Death Metal MusicMusic and Culture on the Edge

New York City duo The Naked Hearts is made up of Amy Cooper on guitar and Noah Wheeler on the bass and drums, with both trading off on vocals.

The Tiny Tin Hearts may have provided our most thorough Sound Off ever, which is fitting for the 8 piece ensemble’s impressively cohesive compositions. Shades of the Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Neutral Milk Hotel, and even locals like the Noise Revival Orchestra and the Dark Water Hymnal dance flirtatiously throughout the Tiny Tin Hearts music, which swells in chamber folk-pop grandiosity, but remains calmly subdued behind Seth Osborne’s subtly winding narratives and quiet, contemplative croon,

Salute the oncoming winter solstice with Menace Ruine, that’s my advice…the latest release from this Canadian black metal project is The Die Is Cast (ALIEN8 ALIENCD82), a fatalistic title for a CD decorated with sombre, candle-blackened religious icons from the orthodox church and suggesting that mankind’s destiny is a nightmarish combination of many-headed monsters, headless figures running about aimlessly, and a coldly indifferent angel of salvation hovering over a sickly extinguished sun.

The gantlet is a big, ugly, orange metal contraption with black rubber arms designed to expose the Notre Dame running backs who lack sure hands and sure hearts.