Pressing Concerns: Cast of Thousands, The Armoires, Black Ends, Plastic Factory

Posted byrosyoverdrivePosted inPressing ConcernsTags:, , , , , , , ,

We’re back! Welcome to a Monday Pressing Concerns, populated with great records that have come out recently: new albums from Cast of Thousands, The Armoires, and Black Ends that came out last week, and an LP from Plastic Factory from back in August. There are multiple references to making lemons out of lemonade in this blog post, for some reason. Normally I’d try to remove one of them, but I like them both too much to edit them out.

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.

Cast of Thousands – Third House

Release date: October 10th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, college rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: If I Could Take It Back

Hopefully you were paying attention to Rosy Overdrive in late December, but if you weren’t, you might’ve missed the blog’s introduction to Cast of Thousands, a new band out of Austin, Texas. Max Vandever led the power-pop-punk group Flesh Lights for several years before they broke up in 2019; Cast of Thousands is his return to music, starting with a six-song debut cassette called First Six Songs late last year. The first Cast of Thousands full-length arrives about a year later and it’s called Third House (I would’ve called it Second Eight Songs, but that works too, I suppose), and the band have grown to a quintet in between releases. Drummer Luis Herrera and bassist Rex Rimato were on board for the debut EP, but Third House brings in a new second guitarist (Zach Wood) and a keyboardist (Ali Ditto). The band (which have also joined Wishy, Dazy, and Ex Pilots in the prestigious “opening for Guided by Voices on a recent tour date” club) pick up the thread they started with First Six Songs, although the full-length continues to add dimensions to Cast of Thousands’ sound–in particular, Ditto’s organ-toned keys add a The Clean-esque indie pop element to the college rock, power pop, and jangle pop (delivered with just the right amount of Lone Star garage rock energy) to the mix.

Vandever, of course, is at the helm, and he remains a sneakily stellar rock and roll frontperson in his ability to sound believably conversational even when I have no idea what he’s talking about (“If I could, I’d buy you every star in the sky / Well, what are the stars worth / And what do they even do,” he rambles in excellent opening track “If I Could Take It Back”). Each of these eight tracks feels like its own little distinct, self-contained trip–I loved “Sway” when it was released as a single earlier this year, and it sounds just as brilliant here, Ditto’s keys and the haggard power pop guitars colliding as Vandever attempts to lyrically disappear. Stuff like “You Wonder” and “A Little More Time” are great in a less showy way, Cast of Thousands establishing early on in their run that they aren’t always a punk band, perfectly able and willing to pull out pristine jangle pop in the former and subdued guitar pop wistfulness in the latter. The most “power pop” instrumental on the record, “So Much Better”, is also one of the most interesting performances from Vandever, who is pretty straightforwardly addressing someone who’s recently shed a toxic relationship (“You are so much better than her!”).

I don’t quite know what to make of the title track and its multi-part, prog-garage-pop ambitiousness, but it’s great, and the climax (“And if you find yourself in a bad spot / Well the stars could help, but they’d rather not / It would be so fine if they would just align”) is maybe the best moment on Third House. It seems odd to notice that a bunch of slacker-poppers from Texas are preoccupied with space and time on their latest record (right up until the last track, “Patience”, in which Vandever asks for more of the title). Perhaps it’s a bit of lemons-into-lemonade attitude for Cast of Thousands, who come off like they’re always either staring out into the former or running out of the latter. (Bandcamp link)

The Armoires – Octoberland

Release date: October 11th
Record label: Big Stir
Genre: Folk rock, jangle pop, power pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Ridley & Me After the Apocalypse

You may not know the names of Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome, but they’re a big deal within a small subset of the modern pop rock landscape. The record label they co-founded in 2017, Big Stir, has facilitated the release of new music from a large stable of “lifers” in the worlds of power pop, psychedelic pop, and retro 60s-esque folk rock–everyone from Graham Parker to Anton Barbeau to The Spongetones have put something out on the imprint. Bulbenko and Broom also have their own band called The Armoires–the former plays keys, the latter guitar, both of them sing, and they’re joined by bassist Clifford Ulrich, drummer John M. Borack, and violin/viola player Larysa Bulbenko. The fourth Armoires album is called Octoberland, and it’s an incredibly rich collection of music both from a lyrical and instrumental perspective. The string playing from the latter Bulbenko adds some psychedelia and perhaps even a bit of Eastern European folk traditionalism to The Armoires’ penchant for vintage college rock, jangle pop, and power pop, a key layer that goes a long way toward meeting Octoberland where it’s at thematically. The trick that the former Bulbekno and Broome pull as lyricists is in how they take the contents of the month they’ve chosen to immortalize–folkloric tales of harvest and seasonal change, the “witchy” world of the thirty-first, and the more modern prelude to Election Day–and make utopian lemonade out of the jumble.

“The sky is full of portents, and there’s harbingers on the wing,” Bulbenko sings in “Ouroboros Blues (Crow Whisperer)”, which presents itself as something of Octoberland’s centerpiece. The core duo actually incorporate the 12-bar blues into their folk rock here, as their writing finds plenty to appreciate in the world of “bad luck” animals like snakes, ravens, and black cats (“Looks like corvids, cats, and reptiles might outlive us and outsmart us yet,” they sing together). It’s a rich track, but if you’re looking for more immediate pop impact, The Armoires have you covered via their quasi-theme song “We Absolutely Mean It” that opens up the record (“We mean it in tandem / We mean it times two / First person plural and the third part is you”), the truly infectious jangly power pop of “Ridley & Me After the Apocalypse” (“Copium for trying times / Just to mitigate the rancid vibes”), and the toe-tapping psych-folk-pop of “Green Hellfire at the 7-11” (They let the genie out of the bottle / And man was that genie a dick”). The Armoires may enjoy a good clever joke, but they’re not not serious, and Octoberland makes sure to wrap things up neatly–“Snake Island Thirteen” may be inspired by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (a personal subject for the Bulbenkos, first generation Ukrainian-Americans), but its mythical, psychedelic jangle and lyricism is well in line with the rest of the record, while “It’s a Good Time to Come Back Down from the Cold” is an explicit call for community and “Music & Animals” closes out the record by paying tribute to two of the finest pleasures in life. There’s a lot going on in Octoberland, but The Armoires get around to making sense of it all. (Bandcamp link)

Black Ends – Psychotic Spew

Release date: October 11th
Record label: Youth Riot
Genre: Garage rock, punk rock, psych rock, blues rock, gunk pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Bent

Black Ends are a new trio from Seattle who refer to the music they make as “gunk pop” (they’re pretty serious about it; they’ve even snagged gunkpop.com for their band website). Psychotic Spew may be the band’s first full-length album, but they’ve been putting out EPs and singles since at least 2018 and have generated a bit of local buzz (which, in “Pacific Northwest indie rock” terms, means they’ve done a KEXP session and played shows with Hardly Art and Kill Rock Stars-associated bands). Vocalist/guitarist Nicolle Swims, bassist Ben Swanson, and drummer Billie Jessica Paine sound like a real power trio on their first LP–even though all three of them provide additional instrumentation (not to mention Lori Goldston’s cello and Eric Padget’s french horn on a couple of tracks), the core of Psychotic Spew’s sound is the stripped-down, heavy-duty punk rock that Black Ends hone across the record’s ten tracks. Bits of grunge, psych-rock, and even blues rock shade Psychotic Spew, as Black Ends grab onto any and every corner of rock and roll they can get their hands on to further their gunk-pop mission.

Swims drops a satisfying, impactful guitar riff to begin the record at the onset of opening track “She Speaks of Love”–the blues-y garage rock groove that follows is the perfect way to ease us into Psychotic Spew while still hinting at the edge Black Ends possess and are willing to unleash at any moment. “She Speaks of Love” builds to a big psych-punk conclusion, setting the stage for the trio to plow through the garage-punk wildfire of “Bent” and the slick, almost glam-tinged “Pour Me” and blow this whole thing wide open less than one-third of the way through the album. Black Ends are rowdy in these songs, but the “pop” element of their sound shouldn’t be overlooked, either–between the rollicking, at-times positively bouncy rhythm section of Paine and Swanson and Swims’ in-control, smooth vocals, both the aforementioned opening statements and noise-punk highlights to follow like “My Own Dead” and “Suppin’ on Strange” have plenty of hooks, too. As lean as Psychotic Spew can be, it still finds time for some interesting diversions–mid-tempo, mid-record single “Pretend 2 Be (Protect Me)” is the record’s first left turn, the band shambling through an offbeat art-punk tune that nonetheless gets its together for the refrain, and the back end of the album brings with it “Red Worry” (an explosive rocker that somehow roars its way near to the five-minute mark confidently) and closing track “Bye-Bye!” (which begins with over a minute and a half of exploratory, laid-back guitarplay). Black Ends end “Bye-Bye!” with a perfunctory psych-rock march and Goldston’s cello stabs, effectively wrapping up a strong and commanding debut. (Bandcamp link)

Plastic Factory – Forgotten Dreams

Release date: August 28th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, folk rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: The Entitled

Stuart Carroll is a professor of Early Modern History at the University of York, as well as the author of last year’s Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. In addition to his academic exploits, he appears to be the leader of the guitar pop band Plastic Factory–at least, he’s the person who sent me the band’s latest record via email, calling it “The Best Album of the Year”. Forgotten Dreams is the first release of any kind from Plastic Factory, and Carroll clearly isn’t lacking in confidence to back up his assertion–spanning nine songs across about forty-five minutes, the collection is an expansive record informed by college rock, folk rock, and indie pop of both the British and American varieties. Armed with jangly, Byrds-style guitar, harmonicas, and a charmingly sloppy attitude towards full-band rock and roll, Forgotten Dreams falls somewhere between pastoral British folk rock and irreverent American garage rock. Although perhaps not on the level of historical tomes, Carroll has plenty to say on Forgotten Dreams, filling these songs with freewheeling but incisive writing on everything from structural racism to the class divide to perpetual crises in British health care.

Carroll begins Forgotten Dreams with a welcoming opening salvo–in his own way, at least. The wistful, nostalgic jangle pop of the opening title track is bittersweet in its construction but blissful in its delivery, while the sneering hubris of “The Entitled” is given a classic C86-style indie pop refrain that turns it into one of the most fun moments on the entire record. The self-styled American Heart of Darkness detour of “The Bluest Eye” is the clearest signal yet that Plastic Factory have perhaps grander ambitions than your average York indie pop group, and the timeless meandering of songs like “Why Did You Set Me Free?” requires a bit of patience but is hardly impenetrable. The second half of Forgotten Dreams offers up the relative extremes of the record–the sub-two-minute glam rocker “Tough Decisions” is Plastic Factory’s Velvet Underground/Lou Reed tribute, while the seven-minute “The Past Is a Foreign Country” is an even-keeled demonstration of the band’s long-term vision and stamina. Perhaps the most immediately memorable track on Forgotten Dreams is the single “Hollow Gesture”–in an album hardly pinned down by any specific movement or moments, it’s actually somewhat jarring to hear a song that’s a clear rebuke of the U.K.’s handling of COVID-19 from the perspective of a nurse. For a British historian like Carroll, though, I suppose it’s just another tale of ruling-class greed, exploitation of low-class “essential” workers, and, of course, the plague.

Also notable:

One thought on “Pressing Concerns: Cast of Thousands, The Armoires, Black Ends, Plastic Factory”

  1. Pingback: New Playlist: January 2025 – Rosy Overdrive

Leave a comment