Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start

Come for the name (the cheat code for endless lives on the Nintendo classic Contra, fyi), stay for the thrilling emo…tional rollercoaster rides.

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Blue-Eyed Son

California South Bay punk rocker ditches his band (40 Watt Domain) and gets in touch with his melodic, singer-songwriter side. The preferable results fall on the pop scale somewhere between the Judybats and a more cheerful Elliott Smith.

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The Honorary Title

If the thought of Jeff Buckley fronting The Promise Ring gives you the good kind of goosebumps, then The Honorary Title is worth your download time — even if you’re on dial-up. Jarrod Gorbel has the vocal acuity of the late-great Buckley and a Rufus Wainwright-esque flair for drama that both merges with and hovers above the bounce and retreat of Aaron Kamstra’s lovely arrangements. Go ahead and sing along silently.

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Death Cab for Cutie

Note: Thanks to our MANY astute readers, it came to our attention that these links don’t work from an outside source. You have to cut and paste the links into your browser window. We’re all about hassle-free here at 3hive, so grab these while you can. They’ll be pulled down shortly.

An astute 3hive reader, Si, suggests we don’t overlook the obvious and feature one of the current kings of the indie world. Emo, in the hands of mature, keen songwriters instead of boy bands, whose first concern is their hair-do’s, turns out to be a really, really good thing.

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The Poem Adept

Act I: Davy Rothbart’s Found Magazine comes across a discarded demo tape by some ridiculously bad rap outfit called The Ypsilanti All-Starz (an even funnier name if you live in the Detroit area).
Act II: Davy’s brother Jason and his band The Poem Adept cover the All-Starz with a surprisingly earnest coffee house version of “The Booty Don’t Stop.”
Act III: The Poem Adept — who, unfortunately, are at their best when singing about booty — approach their muses for a multi-record songwriting deal, lest they end up next to Dynamite Hack in the history books.

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The Mathletes

Hilarious, cute, and quite often catchy — just what you’d expect from a young bedroom pop maestro with a quivering voice who choses to go by The Mathletes instead of Joe, covers Boards of Canada, and openly admits to stalking Cat Power. (Thanks, Gabba Pod.)

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