“Self-Love” is a warped pop exportation accompanied by a drifting, playful video. In Clay’s words: “This exercise was a great learning experience for me as I began to understand pop production, sound design, composition, & songwriting on a fundamental level, taking the genre's various elements & altering them to fit within my own style.”
It may be a stretch to call much of anything that Sweet Williams do to be joyous, the tonality of this one is definitely more upbeat than their formula often allows. The guitars are still layered thick and with that kind of distortion that removes rust from scrapyards, each stretched progression and melodic vocal line pulled just shy of warping.
“Suspicion,” the album’s centerpiece already had a cinematic quality of sorts, but their new video takes the song’s warped twang and runs with it. Shot on a farm in rural Pennsylvania with director Ben Hammock, the band play a gang of cowboys just moseying about, with one cowboy’s mind fixated on past memories.
Pom Pom Squad’s new EP, Ow, is a step above the already-great Hate It Here in every way. The songs are more polished, but they’ve lost none of the edge that made the debut songs so strong. The vocal hooks are stronger, the production clearer, and the song sequencing highlights Berrin’s strength for storytelling
The moody trio make something akin to doom-punk: sprawling, commanding vocals glide over a thick swamp of locked-down low end and fried-out fuzz, climbing and falling in headbang-worthy spurts. If “Sucker” is any indication of what’s to come, their new album, Hell Was Full So We Came Back, promises to be a worthy follow-up.
“Monkey Bowling” is a dense and fun song packed with tons of sounds that mesh to create a charmingly catchy tune. Lyrically, the song is a collection of distended and surreal moments. There's enough pop sensibility here to leave you humming, and just enough lyrically to make you want to piece together the story being told.
The Richmond, VA based post-punk band are creating a dark mix of punk that draws elements from the raw burn of The Wipers to the shadowy romanticism of The Cure. Their sound is definitely informed by 80’s post-punk and it’s many shapes, but the quartet are re-purposing their influences into their own.
The melodies are big and memorable, sounding something like Elliott Smith writing Weezer songs, every hook hitting just between sugary exuberance and self-reflective introspection. The band self-released their latest album, I Never Said I Didn’t Care, a fully realized LP that hangs heavy on the blistering anthems.
When the Tree Bears Fruit is the very impressive debut full length from Australian quartet Parsnip who combine eccentricity and a wide-eyed innocence with agitating and crashing garage pop. The quartet prove themselves quite adept at ramshackle melodies indebted to the late 60’s psych scene via early Flying Nun bands.
Across the albums eight songs, Drab Majesty reinforce and build on their claim as one of the best at what they do. These dark tinged synth pop anthems are infectious, re-listenable, and relatable. “Does anybody understand these times?” Deb sings on “Out of Sequence.” Modern Mirror leads one to think that Drab Majesty just might.
Set to release Looming, their first new full length in four years on September 27th via their new home at Dirtnap Records (Marked Men, Proud Parents, Dusk), the duo have expanded into a trio, but their psych pop induced garage fuzz remains quintessentially their own. It’s fun. It’s dirty. It rattles the brain with a sugary glory.
Disorientation seems to be the key for Brooklyn’s ESSi, the duo comprised of Jessica Ackerley and former Yvette drummer Rick Daniel. Set to release their full length debut, Vital Creatures, on October 4th with Ramp Local, their sound is mechanical and alien, an experimental post-punk dive in the dark shadows of the future.
That thick low end, the cymbals hissing like a blown speaker, the guitars cranked as high as they can go with every squelch and squeal blasted right into your ear. This record looks and sounds excellent. Fuming Mouth’s sound is punishing. Mixing elements of death metal and hardcore, there are few chances to catch your breath.
“Rist” is built on a repetitive bass loop, one that has the band claiming the song is “the closest we’ve gotten to dance music,” though we’re not talking pop here. It’s a sordid and dark track, that builds with occasional stabs of guitar and melody, mostly careening with a mechanical grind and outstretched feedback.
Set to release their debut album, Carnage Hall, on September 27th via Upset The Rhythm, its a gloriously kaleidoscope dose of post-punk and psych explorations. The entire thing feels like its covered in a hyper-glow, the detached skronks and spirals of the sextet sounding minimal in essence while there’s a lot going on in actuality.
