Pressing Concerns: Kal Marks, Pulsars, Old City, Yon Loader

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The conclusion of an absolutely wonderful week on Rosy Overdrive arrives with the Thursday Pressing Concerns. We’re looking at four records coming out tomorrow, September 13th: new albums from Kal Marks, Old City, and Yon Loader, plus a reissue of Pulsars‘ sole album. To recap this week’s posts: on Monday, we looked at records from Public Opinion, Webb Chapel, Young Scum, and Trevor Sloan, Tuesday’s post featured Guidon Bear, Mythical Motors, WUT, and Alejandro, and Wednesday brought an in-depth look at Bad Moves’ Wearing Out the Refrain. Check those out too!

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.

Kal Marks – Wasteland Baby

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Exploding in Sound
Genre: Noise rock, post-punk, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Wasteland Baby

I’ve had nothing but respect for Boston noise rock act Kal Marks for a while now (the last song from 2018’s Universal Care, the one with the long title, is one of my favorites), but the album that truly won me over was their fifth full-length, 2022’s My Name Is Hell. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was the album where vocalist/guitarist Carl Shane debuted a new line-up, featuring guitarist/vocalist Christina Puerto (of Bethlehem Steel and Mulva) and bassist John Russell, and the group took the band’s sound away from blistering post-hardcore and more towards straightforward, meaty noise rock (not a huge transition, but noticeable enough for people who like this kind of music). The sixth Kal Marks LP is called Wasteland Baby, and although it features another lineup change (Adam Berkowitz, who’s also played with Alexander, Big Heet, and Mulva, steps in for Dylan Teggart on the drums), it continues the evolution tentatively advanced with My Name Is Hell. Described as a “borderline-concept album”, Wasteland Baby wanders around a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world that looks pretty similar to our own–as much as or even more than the lyrics, it’s the band’s playing that turns the record into something like a story. There’s noise rock, but Kal Marks use rhythms and sweeping art rock to embark on a journey, not unlike labelmates Pile’s recent work.

Kal Marks are far from a “folk” band, but Wasteland Baby’s songwriting and narrative asks why noise rock can’t have some of the gravitas awarded to two of Shane’s favorite musicians, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan (and, plus, there’s an intriguing burned-out balladeer lurking in the vocal takes for “Hard Work Will Get You Nowhere” and “You Are Found”). In a way, Wasteland Baby mirrors Kal Marks’ journey in miniature, as darkness and chaos build into something more cohesive and maybe even a little less dim as the album progresses. The first proper song on the album, “Insects”, scurries along with its pessimistic, pestilential view of humanity in tow (it goes down easy with a danceable post-punk rhythm section), and “Hard Work Will Get You Nowhere” is even more pummeling than the title might suggest. Kal Marks sound uneasy on “A Functional Earth” and “You Are Found”, but that doesn’t stop the songs forming something towering and grand, and “Whatever the News” injects an actual groove (and Puerto’s excellent backing vocals) into the equation. “Whatever the News” kicks off Wasteland Baby’s incredibly strong home stretch, also featuring the surprisingly bright “Motherfuckers” (a curiously enjoyable number that paraphrases Cohen and maintains the band’s bite through mid-tempo alt-rock), the especially-modern-Pile-like drama of “Midnight”, and the closing title track. “Wasteland Baby” is an incredible final statement–I knew that Kal Marks could be explosive, but not like this. It’s a Bruce Springsteen song–I mean, about as close as anyone could get. There’s entire bands that’ve based their identity on ripping off Bruce Springsteen that have never made anything like “Wasteland Baby”. “There’s only one thing in this world I don’t despise / Oh, it’s her eyes,” howls Shane, right before the chorus throws a match into a fireworks warehouse. Needless to say, “Wasteland Baby” ends with its gaze straight ahead. (Bandcamp link)

Pulsars – Pulsars (Reissue)

