It's Sorted is the fourth full length from LA’s Cheekface, another building block of their unique approach to sing-speak vocals and melodies that refuse to leave your head. Greg Katz and Amanda Tannen have mastered writing ear-worms, continuing to charm and surprise audiences with songs that poke and prod at the world around them.
There have been more than enough high highs and low lows to go around since Rick Rude’s last album, and yet, Laverne feels like a celebration. It’s a record that revels in the glow of family and friends, remembering the best of times, the moments of pure joy, but it’s also mindful that we all need support to maintain stable footing.
Brought out by the gentle whims of Blaine Teppema, a librarian by day, the music of Sleeper’s Bell is as simple as writing a diary entry and as bold as reading it out loud from a stage. With Umarell recently getting reissued by Angel Tapes, Sleeper’s Bell are bringing out their delicate beauty from the quietest parts of Teppema’s vivid memories.
Hot Air Balloon continues Pile’s mastery of intricate post-hardcore, animating a skeleton of sludge with the weeping flesh of psychedelic folk. Off the heels of their latest album All Fiction, the EP is composed of songs left off the final cut. Far from scraps, each song on Hot Air Balloon is striking enough to stand alone.
Colin Newman toyed with sparsity and repetition well into the ‘80s, upon Wire’s reunion with mechanical electro-industrial pop. Given Newman’s ever-changing creative mind, Bastard was a naturally unforeseen left turn. Bastard was a clinical and primitive, yet charming exercise of playing with trip-hop, downtempo, and minimalist techno.
Power-driven and reckless at its core, Upchuck’s newest album Bite The Hand That Feeds demands listener attention. The Atlanta based post-punk group bring listeners through a fluid and twisted but expressive journey. With production from Ty Segall, distortion and garage-rock attentively weave their way into Upchuck’s unique sound.
Great Grandpa made a splash with the phenomenal Four of Arrows in 2019. Since then, they’ve been working on a wide assortment of personal projects. Among them is Freak Accident, the latest release from Al Menne, the bands’ lead singer - a record that finds him hitting his most intimate, personal, and soft spoken songwriting moments yet.
Toronto’s PACKS return with Melt the Honey, their third full length and their second within a span of a year, continuing to cover new ground as they go. Fronted by Madeline Link, their sound plays from a controlled burn of garage rock, anti-folk and the barebones of pop-eccentricism, redefining the mundane with gasps of fixation and sincerity.
Evoking Marvin Gaye, Ngonda’s falsetto and beautiful orchestration is a modern interpretation of the classic soul music many of us grew up on. It’s hard not to immediately feel a sense of nostalgia for Motown oldies and soul when listening to the tight instrumentation and themes of unrequited love, heartbreak, and becoming a better person.
Safe To Run captured Esther Rose’s potential, both as a songwriter and performer. Maybe it was just a natural progression, but she seems to have reached her full musical maturity. It’s expressed in the fact that when she writes her songs she’s able to envision them in a number of versions, with almost each one being the right one.
After upgrading from Version 1 to Version 2, the band started producing luscious, gossamer shoegaze tracks that draw on digital soundscapes. Along with a drum and bass track at the end of each, this is what made up their first two demos. Now with their latest, infinity signature, the band continue this sound, further developing a new world.
Olympia’s Physique have returned with Overcome By Pain, a blistering six track EP on Seattle’s Iron Lung Records, giving a form to the noise of the body – the body reacting to the deep silence keeping this rotten imperialist foundation in place. Fresh off February’s Again, Physique continue their d-beat bombardment.
As echoed keys welcome melting synths, crushing drum loops knotted around a lustful, intimate voice awaken. That is how a.s.o. opens – the collaborative effort of eclectic house producer Lewie Day (Tornado Wallace) and singer Alia Seror-O’Neill (Alias Error) – and it is the modern reinvigoration of sleek ‘90s downtempo.
New York duo Frog returns with a rowdy cast of characters on a beaming LP, and a new lineup in Daniel Bateman’s brother, Steve. On the introductory track of GROG, a cheery voice explains that grog is the drink of choice for sailors in the 18th century, and the album certainly does have a flushed, rosy feeling to it.
