This week kicks off with a Pressing Concerns containing four brand-new records! New albums from B. Hamilton and Gamma Ray, plus new EPs from Truth or Consequences New Mexico and Rhymies! Great! Music!
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B. Hamilton – B. Hamilton
Release date: March 21st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Art rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, AOR
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Back in the Line
You know that it’s serious when a band breaks out the self-titled album well into their career. And Oakland, California’s B. Hamilton have had ample opportunity to title a record B. Hamilton before now–they first came onto my radar last year when they released an EP called The Freest Speech Ever Attempted Without Disintegrating and frontperson Ryan Christopher Parks released a solo EP called Billy Goat Acres and Other Words I Know How to Spell that he admits “sounds like a B. Hamilton record”. These were just the latest in a long string of B. Hamilton and related releases, though–three EPs in 2023, an album in 2021, records on Bandcamp dating all the way back to 2009. The band–at that point, Parks, drummer Raj Kumar Ojha (Once and Future Band), and founding bassist Andrew Macy–began working on B. Hamilton a few years ago, only for Macy to exit the band in 2022 and leaving the others to soldier on as a duo. The resultant record was completed with the help of keyboardist Joel Robinow, Nelson Ny-Devereaux on woodwinds, and vocalist Grace Coleman, and it doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve heard as of late. A strange, meandering forty-eight minute experience, B. Hamilton is sometimes floating, unmoored post-rock, sometimes groovy, swinging classic rock–it’s something in between those two. Departure rock music?
That’s perhaps an appropriate term for B. Hamilton, a record that Parks openly states is about grief–he mentions his father’s death from brain cancer, his city’s fatal Ghost Ship warehouse fire, and the general pallor that COVID-19 was casting on everything at the time as inspiration. It’s a “difficult” record–it’s too scattered to really be “stubborn”, but there’s a standoffishness that comes with opening an album with snippets like “I’ve Been Outside, It’s Alright” and “Something We Can Start Up and Shutdown” and the muddled electronica of “On a Different Day”. “Back in the Line” is the first “rock song” on B. Hamilton, and it’s a smooth 70s-style AOR rock and roller that comes completely out of nowhere–this becomes a theme of this record as it progresses. B. Hamilton meander through stuff like “Sunny Day” and “Leningrad on Merritt”, abruptly congealing for rockers like “Good Foot” and “Release the Hounds” before falling apart again. The blues-tinted groove of “Good Foot” in particular is an effective addition to the album–there are bands who make their entire career out of music like this, undoubtedly losing some of its power through overutilization, but it’s more honest (and, subsequently, more in touch with the genre’s roots) coming as something more than a cheap shortcut here. Things start to blur more than ever in the back end of B. Hamilton–the reason this album is so long is because of the lengthy rock explorations of “Byzantine and Hemlock” and “Downey”–but closing track “Wherever I Go” is the clearest thing on the entire album. It’s a celebration commemorating the end of B. Hamilton and the continuation of something else entirely. (Bandcamp link)
Truth or Consequences New Mexico – This Time of Year
Release date: April 11th
Record label: Worry
Genre: Alt-country, power pop, fuzzy indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Between GA
Truth or Consequences New Mexico are not, to be clear, from New Mexico; presumably, the Windy City quartet took their name after the memorably-christened Southwestern town because “Chicago” was already taken. The band originated at Northwestern University in nearby Evanston (actually, I don’t think anyone’s claimed that one as a band name), where the band’s co-leaders Cora Pancoast and Jack Parker co-DJed at the college’s station, WNUR. Bassist Ben Goldenberg and drummer Carys Uribe have since rounded out the band, and they self-released a self-titled debut EP in early 2023. For their second EP, they’ve linked up with Chicago tape label Worry Records (Snow Ellet, Rust Ring, Stimmerman), and the five songs of This Time of Year are worthy of a larger spotlight. Following in the long-standing tradition of Chicago groups equally indebted to roots rock and alt-country as they are to indie rock and emo, Truth or Consequences New Mexico sound loud but crystal-clear on This Time of Year. It’s an electric record, but neither Pancoast nor Parker hide their vocals behind fuzz, evoking both often-twangy bands from the actual South (Downhaul, Cicala, Real Companion) and Chicago peers like Ratboys and Disaster Kid.
