Squid - "O Monolith" | Album Review
Like many of their contemporaries, Squid have drifted into a sound that’s less direct and angry with more prog rock influence. While Black Midi and Black Country, New Road have veered hard into theatricality, whether it be through absurd virtuosity or intense emotionality, Squid make the move in a way that retains more indie-rock dejection.
A Night With The Flenser: Sprain, Drowse, and Agriculture Play Permanent Records Roadhouse | Live Review
Drowse, Agriculture, and Sprain played LA’s Permanent Records Roadhouse on June 8th. The nine folks across two four pieces and the lone one-man project are venturing east on a trek towards Austin, Texas’ Oblivion Access festival for a Flenser Showcase. The kind that seems to be a particular moment of triumph for the label.
Erasers - "Distance" | Album Review
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Goo - "Squid Ink Sky"
The world of Squid Ink Sky lives in the moon’s glow, it fills the space at the end of the day reserved for late night sentiment. It’s the feeling of being alone with your thoughts, watching as your mind wanders from what could be to what is, and how it could have gone a million different ways between. It’s also astonishingly beautiful.
Porcelain - "C.O.A." | Post-Trash Premiere
The quartet of Ryan Fitzgibbon (US Weekly), Eli Deitz (Dregs, Votive), Steve Pike (Exhalants, CSSS), and Jordan Emmert (Super Thief, Pleasure Venom) bring a great deal of experience together from different pockets of the city’s noise rock and punk scene, the pieces coming together to create something better than the sum of it’s parts.
TEKE::TEKE - "Hagata" | Album Review
Landowner - "Beyond The Darkened Library" | Post-Trash Premiere
“Beyond The Darkened Library” is one of the album’s more subdued moments, yet the unnerving energy that Landowner posses is in full force, bleeping and blooping in a way we’d swear was computer driven, yet all praise is due to Dan Shaw, Josh Owsley (bass), Elliot Hughes (guitar), Jeff Gilmartin (guitar), and Josh Daniel (drums).
Protomartyr - "Formal Growth In The Desert" | Album Review
Protomartyr have returned with their strongest and most optimistic album yet. At least, optimistic for Protomartyr. Formal Growth in the Desert is their way of expressing art finding its way in a world increasingly infertile for creativity. It’s a testament to art’s ability to spring forth in spite of the ever-tightening economic restraints.
Water Machine - "Water Machine Pt. II" | Post-Trash Premiere
It’s pretty important to drink a lot of water. It would seem to be a core principle for Glasgow’s Water Machine, one reinforced with art-punk immediacy. Following the band’s self-released demo, the quartet are set to make their “studio” debut with the Raw Liquid Power EP, due out August 4th via Upset The Rhythm
Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (May 29th - June 4th)
Lauren Early - "Don't Take My Dream Away" | Album Review
The LA indie rocker’s debut Don’t Take My Dream Away is an album full of contradictions - everything is bittersweet, she’s both a Good Girl and a Bad Boy. Over thirteen guitar driven tracks, Early dissects crumbling relationships, all-consuming crushes, and dreams deferred with the wisdom only experience can bring.
TEKE::TEKE - "Hoppe" | Post-Trash Premiere
TEKE::TEKE are just getting started, as their upcoming second album, Hagata, takes their already maximalist sound and continues to dig outward. Due out this Friday via Kill Rock Stars, the band sound delightfully unhinged throughout, getting weird and funky, merging disparate sounds at their whim with an orchestrated focus.
Feeble Little Horse Discuss Recording, Touring, and Camaraderie Ahead of "Girl With Fish" | Feature Interview
Feeble Little Horse’s tight friendship is palpable through the Zoom screen. Over the past few months, they’ve opened for Sidney Gish and Snail Mail, as well as toured with They Are Gutting A Body Of Water. It’s been a dizzying year for the Pittsburgh quartet, but they rely on each other to ease any nerves.
Conway The Machine - "Won't He Do It" | Album Review
The Bug Club and 2nd Grade Play to a Sold Out Union Pool | Live Review
The gods blessed a crowd with a perfectly paired bill on June 1, 2023. 2nd Grade and The Bug Club played at Union Pool in Brooklyn to a receptive audience. Some danced. Some bobbed their heads. Some remained still, with smiling faces., but the audience, indubitably, thoroughly enjoyed their perfectly prepared pairing.
The Milk Carton Kids - "I Only See The Moon" | Album Review
I Only See the Moon returns to the tried-and-true form of their first three albums but learns from the mistakes of their next two, even as it shifts the experience. It feels like a first-person account of what it’s like to be The Milk Carton Kids’ microphone – right in your ears, Kenneth Pattengale stage left, Joey Ryan stage right.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Protomartyr - "Formal Growth In The Desert"
The band’s sixth full length album is drawn from life’s very real low points, both personal and general, namely the death of Joe Casey’s mother and the worldwide misfortune of the pandemic. In what could have been a collection of songs buried in doom and gloom, Protomartyr return with a new resolve.
Coffin Prick - "Laughing" Video | Post-Trash Premiere
At some point Ryan Weinstein’s band Coffin Pricks became the singular Coffin Prick, the project adapting from a band to a solo effort. Weinstein approached his solo debut with patience, building a world unto itself, where vast psychedelic synths are paired together with space-age guitars and a general alien atmosphere.
