Operation Every Band (OEB)

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SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 4 Pairs Well With…Band of Horses, Sunny Day Real Estate, Minus the Bear The last time The Appleseed Cast played SXSW was the first year I started writing about bands, now returning since thirteen years back and still honing their unique indie/math-rock sound. Even to get to the veteran band’s latest music brings us back five years, but that record, The Fleeting Light of Impermanence, holds up just as well as their 90s and 2000s material.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 10 Pairs Well With…The Killers, Imagine Dragons, Noah Kaham For a band with a string of rock hits, many times it’s most interesting to see what happens once the waves recede, a place we find X Ambassadors eight years past their breakout record VHS. The anthemic, hook-focused band have released two records since that do continue their catchy, stomp-and-holler sound.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 7; Popularity Index: 6 Pairs Well With…Alex G, La Luz, The Growlers Worn-Tin is a power-pop artist at his core, but he comes at it from a DIY, psych-rock angle that sands down his sound nicely. The Californian brings in surf-rock and mellow-pop influences in his music at well, a quality that keeps his sound grounded even when dream-like melodies try to take his songs on a trip.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 7; Popularity Index: 5 Pairs Well With…Wednesday, The Last Dinner Party, Blondshell Breezy pop/rock and shoegaze density meet in wilt’s music, balancing raw, garage qualities with catchy songwriting. The LA-based band has an overall warm sound though, intersecting busy moments with surf-rock melodies and power-pop sweetness. The yin and yang sides of wilt don’t grate against each other and instead sound seamless on their early singles and previews from an EP due in April.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 7; Popularity Index: 4 Pairs Well With…Anderson Paak, Hans., Ted Park Wez Atlas is moving from a laid-back, hip hop artist artist to a fusion experimenter on his latest record This Too Shall Pass and follow-up single “RUN”. Funk, pop-punk, indie rock, EDM - these genres aren’t just targeted track to track, but are thrown together and unleashed all at once. It’s a vibe that is fun and a little off-kilter, balanced by classic-rap influences forming the backbone of his sound.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 5 Pairs Well With…Young the Giant, Hippo Campus, Goose The only SXSW band so local that they are named after a street in Austin, West 22nd were born in the halls of University of Texas, a student band punching above their weight on their debut EP All The Way Home and recent single “Sleeping Alone”. Upbeat rock and roll is the key tenet of West 22nd’s music, catchy and hook-ready while still keeping some indie-rock comfort in mind.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 7; Popularity Index: 6 Pairs Well With…Real Estate, Divino Niño, Surfer Blood A little indie rock, a little new wave, a little grunge, Vortxz sound surprising warm and breezy and they target a space for their catchy/moody tracks. A Texas band with a foot in Latin rock as well, Vortxz’s introductory singles cover a wide space, which could be a band in the process defining their own sound, or a purposeful effort to fuse genres into a pop-centered space.

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 5 Pairs Well With…Clairo, Gracie Abrams, Billie Marten I caught a set from Victoria Canal at SXSW 2024 and it was a moving experience, bare, pretty ballads enrapturing a small, silent barroom. Born with one arm due to Amniotic Band Syndrome, Canal’s strength to perform guitar and piano was admirable and inventive even within the smallest of songs.