by Benji Heywood, Calvin Staropoli, Chad Rafferty, Chris Coplan, Dan Goldin, Dana Poland, Dominic Acito, Emma Ingrisani, Emmanuel Castillo, Eric Foreman, Jack Peterson, Jare C, John Glab, Justin Davis, Layton Guyton, Liz Van Horn, Ljubinko Zivkovic, Mark Wadley, Matt Watton, Matty McPherson, Myles Tiessen, Stan Standridge, Torrey Proto, and Zak Mercado
The year is half over and great music has been released. Post-Trash remains committed to the discovery of new artists, bands, and albums.
So we present our “Mid-Year Report," a comprehensive guide to our favorite releases of the first half of this year, without any pre-determined length or insignificant rankings. If we’re into it, we're including it (unless we plumb forgot, in which case our sincerest of apologies). It's impossible to listen to everything released and everyone has different tastes, but we’re here to recommend these particular records. Your next favorite band/artist could be out there, it's just a matter of listening to something new. Popular opinion isn’t the only opinion, sometimes you have to dig to find the real gems. Discover something new. Buy some records. Support the music you love. We hope you have a good time listening. Thank you for reading Post-Trash.
JANUARY:
Sophomore Lounge Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Open your mind and zone out, way out, together with Atlanta’s great Arbor Labor Union. The past few years have found the band embracing their Southern roots, channeling their way through cosmic Americana while retaining their weirdo punk sense of adventure. They’ve locked in, exploring krautrock and spliced and frayed psych, while maintaining the fluid nature and rolling boogie of classic rock and twangy punk. Yonder, the band’s latest album is a spiritual successor to 2020’s New Petal Instants, picking up the natural essence and continuing to warp repetitive structures with knotted progressions and disjointed rhythms, landing with a complex choogle that feels as breezy as the front-porch air. Songs like the rattled title track and early single “Hovering Stone” recall the best work of the Meat Puppets, but the itchy tempos (“Undoom’d”) and elastic melodies (“Real Beasts”) of Arbor Labor Union feel unique, pulled from a southern fried core and filtered through a decade of DIY punk pedigree. Up the twang, up the punx… Arbor Labor Union prove it to be possible. - DG
Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Bandcamp | Spotify
Judging purely by the title, Beauty Pill’s early era has been a source of ambivalence for Chad Clark. Blue Period, the band’s reissue of their output on Dischord Records, (2003’s You Are Right to Be Afraid EP and 2004’s The Unsustainable Lifestyle, as well as a smattering of b-sides and demos), frames that ambivalence through their larger journey, suggesting that their early material is made richer and more interesting because of where they’ve gone since their nascent creative fixations. While that is a very healthy way to process past art, the records collected here are some of the most forward thinking and adventurous that have ever come from American indie rock and deserves more fanfare than all that implies. All through Blue Period, Beauty Pill takes the kinds of big swings that most young bands never pull off, like noticeably decentralizing the front person role. Even at the time you would have to look at mid to late discography triumphs of much more established bands like Unwound, Modest Mouse, or Yo La Tengo to see those types of swings pay off. The disarming thing is that for all of the ambition, the music itself is approachable and warm, seeking the connection of the audience even as the songs go further afield conceptually. This plays out in the margins of the lyrics, an almost literary depiction of the trappings of 21st century modernity and the band’s own disdain for the modern inclination to collect experiences with no attachment, filling a bottomless need that is a substitution for an even more personal bottomless need. These are songs of deep-rooted discontent that you can hum along to or spiral out about if you’re so inclined. - Emmanuel Castillo
Feel it Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
From its origins as Dylan McCartney’s solo outlet, The Drin has evolved into a rock-solid six-piece—and while they’re treading similar sonic ground as previous releases Engines Sing for the Pale Moon and Down River in the Distance, this new configuration represents a tremendous leap forward in urgency, power, and sound quality. Driven by proud bass riffs and trashy drums, each song feels like an exercise in mood and texture, the synths and guitars alternately stabbing and droning at the periphery of McCartney’s ominous, mostly spoken vocals. There’s a welcome variety of song structure and vibe represented here, from the pure punk of “Stonewallin’” and “Walk So Far” to the spacious, Morricone-tinged “Go Your Way Alone.” Don’t forget the dub track! The album’s best songs, though, find a balance between these various poles—take lead single “Venom,” with its all-timer of a bass line and relentless percussion blazing a trail directly through the detuned synths and wobbly guitars, or the sublime clatter of “Peaceful, Easy Feeling.” - Mark Wadley
Dear Life Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
There’s a certain sweet spot where a song manages to feel both familiar and brand new at the same time. It’s something you’ve heard before without triggering any derivative alarms, yet it’s undeniably fresh without completely alienating. With “Cowgirl in a Ditch,” the lead single off their Sweet Guitar Solos EP, Philly-based Florry finds that balance in full force. The track seeps with the twang and open road attitude of roots rock, but the layered vocal and earnest lyricism evoke something noticeably unique to the present moment. It’s the type of single that makes you wish it was backed by a double LP but, for now, we’ll take what we can get. The tracks on Sweet Guitar Solos were all recorded between mid-2021 and early 2022, and “Cowgirl in a Ditch” is the only one that features the full power of the band’s new seven piece ensemble. Headed by lead singer, guitarist, songwriter and de facto bandleader Francie Medosch, the new-look Florry, now bolstered by fiddle, steel pedal and a host of harmonizing vocals, brings plenty of excitement for whatever’s coming next. That said, this is far from just a stopgap project, and the opener is just the first in a handful of worthwhile tracks. The four-song EP is raw and rough alt-country bliss coupled with moments of polished clarity and, as promised, you’ll find some crunchy guitar solos throughout that are, in fact, pretty fucking sweet. - Chad Rafferty
Guided By Voices Inc
Bandcamp | Spotify
2023 marks the start of Guided By Voices’ fortieth year as a band since their humble beginnings being laughed off the stages of their local bars, and even if the band couldn’t tour upon its release, they couldn’t start that milestone year without yet another triumphant album. Tremblers and Goggles By Rank exposed the deep roots of Robert Pollard’s songwriting, his ability to build a tune and the orchestra he commands into epic crescendos surpassing five and six minutes, and proggian wonders that name-drop Big Star’s frontmen in a manner that could not be more on-the-nose. Anyway, Pollard says that La La Land represents a direct follow-up, or as he says, “somewhat of a companion piece… [La La Land] continues to explore a path of diversity in styles and in longer, more adventurous song structures”. It’s clear, too, that a six-minute track wouldn’t fit any better than a sixth finger on GBV’s mid-90s output, so in order to continue down the path of innovation, it feels refreshing and necessary here. - Jack Peterson
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
Providence’s Mulva played a handful of shows last year, setting up the framework for the songs that would eventually become their debut EP, a re-introduction to Christina Puerto’s (Kal Marks, Bethlehem Steel) songwriting. Pulling together a band of frequent collaborators and likeminded musicians, she’s joined by Carl Shane (Kal Marks), Adam Berkowitz (Ex-Breathers), and Patrick Ronayne (Bethlehem Steel, Baglady), creating an instant chemistry amid the band’s downward sludge. Seer EP marks a colossally heavy first listen. Mulva’s sound is undeniably dense, but beyond that, the band are able to skirt around most pre-determined sub-genres, creating music that feels intuitive more anything else. “Shouldn’t Fear The Seer” comes crashing out the gate with a legitimately evil riff, pouring down like black rain over the rhythmic force. The band all play into the dirge with aplomb, Puerto and Shane’s guitars trail like torrential clouds, Ronayne’s bass and Berkowitz’s drums feel like a true backbone, coloring the song at times, but holding together the destruction. - DG
Thrill Jockey Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
DIY’s favorite thrash band ain’t a thrash band no more. Chicago’s Oozing Wound have been pigeonholed for the better part of the past decade, and well… it didn’t always fit then, but it certainly doesn’t fit on their latest album, We Cater To Cowards. The tempos have curdled but the attack remains as blistering as ever. While the lead single, “The Good Times (I Don’t Miss ‘Em),” was built on buzzing riffs and lumbering rhythms, the trio set their sights between the harsh scrappy side of Nirvana and the scummier end of the AmRep catalog. Much like their timeless influences, Oozing Wound manage to find accessibility within the rotting tension, pulling out hooks that aren’t necessarily catchy, but still serve the purpose of something to latch onto while simultaneously swinging with reckless abandon. It’s probably the first Oozing Wound album that you could confidently describe as “noise rock,” and we’re fairly certain it’ll be among the genre’s best this year. Genre lines are shaky at best (consider it a broad frame of reference), but throughout We Cater To Cowards, the trio really work to resurrect the sound of In Utero’s corpse re-thought, re-spawned, and built into their own Frankenstein’s monster of unrelenting aggression, snide humor, and the undefinable weight of massive low-end. - DG
Next Door Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Poolblood’s first album Mole feels like the first sign of warmth after a harsh winter; while we begin to feel more comfortable outside in the increasing temperatures, we find the embattled emotions that come with hibernating for extended periods of time still linger. We are still adapting, processing, accepting that better days are to come, but we know that they will. Throughout the album, lyrics such as “Some days I remember more precisely / I can call you when I have a better story” beautifully outline the anxieties of feeling disconnected from a relationship coexist with more straightforward statements like “Sorry I was a bitch to you.” Maryam Said’s initial invitation inside of their head was purposeful; it permits us to experience both these internal anxieties and external apologies, providing us with a fuller, all-encompassing picture. - Liz Van Horn
Don Giovanni Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Over a decade into their partnership, Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery feel continuously in sync. The two have extensive history as friends, colleagues and musical partners. Pulling from their individual artistry – Deal from the Breeders and Montgomery from Ampline – R. Ring represents a satisfying detour that allows for at will experimentation and forward-thinking jams. The duo’s second studio album War Poems, We Rested continues the progression of their sound, occupying the ghastly, the punk and the melodic all in one. The duo’s weathered experience with songwriting allows a comfortable backbone to each song, drawing the listener in close to the macabre and to the serene. - Eric Foreman
FURTHER LISTENING:
BRAINIAC “The Predator Nominate EP” | CROSSLEGGED “Another Blue” | DARI BAY “Longest Day of the Year” | EX PILOTS “Ex Pilots” | LABRADOR “Hold The Door For Strangers” | MEG BAIRD “Furling” | NAG “Human Coward Coyote” | NYXY NYX “Anything” | PATTER “Patter Theme” | PURE ADULT “II” | S.H.I.T. “Demo 2023” | SPACE CAMP “Gold Star” | SPEED PLANS “Statues of God” | THA GOD FAHIM & NICOJP “Chess Moves” | WHELPWISHER “Cool Good”
FEBRUARY:
Carpark Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
When a band simply called @ appears on the scene, there’s enough mystery and intrigue alone to catch certain listeners. Fortunately, there’s plenty we already know about the offbeat psychedelic folk duo of Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose. In Philadelphia, Rose has been releasing intimate bedroom folk as Brittle Brian since 2014. Filipczak cut his teeth in the local Baltimore scene, playing in the folky krautrock group Gut Fauna and engineering their album Magicicada. Each of these projects show a strong ear for idiosyncratic melodies and unconventional production choices that weave their way into @’s debut album, Mind Palace Music. What started as a collection of iMessage demos sent back and forth between the two in 2021 eventually became a full-blown collaborative effort. While easy to describe as “timeless,” there’s a subtle modernity poking through nearly every moment of the ‘70s inspired homespun folk songs on Mind Palace Music. Uniquely digital textures float around every acoustic strum and free-flowing flute flourish. You’re reminded of Vashti Bunyan and Animal Collective in equal measure, and in some ways the album feels like a brighter take on their collaboration Prospect Hummer. - Stan Standridge
Thrill Jockey Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
It has been nearly a decade since the Montreal based trio introduced us to their dissonant art sludge and yet we’re as floored as ever as they continue to progress and push boundaries, getting ever heavier, more textured, and sonically adventurous. Their latest wrestles between beauty and dread, with gargantuan distorted riffs ringing side by side with nuanced ambiance and unpredictable pacing. Nature Morte tempers its attack with a sea of colossal drone thick enough to drown in, and while the band lurch forever forward with a lumbering intensity, it’s often Robin Wattie’s vocals that really steal the show, providing the anxiety and human emotion that inflicts the heart of Big|Brave. Nature Morte feels like an eruption of a volcano long believed to be dormant, we witness the beauty and the destruction single handedly, the piercing abrasion and the graceful minimalism on equal footing. - DG
