Today, we’re closing out Rosy Overdrive’s 2023 editorial lists with my favorite reissues and compilations from this year. As this list encompasses a fairly wide range of releases, it is unranked, unlike my Top Albums and Top EPs lists. This isn’t the end of all year-end lists on the site, however: the results of the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll will go up later this week. Plus, there’ll be one last Pressing Concerns before the New Year.
Here are links to stream this list on various services: Spotify, Tidal. To read about much more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thanks again for reading.
Beauty Pill – Blue Period
Release date: January 20th
Record label: Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Genre: Experimental indie rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
In 2004, Beauty Pill put out The Unsustainable Lifestyle, the first full-length record from Chad Clark since the dissolution of his previous band, Smart Went Crazy. The Unsustainable Lifestyle retained many of the great qualities that marked Clark’s past work while at the same time establishing Beauty Pill as a separate and unique entity, although it’s taken the rest of the music world nearly twenty years to catch up. Blue Period compiles the first Beauty Pill album, 2003’s You Are Right to Be Afraid EP, and a few outtakes and demos to finally give the era of the band its due, and, while this music doesn’t exactly hold one’s hand, there’s a lot to love in here to those willing to give it proper attention. (Read more)
The Chills – Brave Words (Expanded)
Release date: October 13th
Record label: Fire
Genre: Dunedin sound, jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
There’s been no shortage of interesting New Zealand reissues this year, from Bilderine’s Split Seconds to Gate’s The Numbers, but it’s hard to top The Chills. Despite their beloved status in their particular corner of indie rock, Martin Phillipps and crew’s first album, 1987’s Brave Words, has been long overdue for a remastered reissue–thankfully, their recent home of Fire Records has finally done so. The band would go on to make refined guitar pop masterpieces with Soft Bomb and Submarine Bells, but Brave Words is an album-length snapshot of early The Chills that’d previously only been widely available on compilations–almost perfect pop magicians, but still holding onto a Flying Nun-ish oddball, “zany” streak.
Drive-By Truckers – The Complete Dirty South
Release date: June 16th
Record label: New West
Genre: Southern rock, country rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I’m inclined to give the slight edge to Southern Rock Opera, but the Drive-By Truckers could do no wrong during this time period, and this expanded reissue of 2004’s The Dirty South reflects this. When you have three singer-songwriters writing some of the best material of their respective careers, why not make a seventy-minute album, and why not re-release it as a ninety-minute one when you’ve got the cachet to do so? Patterson Hood’s “Puttin’ People on the Moon” is still a singular raw distillation of American hopelessness, Mike Cooley’s “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” is one of his best straight-up country rock anthems, and there’s a reason why “Danko / Manuel” and “Goddamn Lonely Love” are still revered in Jason Isbell’s catalog even after he’s had a historically fruitful solo career.
Dwaal Troupe – Lucky Dog
Release date: February 10th
Record label: Ally
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, jangle pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Chicago’s Kai Slater released the excellent lo-fi pop record Turtle Rock as Sharp Pins earlier this year, but another Slater-centric record that initially came out towards the tail end of 2021 deserves our collective attention as well. Dwaal Troupe (also featuring Charlie Johnston and Desi Kaercher, with the bulk of the songs written by Slater) is yet another side to Slater (who also makes noisy post-hardcore in Lifeguard), but one that has quite a bit in common with Sharp Pins’ tuneful but lo-fi 90s-style indie rock. Lucky Dog is a sprawling record that has more of a Flying Nun/Elephant 6 psychedelic tinge to it compared to Sharp Pins, but, unsurprisingly, just about any type of guitar pop skin sounds great on Slater’s songwriting.
Ex Pilots – Ex Pilots
Release date: January 20th
Record label: Smoking Room
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Ethan Olivia has recently been an increasingly prevalent member of Pittsburgh’s Gaadge and has long been the frontperson of Barlow–that’s more than enough shoegaze-y, noise poppy indie rock involvement for most people, but Olivia has also been leading the band Ex Pilots (also featuring contributions from other Gaadge and Barlow members) for just as long as any of those other bands have been around. Ex Pilots’ self-titled debut record was released four years ago, and has now gotten a remastered release from Oakland’s Smoking Room Records. Ex Pilots slots right in comfortably to the rest of the Pittsburgh “scene”, with noisier, more shoegaze-invoking songs sitting alongside pretty pieces of reverb-dressed indie pop.
