We’re back with an episode from the vaults, dating back nearly two months to early May! We explore the idea of heavy music and bands taking non-traditional approaches to all things heavy with new music from Cave In, Big|Brave, Lungbutter, Urochromes, and Deliluh. We shout out many things that have already happened in retrospect, but it’s still a heaping load of heavy music fun.
“Gravity” was the last track written (and ordered) on Zeiguer’s debut, Old Ghost. It’s a fantastic song, and it shows up again on Faraway Business in an alternate form. On first listen, it sounds stripped back, with much of the production and arrangements of the original removed to make the song even more intimate than it was before.
Black Midi’s sound on Schlagenheim is sophisticated, yet they surprise their listeners with their youth. They have studied the progression of rock through a different timeline. They are the prodigious and glitched studio musicians of the late Aughts who have ran amok over the annals of their country’s pervasive post-punk history.
One of the most impressive things about Bend is how nimble the songwriting is. Listen to the transitions; the band is able to get from points A to B in clever ways that never sound fussy or overly technical. Keys shift and time signatures change, and if you aren’t keeping a close watch, you won’t even notice.
Today, we’re thrilled to premiere the band’s aptly-titled Pulse Points, Erasers’ sophomore LP, out via Pouring Dream and Fire Talk Records. Each track is engulfing and fully immersive, allowing listeners slowly slip into a dripping state of cosmic detachment through swathing synth melodies and a pulsing rhythmic backbone.
It’s been four months since Nonlocal Forecast’s Hausu Mountain debut and picking the right words to describe its brilliance has become nearly impossible. As the sidestep project of Fire-Toolz’ Angel Marcloid, Nonlocal Forecast showcases the Chicago-based producer’s remarkably deft hand in electronic novelty on Bubble Universe!
Their latest album, Find Out For Themselves, is out today via their new home at Third Uncle Records, another fitting label to release the band’s acerbic punk that proves once again, these gents are only playing dumb. Sharp and built on razor sharp rhythms, they have a unique ability to make songs that feel as anthemic as they do discordant.
Oakland’s W0RK released Paper, their latest EP, back in April, a futuristic dystopian pop record filtered through post-punk and experimental electronic music. The duo have a rich aesthetic that involves hi-tech business attire and plenty of retro-futurism, and it all comes to life on their new video for EP stand-out “Screen Eyes.”
Returning not only to their incredibly long-winded album and track titles, but also to their improvisational, doom-steeped metal, Keiji Haino & SUMAC return with Even for just the briefest moment, an album split into four tracks, capturing the collaborators' behemothic live performance from Tokyo in 2017.
The quartet, led by Ben Grigg (Geronimo!, Whelpwisher, Future Biff), formed in the late months of 2017, having released their debut single just as 2018 came to a close. The band have become somewhat of a fixture among the PRF community, contributing to their Monthly Tribute Series (specifically Guided By Voices and Kathleen Hanna), which might give you a fair indication of their sound.
Can’t Tell Me No is the fourth full length from Summer Cannibals, now a quartet hailing from Oregon and although the roaring guitars and pummeling rhythms remain, this record shows a little bit more nuance in sound. Jessica Boudreaux’s songwriting maintains a certain toughness, but there is a bit more bounce and softening of edges.