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Tiny Global Productions/Damaged Disco
Genre: Power pop, new wave, alt-rock, synthpop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Tunnel Song

There is no shortage of different ways for me to introduce Dave Trumfio. As a producer, engineer, and runner of Kingsize SoundLabs, he most famously helped record Wilco’s Summerteeth, and has worked with everyone from OK Go to Franklin Bruno to Built to Spill as well. As of late, he’s been a member of longrunning British/Chicago alt-country group the Mekons, and he’s also started the record label Damaged Disco (which received something of a formal launch early last year with the release of Grey Factor’s 1979-1980 A.D. – Complete Studio Recordings compilation). As a frontperson and songwriter, however, his most beloved work is with The Pulsars, the 1990s technologically-minded new wave revival duo he led with only his brother Harry on drums. Chewed up and spat out by the post-grunge major label industry, The Pulsars managed to released one album in 1997 before their upstart label (Almo, from the minds that brought you A&M) folded and Trumfio understandably decided to refocus on his production career rather than live in that particular purgatory. However, Pulsars have resurfaced in recent years, with a compilation of rare and unreleased material showing up in 2021 and this year bringing both a vinyl reissue of Pulsars (which had up until now only been available as a CD) and the announcement of the duo’s first live shows in 25 years.

A quarter-century later, Pulsars is a singular album. It doesn’t sound like the late 1990s, but it’s undoubtedly a product of its time in an odd way. The Cars-y new wave/synthpop homage baked into the record’s sound is more devoted than peers The Rentals or future Trumfio associates OK Go’s versions of it, but there’s still some irreverent Chicago 90s power pop/alt-rock a la Fig Dish and Triple Fast Action in the mix, too. Trumfio sings about robots, technology, and aliens in a way that updates the original 80s paranoia for the era of both slacker and geek rock. The computers and androids in Pulsars vindicate the tinkering hobbyist (“Technology”) and serve as a faithful companion for someone who probably wouldn’t get out much otherwise (“My Pet Robot”), and the extraterrestrials deliver a memorable, spirited kiss-off to all of humanity in one of the record’s most propulsive tracks (“Runway”). Pulsars is really obviously a great lost pop album, both in the more thematically-relevant songs and in Pulsars’ other concerns (like “Tunnel Song”, a buzzing, absurdly catchy synthpop tune about various tunnels in the United States, and “Suffocation”, which is of course about love). Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it does feel like there’s some commentary on the exploding alt-rock world around them in songs like “Owed to a Devil” (the classic soul-selling story delivered in a way that practically invents Kiwi Jr.’s sound two decades before they showed up) and “Save You” (starring an under-the-microscope character that could be a stand-in for plenty of people around this time period). Buried under an end-of-history avalanche for entirely too long, Pulsars feels shockingly vibrant right now. (Bandcamp link)

Old City – Old City

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Get Better
Genre: Hip hop, punk rock, experimental rap, sampledelia
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Jump Off

Philadelphia’s Old City (not to be confused with the anarcho-punks from Portland of the same name) are a “punk hip-hop group” largely made up of producer Justin Mayer and emcee Tr38cho and who made their debut for indie punk label Get Better Records (Bacchae, Cowboy Boy, Empty Country) back in 2021 with a five-song self-titled EP. All five songs on the Old City EP are present on the group’s debut LP, also titled Old City, which spans sixteen songs and nearly an hour in length. The bio for this album gleefully compares Old City to Paul’s Boutique, and the album (built from “hundreds” of punk rock samples, in addition to contributions from a handful of real-live punk bands) does indeed combine the adventurous spirit from that era of hip-hop with an even clearer focus on rock in the construction of these songs. While Old City’s tracks may be collages of punk rock distortion, melodic bass, and meaty riffs, Tr38cho is more than capable of handling the “rap” portion of Old City’s sound on his own, as he’s just as likely to sound fiery, furious, or contemplative while leaving the production and guest spots (including Milo Aukerman, War On Women, and Olmec musically, and J. Robbins and Jonah Falco from a production standpoint) to supply the rest.

