Mark wrote in to tell us about quarterlifeCRISiS, a relatively newly-formed group from Boston.

All four members are refugees from alt-rock group Stronghold in Siam which folded last year. These days, the band is doing a fine line in feelgood pop/rock tunes that are stuffed to bursting with great hooks.

Witness the brilliant Just A Picture, filled with “doo doo doo” harmonies and preppy Americana references to yearbooks and “summer of senior year”.

High Fashion continues to flex the guys’ talent for bouncy verses and memorable choruses. The common thread in their music is an upbeat, fun vibe and reminiscent of bands like Sum 41 and Blink 182 as well as their stated influences (All American Rejects, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox Twenty).

"Our usual approach to creating music is to make people feel good," says Peter Hunt, the quartet’s primary songwriter. The band’s catchy and upbeat music contrasts with introspective lyrics that examine the ups and downs of the transitional period between the teenage years and "real life." Every cut off of Jaded Romantic feels at home shuffled with Third Eye Blind, Maroon Five, the Jonas Brothers, Matchbox Twenty, Snow Patrol and the Click Five.

If you want to catch more of this band, their debut EP, Jaded Romantic is available on iTunes, their MySpace page is here, and for extra stalker points, you can watch them on their own YouTube channel.

A reader shot us an email this afternoon to share the amazing electro-songwriting talents of Sarah McIntosh. Sarah performs and records under the name of The Good Natured.

So good was the nature of the music (feel free to cringe at the wordplay, folks), that we decided to run an impromptu Recommended post.

Any visit to MySpace is the musical equivalent. You never know if the artist is going to exhilarate you or take away your will to live. Thankfully, The Good Natured are one of those acts that reaffirm our faith in music.

She’s been described as like “Kate Nash fronting The Postal Service”, and that’s exactly what we thought when we heard her first time round.

There’s an artsy quirkiness to the material, coupled with some dark electronic keyboard riffing – thinking specifically Ivory Tower and Heart Of Stone here. And guess what? She’s only, like, 17 years old! Surely this level of sonic brilliance takes decades to perfect? Well, apparently not.

Possibly the most accurate description of The Good Natured can be found here:

Neither overly sweetened, or irritatingly bitter – Sarah’s created the perfect cup of musical tea. In other words, good fucking pop.

Sarah’s received a lot of positive attention in the blogosphere, and there are plenty of recommendations, notably:

I love this girl. She’s a well earned break for the music industry… we needed her. With vocals somewhere between Kate Nash and Adele, she is sure to find a place in the hearts of British music fans. With the industry’s callings aside, Sarah pushes all the right buttons. A busty electro vibe and classy vintage image, she’s kicking holes popular music and making way for a new kind of eletro-thrusted sound.

We agree wholeheartedly. In fact, this lady needs to release an album. Now.

In the meantime, you can feed your yearning for The Good Natured when the Warriors EP gets released on 6th October.

Finally, dear readers, as with any Recommended band on Unreality Music…

1. If you’ve got a blog or website, tell your friends and readers about The Good Natured.
2. Visit their MySpace page and friend them. Then get all your friends to friend them.

Music like this is almost too good for the charts, but Sarah McIntosh could beat the Britney brigade with one keyboard hand tied behind her back. Spread the word.

This young woman is big news in Australia. Her name? Missy Higgins.

Unlike the other famous Missy, this one isn’t known for her dirty rapping style, or anything like that.

This Antipodean is gaining a reputation for herself as an amazing singer/songwriter, and has already released two albums, The Sound Of White back in 2004 and this year’s On A Clear Night. And she’s only a tender 24 years old.

She’s won stacks of ARIA awards (that’s the Australian recording industry, fact fans), and her music has been featured on loads of American dramas, like Smallville, Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill.

“That’s fantastic,” you’re all saying, “but what does she sound like?”

Well, best to throw a few comparisons in the air – a slightly sultrier version of Dido, a little Jewel, and many of those other femmes of the acoustic scene. Here’s a few links for places you can find Missy on the web, and we’ve thrown in a video of her best-known song, Where I Stood.

