Oh, man, it’s December! November’s over! I need to wrap this year up! But first, I have to wrap November up. So, here’s the Rosy Overdrive November 2024 playlist, featuring a bunch of brand new and exciting music, some of which has appeared in Pressing Concerns and some of which hasn’t. It’s another great one, if I do say so myself.
Plus, the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll opened up yesterday–go vote!!!
Mount Eerie, Two Inch Astronaut, and Vista House are the artists with two songs on this playlist.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal (missing a song), BNDCMPR. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
“Part 2”, Smoker Dad
From Hotdog Highway (2024)
Like many classic second albums, Smoker Dad’s Hotdog Highway is greatly informed and shaped by the band touring their first album on the road. That’s all well and good, but it wouldn’t amount to much if Hotdog Highway didn’t rock–which it does, enthusiastically and expertly. This is hard-charging country rock-and-roll, road-tested and successfully captured by Garrett Reynolds at Seattle’s Electrokitty Sound Studio. If you aren’t charmed by the alt-country party anthem “Part 2” that kicks off Hotdog Highway, then there’s no way Smoker Dad are the band for you. There’s more Hotdog Highway for the rest of us, then. Read more about Hotdog Highway here.
“Check Please”, Two Inch Astronaut
From Check Please / Humorist (2024, Exploding in Sound)
Hey, wait a minute! Yes, beloved Maryland post-hardcore-pop trio Two Inch Astronaut are still seemingly on indefinite hiatus, but here we are in 2024 with two new songs from the group. These tracks were written in 2018 and went unrecorded before the hiatus, but thankfully Sam Goblin, Matt Gatwood, and Andy Chervenak decided to get together and record them with J. Robbins to commemorate the tenth anniversary of their 2014 album Foulbrood. “Check Please” sounds just like vintage Two Inch Astronaut–Sam Goblin’s distinct vocals have helped his solo project Mister Goblin feel like an extension of his old band, but hearing the three of them together careening through an explosive, catchy rock song like “Check Please” is a reminder of just what this band was capable of. Oh, and also Sam Goblin says the words “two inch astronaut” in the song, which is pretty cool.
“A Very Pretty Song for a Very Special Young Lady Part 2”, The Ergs
From dorkrockcorkrod (2004, Don Giovanni/Whoa Oh)
Good stuff. What else is there to say? I highlighted the 20th anniversary Steve Albini remix of The Ergs’ 2004 debut album, dorkrockcorkrod, in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Label Watch; even as the original mixes sound perfectly fine to me and it’s not like this album was hard to hear before now, I’m happy to have any opportunity to revisit a pop punk album that hasn’t aged hardly a day in twenty years (an incredibly impressive feat!). I went with “A Very Pretty Song for a Very Special Young Lady Part 2” for the playlist, and this one distills the greatness of dorkrockcorkrod in an explosive, infectious, roughly two minute package; but then again, so does “Pray for Rain”, and “Vampire Party”, and “It’s Never Going to Be the Same Again”…
“Pontoon Boat”, Orillia
From Orillia (2024, Magic Mothswarm)
Orillia, the solo project from Chicago alt-country singer-songwriter Andrew Marczak, is significantly more stripped down than his bands The Roof Dogs and Toadvine. Nonetheless, Orillia is a noticeably varied debut; it’s apparent from the transition between pin-drop quiet opening track “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me” and “Pontoon Boat”, which is in another world entirely. We’re greeted by Trevor Joellenbeck’s bright mandolin playing and some excitedly-strummed acoustic guitar to launch us into what’s just an excellent folk song (I’m torn between “There’s a cave in Kentucky where the snakes all know my name” and “Gonna get a big-girl job at the hotel bar, it’s gonna make my life so easy” for my favorite part of the track). Read more about Orillia here.
“Floodlights”, Capsuna
From One Hit for Trainwreck (2024)
Belgium-based, Ohio-associated guitar pop group Capsuna put out a nice cassette at the beginning of this year, but they didn’t stop there–they put out a two-track single in September, and a four-song EP called One Hit for the Trainwreck at the end of October. “Floodlights” is from the latter, and it’s my favorite of this recent batch of Capsuna material–there’s more than a little bit of the American lo-fi pop music of guitarist David Enright’s home state (check out that wobbly descending guitar progression!), but vocalist Louise Crosby gives the track a polished feel despite some of the instrumental rickety-ness.
