Pressing Concerns: Wet Dip, Grapes of Grain, Blue Stoplights, Layperson

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The third and final installment of Pressing Concerns this week sets you up with three albums set to come out tomorrow (new long-players from Wet Dip, Blue Stoplights, and Layperson) and one that came out two days ago (the new Grapes of Grain album). With one major exception, this edition features a lot of laid-back, folk-y, alt-country-y autumn-appropriate music. I’d also recommend going back and checking out Monday’s post (featuring Seablite, Means and Ways, Sandy Pylos, and No Drama) and Tuesday’s post (featuring Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, Maria Elena Silva, Rory Strong, and Fortunato Durutti Marinetti) if you missed those.

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.

Wet Dip – Smell of Money

Release date: November 10th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Post-punk, garage punk, no wave, art punk, surf punk, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Rollercoaster

Just when you think that Feel It Records couldn’t possibly have any more surprises up their sleeves this year, they’ve unleashed the debut album from an exciting, classic Texas weirdo punk band. Wet Dip are an Austin-based trio whose roots stretch back to the Lone Star State’s northern panhandle, where sisters Sylvia Rodriguez (vocals/guitar) and Erica Rodriguez (drums) grew up before moving to the state capital and meeting Daniel Doyle (bass/guitar). After releasing a demo EP in 2019, the Rodriguezes and Doyle met up with another garage punk/post-punk band that’s been terrorizing the Great Plains as of late in Sweeping Promises and recorded Smell of Money, their first album, at Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug’s Lawrence, Kansas studio. The first full-length statement from Wet Dip is another entry in a long lineage of hot-to-the-touch Texas oddball rock and roll, but it’s not constrained to even that large of a state line–shades of vintage New York no wave, Pixies/Breeders (they cover the former band’s “Silver”), and even the punkier side of Deerhoof all color Smell of Money.

Like any good no wave band, the elements of Wet Dip’s sound on Smell of Money can be counted on one hand, all serve different functions, and all come together to form a unique torrent. The rhythm section always has one foot on the gas pedal, the cacophonous guitar drops in and out, causing destruction and chaos anywhere it makes landfall, and Sylvia’s vocals (which range from flat post-punker to seething conversationalist to damaged crooner) are equally remarkable. Rodriguez conveys rage in a much more interesting way than your typical one-note punk frontman–her lyrics in the English-language songs here (“Black Friday” and “Emperor” particularly) are delivered in a fascinatingly nervous yet furious fashion, and her increasingly frantic repetition of the title line in the closing title track is the final ingredient in a piece of fiery industrial punk horror. Of the album’s two covers, it’s notable that Wet Dip turn the Pixies song into a desert noise-ballad with what’s probably Sylvia’s most melodic vocal, and it’s their version of Gloria Trevi’s “Pelo Suelto” that they turn into a basement no-wave garage-stomp. Wet Dip’s Spanish-language originals are no less effective either, particularly the western-surf experiment of “Stray” acquitting itself quite nicely in the record’s number two slot. Some moments on Smell of Money are more noisy than others, but absolutely none of them are boring. (Bandcamp link)

Grapes of Grain – Unaware

Release date: November 7th
Record label: Drag Days
Genre: Alt-country
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Front Steps

At the beginning of the year, Dutch band Grapes of Grain returned after a decade-plus hiatus to release the five-song Getaways EP. The Utretcht-based quartet released three records before breaking up in 2009, but singer/songwriter/vocalist Alexis Vos had written some new material in 2022, and he reassembled the band (Berend Jan Ike, Stefan Breuer, and Arno Breuer, in addition to contributions from Niel van Heumen and Tammo Kersbergen) to put together that EP’s tranquil mix of jangle pop, folk rock, and indie pop. Vos’ return to music turned out to be more than a passing moment, and (after the standalone “Homebound” single in June), Grapes of Grain have released an entire full-length record merely months later. Unaware feels like a continuation of and an expounding on what the band had begun on Getaways, with Vos taking cautious but palpable steps forward as a songwriter and the music of the album (largely provided by Jan Ike this time around) equally cautiously and palpably molding itself around Vos’ writing.

