Here it is, friends: Rosy Overdrive’s March 2024 playlist/round-up. This one’s pretty much entirely new music, as I’ve been fully submerged in what 2024 has to offer in the past month. It’s also a little later than normal as I was on vacation the last week of March, but this is still just about the freshest blog post about new music you’re going to find as far as I’m concerned.
Friends of Cesar Romero has two songs on this playlist. Rosie Tucker has three.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal (each missing one song), BNDCMPR. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
“Bound to Let You Down”, Eyelids
From No Jigsaw (2024, Jealous Butcher)
Wow, what a song! “Bound to Let You Down” is not a new track–in fact, it’s one of Eyelids’ earliest recordings, originally appearing on their 2015 self-titled EP. No Jigsaw is a compilation of non-album material celebrating a decade of the Portland power pop institution co-led by John Moen and Chris Slusarenko, and while the group are still going very strong (last year’s A Colossal Waste of Light was one of my favorites of 2023), “Bound to Let You Down” is a reminder that both Moen (who penned this one) and Slusarenko were already accomplished musicians before they teamed up as Eyelids. “Bound to Let You Down” is nothing short of perfect jangle pop, with not a wasted moment from the sharply-dressed verses to the soaring chorus to the excellent use of a pick-up note coming out of the bridge.
“Birthday”, Late Bloomer
From Another One Again (2024, Self Aware/Dead Broke/Tor Johnson)
Another One Again, the fourth Late Bloomer full-length album, is also the Charlotte band’s first in six years and first in their second decade of existence. Another One Again reflects the passing of time in a way that makes it distinct from the rest of the band’s discography, but fans of their blend of 90s indie rock, punk, and pop hooks will certainly not be disappointed. Instant gratification Late Bloomer shows up on the record’s second song, “Birthday”–the way that the band cycle through a jangly, triumphant college rock chord progression and choppy power chords in the first half minute of the song is a real “Wait, they’re allowed to do that?” moment. Read more about Another One Again here.
“All My Exes Live in Vortexes”, Rosie Tucker
From UTOPIA NOW! (2024, Sentimental)
UTOPIA NOW! is an album seemingly engineered to appeal specifically to me. As a songwriter, Rosie Tucker is lethally sharp, pulling out massive power pop/pop punk hooks out of nowhere, oftentimes completely at odds with where the track had been leading up to beforehand, but never in a way that feels overly shoehorned. The fiery alt-rock of early highlight “All My Exes Live in Vortexes” quite literally stitches together some unimpeachable art out of capitalist waste products, from piss bottles to giant piles of plastic–that opening line is going to stick with me for a while, but thankfully Tucker doesn’t coast on it, as “All My Exes Live in Vortexes” has much more to say than just that. Read more about UTOPIA NOW! here.
“Art History”, Perennial
From Lemon on Plastic (2024, Ernest Jenning Record Co.)
2024 is shaping up to be the year of Perennial, just like 2023 was (with the release of their The Leaves of Autumn Symmetry EP) and 2022 was (with their In the Midnight Hour LP). Lemon on Plastic is the New England trio’s most “experimental” record yet, featuring four wildly different versions of a single song delivered in under five minutes. “Art History” is the “normal” Perennial post-hardcore-punk-pop tune, while “Minimalism” is a streamlined 60s pop-tinged take on it and “Impressionism” and “Expressionism” are straight-up ambient electronica. I’ll go with the A-side here, but the whole thing is an interesting (and brief) listen–nobody is delivering electrifying packages like “Art History” in 60 seconds like Perennial is at the moment.
“I Believe in Her Science”, Friends of Cesar Romero
From More Like Norman Fucking Mailer (2024, Doomed Babe)
It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that Friends of Cesar Romero are one of the best power pop projects operating currently. The South Dakota-based J. Waylon Porcupine puts out a steady stream of singles and EPs under the name, including the rock-solid Queen of All the Parliaments record late last year. Porcupine’s latest is a two-song single titled More Like Norman Fucking Mailer (excellent), and I might actually prefer the B-Side, the classic pop-punk chugging “I Believe in Her Science”. The power chord-led verses are just as satisfying as the brief but impactful power pop chorus. Another two-minute tour de force from the Friends of Cesar Romero.
