Pressing Concerns: Macseal, West of Roan, Other Half, Tension Pets

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Welcome to mid-July! It’s a Monday, and today Pressing Concerns is going to be looking at three great records that came out last week (albums from Macseal and West of Roan, and an EP from Tension Pets), plus an LP from Other Half that came out last month. Everyone from folkies to post-hardcore fans to synth punks to emo-pop-punk heads will find something to like here.

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.

Macseal – Permanent Repeat

Release date: July 12th
Record label: Counter Intuitive
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, emo-pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Permanent Repeat

I’ve always thought of Farmingdale, New York’s Macseal as a clear-cut fourth-wave emo group, and the quartet’s most popular release, 2017’s Yeah, No, I Know, bears the mathy, twinkly hallmarks of that era. A closer examination of their 2019 debut full-length, Super Enthusiast, however, reveals a band with big pop ambitions beyond their starting point–they garnered Oso Oso comparisons, a link that goes beyond their shared Long Island homes. After a productive 2010s, Macseal took their time on a follow-up, and the quartet (vocalist/guitarists Ryan Bartlett and Cole Szilagyi, bassist Justin Canavaciol, and drummer Frankie Impastato) have returned with a record that fully and completely embraces what Super Enthusiast hinted at. Although the press release for Permanent Repeat mentioned quite a bit of music I like, what caught my attention was what it didn’t say–the word “emo” didn’t appear there once. And, look, Bartlett and Szilagyi still sound like “emo vocalists”, but it’s more than fair to say that Macseal has straight-up transformed at this point–Permanent Repeat immerses itself in the worlds of power pop, polished pop punk, and even widescreen “heartland” indie rock across its eleven tracks.

Permanent Repeat is chock full of instant hits, but opening track “A+B” isn’t one of them, a delicate song built around light-feeling vocals and acoustic guitar that does eventually get “huge”, but only at its finale. As immediate and natural as the “pop” side of Permanent Repeat feels, moments like “A+B” are reminders that Macseal have charted this new course for themselves deliberately and expertly. We also see them at work with “October”, an intro to the title track that plays the following song’s chorus acoustically, and then with how they barrel through “Permanent Repeat” for nearly three minutes before tacking the full version of the refrain (the catchiest single moment on the album) on at the end, upending any sort of traditional pop structure. In between the more inspired detours of Permanent Repeat are impeccable emo-tinged pop punk/power pop anthems, like the speedy “Golden Harbor”, the Fountains of Wayne-like harmonies of “Four Legs”, and “Easily Undone” and “Beach Vacation”, two gorgeous mid-tempo songs that confirm Macseal hasn’t lost any emotional impact by leaving behind their more Midwest emo-indebted sound. Permanent Repeat is so strong in its first half that one feels like it could go on forever, and while the final stretch has less clear highlights, I can’t in good conscience call a record that closes with “Hide Out” (which adds just a dash of Superdrag-esque wall of guitars to their distinct guitar pop brew) and the bittersweet “Afloat” “frontloaded”. Macseal deserve a great deal of credit for growing and forging themselves into a band that can pull off something like Permanent Repeat so smoothly. (Bandcamp link)

West of Roan – Queen of Eyes

Release date: July 12th
Record label: Spinster
Genre: Folk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Bread of Life

Washington State’s Annie Schermer and Channing Showalter are half of the “freak folk collective” Doran, but before that group released their self-titled debut in 2021, the two of them made folk music as a duo under the name West of Roan. Queen of Eyes is the second West of Roan album, coming six years after their self-titled debut, comprised of a dozen original folk songs and one interpretation of a traditional one. West of Roan do indeed bring a traditionalist attitude towards their original compositions–there’s less of the occasional deconstructive instinct found in Doran here. Part of that likely has to do with the making of the album–the duo self-recorded it in a “small one-room, off-grid cabin on Waldron Island” off the coast of Washington, with just one condenser microphone connected to solar power to capture their songs. As a result, Queen of Eyes is a clear and intimate-sounding record, with absolutely nothing to get in the way of Schermer and Showalter’s voices aside from their just-as-bare acoustic guitar and violin playing.

Just because Queen of Eyes is a barebones record doesn’t mean it’s in any way a “simple” one–that’s far from an accurate description of what’s contained in this album. Writing original folk music that sounds like it could and should belong in this ancient musical lineage seems like a fairly tricky task to take on, but West of Roan come off as students well-versed enough in their field to understand where to begin. The duo refer to Queen of Eyes as a “collection of myths”, and from the titular character on down (whose vision-based aura is as a good a way to understand the rest of the depictions in these songs as any), Schermer and Showalter deliberately build worlds such that the beauty of these songs comes from their appearance as imperfect but deeply-felt reflections of things much larger. Maybe “The Bell” and “The Mountain” are songs drawn from the duo’s Pacific Northwest home to some degree, but there’s no way of telling how close it is to the one that we’re able to access in our own reality. Songs like “Bread of Life”, “Gentian”, and “Bright” feel both foreign and universal at the same time, sounding equally like relics from a lost era and in touch with the present (particularly the vivid scene depicted in the beginning of the later of the three). The link might be as thin as an extension cord running to a solar panel at times, but it’s there. (Bandcamp link)

