Variety between and within all the songs gets at the main essence of Casting Spells at Turtlehead. The special quality of this release is how diverse the different parts are. The constantly shifting and jumping nature of the album creates this strange and enthralling experience that conjures up disjointed and hazy but familiar scenes.
The Los Angeles based quartet are making death metal records the way they love them, raw, mountainous, and classic. Fragments of the Ageless, the band’s fifth album is a colossal homage to riffs… big fucking nasty riffs, riffs that shred, riffs with hooks, brilliant razor sharp riffs, riffs that decimate everything else to rubble.
To play something that people often define as “straightforward” pop pock of any kind is actually not that straightforward at all. If you add certain not so straightforward elements in there, no matter how small, you have to throw in a wrench at points to make it work. That is exactly what Sheer Mag do on their third album, Playing Favorites.
5am is the latest EP from Caution's Nora Button under the guise of Despondent, delivering another heavy blow in her clouded and confessional songwriting. More stripped down, these recordings consist of herself and infrequent drums and percussion by Jaxon Vesely, heightening the intimacy of Button's tales of disconnect and longing.
Harm’s Way picks up where they left off and has improved their formula tremendously. In just 27 quick minutes, they create earworm after earworm, the kind of songs you can listen to over and over with a big smile on your face. The record is the perfect accompaniment for a bright spring day when the sun is shining and all is right in the world.
On each of their EP’s, Brazil’s Lasso have operated with the kind of focus that shows a mastery over the genre, but more than that, a fondness for the tools they’ve chosen to express their discontent. Ordem Imaginada tightens up the d-beat indebted hardcore that they’ve been refining over their last couple of releases, avoiding all flash..
The Foreign Department is Rhys Edwards’ (of Ulrika Spacek) follow up to 2022’s impressive Flickering I, released under the name Astrel K. Under this moniker, Edwards’ pop sensibility is more transparently laid bare. There’s equal parts hooks, sweet melancholy, and beautiful song arrangements throughout the album.
Nottingham’s whistling whirlwind of chaos, Bloody Head, make themselves heard loud and (mostly) clear with their seventh release, Perpetual Eden. The album extends to the listener a deep dive into the contemporary human condition in a way unique to the band – through cleansing noise, harsh epiphanies, and beautifully messy lyricism.
The sophomore album of this New York art punk is a sensory amalgamation of haunting memories and chromatic films, gift wrapped in angelic gauze. With allusions to Deerhoof’s eclectic instrumentation, the groove is grafted onto Jeff Buckley’s sweeping romanticism, then filtered through ambient progressive rock.
Verity Den, like most of the current artists working in the indie rock mode have their inspirations that range from the best of shoegaze and dream-pop, spiced with a good dose of Yo La Tengo. Yet, what is not so often the case, the trio have re-modeled and re-shaped their inspirations into a defined, individual sound.
Last year's 馬 (Uma) may seem smaller-scale with its runtime just under half an hour compared to its predecessor's near-hour, but it's in this smaller scale that Betcover!! has managed to build its tightest work yet. They’re a band that feels slightly out of time, the mix of modern techniques with old school blues at once new yet classic.
Australia's own Split System have presented their latest album, Vol. 2, as a kind of musical counteragent. By first questioning if our "demands of punk are a little too high... [or] a little too exacting," not to mention talk of primal itches that need scratching, they’ve positioned themselves as a hard-hitting salve for needless wanderlust.
Marisa Dabice said I Got Heaven is about unleashing the animal inside of her, about a kind of freedom we aren't allowed. It is that feral eeriness that defines this album and what gives it a distinct sound from previous Mannequin Pussy records. The ten songs feel like crawling through mud, sprinting through tall grass, seeing your hot breath.
Vibrations Now is the new EP from Fantastic Purple Spots, the duo of Barrett Jones and Dave Junker out of Austin, Texas, four songs full of folk-ish dreamy psychedelia that lingers in the eardrums well after its done. They lean into the spacier aspects of their influences and recall the fuzzier elements of a band like Brian Jonestown Massacre.
The elusive Fugitive Bubble bursts through the Olympia, WA music scene to wreak havoc on conscientious, hard-core thrill seekers with their glorious re-issue of Delusion through Sorry State Records. Blazing through ten tracks in less than twenty minutes, Delusion flashes teeth to freedom, and casts off the cuffs of bondage.
