Pressing Concerns: Public Opinion, Webb Chapel, Young Scum, Trevor Sloan

You don’t know it yet, but we’re about to enter what’s going to be one of the most stacked weeks in Rosy Overdrive history. It all begins here, with a Monday Pressing Concerns featuring new albums from Public Opinion, Webb Chapel, Young Scum, and Trevor Sloan. Three albums that came out last Friday, and one from yesterday (a Sunday–right, I know!).

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.

Public Opinion – Painted on Smile

Release date: September 6^th
Record label: Convulse
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, fuzz rock, garage rock, hardcore punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Some Don’t

Don’t look now, but there’s some intriguing things going on in Denver, Colorado. There’s Power Goth Recordings, a new label founded by Lauren Beecher of Broken Record that’s put out music from shoegazers Flesh Tape, and then there’s Convulse Records, which has been around since the beginning of the decade. It’s a hardcore label made up primarily of bands who came up in hardcore circles, but it’s not constrained by that–for instance, they put out American Culture’s Hey Brother, It’s Been a While, which has power pop and even a bit of 90s Madchester/psychedelic pop in it. Public Opinion, then, are a perfect fit for Convulse–a Denver punk group who combine hardcore might, garage rock raggedness, and huge pop hooks on Painted on Smile, their debut LP.  Public Opinion (led by vocalist Kevin Hart and also featuring drummer Devan Bentley, guitarists Kevin Johnson and Brent Liseth, bassist Sebastian Stanley, and Antonio Vargas, a mysterious sixth member) had Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton co-produce Painted on Smile, and they share a knack for aggressively catchy rock music with Shelton’s most well-known band. Rather than Shelton’s Guided by Voices, however, Public Opinion’s melodic muse apparently comes via the 2000s garage rock revival (Hart specifically mentions The Strokes and The Hives).

Painted on Smile is a bit hard to get a handle on at first–not because the ten-song, 26-minute LP isn’t catchy, but because it’s a barrage of hooks and blunt force rock music that somehow manages more than a couple of surprising turns. “Drawn from Memory” opens the record with Public Opinion at their most Militarie Gun in the verses (chunky, meaty, catchy alt-rock with semi-growled kind of vocals over top) and grafts it onto a chorus that’s nearly pop punk in its earnestness. If there was any bullshit to cut, “Hothead” would’ve cut it, zipping through a two-minute piece of first-wave punk rock catchiness, but “Some Don’t” flips the script one song later by polishing up their alt-rock to nearly power pop levels in a way that reminds me of another Convulse associate, Dazy. Hopefully you’re ready for a quiet mellotron-strings-and-acoustic-guitar number, because that’s what you get in the middle of the album with the first half of “Passes Me By”–before, eventually, the soaring electric guitars kick in and the song becomes a genuine power ballad. The soft side of Public Opinion shows up once again in penultimate track “Scene Missing” (right after they rip through three scorching punk tunes like “Passes Me By” didn’t happen, of course). This time, the song (which was co-produced by Dazy’s James Goodson, which I swear I didn’t know sixty seconds ago when I compared “Some Don’t” to his band) stays just as mellotron-and-acoustic-guitar-based for its entirety. Somewhere along the way, they picked up the confidence to pull “Scene Missing” off, and then that same band close the record out with “Wear & Tear”, a four-minute pounder that’s the group’s clearest foray into classic garage rock yet–they’ve earned it. (Bandcamp link)

Webb Chapel – World Cup

Release date: September 6^th
Record label: Strange Mono
Genre: Fuzz rock, noise pop, noise rock, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Springtime