• Listen to Missy on MySpace
• Official Website

I got a shout earlier today from a musician called Bradley Boyer, the guy behind a brilliant band called Auto Defiance. I’d all but stopped writing about unsigned bands because of the pitiful quality of acts that emailed me, but Auto Defiance are worth writing about!

The band hails from Nashville, Tennessee, and there’s actually very little information about them apart from their enigmatic frontman. Apparently Boyer has committed heavily to this project, even turning down the prospect of working with The Goo Goo Dolls in favour of Auto Defiance. The band are currently in the studio working on their debut album.

Describing the sound as Indie Rock meets Post Punk (which they do) vastly undersells this band. What I like about them is the rich sonic textures that grace their songs. Captain Kelly is a beautifully performed acoustic song, complimented perfectly with subtle orchestration lifting the choruses. Breathe Air, meanwhile, takes ambient electric rock to exciting places: the kind of song you can get totally lost in.

Look What You’re Buying sees the band veering into heavier territory, again with those think guitar textures and insistent snares. I’m tempted to say a little like Oasis’ famed ‘wall of sound’ but with slightly more bite. Ghost Inside Your House is by far the most experimental song in their MySpace player, with claustrophobic vocal effects and more good use of strings to move the song along, while sustained washes of distortion underline the melody. Just brilliant.

You can find Bradley and Auto Defiance online on Virb.com and MySpace. There are more songs to listen to on the MySpace page, so I recommend that you check that one out first!

Since today’s been a posting frenzy [yes, that's sarcasm right there], why not check out the Auto Defiance MySpace page, listen to a few tunes and tell me what you think of the music. I’d love to get a few more musicians on here critiquing and helping each other out.

Looker are a mostly female pop-punk group from New York City. They tell us that they’re heading for the UK in April of this year.

I sort of hesitate to use the word ’spunky’, but their poppy vocals and raw guitar parts inspire that kind of description. There’s something familiar about the Looker sound, like I’ve heard the style before, but can’t point out a specific band they sound like.

That’s probably not a bad thing – I get the impression they’d come over and kick my ass if I compared them to, say, The Bangles. But it’s that era that Looker’s music is reminiscent of.

Listen to their tracks on MySpace – their sound is upbeat and immediate, with clever lyrics, great hooks and harmonies. I recommend After My Divorce and Master’s Gone Away.

The Looker Line-up

It looks like everybody in Looker gets a go at singing. Well, they’d need to in order to propel those harmonies. Here’s who’s in the band:

• Boshra AlSaadi – Guitar & Vocals
• Nicole Greco – Guitar & Vocals
• AJ Lambert – Bass & Vocals
• Robbie Overbey – Drums & Vocals

Looker Videos

Master Of You (live):

Click here for the official Looker website.

Sometimes good things come out of running a telly blog. A couple of Fridays ago, I got the opportunity to go to Bristol and meet a bunch of participants in the BBC’s Upstaged competition.

One of those folks was Elle Williams, the lead singer with Bristol-based indie band HiFlyer. Now, I’m normally discovering new music via my computer, so it was refreshing to meet up with Elle and have a bit of a chat. It wasn’t until I got home that night that I checked out HiFlyer’s music and was totally blown away. So much that I’m recommending them to you, dear reader…

How to describe their music to you? They say that they’re “a sweeter than sweet Coldplay if Chris Martin got the boot and Aimee Mann took on the lead vocal”. That’s slightly more humble than necessary – their sound has a lot in common with the epic guitar-led music of Coldplay, but in some ways surpasses it entirely.

HiFlyer are every bit as intense, but never quite as dismal as Chris Martin’s crew. The sound is less oppressive, and Elle’s vocals have a power and passion that’s truly uplifting. Two of the best tracks to listen to are Freedom Land and Chasing Rainbows.

They actually describe Elle’s vocals as being the focal point of the act, but HiFlyer are a very together band. They’ve got a great chemistry and their music is just awesome.

Here’s the video for Chasing Rainbows, which they released back in the autumn. HiFlyer are one of my favourite bands of the moment. If you like them, help spread the word…

Rob got in touch to recommend his flatmate Context, a rapper from Norwich.