Other Half – Dark Ageism

Release date: June 21st
Record label: Big Scary Monsters
Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Farm Games

Although Norwich post-hardcore trio Other Half have been kicking around since at least 2014, the band emerged in earnest at the beginning of this decade, releasing their debut full-length, Big Twenty, in 2020, followed by Soft Action (their first for Big Scary Monsters) in 2022 and now their third LP, Dark Ageism, this June. The group (guitarist/vocalist Cal Hudson, bassist/vocalist Sophie “Soapy” Porter, and drummer Alfie Adams) have developed something of a following in recent years, although this new album is the first time I’d really listened to them. Dark Ageism has an intriguing sound, prowling about on the noisier edges of indie rock–your typical modern post-hardcore touchstones (Dischord Records, Electrical Audio-core, the Drive Like Jehu expanded universe) abound, yes, but between Hudson’s emphatic talk-singing, the high-concept writing throughout the record, and the grandiosity of the band, there’s something else here as well. Rather than trying to revive the danceability of noise-punk as bands like Perennial and Feefawum are doing, Dark Ageism is almost a post-hardcore version of The Hold Steady and their “literary punk” attitude.

It all adds up to a gripping and unique listen from the start of Dark Ageism onwards. Opening track “Lifted Fingers” glides into focus ominously, a Lungfish-esque hymn that’s one of the less explosive tracks on the record, even as Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws appears to deliver a spoken word section that slips from bitterness into a kind of hopeful hopelessness. After that, the fireworks really start, as Other Half burn through “Strange Loop”, “Sucked It Sore”, and “Lowlifes & Lower”–one might want to keep a lyric book handy to follow Hudson’s screamed diatribes. Porter helms the spoken-word based basement post-rock of “Feeling for Yourself”; it’s Other Half’s version of a breather, before they launch into one of my favorite moments on the record, the spiky, almost glam-punk steamroller that is “Farm Games”. I hope you’re keeping up, because the second half of Dark Ageism isn’t letting up–look out, the sneering noise-punk  of “Dollar Sign Eyes” is turning the titles of the band’s preview records into characters and movements, and the record’s closing trio put everything into overdrive. We get a straight noise-rock blazer in “A Little Less Than Evil”, a death-throes ode to hanging it up in “Pastoral Existence”, and “Other Half Vs. the End of Everything” looms over it all in its burn-it-all-down death rattle. This isn’t exactly easy work; I appreciate Other Half and going and laying everything out there for us. (Bandcamp link)

Tension Pets – Cubey

Release date: July 11th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: New wave, synthpunk, egg punk, garage punk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Man of Opinion

I’ve got some good news, everyone–another Chicago egg punk band has just released their debut EP. Tension Pets formed just last year, but all four of its members have played in notable groups before–per Post-Trash, drummer Wendy Zeldin also drums in Mandy, synth player Jeff Graupner is in The Hecks, guitarist Davey Hart has played with The Christmas Bride and Wishgift, and bassist Brian Weza has done time with Richard Album and the Singles and Jessica Risker. Cubey is a “synthpunk” record, to be sure, but that doesn’t really capture everything that’s going on in these six songs. That description often just means “post-punk/garage rock with synths”, and while there’s plenty of that on Cubey, the quartet aim beyond that and end up creating huge, synth-driven anthemic rock and roll music in addition to their more lean, punk-y moments. Cubey is a debut that feels off-the-rails (or as close to it without actually being so)–all the members sing, and the frequent vocal handoffs go a long way towards giving the EP its “orchestrated chaos” aura.

Tension Pets’ opening statement, “Man of Opinion”, has a bit of everything in it–it’s got cruising, drilling garage rock guitars in the verses, an inspired, offbeat vocal performance, and a huge, new-wave-y chorus. The “slacker rock Devo” vibes of “Man of Opinion” work very well and would probably be enough to hang a record on on their own, but Tension Pets aren’t content to park Cubey in that particular cul-de-sac–for one, the careening “On the Outside” one song later is the closest the group get to ferocious “classic synthpunk”, and then the EP’s two middle tracks take Cubey to somewhere else entirely. “Mansion” recalls turn-of-the-century D.C. post-hardcore and dance-punk (stuff that bands like Perennial are trying to revive), a fiery, cocky, and deceptively dark piece of maximalist rock music that the band sound just as equipped to pull off. Then, in “Magnolia (She’s Back)”, the band’s synth-punk instincts fight against a swooning, widescreen indie rock side that surfaces not long into the track as well. The synths are at their busiest, the vocals feel almost classic rock, and it all creates maybe the most captivating two minutes on the EP. Every song on Cubey has something brilliant in it (even “Ticket to the Basement”, a forty-second thing that I can only describe as “twee Brainiac”), and taken together, it’s evidence of a band hitting the ground running. (Bandcamp link)

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