The Best Indie Tunes of 2014 - Strand of Oaks

Strand of Oaks Goshen’97 (Apr’14) is insistent, raw and emotive. Wailing guitars provide the intro and then it's more guitar galore, more rock than indie and more story-telling than big chorus indie pop. Think The Hold Steady, The Gaslight Anthem or The Airborne Toxic Event and The Boss most obviously.

Music for the top six inches not the six between your legs.

 

 

Strand of Oaks are singer/songwriter Timothy Showalter’s project. He plays out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,  and has four albums under his belt. 

This missive is from the fourth album HEAL (June’14).

Showalter declares himself “so into U2” and but there are a lot of folk influences in there too.

Other tunes worth a crack are Shut In and Same Emotions.

 

 

 

 

 

The Airborne Toxic Event are an indie rock band from Los Angeles, California. They started in 2006. Their main influences are Bruce Springsteen, U2 and The National. They have been compared to Arcade Fire and The National. Numb (2011) is from their second album All At Once (2011) and is a song Spin called "a gorgeously wailing new wave soundtrack."