Old City has a lot of ground to cover, and it sets the scene with a handful of hard-hitting punk-rap scorchers one after another in the record’s opening salvo. “Jump Off” does just that, snagging a dirty-sounding surf-punk guitar riff to pair with the rest of the song’s punches (from the percussion to Tr38cho’s moments on the mic), while “Anthem” pulls a snaking, tension-filled instrumental into something just as catchy in a hypnotic way (featuring a memorable cameo from The Ramonas, living up to their name), and “Get Sued” borrows one of the most recognizable sounds from post-grunge rock radio for a three-minute drain-circling number. It’s hard enough to keep up with Old City on their own, but things get even wilder when War on Women commandeer “Class Act” and turn it into an actual paint-peeling punk anthem (built from one of my favorite subjects for songwriting, too, which is “song about a woman who’s really cool”). On something as all-encompassing as Old City, we’ve got time for the rhythm section showcase “Apollo Kids”, the blistering hardcore rap of “Crossfire”, and eight-minute album centerpiece “Prey”. “Prey” has everything you could want–deeply driven rapping from Tr38cho about organized religion, industrial freakouts, a swelling orchestra, and plenty of noise. “Prey” might be the grandest moment on Old City, but it’s an album way too sturdy to let one moment tower over the rest of it for too long. (Bandcamp link)

Yon Loader – Yon Loader

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Tiny Engines
Genre: Emo-y indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Locked and Left Behind

Earlier this year, I heard an album called Take Time by a band from New Zealand called Carb on Carb. It was the first album in nearly a decade from the duo (Nicole Gaffney and James Stutely), and the songs showcased an emo-tinged power pop sound that kind of sounded like a more electric version of fellow Kiwi group The Beths, delivered with the skill of experts. As it turns out, we don’t have to wait several years for new music from Carb on Carb’s members–in fact, only a few months after Take Time, Stutley has debuted a new project titled Yon Loader. Although Stutley is the creative head of Yon Loader, a “cast of rotating collaborators” (including members of the bands Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move, and Bad Friend) help give the project’s self-titled debut record a full-sounding, chilly emo-y indie rock sheen. Released on Tiny Engines, Yon Loader is in line with a lot of the label’s discography, particularly the wistful journal entry-rock of Norway’s Flight Mode (it also reminds me of Flight Mode associates Neighboring Sounds–perhaps Yon Loader is simply a Scandinavian emo-rock band that’s been accidentally placed in the wrong hemisphere).

I don’t have the credits for Yon Loader, but it’s clear that there are multiple lead singers on the record. The vocals on opening track “Locked and Left Behind” are key to setting the stage–matter-of-fact and melancholic, they sound strong enough to carry the polished, mid-tempo sad-rock instrumental up to the next level. A lot of records like this fall victim to becoming too sonically boilerplate, but Yon Loader mixes it up more than just with the vocals–the five-minute Midwestern emo journey of “Tied Up In” is an early-record endurance test, while the two tracks immediately following it (“Two Good Things” and “Another Month”) are both brief guitar-and-vocals-only recordings. Yon Loader walk this balance beam for the entirety of the record, the band’s knack for punchy, tight emo-alt-rock (“Another Year”, “The Doubt”, “Waiting Up”) burning bright alongside a just-as-deeply-felt interest in quieter, sparser moments (“In the Way”, “In the Glow”, “Leaving Now”). The final song on Yon Loader is another entry into the latter category called “Dust Settles Down”, spending most of its length guided by a guitar being played so as to not wake someone in the next room and accompanied by plain-spoken vocals. “Cut through the talk like a highway through a cemetery,” sings Stutley emphatically, and not long afterwards the song finds a soaring emo chorus. Like Yon Loader as a whole, its reflective moments are linked with its flares of passion. (Bandcamp link)

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