Wrong Speed Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
You can’t always judge a book by it’s cover, but Big Break’s album has a leather jacket clad frog with a switchblade facing off against a gang of punk rock rats… if that doesn’t set the tone for Angel’s Piss, nothing will. Hailing from Sheffield, UK, the band have made one of the most interesting punk records of the year, a vibrant and hostile record that has both brains, brawn, and a sharp sense of humor. While overtly antagonistic punk can often backfire, Big Break are able to push buttons with street punk filth, garbled and deranged, matched with reckless charm. Raised in the dirt and in the dirt it shall remain. Even with righteous anger fueling the flame, Big Break are undeniably having fun. The riffs are huge and hooky, there’s plenty of melodic lunacy, and shouting along is probably well encouraged when in a crowd. They skip between hardcore and artier “egg punk” territory, the tempos darting and contorting as the mayhem ramps up. Angel’s Piss is a wild ride, spitting and snarling with a shit eating grin, and we truly can’t get enough of this one. - DG
Rack Off Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Melbourne’s Blonde Revolver have released their highly anticipated full length debut, the perfectly titled, Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere . The sextet have made an essential punk record, full of charm and attitude, with songs both serious and undeniably fun, from tales of youthful hi-jinx to furious odes of female empowerment. The band blend together synth punk and hardcore in the process, resulting in a set that’s tough as nails, wonderfully askew, and impressively catchy. There are songs about shitty lovers, shittier expectations hoisted upon them, and at least two songs that deal with vampires. There’s a density to each song, layered with guitars and synths, built on resonant rhythms, and led by Zoe Mulcahy’s commanding vocals. At its core it’s an album about being who you are, becoming the person you want to be, and not the person someone else expects you to be. - DG
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
I was immediately hooked from the moment I heard Cel Ray’s debut single, “Surf’s Up (Garfield Park),” a springy art-punk song with boundless energy. With an impressively coiled rhythm section that reminds of The Uranium Club, the Chicago band’s propulsive riffs and Maddie Daviss’ animated vocal performance are given room to unfurl with exuberant freedom. The band’s debut album, Cellular Raymond, not only has one of the best titles we can imagine, it’s also boundlessly fun, explosive, and tightly punchy. The rhythms sprint with taut perfection, locked in at warp speed, layering a dense framework for the radiant cleanliness of the guitar’s attack and Daviss’ always captivating performance. There’s a vivid sense of humor balanced by a state of urgency that runs throughout. It would seem Cel Ray had a great time making this record, and it’s near impossible not to have a great time listening to it. Having recently played with Spread Joy and Stress Positions and upcoming shows together with Liquids, Choncy, and Abi Ooze, Cel Ray find themselves in great company, and we expect to hear a lot more from them in the years to come. - DG
Feel It Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Hailing from the sun-soaked deserts and valleys of Tucson, Arizona, CLASS are rattling out exceptional punk records as though time was running out. Since their debut EP last June, the band have since released their first full length, Epoca de Los Vaqueros, and now the great But Who’s Reading Me?, the quartet’s third release in nine months. We’re late to sing our praise for the ever classy CLASS, but we’ve become enamored with their freewheeling punk ramble over the past few months, drawn into the rock ‘n’ grab bag of their records. At the core is the songwriting, style be damned, they write punk hits that get better with every repeated listen. Their latest captures the band’s ability to maneuver between raw SST punk rippers, twangy power-pop, and garage rock excess. The EP, comprised of four new songs, and two re-worked tracks from Epoca de Los Vaqueros, offers a tight post-punk sheen and sinewy twang on tracks like “No News Could Please” and “Grid Stress,” while aiming for snotty UK punk recklessness on “Burning Cash”. It’s an EP that continues to show the band’s dexterity, and it ROCKS in all caps. - DG
Trouble In Mind
Bandcamp | Spotify
Parisian quintet En Attendant Ana returned with Principia, their third album and what feels like a major turning point for their music. While Juillet was loaded with fuzzy pop hooks and dazzling melodies, the band have pushed further this time around, still oozing pop charm at every turn, but expanding deeper into their left-field inclinations. With a pair of members that had joined just prior to and shortly after the release of Juillet, it would seem the quintet has become tightly glued together throughout Principia, working as a band with kinetic energy to bring Margaux Bouchaudon’s songs to life in vivid detail. Everyone plays their part, shinning in equal measure throughout a record that’s carefully constructed in favor of sonic clarity, pulling back elements to introduce others, careful to keep the ever-present swoon perpetually un-muddied. The sound is as much jazzy and intricate French pop as it is melancholic power-pop. A dynamic sense of melody is paired with a surging rhythm section that shifts between motorik and boss nova beats. - DG
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
After an eight year absence, the release of The Luchtime Sardine Club’s latest EP came as a surprise to most. No Place is a welcome return for Oliver Newton’s (Yndi Halda, Laundromat, Vincent Vocoder Voice) distinctive psychedelic folk project, expanding on their earliest output (the timeless Icecapades LP may be a decade old but we’re still astounded by it). Over the span of three sprawling songs, Newtown brings us back into the Club’s world, built on seasick acoustics, sweeping strings, shadowy auras, and nuanced songwriting that never goes where expected. TLS Club lands melodies with hit like the most gentle of uppercuts. Through the use of harmony, rhythmic shifts, and melodies both beautiful and discordant, the band take a tried and true formula and make it sound exciting, slowly adapting as songs unwind in their own time. “Satan Lives In Texas” is a must hear, a song that slinks just behind the beat, the laconic melody and duel vocals warbling together with a cool resolve. The feel of the song is astounding, passing between wistful couplets and illuminated hooks. As obscure as TLS Club may be to most, it’s hard to find psych folk this deep in the pocket. - DG
Father/Daughter Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Throughout Rotten Bun For An Eggless Century , Mui Zyu aka Eva Liu combines intricate electronic soundscapes, chopped and diced up then amalgamated in seemingly no particular order, together with softly sung delicate vocals, the two musical parts serving as a counter point to each other. This concept is audible from the get-go and the first track, “Rotten Bun,” and becomes fully developed as the album progresses, creating some mesmerizing tracks like “Mother's Tongue” and “Dusty,” somewhere in the middle of the album. Liu doesn't let up the musical tension she creates at any point on the album, something she credits to exploring her Hong Kong roots and Chinese heritage more. She explains, “I'm Chinese and I'm owning it. Before I would resent it." This approach seems to have given her an additional insight, as she tries to explore the combination of a love for video games, film music scores, and traditional Chinese instruments, seamlessly and subtly integrated throughout. - Ljubinko Zivkovic
Exploding In Sound Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The production of All Fiction began in 2019, and the songs benefit from their long germination. It's a delicate balance to advance your sound and to still retain your distinct style. All Fiction is an ode to Pile's unique sound and ability to shift musically while still allowing their style to shine through. It's unmistakably a Pile album. It's got the unique time signatures, the unusual chord progressions, and even Rick Maguire’s remarkable "woo". The way this latest release stands apart is likely the result of rebalancing new instrumentation reminiscent more of their Radiohead/Beatles influences than Jesus Lizard/noise rock. All Fiction is not without its share of energetic punk songs. Songs like "Loops," "Poisons," and "Gardening Hours" serve as the loudest and fastest songs. Listening front to back, we are treated to an album of songs that tend to deviate from the typical rock band format. The energy of the album ebbs and flows, increasing the impact of the more energy-intense tracks. The guitar is not used as the centerpiece of songs, but its intensity is made all the more real when it does appear. Songs like "Link Arms" start with drums and synths and end with distorted guitars punctuating the track's heavier crescendo. With the guitar sidelined on many tracks, other instruments take center stage like the string quartet on the song "Forgetting" and Kris Kuss' outstanding percussion work on "Lowered Rainbow". The song "Blood" features guitar at its heart but the most memorable piece of it is the vocal harmonies reminiscent of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Skeleton Tree. It's clear that All Fiction inspirations are varied and complex. - Dominic Acito
Shout Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify
Shout Recordings’ Beat Sessions never miss. The in-studio series has captured S.H.I.T., Marbled Eye, Institute, Uranium Club, Impalers, and more over the years, presenting some of this generation’s best punk in all its rawness with live recordings that are triumphantly captured in a studio setting. Following last year’s essential Gen Pop session, the series continued with the filthy onslaught on North Carolina’s finest, Public Acid. The set is primarily built on songs from the great Condemnation EP and their debut album, Easy Weapons, but the introductory single, “Placebo,” is new, capturing the primal insanity they’ve spewed forth since their first recordings. The songs are loud, unglued, and sonically violent, with distortion running rampant, encircling the stampeding brute force rhythms like a tornado of bad vibes and all encompassing dirt. Public Acid may just be one of the most exciting hardcore bands in the country, and it’s in their reckless speed, noise, and nods to caterwauling psych that bring their sound from the gutter to… well, a strangely more majestic gutter. - DG
Don Giovanni Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
On the trio’s latest record, Desire Pathway, Screaming Females pull absolutely no punches in their riffy, hard hitting approach to songwriting, with Marissa Paternoster's enigmatic, distinctly dense vocal performance taking center stage. From the very beginning of the record’s opening, the single “Brass Bell” holds onto their powerfully driven brand of rock writing, while breaching a level of accessibility that is a relatively new approach for the band. Their songwriting has always been catchy, but with this record, they’ve found a compromise between atmospheric and lyrically dense storytelling and head-nodding song structure. The production as well, has less emphasis than an album like 2018’s All at Once did, but this change, surprisingly, does not play to the record’s detriment, but rather to its advantage. Tracks like “Desert Train,” “Let You Go,” and “Mourning Dove” have instrumental setups that are powerful and compelling, allowing Paternoster to create a direct line between her vocals and the listener, while the drums, guitar, and bass support the mood incredibly well. - Jare C
Total Punk / Computer Human Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
As Tee Vee Repairmann, Sydney, Australia’s Ishka Edmeades is making grimy, giddy punk rock for the recoverably crestfallen. Following 2021’s excellent Patterns EP, debut full-length What’s On TV? is animated by anxiety, banal bad times, and waiting—for something in particular or anything at all. Beyond the photocopy-of-a-photocopy album artwork and jokey, obsolescence-evoking band name, there’s an essential (and winning) shambolic earnestness to these songs. Terse, plainspoken delivery becomes a formal constraint to trap big emotions. “I don’t wanna let go,” Edmeades bleats through the reverb on album opener “Out Of Order,” and it feels equal parts heartfelt and abrasive. As on “Time 2 Kill,” “Backwards,” and “People (Everywhere I Go),” lyrical bluntness is belied by the music's effervescent melodies, verse-chorus careens, and the occasional spiky guitar solo. - Emma Ingrisani
Nature Sounds
Bandcamp | Spotify
As of writing this, Tha God Fahim has released eight different records this year, any of them could have been included on this list, but we’ve chosen to focus on Iron Bull, partly due to its widespread availability. Tha God Fahim simply can’t be stopped. Iron Bull wastes no time in proving that, as he sets the tone on opener “Man Of Steel,” reminding us that “the show must go on, operations must continue / got me art dealing, we be selling out the menu.” It’s business as usual from one of this generation’s finest underground hip-hop veterans, kicking out rhymes that feel off the cuff, a blend of street corner cipher simplicity and kung-fu sage-like wisdom. Fahim often plays both sides of the coin, one moment glorifying violence (“I keep the steel like a statue, roll with two guns, that’s twice the bullets coming at you“) and the next acknowledging the impacts (“broken up homes from poverty and the drugs, families feeling generational pain from hot slugs”). There are affirmations and the wisdom that buds from struggle (“Makin Rounds”) and there’s also plenty of hard-headed shit talk (“Battleship”). Tha God always paints the picture in full, with a delivery that favors raw straightforwardness over anything fancy. Featuring production from SadhuGold, Camoflauge Monk, Nicholas Craven, and others, some of the best beats come (unsurprisingly) from Fahim himself. It’s always a treat to hear him lace his own laconic production (may we never forgot the “Mailman” beat), spitting stream of conscious rhymes over muted horns, sweeping strings, hypnotic keys, and dusty drums. - DG
