What started as a collection of iMessage demos sent back and forth between the two in 2021 eventually became a full-blown collaborative effort. While easy to describe as “timeless,” there’s a subtle modernity poking through nearly every moment of the ‘70s inspired homespun folk songs on Mind Palace Music.
Shana Cleveland described her third solo record, Manzanita, as “a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” a succinct description that sets both scene and mystifying tonality. The natural essence of the woods, mountains, rolling hills, and open skies, are apparent not from setting but from sound.
Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere is the full length debut from Melbourne punk sextet Blonde Revolver, an album rife with venomous jabs and unabashed innuendo and ribald. The record has a ferocious bite and a relentless energy through ten songs that weave through touch points with passion on all fronts.
Comprised of members of Kal Marks, Bethlehem Steel, Baglady, and Ex-Breathers, the Providence quartet is a unique configuration of hard-hitting super-indie rockers. What Mulva have done — expertly split the difference between ambient and sludge diffused through an indie rock filter — is wildly compelling.
Tha God Fahim, for the authentic rap fanatic, is an established name: the Atlanta emcee and producer has claimed his spot in the underground and, in many ways, has had a heavy influence in its direction over the years. His latest solo effort, Iron Bull, is about having the first word on that legacy: one that is still wet yet cementing by the day.
For Kosmetika, true craftsmanship lies in the details. “House,” the second single from the Melbourne art-punks’ new album, Illustration (due April 21 on Spoilsport Records), feels instantly familiar and comfortable. It’s full of new wave signifiers, settling nicely in the middle of a Venn diagram that includes Charlie, Le Tigre’s, and ESG.
The solo project of John Toohill, Science Man is mutant experimentation gone awry, a transmission of disgust from the gutter, as enthusiastically weird as it is forever menacing. It’s a hardcore band, to be sure, but Science Man has become as much an art project, with a cinematic component that’s become increasingly engrained in Toohill’s work.
When the days begin to run you ragged, you can always turn to the music of Lisa/Liza for an escape parts gentle, understanding, and beautiful. Set to release her new album Breaking And Mending via Orindal Records on April 28th, it’s an album that feels one with nature, a record that shines like the sun cutting through the tallest of trees.
Last year offered a window into the ever shifting patchwork psych of Webb Chapel, triumphantly lo-fi but undeniably focused, a wash of experimentation both bleak and warped. Zack Claxton (Beth Israel) returns to Strange Mono for SPEEDING, due out March 21st, a new album of originals and a batch of Mary Goes Round and Acid Freek covers.
Indie-gazers Bleary Eyed have released their latest four track EP after signing with Born Loser Records, a Philly music staple. Bleary Eyed can be seen as an “evolved” sound as it contains familiar shoegaze undertones from the band’s prior release Guise, combining with the new EP’s indie-pop choruses and dreamy synths.
Best experienced in full, Compact Trauma is an evolution for the band, warping and weaving through loungy psych and fragmented art rock to create something glowing and evergreen. It’s detailed in inner struggle, fighting demons of self-doubt and addiction, wrestling with defeatist mental issues and finding its place in the world.
On Desire Pathway, Screaming Females pull absolutely no punches in their riffy, hard hitting approach to songwriting, with Marissa Paternoster's enigmatic, distinctly dense vocal performance taking center stage. They hold onto their powerfully driven brand of rock writing, while breaching a level of relatively new accessibility.
Yesterday was that day I’ve been waiting for. I saw Unwound live for the first time in my life. With expectations unreasonably high, the band laid waste to those lofty expectations, furiously locked in and sounding as though they never stepped away over two decades ago. This is a letter to say thanks.
In the Midnight Hour is easily CT band Perennial’s most fully realized offering in a discography getting to be full of high concept, high energy punk rippers. They retain everything that made them great previously – incendiary performances, huge sounding riffs with teeth, an interest in the studio – and tightened it up to surgical precision.
A perennial underground favorite for nearly a decade, Sun Organ have been reshaping their sound in a constant state of sludgy pop expansion. With Candlelight Showertime, due out May 5th via Julia’s War and BLIGHT. Records, Jordan and co. continue to expand their pallet, adding a deeper sense of subtlety and a stronger emphasis on detailed lyrics.
Waste Man have moved. Originally mainstays of the NOLA scene, this tight-punk trio have made the move to NYC – and have a brand-new self-titled EP out on Feel It Records. It’s a re-positioning of its own, re-stating the central premise of their heavy-hypnotic sound, with a new framework and a laser-focus on what makes them special.
Abi Ooze is the recording project of Jade Baisa, an alumni of the NWI underground scene, Baisa continues to churn out records among the most genuinely melodic in punk. Forestdale Sessions, released by Rotten Apple, balances between rambunctious and intimate. This is power-pop for basements, alleyways, sidewalks, and bedrooms.