I first heard Philadelphia’s Webb Chapel last year via a Strange Mono-released record called Speeding. Speeding was the fifth Webb Chapel album since 2022, and appears to be typical of what can be found in the project’s other, largely self-released record–namely, lo-fi, warbly Martin Newell-esque guitar pop balanced against a darker (but still lo-fi) post-punk side. I enjoyed the record, but apparently didn’t keep close enough tabs on Webb Chapel to learn of their first two records of 2024, Vernon Manor and Ocean Bliss Awareness. World Cup, their third one of 2024, third for Strange Mono, and eighth album overall, is where I rejoin the world of Webb Chapel–and it’s just in time for a huge shift in the band’s sound. Up until now, Webb Chapel had been more or less the home-recorded solo project of Zack Claxton, but World Cup brings with it both a foray into full-band rock music (thanks to vocalist/bassist Rachel Gordon, guitarist Josh Lesser, and drummer Christian Mailloux) and into outside recording help (thanks to prolific Philly engineer Dan Angel). Claxton seizes on these changes to move Webb Chapel into heavier terrain, embracing a noisy, art-y indie rock sound that evokes forbearers like Sonic Youth and the more tuneful side of their contemporaries in the experimental Philadelphia shoegaze scene (Lesser has played with They Are Gutting a Body of Water, but it might be more accurate to compare World Cup to more song-based fuzz-rockers like A Country Western).

The elevation of Gordon to co-lead vocalist is key to Webb Chapel’s new look–without her, it’s hard to imagine the project achieving anything like opening track “Springtime”, a pounding but melodic song that enters Yo La Tengo/Dummy terrain but with a noise rock bite still attached. Claxton takes the helm for greyscale rockers “Shipping Containers Anonymous” and “Pretty”, but the band punch them up to previously-unattained heights. Even as Webb Chapel start to get comfortable in their electric skin, though, they’re not content to stay there–“Amelia” busts out the acoustic guitar for a burned-out folk tune, while “D.U.S.T.” takes the full band lineup into experimental and psychedelic territory and “Black Car” features a plugged in electric guitar but little else accompanying Gordon’s chilly vocals. Those who enjoyed Webb Chapel’s predilection for damaged (but potent nonetheless) guitar pop might be disappointed in World Cup at first, but a closer look reveals Claxton’s pop writing baked into these songs as well. It’s in the guitars shimmering through the psych-punk rocker “Brown Eyes”, in the mid-tempo garage rock strut of “Alone at the Fair”, and key in buoying late-record acoustic tracks “Red Roses” and “Velvet Morning”. There was plenty to like in earlier, solo Webb Chapel records like Speeding, yes, but I’m also intrigued to see how the full band version of the project progresses. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear more from both soon. (Bandcamp link)

Young Scum – Lighter Blue

Release date: September 8^th
Record label: Pretty Olivia/Jigsaw
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Peach Ice Cream

Richmond quartet Young Scum released their self-titled debut album on Citrus City back in 2018, embarking on a mission to bring jangly power pop to the Commonwealth that they’d started with their first EP, Zona, two years before that. A half-dozen years after Young Scum, Chris Smith, Ali Mislowsky, Ben Medcalf, and Nate Rubin have returned with Lighter Blue, their long-awaited sophomore LP. As regular readers of this blog are no doubt aware, jangle pop has been in good hands during Young Scum’s absence, with their specific fizzy, giddily-melodic blend being practiced by bands like Ducks Ltd., Chime School, and Laughing. The bands on that list find the sweet spot of maximizing catchiness in their guitar pop while still offering up a tangible emotional core, and this is the area in which Young Scum find themselves with Lighter Blue. Coming back after an extended absence with a record clocking in at under 30 minutes might look like a headscratcher, but this is a fully-realized album that covers more than enough ground in its eleven tracks. A classic “second album”, Lighter Blue shows a band that can still flex the muscles they developed at their onset while sliding into something more pensive, too.

Lighter Blue’s opening title track is a crystal-clear piece of perfect jangle pop, shyly chiming its way to immortality. “Peach Ice Cream”, improbably, does “Lighter Blue” one better, retaining the sparkle and zippiness but adding the dramatic, nostalgic power pop attitude of bands like Blues Lawyer and Quivers to the two-minute tune. “See It Through” completes the trifecta of immediately-hitting jangle pop anthems to begin the record–and with Young Scum having now hooked us completely, they begin stretching out ever so slightly. I’m struggling to put my finger on which band “Velvet Crush” reminds me of (Teenage Fanclub?), but its mid-tempo, wistful balladry is a welcome change of pace, and “Limeade” adds just a hint of fuzzy noise pop to its primordial mopiness. Lighter Blue is such a consistent listen that I’m finding it hard to skip over singling out any one song–the R.E.M. guitars of “Got Mad” are surely worth a mention, and the zero-to-infinity trick that “Didn’t Mean To” pulls is one of my favorite parts, too. I can point out that “Wrong” sneaks in one last no-strings-attached indie pop classic towards the end of the record, or how the digital handclaps in “Fall into Your Arms” somehow meld perfectly with the sun-bursting vibe of the rest of the track. I could appreciate how “Away” closes the album with something just a little grander with just a couple of key additions. I probably shouldn’t, though–Young Scum don’t ramble on for longer than they need to on Lighter Blue, so why should I? (Bandcamp link)

