It's always so gratifying when a band you really love and enjoy start getting the success they deserve. Several months ago I ran In The Black, a track off Intimate Stranger's first album. I was completely knocked out by this multi-national band (the guitarist and drummer - and now keyboards, are Chilean and the singer is East European and their production is based out of London) and how fresh they sounded when I first ran across them on MySpace a few years ago.

In the interim they've been recording, gigging a lot (even playing SXSW this year as well as touring the U.S.) and getting great word mouth going and some very positive press in the process.

It's always nice to see the good people win and Intimate Stranger is just that. A lot of very strong material, well produced with a killer singer (Tessie).

So tonight it's actually two things: first is their new single, Nighttime, from Under, their new album (the player up top), and the second is a taste of them live during a gig at Maxine's in April of this year (the player down there) playing one of their early tracks In The Black. I'm hoping to get a copy of one of their live gigs to post on the Backstage Weekend so you get to hear what they sound like live and won't think twice about catching them if they hit your town.

As always, support them if you can. Their website is jammed with goodies and words. So check them out and hear what else they have going on.

Things are looking up - and that's a good thing!