Green and Glass - "Green and Glass" | Album Review
Being in the same room while harpist and lead vocalist Lucia Stavros nimbly and precisely plucks her harp while simultaneously delivering a vocal performance that can quickly move from soft to powerful is, quite frankly, moving. The band released their long-awaited, self-titled debut album in late February.
Ben Seretan - "Youth Pastoral" | Album Review
The record opens up in mysticism, William Tyler textures meeting some other vision of sincerity. Ben Seretan is a phenomenal finger picking guitar player and it’s showcased across the board here. His previous release, My Life’s Work, is purely ambient music and these two sides of him meld together on Youth Pastoral.
Disq - "Collector" | Album Review
Space Camp - "Overjoyed In This World" | Album Review
Space Camp is all encasing, engulfing you in sounds of synth sludge. The breaks are minute, only serving to build tension for the stress inducing verses. These songs were never meant for hardcore kids who just want something to mosh to. It’s music that tries to address and navigate the experience of non-men, using inorganic soundscapes as its delivery system.
Handle - "In Threes" | Album Review
Imagine that ESG hung out in the no wave crowd, and it starts to give you an idea of the sound they’ve cultivated. With just bass, drums and keyboard, a Handle track locks into a groove and holds on for dear life. Most songs on In Threes display the band’s pop instincts, but they also never let the listener get too comfortable.
P.E. - "Person" | Album Review
Alexander - "Wonderland" | Album Review
Shell Of A Shell - "Away Team" | Album Review
Nashville’s Shell of a Shell is releasing their demons on their latest offering, Away Team, out on Exploding In Sound Records. At just under 45 minutes, this album weaves its way through a repertoire of hard-hitting emotions, catchy and tumultuous riffs, and lyrics that get to the root of what it is to be a person, more specifically, to be on your own.
Lily Konigsberg - "It's Just Like All The Clouds" | Album Review
The EP lasts for only a few moments and those moments are revelations. Konigsberg’s waste-not arrangements pack brilliant melody and nuance behind her always potent lyrical introspection. Each song contains an intentional act of self awareness and forgiveness; four contemplative steps toward equilibrium.
Beauty Pill - "Sorry You're Here" | Album Review
In 2010, Taffety Punk Theater Company premiered the dance play suicide.chat.room. Ten years later, the previously unreleased score by Beauty Pill, Sorry You’re Here, was finally made public. The score, created by Chad Clark, feels cold and dystopic, yet is delicate, human, and holds its own as a powerful piece of music about a difficult topic.
Tetchy - "Hounds" | Album Review
Hounds is the debut EP from NYC band Tetchy, and it’s one full of roiled up emotional bloodletting and resolve over beds of muscular instrumentation. Maggie Denning’s vocals are a focal point as she lays out her bare emotions in an always powerful manner, be it in letting go of fears or detrimental relationships.
Silkworm - "In The West (Reissue)" | Album Review
The new year has brought a very welcome reissue of Chicago/Seattle stalwarts Silkworm’s second full length album In the West. The early days of Silkworm with Joel R.L Phelps joining Tim Midyett, Andy Cohen, and Michael Dahlquist were a fairly different beast, but one that still created music full of energy and infectious liveliness.
Impulsive Hearts - "Cry All The Time" | Album Review
Addy - "Eclipse" | Album Review
Ratboys - "Printer's Devil" | Album Review
Regardless of which direction each song takes, the band never loses its momentum with its thoughtful storytelling and melodies that are at once heart pounding and heart wrenching. In these ten songs, Ratboys are sifting through the past like one would open dusty, nearly forgotten boxes in an attic, but hey’re also embracing future adventures.
Guided By Voices - "Surrender Your Poppy Field" | Album Review
Surrender Your Poppy Field, Guided by Voices’ first release in the 2020s, marks an important point in the band’s history. As their 30th studio album, one might expect the band to rest on their laurels as unofficial royalty among the indie crowd and phone it in. Instead they remain true to themselves and put out music that sounds fun, all while finding ways to build upon it and stay fresh.
Tosser - "Total Restraint" | Album Review
Louder, thornier, and more unreservedly aggressive than their past EPs, Total Restraint offers a title that skews paradoxical at first blush. Dig deeper and the title holds some weight. Total Restraint and, by extension, Tosser, understand the value of additional room and have found a way to weaponize its effect.
Cindy Lee - "What's Tonight To Eternity" | Album Review
What’s Tonight To Eternity, the third full-length project under the name, maybe Cindy Lee’s most fulfilled and fulfilling record yet, with moments 1950s and ’60s-tinged pop fighting their way to the surface of feedback and abstracted noise, poignantly investigating the intertwining nature of love and hurt, beauty and horror.
Mush - "3D Routine" | Album Review
Mush’s 3D Routine reads as a living credo for the contemporary slacker-class malaise. The Leeds foursome deftly balances personal with political, at the same time toeing the line between id-driven punk and a little headiness for good measure. Their debut LP is music for millennial drifters, art-rock nerds, and disillusioned leftists all alike.