The Exploding Hearts – Guitar Romantic (Expanded)
Release date: May 26th
Record label: Third Man
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
It’s got a reputation, and it more than deserves it. Along with Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, Portland’s The Exploding Hearts led the “punk-y” side of the 2000s indie power pop revival, with their 2003 debut Guitar Romantic standing as a more pure, substantial version of the garage rock revival playing out concurrently on a more major stage. Guitar Romantic is a completely timeless-sounding record–there are several indie labels today primarily focused on trying to capture this kind of sound (including the one this originally came out on, Dirtnap), and it’d fit right in on any of them. If you know anything about this band, you’re aware of their tragic end that resulted in Guitar Romantic becoming their sole full-length–time and time again, though, these songs have continued to ensure that The Exploding Hearts will be remembered for what they accomplished while they were still around.
Flotation Toy Warning – I Remember Trees / The Special Tape
Release date: March 21st
Record label: Talitres
Genre: Chamber pop, space pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
One of the great cult bands of the 21st century, London’s Flotation Toy Warning have been making sprawling, transfixing chamber pop at a sadly irregular pace for quite some time now–their debut, the underappreciated classic Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck, came out back in 2004, and their even-more-underappreciated follow-up The Machine That Made Us arrived in 2017. The Special Tape and I Remember Trees actually predate either, with the twin EPs first appearing in 2002, but the band already had their formula down on both of these records. The Special Tape is a little more fractured and friendly, I Remember Trees more of a singular post-rock pop odyssey, but they’re both memorable, generous, and sturdy pieces of music.
Grandaddy – Sumday Twunny
Release date: September 1st
Record label: Dangerbird
Genre: 90s indie rock, power pop, indie pop, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette (Sumday: The Cassette Demos only), digital
Like with the Drive-By Truckers album discussed above, Sumday might fall slightly below a more-ambitious record that preceded it (in this case, The Sophtware Slump), but this is, twenty years later, far from a settled question, as this reissue successfully argues. Everything great about Grandaddy–sonically, lyrically, thematically, aesthetically–is present on Sumday, and Jason Lytle has his best moments as a pop writer here, easily. Sumday Twunny also offers up forty-five minutes of outtakes and incidental music in Excess Baggage (a reminder that Grandaddy continue to have a wealth of great music aside from their proper LP tracks) and an intriguing collection of cassette demos.
Gut Health – Singles ‘23
Release date: November 24th
Record label: Marthouse
Genre: Post-punk, art punk, dance-punk, egg punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Ah, let’s put a 7” single on here, why not. This probably could’ve fit on the EP list too, but I discovered it after that one went live, so we’re filing Gut Health’s Singles ‘23 under “compilation”. The Melbourne five-piece band burst onto the scene with last year’s Electric Party Chrome Girl, and they followed it up over the course of this year with three different perfect pieces of sharp, garage-y post-punk, all of which are collected on this record. The quintet certainly ascribe to the idea that post-punk can and should be incredibly fun and danceable–the new-wave-punk “Uh Oh” in particular exemplifies this brilliantly, but it (and, even more so, hard-charging opening track “The Recipe” and the bass showcase “Juvenile Retention”) also prove that they don’t have to give up their edge to get there.
The Human Hearts – Viable
Release date: October 20th
Record label: Open Boat
Genre: Indie pop, power pop, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Franklin Bruno is a songwriter who doesn’t always save the “hits” for the albums, be it with his 90s indie rock group Nothing Painted Blue, his solo material, or his new(ish) band The Human Hearts. The strength of Viable, a compilation which collects non-album Human Hearts material from 2011 to 2015, only confirms this. Viable is a bit all over the place, but Bruno’s songwriting feels instantly recognizable, whether he’s leading his band in “rockier” power pop or offering up smoother indie pop. For those unfamiliar with Bruno’s work, Viable is as good a place to start as any, and for those of us already on board, the gathering of some not-so-easy-to-find material on this record is a welcome development. (Read more)
Hydroplane – Selected Songs 1997-2003
Release date: September 1st
Record label: World of Echo
Genre: Indie pop, ambient pop, experimental pop, dream pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
The reissue campaign centered around Melbourne’s Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings, and Kerrie Bolton has continued into 2023. Last year saw Songs ’94-’98, a compilation from their first band, The Cat’s Miaow, appear on Rosy Overdrive’s Best Reissues list, while Hydroplane (the debut record from the band the three of them formed after The Cat’s Miaow’s drummer, Cameron Smith, moved out of country) was also re-pressed that year. While I’ve been more inclined to appreciate the laid-back but still succinct guitar-based indie pop of their previous band, Selected Songs 1997-2003 makes a strong argument for the more experimental, ambient, and synth-based textures that Hydroplane would go on to explore. The 70-minute compilation is a peaceful, tranquil listen of intermittent pop music–sometimes just as friendly as The Cat’s Miaow, sometimes probing but still linked by Bolton’s melodic vocals, and sometimes something else entirely.