Vos mentions listening to a lot of Tom Petty and Paul Westerberg while writing these songs, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Unaware is more or less a straight-up alt-country album. That being said, their earlier influences of R.E.M. and a bygone but not forgotten era of college rock are still here–the link between the two maybe being the subtle folk rock of Westerberg’s solo career, or even the quieter moments of early “alt-country” Wilco. Although Unaware starts off with the upbeat folk rock of “All I Want” and it also features “Moonshine”, a decidedly “all-in” embrace of country rock, the meat of the album is much more melancholic. The pedal steel in “Send My Heart” and the piano-led “No Lie” have some rousing moments in them, but they’re certainly too pensive to be “anthems”–to say nothing of the affecting acoustic folk of “The Yard Sale” and the vintage singer-songwriter soft rock-y appeal of “Raining in December”. Vos has plenty of pop instincts even as Grapes of Grain go for an album that deliberately feels less “immediate”–the horn-aided closing track “Worries” and (especially) the mandolin-pop “Front Steps” snag bittersweet melodies impressively. What Grapes of Grain end up with is a record that’s instantly likable but quietly substantial enough to endure. (Bandcamp link)

Blue Stoplights – Bouquet

Release date: November 10th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: October Light

Blue Stoplights are an alt-country trio from Chicago–I was somewhat surprised to discover that this band has been around since the mid-2010s, releasing two full-lengths and two EPs in the latter half of that decade. The group (vocalist/guitarist/bassist/banjoist Robby Biegalski, vocalist/guitarist/bassist Dean Jepsen, and drummer Conor McKenzie) had been away for a few years, but their third album and first new music since 2019 is a warm reintroduction to Blue Stoplights. To say that Bouquet is the sound of Blue Stoplights roaring back to life wouldn’t exactly be accurate, given that the band’s brand of alt-country is clearly informed by 2010s lo-fi basement/bedroom indie rock and folk like Hovvdy, Spencer Radcliffe, and Elvis Depressedly. That is to say, we’re closer to slowcore than to ‘country punk’ here, and Bouquet is subsequently a record that requires a bit of patience–which is rewarded in due time.

The first half of Bouquet is the more “traditional”-sounding one–like any good A-side, it offers up five pieces of folky indie rock that don’t go out of their way to make themselves sound overly friendly but are more than enough on their own. The melodic guitar lines flowing through opening track “Fistful” and the trumpet (provided by Christian Torres) on “Katydid” and “Easy on Me” are far from showy, but Blue Stoplights nonetheless spin compelling music out of them and their base ingredients. The other five songs of Bouquet are, upon closer inspection, the band experimenting a little bit and stepping out of their sleepy comfort zone. “October Light”, “Hang Around”, and “The Fence” in particular feel like the work of a different band–one that offers up short (all three are under two and a half minutes), electric, but wide-open takes on 90s indie rock. Not that these numbers are incongruous with the other version of Blue Stoplights, mind you–they sit well next to tracks like folk-y closer “Coconspire”. There’s more than enough open space in Bouquet for all of it. (Bandcamp link)

Layperson – Massive Leaning

Release date: November 10th
Record label: Lung/Bud Tapes
Genre: Folk rock, dream pop, alt-country, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Black Pool

Layperson is Julian Morris, a Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter who has played with experimental post-rock group Post Moves in the past, among other bands. As Layperson, Morris makes more pop-forward music–on the latest release under that name, Massive Leaning, Morris dresses his songwriting in several ornate layers encompassing classic folk rock, dream-y indie pop, and even soft rock to a degree. It reminds me of the most recent Papercuts album, an artist who, like Layperson, has been steadily releasing lightly psychedelic guitar pop for quite a while now (Morris put out several EPs and a full-length under the name in the previous decade, but this is his first new material since 2019). It’s a laid-back, less immediate version of pop music–if it’s taking some time for you, try listening to Massive Leaning after a long day at work, because that’s what worked for me.

There’s no shortage of indie folk records cropping up these days, but Massive Leaning uses a combination of Morris’ excellent, heartfelt, melodic vocals and some smartly-deployed pedal steel courtesy of Sam Wenc to ensure that there’s more than enough for the listener to hold onto.  Once you’re on Layperson’s wavelength, the opening title track and “Black Pool” feel like massive, undeniable pieces of indie rock (the latter in particular has an electric country-rock foundation and a positively stunning chorus). Those are the most obvious ones, but the downstroked Pacific Northwest indie rock of “Beginner’s Mind” and the dark toe-tapping of “Soft” break the record open in a completely different way following its strong start. The second half of the record is perhaps Layperson at their most “jangle pop”, although the orchestral pop of “I Want To” and the brisk folk-country tones of “My Loneliness Rings Like a Bell” give further color to Massive Leaning–every time I go back to this one, there are even more shades. (Bandcamp link)

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