“Yearning and Pining”, Fightmilk
From No Souvenirs (2024, Fika)
Last time London’s Fightmilk appeared on this blog, it was 2021, and I was highlighting my favorite track from their Martha-esque indie-power-pop-punk record Contender. The quartet are back with a new one called No Souvenirs, and they don’t mess with what made Contender so strong in parts. There’s several choices for a highlight on this one, but “Yearning and Pining” gets right to the heart of the matter in two minutes and change–vocalist Lily Rae is yearning. She’s pining. She’s wishing you were hers, and–and so on. “Yearning and Pining” is living in the moment, preferring to roll around in the euphoria of the titular action rather than concern itself with a more concrete interpersonal world. It costs exactly zero dollars to yearn!
“Big Smile”, DAR
From Slightly Larger Head (2024, Sophomore Lounge)
I checked out Slightly Larger Head while putting together Rosy Overdrive’s 2024 Label Watch, and while it didn’t end up making the list (plenty of competition this year from Sophomore Lounge), I was decidedly charmed by DAR’s “Big Smile”, an excellent underground pop song if I’ve ever heard one. DAR is the project of Chicago’s Aaron Osbourne, but it’s Sophomore Lounge through and through with label mainstays Jim Marlowe, Jenny Rose, and Ryan Davis helping to realize the off-the-cuff country-rock sound of Slightly Larger Head. “Big Smile” is a triumph, a song that is more than happy to flog its simple chord progression for all it’s worth.
“Nothingland”, Casual Technicians
From Deeply Unworthy (2024, Repeating Cloud)
Noticeably less zany than their first album of 2024, Deeply Unworthy is a little sleepier and subdued, although upon closer inspection, the Casual Technicians’ bursting, buzzing, psychedelic pop music is no less complex here. The fervent, dramatic “Nothingland” might be the most affecting thing that the Casual Technicians have put to tape yet, as the power trio steer the song from its strong pop core straight into a bizarre psychedelic finale. Read more about Deeply Unworthy here.
“City Streets and Highways”, Megan from Work
From Girl Suit (2024)
Megan from Work is a brand new pop punk band from New England with high-energy hooky songs reminiscent of early Charly Bliss, Chumped, and All Dogs–their debut album Girl Suit is pure catnip for fans of those bands. Singer Megan Simon’s vocals are urgent, piercing and almost emo–they’ve got pop punk showmanship down on their first record, and the rest of Megan from Work chug along with the strength to counterbalance their ringleader. “City Streets and Highways” is my favorite track from the record; it’s a second half highlight that’s just as strong a power pop single as anything else on the record. Read more about Girl Suit here.
“A Lightning Bird Emerges”, Vista House
From They’ll See Light (2024, Anything Bagel)
Vista House’s latest album ups the “focused and streamlined rock and roll” part of their alt-country sound, but my favorite song on They’ll See Light is actually the acoustic folk tune that bridges the middle and home stretch of the LP. In “A Lightning Bird Emerges”, songwriter Tim Howe hides some of his best writing yet; the lyrics are surreal depictions of death, fire, folklore, sunlight, soil, animals eating other animals, and cycles thereof, but the simple refrain (which first appeared earlier on in the album in “Intro to Heaven”) is all Howe needs to tie everything together: “I keep on coming back again / Yeah, but it’s not like the first time”. Read more about They’ll See Light here.
“I Saw Another Bird”, Mount Eerie
From Night Palace (2024, P.W. Elverum & Sun)
Every music website that still exists has already extolled the virtues of Night Palace, the latest triumph from Phil Elverum’s Mount Eerie. I’m not going against the grain here–it’s very good, and drew me back into the world of an artist whose most beloved works I appreciate but haven’t been as devoted to in recent years. It’s a monster double album, but–like in Elverum’s other best albums–there are plenty of moments of clarity and even brightness to cling to in the midst. One such moment is “I Saw Another Bird”, which gets to Elverum’s roots as a Pacific Northwest singer-songwriter making fuzzy pop music, even as Elverum’s writing picks up the thread of his more recent (good but hard to listen to) material–still, he’s going somewhere now.
