Avery Friedman’s debut LP New Thing wants to scratch under the surface, to look at and feel the sensations of the unknown. The album is feeling its way forward, presenting some of its findings along the way, and showing them with sound that is curious about life, discovery, and taking that leap into what is unseen.
Whelpwisher’s Same Mistakes sees no need to bury technical skill beneath complexity. Ben Grigg is a songwriter who can seemingly churn out effervescent rock songs in his sleep. Whelpwisher is like the Chicago fuzz-pop Santa leaving songs at your front door. Same Mistakes is just the latest gift to arrive.
Tunic’s A Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung is a meatgrinder of syncopated distortion, clarity of grief, unfiltered lyrics, raw textured instruments, and hard hitting repetition. It’s no wonder this album of disparate sensations provides a release, a mode of muted catharsis as the sound they produce scratches at the air, grasping for it.
All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry), is the sound of frustration and apathy. Not only does the title adroitly communicate the cyclical demise of unavoidable frustration of spiral thought, but the songs themselves—noisy, harsh, unrelenting in their acrimony pack each song with cool detachment.
Over the past 10 years, Amyl and The Sniffers have pushed the aesthetics, ethos, and energy of contemporary punk music. Their previous album, Comfort To Me, saw huge success on all fronts in 2021. On Cartoon Darkness, we hear the band ruminating on that success, what has come with it, and what’s coming next.
The Unfit are not here to play games. The PNW quartet have a knack for punching the listener in the face with blaring guitars, pounding kick drums, and vocalist Jake Knuth’s full, spitting ferocity. Disconnected is their first full-length release, a collection of early EPs spanning from 2020 to present.
The point is that Universe Room has something for any GBV fan. It shows that the band is exactly where they want to be: not repeating themselves but never losing touch with what makes them Guided by Voices. This is a band that does its own thing on its own terms, never caring what anyone else is doing, and Universe Room is the perfect showcase of that.