The big, earnest-to-the-point-of-emo opening track “Between GA” is probably a good litmus test as to whether or not Truth or Consequences New Mexico are going to be up your alley. Parker is on vocals here, and the delivery is the “twangiest” thing on This Time of Year–they’re really straining their voice to live up to the surging country rock instrumental, and I will go ahead and say that they land it. “Honey, We’re in Hell” might not be quite as hollerable as the song it has to follow, but the thorny, fuzzy indie-country-rock instrumental more than makes up for it (and Parker is still doing quite a lot through the static anyway). “Standing Still” is Pancoast’s first lead vocal turn on the EP, and it’s the “restrained” one–instrumentally, it’s still sharp as a tack, just slowed ever-so-slightly to a mid-tempo alt-country march that nonetheless hits. Pancoast gets her own rocker with “Seed of Doubt”–slightly more “in-control”-sounding than her counterpart, Truth or Consequences New Mexico still work their way up to “runaway train” territory by the end of the emotional-outburst rock and roll anthem. Every song on This Time of Year is really teased-out and polished, so it feels appropriate that “The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics” closes the EP. Pancoast leads Truth or Consequences New Mexico through an intricate mix of laid-back but skilled guitarwork, tender balladry, and soaring, swooning crescendos. The four of them stick the landing like an alien landing a spaceship in…somewhere, I’m not sure where. (Bandcamp link)
Rhymies – I Dream Watching
Release date: April 11th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Synthpop, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Crashing Lead
Perhaps you’ve heard Bay Area musician Lauren Matsui through her work as the vocalist and guitarist of San Francisco shoegaze band Seablite (both of whose albums have appeared on this blog), or, more recently, as the bassist in jangle pop group Neutrals. She should have a solo project, right? Well, the good news is that that’s what Rhymies is–Matsui debuted it last year by contributing a cover of “Gamma Ray Blue” to Dandy Boy Records’ star-studded tribute to The Cleaners from Venus, and the project’s first collection of original music has now arrived (also via Dandy Boy) in the form of a four-song EP called I Dream Watching. Taking a break from the world of loud and/or guitar-led pop music, Rhymies instead finds Matsui pursuing indie pop with the help of “an assortment of Korgs, Rolands and Yamahas”. This tribute to early 80s synthpop and the electronic side of dream pop was written, arranged, and recorded entirely by Matsui herself “on her living room floor”; mixing from Rick Altieri (Blue Ocean, Above Me) and mastering from Mikey Young are the only outside hands to touch the record.
