Long Lost Solace Find falls within the domain of exceptionality. By being the work of a singer-songwriter connected to the world of folk, its incredibly detached from the very schemes of genre. The first work of courage is in telling, in a folk key, not the stereotype of the forest or inner peace, but rather the urban fabric of a city.
“I’ve Got A Vision,” the record’s second single was released last week for everyone’s favorite new holiday, Bandcamp Friday, and we’re excited to share the song’s accompanying video. Directed and edited by Chelsea Wright, the clip takes a serene trip though the open spaces and friendly moments Missouri has to offer.
This split EP is a brief, yet precise combination of two complementary worlds, despite being continents and languages apart. You must have heard that music is a “universal language” and you’re probably aware that long distance collabs between bands are not that rare in this time. Esmeralda fuses both notions and the result sounds awesome.
Fad may remind you of a whole host of post-punk/indie rock bands, but it won’t be easy to pinpoint exactly who and when. It’s how Silverbacks take these influences, cut them to pieces, and put them back together again that makes Fad such an impressive collage and an especially exciting debut record.
The music of Powerwasher is snarling, frantic, and uncontainable. Hailing from Baltimore and Atlanta, the band’s debut album The Power of Positive Washing is anxiety-inducing in the best way possible. The songs ooze style and melody, and the band’s use of odd time signatures and neck-jerking transitions keeps you on your toes.
There’s a repeated line in W.B. Yeats’ poem ‘Easter 1916’: A terrible beauty is born. This devastating line could describe the feeling of listening to Joy Division’s Closer for the first time. It’s a colossal work of art; a post-punk pillar; an ingenious sonic landscape; a blinding existential vision of songwriting.
Austin, TX’s Spirit Ghost have a new EP along the way, but before the band get there they’re sharing some new singles, the first of which being “Matt Demon.” Comprised of Alex Whitelaw, Tim Zoidis, and Billy Hickey, they’re following up 2018’s Skeleton Surf Rider with a batch of recordings produced by Holiday Music’s Mike Hlady.
Just Look At That Sky, the sophomore full-length from Chicago’s Ganser, is the sound of summer. Maybe not in the traditional sense of friendly fun in the sun, but as it builds on their penchant for dark, pulsing atmospherics and razor-sharp attitude, it captures the feel of a summer under lockdown and a post-punk band at their most dialed-in.
New York’s Blue Yonder only formed in the early months of 2020, but yet somehow they’ve been productive enough to write and record Ladies of the Night, their debut record. Out 9/25 via Spirit Lust, the band sound awfully promising based on their first single, the swooning and dreamy Americana tinged “Lover of Mine.”
Speckled with slacker anthems and folk charmers, Dark Tones’ Pulling Nails Out of Walls catalogues the loneliness, the pointlessness, and the weight of being an island. The record aims to make sense of one’s own solitude, or at least to sharpie “I WAS HERE” on the inside of a bathroom stall, just to prove one’s own existence.
Nova Scotia rockers Kestrels want to remind you of another era and their latest album Dream Or Don’t Dream is their love letter to ‘90s rock, mixing the hushed aesthetics of shoegaze with the fuzz and energy of power-pop. In its meshing of big-name rock backing talent and its commitment, Kestrels will find an interested audience.
Future Punx’s 2020 took everything loved about their contemporaries and amped it up a notch. It is one of those records that, especially in our current situation, makes you want to walk out the front door and go see any live band and dance. It is something special. Our interview with the band’s Jake Pepper via e-mail confirms this theory.
