices" (2014)

Chicago continues to churn out dirt-laden garage-rock with the likes of Heavy Times and The Orwells, both of who we featured here in the past. The newest kids on the scene are Modern Vices. The five-piece formed last year began putting together tunes that, while less punk than Heavy Times and The Orwells, still retain a gnarly edge.

Front man Alex Rebek's tone-heavy vocals give me an Ian Astbury feeling and helps to set Modern Vices slightly apart from your typical garage rockers by adding more depth to their sound.

Their self-titled debut is our now via Autumn Tone Records and check out the first single from Modern Vices Cheap Style via Soundcloud.

And the video for "Cheap Style" here:

Modern Vices - "Cheap Style" from RYAN OHM ▲ on Vimeo.

Made In America - MUSIC BAND, "Can I Live" (2014)

With risk comes reward and Music Band, the garage rock trio out of Nashville, Tennessee, are all about taking risks. First, there's the name "Music Band". Google "music band" and you will quickly learn why playing hard to get can be risky in the music business. Then the band moved from Ithaca, New York, forsaking the center of the indie rock universe, Brooklyn, to Nashville, Tennessee, a city known more for it's county scene than for its rock scene. 

Music Band then recorded a "live" digital only album in a studio titled "Live At Wembley", without an audience. The audience was added in later. In my opinion, it's still a pretty good album, find it here. And finally, their latest album Can I Live is currently only available with a subscription to the Infinity Cat Cassette Series, curated by Casey Weissbuch from Diarrhea Planet. This is a bi-monthly cassette-only subscription to up and coming bands currently on the Infinity Cat label. Cassette, I still don't know why this format is making a comeback, but it is, risky.

Made In America - The Orwells, "Other Voices" EP (2013)

Chicago rockers The Orwells are young, really young, not old enough to drink yet young, but they do what they do well. The five piece graduated high school early this year to jump into music full time and if the music that they've put out so far is any indication of what's to come, then that was a brilliant career move.

The Orwells are made up of Mario Cuomo (vocals), Dominic Corso (guitar), Matt O'Keefe (guitar), Grant Brinner (bass), and Henry Brinner (drums). Corso and Cuomo are cousins and the Brinners are twin brothers. The band formed in 2011 while all of the members were in high school.

The Orwells released their debut album Remember When last year on Autumn Tone Records and released the Other Voices EP in June on East End/Canvasback here in the States and East End/National Anthem in the UK.

Angst-ridden like early Strokes and groove-laden like The White Stripes, The Orwells write and play at a higher level than their ages would seem to allow them to. It's almost as if they've bypassed the suit and tie age that the early Beatles and Stones went through and jumped right into drug-fueled freewheeling years. This may be a blasphemous analogy but it's been raining every day for the past three weeks so I'm in a blasphemous kind of mood.