Interview: Justin Kline

Power-Pop singer/songwriter Justin Kline’s new album Cabin Fever Songs, his first proper full-length album, is a beautiful and honest look into his internal life. Stripping back his saccharine arrangements and joyous melodies, the Tennessee-based artist focuses his songwriting into mostly acoustic songs that are more poetic and introspective than anything we’ve seen in his career thus far. It is also perhaps the strongest material we’ve seen from the young songwriter, whose melody craft has always been extremely strong and his lyrics have never been more on point than this set. I got the chance to ask Justin a few questions about the new record, his process, and shoot him some lightening-round questions!

Thieves– Achiever

From the opening bars of Thieves’ newest record Achiever, you know you’re in for something special. The Pop-Punk world has found itself in an interesting position in the past few years. Commercially, the genre has completely moved out of fashion, and after a few years of trying to keep up with the changing times, Pop-Punkers have now found that they prefer the spotlight off of them, giving them the freedom to write the music how it should be, just like it was back in the heyday of

Free Download: The Dooryard- ‘Please Remind Me…’

A collaboration between two New York-based songwriters Mark Wudtke (The Bearing) and Joe Endozo (Radial, Rotten Jazz Quartet), The Dooryard showcases the duo’s strong songwriting and distinct vocals in a Folk/Rock setting. What sets ‘Please Remind Me…‘ apart from other Folk albums today is that the songwriters allow their other influences to enter throughout the album. Mark’s vocals still sound like his Pop-Punk songs from The Bearing and Joe brings in the blues elements from Rotten Jazz Quartet as well as his electronica of Radial, using the Folk

Tamar Kaprelian: California EP

Released June 19th through the Killer Tracks Artist Series, Tamar Kaprelian’s California EP, is a follow up to Sinner Or Saint, the debut Full-Length album released by Interscope Records. The 5 song album sticks close to what you’d expect from the title, with catchy pop melodies, breezy, relaxed arrangements, and a hint of sadness and false promises, an aspect of California that makes it such an interesting topic for pop writing going all the way back to ‘California Dreaming’ and ‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose?’

You can stream the whole album for free here on AOL.com or purchase from Amazon MP3.

Stream What’s Eating Gilbert’s New EP The Nashville Sessions

Chad Gilbert, formerly of New Found Glory and Shai Hulud, has recently started releasing music under the name What’s Eating Gilbert in which he focuses on writing songs that sound like “Roy Orbison or Buddy Holly if either of those artists grew up playing punk rock.” The latest two song EP, The Nashville Sessions, is about to be released by Paper + Plastic Records on Tuesday June 19th, which you can preorder and stream here.

The two songs Babe and Lonely Road are both decent pop songs, though Lonely Road is far superior, with it’s cute 50’s

Curren$y, a rapper coming out of New Orleans, has been in the game for quite some time now. From his time in Young Money Cash Money to his appearance in XXL top Freshmen list. In his time in the rap game he has linked up with many artists especially in his mix tapes ( Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean etc.) releasing great songs for people to hear.  He has also released albums that have helped him achieve the fan base he has now. Just yesterday he released an album titled The Stoned Immaculate, but is this album enough to push him to the top?

Album Review: Breaking Laces – When You Find Out

Breaking Laces is a Brooklyn-based trio who have perfected their music in their latest album, When You Find Out, which came out yesterday. The band consists of lead singer and songwriter Willem Hartong along with bandmates Rob Chojnacki and Seth Masarsky. Having won multiple contests and selling over 40,000 albums, Breaking Laces is setting the bar higher for themselves. There’s something about Breaking Laces’ wildy daring lyrics that proves this band should do just fine in the future. As for this album, nothing sticks out more to me than the band’s resonance of almost symphonic-like tune varied among a unique down-to-earth type feeling that carries the album to greater enjoyment.

Did that make sense? No? Good, because the album jeers in madness from acoustic-pop to a more rock-influenced theme throughout which is surprisingly pleasant to the ears. Listening to the band’s earlier work, I noticed a very similar pattern: they have a hit-’em-hard mindset. Whether it’s to hit you in the heart with their songs about that one girlfriend that you can’t let go in the track “What We Need,” or the rock-heavy tune in “This World.”