The songs on HOUSE OF CONFUSION benefit from Benton’s workmanlike approach. Each tune sounds so effortlessly poignant that one assumes the album was written in a single afternoon, sitting on a riverbank in golden sunshine, guitar in hand. But any good craftsperson knows, it takes a ton of effort to appear effortless.
Fifteen years after their seminal album release and subsequent break-up, Failure has recorded one of their strongest efforts yet. Wild Type Droid is shorter (clocking in at 40 minutes over ten tracks), more direct (gone are the ambient segues from previous albums), and heavier (lots of baritone guitar and Fender Bass VI).
Sloppy Jane has been evolving for years and is the brainchild of singer/composer Haley Dahl, who created the group when she was fifteen. This latest release along with the previous album seem like companion pieces, but where Willow took an Iggy Pop influenced proto-punk style, Madison is more grandiose.
Leaving None But Small Birds is representative of the past-present-future; a jewel in the circular crown of time. Big|Brave & The Body converge on their power expression, hunting the monumental grounds, rendezvousing at a location both comfortably familiar and wildly obscure: ancestral foundations known deep in one’s bones.
Throughout the album you get a reflective, melancholy feeling, ranging from warmth to sadness within moments. “Pouring Rain’ just might be the giveaway here, but that feeling permeates the album, making that song and tracks like “Never Play It Cool” or “There Must Be Some Problem Here” things of pure beauty.
The musician’s sixth solo album is deeply personal and has only further resonated since initial binge. The record is drawn from just below the tip of the iceberg, Nina Ryser’s unabated creativity breaching the surface with childlike curiosity and expression, a sign of an artist truly in touch with their craft.
Battle Ave are back and so is their obvious love for the music of the nineties, the good stuff that came up during that decade, that is. That good stuff usually came from independent alternative bands - intricate guitar arrangements, subtle arrangements and as much melody coming through the vocals as possible.
Solely, is the sophomore album from Natalie Jane Hill and its possessed of rolling folky guitar and an abundance of the most beautiful melodies and vocals one could imagine. Hill creates beauty of all different types on these ten tracks, each composition delivering something different in intensity and technique.
It’s easy to tell when one group’s effort ends and the other begins as both artists have distinct styles. Bad History Month has lyric laden tracks versus the more drawn out vocalizations of Nyxy Nyx. Yet a strong, cohesive project is delivered on this split album. This is likely due to mutual admiration both artists have for each another.
Jason Albertini of Helvetia used the early-pandemic energy of loneliness and dread to habitually create one song a day, when he wasn’t homeschooling his daughter. Albertini’s resulting collection of distorted experimental rock songs, Sudden Hex, quietly came out through a Joyful Noise project, the Gray Area Cassette Series.
On a bed of rollicking indie rock that straddles post-punk precision with bright, slacker-forward riffs, the quartet takes rhetorical aim and shoots. The bullets here are long, vivid vocal lines laid on beds of lush harmonies: clever burns, snapshots of outrage and absurdity, quips, and catalogues of social, political, economic contradictions.
After remastering, expanding, and re-releasing their back catalog, they proffer the fourth entry in the Switched On series, a sprawling omnium-gatherum of rarities recorded between 1999 and 2008. Electrically Possessed is full of agreeable eccentricity: buoyant beats and blubbering synthesizers; enchanting vocal utterances and bass lines that fit together like Sudoku puzzles.
Whereas Lindsey Jordan’s guitar playing might have taken center stage in the past, and rightfully so, the new release sees her singing voice commanding more attention. Over subtle guitars, Jordan’s voice stands at the forefront of closer “Mia,” and matches the grandiosity of a string section that nearly envelopes the guitar.
On her latest album I Want The Door To Open, Lillie West, the songwriter behind Lala Lala, tackles the challenging task of articulating what it feels like to lose a sense of one’s real self, particularly familiar to the many of us who spend time creating a variety of alternate selves on the internet.
