Pressing Concerns: Really Great, Magana, Power Pants, Distant Relatives

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We’ve now entered February, but before we get to new music from the second month of 2025 (stay tuned for later this week), the first Pressing Concerns of the week looks at four records from January: new LPs from Really Great and Power Pants, and new EPs from Distant Relatives and Magana (although one of these “LPs” is sixteen minutes long and one of the EPs is over twenty; call them what you’d like).

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.

Really Great – Be the Light On

Release date: January 31st
Record label: Disposable America
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, emo-punk, slacker rock
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Sex Thoughts

Three years ago, back in the relatively early days of the blog, I wrote about So Far, No Good, the debut album from Boston band Really Great. Though I’d heard about them because they shared members with chiptune-rock group (T-T)b (another band I wrote about long ago on the blog who are gearing up to return), So Far, No Good had a more distinct emo-power-pop-punk feel to it–I called it a “theatrical rock record” at the time, singling out bandleader Owen Harrelson’s vocals and comparing the album to Jeff Rosenstock’s solo material. Although you may have heard Harrelson playing bass on last year’s Bedbug album, it’s been a bit since we’ve heard from Really Great–and Be the Light On is a record that reflects a band that’s taken the interstitial time to grow. Don’t get me wrong, the band (Harrelson on guitar and vox, joined by (T-T)b’s Jake Cardinal and Nick Dussault on guitar and drums respectively, plus Fenn Macon on bass) are still pop punk underdogs, but the scrappiness of So Far, No Good has been augmented by some polished Rozwell Kid-esque guitar heroics, a couple of sprawling song lengths, and just a pinch of instrumental self-control and restraint in the right places.

Owen Harrelson the frontperson and songwriter was probably the most remarkable part of So Far, No Good, and Really Great don’t water these strengths down even as they push forward. Apparently, Be the Light On is something of a concept album about Harrelson quitting a bad job, and it seems to have really animated him here. It’s a whirlwind from the get-go, from the anticipatory excitement of opening track “Story” to the tossing, turning pop-punk scene-setter “Streetlight” to a couple more contemplative moments in singles “Skateboard Amp” (a Strange Ranger-inspired moment of zen) and “Way Out” (a reminder that sometimes all you need is blunt lines like “I gotta find a way out”). Really Great have their theater-kid pop punk game locked down as well as they’ve ever had it in Be the Light On’s opening stretch, but the band bring forward a few more tricks as they move into the back half. After a two-minute song called “Sex Thoughts” that might be the best pop song that Harrelson’s ever penned (classic Really Great!), we get a foray into more melancholic emo melodies with “If We Talked”, the six-minute surprisingly smooth groove of “Rescue from Without”, and the fairly hushed “Morning”. All of these songs still fit well within the Really Great modus operandi, so by the time we get to the closing track, “The Champion of Things Becoming”, it’s not surprising that the triumphant, soaring pop punk guitars that kick off the track bring us full circle. And the lengthy finale really is triumphant–it’s the victory lap at the end of our hero’s journey. Harrelson does take some time to peek over the rose-tinted glasses (“It’s not like everything’s easy / God knows, days drag on” … “Still a work in progress, but I’ve changed my ways”), but it doesn’t harsh the celebration. When you’re able to pull off eight-minute rock and roll album cappers like Really Great, you’re just able to say a lot more. (Bandcamp link)

Magana – Bad News

Release date: January 24th
Record label: Audio Antihero
Genre: Synthpop, indie folk, indie pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Shower Song

I first wrote about Jeni Magaña’s solo project Magana last year, when she released her second “proper” studio album, Teeth. At the time, I mentioned that the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and touring musician for hire is a busy person with a bunch of varied projects to her name, and she’s spent the time after Teeth’s release proving my point–she abandoned the orchestral folk sound of Teeth for an ambient collection called Dreams a few months later, and she’s back again in 2025 with a four-song EP that doesn’t really sound like either of them. Bad News is a return to “song-based” music, yes, but compared to Teeth’s expansive musical palette, these songs are about as stripped-down and streamlined as “pop” music can be. Magaña has been Mitski’s touring bassist for a few years now, but Bad News is the first release of hers I’ve heard that actually reminds me of Mitski’s music–with little more than subtle acoustic guitars and simple synth parts accompanying her vocals, this is Magana’s foray into a more, well, popular version of “indie pop” and “indie folk”. Not only is Magaña’s voice centered more prominently than ever before, but the short length of the EP (four tracks, fifteen minutes) also gives her nowhere to hide.