Inu – Don’t Eat Food!
Release date: October 6th
Record label: MESH-KEY
Genre: Punk rock, post-punk, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
I’d never heard of Inu before encountering this reissue–apparently, Don’t Eat Food! is one of the most revered and acclaimed punk albums in Japan, but the Osaka band are little-known outside of their home country. Their sole album, Don’t Eat Food!, came out in 1981 and the band broke up almost immediately after, but thankfully this stands as a potent document to their time together all these years later. Don’t Eat Food! certainly has its fiery first-wave punk rock/garage punk moments, but it’s also a little more adventurous than a lot of landmark Western punk albums, with a lot of music that we’d call post-punk, art punk, or noise rock over here–no matter what, though, it’s done with a decidedly blunt punk rock energy.
Ivy – Apartment Life (25th Anniversary Edition)
Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Bar/None
Genre: Indie pop, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Ivy emerged from New York in the mid-90s, a trio made up of Andy Chase, Adam Schlesinger, and Dominique Duran whose lineup stayed consistent until their final album in 2011. The three of them combined their love of 1980s jangle pop with 90s dreaminess and electronic influences to make some of the best indie pop music of their era. Apartment Life was the band’s sophomore record and, quite possibly, their best–the entire album is a winning mix of breezy French pop, synth-accented dream pop, and more traditionally guitar-based alt/indie rock, and while they’re a pretty different strain than Schlesinger’s other band, those looking for pop hooks of comparable quality to the best of Fountain of Wayne will not be disappointed by Apartment Life. (Read more)
Lync – These Are Not Fall Colors
Release date: October 20th
Record label: Suicide Squeeze
Genre: Post-hardcore, 90s indie rock, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
The fertile Pacific Northwest indie rock scene was a perfect environment for creating one-album wonders like Olympia’s Lync, who released These Are Not Fall Colors on K Records as well as a handful of singles in their two years of activity in the early 90s. Their lone proper album has been given an overdue vinyl reissue by Suicide Squeeze after being out of print for over a decade, and it sounds about as fresh as you could imagine something like this could. It exists in the middle of an underground music crossroads–if you like Dischord Records’ agitated post-punk, the punky-post-hardcore of Drive Like Jehu, the still-congealing sound of “emo”, or sloppy early Built to Spill lo-fi pop, you can find something to enjoy on this one. (Read more)
R.E.M. – Up (25th Anniversary Edition)
Release date: November 10th
Record label: Craft
Genre: Art rock, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Up has to be up there with Monster as the most misunderstood, unfairly dismissed R.E.M. record–it’s always had its believers, but it’ll probably never be treated by the critical consensus the same way their IRS albums and Automatic for the People are. And yet, when I listen to Up, I hear one of the best albums of the late 90s pop moment–exploratory but without losing itself to trends, plenty of dark undercurrents but still friendly, rock-solid song after rock-solid song. Maybe Up is the sound of R.E.M. getting “lost” after losing drummer Bill Berry, but if you don’t try to take this as evidence of its flaws and instead view it as merely a condition of its creation, it sounds perfect.