Joyful Noise Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify
While it may be a stop-gap release, Submersive Behaviour still feels like an essential piece to Tropical Fuck Storm’s ever growing catalog. While the majority of it was released last year as part of the Moonburn EP, we’re treated to two new astounding songs, one of which is a near eighteen minute long cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be),” the acid fried cornerstone of Submersive Behaviour. While billed as a covers EP, this is one of only two covers, and it’s one done with reverence and heart, far from the usual covers-as-algorithmic-catnip. The band, best known for their immersive noise, fiery lyrics, and radiant harmonies, let the noise take a back seat to expansive drift on a cover that plays close homage to the original but certainly adds the band’s own sonic touches. They roar into the psychedelic space with a bluesy start, picking up the soul of the source material to perfection, colliding into a dense screed of noise bent guitars and a spiraling shuffle of drums. Just as Tropical Fuck Storm bring the song into their own habitat, it takes us right back out, into deeply kaleidoscopic territory, opting for hallucinatory ambiance in place of density. They allow the song to sprawl into the unknown, fusing together atonal shifts and gentle melodies, a meditation gone wonderfully awry. - DG
20 Buck Spin
Bandcamp | Spotify
Like a cataclysmic eruption somewhere deep in space, Oakland’s Ulthar returned with celestial brutality, a reign of chaos, and mountainous depravity that threatens to swallow existence whole. The band simultaneously released two new companion albums, Anthronomicon (comprised of songs at a standard length) and Helionomicon (a record with two single side-length tracks), each an onslaught of the band’s signature blend of death metal and black metal, delivered with mind numbing dexterity and utterly jaw dropping technicality that always feels warranted rather than forced. The riffs are in constant motion, forever evolving as the rhythms stampede, trample, and decimate all in their path. The records are both amazing. Ulthar have created a tornado of carnage, spiraling into the own sordid abyss, spewing forth with demonic fury, diving into a cavalcade of ever-shifting riffs, unglued progressions, and some of the most bloodthirsty drumming we’ve heard in years. - DG
Matador Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
With several records considered to be generational classics, it would appear that 38 years into Yo La Tengo’s existence, they just might have released another one with their latest, This Stupid World. There’s an adventurous sense of freedom to the record that comes hurtling out from the start on the dissonant and motorik glisten of “Sinatra Drive Breakdown,” a song that feels like a peek into the trio’s jam sessions. Building in no particular rush to actually get anywhere, Yo La Tengo are scrapping the paint from the walls in the process. They do have destinations in sight though, and as masters of their craft, even their expansive reaches waste no time. Repetition becomes key, setting the atmosphere only to bring us elsewhere is an important part of the journey, highlighted on songs like the harmonically rich “Fallout” and the hypnotic pulse of “Tonight’s Episode” (an effortless live classic in the making). There’s a whole world out there to explore though (a stupid world at that), and Yo La Tengo dip into beautiful folk (“Aselestine”), silky lounge charm (“Until It Happens”), sonic discordance (“Brain Capers,” “This Stupid World”), and well… they’ve never sounded better in the process. - DG
FURTHER LISTENING:
ABI OOZE “Julia's Apartment (Demos)” | BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT “The Land, The Water, The Sky” | CHONCY “Community Chest” | HICKEY “Icky” | JORDAN HOLTZ “Not Close For Comfort” | KOLEŽANKA “Alone With The Sound The Mind Makes” | LECHE “Gas Powered Guillotine” | M(H)AOL “Attachment Styles” | PHYSIQUE “Again” | PUNTER “Punter” | QUASI “Breaking The Balls of History” | ROME STREETZ & BIG GHOST LTD “Wasn’t Built In A Day” | SLIPPERS “Slips Demons” | SWEET WILLIAMS “Sweet Williams” | TV STAR “Hallucinate Me”
MARCH:
Borzoi are a brilliant band. Magical. One of the best in the country. Their live shows are energetic, mesmerizing, and combustible. It’s not so much about the sonic clarity, but the fact that no one else does it quite like Borzoi, their songs encompassing a degree of intelligent grit that’s unique to them, an alien force landed in Austin, Texas. With delightfully strange progressions that seem simple enough at first glance, the power-trio structure is obliterated in density, everything clamoring together like an explosive highway pile-up. On another timeline, the band’s brand of sordid art punk would have been at home on SST or Homestead Records, their music a mutant ooze of inventive noise rock, elastic post-punk, gnarled “cow punk,” and a touch of brainy hardcore. Borzoi have mangled those genres into a singular entity; stomping and whaling, the bad times and the good times collapsed into an indistinguishable swarm of sci-fi mystique and socio-politcal disdain. Since the beginning they’ve shifted focus from song to song, keeping the discordant claustrophobia of their sound in place while skittering between tracks both tense and instantly eruptive, uncompromising but focused, harsh yet strewn with unlikely hooks and hard earned grooves. So, after five long years, the trio return with Neither The One Nor The Other, But A Mockery of Both, a new EP, surprise released without fanfare. The title, seemingly a reference to the fact that the record was re-recorded several times over the past few years, is a gift of their debased sense of humor, a sign that the years haven’t left them embittered. It’s all part of the reckless charm. A friend asked me about the production, wondering if it was the “refined” Borzoi of A Prayer For War or the saturated noise of the rest of the catalog. After much thought my answer was, and still is, that Neither The One… resides somewhere in-between. The EP is certainly raw, the type of raw that had TuneCore hassling the band prior to the DSP release, but it’s only blown out where it wants to be, only fractured when intentional, and somewhere within the impenetrable wall of sound, everything sits in place as intended. - DG
Lame-O Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
OTHERBODY, the latest from Richmond’s prolific power-pop stalwarts DAZY is essentially the scraps from the OUTOFBODY recording session, and yet it could be our favorite album they’ve shared to date. There’s a cohesion to these songs, they feel destined to be together, and perhaps that’s why they were left from last year’s LP, but whatever the reason, James Goodson’s latest finds his sweet spot in immaculate pop hooks with a balance in stinging fuzz. The songs are towering with hazy bliss, and even as DAZY explore life stuck on repeat, the overdriven roar and mechanical rhythms explode, recalling the glory days of The Jesus & Mary Chain. Every chorus is crafted with syrupy resolve, built to last, with vocals layered and layered, the gang treatment inviting you to sing along with melodies sweet enough for The Beach Boys but biting enough to rock alongside Guided By Voices. We’re thankful OTHERBODY found its way to live outside OUTOFBODY. - DG
Joyful Noise Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify
Deerhoof can’t be stopped, nor should they be. Nearly thirty years into their career and each successive release is still met with cheerful yelps of “wow, this could be their best album yet.” Their idiosyncratic approach to art rock, noise pop, or whatever-other-genre-tag-that-doesn’t-entirely-fit, shimmers in the face of stagnancy. They are sparked by the power of imagination, picturing a better world and doing their part to bring the rest of us along. This is what Miracle-Level, the band’s nineteenth album is about, focusing on the daily miracles of life, the small details, attempting to see the beauty of human life that operates in resistance to corporate control, war, and hatred. Evil is offset with love. Miracles of kindness abound. With the idea that comfort is complacency, Deerhoof wandered outside their personal comfort zone during the album’s creation, opting to record the album in a proper studio with an outside producer in its entirety for their first time to date. It’s not as though they’ve never been in a studio, it’s more so that the band have always had autonomous control on what they’ve created, working together over the years to shape and define their records, an endless ability to tinker and fine-tune as they see fit. With studio time booked and an engineer at the helm, it forced the recordings to a finite timeframe and put trust in producer Mike Bridavsky to capture their paean to all things miraculous. Together at No Fun Club in Winnipeg, they used the studio setting to capture the band with minimalist production aesthetics, creating a record that feels relatively sparse, peeling back the density. - DG
Iron Lung Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Electric Chair could be the pinnacle of modern hardcore, at least delightfully weird hardcore… ugly, brutal, blistering, and oddly psychedelic. Following three great EPs that introduced and re-introduced the band’s maniacal brand of abrasive punk, the Olympia based quartet have unleashed their first full length, the chaotic and curdling sociopolitical fury of Act of Aggression. Out now via Iron Lung Records (Eteraz, Physique, Rotary Club), the band are swinging for the fences, blending the skewed and surreal with the deviant and direct, exploding with righteous indignation for our corroded society. Channeling the buzzsaw noise of early 80’s hardcore, with relentless filth, stampeding drums, and riffs that shift a mile a minute, Electric Chair blast between mutant levels of corroded hardcore boogie and brain melting sonic exploration. They deliver a record impossibly heavy and immediate that feels intelligent as it hurls itself forever forward into the abyss. Make no mistake, this album rips from top to bottom. - DG
Stucco Label
Bandcamp
After a pair of EPs over the past few years and a tireless tour schedule, Olympia’s Fugitive Bubble have released their first full length, the great Delusion, an album that brings the band’s art-punk sound into new “slightly less lo-fi” territory. It’s still rough and rampant (as it should be), running through hardcore structures with a sense of unfiltered fun, there’s less tape hiss… which is ultimately a good thing. The band’s acrobatic and elastic punk is easily identifiable, furious but shimmering, relentlessly heavy yet any real sense of rage is juxtaposed with a smirk and riffs that shred like the world is about to end so we might as well get down and go wild. The record rips between a range of tempos, generally fast while splitting the difference between indignant and irreverent, but Fugitive Bubble slow down on occasion to let a melody soak through the skeletal production, to allow a gang vocal in that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and to put the exuberance back into hardcore. It’s a great record, full of captivating high energy punk and force brute absurdity. The cassette and digital are out now via Stucco Label with vinyl to come later this year via Sorry State. - DG
Goner Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The brain-child of Kel Mason, Gee Tee has been "blowing drooly-punk minds for the past few years with a rash of out-of-print records and ridiculous videos that have bounced around the proper channels of the internet underbelly." Sure, that’s Gee Tee’s words, but it doesn’t make it any less true -- and that’s especially true now that they’ve released a new album, Goodnight Neanderthal. All great Aussie punk either sounds like it was recorded in 2014 or 1981. This record’s no different -- the production quality plays with your sensibilities with a lethal efficiency. "Grease Rot Chemical," for instance, has that chunky bass and lo-fi synth that confuses the brain and alters one’s perceptions. Sure, it gets a little unnerving at times, and it’s not always consistent, but it grounds this record in something resembling a sense of history and context. That, and you always feel like you’re on the defensive trying to sort out your place on the timeline. - Chris Coplan
Grind Select
Bandcamp | Spotify
Philadelphia trio Grocer have resisted the unconscious urge toward homogeneity that afflicts so many weird, unique bands. Quite the opposite – with each release they become even more themselves. On the Scatter Plot EP, coming on the heels of the 2022’s undersung but excellent album Numbers Game, the trio lets their freak flag fly, experimenting with song structures, curious chords, and sonic textures anchored in a foundation of melodicism and elevated by a raucous chorus of vocals. The opener and single “Downtown Side” spits in the face of conventionality, lulling you in with an inoffensive drum beat only to devolve into spastic spurts, yowling guitars, cosmic half-harmonies, and literal bells and whistles. Other tracks tarry equally with pop melodies, post-punk bass lines, and a cavalcade of percussion and effects (“Not By Chance,” “Open Wide”). On the whole, the six songs on the EP are sweet but not saccharine, cerebral but fun, noisy but not self-indulgent. - Matt Watton