“Just Because”, Peaer
(2024)
New York indie rock group Peaer (made up of founding vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Peter Katz, joined by bassist Thom Lombardi and drummer Jeremy Kinney) are beloved by a certain subset of underground music fans; their spindly, mathy, not quite emo sound landed them on Tiny Engines in their heyday and they were a nice parallel to what was going on with Exploding in Sound at the time too. They kind of disappeared after their best album, 2019’s A Healthy Earth, but their first new song in five years, “Just Because”, picks up right where the group left off. It’s both immediate and slow-revealing–Katz’s guitar playing is quite gratifying to hear, but it takes a few listens to fully get a grip on everywhere that the six-string goes throughout the four-minute single. There’s a couple of Two Inch Astronaut songs on the playlist, and every time this song’s opening riff starts I think it’s going to be one of them, but the sweeping, overwhelming rock song that follows is all Peaer.
“Head in Flames”, EggS
From Crafted Achievement (2024, Howlin Banana/Prefect)
On their sophomore album, Crafted Achievement, Paris’ EggS maintain their boisterous, party-friendly, saxophone-heavy version of vintage 1980s college rock. Charles Daneau’s vocals reach melodic perfection through sheer force, shouting hooks among the tuneful maelstrom of the EggS band to complete the ingredients for a perfect hurricane of catchy indie rock. With a strong anchor provided by the band’s rhythm section, opening track “Head in Flames” is free to push for the stars for its entire three-minute runtime, providing a powerful launching pad for an album that simply doesn’t flag or wane across its brief but potent twenty-three minutes. Read more about Crafted Achievement here.
“Troll 3”, Sleeping Bag
From Beam Me Up (2024, Earth Libraries)
I love the chorus on this one. “I’ve been hiding underneath the bridge like a troll,” ah, me too, Sleeping Bag. Dave Segedy’s project (now based in Seattle after a long stint in Bloomington, Indiana) is always good for at least one huge fuzzed-out power pop classic per album, and I think “Troll 3” is the clearest winner from their latest LP, Beam Me Up. Beam Me Up is more polished-up than last year’s more informal collection Pets 4: Obedience School Dropout, but between Segedy’s stony vocals and the blown-out guitars, there will always be a “slacker rock” characteristic that is especially helpful in selling stuff like “Troll 3” (“Ruined my life, no big deal / Maybe after ten years it will start to heal”).
“Wait for Autumn”, Gentleman Speaker
From Hell and Somewhere Else (2024)
The third album from Minneapolis’ Gentleman Speaker is infused with stop-start alt-rock and post-punk catchiness, equal parts offbeat new wave and sprawling guitar-centric 90s indie rock in its sensibilities, but with a clear grasp on “pop” music, as well. Hard-working until the end, Gentleman Speaker close things out with a big finish in “Wait for Autumn”, a song featuring a go-for-broke, all-in refrain that only grows in size–it’s maybe the most memorable moment on Hell and Somewhere Else, though it certainly has competition. It’s not “too much”, but it is much. Read more about Hell and Somewhere Else here.
“Snow Window”, Thank You, I’m Sorry
From CYLS Split Series #5 (2024, Count Your Lucky Stars)
The four bands on CYLS Split Series #5 have all released great albums on Count Your Lucky Stars Records within the past two years and change, and the exclusive tracks they bring to this EP are all just-as-strong entries into these acts’ relative discographies. I’ve actually written about Thank You, I’m Sorry a little less than the other bands on the 7” (Expert Timing, Camp Trash, and Mt. Oriander), but the Minneapolis-originating, Portland-based emo-pop project ends up stealing the entire show with “Snow Window”, my favorite track on the EP. Between the most recent Thank You, I’m Sorry EP and their new project Mealworm, much of songwriter Lleen Dow’s best work has come in short bursts, and the quick two-minute wintry bummer pop of “Snow Window” holds up against their other highlights. Read more about CYLS Split Series #5 here.
“Tro på spöken”, Dalaplan
From Delad Vårdnad (2024, Beluga)
No idea what they’re saying, but it sounds great. Dalaplan are a long-running Malmö-based power pop/garage rock group, and their fifth album Delad Vårdnad (released on even-longer-running Swedish punk label Beluga) continues the band’s mission. “Tro på spöken” (which Google Translate tells me is Swedish for “too much to say”) comes at the end of a rousing, occasionally riotous album, and it’s a surprisingly polished and expertly-crafted pop rock finale. It’s nearly a power ballad, although Dalaplan take the restraint of the opening to more fully-developed places eventually. It almost makes me wish I knew what the band were saying, although I don’t need any help with the closing “Oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh” refrain.
