Free legal albums!

State Shirt is an electro/indie project by a guy called Ethan Tufts. All his music is made by no one but himself, but don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll be listening to a painfully DIY-sounding record here; you won’t. What he does, he does very well. Everything sounds good and you wouldn’t assume it was just one guy and a macbook (well, I assume he uses a macbook!) if you didn’t already know.

State shirt has a few albums. He has this one, but also another full album and an EP. If you like This is Old, you should check out his other stuff here. It’s all available to download for free!

At the moment, State Shirt is working on a remix album filled with fan-submitted content. This could either be really bad or really good, but I will keep a lookout for it.

I am nearly at the end of my first listen of this album, and I have already decided that it will definatly be getting many more listens in the coming days and weeks.
First thing first- The Motion Sick are an Indie/rock band from Boston in the United States. And The Truth Will Catch You, Just Wait… is their 2008 album. The harder stuff, the softer/slower stuff, and the ridiculously catchy stuff- this album gives you everything you could ask for from an indie/rock release.
Standout songs that should give you an idea of what The Motion Sick are all about include: Tiny Dog (Nobody Cries), which kind of sounds like an irish sing-a-long song set to country-ish acoustic music; Losing Altitude, which falls into the softer and “ridiculously catchy” category I mentioned above; and Jean-Paul, a simple easy to sing-a-long to indie/rock song.
If i had some sort of rating system, such as thumbs, The Truth Will Catch You, Just Wait… would definatly fall in the higher end of the scale (perhaps using thumbs wasn’t a good idea here, since that would make the highest score 2)
All in all, a very enjoyable album, and I certainly hope to hear more of The Motion Sick in the future.
You can download this album (minus 1 song- Love Will Tear Us Apart, being a cover it has copyright issues and such which stop it being availabe for free) here.
If you like this, don’t forget to check out their official site, where you can also download this album or their previous album for free (although there is nothing stopping you from donating!)

The Spectacular Fantastic is an indie/rock band from Cincinnati, USA. There’s a pretty good ’60s sound going on throughout their music and it’s very pleasing to the ears. It’s well-polished and pretty music, and it definitely worth a listen.

I’m getting lazy with my mini-reviews these days, but this is a really good record, and I wouldn’t be posting it here if it wasn’t. They’re influenced by the beach boys as well as a load of newer bands, and you can really hear these influences. Download now!

I don’t know much about Ralph Buckley and to be honest his website bugs me too much to bother navigating about. He is no relation to Jeff Buckley as far as I can tell, however! He’s a singer/songwriter anyway and makes some real pretty and catchy folky/indie music with a dash of blues thrown in. If you like this album I’ll upload more. His website offers all tracks as individual mp3s, which is not what I want to offer you people. Request more if you wish and I’ll be happy to upload!

Casey Meehan is on the same record label as The Notes And The Scratches, and although they have pretty different sounds, they both play sweet, enchanting indie music…music that captures the attention with such an ease that it doesn’t have to be in-your-face. The record label is Rockproper, and you can find more free downloads on the website, although, of course, I will most likely be posting my selected favorites from it in the future anyway!

So anyway, back to the band in question. They have a rather interesting sound, and they describe themselves as a working-class orchestra, and though I’m not sure how working-class they may be, the orchestra part is pretty obvious! Along with the guitars, drums and piano we have a violin, saxophone, trumpet and clarinet all thrown in there. It’s a record that, I guess, has quite a large degree of focus on the instruments, meaning there are a few instrumental tracks thrown in there, but, although there serve as nice little interludes between songs, the true beauty of the album only shines through from the instruments and vocals combined. We have male and female vocals thrown in there, and they are incorporated to perfection.

This is my favorite album out of all the ones I have posted over the past 3 or 4 days, so if you can’t make up your mind about downloading stuff and think I have an awesome taste, go for this one!

The Wait are on the same record label as two of the bands I’ve posted about here (Paper Tiger and We vs Death). Like both of the other bands, they are also from the Netherlands, and they also contain a quarter of We vs Death in their lineup. if you’re not into post-rock, never fear! The Wait are most certainly nothing like We vs Death. They’re an indie-rock band with similarities to your typical indie-rock bands (and note that I’m distinguishing between “indie” and “indie-rock” here, on the basis that I see “indie-rock” as something a bit louder and faster) and incorporate a slight post-hardcore-esque sound similar to that of At The Drive-In, although they certainly are an indie-rock band at heart.

This is their only release and is an EP with a length less than 20 minutes. One wishes it was longer, but I’m sure they’ll come out with more releases in the future (though they do have a few promo records too, with a few different songs from what is on this EP). It took four years for this EP to be completed, and although time doesn’t always equal quality, I think it most definitely does in this case!

Paper Tiger are a duo from the Netherlands playing insanely cheery indie-pop. They currently have one album, and this is it! It’s a joy to listen to, from start to finish. It’s instantly captivating with the happy-as-hell intro track and continues with the joyous prettiness all the way through.

I’m not a big fan of the indie-pop genre, and very few acts within it really catch my attention, but I honestly find this to be one of the few that really made me smile. So what I’m trying to say is that whether or not you are big on indie-pop, you should check this record out. You will not regret it!

PRETTY PRETTY stuff. The Notes And Scratches are a small indie/folk band from Chicago, and this is one of their two available free records (I may post the other one later). They have some sort of plan for 2009 to release 7 records, and I assume they will all/mostly also be free!

The guy’s voice is incredible, in my opinion, although some may not like the huskiness of it. There are occasional female vocals and a variety of instruments used throughout the songs, and both these commodities are used to great effect. There is plenty of variation between each track and I certainly didn’t zone out/lose interest in this during my time listening to it. I was enchanted if anything. I am honestly massively impressed by this album, so go ahead and download and see if you agree with me!