We knew it was coming, but the hype that the British music press is throwing behind Minneapolis' baby buzz band Howler around the release of its full-length debut is still quite alarming.
The quintet's 19-year-old frontman Jordan Gatesmith is featured on the cover of NME this week, leading the pack in the magazine's "100 new bands you have to hear" list. Never mind that the NME seems to put out this sort of poll every other month. This particular tally was assembled with input from more veteran musicians and tastemakers. Howler's entry mentions that both Johnny Marr (the Smiths' guitarist, duh) and the Vaccines (who recently took the band on tour) are fans of theirs.
That's not all. Four of the five band members are also featured on the cover of London-based monthly The Fly, part of another bands-to-watch list. And then Howler's album got a rave 4-out-of-5-rating review by Q magazine, whose Britishness is underscored by the fact that its readers once named Oasis' "Live Forever" as the greatest song of all time. The Q review calls Howler "the latest skinny-jeaned claimants to the indie-rock throne long vacated by the Strokes and currently held by the Vaccines."
Not bad, for a band whose album-release party back home at the Triple Rock next weekend has yet to sell out. "America Give Up" arrives stateside via Rough Trade Records on Jan. 17.