Dark Descent / Me Saco Un Ojo Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The evil lurks deep within Hyperdontia’s music, a band committed to the essence of old school death metal but unafraid of pushing it forward. Despite being split between Denmark and Turkey with members involved in countless other projects, Hyperdontia remain prolific (especially in the world of death metal), ripping from one devastating release to the next, dismembering and rebuilding the brutality of the genre amid a cavalcade of grotesque riffs and a seismic low end. Deranged, the band’s latest EP is overloaded with carnage, scrambling a near twenty minutes into an oozing scourge of technically complex rhythms, guttural vocals, dynamic structures, and artistic shifts, heavy on filth, but nimble in a way that few death metal bands can achieve. There are shredding guitar solos, brief drum solos, and even more… the ever rare bass solo, and the whole thing just sort of freaks it with eternal devastation. Hyperdontia continue to be a gem, risen above the festering remains. - DG
Self-Released
Apple Music | Spotify
Notorious Dump Legends, released back in 2018, remains an early highlight of the pair’s work together, an album that merged Tha God Fahim’s sage simplicity with Mach-Hommy’s artistic poetry, at times abstract and artistic, at others hard yet humorous. They are a great duo, whose styles and voices fit together with aural perfection, melodic but focused, slick but raw, with their stream-of-conscious rhymes seeming to bring out a rare spark in each other. The legend of Mach-Hommy continues to grow, creating music regarded as timeless art, with LPs sold as investments (and at investment prices), but his lyrics seem to come from the opposite side of the spectrum. Mach-Hommy’s music isn’t solely about stacking paper and living fly, it’s about his community, growth, intelligence, power, and overcoming poverty’s deep roots. With Notorious Dump Legends: Volume 2, the duo come out swinging with an urgency and sharp words delivered throughout the ominous opening track, “Pissy Hästens,” a song that feels like a work already in progress. Mach-Hommy and Tha God Fahim rip their respective verses with braggadocios flair from the get-go, weaving together shadowy verses that detach as enunciations flip and waver over backwards drifts of shaky synths and minimalist bass. - DG
I want the ‘90s as a living organism and not some monolith. I want to see more stuff like Crispy Crunchy Nothing. That's the latest album from PACKS, the nom de guitare of Toronto DIY rocker Madeline Link. The fourteen song, thirty minute LP is clearly indebted to the larger ‘90s alt/indie rock movement, but it celebrates that lineage with a renewed sense of passion, efficiency, and inventiveness. There's certainly heaps of obvious inspirational fingerprints across the record, especially if you're consuming this on the surface level (which I'd totally advise — this record flows in a way that makes it perfect for parties, romantic entanglements, and eating a sandwich over the sink at 3 am). That includes the lyrics — "4th of July" has this lyric that screams "1994" for some reason. Or the proper sonics, be it the Liz Phair saunter of "Abalone," the Superchunk-channeling vibes of "Not the Same," and an understated Hole rendition in "Smallest One." It is a record obsessed with distinct bands and sounds but more so this larger idea of the '90s as this existential entity. - Chris Coplan
Drag City Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
It had been four years since the last Purling Hiss EP (Interstellar Blue) and seven years since the trio’s last full length (High Bias) but the wait came to an end as the band returned with Drag On Girard. The years since had seen Mike Polizze busy with solo records and the welcome return of Birds of Maya, but the time apart from Purling Hiss seems to have reinvigorated the band. The record is explosive with pure blistering barn burners, the caterwauling guitars blasting out the gate and only getting louder as the songs progress. This album is a ripper of the finest order, essentially embedded on massive, unflinching, screaming guitar solos that whip and soar from start to finish. Sure, comparisons can be made, but when’s the last time that any of Purling Hiss’ influences decided to shred quite like this? It’s a triumphant blast of non-stop riff magic, warm crackling psych pop, and gluey hooks, capturing the best of Purling Hiss with a rejuvenated sense of muscle and inescapable melody. - DG
Shana Cleveland described her third solo record, Manzanita, as “a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” a succinct description that sets both scene and mystifying tonality. The natural essence of the woods, mountains, rolling hills, and open skies, are apparent not from setting but from sound. Manzanita takes a spiritual journey free from the city, free from commotion, free from congestion. Cleveland, best known as the lead songwriter for the perpetually great La Luz, gives her surroundings a pivotal part to play, but the song’s are more than their scenery, Manzanita is personal, an album created with overwhelming love, written from the perspective of an expecting mother and elated partner. Throughout the record we’re brought along as Shana Cleveland steps outside herself to witness growing love and undying support, and spoiler alert, the music is utterly beautiful. Cleveland’s prior solo effort, Night of the Worm Moon, was majestic and spiritual, like a vision trip to the desert as the sun sets over the boundless landscape, filled with scenic beauty and gorgeous arrangements. With Manzanita, we’ve left the desert for the front porch, a survey of the land as it lies, whispering into the twinkling night sky with lullabies and hushed twang. - DG
Tough Love Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Ulrika Spacek’s music, while easily digestible and friendly enough in the sonic sense, is never really reliant on pop. There are hooks, but they come with complexities. The songs are undeniably engaging, but require multiple listens to unpack. There’s an astute sense of purpose in their progressions and layering, but the band generally prefer fascinating expanse over the direct. While mainstream indie tends to favor the boring, the predictable, and the safe, Ulrika Spacek are making music for the rest of us, those who prefer dynamics, moments of intricate bliss, and a band that makes ambitious music by taking interesting routes to arrive from point a to point b. Best experienced in full, Compact Trauma is an evolution for the band, warping and weaving through loungy psych and fragmented art rock to create something glowing and evergreen. It’s an album detailed in inner struggle, fighting demons of self-doubt and addiction, wrestling with defeatist mentalist issues and finding its place in the world. Ulrika Spacek rarely take the straight forward route, everything is delivered into an esoteric shimmer, the pieces laid into place with a nervy complexity. The thread linking it all together is the album’s majestic charm and whirring warmth. There’s plenty to take in, and in time, the album opens itself up, each new layer finding its home, its essential place in the structure of the record as a singular vision. - DG
FURTHER LISTENING:
3D & THE HOLOGRAMS “3D & The Holograms” | B. COOL-AID “Leather Blvd” | BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD “Live at Bush Hall” | CHE NOIR & BIG GHOST LTD “Noir or Never” | CONNECTIONS “Cool Change” | DEBT RAG “Lost To The Fantasy” | DIVORCER “Espionage” | DOUBLE GRAVE “Till The Ground” | FUTURE SUCK / SHOVE “Split” | GEL “Only Constant” | THE HIRS COLLECTIVE “We’re Still Here” | ILLITERATES “No Experts” | ITCHY & THE NITS “Itchy & The Nits” | KOMMAND “Death Age” | KOOL KEITH & REAL BAD MAN “Serpent” | TELEHEALTH “Content Oscillator” | TETCHY “Smaller / Better” | THA GOD FAHIM & OH NO THE DISRUPT “Berserko” | WASTE MAN “Waste Man” | WHITNEY’S PLAYLAND “Sunset Sea Breeze” | ZORN “Zorn”
APRIL:
Big Crown Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Black Thought simply isn’t capable of phoning it in. He’s never been one to chase a trend or a paycheck. Even as he approaches half a century, he still raps like he’s got something to prove. On last year’s excellent Danger Mouse collaboration Cheat Codes, the Philadelphia native cemented his place among the great MCs. Now with Glorious Game, a collaboration with Brooklyn soul artist and producer Leon Michel, he’s able to step back and take a look back at what got him there in the first place. Glorious Game started in 2020 with Michel, aka El Michels Affair and Black Thought collaborating electronically. As a prolific producer and co-owner of Big Crown Records, Michel was able to use his back catalog of unreleased music as a musical playground. Instead of sitting on a hard drive, they were chopped up into beats and given new life here. He'd send Thought a beat, and within a day or so he'd get back a fully formed track. Listening to this album, It’d be easy to think Michel is pulling from some obscure 70s soul records, but the majority of the samples are from bands working today. His throwback, chop-up-the-soul style slots in perfectly with Thought’s storytelling, with nostalgia and gratitude to those who came before you being two major lyrical themes of the record. The sample choices feel like music Thought himself would probably have listened to back in the day. Michel weaves slick electric guitar loops, angelic “oohs” and “ahhs”, groovy bass, and a nice touch of woodwinds and horns to create beats that don’t call too much attention to itself, but rather serves as a laid-back, moody sonic spaces for Thought to work his magic. - Calvin Staropoli
Topshelf Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Holy Red Wagon, the second full length from Albany’s Bruiser and Bicycle, has built a world all its own. Through a landscape of psychedelic folk, mind-bending twee, and prog, the band blur all lines, expanding upon limits with a sense of wonder and whimsy. They push to see where things may land, stretching beyond the breaking point in favor of twists and turns, texture and atmosphere. There’s always something in motion, the songs working toward progressive shifts, complex and nervy, but their energy feels buoyant and intrinsically youthful. While many bands work to trim songs to their skeletal best, Bruiser and Bicycle are going for a maximal approach, watching one thought unfold into the next, letting their songs stretch past the seven minute mark more often than not. It’s light and breezy in tonality, but the band’s heady prog and psych-pop inclinations are anything but flimsy, they’re wandering with purpose throughout the augmented reality of Holy Red Wagon, keeping themselves entertained as we’re left wondering what will happen next. - DG
Century Media Records
Apple Music | Spotify
Hold on to your butts. Richmond’s Enforced have released the thrash album of the year. War Remains, the band’s third album takes about five seconds to fully peel your wig back, stampeding with a vicious assault that endures relentlessly for the entirety of the record. The shredding guitars slam directly into the thudding rhythms and brash vocals, the entire thing decimating all in its path with a no-holds-barred approach to sensory overload. Enforced sound impenetrable as they tear against injustice, the war machine, and human cruelty, grinding when needed and dipping into hardcore and death metal at times to up the intensity (if that’s even possible). The amount of force in every blasted drum beat and blistering guitar solo is matched by sheer sonic brutality, feral and destructive, but not without its fair share of sludgy groove. War Remains feels like a bomb detonating inches from your face, an untamed beast of thrash metal domination. - DG
Upset The Rhythm
Bandcamp | Spotify
Back in 2020 we were introduced to London synth punk quartet Es, a band that make sinister post-punk with a relentless immediacy. Less of Everything, their debut album was a blast of icy disdain and radiant synths, plodding and pounding with a dark embrace of melody. It’s a great record, built on nuanced songs, kicking down doors and establishing Es as a band to watch. The band return with Fantasy, a record split between claustrophobic and danceable punk carnage. Like much of Es’ music, the EP opts for an instant approach, swarming right into taut rhythms and skeletal grit. The band lock right in with dense bass and abrasive throbbing synth repetition, peeling away at our senses as anxiety js set to boil. Its minimalist but utterly thick, with the walls closing in around the chaos, led to perfection by the commanding vocals, a reminder that when it feels like your thoughts are going to bury you alive, it’s time to let go. - DG
New West Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Esther Rose knows how to write a great song. It’s in the minute details, the personal touches, as she sets up her surroundings, painting the portrait with real emotion, cracks and all. After two great albums for Father/Daughter, Rose joined New West Records for her latest, the magnetic Safe To Run, as beautiful a country record as they come. Following a move from her New Orleans home to the open expanse of Santa Fe, Rose found herself amid a new journey, following a path into the unknown. With home-spun twang and lush songwriting, it’s easy to find yourself deep within her world, transported to seedy bars, sun-filled car rides, and searching for a place to make sense of it all. Her songs sound familiar, their natural reflections relatable, sweeping us into the record’s stately grace, embracing the warts of life and choosing to live, eager to see what lies ahead on the road less traveled. It’s all stellar but “Spider” is country swoon perfection. - DG
Trouble In Mind Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
After FACS’ 2021 landmark album, Present Tense – which, with its close-mic’d drums and broken musicbox guitars, acted as a brief detour from FACS typically explosive palette – the band return with Still Life in Decay, their accessibly haunting and darkly beautiful new album. It’s the band’s crowning achievement. Anyone in the game as long as FACS will tell you, you can put the ingredients of an album together in similar ways and still yield wildly disparate results. Still Life in Decay sounds grander than any previous FACS album. This does not mean earlier albums lacked for auditory quality – far from it. However, something about these sessions at Chicago’s celebrated Electrical Audio with renowned engineer Sanford Parker has yielded the boldest, clearest, most compelling collection of songs of the band’s career. Chalk it up to one last hurrah for Alianna Kalaba – who, after recording, has been replaced by FACS co-founder and ex-Disappears bassist Jonathan van Herik – or just a really good set of days at the office for Parker. Whatever the reason, Still Life in Decay sounds IRL massive, as if we the listeners are sharing the live room with the band as it recorded. - Benji Heywood
