Driven by nostalgia, 90’s guitar rock revivalists Tribes carve up a decade known for sarcasm and slack and kick over the stoic pillars of irony that punctured my coming-of-age. Tribes is a polished affair that trades in your hand-me-down flannel and caustic sludge for an easy to swallow blend of Britpop produced by the same man responsible for Arctic Monkeys and the Kooks.

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mySpoonful is very excited to announce Taxes as the winner of the December Band of the Month poll as chosen by you! Check them out again below and get another chance to download a brand new track "Advertising"! Thank you to everyone who participated. The January poll is already heating up so make sure to check out all this months bands and 'like' the ones you like best!For more music and info on Taxes, please see their original spoonful.

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Careful readers of mySpoonful may have noticed the “Musical Style” section at the top of every article. This is typically an easy section for us to fill out, as the hyper-specificity of musical genres makes it easy for me to describe that hot new industrial alt. country shoegaze act by writing “Industrial” “Alt. Country” and “Shoegaze” in the field above. However, every so often a band comes along that defies categorization, not by cluttering their sound with so many different styles that it’s impossible to pick out one, but by maintaining a sense of self so powerful that everything they do feels brand new and impossibly old at the same time. Around the time I found myself attempting to describe PAPA as “New-wave” and “Lo-fi”, I realized that I had stumbled onto something special. At once gritty and poppy, PAPA’s sound is simply too delightful to pigeonhole, a product of the sheer fun the band is clearly having. With hooks so catchy that, should someone find a way to weaponize them, it would bring society to its knees, you’d be remiss to pass PAPA up.

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The irony involved with naming a band that thrives on a multi-layered, percussion-thick sound after a noun meaning a period of inactivity is perhaps the only obvious thing you will get from A Lull, who appear ready to carry the torch as the next great Chicago band. The lyrics and overall feel are lonely and triumphant at times, like listening to a man bragging about his sexual prowess to his cat, but perched atop the dense, gliding beats of debut album Confetti, they are never out of place, like the perpetually disinterested look of that very same cat. Saying a band produces a “wall of sound” is a tired cliché to be sure, but it truly is an apt description of the meticulously-designed work A Lull produces. In a time wrought with interchangeable indie groups, it is beyond refreshing to hear a band strive for something unique and hit their mark as impressively as they do.

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Why fight it? Admit it: the Yellowbirds track that you’re obviously, and should be, most curious about is their cover of Coolio’s “Gangstas Paradise.” So let’s get that out of the way: it’s good. In fact, with a creepy backup chorus and quietly intoned lyrics, the Yellowbirds have found something darker and more gothic in the song that notably accompanied the Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds, in which a weathered, lipstick-donning ex-Marine played by the bony Pfeiffer struggles to connect with ghetto youth in a dilapidated inner city high school. In the same way that Pfeiffer ultimately wins over those would-be gangbanging brothers and coke-slinging vatos with her big heart, inherent toughness and unconventional methods, Yellowbirds may grab your spirit. While the Coolio cover is fun and revealing of their range and ambition, “The Rest Of My Life” and “Beneath The Reach Of Light” from their excellent 2011 album The Color are perhaps more emblematic of the Yellowbirds musical home base. Each reside in that nifty space where contemporary indie rock and classic country & western aren’t just friends, but brothers: pitch-perfect harmonized lyrics intertwined with echo-y, jangly guitar-based 60s rock, tinged with slide guitar and a harmonica played in the opposite corner of the barn. Ideal accompaniment to drinking American beer whilst watching a Midwest sunset. If all you want is rap covers, though, dig up their version of “Lord Knows” by 2-Pac: it’s dope.

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