This week’s indie favourites at the ZXZW office:

As long as we’re waiting for that new My Bloody Valentine record, we’ll keep ourselves busy listening to the new Japandroids album. It’s called Post-Nothing, which is of course an über-cool name. Japandroids is a two piece band from Vancouver, BC. Like you guessed, it’s shoegaze, it’s noise, but it’s melodic. As their Last.fm page says: “They call it garage rock. They don’t care what you call it, as long as it’s not minimal.”

The Love Language just released their (self-titled) first album, sounding contemporary but aged at the same time. Probably has to with the lo-fi outfit they tailored themselves into. Their record was recorded, written and produced in a storage space by frontman Stu McLamb alone on an old four-track

We were not sure what to expect from the new Maccabees album. To be honest, we didn’t really think too much of it. The more surprised we were when we heard it. Sound wise, it’s not that original but they’re just really good indiepop songs. Nothing more, nothing less. If you’re interested, they’ll be touring the Netherlands early June.

Another band hailed by Pitchfork (just like Japandroids) is Thee Oh Sees. And Pitchfork was right, writing “It’s a niche piece, and if you don’t have an appreciation for the music Thee Oh Sees are drawing upon, it’s safe to say this won’t be your thing. But if you’re a lifelong garage-rock purist or just enjoy the occasional Jay Reatard track, there’s a good chance you’ll get a lot of mileage out of Help. It’s hard not to: This is like meat and potatoes prepared by a master chef– totally familiar but utterly delicious.”

And last but not least, let’s not forget indie favourites Sonic Youth! Their new album The Eternal is to be released in June, but has leaked already. Again, it’s a lovely record. We’d say: download, love, buy.