Rob says “Context calls his type of music ‘Dub Hop’. It’s hip hop in essence because he is an MC, but then his production incorporates dubstep, drum and bass, ‘dance’ etc… It’s for sale in iTunes under ‘Hip Hop’ though for ease of categorisation”

He says that Context is fresh new music – “I am not really a fan of hip hop music myslef, but this stuff is really different. Its ticks so many musical boxes – getting ready to go out, feeling angry, relaxing – the lot!”

I took a listen to his MySpace and was actually blown away by what I heard. Imagine Mike Skinner, but much, much darker. The beats are intense, and there’s a brooding electronic bass sound running through everything that carries a lot of menace.

Check out Context’s MySpace for some sample tunes, and there’s also a link to download his Dialetics EP is you want to take some tracks away on your iPod.

Remember, if you know an act who’s worth shouting about, let us know by recommending them.

One of our readers, Angie wrote in to recommend Argyll-based rockers Maranchez. She says she likes the fact that they write their own music and they sound great live.

The Maranchez line-up is:

• Nate Ramsay – Vocals
• Tom Ramsay – Guitar
• Brian Wilkins – Drums
• Gordy Crawford – Bass

Listen to some of the raw tracks on MySpace, and you’ll hear an edgy rock band. The first track, The Fallen damn near blew my eardrums out (I had the earphones up too loud!)

While The Fallen is crushingly loud, Maranchez show some diversity and a more mainstream sound in songs like Last Time and Dust.

Once again, check out Maranchez on MySpace, and give us your feedback in the comments below.

Martin emailed me yesterday to let me know about Irish indie band, Dark Room Notes.

The Dublin based quartet are our first recommendation for 2008, and you should go and check out their MySpace (just as soon as you’ve read this page!). They’re really quite excellent.

Dark Room Notes: Who’s Who?

DRN is made up of:

• Ronan Gaughan: Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Programming
• Ruairi Ferrie: Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Programming
• Arran Murphy: Vocals, Synth, Glockenspeil(?)
• Darragh ‘Camera’ Shanahan: Vocals, Drums

Based on the band’s name and the drummer’s nickname (Camera), you should be able to guess that this foursome like their photography. And because the Irish names might be confusing to some of you reading this, the girl in the group is Arran Murphy.

Musical Style

With three members working various synths, you get no prizes for guessing that these instruments strongly influence the Dark Room Notes sound. You’ll hear this most clearly on tunes like Oh How Your Roses Wither Fast.

I especially love the crisp bass sound on tunes like Shake Shake My Ceiling, which the band describe as “electronic AC/DC played as soul music”.

Critical Reviews of DRN

DRN have received a number of glowing critical reviews in the industry. Here are a couple:

• Clare People: “Polished doesn’t even come close to describing it… In ‘Slow Puncture’, DRN look to have found an easy successor to breakthrough single ‘Love Like Nicotine’ in the anthemic stakes. But its in the EP final track ‘Shake Shake My Ceiling’ that I think DRN will find a way into mainstream success and radio playlists. You see if I’m wrong. 8/10″
• Edel Coffey – The Irish Independent: Dark Room Notes, true to their name, sing dark songs of obsession, addiction, lust and passion. Despite this, they manage to be strangely uplifting, the songs buoyed along on a wave of electro-indie and male-female vocals calling to mind Human League and Joy Division. Dark Room Notes are a smart and stylish young band, exciting and exhilarating with sophisticated tunes to boot.

Dark Room Notes Videos

A quick search on YouTube reveals a number of DRN videos for the viewing. I’ve included a couple here. If you want more Dark Room Notes, just head on over to their MySpace page.

Love Like Nicotine:

Shake Shake My Ceiling:

Ryan recommends Portland-based six piece, Another Cynthia (who notably don’t have a member called Cynthia). Ryan likes the band so much he’s written about them a number of times, calling them his ‘Most Underrated band of 2006′.

I’ve listened to a few of their songs on MySpace, and they’re a refreshing blend of indie music fused with a pop/dance sensibility. They’re hard to pin down, let’s put it that way.

For a taster of Another Cynthia, check out their MySpace page, or even watch the video below: