Pressing Concerns: R.J.F., Aerial, Pretty Inside, Lowe Cellar

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In the Tuesday edition of Pressing Concerns, we’re shining a light on four great records from April: new albums from R.J.F., Aerial, Pretty Inside, and Lowe Cellar. Read on to find out how many of these bands I compare to Teenage Fanclub! Also, be sure to check out yesterday’s edition of Pressing Concerns (featuring Death by Indie, Bibi Club, Saturnalias, and Kill Gosling) if you missed it.

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.

R.J.F. – Strange Going

Release date: April 26th
Record label: Digital Regress/Industry Standards
Genre: Post-punk, slowcore, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Danger in Freedom

Last year I wrote about Going Strange, the debut album from R.J.F., aka San Francisco-originating, Los Angeles-based musician and poet Ross J. Farrar. Farrar made a name for himself in music fronting longrunning punk group Ceremony, but Going Strange was his debut both as a solo artist and as a musician in general (previously having only handled vocal duties as a frontperson). An intriguing debut, Going Strange found R.J.F. exploring a minimal, bass-driven, rhythmic post-punk that sounded pretty far removed from any of his previous work, and there were even hints of other sides of the musician (lo-fi pop, spoken word) there too. Going Strange got a vinyl release later in the year via Digital Regress (Marbled Eye, Cindy, April Magazine), and the label has teamed with Industry Standards to release a second R.J.F. LP, Strange Going, a year and a month later. As the title suggests, it makes some sense to view the second R.J.F. album as a sequel or even continuation of the first–like Going Strange, it’s presented as one long track everywhere but on Bandcamp, and it’s also basically entirely the product of Ross J. Farrar (with Public Interest’s Andrew Oswald providing mixing and mastering).

I listened to Strange Going as two mp3s (one for each side of vinyl), so I’m learning the tracklist as I write this. The slow, probing, Velvet Underground-esque sound of R.J.F.’s last album welcomes the listener in the opening of this one, too–the five-minute “Man Dies” and the nearly-as-long “Sonny John” feel of a single minimal piece, the only real dividing line between the two being when the drums finally kick in during the latter. When Strange Going first mixes it up, it’s actually to get even more quiet with the cavernous, almost-ambient feel of “Warm Alone”–although the rhythmic post-punk of “Caterpillar” offers up a faint heartbeat, and the fascinating spoken word piece “Swamp” ends the first half of the record on a decidedly unique note (especially considering its abrupt ending). The second half of Strange Going is the more experimental yet possibly more accessible side–synths, pianos, and captivating rhythms mark the stretch from “Halloween in Florida Part II” to “Illusion of Control”. “Danger in Freedom” is even R.J.F.’s version of a party song–a seven-minute (relatively) uptempo post-punk song, very nearly ready to crawl smoothly onto the dancefloor. With two records in as many years, R.J.F. deserves to be seen as more than a curiosity or a side project–it’s the sound of a talented artist finding a new, fertile avenue to create. (Bandcamp link)

Aerial – Activities of Daily Living

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Signalsongs/Flake Music/Kool Kat
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, jangle pop, alt-rock, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Pixelated Youth

Aerial are a Scottish power pop group–originally from Aberdeen and currently based out of Glasgow–who seem to average about one album a decade. They formed in the late 90s, released Back Within Reach in 2001, and broke up not long after. The group–co-led by songwriters Colin Cummings & Mackie Mackintosh–reunited a decade later, putting out Why Don’t They Teach Heartbreak at School? in 2014, but Aerial went radio silent until this year’s Activities of Daily Living, their third LP. The record came out of the pandemic, and its title refers to the mundanity of lockdown that Cummings and Mackintosh sought to break with creative work–that being said, there’s nothing rote or dull about how Aerial sound here. This is best-foot-forward, eager-to-please power pop, full of energy and eagerly-delivered hooks–perhaps unsurprisingly for a Scottish guitar pop band, there’s a lot of Teenage Fanclub in these songs (the record’s producer, Duncan Cameron, has worked with them, in addition to bands like The Trash Can Sinatras, The Orchids, and The Wake), but they certainly hew to the more upbeat and rousing side of their fellow countrymen, and there’s even a bit of electric, guitar-heavy Matthew Sweet-esque pop music too.

Activities of Daily Living reintroduces Aerial with several songs that sound huge and single-ready–the power chords and backing “oohs” in the verses of the opening title track are an exciting first move, and the soaring, just-so-slightly-melancholic chorus sticks the song’s landing, while the crunchy, 80s-synth-featuring “Pixelated Youth” is an absurdly catchy tribute to vintage video games (show me another power pop song that turns “Shigero Miyamoto” into a vocal hook, please), and the central metaphor of “I Bet You Know Karate” doesn’t even have to be as weirdly memorable as it is given the amount of other great stuff going on in it (did you hear those handclaps?). The jangly, syrupy ballad “Run These Lights” and the spare piano-led “Debutante” are Activities of Daily Living’s mid-record gut checks, but don’t fret–the second half of the album features just as many immediate rockers. “An Encore and a Cover Song” might be the most “power” pop moment on the record, while the synth hook of “Cadence” is massive to match an instrumental that demands it. Aerial kind of remind me of a Scottish Dot Dash, a band that’s been at it for a while but are still churning out workmanlike but smart, catchy but multi-faceted guitar pop music. I wouldn’t mind getting a second Aerial record this decade, but Activities of Daily Living will do for the moment. (Bandcamp link)

