Pressing Concerns: Landowner, Charm School, Whisper Hiss, Bedroom Eyes

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It’s a Thursday! It’s Pressing Concerns! Today, we’ve got four brand-new records to talk about: albums from Landowner, Whisper Hiss, and Bedroom Eyes, and an EP from Charm School. Earlier this week, I wrote about new music from Teen Driver, Stuart Pearce, Iffin, and Lost Ships–check that one out if you missed it, too.

If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

Landowner – Escape the Compound

Release date: July 21st
Record label: Born Yesterday
Genre: Post-punk, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Witch Museum

This week on Rosy Overdrive seems to be pretty Massachusetts-heavy, although “New England” feels like an incomplete description of the world in which Holyoke’s Landowner reside. The band began as lead singer Dan Shaw’s solo project in 2016–Escape the Compound is the band’s fourth album, and the third recorded as a five-piece band (also featuring bassist Josh Owsley, guitarists Elliot Hughes and Jeff Gilmartin, and Editrix’s Josh Daniel on drums). On Escape the Compound, Landowner are serious devotees to true oddball punk music–if you’re interested in bands like the Minutemen, Pere Ubu, Alice Donut, or any “punk band” that “doesn’t sound very punk rock”, this album is speaking in the same language. Even though Landowner are a five-piece band, they have a very minimal sound–on no small amount of occasions, there’s little more happening than a tapping bassline and a simple drumbeat.

Over this barebones structure, Dan Shaw absolutely lets loose as a vocalist throughout Escape the Compound. The fact that he’s a singular performer is apparent by the first song, “Witch Museum”, a chaotic snapshot of the history of Massachusetts that features Shaw memorably delivering lines like “Whaling center! Take the kids to the whaling center!” and frantic depictions of Governors William Weld and Charlie Baker. Songs like “Victim of a Narcissist’s Tactics” and “Nineties” zip by in a minute and change, but Shaw imbues the brief pronouncements of both with enough personality to ensure that they end up fully developed. The eight-minute title track is the other end of Landowner’s spectrum, presenting itself in several parts as it unspools a vaguely taunting first third, an excited, fast-paced middle, and an ending that just kind of slinks away. The band do indeed match Shaw’s performance–the guitars in songs like “Floodwatch” manage to sound just as alarmed as Shaw does, for instance. Everything combines to make something quite captivating and unique–I can make comparisons, but I don’t expect to hear another album like Escape the Compound anytime soon. (Bandcamp link)

Charm School – Finite Jest

Release date: July 21st
Record label: sonaBLAST!
Genre: Post-punk, noise rock
Formats: Cassette, CD, digital
Pull Track: Finite Jest

Louisville, Kentucky’s Andrew Sellers has been making music under the name Andrew Rinehart for over a decade now, in addition to playing in the projects Splash and Saredren Wells. While most of the music Sellers has made under his own name reflects the folk-y side of his home state, his newest band, Charm School, represents a different kind of Louisville music–that of dark, Touch & Go-influenced post-punk, noise rock, and post-rock. The five-song Finite Jest EP introduces Charm School (Sellers plus Matt Filip, Drew English, and Jason Bemis Lawrence) as skilled practitioners of controlled aggression–Sellers’ voice sounds measured, only straining at the right moments, while the entire band sounds like they’re intently, singularly focused on drilling their instruments into these grooves.

Finite Jest kicks off with “Non Fucking Stop”, a smooth piece of loud-ass buzzsaw garage rock that’s possibly the EP’s friendliest moment. The ice-cold, ugly post-punk of “Simulacra” follows it up–Sellers’ dismissive “But I’m not listen-ing” contains no mercy. It’s the Albini-sounding bass and chaotic guitar squall of “Year of the Scorpion” that earns the distinction of the most “classic noise rock”-sounding song on the EP, while “Face Spiter” has some surprisingly restrained moments and settles for just “undercurrent of danger”. The whole thing ends with the eight-minute title track, an ambitious final statement that gets a lot of mileage out of its doom-foretelling march of a drumbeat and droning guitars. “Finite Jest” storms undaunted to its conclusion, the moment on the record where Charm School’s post-rock influences (Swans, Slint) most show themselves–I’d be interested to hear Charm School explore this direction further in future releases, but Finite Jest is more than enough for now. (Bandcamp link)

Whisper Hiss – Shake Me Awake

Release date: July 21st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, 90s indie rock, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Coming Attractions

Whisper Hiss is a post-punk quartet from Portland, Oregon that display a fair share of the “Pacific Northwest sound” on their debut album, Shake Me Awake. The band (vocalist/keyboardist Rhiannon Flowers, guitarist Jenny Rahlf, bassist Meredith Butner, and drummer Mary Esquivel) recall both the pop hooks of K Records and the edge of Kill Rock Stars, but there’s also a precision to the group that doesn’t fit neatly under “riot grrl” or “twee” (in fact, their measured post-punk is perhaps most reminiscent of 90s Dischord Records bands over on the other side of the country than anything else). Flowers’ prominent, new wave-y keyboards are the final ingredient that gives Shake Me Awake a familiar but distinct sound.

Shake Me Awake opens with a pair of big, fun poppy songs that both feature memorable choruses and roller-rink keyboards, although they pull this off in different ways–opening track “Coming Attractions” has a sweeping power pop chorus and the punchy “Harsh Lights” is the “angular” one, reminding everyone that “post-punk” doesn’t have to be a joyless exercise. Flowers’ voice cuts like a knife in “Alarm Bells”, and Butner’s bass is no less sharp–in fact, the impact of the bass playing throughout Shake Me Awake can’t be overstated. A couple of chilly, haunted-sounding tunes in “From Where There’s None” and “Trouble in the Mansion” populate the second half of the record, before Whisper Hiss end things on a surprising note with the penultimate garage-pop of “Party Dress” and the (ironically) sweet-sounding synthpop ballad “A Bitter Goodbye”, keeping Shake Me Awake intriguing all the way through. (Bandcamp link)

Bedroom Eyes – Turned Away

Release date: July 18th
Record label: á La Carte
Genre: Shoegaze
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Portraits

Boston shoegazers Bedroom Eyes have been around for over a decade at this point, putting out an album every few years starting with their 2012 debut, What Are You Wrong With. Turned Away is their fourth album, and the quartet’s first since 2019’s Nerves. The band (vocalist/guitarist RJ Murphy, bassist/guitarist Adam Meran, guitarist Mike Spires, and drummer Rob Skelly) hew toward the heavier end of their genre on their latest record, with the rhythm section kicking up some tough-sounding alt-rock, even as the layered guitars and Murphy’s floating vocals certainly put it squarely in the “shoegaze” category. There are shapes clearly visible underneath the distortion–bright pop songs sketched by roaring guitars.

Turned Away opens with a couple of lighter (at least, lighter for Bedroom Eyes) songs in the jangly, dreamy post-punk of “Portraits” and the brisk “Planted”. The storming “Around” is the album’s first full foray into their “heavier” sound, but it is far from Turned Away’s only such moment. Songs like “Through Nights” and “Brood” contain multiple sections and slowly build toward buzzing riff-rock conclusions, while the title track takes its rumbling feedback and tries to push ahead with it smoldering in the background. Bedroom Eyes let their melodies peek out throughout the record, whether it’s in the bright guitar leads of “Portraits” or in the way Murphy’s vocals get pushed a little higher in the mix in closing track “Iris”. Turned Away will hit you with a wall of sound, to be sure, but it’s a dynamic one as well as a formidable one. (Bandcamp link)

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