There’s no denying the cult status Park has grown over the past few years. A status so remarkable, it captured the attention of acclaimed independent label Get Better Records, who chose to release Pictoria Vark’s debut LP The Parts I Dread. On it, she does nothing but deliver one of the best indie rock debuts of the year.
It is everything you could want a Viagra Boys album to sound like. The thing about Cave World is that it probably won’t convince anyone to change their beliefs, but it’s not trying to. What it does do is point out how absurd some of these things are. It does this perfectly and on top of that it lets the listener have a great time while it does this.
For Frances Chang, psychedelia can be found in the crosshairs of art rock, freak folk, bedroom punk, and more in a soupy mess of modified consciousness. On her first full-length under her own name, support your local nihilist, all those influences coagulate into an unapologetically honest and intense expression of her irreplicable vantage point.
Anarcho-punk outfit Bad Breeding are back with their fourth full-length release, Human Capital, through One Little Independent Records and Iron Lung Records. The album is chalked with aggressive layers of sound wrapped up in lyrics that address societal problems which have been ushered in through years of suffering under capitalism.
Fime’s Sweeter Memory is a rock album in the way rock albums rarely get made anymore, one that revels in its influences without succumbing to them. The album subsumes the band’s influences – power pop, country, psychedelia, surf rock, emo, and punk – and then produces good songs which sound uniquely themselves.
Originally released in 2018, the record was apparently slept on until Double Double Whammy re-released it with new studio recordings by the band, but also included the demos that comprised the first record. Songwriter and bandleader Peter Gill originally recorded all the instruments on it, but the re-release features full band arrangements.
The Virginia veteran has pushed his coke laced raps and menacing flows through decades, staying solid through a quickly changing commercial rap landscape. Four years after the release of the Daytona he returns with his excellent fourth record It’s Almost Dry, a celebration of form and technique as consistent in tone as it is in quality.
Obsessions with bending the mainstream into 90s culture and reaching Cobain-levels of fame have dominated Momma’s new direction, with not only the overarching album message, but also with their music videos. Momma seems to be wearing that kind of influence and curiosity on their sleeves, in terms of championing the 1990s.
Black Midi continually evolve to the theatricality of the spectacle. They will stop at nothing to conjure and bring us for the spectacle. At long last, Hellfire is their studio album level spectacle; available for home surround sound systems, car CD players, tape decks, or the transient online comatose system of the internet.
Primitive Man’s latest release, the EP Insurmountable, builds on their brutal foundation over four tracks spread out over forty minutes. At no point does the EP prove to be an easy listen, but inflections of groove and harmony offer a little bait-and-switch that leads listeners right back into the pit of chaos that the band curates so well.
Kieres Agua is straightforward enough to speak volumes about its intent. These songs feel like individual statements, a series of "installations" that you can spin through while grappling with how the record at-large will land within your life. Not every path is as interesting, but it helps you explore your biases and favorites in a way that all great art should.
On Soul Chateau, Dimples’ often defines the experience of looking at natural phenomenons. The songs dip listeners into a blue pool of vibration, guitar twangs and a creeping beat. Where “the night is young and the road bends,” Dimples’ psychedelic obscure-rock compositions give dusty and warbling landscapes.
Love is Yours’ is a much less angular sound than we have come to expect from Flasher. Priding themselves on collaborative songwriting, losing a member was always going to affect the musical direction but what’s resulted from that tectonic shift is some infectiously catchy music with signature vocal unison and harmonies.
Flickering i is a strange and addicting album. Listening feels like watching as someone makes a thing piecemeal in front of you. Listening is like the feeling of being tailed by your own ghost. These metaphors for Flickering i may sound esoteric, but they’re reasonable descriptions after a few listens.
