Deli Readers,

The Year End Polls are bringing in a lot of traffic and our server provider doesn't like that - they suspended our account for a few hours because of eccessive load on their server's CPU. We tweaked the site's settings on our end and hopefully we won't have this problem again.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience!

Paolo
www.thedelimagazine.com

Happy 2010 Philly folks! Where does the time go? We really needed that end of the year break. Well, it wasn’t that much of a break because we’ve been working hard behind the scenes getting things ready for our Best of Philly Poll. We just finished collecting the nominations from our knowledgeable and attractive panel of jurors. If you’d like to learn more about our voting process, please check out the rules here. While we are organizing the list of nominees, we wanted to announce the winners of our Open Contest. For those unaware, this Open Contest is the part of our Best of Philly Poll that nominates artists through an open submission system - while the majority of our finalists are freely selected by a jury of local bloggers, promoters and scenemakers.

Tonight, Let’s Pretend is a work of meticulous beauty. The Great Unknown, four local Philly gentlemen, have always been good at making folk rock something stimulating and fresh, which, considering how tired the outfit is, is no small feat. This full length album of songs is no exception, and demonstrates a fine level of craftsmanship. The orchestration of the multitude of string instruments is fantastic, smoothly forming that feeling of rolling the windows down on a long ride through the country. Banjoes, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, and lap steel interplay for a dreamy southern twang - swelling and slowing with emotion. Military beats can sometimes be heard, and in other instances, a clear and driving force of drums as well as other percussions that give the music the perfect accent. A sense of loss can be found amidst the tunes in lyrics written by the whole band. “I’m Not Listening,” for instance, which happens to be my personal favorite song on the album, contains a message of loneliness after separation: “Earthquakes and hurricanes, the ruins spell your name, I’m not looking.” Heartbreaking lyrics such as these add a whole other element to Tonight, Let’s Pretend. The endearingly sincere vocals heard throughout this album make it so much more relatable, making you feel every word intoned. It’s an honest album, with no glitz or glam, but by relying on pure, raw talent, The Great Unknown have written one of my favorite albums of the year. myspace.com/thegreatunknownband - James Sanderson