All you can learn about Vivi Milne online is that she’s from Sacramento and that she’s released six albums so far, of which Solstice is the latest. That can be a double-edged sword if the music isn’t up to a scratch. Luckily for Milne and her listeners, her concept works, and it shrouds her persona, as well as her art, in a bit of a veiled mystery.
What is most exciting about this endeavor is what it might say about the band’s future, through the foreshadowed new directions. There are nods to industrial and ambient music on “Bleeding Out,” shades of emotive post-rock on “Kids,” straight up death metal on “Punishment Box” and even subtle hyper-pop influence on “TAH”.
The mingling of June McDoom’s distinct voices, as they blend with and overtake each other, is enjoyably discombobulating. It sets the tone for a daring and lovely debut EP that doesn’t just bounce between polarities, but actually unfixes them. This isn’t an acoustic, stripped-down-and-turtlenecked kind of debut.
There are 100 tracks on this reissue, including demos, covers, remixes, alternative mixes, live tracks, story telling, helium voices, and even Sponge Bob. Without going into the weeds of every track, the most interesting ones are the demos. These demos are obviously real and raw, but they also show us how the Yoshimi sausage was made.
"Self-Portrait In A Convex Mirror,” one the album’s many highlights, is a radiant ballad, with augmented synths really setting a stunning foundation before the rhythm arrives, snapped into place with a steady beat and syrupy groove. The video, directed by Tobias, opens like a one-man show, with the stage set for him to approach the mic.
The latest tracks show audible signs of softer edges than before, flattered by classic shoegaze structures. Love Lives in the Body is a very honest and relatable album as it portrays the spinning feelings of emotional-awareness, the struggle of self-love, and the concept of bordering on the thin line between optimism and delusion.
The music of Newcastle’s Richard Dawson encompasses a world all its own, a destination not quite past, present, or future, but some weird hodgepodge of all three, where baroque folk music and broken down prog reside with forays into electronic soundscapes, the use of open ambient space, and controlled dissonance.
Chicago’s Red Scarves take an imaginative and subversive take on clean cut guitar rock. The immensely talented four piece always seem to reach their destination, but they are intent on taking the scenic route to get there. A winding passage, a turn of phrase; the band chases down beauty taking the long way home.
One of the few silver linings of the lockdown was the formation of Rider/Horse, a pairing of Kingston, NY musicians Cory Plump (Spray Paint) and Chris Turco (Trans Am), whose chugging, electro-noise debut was one of the finest albums of 2021. The band returns with a more dense, varied and fully-formed LP, Feed ‘Em Salt.
Manchester’s Historically Fucked arrive in a state of hysteria almost immediately. It’s really quite something how fast their music crumbles to pieces. Joining a rare breed of bands that include perhaps PRE, Mi Ami, Melt-Banana, and US Maple, the band reside in a space where impulse, chaos, and lunacy meet head-on.
Mering once again achieves the magic of Titanic Rising on her fifth album And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. Addressing it as the second in a trilogy, it feels like the earthly successor to its watery predecessor. We’re no longer swimming in an ocean with our fears above sea level: we’ve risen to the shore and have to live alongside them.
Comradely Objects is arguably the most platonic release of the quartet's quintessential style they have concocted to date; everything falling in its right place doing exactly what music is supposed to. The sound on these seven cuts accomplishes a task the band has been inching towards and actively ace.
Full of Hell is back if only for a brief moment, six minutes and 44 seconds to be exact, with what was a tour-exclusive EP, Aurora Leaking from an Open Wound. For what this release lacks in length, it more than makes up for it with intensity, noise, and riffs, an excellent addition to Full of Hell’s catalog of death metal-influenced grindcore.
Jake Robertson has made all types of music throughout his relatively short career as Alien Nosejob. From punk and garage-rock to power-pop, we now get Stained Glass, a celebration of rock n’ roll music in its purest form. Punchy classic rock riffs, catchy melodies, and absolutely blistering guitar solos kick this adrenaline-filled record into an untapped level of marvelous frenzy.
With the Glasgow, Scotland collective Nightshift, it seems we can actually talk about both intellectual lyrics and music. The band only started in 2019, comprising four musicians already playing elsewhere - Eothen Stearn, Chris White, Andrew Doig, and Georgia Harris. We encounter that intellectual tag right from the start.