Trevor Sloan – A Room by the Green Sea

Release date: September 6^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Dream pop, soft rock, folk rock, psych pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Purple Starfish

Trevor Sloan is a collage artist and musician from Toronto who has been steadily releasing music since the early 2010s. After putting out a handful of albums under the name Phono d’enfant, Sloan began a solo career with 2018’s Seven Robins in the Snow, and has put out a solo album almost every year since. Like most of his solo albums, A Room by the Green Sea (his sixth LP) is self-released and written and recorded almost entirely by Sloan himself (horns from prolific producer Andy Magoffin, who also mixed and mastered the record, being the only outside contribution). Sloan’s version of guitar pop music is a soft and delicate one–the album’s twelve songs drift by in under a half-hour, dressed casually but carefully with Sloan’s guitars and synths (including a “newly repaired” Juno-106 keyboard) and landing somewhere in between folk, dream pop, and tropicalia/psychedelic pop. Fellow Canadian big sky folkie Jon McKiel comes to mind, as do indie royalty Belle & Sebastian and the lighter side of Stereolab (as well as modern bands following in a similar vein, like Peel Dream Magazine, Grand Drifter, and Monde UFO). 

A Room by the Green Sea opens by evoking a slowly advancing and receding tide as well as indie pop music can–after a ninety-second instrumental introduction track, “Salty Ocean” begins the album proper so subtly that it’s easy to miss when Sloan begins singing if one isn’t paying close attention. If there are any visibility markers or beacons on A Room by the Green Sea, “Praying Mantis” is likely one of them, if only for having steady percussion (not at all a given on this record) and extending past the three minute mark, something only one other track does on the album. Some more of A Room by the Green Sea’s more fleshed-out moments come with “Faded Towel” (it’s quick but jaunty), “Blade on My Face” (a piece of thoughtful but substantial piano balladry) and “Purple Starfish” (a slowly beautiful piece of soft rock), although the songs that come in between these tracks don’t really feel “lesser”. As minimalist as “Don’t Waste Your Time” and “Sunlight Through the Window” are, they don’t feel incomplete so much as economical, finding a way to convey complete thoughts with as little embellishment as possible. Much like the tranquil and remote vista evoked by the record’s title (apparently inspired by spending time on Mayne Island, British Columbia), there’s obviously beauty in A Room by the Green Sea, but it takes a certain kind of person to meet it there and appreciate it. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

• MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
• Tears Run Rings – Everything in the End
• Value Added – Tell Us Like We Are
• Sima Cunningham – High Roller
• Warmachine – Browser’s Castle
• Toe – Now I See the Light
• Howl in the Typewriter – Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes
• Roughly Human – Almost Daylight, Hopeless Dawn
• Mike Frazier – Live in Seattle 8/10/24 EP
• Backyard Ritual – Small World
• Winter – …And She’s Still Listening EP
• Tall Juan – Raccoon Nights
• GUM & Ambrose Kenny-Smith – Ill Times
• Sour Widows – On Audiotree Live EP
• Jane Hobson – Attic Days
• Principe Valiente – In This Light Single Remixes EP
• Veronica Lewis – Too Late for Tears
• Intercontinen7al – Intercontinen7al, Vol. 5
• Mamaleek – Vida Blue
• Cloud Cult – Alchemy Creek
• Josh Krajcik – Epiphaniac
• H8 Mile – Spread the Love
• Pere Ubu – No Jane
• Joybomb – Modern Scripture EP
• Oruã – New Old Demos – September 24”