“World on Fire”, Gemm
From Spun Out (2024, Protagonist)
Gemm are a self-described “grunge rock” quartet out of Phoenix, Arizona who seem to fall somewhere along the post-hardcore/shoegaze/alt-rock spectrum. April’s Spun Out is the group’s second EP, and my favorite song on it is a little number called “World on Fire” that sets itself apart from the rest of the band’s discography by its huge, stadium-ready chorus. “World on Fire” (which originally showed up last year as part of a promo single) is mid-tempo, angstily shuffling fuzzed-out alt rock the entire way through, but the classic pop punk dual vocals in the refrain really send this one over the top and suggest some pretty high heights there for Gemm to climb in their near future.
“Delilah”, Coma Girl
From ♡ (2024, Crying)
I really don’t recommend cold-DMing me your music (I can’t keep track of Instagram messages, email’s a lot better for that sort of thing), but I’m glad I listened to “Delilah” after it got sent to me, because this song rules. Coma Girl appears to be the project of Portland, Oregon’s Quin Saunders, and they’ve put out a record and a handful of singles under the name since 2020. Their latest is a two-song single just titled “♥”, the A-side of which features Keagan O’Brien on drums and Felipe Gutierrez on guitars. “Delilah” has a classic mall-pop-punk vibe, although Saunders has an emo-y sincerity and conviction in their delivery of the song. Pop music should sound like it’s being made by somebody feeling a bunch of things at once, and Coma Girl understood the assignment with this one.
“Faded Neil Young Shirt”, Apollo Ghosts
From Amethyst (2024, You’ve Changed)
Apollo Ghosts are a Vancouver-based college rock/jangle pop quartet who I was surprised to learn have been around since at least the late 2000s. I’d seen some raving about the group (guitarist/vocalist Adrian Teacher, bassist Amanda Panda, guitarist Hasan Li, and drummer Dustin Bromley) around the time of the 2022 double album Pink Tiger–it passed me by, but I caught their most recent EP, February’s Amethyst, and have been hooked. On the seven-song record, Apollo Ghosts fall somewhere in between fellow Canadian guitar poppers Kiwi Jr. (the sardonic, Pavement-fluent side) and Ducks Ltd. (the casual, flowing melodic side), and “Faded Neil Young Shirt”, my favorite song on the EP, acknowledges another Canadian rocker while sounding closer to Dunedin, New Zealand.
“Suspended Animation”, False Tracks
From Hymn for Terror (2024, Strange Mono)
Philadelphia’s Strange Mono have been one of the more intriguing under-the-radar labels as of late, putting out a lot of interesting, varied music, some of which (Marking & Plating, Bungler) I’ve written about and others (Be Nothing, Webb Chapel) I wasn’t able to get to. The label’s second record of 2024 is perhaps the one that’s the most geared-toward-me genre-wise–False Tracks embrace 80s underground rock music on Hymn for Terror, a collection of hooky new wave, post-punk, power pop, and college rock. Opening track “Suspended Animation” has an urgency to it, a nervousness to its catchiness that grabbed me immediately from its huge low-end and scratchy six-string beginning.
“When I Come East”, Thank You, I’m Sorry
From Repeating Threes (2024)
Another month, another brief yet superb release from a band led by Colleen Dow. Last month, they debuted a new project called Mealworm with a really strong three-song EP, and now it’s time for their most well-known group, Thank You, I’m Sorry, to do the same. Repeating Threes is the Minneapolis quartet’s first new music since last year’s Growing in Strange Places LP and their first as a newly-independent band. Like Mealworm’s self-titled EP, Repeating Threes is only three tracks and under ten minutes, but it’s got plenty to enjoy on it, especially on my favorite song, “When I Come East”. After the quietness of Mealworm, it’s nice to hear Dow confidently helming a slick alt-rock instrumental–it’s as good a reminder as any that this kind of music can be as hard hitting as sparse indie folk when done well.
“Leave Me Alone”, Miracle Worker
(2024)
Miracle Worker–two separate words, not to be confused with the one-word New Jersey trio Miracleworker that are also pretty good–is a Brooklyn-based project led by singer-songwriter Annie Sullivan and assisted by guitarist Dylan Balliett (who you may remember from Spirit Night). Miracle Worker has been around since at least 2018, and they primarily have spoken in singles thus far–but when you’ve got a song as solid as “Leave Me Alone”, that’s hardly a problem. A far cry from the emo-tinged indie rock of Spirit Night, “Leave Me Alone” is very sticky indie pop rock, with everything from handclaps, rootsy lead guitar work, and organ hooks deployed in something that is closer to “twee” than anything that could be hyphenated with the word “-punk” (if it’s too sunny for you, I’d direct your attention to Sullivan’s lyrics, which are a little more complex than the bluntness implied by the song title but not to the point of negating it).