“Dumb Stuff”, Bedtime Khal
From Eraser (2024, Devil Town Tapes)
Michigan singer-songwriter Khal Malik has been making bedroom pop for a few years now, but Eraser is the musician’s long-awaited debut LP. It shouldn’t be surprising but it’s still remarkable that Eraser sounds like nothing else Bedtime Khal has done before; there’s bits of fuzzed-out basement indie rock, slowcore, emo, and bright pop music throughout the album. Eraser isn’t “more of” any one thing so much as it’s just “more”. A tougher, more ambitious version of Bedtime Khal is out in full force with “Dumb Stuff”, which is a huge opening track with a roaring wall-of-fuzz chorus; it’s entirely Malik on the track, which is hard to believe. Read more about Eraser here.
“High Beams”, The Laughing Chimes
From Whispers in the Speech Machine (2025, Slumberland)
Who’s ready for 2025? Yeah, me neither. But, when we are, The Laughing Chimes will be there for us. The Athens, Ohio jangle pop quartet’s long-awaited second album (and first LP for Slumberland) is set to drop next January, and the record’s lead single is one of the band’s best tracks yet. “High Beams” cuts through the southeastern Ohio haze with a colorful mix of new wave-y keys and synths (provided by relative newcomer Ella Franks) and Evan Seurkamp’s lighthouse-like lead vocals. By the time the song’s over, The Laughing Chimes have taken everything up another gear, cementing it as yet another lost college rock anthem.
“Captain Caveperson”, Night Court
From $hit Machine (2024, Recess)
Earlier this year, I wrote about a split EP from West Coast power-pop-punk groups The Dumpies and Night Court; last month, The Dumpies put out a full-length and I highlighted a song from it in a playlist, so now it’s the other side of the 7”’s turn. $hit Machine is true to Night Court’s ethos–seventeen songs in twenty-six minutes, brief dispatches of pop music delivered with underdog punk rock as the vessel. “Captain Caveperson” barely crosses the sixty-second mark, but I think it’s my favorite track on $hit Machine. The Vancouver band assume the mantle of “slacker rock self-help writers” on “Captain Caveperson”, with the titular prehistoric figure resolving to “get something done” today (“invent the wheel, clean up the cave”).
“I’m Done Falling Over You”, wilder Thing
From I Have My Mother’s Eyes and I’m Not Giving Them Back (2024, Repeating Cloud)
I Have My Mother’s Eyes and I’m Not Giving Them Back spans seventeen songs and forty minutes of fractured but melodic bedroom psychedelic pop. There’s folk music, hooks, dreaminess, and pure psych throughout, and we’re left with something that balances intimacy with adventurousness, an album that invites you in to watch it go to work. Portland, Maine’s Wes Sterrs follows his muse down some incredibly odd corridors across I Have My Mother’s Eyes and I’m Not Giving Them Back, but there are plenty of pop rewards, and none are greater than “I’m Done Falling Over You”, a nearly-perfect fuzzy lo-fi pop song that recalls the more song-forward bands associated with the Elephant 6 Collective. Read more about I Have My Mother’s Eyes and I’m Not Giving Them Back here.
“Before It’s Gone”, Radio Free ABQ
From Destination (2024, Hamlet Street)
Indie rock veteran Dave Purcell recently moved to Albuquerque and started up Radio Free ABQ, and he fully embraces his new southwestern home’s desert-set roots rock/Americana. Travis Rourk’s horns and Ryan Goodhue’s accordion are welcome additions to “Before It’s Gone”, a five-minute parade of a track that’s Destination’s strongest moment as a catchy college rock record. In between the swinging choruses, though, Purcell adds a bit of strangeness and chilliness–“I’m not reminiscing about something that never happened like Norman Rockwell / When you carve it all in ones and zeroes, don’t forget my name,” he sings in the final stanza, balancing “traditional” with “exploratory” and “unsatisfied”. Read more about Destination here.
“Fair”, Dog Eyes
From Holy Friend (2024, Grand Jury)
This is nice. Oakland indie pop duo Dog Eyes recently hooked up with Grand Jury Music, a label I most associate with Hovvdy and their related projects, and Holy Friend, their latest album, is indeed a Hovvdy-reminiscent collection of sleepy lo-fi bedroom pop. “Fair” is my favorite track on the album; like a lot of Dog Eyes’ material, it’s a delicate folk-y pop song where Davis Leach and Haily Firstman balance low-key instrumentation and conversational talk-singing vocals with sneakily beautiful melodies and moments of real, deeply-hitting emotion. Seems like “bedroom pop” is in good hands with these two.
“Breath”, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp
From Ventre Unique (2024, Les Disques Bongo Joe)
Abundant Living’s Zachary Lipez said that this album sounds like Dog Faced Hermans, which got my attention squarely fixed on Geneva-originating art rock collective Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp. Those of us who appreciate post-punk music with ample usage of horns will find a lot of music in this vein on Ventre Unique, and while Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp get pretty into-the-weeds with it all over the course of the record, my favorite moment is the relatively straightforward horn-pop of “Breath”. The two-minute track has a couple of moments where things get pretty heavy, but for the most part it’s more than happy to lean on horns, rhythms, and vocals to get the job done.
“33s”, Commemorative Cup
From For a Limited Time Only (2024)
Ben Husk and Kevin McGrath play together in Massachusetts emo-y indie pop group Sailor Down, and Husk also drums in post-punk/jangle pop band Lost Film. Their new duo together, Commemorative Cup, is I guess closer to the former of those two acts, but really it’s something different altogether–it’s their reverent love letter to 90s emo-punk groups like Samiam and Knapsack. For a Limited Time Only, their debut EP, is full of ambitious four-minute miles, but the first (non-intro) track on the record, “33s”, is the one that’s really stuck with me. Sensitive, catchy, noisy, giant-sounding–Commemorative Cup really have this kind of thing down pat already.
“Mariko”, p:ano
From ba ba ba (2024, C.O.Q.)
ba ba ba is the first album from Vancouver indie pop quartet p:ano in nineteen years, and the writing and instrumentation on ba ba ba is inspired by the members’ roots. The band specifically mention formative indie pop/rock bands like Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian, and The Magnetic Fields that were key in bonding the group together twenty years ago, and much of Nicholas Krgovich’s writing is drawn from his experiences growing up in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam, where p:ano originally formed. ba ba ba is impressively coherent, but the fluttering, conversational indie pop of “Mariko” is an attention-grabber in particular. Read more about ba ba ba here.
“Wednesday, on a Hummingbird’s Wings”, The Smashing Times
From Mrs. Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys (2024, K/Perennial)
All the blissful psychedelic jangle-beat melodies are still here, yes, but Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys is a bit more offbeat than The Smashing Times’ last album, leaning into the eccentricities of British pop of the past across its fourteen tracks. There are some “out there” moments, but the pure pop songs of Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys stand up with the Baltimore band’s best material. I don’t know if “Wednesday, on a Hummingbird’s Wing” is The Smashing Times’ best song yet, but it’s certainly on the short list for the most straight-up gorgeous thing the band have put to tape–it’s five-and-a-half minutes of wobbly but perfect pastoral guitar pop. Read more about Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys here.
“Change the Framerate (Gloria)”, Vista House
From They’ll See Light (2024, Anything Bagel)
Vista House’s previous album, Oregon III, had the feeling of a record that had been cobbled together and tinkered with for a while, allowing for some surprising choices, but They’ll See Light sounds like the work of a well-oiled rock band recording a bunch of great songs in short order because they know that they’re on a roll. After a relatively subtle and casual opening duo, though, “Change the Framerate (Gloria)” is the record’s first no-holds-barred barnburner. It’s the moment where Vista House fully lean into dizzying, bouncy country-power pop, generating more than enough momentum to propel the band through the rest of They’ll See Light. Read more about They’ll See Light here.