A lot of four-song debut EPs feel like teasers for something larger and more ambitious coming down the line, and while I certainly wouldn’t put it past Rhymies to eclipse I Dream Watching in the near future, these songs make a strong and self-contained record entirely on their own. Spanning thirteen minutes, every track on I Dream Watching is a landscape of synths and melodic sounds built with the intensity of a shoegaze musician. Even though it doesn’t have the same overwhelming wall-of-tuneful-sound quality that Seablite has, I can nevertheless can imagine Matsui hard at work on the living room floor layering and subbing out various analog synth options as she built these songs up. As polished as the synth-led instrumental beds are on I Dream Watching, Rhymies also affords Matsui the opportunity to emphasize her vocals more clearly than with Seablite–they’re full of whispery, subtle melodies, qualities that help her blend in with shoegaze songs just as she’s able to stick out in Rhymies’ more spacious material like the title track and “Bal Masque”. “Crashing Lead” is probably the most overt 80s homage on the EP, arpeggiated synths prominently sitting in the middle of a song that sounds right out a collection of vintage synthpop hits (even as her vocals are much more “dream pop”). All of I Dream Watching is similarly refreshing and inspired, though, the work of somebody grabbing tools from the past to open new doors for herself. (Bandcamp link)
Gamma Ray – Gamma Ray
Release date: April 6th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage rock, fuzz rock, power pop, post-punk
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Deep End
A Midwestern garage punk band called Gamma Ray, eh? This’ll probably be good. This self-described “snot rock” group has members based in both Columbus and Chicago, and Gamma Ray is Gamma Ray’s debut full-length album following a cassette EP called Bury Me First in 2023. I get the sense that Gamma Ray are marching to the beat of their own drum, although they’re also happy to take part in the Ohio music scene, enlisting the prolific Cincinnati engineer John Hoffman (Vacation, ADD/C, Charm School) to record their debut album and opening for acts like John Spencer and Poison Ruïn when they roll through the Buckeye State. I don’t know much if anything about the members of Gamma Ray, but I don’t feel like I need to have too much background to get Gamma Ray, a twenty-four minute fuzz rock record self-released by the band on a Sunday. They’re a tuneful bunch on their first LP–their ramshackle indie rock pretty much always lands on a winning hook in these ten songs, placing themselves in the lineage of loud but catchy groups from Dinosaur Jr. to Pardoner to Ex Pilots. There are punk songs here that “rip” and songs that find a nice guitar hammock to lie in, but pop music is the common denominator here.
Opening track “Deep End” is lo-fi fuzz rock party music–somewhere alongside the “power pop/slacker rock” axis, Gamma Ray’s first statement is that of a band who isn’t afraid to pull out all the stops underneath the distorted guitars. The tuneful noisiness of “Stalling” and “Teethin’” give way to the post-punk rumbling of “Don’t Wait”, the first real indication of just how far Gamma Ray’s range can extend–and while the sprawling guitars threaten to let the punchiness of Gamma Ray slip out of our grasp, the power-pop-punk “Don’t Know What to Do” yanks us right back in with a Ramones-Husker-Du loud pop song. As short as Gamma Ray is for a full album, Gamma Ray don’t come off like they’re short-changing us–there are ten songs here and they’re all fully-developed rockers, with the second-half 90s indie rock-bait tunes (“Inside Out”, “Just Like You”, “Crawling Down”) continuing the group’s hot streak and the other tracks (the crunchy garage rock of “Used to It” and the just-a-little-bit delicate fuzz pop closing track “See”) providing just-as-worthwhile respites. Provided that you like stuff that rocks, Gamma Ray makes it pretty easy to get on board with Gamma Ray. (Bandcamp link)
Also notable:
- Hello Whirled – Sex with God
- Steel Wool – Steel Wool EP
- Ultra Lights – Ultra Lights EP
- Dining Dead – Is This a House?
- Alexander – EP3
- Power Pants / Dru the Drifter – Power Drifter
- Almond / Added Dimensions – Death of a Rolling Stone / Uppers
- Buddy Wynkoop – Better Than Botox
- Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky
- Half Gringa – Cosmovisión
- Left on the Right / Audrey Heartburn / Jamurai Sack – Bad Jazz (Fine Emo) EP
- Madame Reaper & The Gentlemen’s Club – This Is an Album Because the Industry Says It’s Not.
- Crab – ApeApeApeApeApe EP
- Joyful Forfeit – Promise Me Less
- The Slow Death – No Light to See
- Lady Pills – Renowned in the Roaring Twenties
- Sarah Noell – Good Dog EP
- Scowl – Are We All Angels
- Glare – Sunset Funeral
- Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong
- Sarah Mary Chadwick – Take Me Out to a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby?
- Florida Man – Plastique
- Dirty Projectors / s t a r g a z e – Song of the Earth
- The Waterboys – Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
- Jad Fair and Samuel Locke Ward – Pure Candy
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