Tomb Mold have pushed boundaries since their formation. With The Enduring Spirit, they’ve decimated form in favor of exploration, from caustic prog to jazzy psych expanses, and dare we say they’ve done it without alienating metal purists. Their latest album favors an open mind, a collision of primal force and deranged technicality.
The constant tinkering of their songs gives the impression of a restless band always reaching for something better than the last time, and in reworking an older batch of songs on The Leaves of Autumn Symmetry, they concede that the best that you’re capable of at any given moment is a shifting target.
On their new EP, I’m So Lucky, blood-curdling screams over abrasive textures stir up dissonance and paranoia. As uneasy as it is to listen to, they make it worth every second through rich layers and dazzling samples. As the “Philly shoegaze” landscape and subculture begin to crystallize, Spirit of the Beehive continues to hold their own.
Drolomon is CS Cleaners’ debut EP, concocting a hypnotic combination of classic punk, a la Black Flag, the art rock looseness of Tropical Fuck Storm, and the optimism of Sports Team. After their debut single “Income Pain,” a gritted teeth love letter to hardcore, the group planted their feet in warehouse floors sticky with beer and sweat.
Be Your Own Pet has reunited and released their third record, Mommy. Teasing another unapologetically piercing garage rock experience, the album opens with searing guitar solos and thunderous drum patterns. However, it’s in the second half of the album that the band’s experimentation takes center stage.
PALS is a great example of what a debut record should do. It provides an introduction to a band that is clearly hungry to break out and show what they can do, while still being incredibly well produced, funny, catchy, and succinctly and tightly played. The musicianship and creativity here holds a lot of promise.
When the band go from making music to trying to make a grander statement -- as the two halves fully represent -- everything clicks into place. The record as this living entity shifts from mostly good to having depth and personality. The layers in that second half find them building on their influences with courageous abandon.
Sadie Dupuis and her crew are BIG on sonics; they played about fifty different guitars, through over a hundred effects pedals and thirty amps at Rancho de la Luna and Sonic Ranch for Rabbit Rabbit. The band has always had a guitar focus, and the riffs have continuously been hot, but engineer Sarah Tudzin, brought added heat.
GBMystical was releasing bedroom pop, garage rock, folk rock, and indie throwbacks. Genre, it seems, is as fluid as water, for Munawet. However, by no means would one expect him to set his sights on tried and true sludgy, thrashy, groovy metal for his next project. Yet, that is exactly what The Mantis is - crunchy, pummeling and speeding.
Given that it has taken a number of years for this new album to appear, one could read I Was a Thing of Beauty as a make-or-break moment for the band. Clearly, they possess enough patience to wait for songs to come together. Like their esteemed influences, they seem content for the time being to revise their sound as it suits them.
Nate Dionne turns musical conventions into personal diary entries, referencing characters and moments only intimately known by the narrator. The past is oppressed with naivety. A bleak economic landscape looms over the narrative, of personal worth now being dictated by futile lottery tickets and faceless hierarchy, rather than family.
London indie outfit Girl Ray are back — and from the sound of it, they’re having more fun than ever before. The group recently released their highly-anticipated third full-length offering Prestige, a groovy, disco-pop concept album that serves as a love letter to ballroom culture. The sparkling twelve-track project is a joyous outing from top to bottom.
The album is deeply connected with the work of Toni Morrison, with the first track centering around a passage from the author. This literary center is the primary force that makes this album so rich and rewarding, allowing Dixon to pull his personal experience through Morrison’s canon directly into his songwriting.