The mind is like a needle. The mind is like a cloth. The mind plays tricks and is unwieldy when it comes to matters of the heart. Jana Horn’s new album is not necessarily an epistemological or psychological enquiry; rather, it contains an empirical poetic account of the mind observing reality and surreality. Musically, The Window is The Dream is a tightly woven textile, with minute intricacies. Vibraphone, bass, guitars, and synthesizers all cooperate or battle with Horn’s voice to illuminate her images via purposeful poetry. Horn’s lovely vocal affectations are a mixture between Greta Kline (of Frankie Cosmos) and Nick Drake. The phrasing and delivery of the lyrics is laconic; her poetry is delivered as such. It is magical, uncompromising, and sui generis, demanding attention. The lead guitar lines are especially given space. Notably, on “The Dream,” beautiful, precise noodling fills in deliberate spaces. Such supportive musical accompaniment emphasizes the surreal wandering mind motif. - Zak Mercado
Sorry State / Static Shock Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Returning with their third EP in as many years, Brazil’s Lasso explode like nuclear winter out the gate with Ordem Imaginada. Seriously, hit play on “Respice Finem” in a quiet room, it genuinely feels like sonic detonation. Out now via Static Shock and Sorry State, the band’s brand of hardcore keeps expanding while retaining the feral nature of their sound, with buzzsaw riffs that demolish and shift from one scourge to the next in rapid fire succession to drum fills that feel entirely unglued. This one rips way harder than whatever over-produced hardcore the rest of “the industry” is cramming down our throats. There are subtle changes in tempo, as Lasso dig between breakneck fury and mid-tempo carnage, but it’s all bleeding into the red with brute force and impenetrable density, pummeling forward like an oncoming stampede of blatant indignation. For all the anger and anxiety being exhumed, this record is a blast to listen to, an onslaught of hazy hardcore recklessness that shreds from start to finish. - DG
Orindal Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
When the days begin to run you ragged and stress feels unavoidable, you can always turn to the music of Liza Victoria aka Lisa/Liza for an escape parts gentle, understanding, and beautiful. Listening to Portland, Maine singer/songwriter’s music is an instant salve, alleviating all worries with minimalist folk and warmly psychedelic Americana songs. Her writing is personal, enamored with a sense of community, a scenic soundtrack that wisps like the wind, highlighted by Victoria’s always stunning vocal performances, caught in open spaces and resonating with an emotional grace. Her words can sit heavy at times but the performances are a comfort, a lullaby that cuts through the noise. Victoria’s new album Breaking And Mending feels one with nature, a record that shines like the sun cutting through the tallest of trees, soft and reflective, like the ripples of a stone skipping through a pond. Soft acoustic guitars are played with undeniable emotion, with strums alternating between gentle touches and more immediate finger picking. It’s beautiful in the way that all Lisa/Liza albums are. We all struggle, but we’re not alone. Victoria’s voice is your favorite blanket, her words a dissociation from troubles, deciding instead to focus on the beauty of her surroundings, to put her mind at ease. It’s a welcome respite. - DG
Soul Assassins
Apple Music | Spotify
We’ve said it before and we will most definitely say it again, Meyhem Lauren is the very essence of New York hip-hop. Lay out a beat for him and he effortlessly crushes it, bar after bar detailing accounts of exquisite living and devious behavior. He’s got an iron clad flow, absolutely bodying beats, shining like diamonds glistening from the shadows. While he will forever carry Queens on his back, the magic of his latest album, Champagne For Breakfast, comes as a historical West Coast moment, the first collaborative project between Madlib and DJ Muggs. A meeting of undeniable giants, the legendary producers, responsible for some of hip-hop’s all-time greatest efforts, work in unison together to design the wavy elegance and the minimalist psych-laced blueprint of Lauren’s latest. Their collaboration behind the boards offers trademarks from each of their respective catalogs, merged together to give glimpses of both. Lauren has always represented the lavish style and hard-nosed bravado of rap’s glory years, and who better to arrange the score than Muggs and Madlib. Matching his larger-than-life charisma, their beats set tone and character, pivoting between glorious funk-strewn boogie and menacing minimalism, each rattling out the speakers with dusty perfection. - DG
Stones Throw
Bandcamp | Spotify
Coast 2 Coast, the band’s fourth album and first for Stones Throw, documents their journey from their former home in Florida to their current home in LA, building a surrealistic odyssey of video games, ocean front beaches, and fantastical bliss. Moving from one vast ocean to the next, across the highways and expanse of middle America, Pearl & The Oysters use their daydream psych to bring a sense of the majestic to the mundane. Whether coming to terms with boredom and the endless possibilities of all we could be doing (“Fireflies”), two-stepping into cascading psych at it’s most saccharine sweet on a road trip where nothing seems quite as advertised (“Pacific Ave”) or preparing for launch into orbit (“Space Coast”), the duo of Joachim Polack and Juliette Pearl Davis are crafting intricate pop, with layers that reveal themselves in time. Created with hints of Stereolab and Broadcast’s retro-futurism and touches of French yé-yé music, the band sound perpetually carefree but the actual structures prove otherwise as they weave and manipulate deceptively sinuous synths and electronic nuances into every imaginative turn. The textures have been left out in the sun, the imprint of beach chairs and sand made a permanent fixture. - DG
Relapse Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The sound of Härvest is bleak, it’s an anthem for those left to dwell in the mud and the shit. The rallying cry for the hoards of peasants. They’re not out for blood and dismemberment, they just want their piece of the pie. The recording itself could be said to follow suit. There’s nothing flashy here, the band aren’t using the studio to create the impossible. Instead Poison Ruïn retain the lo-fi hiss of their roots, their brand of decidedly glamor-less punk self-recorded, awash in the din of the room. It’s a choice that keeps things raw, keeps the band entrenched among the common people. Even with mastering from Arthur Rizk, the cloud of dungeon smoke and basement grime refuses removal. It’s an aesthetic choice, and it’s one that fits Poison Ruïn to perfection. The songs feel tortured and anguished even before you dig into the lyrics. It’s also a lot of goddamn fun. The music, while claustrophobic and primal, is generally up-beat, metaphorically chopping heads with rusty tonality and gargantuan forward momentum. The guitars are all tightly coiled around the rhythms, pounding out unlikely hooks and sustained dissonance, ringing and clawing their way toward subtle grooves. The constant onslaught of revolt is only broken by the occasional dungeon synth segue, haunting but meditative, it’s a call to arms. The calm before the storm. The Philadelphia quartet is rallying the people, swinging the axe and scythe in resistance to our money-hungry politicians and the grip of upper class control. With a sound that recalls elements of Hüsker Dü, Wipers, and Crass, Poison Ruïn let their riffs buzz and sustain, the feedback whipping into a swarm. Their tone is locked in, it’s a beacon that cuts through mud. - DG
Anti Fade Records / Upset The Rhythm
Bandcamp | Spotify
Melbourne’s Terry hardly need an introduction. Their members have been involved in Total Control, Lower Plenty, Sleeper & Snake, Constant Mongrel, Primo!, and UV Race among others, and yet Terry is very much its own thing, a collaborative effort where each member is simply part of the greater whole. Across the vast catalog they’ve built over the past eight years, it’s when Terry are in complete unison, as they often are, that the band is truly radiant. Bouncing between pummeling synth punk, jangly pop, and wobbly post-punk, the songs shift perspective (and vocalists), while retaining cohesion and charm. Their latest album, Call Me Terry, is their best yet, a record that weaves an emphasis on the spiky punk side of their psych pop nuggets with a serious political force. “Centuries,” is a perfect example, a song with crackling distortion and a motorik groove supporting the impeccable four person vocal approach. The song itself is about how the disgraced and dishonored in high society still manage to find ways to stay in power, that even when change seems inevitable, we’re still stuck with the same assholes in charge. The album follows suit in that sense, taking a pessimistic look at global and hyper local politics. Terry never let it feel like a drag though, they present their political despair with a sunny disposition, a sort of musical sleight of hand. - DG
Artoffact Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Winnipeg’s Tunic have been making utterly visceral noise rock for nearly a decade, turning up the dial over the past six years with a tireless work ethic that includes both a busy touring and recording schedule. If you’ve been listening since the beginning, you probably recognize there’s a change afoot. If you’re new to Tunic, well then you probably just recognize that their music is abrasive and discordant. These aren’t the major changes, it’s always been the mold for the trio, but where their songs used to detonate instantly and continue to combust in entirety for sub-two minute immediacy, each song from Wrong Dream, the band’s latest album, feels expansive by comparison. With more attention to dynamics, it’s not a full on attack at all times, but full of nuance. Late single “Disease” is a great example, a song that’s built as much on tension as it is release, careening and caterwauling against being a part of a capitalist society yet aware of the things we must do to survive. Guitars pierce and bend, with aggression that feels ominous, peeling back to allow for a focus on the low-end before swarming back in. The pacing throughout the record is relaxed, creeping into the dissonance as the depravity seems to have settled delightfully off its axis. David Schellenberg’s vocal performance isn’t so much punchy and swinging for the fences, instead his wonderfully slurred words arrive as though losing all grip on subtlety. - DG
Exploding In Sound Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Are things that we’ve decided to give importance to actually important? For some of us, it’s best not to think about, but it’s an exploration that Washer takes on headfirst with their third album, Improved Means To Deteriorated Ends, a record that matches thoughts of decomposition with a slow burning rage-infused drive. The world can be toxic, thoughts can become corrosive, but there’s a way to push through, a chance toward those “improved means,” no matter how unlikely it can feel. If this all seems like a bit of a downer, you’d be surprised upon listening to the album. There’s a sense of peace and resolve that comes from expressing these thoughts, the outpouring like a lifting of the anchors that drag us down. Washer, the duo of Kieran McShane (drums) and Mike Quigley (guitar, bass, vocals), are commiserating with a sense of profound community, the songs feel as though designed to be sung by a room full of drunk friends with their hearts firmly on their sleeves. It’s the feeling of listening to a friend vent their frustrations and while the conversation has been one-sided, it’s the listening, the engagement of simply being there and understanding that feels so welcome. So we listen, we get it. In some cases, we probably get it on a deeper level than we should, but that’s okay, it’s a reminder that our struggles are not unique. It’s life, it’s getting older, but it’s also a kick in the teeth to complacency. - DG
With their Dead Oceans debut Rat Saw God, Wednesday present a refined status quo for what they represent. The one intro and nine tracks are an immense bunch racing between downright fried indie rock and introspective confessional scream-outs that keep pushing the honky tonk up. Without a doubt, this is the most refined the gang have ever sounded, spinning between these two lanes with immense ease. Neither side is a duality though; the ample amount of Xandy Chelmis' pedal steel that shines through, or the times Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman duo, even just the raw lockstep the five musicians find themselves in. Something larger than the sum of the parts collides into these brilliant explosions of everyday situations. "Countrygaze" is a label that has been thrown around Wednesday, an intermingling of American Country instrumentation and swagger by ways of fried indie. They are in conversation about what country aesthetics mean right now for a specific generation of listener - Matty McPherson