“Small Grey Man”, Uranium Club
From Infants Under the Bulb (2024, Static Shock/Anti Fade)
“I want to be special–I’m the least special of all”, what a way to return after a half-decade absence. Minneapolis’ Uranium Club was maybe the most emblematic group of the late 2010s “egg punk”/“Devo-core” phenomena that swept the Midwest, but they sort of disappeared after 2019’s excellent The Cosmo Cleaners. Infants Under the Bulb is a lot to take in, not the least of which is due to the four-minute post-punk-garage breakdown that opens the record, “Small Grey Man”. The song is proof that “speak-singing” will never be “over” just because a bunch of people don’t know how to do it this grippingly, and the lyrics are appropriately opaque, considering that they reference one of the most interesting mysteries of the 21st century.
“All of Thee Above”, Daniel Romano’s Outfit
From Too Hot to Sleep (2024, You’ve Changed)
I’ve been waiting for something like Too Hot to Sleep from Daniel Romano’s Outfit for a while now–a genuine live-in-studio sounding garage rock scorcher of a record that does justice to their notoriously barnburning live shows. Romano is still a smooth operator as a pop songwriter, and the backing vocals of the Outfit’s Carson McHone and Julianna Riolino are still essential in chorus construction, creating an exhilarating experience where the band veer between Ty Segall/Thee Oh Sees garage rock and sugary power pop. The giddy, speeding “All of Thee Above” is closer to the latter, even as its quick tempo assures it’s a blast of cold water to the face as well. Read more about Too Hot to Sleep here.
“Booksmart”, Constant Greetings
From Showpony (2024, Retriever)
Constant Greetings are a six-piece band from Saint John, New Brunswick who released their debut album, Field Trips, last year. Their second album in as many years, Showpony, was recorded with Corey Bonnevie at bassist Jeff Melanson’s “fishing camp”, and it’s an intriguing collection of somewhat hazy, somewhat dark, yet fairly catchy 90s-indebted indie rock. “Booksmart” is probably my favorite song on the record–it starts off rather unassumingly, but builds to a golden college rock chorus, singer JP Lewis’ vocals colliding with jangly guitars and newcomer James Lea’s triumphant piano.
“Forest God”, A Fish in the River
From Forest God (2024, Bud Tapes)
A Fish in the River’s Forest God has been something of a hit in the Rosy Overdrive Discord, and I’ve been enjoying the latest record from the Portland, Oregon trio enough to drag it out of there and onto the blog. The five-song cassette EP is out through Bud Tapes (Lily Seabird, Layperson, Generifus), and it’s all over the place, with traces of art rock, prog, and folk across its twenty minutes. The opening title track is the friendliest number on the EP, I think–it has an almost slowcore subtlety to it, and an excellently subdued prog-pop chorus that is no less catchy for the (gentle) twists and turns the band (guitarist Cole Gann, bassist/vocalist John Durant, drummer Steven Driscoll) take to get there. Recommended if you like the weirder, folkier end of Exploding in Sound-core indie rock.
“Cured”, Restorations
From Restorations (2024)
It seems like there are a few different bands on this playlist who’ve just returned after an extended period between releases. The self-titled, self-released Restorations is the Philadelphia punk band’s fifth full-length album and first since 2018’s LP5000–a Tiny Engines record that I enjoyed at the time but not enough to where I was keenly anticipating a follow-up. Restorations therefore pleasantly surprised me–it works incredibly well as a punk rock record that plays in a well-trod arena (Menzingers-evoking, Jersey/Philly “heartland-y” rock music) but succeeds by coming off just a little more damaged and a little more pained than this music typically sounds. Restorations play “Cured” like there’s a fire burning right underneath them, and it’s captivating.