The Replacements – Tim (Let It Bleed Edition)
Release date: November 3rd
Record label: Rhino
Genre: Punk rock, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I wasn’t going to consider this one because I kind of got burnt out on the Replacements retrospective/reissue/re-imagining industrial complex a while back, but I finally got around to listening to it, and there’s no way I could leave it off here. Tim is the stout middle section to one of rock music’s great three-album runs–its highs are maybe a little less showy than Let It Be or Pleased to Meet Me’s, but it just might be the most consistent of the three. I mean, what else is there to say–the original version of Tim sounded just fine to me, but, yes, the correction to its long-maligned production does uncover something to these songs that might’ve been lost. You know, “Little Mascara” is a brilliant song, we don’t talk about that one enough. And between “Left of the Dial”, “Here Comes a Regular”, and “Bastards of Young”–did I really say that its highs aren’t as high as the albums buffering it? How could that be?
Seablite – Grass Stains and Novocaine
Release date: November 3rd
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Shoegaze, jangle pop, indie pop, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
San Francisco noise pop quartet Seablite released their second album Lemon Lights back in September, and, just two months later, their 2019 debut album Grass Stains and Novocaine saw a remastered vinyl reissue through Dandy Boy Records. If you liked the follow-up record, you’ll find plenty to enjoy on their first full-length, but Grass Stains and Novocaine has a more straightforward indie pop/power pop sound upon which the band have gone on to expand. With Lemon Lights indicating that Seablite has no intention of attempting to recreate their debut faithfully over and over again, it’s worth appreciating Grass Stains and Novocaine as a singular entry into what one hopes will grow to be a large discography. (Read more)
Superchunk – Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-sides, & Strays 2007-2023
Release date: October 27th
Record label: Merge
Genre: 90s indie rock, pop punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Back in February (was it really only earlier this year?), drummer Jon Wurster stepped away from Superchunk after 31 years. Wurster also drums for the high-flying Bob Mould Band, the ever-prolific Mountain Goats, and appears on The Best Show with Tom Scharpling most weeks to do a telephone-based comedy skit–I had subconsciously viewed Superchunk as the least strenuous of his commitments. However, Misfits & Mistakes, the fourth non-album-tracks Superchunk compilation, shows just how active the North Carolina indie rock heroes have been in their “middle-aged” era. Since they returned from their hiatus in 2007, they’d put together two-and-a-half hours of outtakes, alternate versions, and covers in addition to the four full-lengths and a re-recording of 1994’s Foolish–Misfits & Mistakes, then, both wraps up the Wurster era of the band and argues that the post-hiatus era has been their strongest yet.
Bobby Sutliff – Only Ghosts Remains Plus
Release date: September 22nd
Record label: Jem
Genre: Jangle pop, college rock, power pop
Formats: CD, digital
Bobby Sutliff will be remembered first and foremost for his work with The Windbreakers, the 1980s Jackson, Mississippi jangle pop/college rock group he co-led with Tim Lee (currently of Bark). The Windbreakers broke up in the early 90s, but both Lee and Sutliff continued to make solo material reflecting their songwriting talents–Sutliff’s solo debut, Only Ghosts Remain, actually came out in 1987, when The Windbreakers were still active. Sutliff passed away last year, but he left behind plenty of under-appreciated gems of guitar pop songs, including the eleven tracks that originally appeared on Only Ghosts Remain, and the extra eleven that appear on Only Ghosts Remain Plus, an expanded CD reissue of the record. In an unusual move, the “bonus” tracks are all selections from Sutliff’s other solo albums, both an acknowledgement that they were under-heard at the time of their releases and a reminder that he continued making sublime music decades into his career.
Two Inch Astronaut – Bad Brother (10th Anniversary Mix)
Release date: June 10th
Record label: Lonely Ghost
Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, post-punk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Before he was conquering the world with Deady and Mister Goblin, Sam Goblin was the leader of a Maryland Dischord/post-hardcore/post-punk trio called Two Inch Astronaut. My position has long been that Two Inch Astronaut got better as they went along, with their final album, 2017’s Can You Please Not Help, being their masterpiece, but a tenth anniversary remix and remaster of 2013’s Bad Brother shines a light on one of their earliest releases. The band’s signature combination of melody and skewed, noisy indie rock was already quite potent on Bad Brother, and the remix work from K. Nkanza of Spring Silver (who has taken a Two Inch Astronaut-esque sound and done new and interesting things with it in their solo work) emphasizes the link between this album and the band’s later records (as well as Sam Goblin’s Mister Goblin material). True Maryland excellence all around, here.
