Bedbug - "Bedbug" | Album Review
The tape features reworkings of hit bedbug tracks spanning six years that make the most of classic four-piece rock band instrumentation. While the halcyon bedroom pop days of multi-tracked guitars and fuzzy synths may be behind the project, there is no need to mourn; bedbug’s singular approach to diaristic songwriting suits indie rock well.
Maneka - "Dark Matters" | Album Review
Boldy James & The Alchemist - "Super Tecmo Bo" | Album Review
Widowspeak - "The Jacket" | Album Review
Pinch Points - "Process" | Album Review
Process, the latest from Pinch Points, shows the band have a caustic take on the modern world and its many ongoing societal issues. The band’s sound has become a little more developed and although there is a strain of anxiety and anger that runs through everything here, there is also an excitement that is equally pervasive.
PLOSIVS - "PLOSIVS" | Album Review
PLOSIVS is a modern day So-Cal alt-rock supergroup, helmed by the twin guitars of John Reis (Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From the Crypt, Hot Snakes) and Rob Crow (Thingy, Pinback, and many, many others). This pairing of prolific San Diego powerhouses sets expectations high, and their self-titled debut does not disappoint.
Mo Dotti - "Guided Imagery" | Album Review
Star Party - "Meadow Flower" | Album Review
The sound of Meadow Flower isn’t confined to the boundaries of genre so much as it is marked by high-energy. Drawing from elements of garage, punk, and bits of surfy riffs, Star Party compose fuzzy, hectic textures inscribed in undeniably fun hooks. Meadow Flower is imaginative and catchy as it raucous.
Boris - "W" | Album Review
For W, the companion piece to 2020’s NO, the rowdiness is dialed back towards an icy, dreamy landscape with movements that make the listener feel so weightless that one has to wonder if the record has medicinal properties. W is still just as intense as its predecessors, but the intensity manifests - and thus affects - in a transfixing way.
SASAMI - "Squeeze" | Album Review
Yautja - "The Lurch" | Album Review
Throughout The Lurch, the band repeatedly pulls the proverbial rug out from the listener. The album is a thing in constant motion, always changing. Noise, thrash, speed, bonkers time-changes, The Lurch has it all. Contortionist riffs and sprinting rhythms double back on themselves like ascending switchbacks on a mountain pass.
Katie Dey - "Forever Music" | Album Review
forever music, Dey’s fifth proper solo release, sees the Melbourne experimental pop artist taking a bold new approach. As her first self-released album, she sheds much of the vocal filtering and overlapping tracks that defined her earlier work, often feeling more intimate than the previous album’s already open-hearted art pop.
Babehoven - "Sunk" | Album Review
Sometimes it is hard to connect the title of an album or EP to the music enclosed, but that is not a problem here. In these excruciatingly hard times, Babehoven’s Maya Bon asks an equally hard question that connects all the songs here - what if we decide to exclude ourselves from everything that makes it so hard?
Bodega - "Broken Equipment" | Album Review
Bodega welcome 2022 with their third full length, Broken Equipment, carrying on their acerbic and pointed songwriting full of anti-capitalist sentiments and nervy energy that wriggles and bounces all over the place. On this record, front person Ben Hozie slightly softens the songwriting approach of previous releases.
Earl Sweatshirt - "Sick!" | Album Review
Mach-Hommy - "Balens Cho (Hot Candles)" | Album Review
Vein.fm - "This World Is Going To Ruin You" | Album Review
Last year was full of a lot of metalcore releases, with new stuff from Converge, The Armed and the final release from Every Time I Die leading the charge. Vein.fm’s This World Is Going to Ruin You shows that 2022 is looking like another promising year for the genre. The album wears its influences on its sleeves.
The Serfs - "Primal Matter" | Album Review
Primal Matter was worth the three-year wait. The Cincinnati-based post-punk band continues their minimal wave impulse and leans heavier on melodies and grooves to elevate the songs into a tremendous sonic aerospace. The drum and bass have more direction, while the production creates a polychromatic musical feast.