“My Kind”, Rosali
From Bite Down (2024, Merge)
I was a huge fan of Rosali’s last album, 2021’s No Medium, and I was happy to see her get called up to Merge Records for that record’s follow-up. As of this blog post, I’m still deciding how Bite Down compares to her previous work, but in the meantime I can offer up the most immediate song on the record for all of us to enjoy. “My Kind” is a bit more streamlined and down-to-earth than the frequently-towering, David Nance Group-featuring No Medium, but Rosali Middleman shines here as she brings excellent pop hooks to her not-always-so-structured country rock sound. The bright western piano–clear but not overwhelming in the mix–does a lot of the pop heavy lifting, allowing the guitar to meander in a way reminiscent of Middleman’s best work.
“Last Days of Gaddafi”, Silo’s Choice
From Languid Swords (2024)
The two most recent records from Chicago’s Jon Massey–Priorities USA and Our Lady of Perpetual Health–both showcased the more bite-sized, pop-friendly side of his songwriting, but his latest as Silo’s Choice, Languid Swords, takes a different approach. This album takes its time and isn’t overly concerned with offering up pop hooks immediately, but there’s plenty to love on it–for instance, the six-minute opening track “Last Days of Gaddafi” is actually a quite gripping opener, a surging piece of folk rock where the mundanity of Massey’s writing is actually the ballast, fighting against the soaring instrumental and the context of the song’s title. Read more about Languid Swords here.
“Setting Sun”, Whitelands
From Night-bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day (2024, Sonic Cathedral)
London quartet Whitelands have been buzzing under the radar for a while now–the group actually put an album out back in 2018, when it was still guitarist/vocalist Etienne Quartey-Papafio’s solo project, but Night-bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day is their first for Sonic Cathedral and their first since most people (including myself) started paying attention to them. Perhaps unsurprisingly given their label, the second Whitelands album leans heavily into dream pop and shoegaze textures, but it’s an inspired take on the genre, with songs like opening track “Setting Sun” leaning heavily into the “pop” part of this sound but with the band (whose backgrounds including making R&B, techno, metal, and punk music) coming off as just as interested in how they shape the noise surrounding the hooks.
“Suffer! Like You Mean It”, Rosie Tucker
From UTOPIA NOW! (2024, Sentimental)
UTOPIA NOW!’s sound is truly commendable–like the majority of Rosie Tucker’s output, it was produced by themself and their longtime collaborator Wolfy, and they gleefully jump between chilly bedroom pop/folk/rock, slick alt-rock, and limber, jerky art rock/new wave across the record’s thirteen tracks. Smack dab in the middle of the record, the white-hot “Suffer! Like You Mean It” sounds like mall punk from an alternate universe where Silent Alarm sold more records than anything by Avril Lavigne. It’s so lethal-sounding that I never realized until now (upon listening very closely) just how restrained Tucker delivers the chorus. That exclamation mark in the title is more implied than I realized–but boy, is it ever. Read more about UTOPIA NOW! here.
“Boyfriends”, Career Woman & Pacing
(2024, Lauren)
I’ve made my enjoyment of Pacing’s most recent album (the one with the very long title) clear–Los Angeles’ Career Woman I’m less familiar with, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve heard from her, and she’s on Lauren Records (Star 99, The World Famous, Fishboy), so she’s probably pretty good. “Boyfriends”, a collaboration between the two, is closer to Pacing’s anti-folk-indie-pop than Career Woman’s pop punk-adjacent sound, but the two meld together excellently and naturally on the standalone single. “We and my friends, we don’t like men / But we got boyfriends” is the chorus, and that just about sums up the song’s lyrics, a song about the fleeting certainty of being a teenager giving way to growing up and become a real-life version of the meme of Gru looking at the whiteboard.
“Four Corners”, Casual Technicians
From Casual Technicians (2024, Repeating Cloud)
On their debut album, the Casual Technicians (an experimental pop supergroup comprised of Boone Howard of The We Shared Milk, And And And’s Nathan Baumgartner, and Log Across the Washer’s Tyler Keene) sound off-the-wall and stitched together. The three of them switch lead vocals quite frequently, and late-record highlight “Four Corners” pulls off more than just a singer change. It’s the Casual Technicians at their prog-pop energetic best–the first half of the song is a mid-tempo offbeat pop song, before Baumgartner wrests control from the rest of them and leads the song through an unexpected, barreling runaway indie rock second half. Read more about Casual Technicians here.
“Boomerang”, Steve Drizos
From I Love You Now Leave Me Alone (2024, Cavity Search)
On his second proper solo album, Portland singer-songwriter and studio owner Steve Drizos expands into classic college rock, early “alternative rock”, and power pop territory, building on the folk and roots rock of his debut. I Love You Now Leave Me Alone’s opening track, “Boomerang”, has more hooks than it knows what to do with, as both the pre-chorus and chorus are strong enough to carry an entire track–and at the same time, Drizos and his band still find time to offer up some darker-sounding alt-rock in the verses. Read more about I Love You Now Leave Me Alone here.
“Secrets, Chapter and Verse”, Robert Poss
From Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust (2024, Trace Elements)
On his most recent solo album, former Band of Susans bandleader Robert Poss balances the blown-out rock and roll of his most well-known work with the more experimental, droning music that he’s explored in recent years. Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust contains examples of all three such things listed in its title–and it opens with a particularly exciting display of the second one. “Secrets, Chapter and Verse” kicks off the album with chugging power chords and a triumphant melody, transforming into a winning piece of fuzz-rock that’s shockingly immediate. Read more about Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust here.
“Police Me”, The Pretty Flowers
(2024, Double Helix)
“Don’t police me, I can police myself,” I feel that, The Pretty Flowers. The Los Angeles-based power pop/jangle pop/college rock/pop punk quartet released an excellent record called A Company Sleeve last year, and their first “new” music since then is a non-album single that’s been kicking around for about a half-decade. “Police Me” is closer timeline-wise to their 2019 debut album, Why Trains Crash, which is perhaps why the band felt it didn’t fit on their new record, but it’s strong enough to stand on its own. Just a bit of classic jangle-rock colors the instrumental, and the chorus is something of a left-turn compared to the rest of the track (but not in a bad way). It’s never a bad idea to slip an extra hook or two in a song, and The Pretty Flowers remain great at doing that.
“Nu Jangle”, Hit
(2024, One Weird Trick)
Vocalist/guitarist Craig Heed and guitarist Justin Mayfield are one-half of experimental psych-pop-rock group Miracle Sweepstakes, but apparently they need an outlet for some of their even weirder impulses too, so they’re also in Brooklyn quartet Hit (alongside bassist Charles Mueller and drummer Cameron LeCrone). Hit was last seen dropping a two-song Brainiac indebted-noise pop single in 2022–their latest, the one-off “Nu Jangle”, picks up where they left off and adds some new wrinkles, too. Heed’s vocals and the song’s chaotic, rhythmic industrial undertones continue to evoke Brainiac, yes, but there’s also a bit of Beach Boys-y choirboy pop in another one of the prog-pop tune’s sections, and, yes, even a bit of jangly guitars in between its more chaotic moments.
“Atlas”, The Klittens
From Butter (2024)
New to me, The Klittens are a five-piece Dutch band who’ve put out a couple of EPs, the latest of which, Butter, came out in March. Loosely speaking, Butter is a post-punk record, although it’s not wedded to the subgenre, throwing in some fuzzed-out rock or sparkly indie pop when it feels like it. “Atlas” is relatively minimal post-punk-pop, not quite Nightshift-level white space but still managing to be catchy and complete-sounding with a fairly straightforward arrangement–or, at least, straightforward until the group (Yaël Dekker, Winnie Conradi, Katja Kahana, Michelle Geraerts and Laurie Zantinge) lob an unsuspecting synth blast at you before they start up the second chorus.
“Streaks”, Miscellaneous Owl
From You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow (2024)
After a self-conscious jazzy introduction, “Streaks” opens Miscellaneous Owl’s You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow with nothing short of one of the finest pieces of pop music of the year so far. After shaking off its meta-narrative, everything locks into place: Huan-Hua Chye’s powerful Natalie Merchant-esque folk/college rock voice, the guitar arpeggio, the detail-specific but universally-landing subject matter, the sharp synths, and even some “whoa-oh” backing vocals. The Madison, Wisconsin indie pop singer-songwriter has put together an incredibly compelling collection of songs with You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow, and it opens with a particularly enticing example. Not streaming, get it on Bandcamp. Read more about You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow here.
“Herbicide”, Glaring Orchid
From I Hope You’re Okay (2024, Candlepin/Julia’s War)
If Candlepin and Julia’s War Records are teaming up to release an album, it’s a good guess that it’s going to be A) some combination of 90s-style lo-fi indie rock, shoegaze, and slowcore and B) pretty good. So far, so good for Glaring Orchid, the New Jersey-based project of Quinn Mulvihill who are gearing up to release their first full-length in late April. My favorite single from the upcoming I Hope You’re Okay is called “Herbicide”, a simple but effective mid-tempo lo-fi rocker featuring Stove’s Jordyn Blakely on drums. Assisted by Dana DeBari’s vocals, Mulvihill pulls off sounding “dreamy” while still keeping one foot in basement rock impressively on the fairly darkly beautiful track.
“You Were Hoping”, Sonny Falls
From Sonny Falls (2024, Earth Libraries)
The fourth album from Chicago’s Sonny Falls is a self-titled one, and it feels like an attempt to pack all the ambition that bandleader Ryan Ensley can muster into ten tracks and thirty-five minutes of roaring, garage-y rock and roll. The songs on Sonny Falls don’t sound like anything but Sonny Falls songs, but every track on the album feels stretched and teased out in a new way. Even the biggest-sounding songs on Sonny Falls aren’t always so straightforward–for instance, album highlight “You Were Hoping” merges a pounding, industrial beat to Ensley’s songwriting to create what is, shockingly, the biggest pop moment on the album. Read more about Sonny Falls here.
“Terminal Freakout”, MKVULTURE
From Terminal Freakout (2024)
Little is known about MKVULTURE (by me, at least). I do not even know if they’re a proper band or just one person. What I can tell you is that they’re from Richmond, Virginia (per their Bandcamp), they put out a four-song, nine-minute debut EP in January, and they make some really solid, really entrancing garage rock/post-punk on it. Too dark to be “egg punk” but not enough to be “goth”, Terminal Freakout is closest to a noisier/scrappier version of Marbled Eye-esque sharp-edged post-garage-punk. My favorite song on the EP is the title track, which flirts with weird synthpunk noise before roaring into loud, nervous, and dangerous-sounding punk rock.
“Evil Spawn”, Waxahatchee
From Tigers Blood (2024, Anti-)
Alright, alright, I’m on board with the new Waxahatchee album (it took a road trip to the South to get there). The singles (which hadn’t done much for me) sound better in the context of the album, and the album tracks are very solid. My favorite one is probably “Evil Spawn”, which makes good use of its MJ Lenderman cameo but never takes the spotlight off of Katie Crutchfield. Tigers Blood as a whole works due to how comfortable and natural it sounds in its “Americana”–it’s a sensible step forward from the still-figuring-it-out Saint Cloud and dials back the pastiche that made it hard for me to fully embrace the album she made as Plains in 2022. “Evil Spawn”, however, is right in Waxhatchee’s zone.
“More Like Norman Fucking Mailer”, Friends of Cesar Romero
From More Like Norman Fucking Mailer (2024, Doomed Babe)
I said earlier in this blog post that the B-side to the “More Like Norman Fucking Mailer” single might be my favorite of the two songs, but the A-side is very close behind it if so. It’s a good problem for the Friends of Cesaro Romero to have–two songs that could both very easily lead off a guitar pop record. I do see why J. Waylon Porcupine put this one first, though–amusingly profane title aside, “More Like Norman Fucking Mailer” is a triumphant piece of retro pop rock and roll, playing the earnestness in the chorus straight–or at least straight enough to swing to.
“You’re Also a Jerk”, Washer
From Come Back as a Bug (2024, Exploding in Sound)
We waited six years for 2023’s Improved Means to Deteriorated Ends, the third album from outstanding Brooklyn indie-punk-noise-rock-pop duo Washer–after that album (one of my favorite of last year), I wasn’t expecting to hear from them again so soon, but Kieran McShane and Mike Quigley are back with a two-song single that didn’t make the cut for their last full-length. “You’re Also a Jerk” is vintage Washer, a sub-two minute, incredibly catchy piece of fuzzed-out, mid-fi rock and roll that might’ve been too catchy and simple to fit on their most recent record’s busyness. Regardless, I’m glad “You’re Also a Jerk” made it out of the cave and onto this playlist.