“Birdhouse”, Ylayali
From Birdhouse in Conduit (2024, Circle Change)
Philadelphia musician Francis Lyons pieced Birdhouse in Conduit together from 2022 to 2024 at home, and it’s Ylayali at their most exploratory (especially compared to the last album from Lyons’ solo project, 2022’s relatively accessible Separation). There’s still pop music to be found in Birdhouse in Conduit, but it sits alongside ambient and droning fuzz passages, experimental electronic instrumentation, and blasts of noise. Almost-title track “Birdhouse” arrives fairly early on in the album, and after a couple of noise-filled songs, its relatively clean and hushed sound is jarring in its own right. If you’re in the right space to explore something like “Birdhouse”, though, it’s an incredibly beautiful and surprising five-minute lo-fi pop song. Read more about Birdhouse in Conduit here.
“I Fooled Me Too”, Colt Wave
From Cruel Moons (2024, Too Deluxe)
Colby Mancasola and Ken Lovgren’s lo-fi guitar pop project Colt Wave first appeared on my radar via On Call (which came out around this time last year), but the California-based duo had put out several albums in the years before it, and they’ve continued their prolific streak with this year’s Cruel Moons. Fans of On Call (and of low-key, jangly pop music in general) will be pleased to hear that Colt Wave still know their way around a hook on Cruel Moons; my favorite song on the new one is a ninety-second sparkling jangle pop song called “I Fooled Me Too”. The refrain (“Sorry I fooled you / I fooled me too”) is simple but effective, although it’s the excellent guitar lead immediately following it that’s the catchiest part of the track.
“The Other Side”, Black Thumb featuring Inna Showalter
(2024, Somber Sounds)
The most recent album from Black Thumb (the solo project of San Francisco musician and former Dusk member Colin Wilde) came out early last year, but we’ve still gotten some new music from Wilde this year in the form of a couple of singles. Back in September, Black Thumb put out a two-song single featuring lead vocals from Madeline Johnston of Midwife, and in November, Wilde linked up with Inna Showalter (Whitney’s Playland, Magic Fig) for the one-off “The Other Side”, which has particularly impressed me. It’s a really beautiful psychedelic folk rock tune that reaches toward Mazzy Star territory; the Paisley Underground appears to be alive and well in the Bay Area.
“Sunday Song”, Mt. Misery
From Love in Mind (2024, Prefect)
Jangle pop bands will never stop writing pretty songs about how lovely Sunday mornings and/or afternoons are with you, nor should they. Hartlepool’s Mt. Misery are something of Prefect Records’ flagship act (they’ve appeared on multiple compilations from the label, and released all their records on the imprint, too), and their platonic-ideal guitar pop is a strong mascot. Their latest album is called Love in Mind, and “Sunday Song” is a pretty good litmus test as to whether or not it’s for you–charmingly earnest, Teenage Fanclub-level tight construction, simple instrumentation but still with a surprising level of hooky electric guitars populating the track.
“Real Grandeza”, Oruã
From PASSE (2024, Transfusão Noise/Gezellig/Den Tapes)
Like (I imagine) a lot of stateside indie rock fans, Brazil’s Oruã first got onto my radar due to their association with Built to Spill–one of the band’s many late-period lineups (the one that recorded 2022’s When the Wind Forgets Your Name, in fact) contained half the Rio de Janeiro-based quartet. Oruã’s latest album, PASSE, has a wild psychedelic sound that’s pretty far removed from any 90s Pacific Northwest indie rock group, but it’s right at home next to bands like labelmates Gueersh. “Real Grandeza” kicks the LP off with a four-minute excursion featuring everything from fiery face-melting guitars to dubby experimental passages–okay, yes, I see why Doug Martsch liked these folks’ style.
“I Think I Need You Around”, Ryli
From I Think I Need You Around b/w When I Fall (2024, Dandy Boy)
We’re hopping on the Ryli train early, everyone! It’s not hard to do so when we see who’s in the new Bay Area band’s lineup: Yea-Ming Chen (of Yea-Ming and the Rumours) and Rob Good (of The Goods) are the quartet’s co-leaders, and the rest of the band (Luke Robbins of R.E. Seraphin on bass, Ian McBrayer, formerly of Sonny & the Sunsets, on drums) have a quality pedigree, too. Their two-song debut single wastes no time establishing Ryli as the latest jangle pop warriors to come from the Dandy Boy stable of stars–the A-side, “I Think I Need You Around”, is my favorite of the pair, with its toe-tapping beat and Chen’s subtly emotional vocals both doing a lot of heavy lifting.
