Might be the best music magazine out there

Under the Radar might be the best American music magazine around these days. The writing and photography is great, and the layout and overall quality of the mag just gets better with each issue. If you're into indie-rock then you're bound to love at least some of the bands they've covered, they seem to interview almost everybody. They squeeze so many amazing bands into each issue. My only complaint is that is doesn't come out more regularly.

I've sampled a lot of indie-rock mags, and Under the Radar is definitely more ahead of the curve than indie magazines like Amplifier, Rockpile, Big Takeover, Resonance etc. (all worthy music mags) or than bigger mags like Rolling Stone, Spin, Filter, Blender etc. Most of my new favorite bands in the last year or two were discovered through Under the Radar, then a couple of months later I'd start reading about some of those bands in other music mags. Via Under the Radar I first discovered bands like The Thrills, The Sleepy Jackson, Mew, The Streets, Rilo Kiley, Clearlake, British Sea Power, Interpol, The Polyphonic Spree, The Dears, The Velvet Teen, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On the Radio, Electrelane, Hot Hot Heat, Elbow, stellastarr*, The Shins, and the list goes on. Plus their articles on bigger bands are usually more in-depth than other US music mags. They've done great articles on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Spiritualized, Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Belle & Sebastian, The Flaming Lips, Blur, Super Furry Animals, Bright Eyes, Ride, Badly Drawn Boy, Broken Social Scene, etc. etc. And they were the last magazine to interview Elliott Smith before he died because they were the only ones who bothered to track him down and catch up with him. The photography is usually great too. For ahwile I wasn't into the layout, but they've really improved on that with the last couple of issues. There are other music mags that I buy too, like Devil In the Woods, Magnet and Big Takeover, but Under the Radar is the one I trust the most.