Last night at Baby's All Right we stumbled upon Brooklyn's trio The Midnight Hollow, and were impressed by their performance. Active since the beginning of the decade, the band plays moody rock with vibes reminiscent of some rather psychedelic acts from the 80's new wave. Their vaguely epic, fully arranged songs and lead vocalist (and songwriter) Spencer Draeger's intimidating tenor bring to mind Echo and the Bunnymen's peak records from the mid 80s. They recently released a new EP entitled 'For The People Inside,' featuring singe "Forward" (streaming below). You can see them next at Union Pool on June 11.

We added this song to The Deli's playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists - check it out!

Psych Rock and related genres like Shoegaze and Dreampop belong to a very interesting musical niche with lots of loyal fans - NYC hosts a good share of them. Here is the list of bands from these categories who submitted to our Best of NYC 2012 poll and qualified to the next stage.

Total submissions in this category: 34

Artists Qualified to the Poll's Next Stage (starting around 01.10)

1. Lazyeyes - Average rating: 8.33
2. Eastern Hollows - Average rating: 8.16
3. Napoleon - Average rating: 8

Honorable Mentions:

4. The Ugly Club - Average rating: 7.83
4. The Widest Smiling Faces - Average rating: 7.83
6. dead leaf echo - Average rating: 7.66 
6. Sunglasses - Average rating: 7.66 
6. The Midnight Hollow - Average rating: 7.66 
9. Cave Days - Average rating: 7.5
9. HOUNDSds - Average rating: 7.5

Jurors: Dawn Reed (Deli DC), Ben Toledo (Deli Portland), Lucy Sherman (Deli Seattle)

The Deli's Staff

When most people get out of a long relationship, they usually take some time off to get familiar again with life lived solo.

Not so for Spencer Draeger. After breaking up his 9 year old band, he immediately jumped into a wellspring of material that has now materialized into latest project The Midnight Hollow. The group takes Draeger's dark melancholy mindstate, and couples it with tribal drums and hissing synths. The trio have just started playing and their new EP follows close behind. In case you had any doubts of how many ideas Draeger has stuck in his ears, the record boasts only one song under four minutes. But as testified in opener 'The Midnight Hollow' (streaming below) this is testament to a band setting down some large ideas. Time will tell what's next for the brand new group. Check out their EP on the group's bandcamp. - This band submitted their music for review here - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)