It’s the second Pressing Concerns of the week! This one features brand-new albums from Ryan Allen, Mourning [A] BLKstar, Son of Buzzi, and Pretty Rude. Great stuff! If you missed yesterday’s blog post (featuring Rodeo Boys, Beasts, Kilynn Lunsford, and a compilation from Worry Bead Records), check that one out here.
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.
Ryan Allen – Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge
Release date: April 25th
Record label: Setterwind
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Company’s Eyes
Ryan Allen has been playing around the Michigan indie rock scene for a quarter-century at this point–the bands he’s been in since the early 2000s include Thunderbirds Are Now!, Destroy This Place, Friendly Foes, and Red Shirt Brigade. Allen’s main focuses as of late have been his power pop band Extra Arms and his wide-ranging solo career (sometimes the lines between the two are blurred, as he’s also released a couple of records attributed to “Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms”). Allen’s been as active as he’s ever been these past few years–Extra Arms albums in 2022 and 2024, a solo record in 2023, and now 2025 has brought us Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge, an album that’s attributed to Allen solo but has as at least as much rocking power pop energy as the last Extra Arms LP (Radar) did. Allen played and recorded almost everything on Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge himself, and he calls it a record for “that 15-year-old kid inside of me”–formative alt-rock groups like Guided by Voices, Dinosaur Jr., and Swervedriver are mentioned as influences. I won’t say that there aren’t moments on this album that are a little bit shoegaze- or noise pop-influenced, but Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge is a power pop album, and the names that come to mind are the ones who’ve made great records in this field–Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Tommy Keene, Fountains of Wayne, Daniel Romano.
Allen is a zippy, garage-y power pop musician, but his songwriting still has a whimsical side that’s reminiscent of Robert Pollard or even Pollard’s 60s prog-pop influences (not to mention a band you might’ve heard of called “The Beatles”), as evidenced by the absurd “The Construction Man” and the pogo-ing “Spider Sally”. Some of the other fun excursions to be found on Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge include the snotty but catchy garage punk of “Devil’s Juice” (the most Daniel Romano moment, to me) and “So What Who Cares”, built around some droning synths and guitar chords in the way somebody who likes Stereolab might do (I want to emphasize that it’s a power pop song and thus doesn’t actually sound like Stereolab, but I do hear the connection that Allen makes when discussing the song). Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge has its share of gorgeous jangle pop, with both “Anxious All the Time” (as in “don’t wanna be”) and “Company’s Eyes” (as in “fail in the”) qualifying. If you think either the nagging mental unwellness of the former and the corporate preoccupations of the latter are particularly emblematic of a middle-aged guy from the Midwest navigating getting older, wait until you find out that there are songs called “When I’m Gone”, “After I’m Dead”, and “In the Next Life” on here, too. Maybe that’s what Allen means when he calls Livin’ on a Prayer on the Edge “the most ME record I’ve ever made”; that fifteen-year-old kid may still be young in some ways, but he’s not naive anymore. (Bandcamp link)
Mourning [A] BLKstar – Flowers for the Living
Release date: May 16th
Record label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Soul, gospel, experimental rock, jazz-funk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Stop Lion 2
New music from seven-piece Cleveland “Afrofuturist collective” Mourning [A] BLKstar is always welcome, and it’s been a rewarding twelve months for those of us who enjoy the work of the genre-melding soul- and gospel–inspired group. The band’s seventh album, Ancient//Future, showed up last July, and Mourning [A] BLKstar is back less than a year later with LP number eight, Flowers for the Living. Saying that Flowers for the Living sounds like a Mourning [A] BLKstar album is (while true) not particularly helpful, as their sound encompasses a bunch of different corners. Compared to the relative brief, more rock-focused Ancient//Future, the septet (vocalists RA Washington, James Longs, and LaToya Kent, drummer Dante Foley, bassist Jah Nada, trumpeter Theresa May, and guitarist/keyboardist Pete Saudek) are more sprawling and slow-moving on the forty-five minute Flowers for the Living. The jazz and funk influences are still there, but delivered in a much more laid-back manner (don’t call it “smooth”, though–the album is large enough to include a little bit of the group’s past experimental tinkering and a song that surpasses the eight-minute mark).
