The Montreal quartet's latest record picks up where Stripped left off, mining the pop side of post-punk with angular stabs at jangly guitars and rhythms that often move in against one another. There's an unflinching calm to the band's spastic charm as Dories manipulate complex shifts and progressions into something casual and inviting
“VHS” finds Mumblr continuing to make the pulsating, catchy rock that defined 2014’s Full of Snakes, and that has become a highly specific sonic identity for the band. Singer Nick Morrison’s voice has the incredible quality of driving Mumblr songs to their outermost limits, functioning as a fifth instrument floating above the mix, and in “VHS” this is on full display.
Vishnu Basement’s latest release is only three tracks long but Bulb is most definitely a full length due to album opener “The Mythic Rot” and it’s nearly 20 minute running time. Yep, strap yourselves in, this is one of those releases. Blending elements of free jazz, math pop, and prog rock, the expanded running time of the track is anything but wasted.
The Numerators have gone further down the rabbit hole with Strange, their official full length debut and the album closer is as good an example of that as any. Sure the Brooklyn-via-Austin trio are still noisy, ragged, and surfy, but the psychedelic influence has taken a hold and things have spiraled out into new dimensions for the band.
Black Norse and Big Mess are like seeing a comet (heading toward Earth for total cosmic destruction). You never know when you might get a glimpse, but when it happens... brace yourself. After a couple years of relative silence from the New Hampshire and Lowell, MA bands (respectively), they have returned together on a split cassette due out May 20th via Salty Speakers.
On their debut full-length, Washington, D.C. post-punk trio Puff Pieces brandishes wit and whimsy to inspect cultural phenomena like gentrification, wealth accumulation, and Sisyphean living. On “Money,” a throbbing two-minute nugget, Mike Andre’s lilting sing-song vocals highlight the parallels between autopilot living, financial needs, and boredom.
Big Fred is the project of Rochester resident Conor McCann. He handles guitar, bass and vocal duties on Pals with Dylan Vaisey on the drums. Big Fred’s debut release is five quick songs; the longest one clocks in just a bit over two minutes, but McCann manages to cram a lot of melancholy and humor into these brisk tunes.
The beginning of “Sap” combines a jangly guitar line with a constantly driving drum line and relentlessly building anthemic vocal tone, only to crash back down to the opening progression and build again. The cyclical nature of “Sap” keeps it well within a pop sphere and functions to build the song’s deep playability – indeed “Sap” performs best on loop accompanied by a beer or four.
If you’ve been following underground indie rock in Philadelphia lately, you’ll get a good sense of the psych-bedroom pop dished out on Cherry’s Gloom. The plaintive vocal delivery evokes fellow City of Brotherly Love brethren Gunk and Sun Organ (also ex-Kite Party). The melodies are simple but affecting; the song arrangements wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mikal Cronin record.
"Love Me Denver," the second single from the upcoming wonderfully titled album Burritos by BBDDM. A song for the morning after that showcases what they do so well. Layers upon layers that create an ethereal feeling. The vocals buried so deep in the mix that the words tend to be lost, but the sound and feeling of them are not, each member harmonizing together to create their signature sound.
Twisted post-punk and dark as hell psych rock are par for the course, strung out in every direction as the guitars work together to create a thick layered madness. At the core of their charm lies duel vocalists Sam Robinson and Meryl Schultz, often singing simultaneously, harmonizing at times and delightfully working against each at others. Beautiful, discordant, well structured yet deceptively loose, their music pushes as it pulls, transfixed in it's sinister witchy grooves.
Right on the heels of the band’s debut EP back in spring of 2015, Powers of Ten, Telepathic are self-releasing the 8-song Time Release on a run of 250 cassettes. It’s a capitalization on the thesis from Powers of Ten to keep the songs fixed and trimmed. No notes are wasted on these Hüsker Dü inspired rave-ups.
An impressive debut to say the least, Townie Garbage is the sound of a band at their beginning, mining their influences as they develop their own sound. The trio, formed in the late summer months have created an inviting debut, it’s complex and determined, full of songs that ebb and flow from crashing tides to the most gentle of hazy breezes.