Across YUNGMORPHEUS’ projects, people learn to confront anti-Blackness and capitalist dispossession just from surviving everyday life. From Whence It Came is bursting with lyrics about covert moves for a quick buck and artistic growth; about fighting back against killer cops and racist white civilians; and finding moments for solace, calm, food, and good weed in between. His flow is slick and understated, often going from bone-chilling to bored to brazen in the same song. This versatility leaves a lot of room for his lyrics to flit between reflective vignettes, cold-blooded provocations, and playful commentary. He’s less likely to brag on his own rap skills than to point out what his peers are missing. The sound of From Whence It Came is consistently smooth, dreamy, and downbeat, finding inspiration in plush corners of 70s soul, 80s and 90s funk and R&B, and moody jazz. Al Dali’s production on “For the Evening” sounds like something J Dilla would have given Busta Rhymes in the early 2000s, while DMH’s album closer “Faded Memories” leans on flutes and dusty horns that would fit on a 60s psych rock record. Even though there are so many different touchstones here, all the beats seamlessly complement YUNGMORPHEUS’ style: intimate, secretive, tucked away. It’s like ducking out of a raucous house party and running into the lone group of smokers in the backyard, casually talking about things that might fluster the people inside. - Justin Davis
FURTHER LISTENING:
ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT “Darling The Dawn” | ANGEL OLSEN “Forever Means” | BUCK GOOTER “Ghost Brain” | COMMUNITY COLLEGE “Schmomco” | DISPLAY HOMES “What If You're Right And They're Wrong?” | DOMMENGANG “Wished Eye” | DURING “During” | FLY ANAKIN “Skinemaxxx (Side A)” | GLITTERING INSECTS “Glittering Insects” | GLOW IN THE DARK FLOWERS “Glow In The Dark Flowers” | KARA JACKSON “Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?” | NICOLE YUN “Matter” | NIGHTOSPHERE “Katabasis” | PUBLIC INTEREST “Spiritual Pollution” | SCIENCE MAN “Mince’s Cane” | TERMS “All Becomes Indistinct” | THA GOD FAHIM “Dump Gawd Reloaded” | VOIDCEREMONY “Threads of Unknowing”
MAY:
Backwoods Studioz
Bandcamp | Spotify
In these post-lockdown years, billy woods has been playing catch-up, bringing his live show as a solo artist (and together with ELUCID) to every corner of the globe, a seemingly endless tour in support of a plethora of increasingly important records. While it seems hard to believe he’s had time to reflect upon his life on the road, it’s clearly been on his mind, as visions of “home” fade and he’s left sleepless on planes, in hotels, and at soundchecks. The grind of it all brought woods back to Kenny Segal, the pair resuming their instant chemistry for Maps, and with it, yet another record that feels destined for hip-hop infamy. It’s a roadtrip set in cavernous venues, lengthy carshare rides, dispensaries, and airport terminals, and despite the weary nature of cyclical travel, billy woods sounds as though he’s having fun. It’s worth repeating, woods is having fun. He’s cracking jokes, he’s weaving complex punchlines, making references to metal bands and rappers, and tossing out barbs and jabs that come with showing up in a new town and being presented with immediate complications. Sometimes it’s all too much, and woods reflects on those he misses, while he disassociates and travels subconsciously, escaping to a place of perma-stoned isolated thought. woods is penning his diary amid the grind, from restless feelings and time elapsed, to delirious humor and the comfort of good weed. - DG
Self Released
Bandcamp
BRICK HEAD is the Melbourne/Naarm based solo project of Sarah Hardiman, a prolific guitarist/vocalist best known for her bands Deaf Wish, Nightclub, Moon Rituals, LOU, and beyond. Bricks For Brains continues to tear into the blown out lo-fi garage rock and proto-punk of 2020’s Thick as Bricks, but everything feels as though it’s been dripped in acid. There’s a transfixing pull to Hardiman’s guitars, sucking us in like tractor beams and spitting us back out, our minds scrambled and rearranged. It’s not the heaviest or the grooviest psych punk out there, but it’s perfectly in tune with its own tonality, it’s washed and warbling production, and the unshakable sense of momentum it carries with it. Everything about Bricks For Brains is engaging on surface level. You don’t need access to a bio, press release, or lyrics to understand that point of BRICK HEAD. The record plays out like an homage to a sound, an unfiltered exploration of kinetic garage punk hypnosis with a definitive DIY mindset.- DG
It had been five years since Chuck Strangers released a full length album and three years since the great Too Afraid To Dance EP offered a reinvention of his sound, but The Boys & Girls EP proves he hasn’t missed a beat. While his start came as an in-house producer and member of PRO ERA, Strangers quickly took to the mic and made a name for himself as one of the next generation’s premier MCs, a versatile rapper that moves lyrically between his surroundings and the surreal, offering a dose of warped street soul in the process. His latest takes a minimalist approach to beat selection, working off dusty loops that feel triumphantly reserved, it gives Chuck Strangers room to lace the tracks with clarity and focus, his lyrics coming out abstract and laid back. Soul samples and breezy keys lay the framework for stream-of-thought verses, smoked out, but rooted in reality, it’s a weed-friendly stroll through the neighborhood, shining through the clouds, keeping it raw. - DG
Drumwork Music Group / EMPIRE
Apple Music | Spotify
Over the last decade-plus, Conway The Machine has operated close enough to the rap capitol to add to its prestige and bolster its traditions. Yet he’s still far enough removed that his career has been his own, operating with absolute freedom to explore new ideas and approaches. A similar dynamic rests at the heart of his latest, Won’t He Do It. After 2022’s deeply personal God Don’t Make Mistakes, this massive moment of openness and vulnerability, Conway’s giving himself a victory lap of sorts with this fourteen track effort. It’s a celebration that shifts his overall trajectory and thus remains compelling in some vital ways. The arc of Conway's career has towed this line between fame and the underground, the boisterous kingpin and thoughtful underdog. The issue, then, is that this record strongly celebrates all that shimmers — but in a way that’s less about big hits and instead robust gestures. - Chris Coplan
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
An appreciation for genre variation has brought a myriad of new sounds to the scene, probably most notably the deeply felt fuzz of groove-driven rock and airy, sugary bedroom pop. On Chicago-based, Rochester transplant Cusp’s latest record, You Can Do It All, there is a firm embrace of both of these sonic ideas, coupled with a wide moodscape of early-to-mid-twenties anxiety, self discovery, and an early sense of loss. For a debut record, You Can Do It All demonstrates tremendous balance. For every dense and gritty riff, there is a bouncy pop vocal melody, with a focus on blending basement-jam sounds, catchy verses, and choruses. In lyrical content, the band spirals through all of the hallmarks of young adult life. The end and beginning of relationships, life changing in previously unexpected ways, the juggling of responsibilities. Through each swing and turning tide of life, there is an equally measured line of keys, guitar riffs, and thundering cymbal ridden drum passages. For Cusp, the key in balancing a song is finding the equilibrium between a thematic idea, and establishing a sonic through-line for that idea. - Jare C
Wharf Cat Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
After years of ripping through the country with the garage/punk band Fat Creeps, suffering a neck injury from her job as a nurse, and pandemic malaise, Gracie Jackson found herself in a dejected and morose position that many heart-worn country singers find themselves in. The memories and tales that bounced around her heart and mind for the past decade started forming into stories and songs with rich melodies and stunning instrumentations. Her journeyed voice reflects the years of entropy and moil but spins that into songs of self-determination, confidence, and humor. Whether eating fried chicken in a hazmat suit, breaking up fights, or dancing with a stranger in a white stetson, Jackson’s narrative lyrics are almost cinematic in their oddly specific detail. As she moves through fast food drive-thrus and meets various characters along the way, Jackson searches for authenticity in a city known for its intentionally crafted image. L.A. Shit is very sonically diverse, and Jackson effortlessly traverses all the country music sub-genres from honky-tonk to Bakersfield and Appalachian to psychedelia. L.A. Shit is an alt-country fever dream through a seemingly undefinable city. Jackson isn’t afraid to play with country music conventions but doesn’t stray too far from traditional country norms. Regardless of how cornered she feels or how weird her life has become, Jackson shows that she remains open to new experiences. - Myles Tiessen
Run For Cover Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Heartbreak Rules came less than a year after the release of Horse Jumper of Love’s Natural Part, a companion album that isn’t quite an “odds and ends” collection, but isn’t quite a new full length either. The record peels back the layers of HJOL, giving a focus to Dimitri Giannopoulos’ vocals and songwriting, a reflection of the band’s earliest material. Written and record solo (together with longtime producer Bradford Krieger), there’s an intimacy to the songs that feels upfront, the surrealist heartbreak and folk charms as radiant as any Horse Jumper recordings. It’s an album that feels thoughtful, the dissonance only used to give color to the song’s natural world. Giannopoulos’ songs appear haunted but secure, reflections and distant memories spiral into a place of singular understanding, abstract and glowing. - DG
GDF Records / Marci Enterprises / EMPIRE
Apple Music | Spotify
For the better part of the last decade, Compton via Vancouver’s Jay Worthy has been doing his part to keep the flame of the g-funk era going. Adopting the persona of a modern day pimp, with the street glamor and inherent ugliness that comes with it, Worthy had a fantastic 2022, releasing album length collaborations with DJ Muggs, Harry Fraud, and Larry June (together with LNDN DRGS). Those three albums stand among his best work, and he’s back for more, this time teaming up with Roc Marciano for Nothing Bigger Than The Program. Produced in full by Marciano, he transports his New York grease and grit to the West, laying down a framework of sparse loops, soulful samples, and top-down Westside essence. Jay Worthy in turn continues to prove why he’s among the best of his coast, never mincing words, hitting each beat with an immediacy that often feels cinematic. The visuals aren’t always pretty as the sun sets over the hills, but Worthy sets the scene, flossing in the streets and doing dirt. “Wake Up” is the undeniable highlight, bringing Marciano triumphantly out from behind the boards, each MC at their narrative best, delivering verses that compliment one another over a smoked out haze and twinkling keys. - DG
Duophonic Super 45s
Apple Music | Spotify
What Will You Grow Now? is six songs initiated as jams. They seamlessly grow organically in separate planes of existence, becoming somehow unified emotionally packed musical statements. The group, Modern Cosmology, the coming together of Recife, Brazil based Mombojó and totemic French Pop figure Laetitia Sadier, knows how to have a focused jam. What Will You Grow Now? beautifully synthesizes the DNA of this collective of artists. On one side of the coin, Mombojó creates music in the tradition of Tropicália. On the flip side, Sadier brings her unique vocal stylings, patterns, rhythms, and French pop. When coupled, the familiar Portuguese tongue is stripped away from the mystifying and groovy Tropicália into a pleasurable blend of palatable, funky, and ethereal tunes. Lead single, “A Time to Blossom,” best encapsulates the synthesis the group creates. The light tension created in the first part of the tune gives way to a transpicuous catharsis. It’s meditative and breezy. The delicate guitar parts and steady drum groove lock into a complimentary jam with the bright sighing of the wordless vocals. It makes one want to sit in it and throw it on repeat, to get to that end point again and again. - Zak Mercado
Salinas Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Can’t Make Any Promises marks both the 20th anniversary of their label, Salinas Records, and the end of the longest gap between LPs in the band’s history. Yet, even after a three-year break, the overblown guitar cadences under a lo-fi fuzz, gloomy lyrical sentiments, and ambient synth melodies prove Radiator Hospital’s intention to stay true to their bedroom indie rock roots. Can’t Make Any Promises’ terse lyricism is not necessarily a common feature of Radiator Hospital’s past discography, but what the new album lacks in narration is made up for in embittered, revelatory cadences that say more than words. Take for example, “Warming World,” the atmosphere is dark, gritty, and eerily wordless, with the first lyrics being uttered two minutes into the four-minute song. The back half’s few lyrics are swallowed by a brooding synth that slowly thickens throughout the track. As a result, the atmosphere drives the narration – a risky choice, no doubt, but executed flawlessly. The atmosphere Radiator Hospital creates time and time again leaves nothing to be desired. While there are clear glimpses of 90’s emo and indie influences present, Can’t Make Any Promises is hardly a pastiche of its predecessors. The lo-fi album oozes the same unrefined, saturated melodies of indie’s past while toying with idiosyncrasies that create a unique, ambient sound. Blistering guitar solos, mellow vocals, and harmonic distortion perfectly chart Radiator Hospital’s dedication to their homemade garage band aesthetic while proving the range they’ve developed over the past decade. - Dana Poland
Rocks In Your Head
Bandcamp | Spotify
We’re here for the psych pop to alt-country pipeline, a natural progression that often seems to yield dazzling results. Case in point, Ryan Wong’s latest solo album, The New Country Sounds of Ryan Wong. The title really says it all, but we’re happy to fill in some details. Best known as a core member of Cool Ghouls and Supreme Joy, Wong has carved a niche in the world of garage psych, flipping between twang and fuzz, his songs are always memorable. With his second solo effort, he’s embraced that twang and filtered out most everything else, opting for a record of earnest DIY country tunes. The album rules and each song seems to pay homage to another aspect of country’s golden days, long before the genre was all about ‘merica and pick-up trucks. Take the simplistic joys of “Yo Yo” as an example, a beautifully composed acoustic song. With an easy premise (“I want to live like a yo-yo”) and a sparse arrangement, the song uses quick tumbles of mountainous drums, lap steel, and ever appropriate vocals-in-rounds to add gorgeous dynamics, coloring the picture with a vivid sense of yearning good ol’ boy country magic. - DG
