THICK AS THIEVES.

Attention industry heads: there's a new next big thing in town. Ambassadors rolled quietly onto the scene earlier this year and wasted no time shaking Brooklyn's sleepy indie rock scene up with their visceral soul-powered vocals, primal percussive beats and arena-sized live show, quickly establishing themselves as the kind of immense hybrid of Kings of Leon and Local Natives that could take

TINY LITTLE WAVES OF THE FOREST.

We're pretty much all about the burgeoning Miami music scene - I mean, who hasn't been inspired by the sounds of the Miami since Will Smith first preached the city's gospel way back when? Born of the hot hot heat, palm trees and neon pastels of the Magic City are up and comers like Lil Daggers, Millionyoung and of course the amazing ANR, and if you haven't gotten lost in the very special jams

KEEP FROM THE BEGGARS OF BONES.

Boy & Bear formed barely two years ago but have wasted no time making waves in their native Australia and abroad, releasing their debut With The Emperor Antarctica EP with our friends at Chess Club last year. From the same school of larger-than-life folk as Chess Club alumni Mumford & Sons and Local Natives, B&B impress with a massively developed sound drawing from the pastoral harmonies of

THIS HOUSE IS FALLING APART.

We hit Vegas for the bank holiday last weekend, and while listening to The Killers as we cruised into the Sin City was a little too cliche even for us, we found the next best thing in Walk The Moon via our friends at All Things Go. Formed in 2009 in Cincinnati over a mutual love of Local Natives and Animal Collective, they combine the nowhere town ambition and anthemic hooks of their

THIS IS GOING TO BE BIG.

Correction: this is going to be bigger than big. We've teamed up with Chess Club and GreenShoelace.com to put on what we hope to be one of the biggest parties of CMJ next week when we take over Santo's Party House (our favorite NYC venue) from 3pm-10pm Friday the 23rd. Two stages, 11 bands, drink specials galore, fresh DJ's, there's quite literally nothing more you could really ask for. Be there.

TAUNTING GESTURES.

Last February saw Local Natives emerge from SXSW as the toast of the festival and thus one of the hottest new acts around, while the three tracks on offer on their myspace had the blogs abuzz and A&Rs on both sides of the pond scrambling for their checkbooks. Things have settled down a bit in recent months as fans eagerly await more material from the band, but having wrangled ourselves a copy of

I WANT YOU BACK.

Of the hotly tipped bands at SXSW '09 only Local Natives and New Villager were both unsigned and previously unproven in the presence of industry types, and A&R's from New York and London packed out venues all week to see the much hyped West Coast acts for the first time. New Villager succumbed to poor sound systems and a heavy dependence on backing tracks, but Local Natives flourished in the