Editors' Picks: Sainthood Reps / The Republic of Wolves

Brian: With anticipation for Brand New's Daisy continuing to mount (and the release date exactly a month away), I thought today to be appropriate to showcase a couple related projects I've been feeling recently.

One is Long Island duo Sainthood Reps, who just recently debuted some material on their MySpace page. One of the two guys is Derrick Sherman, who acts as third guitarist for Brand New on most tours. If you're into this style of delicately atmospheric and progressive yet rather heady indie rock (sprouting up thanks to fellow acts like Robbers and Prawn), check them out. It's fairly pensive and earnest sounding stuff and seems to have a ton of potential.

The other is another Long Island act, the Republic of Wolves, a new side project of indie-folk pair Tigers on Trains (I think these dudes like animals). Without telling TROW, a friend of the band recently leaked snippets of their demos onto YouTube claiming they were Daisy demos. I don't think the band was too pleased with the stunt, but it certainly fooled a lot of people and garnered them a ton of publicity in the process. So, yeah, they sure sound quite a bit like Brand New, but I'd say their style mostly leans close to those leaked batch of demos from early 2006. There are some moments of brilliant restraint in their songs and I'd love to see where they can take this. Check them out on their MySpace.