Various Artists – 14
Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Prefect
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Prefect Records is a Northeast England-based label co-founded by Owen Williams of Joanna Gruesome and Mark Dobson of The Field Mice around 2019, and they have found themselves squarely in the center of the international guitar pop scene ever since. As the title implies, their 14 compilation features fourteen contributions from fourteen different jangle pop groups–Prefect Records alumni (EggS, The Telephone Numbers, The Natvral), like-minded groups, and plenty of bands with whom regular Rosy Overdrive readers will be familiar (Chime School, Massage, The Reds, Pinks & Purples). The bands with which I was less familiar–The Kitchenettes, Semi Trucks, Dressed Like Wolves–also take this moment to put a solid foot forward on 14. (Read more)
Various Artists – Bee Side Beats 2: For Gaza
Release date: October 19th
Record label: Bee Side Cassettes
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, electronic, ambient, shoegaze, indie folk, hyperpop, R&B, post-rock, hip hop, punk, screamo, singer-songwriter…
Formats: Digital
Bee Side Beats 2: For Gaza is a 106-song compilation (referencing the 106 years that have passed since the Balfour Declaration) assembled by Albany’s Bee Side Cassettes, only available via digital download and from which all the proceeds go towards The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. You should absolutely care about this underlying cause, but even if you don’t, you should still donate, because it contains a ton of great music. The meat of this compilation is the kind of music in which labels like Candlepin and Julia’s War (both of whom teamed up with Bee Side trade to source bands for the compilation) trade–lo-fi indie rock, bedroom pop-rock, folk rock, shoegaze, indie punk, and slowcore–and there’s shining examples of all of these genres here (although one can also find everything from screamo to J Dilla-esque instrumental hip hop to dub to ambient to video game music on For Gaza). (Read more)
Various Artists – Cool English Jumpsuit: A Tribute to Guided by Voices, Circa 20 Something 13 and 14 / Poor Substitutes: A Tribute to Ricked Wicky
Release date: March 27th / August 4th
Record label: Silly Moo
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, post-punk, garage rock, noise rock, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Last year, Bunnygrunt’s Matt Harnish put together Keep It in Motion, a covers compilation featuring songs selected from Guided by Voices’ three 2012 albums. Harnish has continued to mine this era of Robert Pollard and company this year by assembling Cool English Jumpsuit (covering Guided by Voices’ 2013 and 2014 output) and Poor Substitutes (which pulls from the three 2015 albums from Robert Pollard and Nick Mitchell’s short-lived group Ricked Wicky). Although the material is obscure, Cool English Jumpsuit is very user-friendly, with great-in-their-own-right acts like Strapping Fieldhands, Mythical Motors, Posmic, Joseph Airport, and Jonny Swift ripping through songs that deserve to be thought of among the best power pop, garage rock, and indie rock of the era. Poor Substitutes might be more “for the heads” (even I, an aficionado of this sort of thing, scarcely recognize any of the bands here), but for those open to such a thing, it’s also a very fun romp through an underrated era of the greatest rock songwriter of all-time.
Various Artists – STOP MVP: Artists From WV, VA & NC Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline
Release date: December 1st
Record label: WarHen
Genre: Folk, country rock, bluegrass, experimental, ambient, hip hop
Formats: CD, digital
WarHen Records, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia, has curated an impressively stacked compilation in support of the effort to stop the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline from wreaking havoc across Appalachia. Over the course of two CDs, forty musicians from Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina offer up a wide variety of songs for a collection whose proceeds go to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund, specifically for “bail, legal defense and defendant support”. Those expecting to find traditional “Appalachian music” here will certainly not be disappointed–folk, bluegrass, and country feature heavily into this lineup, but this only scratches the surface of the diversity showcased on STOP MVP, a compilation full of artists who brought their best in service of a cause that merits it. (Read more)
Honorable mentions:
- Common Thread – Fountain
- Spencer Dobbs – If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You
- Dot Dash – 16 Again
- The Dream Syndicate – The Days of Wine and Roses
- Heavenly – Le Jardin de Heavenly
- The New Pornographers – Electric Version
- Pigeon Pit – Treehouse
- The Shapiros – Gone by Fall: The Collected Works of The Shapiros
- Soft on Crime – Rarities Vol. 1
- Sundays & Cybele – Tsubouchi
- The Terminal Buildings – Coming to Terms with the Terminal Buildings: Best Ones 2021-2023
- The Toms – The Toms
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