text: I was pretty underwhelmed when caught the Broken West at their Spaceland residency earlier this year. I liked their Merge released debut, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On, well-enough, but it never felt like much more than pleasant Big-Star/New Pornographers knockoff. The sort of a record you'd listen to for about a week and promptly discard when something better came along. But when I caught The Broken West a little while ago at the Echo, they were a completely different band, road-tested and infinitely tighter than in the spring. Live, the songs from I Can't Go On sounded re-invented and when I went back to the record, it was much better than I remembered. If their next album can match the energy of their live sound, these guys are a lock to be the next big band to break out of LA.
  The Parson Redheads make no secret about trying to build upon Los Angeles' laid-back legacy, relentlessly channeling the spirit of the Byrds, CSNY, and Gram Parsons. Their album chugs along so smoothly that its show-stopper, “Full Moon,” (a centerpiece of the band’s dynamic live show) creeps up on you with its graveyard lyrics, serpentine Zombies keyboards, and twisting miasma of psychedelic guitars. Dropping their optimism for a moment, Way and his sister Erin, the band’s keyboardist, conspire murderously and the band finally let loose, unleashing a primal squall of feedback that leads you to believe that a lot more great things are in store for these guys.
  The Ortolan is a very good record, maybe the best of the recent batch of bands that have broken out of Silverlake in the last few years. Most surprising is The Deadly Syndrome's inherent knack for transmitting the wild-eyed schizophrenia of their notoriously frenetic stage show to the studio, a difficult task for veteran bands, let alone a bunch of former film school kids who came out of virtually nowhere to become one of the Eastside's biggest bands in just months.
  “I Hope I Become a Ghost” rides out on a flying dust cloud of mad monk piano keys and caveman drums. “The Ship that Shot Itself” is buoyed by an ethereal accordion line that breathes and swells, fleshing out the bare-bones folk guitar line. “Emily Paints” starts out like lukewarm Hot Hot Heat but resurrects itself mid-song like a forest full of dead trees struck by lightning, burning in an orange crush-colored haze of guitars. Ultimately, it's these superficially benign instrumental patches that reveal exactly why Steve Aoki was wise to dangle a record deal in front of them approximately 16 minutes after they formed (proving once again that no one is capable of resisting the fried rice at Benihana).
  
  Two months before the Brexit deadline, the new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dramatically escalated the political tension by suspending Parliament. Although Johnson defends this move as routine, critics accuse him of limiting time for legislators to prevent the United Kingdom from crashing out of the European Union on October 31 with no deal. Amid claims of a constitutional crisis, odds have increased for fall elections and a no-deal Brexit.