Since the release of Spiral XP’s debut EP, the Seattle band have moved around, swapped members, and navigated the obstacles that life will throw at you. The Max Keyes (Versing) led shoegaze quintet have come out the other side with It’s Been A While, due out February 17th via Danger Collective Records (Spirit Was, Emily Yacina, Red Ribbon).
The sextet have made an essential punk record, full of charm and attitude, with songs both serious and undeniably fun, from tales of youthful hi-jinx to furious odes of female empowerment. The band blend together synth punk and hardcore in the process, resulting in a set that’s tough as nails, wonderfully askew, and impressively catchy.
Retaliation, Vermin Womb’s follow-up to 2016’s Decline turned out to be one of the heaviest releases of 2022. Fans of the band who haven’t heard this release yet will be ecstatic to find this to be not only some of the band’s most unrelenting material, but among of the most chaotic and brutal of last year.
Nick Podgurski has developed a wide grip on experimental music over the years, producing music often challenging and thought-provoking. Feast of the Epiphany is both, but it’s also enchanting, with its hooks deep into art-pop and prog rock majesty. The scope of the project is enormous but the collective work to contain it with orchestral grace.
Now that Kyle Thomas is entering his fourth decade of existence, he has artistically hung up his younger beer soaked baseball cap, and replaced it with an older more used and vintage eccentric hobbit hat from the shire. This new middle aged Thomas has directed his lyrical focus on the nostalgia of his once simpler younger self.
Ending Buck Gooter upon Terry Turtle’s tragic passing would have gone against everything that made them a DIY dynasty, and if anything, Billy Brett’s desire to honor his lifelong friend’s wishes to “keep on playing my music” will drive the project further. Case in point, Ghost Brain, their upcoming album, due out April 4th, on Turtle’s 71st birthday.
A stellar collection of nine fuzzy, muscular anthems, Ideal Conditions mines similar ground as their debut – hazy, midtempo slacker rock. Silkworm is an easy reference point; the tracks are driven by a beefy rhythm section with blasts of distorted guitar setting up soaring solos, each song rising to a dramatic crescendo before crashing down.
Robert Pollard, the frenetically brilliant leader / creator of Dayton’s cult heroes Guided By Voices, writes a lot of songs. A lot of songs, a lot of albums, a lot of music, even a countless array of alter egos. La La Land represents a direct follow-up to Tremblers and Goggles By Rank, or as Pollard says, “somewhat of a companion piece.”
Big Blood have been called psychedelic folk, and freak folk, and other things like “avant-folk” and “gothic country.” Driven by Colleen Kinsella’s powerful, keening vocals and amorphous, hazy instrumentals, the Weird Road EP is the newest installment in a 16-year line of wonderfully wonky songcraft.
While their bio makes it clear they aren’t here to rest on their past achievements, this ain’t their first rodeo, and when your past work includes Grass Widow, Preening, and Girlsperm, it’s worth noting. Past aside, Max Nordile, Lillian Maring, and Marissa Magic come together as one throughout Lost To The Fantasy, their debut LP.
The Eurosuite (mems USA Nails, Nitkowski) return with Sorry, a new record due out March 3rd via Human Worth, an album that feels like a sonic tour-de-force with the intention of rearranging our brains like a jolt of electricity to the skull. Lead single “BODY” doesn’t exactly build tension but instead arrives at full blast, already deep in the carnage.