“Cruellemonde De La Hi Fi”, Big Hug
From A Living You’ll Never Know (2024)
A Living You’ll Never Know is a brief dispatch from London emo-punk trio Big Hug–it’s only four songs long, including one instrumental, and comes in at under a dozen minutes in length. The band’s second EP isn’t without new developments for the band, however–single “Cruellemonde de la Hi Fi” brings us back into the world of emo-rock one song after the ambient synth intro track “Pyrrhic Opposites”, but it does so with a jagged guitarline that veers into frame memorably before vocalist Tom Watkins’ refrain eventually takes the reins from it. Read more about A Living You’ll Never Know here.
“Oh, Dry Up”, Bug Day
From UFOs by the Lake (2024)
Who are Bug Day? They’re a quartet from Rochester (Rowan Lynch, Rob Varon, Zach Walgren, and Simon Ribas) who released a five-song EP in 2021, and have begun 2024 by doing the same with their UFOs by the Lake CD. Bug Day’s latest record is a bit all over the place, with the song that opens the EP, “Oh, Dry Up”, representing the band at their catchiest. The band refer to “Oh, Dry Up” (originally released as a single last November) as their “kinda-sorta-hit-ish single”, and it’s hard not to hear why, as it’s a pleasantly hooky brand of Pavement/Dinosaur Jr.-indebted 90s-style indie rock/guitar pop. One of my favorite aspects of “Oh, Dry Up” is that its singular most catchy moment is its sparkling lead guitar riff–but the parts with vocals in them are pretty good, too.
“Al Pacino”, Near Beer
(2024, Double Helix)
Near Beer and The Pretty Flowers are linked together tightly in my mind–they’re both from Los Angeles, they’re both on Double Helix Records, they both make a brand of vintage college rock with hints of jangle pop and punk, and they’ve both put out albums that are shining examples of this kind of music in the past few years (The Pretty Flowers last year and Near Beer in 2022, with their next full-length coming “late 2024 or early 2025”). Near Beer have always sounded a little bit more agitated than their peers, and “Al Pacino” is a typically earnest, somewhat despondent-sounding piece of guitar pop from the band. Joey Siara’s lyrics about a “great American so-and-so” seem fairly ambivalent about the titular actor (and of Tony Soprano, also name-checked in the song)–it’s enough to keep me anticipating new music from Near Beer.
“Things”, Toadvine
From Toadvine II (2024)
Last year, I wrote about a song from Chicago garage-y country rock group The Roof Dogs–apparently, some of that band are also in a similarly-minded sextet called Toadvine. Organist/vocalist Andrew Marczak and guitarist/vocalist Jesse Cheshire are pulling double duty on Toadvine II, the second Toadvine EP and first release since 2020. Toadvine are a bit looser than the more “tasteful” rootsy rock of The Roof Dogs, but the group (also featuring guitarist/vocalist Tristan Huygen, pedal steel player Scott William, bassist Bell Cenower, and drummer Aidan O’Connor) can be refined too. My favorite song on Toadvine II is closing track “Things”, an earnest alt-country ballad that gets a lot of emotion across without breaking its strict pop structure.
“Utopia Now!”, Rosie Tucker
From UTOPIA NOW! (2024, Sentimental)
Realistically, I should just put this entire damn album on here. In the midst of a record full of chaotic, massively-constructed pop rock music, leave it to Rosie Tucker to make the most stripped-down song on UTOPIA NOW! (the title track) the most frenetic. They wring everything they can out of an acoustic guitar for “Utopia Now!”’s sub-two-minute runtime, a song that’s just as full and rewarding as anything else on the album. “I can’t relax, but I’m good for other things,” they belt on repeat in the middle of this song–it’s a rare moment where UTOPIA NOW! just comes out and states the obvious. Read more about UTOPIA NOW! here.
“River Ain’t Safe”, Villagerrr
From Tear Your Heart Out (2024, Darling)
Roughly speaking, Columbus’ Villagerrr trade in the sort of mid-2010s bedroom-y folk rock sound recalling landmark releases from everyone from Alex G and Hovvdy to Spencer Radcliffe and Elvis Depressedly. It’s not as easy as it sounds to make this kind of music sound fresh in 2024, but Tear Your Heart Out is sturdy and eminently relistenable. Take, for example, closing track “River Ain’t Safe”, which Mark Allen Scott and Zayn Dweik kick off with instant-gratification acoustic guitar and vocal hooks. It’s the most urgency found anywhere on the record, but Scott and Dweik subsequently let the track and the record float away, seemingly accepting the tough truth at the track’s heart. Read more about Tear Your Heart Out here.
Rosy Overdrive 