Magaña calls Bad News a “winter” record, and says it’s about “the period of time right before a transition”; parts of it sound like a break-up album, although we can play it safe and say that the EP is about an ending of some kind or another. The EP’s opening track, “Half to Death”, is maybe the starkest thing on the entire record–for most of the song, Magaña sings alongside a suspended synth and little else, eventually punctuating her own vocals with harmonies when she reaches the most important line of the song (“But I won’t play a game that no one wins”). Magaña’s grand proclamation in “Half to Death” doesn’t seem to take effect immediately, however, as the rest of Bad News reveals. “So here I am, standing in the shower again / Thinking about things I can’t change,” she sings in “Shower Song”, frozen in place and spinning her wheels in a way that continues into the record’s final track, “I’m Not Doing Anything”. The nagging “I don’t want to do this anymore” realization of “Shower Song” becomes the titular refrain of “I’m Not Doing Anything”, a situation leading to people “calling, asking about [her]”, as Magaña says. “Not doing anything” can be cause for concern, sure, but Bad News offers a different perspective, about reestablishing baselines and recentering one’s gravity before the spring returns. (Bandcamp link)

Power Pants – PP7

Release date: January 13th
Record label: Punk Valley/Knuckles on Stun/Idiotape
Genre: Garage punk, power pop, synthpunk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: 30 Years

I first heard Winchester, Virginia’s Power Pants at the beginning of last year, when they’d just released their fifth album since 2023 (PP5). Fast forward about twelve months, and the group has just put out their seventh full-length cassette in under two years, creatively titled PP7 (this number doesn’t reflect a bunch of random singles and live recordings the group has also put out in between these releases, also). As per usual with Power Pants, PP7 is a cassette release put out via I guess whichever labels were free this time (Punk Valley and Knuckles on Stun in the U.S., Idiotape in Europe), and it once again houses a brief (ten songs, sixteen minutes) collection of incredibly catchy and lo-fi garage punk music (I called PP5 “right in the center of ‘egg punk’, ‘power pop’, and ‘synthpunk’” last year, and PP7 doesn’t mess with Power Pants’ winning formula). There’s not a moment of respite to be found on PP7; only one song reaches the two-minute mark (“Where I Live Now”, which is 2:00 on the dot) and all of them are a delirious assault of train-speed punk guitars, blaring synth hooks, and gruff but somewhat anxious-sounding vocals.

Within ten seconds, PP7 has already cranked out a barrage of Power Pants’ typical tricks. Opening track “30 Years” positively roars out of the gate with a garishly catchy synth part and guitars streaming out of control, and the garage punk vocals kick in not long afterwards and hold their own against the instrumental torrent. To some degree, this description can be applied to the other nine songs on PP7 as well, but that’s hardly a knock on the album–just because Power Pants make playing this kind of music sound easy doesn’t make it any less impressive. At the very least, it doesn’t make the songs that immediately follow (“May I Rest”, which doesn’t display any of the tiredness implied by the lyrics, and “I’m Grateful for You”, which might be just a little bouncier) less successful. Power Pants’ devotion to power pop hooks and big synths puts them on the nerdier (yes, “egg”) side of punk rock, and even when they’re trying to sound tough, they’re not beating the allegations either: the most aggressive moment on PP7 is a song called “Don’t Touch My Gear” (“If you touch my shit, I’ll pull your hair”). Somewhere deep in the Shenandoah Valley, some person or group of people continues to hammer out synth-garage-power-pop excellence, and as long as we keep our hands off their gear, there’s no reason to suspect Power Pants won’t keep grinding. (Bandcamp link)

Distant Relatives – Distant Relatives

Release date: January 10th
Record label: It’s Eleven
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock, goth
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Malfunction

Chemnitz imprint It’s Eleven Records has spent the last year and change establishing itself as the premier label for noisy, dark east German post-punk (and one of the most consistent modern post-punk labels anywhere), and it looks like we can expect them to continue their run well into 2025 between a reissue of the debut album from Berlin’s Fotokiller (slated for next month) and their first release of the new year, the self-titled debut cassette from a quartet from Leipzig called Distant Relatives. On Distant Relatives, the band (vocalist Marleen, guitarist Max, bassist Albrecht, and drummer Alex) hammer out a distinct sound for themselves using the well-worn tools of garage rock and post-punk; needless to say, they fit well within It’s Eleven’s hyper-specific niche, but their peers beyond their home country are bands like Home Front, Schedule 1, and Crime of Passing, who inject a bit of gothic urgency into their version of punk rock. Perhaps not as indebted to hardcore as those bands, Distant Relatives nonetheless expertly utilize their dual devotion to high emotional Cure/Bauhaus-esque angst and a punchy, angry punk attitude. Marleen’s vocals leap from a Siouxie-esque wail to “grounded and conversational”, able to shift with the changing tides of Distant Relatives’ instrumentals.

Although It’s Eleven refers to Distant Relatives as an EP, the seven-song, twenty-one minute cassette is substantial enough that I wouldn’t have had any issue with it being christened an “album”. Distant Relatives’ opening track, “On My Own”, is the longest song on the record and possibly the most overwhelming moment on it, too. Distant Relatives slowly but surely let the dark wave of the track wash over everything, letting night fall before they’re ready to rip through some dark garage rockers like “Malfunction” and “Desert Rose” not long afterwards. Gothic inclinations aside, it’s remarkable how catchy Distant Relatives is on a regular basis, whether it’s in the laser-precise garage rock tracks or more mid-tempo ones like “Sunburned Teeth” (with a massive hook hiding in the squall of guitars) or “Eyes & Lies” (which is almost danceable at points). Marleen is on point throughout the entire record, but as the band loosen up towards the end of the cassette, she shines even brighter, sounding like a goth Chrissie Hynde on “Mei Nue” and leading the final march of destruction of “Done” just as eagerly. Distant Relatives have discovered some kind of release in the bleakness of their sound; it’s dark, yes, but it’s an incredibly fun listen without a hint of difficulty. (Bandcamp link)

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