Musically and lyrically Preoccupations has always been a band which focuses on the impending doom that will befall earth and humanity and Arrangements continues that dark manner of thinking and perhaps takes it even further. The bleak lens that Preoccupations view the world with has an even darker tint to it.
There is no escape from the decimation of Faceless Burial’s impenetrable new album, At The Foothills of Deliration. It’s fitting that an album title that alludes to losing your mind is able to bend, contort, and utterly obliterate our senses through the sheer dexterity of the band’s brutal riffs and earthquaking rhythms.
Julia Jacklin’s songwriting can be so intimate and direct that it can be, at times, discomforting for the listener. She gives voice to many of our own unspoken thoughts. We mistakenly assume we’re alone in our feelings, but when Jacklin hits an emotional nerve, we’re reminded that many of our suppressed thoughts are universal.
Sick Day is a hard working band and they also happen to be fronted by a thoughtful and introspective songwriter who isn’t afraid of being brutally honest with herself, or with you. Olivia Wallace is a visual artist and songwriter who has been active in Chicago for long enough to know how it feels to work.
Unfold is a lost album, recorded right after her debut with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, who co-produced and played along with Prochet on the seven songs. Whatever the reasons were to delay the release of this album are irrelevant now, as all the seven tracks here show that she has her ear on the essence what psychedelic pop should sound like.
As an object in itself, the album feels utterly unstuck from time. It’s evocative of the Laurel Canyonites of the late sixties, sure, but it refuses to paint within those lines. What sets it apart are Marina Allen’s voice and the landscape which surrounds it, and it’s in the interplay of these that a third, intangible thing emerges.
While “Moonburn” and “Aspirin - Slight Return” would make for a stellar 7-inch, two additional cover songs really make this cassette an essential listen. Clocking in around fifteen minutes, Moonburn still captures the expansive vibes of earlier TFS albums like Braindrops and Deep States—records for a long drive down a lysergic highway.
Michael Falcone writes deceiving melodies reminiscent of numerous 90's era callbacks and emotional slack but with an extra bite from blurring guitar squeals or frenetic drum fills. The trio has a wit about them that is quite appealing and a sense of levity keeps everything from getting too deep into the encroaching gloom.
Alex G is full of questions on God Save The Animals but intentionally avoids easy answers. It’s a record filled with anxiety but finds solace in the fractured nature of change. It’s a record with a whole lot of references to God but finds sanctification in the chaos rather than the structure of religion.
It feels like Glenn Donaldson plucks his songs out of mid-air. The hyper-prolific San Franciscan’s latest project, The Reds, Pinks and Purples, continues the tradition of catchy Bay Area pop. The second single from the upcoming Slumberland mini-LP, They Only Wanted Your Soul allows Donaldson’s bitter assertion to cut through clearly.
Set to release a new record in 2023, Tedward are sharing their latest single, “Ablona,” a song about a pilgrimage to see a rare performance from a favorite band in a fictional Ohio town. From the warped pull of the overdrive to the sweetened vocal melody, Terence Lee sets an immediate tone, capturing the lo-fi fuzz and melodic heft.
In anticipation for their upcoming hometown show and the Pavement dates, Weak Signal are sharing a video for WAR&WAR’s “Consolation,” one of the record’s more ominous tracks. The track itself, while subdued and shadowy, takes influence in the opposite, derived from a Simone Weil quote, “Love is not consolation. It is light.”
They Are Gutting a Body of Water and fellow Philly band A Country Western throw a barrage of different sounds at the listener and all of them stick. This five song split is ambitious in its transitions between styles and continues in the same vein as TAGABOW’s 2021 split EPCOT, which oscillated between shoegaze and breakcore.