Born Yesterday Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Freak Frequency, the second full length from Chicago’s Stuck, feels like a classic in the making, distilling the anxiety and paranoia of our digital age culture into vibrant post-punk. They trade between the aggression of noise rock and the finesse of art rock, pulling us in one direction and snapping back the next, but nothing is by happenstance. Stuck have worked hard to throw everyone off their axis, guitars oscillating between stabbing punk and tangled sludge, rhythms that expand and collapse without warning, the heavy sociopolitical dread, it all cements Stuck in a lane their own. Freak Frequency feels calculated, designed with furious sarcasm and indignation, but the band are also loosening their grip, opting to twitch and yelp with the occasional deranged sense of animation. It’s in these moments, the entire band convulsing in unison where we’re given deeper glimpses into the personalities at the core of Stuck’s sound. There’s a constant highlight of strengths both lyrically and musically, each song bouncing between an intelligent scorn and a brash resolve of tension. Stuck are one of the most exciting new bands on the planet, existing between genres while improving on all of them in the process. Freak Frequency is the proof in the pudding. - DG
Julia’s War / BLIGHT. Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
With each successive release, Philly behemoths Sun Organ find new and exciting shapes to meld their distorted pop vision into. Featuring increased collaboration on every new album, mastermind Tim Jordan has been able to breathe new life into an established sound. This time around on Candlelight Showertime, his co-conspirators make up likeminded heavyweights like Nyxy Nyx, Webb Chapel, Dark Mtns, Ruah, and Nine of Swords, among others. Sun Organ pull off the incredible feat of leaning into dark and ugly subject matter without wallowing in it, but instead choosing to emerge from the struggle despite the odds. Wielding their trademark fuzz like a weapon, they inject their songs with enough grit, dynamic shifts, and memorable vocal melodies to keep the abyss from swallowing them up. One needn't look further than Sun Organ's Bandcamp bio which reads "oh fuck I think the end of times has come" for a primer for the subject matter of this record. The band's heavy tunes feel downright apocalyptic - dealing with death, substance abuse, memory, and loss - while managing to somehow feel hopeful despite the burdens they carry. - Torrey Proto
The story of how Temps came to be is too long for this feature, but the group’s bio is definitely worth a read. Spearheaded by English comedian James Acaster, the project came together as another project fizzled out, and a once in progress mockumentary became a record, a multi-genre hybrid that’s nothing less than stunning. Produced by Acaster (who handled the album’s drums together with Seb Rochford), he poured through his rolodex to bring together some of modern music’s best minds and habitual genre-adverse artists including Quelle Chris, NNAMDÏ, Mal Devisa, Denmark Vessey, Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki and John Dieterich, Xenia Rubinos, Open Mike Eagle, Shamir, and that’s only scratching the surface. Rather than a one and done verse approach, the artists revolve throughout the record, making multiple appearances as the expansive songs call for it, leaving a blueprint that defies any logic in favor of artistic freedom. This is alternative hip-hop, jazz, and experimental indie design without a map, and the entire thing is legitimately intriguing. - DG
Matador Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Everyone’s Crushed, the latest from Water From Your Eyes is an addictively strange record. The duo are deep in the groove, further exploring their style of deconstructed music, and coming back with something as inscrutable as ever. It is their first for Matador, and their “major label debut” of sorts. Many albums are built around an extremely specific palette of sounds, each track drawing from an established collection of instruments and tones to build a sort of world. On Everyone’s Crushed, Water From Your Eyes completely flip this idea of continuity. The instrumentation of the record is straightforward, most songs contain electric guitar, bass, and drums. However, rather than sounding familiar, consistent and human, they are otherworldly, as if played by a computer, or sampled from a corrupted .wav file. It is hard to visualize people playing any of the music on Everyone’s Crushed, which is disarming for music coming from a quote unquote band. This is especially cool as Water From Your Eyes is a fantastic live group and translates their songs pretty faithfully into a live setting. - Layton Guyton
Further Listening:
ANTI-MACHINE “Too Many Eyes” | DRAGNET “The Accession” | ELECTRIC CHAIR “Beat Session Vol. 11” | ELUVIUM “(Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality” | FAIRYTALE “Shooting Star” | FLASHER “In My Myth” | GLAAS “Cruel Heart, Cold Summer” | LYSOL “Down The Street” | MANDY, INDIANA “I’ve Seen A Way” | MEGA BOG “End of Everything” | MEMORIALS “Music For Film: Women Against The Bomb” | SMIRK “7”” | THEE OH SEES “Live at Levitation (2012)”
JUNE:
Broadband Sound
Apple Music | Spotify
The rise of Buffalo’s 7xvethegenius has been slow but full of promise, each verse over the past four years has been building the legacy of a dynamic rapper. Her style moves between both traditional boom-bap glory and something less familiar, flirting with experimental R&B production and cool jazzy flourishes. Regardless of the beat she’s lacing, there’s always a focus on meticulous lyricism and craft, with verses that invariably strike as confident yet empathetic. While 7xve’s Drumwork Music Group debut remains in the works, she’s followed last year’s Self 7xve 2 EP with The Genius Tape, a collaboration that finds DJ Green Lantern handling production. The tape is the best showcase of her lyricism yet with beats that match the grimy intensity. Whether talking her shit, embracing the grind as an up-and-coming MC, tracing her roots, or focusing on the community around her, 7xve is painting pictures amid classic flows and unflinching honesty in her lyrics. - DG
Droppin Science Productions
Apple Music | Spotify
It took a near fatal car accident to slow down Boldy James, but after months of rehabilitating, the Detroit MC is back on the road and he’s released his second record of the year, the first recorded since the accident. We’ve long admired his commitment to working with a single producer per release (The Alchemist, Nicholas Craven, Real Bad Man, Futurewave, Cuns, etc) and Prisoner of Circumstance keeps his impeccable streak going, pairing him together with Canadian producer ChanHays. While Hays might not be as high-profile as some of Boldy’s past collaborators, the beats are exceptional, crisp loops and great samples, the perfect framework for the return we’ve all been waiting for. Boldy sounds razor sharp and focused, his laid back flow working in double time (see “Trust Issues”), still smoked out and deceptively chill, but matching the vibrancy of the production. It’s a celebration (of sorts) and it feels like it. Boldy is rapping without distraction, there’s no features and less ad-libs, instead we get twenty minutes of personal reflections, supreme conviction, and the highs and lows of street life (see “I Tried”). - DG
Freeman Street Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
It’s been seven long years since Bueno released Illuminate Your Room, and they’ve been sorely missed. The once Staten Island based band feel like a vestige of old New York City punk. Their third full length, I Was A Thing Of Beauty, is built on jaunty post-punk and unflinching style, it’s an exploration of rock ‘n’ roll without the decadence. The band begin a new era, with long time members Luke Chiaruttini, Michael Gagliardi, and Joe Imburgio joined by Matt Elkin and Casey Weissbuch, a line-up that’s been playing together for many years at this point. They pick up where they left off, making us dance, pairing funky guitar licks with disco punk rhythms, and the world’s ever reliable narrator in Chiaruttini. There’s a grandiosity to the record, songs progress from moment to moment, driving and sauntering with their own sophistication, a cultivated dynamic that’s raw and lively. There’s an intricate construction to the way that the record unfolds, each song a different groove, dipping between strutting charm and joyous kiss-offs. - DG
Merge Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
There’s a special kind of impassioned fury conjured in Cable Ties’ music, it’s instantly recognizable, and no one else does it quite like the Melbourne trio. Their sound is as heavy as it is direct, driven by the explosive nature of Jenny McKechnie’s vocals at full throttle. With their new album, All Her Plans, the band tumble into an ongoing avalanche, their primal post-punk and wailing aggression crashing down at full speed. These songs are barn burners but they’re not without a serious sense of groove. There’s a swagger to the way the band construct their songs, with the low end doing much of the heavy lifting. Those vocals though, McKechnie’s voice really is special, howling with a commanding presence and lyrical outrage. Cable Ties just want to be treated with some damn respect, to see the world function with equality and regard for one another. Until then, they’re going to shred with a primal brilliance. Turn it up loud and let this one demolish the bullshit. - DG
Fire Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
There’s a campy brilliance to Decisive Pink that’s delivered with the utmost sincerity. The collaborative duo of Kate NV and Angel Deradoorian pairs together two exceptional outsider pop minds, their passion for exploration a constant in their respective careers. Together as Decisive Pink they are weaving their talents into engaging modular synth-pop. Built on electronic beats and a variety of warm synth tones, the songs feel pulled from a utopian 80’s jazzercise class, mixing together psych, new wave, and krautrock to create synth pop at it’s most retro and cinematic. Their vocals float above the bubbling synths, offering sweet harmonies as they both sing, pulling the melodies in different directions. Their twin synth compositions bubble and color the songs with character, expanding in time with alien shapes and blissful comfort that feels like a future once imagined. Exuberant and expansive, they between hypnotic motorik beats and layers upon layers of bloops, squiggles, and detached electronics. It’s really something else, pop splendor with a feel for wanderlust, lush harmonies, warped synths, choral beauty, and a cosmic sense to transport us to other dimensions. - DG
Saddle Creek
Bandcamp | Spotify
Genuineness is the prime moral characteristic that defines Feeble Little Horse. The noisy Pittsburgh quartet have stuck to an ethos of controlling every part of the creative process themselves and using it as time they can continue to bond over. This DIY mantra plays through on their new album Girl With Fish with its crushing shoegaze backbone interlaced with elements of sentimentality, it gleams with personality and charisma. Each track whirls by with only one song clocking in over the three-minute mark. A purposeful decision by the band to keep them concise without defacing them with long, unneeded jam breaks. No single idea is stretched too thin before the band introduces another. On top of this they even cut out the transition tracks that dotted their previous release, Hayday. However, there is still near perfect sequencing between the beginning and end of each piece, so they all flow together in one effortless wave. The album is over before you are ready to let it go and compels you to go through the rapid ride once again after the final track plays. - John Glab
Relapse Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Ain’t shit pretty about Currency // Castration and that’s the beauty of it. The band’s third album, and first for Relapse Records, is ensnared in filth and dissonance, at home amid the depravity, for better or worse, this is where we’re at and Geld aren’t delusional. Far from it, but rather than collapse under the weight of it all, they chose to decimate, creating something that feels relevant and timeless. The band continue to push their sound with each record, determined to build upon where they’ve been without looking back. If Beyond The Floor felt like the abject terror at the dawn of the apocalypse, Currency // Castration has settled into the end times and it’s an observant portrait of indulgence and horror. The sense of disgust is palpable, oozing from the garbled howls and piercing riffs, this is anti-social music for the less than well-adjusted. The songs are full of forward thinking structures, pummeling one moment with stampeding drums and locked into a mesmerizing (yet sludgy) motorik groove the next. Geld push the envelope to obliteration, shredding with a sonic assault that often feels like an alien invasion, scattering and rearranging limbs, spinning so far outside the axis that disorientation feels natural. The band stomp and spit, the songs blasting through clamorous tempos only to arrive in a place of sonic waste, digging the pits ever deeper. - DG
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
