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.
With two singles now out in the world (one of which we’re premiering), the duo are establishing themselves with an avant-garde approach to noise rock. Valentine Caulfield (vocals) and Scott Fair (guitars/production) are mutating ideas from electronic skronk to French-pop, skewing everything into a grimy thud that pulls from the depths.
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.
Set to release How Long Have I Been On Fire? on April 10th via Hex Records, it’s the band’s first album for the label and their first in three years. Combining elements of metal, punk, and noise rock with an ever present sense of humor, the band play fast, loud, and abrasive, decimating ear drums and sensibilities all the same.
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.
Following a move from the LA sprawl to a shack in the Mojave Desert, “Goo-Goo’s Melody” is our first sample of the band’s relocation and revisioning. This time around, Banny Grove sets out to simultaneously streamline elements of pop and electronic music into beautifully engaging compositional developments.
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.
Lead single “Cerulean 20%” is joyously warped and whimsical, stumbling between sweetened and distorted pop, stuttered rhythms, and the occasional texturally crushing riff. Molholt manages to create something so adept and alien that it simultaneously feels psychedelic, heavy, and well… funky in composition.
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.
“Super Speedy Zippy Whipper” is the band's first single from their 7" EP Remember The Future? Vol 1 - out via Marthouse Records on April 10th. There's no shortage of angular guitar riffs, a tight rhythm section, supplementary synth lines - all allowing Shaw's knack for vocal melodies to shine through.
Lead single “Pure And Radiant Joy” is one of the biggest songs you’re going to hear, with an exuberance that explodes in every tonality explored. Opening with a haunting harmonium refrain that could be the start to the next Halloween movie, the rhythm section quickly devours the proceedings, pounding with enough tension to bend all your silverware.
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.
Grocer blends quirky pop with dissonant punk, jazzy art rock, and a musical complexity that feels exceptionally refreshing and well constructed. On Little Splash, the Philadelphia based quartet have created an album full of dynamics and catharsis, with songs that range from exuberant pop to raw punk and everything in-between.
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.
