There’s this edge to Cavalier Rose that I can’t quite put my finger on with “Atom Bomb.” The song swirls and twists and builds; Heather (the band’s spark plug lead singer) builds along with it, voice trembling and soaring all at once while the band grinds out jagged space noise behind her. She sounds like she could be equally at home fronting her current band as she would doing jazz standards in a piano bar. And she would command the same amount of attention in either situation. Her voice reminds me of a female hybrid of the dudes from Silversun Pickups and Coheed & Cambria. Label your mind: blown.
The band released their Primary Colors EP in 2009; you can find it gratis on their MySpace page, and you would be advised to pick it up. They have a few dates in NYC in March since the band hails from Brooklyn (which is becoming almost passe, but we can’t really hold it against them.) Check them out live if you’re down that way. With the lo-fi/no-fi/glo-fi that’s being thrust upon the masses lately (not that I’m complaining), it’s refreshing to hear a band that just wants to play their music, play it loudly, and play it well.
Cavalier Rose – Atom Bomb (Demo) (mp3)
And for good measure, here’s another track from their recent demos:
Cavalier Rose – Button (Demo) (mp3)
It’s a talent that I don’t possess – the ability to act disinterested about most everything that’s going on in my life. 
I just spent the last hour shoveling only one side of my driveway out. At my house between a foot-and-a-half and two feet of snow has fallen since yesterday. Not only was it heavy snow, but the street plow always ends up depositing another ton-and-a-half of snow at the very end of my driveway. The end of the driveway takes up 50% of my time as it is extremely heavy and filled with chunks of ice and dirt. But I’m not complaining; It’s good exercise and a chance to think over the mysteries of life. The song I’ve attached is by no means appropriate for this post, but rather a sad attempt at humor.
Regardless of how musically snobbish one happens to be, there is always a place for guilty pleasures. A song or artist that inexplicably hits a sweet spot and you can’t help but enjoy. While I can’t explain exactly why I like the song I have defined as a guilty pleasure today, my affinity for it correlates perfectly with my viewing of Jim and Pam’s wedding this season on The Office. I had not previously seen the famous wedding dance video on YouTube prior to its Office tribute, but I enjoyed both the real and fictionalized versions quite a bit. A large part of that has to do with this song. I don’t usually enjoy the genre Chris Brown employs himself in, but this song has something others in its class do not.
I feel like we rarely do this – mostly because we don’t enjoy a lot of the remixes and other stuff we get – but we are interested in posting more often, and this type of post about little known artists is a good place to start. I just got this email this morning so haven’t listened to most of it, but Nathan Clarke has a lot of his music up for free on Last.fm, so if you dig this, go check out some more of his music 