When we first encountered the mystique of Squid Ink Sky back in February, we had mentioned that Goo’s “slow dripped brand of psychedelic folk and wide open expanses is void of the hustle and bustle of city life, the songs taking their time to draw upon moonlight ambiance amid whispered croons, gentle acoustics, sweeping melodies, and subtle twang.” It’s the immediate feeling you get upon digging into the New York City band’s second album, but it’s not so much void of the city’s grind as it is adrift from its surroundings, lost in its own thought. For every feeling of transportive escapism to environments vast and arid, rooted in both realism and fantasy, there’s a sense that Beck Zegans is pushing forward one day at a time, waking up each morning to see what life has to offer, each strange day anew. It’s a Western tale removed from the West, reflections carried from cramped apartments and crowded streets. Squid Ink Sky feels like a voyage through daydreams and personal reflections, love remembered in dim light that refuses to be forgotten, balanced with the resolve to continue forward. Written in isolation during the pandemic lock-downs, the album envisions real life in slow motion, entwined with realms outside our reality, mind in tact but everything else temporarily suspended in surreality. - DG
Sad Cactus Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Brooklyn duo Gorgeous released Sapsucker, their second album, via Sad Cactus Records (Powerwasher, Mothpuppy, EIEIEIO), expanding upon the jerky compositions of their debut and their minimalist complexities. Dana Lipperman (guitar/vocals) and Judd Anderman (drums) have played countless shows in the years since they shared Egg and it shows throughout their latest, with carefully crafted dynamic peaks and dips that feel fine tuned from live performances. It’s a record of combustible art punk, skittering headfirst into traffic one moment and sweet and syrupy the next, the band play jagged art-punk song without boundaries. Gorgeous tangle themselves into impossibly knots, darting between rhythms while layering melodies on top in unique time, treating the progressions like silly putty as they stretch and warp without losing their sense of weirdo pop sheen. The result is a dizzying attack and surrealist disorientation that comes juxtaposed from occasional calm. Sometimes the only way to deal with stress is dive deeper into the anxiety amid unglued abandon. - DG
BLIGHT. Records
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Philadelphia’s Greg Electric crackles with a unique energy, one that’s hard to define but easy to become enamored with. The band, led by Rachel Gordon (Nine of Swords), play a radiant blend of post-hardcore, tangled math rock, dense noise rock, and their defining brand of slacker pop, finding the kind of sweet spot that makes them one of those all-too-rare DIY gems. The quartet - Gordon (vocals), Sophie Mcgilloway (guitar), Kian Sorouri (bass), and Dan Wolfe (drums) play music both intriguing in its anxious compositions and the dynamic aspects of the band’s free form abrasions. The announcement of It’s Been… came as both good news and a bit of bad news. We get a new Greg Electric record, but it’s their final release. They leave us with a sub-twenty minute burst of sweet and corrosive music, impassioned by the futility of it all. If everything “is a stupid waste of time,” at least we have a great soundtrack for it. - DG
Mello Music Group
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It’s hard to imagine hip-hop’s avant-garde without Kool Keith, a pioneer of outsider rap, stream-of-conscious bars, and thematic alter-egos. Since the early days with Ultramagnetic MC’s back in the 80’s, Keith has always done things his own way, keeping it brash yet imaginative, a force that’s as goofy as it is hard, with no line separating the two. His latest album, Black Elvis 2, is the sequel to the classic Black Elvis/Lost In Space record released way back in 1999. With sci-fi elements at the forefront, our inter-planetary traveler is rhyming his way between the cosmos, still interested in sex, glamour, and letting lesser rappers know they ain’t shit. Primarily produced by Kool Keith himself (with additional production from Marc Live, L’Orange, and J Stylez), it feels like a spiritual successor to the original, not just in name but in sound. The framework is robotic, like a freaky trip into deep space led by the most colorful of narrators. Nearly forty years after his debut, Kool Keith remains in a league of his own. - DG
Richmond’s McKinley Dixon operates on a different level than most. His brand of hip-hop is based on soul searching reflection as much as it is fantastical escape. There’s a very deliberate realness to his words and structures but there’s also that feeling of moving beyond the trials and tribulations, of rising up to new heights. Through jazzy rap tunes and countless homages to writer Toni Morrison, Dixon carves his own lane among live instrumentation and a pen game that’s as slick as it is poignant. He really doesn’t miss on Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?, a record that often feels as though Dixon is in search for his place in the world. His music is incredibly focused and developed with impeccable grace, each song a different side of his conquest, the pitfalls and distances traversed to the love found in artistic freedom and the strive to match sweeping orchestral arrangements with equally profound lyricism. As Dixon deals with personal loss, the trials that come with pure talent, and life’s biggest questions, his flow shifts, taking shape around lyrics that are always honest, the narrative a glimpse into his upbringing and the way he’s learned from the all sides of the world around him. - DG
Bar/None Records
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Pardoner have hit their stride. The SF four-piece is known for guitar-driven tunes that straddle the line between the pop-rock anthem and the sludgy punk screed. Peace Loving People, their fourth LP, fully captures their singular sound built around the infectious interplay of the guitars and vocals of the two main songwriters Max Freedland and Trey Flanigan. If third albums are where a band “matures,” then it’s the fourth record is where the band settles in: Pardoner has nothing to prove to anyone; it sounds like they’re making music for themselves and their buddies, and we’re lucky to be a part of it. This is a rock album for guitar fans. Between tracks and within songs, you are confronted with an amalgamation of the best elements from rock’s finest decades: chimey 60s tunes about drugs and love, 70s classic rock riffs, 80s hardcore breakdowns, 90s fuzzy slacker rock solos (“Are You Free Tonight” somehow combines all of these in just over two minutes!). - Matt Watton
Domino Recording Co.
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Protomartyr have always seemed destined to navigate through dark times and the hopeless recesses of their minds, it’s a natural part of their oeuvre. This time around though, there’s an unlikely brightness, an open ended feeling of hope fighting to shimmer that leads them to Formal Growth In The Desert. The band’s sixth full length album is drawn from life’s very real low points, both personal and general, namely the death of Joe Casey’s mother and the worldwide misfortune of the pandemic. In what could have been a collection of songs buried in doom and gloom, Protomartyr return with a new resolve, the idea that grief can lead to new beginnings, celebrating those lost by understanding their hopes for your happiness. The tilt toward positivity remains subtle though, this is still the world through the lens of Protomartyr and these aren’t sunny times. It’s enough to believe that things can get better, to believe love abounds, to give a new ground to Casey’s lyrics, he doesn’t have to seize them with full on urgency. That change is reflected beyond the lyrics as well, as Casey wasn’t the only one fighting to continue. Greg Ahee (guitar), considered “the architect” of the band’s sound has spoken in interviews about a hesitatation to keep the band afloat “post” pandemic. Eventually he began to work on music for short films, finding inspiration in film scores, most notably the music of Ennio Morricone and the composer’s contributions to Spaghetti Westerns. Through these shared experiences and sentiments, Protomartyr pushed forward with a new focus on expanding their post-punk music in a cinematic way, providing an arc for Formal Growth In The Desert. While captured with a widescreen array of instrumentation, Ahee, Scott Davidson (bass), and Alex Leonard (drums), add emphasis via synths and lap steel. It’s another layer of texture, a layer of additional nuance to support the varying moods, an adventure of sonic expanse for a band that’s always been impeccably dialed in. - DG
Exploding In Sound Records
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St. Louis DIY heroes Shady Bug have returned with What’s The Use?, a new EP that captures growth through change. Their first new release in four years, the band have gone through adjustments in their line-up but they’ve locked in on what’s important, with Hannah Rainey taking a leadership role in the shape of their sound, developing songs with a new explorative sense of freedom. Recorded together with Alex Molini (Pile, Stove, Philary) at his former Nashville studio, Shady Bug are still juxtaposing sweet pop charms and syrupy hooks with blistering noise, lulling you into their sugary innocence before blowing it all away. The difference is they are doing it with an added confidence, following instincts that swerve between walls of shoegaze guitars and laconic rhythms, augmented with a focus on Rainey’s reflective lyrics. It’s a record about shedding “lizard skin” and coming out anew, where anything is possible when you trust in yourself and your support systems of friends and family. What’s The Use? explores pop music at it’s most bent, pulling away from simple melodies in favor of getting gloriously weird, and it all comes together like superglue. - DG
Disposable America
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The past seven years have been good for Boston’s Squitch. Growing ever more confident with each successive release, they have continuously raised the bar, a great band getting ever better. Without giving consideration to the future or lack-there-of, it’s safe to say that Squitch have made their best record to date with Tumbledown Mountain, a collection of songs both personal and inherently complex. It’s an album that deals with the finality of things but as the band know, “it’s not the end.” Things change. Life changes. Being in a band in your twenties isn’t always built to last. People relocate, priorities shift, but recorded music is forever, capturing a place and time, despite whatever comes next. Sometime shortly after the release of Learn To Be Alone, Squitch found their long-term trio line-up paired down to the duo of Emery Spooner (guitar, vocals) and Denzil Leach (drums), but before long the band had expanded their ranks to include both Grace Ward (guitar) and Kit Malmberg (bass). From what once posed as a sizable loss to the project became a deeply fleshed out sound, their textures given a new sense of nuance and structural heft. Everything on Tumbledown Mountain feels perfectly in its place, sentiment matched with both tangled fuzz, gorgeous harmonies, and sincere twang. Recorded together with Bradford Krieger at Big Nice, it’s an album that feels both sprightly in spirit but dense in construction. These songs come pouring out, blanketing hurt in all it shapes with a steadfast resolve, occasionally dejected but persevering the twists and turns. - DG
Feel It / Sub Pop Records
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When an album finds the kind of instant acclaim and widespread love that Sweeping Promises’ Hunger For A Way Out did, there’s a lot of expectations for the follow up. Add to that the fact that they’ve brought together Feel It Records and Sub Pop for the release of Good Living Is Coming For You and the anticipation begins to boil at a rapid rate. The great news is that the duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug are fully up for the task, their sophomore offering an expansion of the magic of their debut. While they moved from their Boston origins to a home base in Kansas, the band’s very specific recording touches remain at the forefront. They’re using more than one mic this go round, but there’s still wide open space and natural reverb setting the tone, allowing the band’s hypnotic art-punk songs endless atmosphere and lo-fi din. The songs themselves are energetic, acidic, and acerbic, jerking around with a dampened groove like The B-52s without the existence of sunlight. They bounce and rattle with Lira’s hypnotic vocals calling out, finding the inherent boogie in the minimalism and offering melodies within shadowy repetition. - DG
There’s a lot to love about Adelaide’s Wireheads, a band that can dart between post-punk with a roaring ferocity and a jangly minimalism, sauntering from pop splendor to punk sheen in a blink. Led by the charismatic Dom Trimboli, the lyrics are always laser focused, capturing the mundane and the extraordinary together, intertwining the absurd with the drastically immediate. The sextet manage to balance brains and muscle, with subtly tangled structures pairing together with perfectly imperfect harmonies, heaps of well oiled guitar fuzz, and an innate sense for when to unwind and when to recoil. Wireheads separate themselves from the pack with that dynamic notion, their songs evolve, the elastic nature of it continuously pushing toward the snapping point. They’ve reshaped a common sound and thrive when shifting the direction. As Trimboli found himself sitting on a batch of songs that could only be Wireheads, the members found themselves pulled back in, coming together to create their exceptional new record, Potentially Venus. The band sound unnervingly alive, the time away resulting in a deeper bond. - DG
FURTHER LISTENING:
BIG BLOOD “First Aid Kit“ | BIG CLOWN “Beatdown” | BONG WISH “Hazy Road” | BORIS & UNIFORM “Bright New Disease“ | BUSTED HEAD RACKET “Junk Food” | CS CLEANERS “Drolomon” | IMPLODERS “Imploders” | KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD “PetroDragonic Apocalypse“ | LA SÉCURITÉ “Stay Safe!“ | MATT ROBIDOUX “Music For Aluminum Corn” | MOTORBIKE “Motorbike” | QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE “In Times New Roman…” | SOCIETY “Social Flies” | THE STOOLS “R U Saved?” | SQUID “O Monolith” | SWORD II “Spirit World Tour” | TEKE::TEKE “Hagata” | THE TOADS “In The Wilderness” | WOMBO “Slab EP”