Three Men and a Baby is the new album by Mike and the Melvins. It was supposed to come out sixteen years ago. In 1998, around the time his band godheadSilo went on hiatus, Mike Kunka busied himself by tagging along on a tour with his friends the Melvins. Somewhere along the way, Mike and the Melvins decided to make a record together, and gave the project the imaginative moniker Mike and the Melvins.
In a 2013 interview via The Drone, Ty Segall explains his obsession with garage rock at an early age. “The only flaw of garage rock,” he mentions, “is the repetition.” Over the course of his insistent stream of studio albums, Segall has proven that he’s serious about that claim. With Emotional Mugger, he takes Bowie’s credence in shape shifting and, on first listen, gives us his strangest album to date.
Washer finds a happy medium between the pop sensibilities you may find in the late ‘90s—early 2000’s punk scene and the fuzzy, slightly-math-rock influenced work of their EIS peers. Most songs on the record are singalong friendly, while some contain a part or two that induces finger-counting, or an ending seemingly unrelated to the rest of the track
Radcliffe’s first record under his own name is a constantly buzzing machine even in its quietest moments; a jarring found sound or rogue synth melody is lurking in the shadows continuously, giving each song a depth that is uniquely Radcliffe’s. This record is at times reminiscent of early albums by The Microphones in their eerie and dense but still sweet sounding progressions, as well as their dual ability to turn uneasiness into complex beauty.
Spray Paint isn’t catchy, or hooky. They don’t write earworms. Their guitars are more likely to sound metallic and percussive than anything like a guitar. When the guitar is recognizable as such, it is likely playing the same chord continuously. What their music is: infectious and hypnotizing, driving.
Those who wear their feelings on their sleeves aren’t to be trusted. Emotions are for the weak. Sprained Ankle by Julien Baker is a slap in the face to that line of thinking. It shares a lineage with artists like Pedro the Lion and Mineral. Intimate songs that are open about lost loves, doubts of faith, dealings with the darker sides of our inward beings.
Though they have arguably more in common with melodic post-hardcore bands like Pale Angels or Cave In than they do with Hawkwind or White Hills, it's difficult to talk about Polyon's music without lapsing into the kind of language used to describe the star-scraping riffs and psychedelia typically associated with the lauded purveyors of space rock, simply because of the scope and atmosphere of their sound.
a 10-track celestially atmospheric sonic collage of sludge, fuzz, reverb, and dream pop falsetto. Carefully gift-wrapped into an intimate and dreamy continuum, Bedroom Eyes offer a new take on grunge/shoegaze, blending pop accessibility with sonic intricacy for a record vague in delivery but specific in affect.
Twisted post-punk and dark as hell psych rock are par for the course, strung out in every direction as the guitars work together to create a thick layered madness. At the core of their charm lies duel vocalists Sam Robinson and Meryl Schultz, often singing simultaneously, harmonizing at times and delightfully working against each at others. Beautiful, discordant, well structured yet deceptively loose, their music pushes as it pulls, transfixed in it's sinister witchy grooves.
Well-researched music fanatic should recognize David Vassalotti’s proclivity and penchant for diverse sounds as a defining characteristic. Having been part of both abrasive acts like Church Whip and Cult Ritual as well as bands with a softer sonic palette, like 4AD band Merchandise, it should be no surprise that Vassalotti excels at balladry, atmospherics, and venom.
Right on the heels of the band’s debut EP back in spring of 2015, Powers of Ten, Telepathic are self-releasing the 8-song Time Release on a run of 250 cassettes. It’s a capitalization on the thesis from Powers of Ten to keep the songs fixed and trimmed. No notes are wasted on these Hüsker Dü inspired rave-ups.
This box set is the definitive documentary of craw, a band that emerged from the post-hardcore underground of the early 90s. This era is often reduced to the success stories of a handful of bands and record labels in areas like DC, Seattle, or Chicago. In the hegemony of cultural success, relevant contemporaries are often lost to the received narrative, despite the fact that they broke boundaries and set challenging precedents within the artistic zeitgeist.