“Eat Alone”, The Open Flames
(2024)
The Open Flames are an intriguing new trio from London with only two songs to their name thus far. Frontperson Dave Eastman previously played in the band Say Yes, Do Nothing, while Evan Sult was the longtime drummer in immortal Seattle group Harvey Danger (and also played in Sleepy Kitty with The Open Flames’ third member, Paige Brubeck). “Eat Alone”, the band’s second and best song so far, is an interesting piece of fuzzy college rock, falling somewhere between Robyn Hitchcock and The Dream Syndicate (with a bit of Giant Sand in there, too). Eastman’s lyrics are pretty clearly about watching someone’s hospital-bound final moments, but it’s hardly mawkishly sentimental about it–sure, Eastman slips “No one has enough time to say their goodbyes” in during the bridge, but the crux of the song is the rather opaque quip from which the title comes.
“Humorist”, Two Inch Astronaut
From Check Please / Humorist (2024, Exploding in Sound)
Yeah, I put both of the Two Inch Astronaut songs from the new single on here. So what? Maybe my coverage of “Humorist” will somehow set off a chain of events that leads to Two Inch Astronaut going viral on TikTok and exploding in popularity, forcing the erstwhile post-hardcore-math-EIS-core trio to fully reunite and start churning out new albums. A blog can dream. Either way, at least we get to enjoy “Humorist”, a song that’s a little weirder and slipperier than the relatively kinetic “Check Please” and thus presents itself as a classic “B-side that might be better than the A-side, but it’s not obvious about it”.
“Cutting Marble from a Mountain”, The Moment of Nightfall & Tony Jay
From Winter Dream (2024, KiliKiliVilla)
On tour in Japan earlier this summer, Bay Area guitar popper Michael Ramos (aka Tony Jay) linked up with Tokyo sextet The Moment of Nightfall and recorded a 10” vinyl record called Winter Dream together. Ramos brings his slow, dreamy indie pop instincts to Winter Dream, and The Moment of Nightfall are more than capable of playing to this familiar sound and even adding a more robust, grounded (but still delicate) dimension to Ramos’ music. “Cutting Marble from a Mountain”, the third track on the record, is a fully-realized, confident jangle pop success, deliberate and measured but nonetheless triumphant-sounding; it’s the first moment on Winter Dream where the possibilities of the two acts collaborating truly start to unlock themselves. Read more about Winter Dream here.
“November Rain”, Mount Eerie
From Night Palace (2024, P.W. Elverum & Sun)
I’m still not even entirely sure how much I like the new Mount Eerie album, but I’ve got two songs from Night Palace on here because the highs are really high. “November Rain” (an original song, not a Guns N’ Roses cover, if that isn’t obvious) is absolutely one of those highs–Phil Elverum spends most of the song speaking conversationally over a stumbling acoustic guitar strum, ruminating on the grotesque (and, as he observes, foolish) displays of wealth visible in his home of Anacortes, Washington, with some moments of fuzz ascension thrown in for good measure. That is to say, it’s a classic Phil Elverum song.
“Something Done Right”, The Triceratops
From Charge! (2024, Learning Curve)
I already put single “We Will Shatter” in last month’s playlist, but Charge! has been reverberating in my mind long after I wrote about it. A good deal of that has to do with the record’s penultimate track “Something Done Right”, a primordial mess of caveman noise rock, mythology, evolution, and revolution. “So–monkeys ready on three, throw your wrench in the gears,” yells The Triceratops’ frontperson, John Van Atta, at the song’s climax. It’s a cathartic moment for a record that spends the bulk of its runtime either explicitly or implicitly lamenting the seeming helplessness of us monkeys in the face of grinding exploitation. Charge! has a lot of fight in it, though. Read more about Charge! here.
“Our Time”, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
From Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2002, Touch & Go)
Hey, why not? I was revisiting the two early Yeah Yeah Yeahs EPs recently, and I really enjoyed this one, so it’s going on the playlist. Much has been written about the thing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs became a part of after these initial releases, and I’m not going to try to get into that–I just want to appreciate how cool “Our Time” still sounds in 2024. There’s not much out there that sounds like this as far as I’m concerned. It’s, like, midway between a Grifters song and a 2000s overly-earnest Big Indie anthem. Change was coming! I wish that it was a little more built around that fucked-up blues guitar and the excellent mission statement of “It’s the year to be hated,” but, nonetheless…
Rosy Overdrive 