Pretty Inside – I Care About You

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Flippin’ Freaks/Les Disques du Paradis/Permanent Freak
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Raised Like a Woman

I’ve written about a good deal of French indie rock on the blog before–bands like SIZ, Opinion, and TH Da Freak, labels like Flippin’ Freaks and Howlin’ Banana–and it seems like that “scene” is a hotbed for bands taking inspiration from classic garage rock, 90s alt-rock, and modern bedroom rock. Bordeaux’s Pretty Inside are the latest group to appear on my radar with I Care About You, their sophomore full-length album (following 2021’s Grow Up!). The group is led by singer-songwriter Alexis Deux-Seize (co-founder of Flippin’ Freaks and a member of plenty of other Bordeaux bands), and Pretty Inside differentiate themselves from their peers on their second record with a more apparent devotion to wistful yet electric power pop in their song construction. After touring their first album, Pretty Inside became more of a full-fledged “band” than a Deux-Seize solo project, and they bring a big-sounding energy to I Care About You–but not enough that the frequently delicate pop hooks get lost in the record’s mix.

I Care About You has a distinct “feel” throughout its dozen songs, one that’s familiar to guitar pop aficionados but difficult to exactly pin down (aside from “Teenage Fanclub-influenced”, yes). It’s power pop, but (with the exception of second-half breakdown “Scream for Love”) it’s closer to the rainy, less aggressive side of the genre. Opening track “Life Inside a Jelly Bean” has some soaring guitars and synth hooks, but still manages to sound dreamy and forlorn, while the melancholic jangle of “Morning Comes” musters up a light stomp in its chorus but is much more pensive otherwise. Pretty Inside mess with the ratio a little bit–“Like It When It Rains”, “Raised Like a Woman”, and “Candles Are Burning” lean a little more into fuzzy garage rock than the majority of the record but still keep their eyes on the melody above all else, single “Big Star” and the closing title track are the “acoustic song” and “solo piano song”, respectively, while the penultimate “Drown in Love” makes good on its title by being I Care About You’s clearest foray into heavier psych-tinged rock music. Regardless of the tweaks in presentation, there isn’t a song on the record that doesn’t have a strong moment of excellently-harmonized vocal hooks or a just-as-memorable melodic guitar part–I Care About You might be a little sneaky in its pop strengths, but Pretty Inside have left them all over for us to find. (Bandcamp link)

Lowe Cellar – TAGU

Release date: April 7th
Record label: Cinder Arts Collective/Outcast Tape Infirmary
Genre: Post-hardcore, art rock, noise rock, folk rock, post-rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Ash Wednesday

Lowe Cellar are a self-described “experimental post-hardcore” group from Seattle whose core quartet includes Jacob Kelly (vocals/guitar/piano), Sam Leon (bass/piano), John Jarman (drums), and Cody Schuman (production/mixing). The group have put out a couple of EPs since they formed in 2017, but TAGU (“To a God Unknown”) appears to be Lowe Cellar’s first full-length record. Lowe Cellar list both heavier post-hardcore/emo (Cursive, Balance and Composure, mewithoutYou) and softer (but still “heavy” in a different way) indie folk (Mount Eerie, Smog, Jason Molina) as influences, and the ten songs of TAGU oblige in the wide-ranging sonic terrain they encompass. TAGU (which features guest musicians on viola, violin, and cello, among other instruments) certainly sounds like a record out of the Pacific Northwest, as it veers from the noisier end of K/Kill Rock Stars-esque post-hardcore-punk a la Unwound and Lync to moments of static-y, Phil Elverum-reminiscent skeletal structures while displaying a high comfort level in either skin. There’s an intensity to TAGU, yes, but even when it runs white-hot or ice-cold it’s still an approachable, dynamic rock album.

The opening track to TAGU, “Ash Wednesday”, is the “prettier” side of Lowe Cellar, although it still has plenty of electricity and full-band drama to it as well. It’s “Escaping the Swaddling of Skin” one song later, however, where the band fully embrace 90s noisy indie rock–it’s a screamed-out punk anthem that feels like a more fiery and less insular version of early Unwound. I hear a bit of Unwound in the record’s other two biggest “rockers” as well, although the spikey, doom-y post-hardcore of “Scorched Earth” and the truly curious-sounding “Passing Through” (shades of screamo, rhythmic post-punk, and even more traditional-sounding 90s indie rock in that one) are both distinct creatures. On the other end of the spectrum, “Eyes Are Mine” is a pin-drop quiet piece of minimal folk rock, but TAGU’s subtler songs generally take the form of distorted, downcast rainy indie rock (“Colander”) or folky, dreamy, almost post-rock structures (“TAGU”, “Two Roads”). It’s a journey of a record, and the ending of it–the clear-sounding but still somewhat dark-feeling “Postlude to an Elegy”–is one last surprise. Volatile beauty isn’t going to be everyone’s thing, but if you’re drawn to this kind of music, Lowe Cellar have zeroed in on it with TAGU. (Bandcamp link)

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2 thoughts on “Pressing Concerns: R.J.F., Aerial, Pretty Inside, Lowe Cellar”

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