“Stop Lion 2” is, on its surface, quite simple, but the first song on Flowers for the Living is (perhaps appropriately) hard to categorize. There’s a drum machine beat, gospel ambience, funk bass, and piercing trumpet–it’s not particularly busy, but it doesn’t slot neatly into any of the boxes evoked by those pieces. Oh, and there’s guest vocals from Lee Bains III of the great group Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires (who’ve toured with Mourning [A] BLKstar and share a label with them); the southern rocker really pushes his vocals to fit in on the track, but something tells me that he didn’t have to try that hard. A lot of the first half of Flowers for the Living is similarly slow-moving and striking (“Can We?”, “Letter to a Nervous System”); things start to get a little more busy with the jazz-rock beat of the title track, and the hypnotic percussion is the glue that holds the eight-minute “Legacy to Begin” together. Flowers for the Living is probably at its “liveliest” once it makes it past the high peak of “Legacy to Begin”; between the slightly sunny R&B of “Let Em Eat” (featuring the album’s other notable guest vocalist, rapper Fatboi Sharif) and the dark psych-funk of “Lil’ Bobby Hutton”, two of the most immediately-hitting songs on this album are right near the end of it. Coming down from the dizzying righteousness of the latter of those two tracks, Mourning [A] BLKstar close with another gospel-indebted song in “Choir A’light”. At the very least we can always count on Mourning [A] BLKstar to be entertaining and interesting, but it’s apparent here that they also took great care to properly guide Flowers for the Living to the right conclusion. (Bandcamp link)
Son of Buzzi – Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan
Release date: May 16th
Record label: Shrimper
Genre: Fingerstyle guitar, folk, drone, ambient, post-rock
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Spiegelebene
Even those who were deep into the world of underground lo-fi rock music of the 1990s may not be aware that one of that era’s most consistent labels, the Inland Empire’s Shrimper Records, remains active to this day releasing new music from longtime indie rock veterans (just in the past year, we’ve seen new music from Refrigerator, Goosewind, and Jad Fair via them). Somewhat surprisingly, though, my favorite thing that Shrimper has released in quite a while is by an unfamiliar (to me), newer face: Son of Buzzi, aka Sebastian Bischoff. Bischoff is a “self taught finger style guitar player” who’s “now” based in Zurich, Switzerland (implying he’s originally from somewhere else, although I don’t know where) and has been making music as Son of Buzzi since 2019. Bischoff’s music seems to be comprised of meandering, peaceful acoustic guitar playing interspersed with synthesizers and “electronic” sounds provided both by Bischoff himself and producer Michael Potter, an experimental musician from North Carolina who appears to be a frequent contributor on Son of Buzzi releases. The acoustic guitar of the latest Son of Buzzi album, Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan, was recorded by Bischoff “inside a hut in the Ticino Mountains in Switzerland alone over a long weekend”, and he and Potter put the finishing touches on the LP after the fact.
Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan is made up of five songs, and about half of the album is taken up by the first one–the twenty-minute title track, a massive and challenging opening statement if I’ve heard one this year. The first half of “Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan” is effectively an ambient/drone piece with occasional harmonics and brief guitar interjections from Bischoff–about halfway through, Bischoff begins fingerpicking in earnest, though the atmospheric synths don’t fade and in fact take over the track yet again before it finally draws to a close. Son of Buzzi wisely don’t try to best “Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan” immediately after it takes its final bow–going in a different direction, the plain and bright fingerpicking of “Spiegelebene” is pretty easily the most immediate song on the album, and while “Geschlossene Räume” is a little darker, it’s still a relatively straightforward fingerstyle folk guitar piece and stays that way for a fairly concise four minutes. The nine-minute “RKHS” is a noise/drone number that’s arguably even more challenging than the opening track (at least that song resolves into something eventually), and the brief “Heimweg, Mondlicht am Strassenrand” closes the record with a quieter and more delicate version of the friendlier mid-record songs. Bischoff takes us all manner of places with his playing on Ein Hase, ein Phönix, ein Schwan. (Bandcamp link)
Pretty Rude – Ripe
Release date: May 16th
Record label: SideOneDummy
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, alt-rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Things I Do
I’m primarily familiar with James Palko as the bassist and backing vocalist for the awesome New York 90s indie rock revivalists/power pop group Taking Meds, but you may also know the Queens-based musician from his soft rock alter ego Jimmy Montague or his time playing in cult New England emo band Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold. So what differentiates his latest group, Pretty Rude, from his slew of other projects? Well, it’s a duo, an equal-parts collaboration between Palko and Matt Cook, who drummed in Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold until they broke up a couple years ago. And, judging from their debut album together as Pretty Rude, Ripe, this partnership has led to a cleaner embrace of power pop and catchy radio-ready alt-rock than either of them have ever dared to pursue before. Fuzzed-out power chords and hooky riffs, suave vocals, and even some classic rock guitar heroics mark Ripe, a record that, at its most immediate, is right up there with Supercrush and The Trend in terms of modern Weezer-inspired giant power pop. Sometimes their version of catchy rock music is limber and targeted, other times it’s a wall of sound that leans on some of Pretty Rude’s less “punk” influences, but Ripe establishes its own language soon enough.
A brief record that leaves us anything but shortchanged, Pretty Rude get in there and do their business in eight tracks and under thirty minutes. If you’re looking for a Pretty Rude-defining anthem, the opening track (which also happens to be called “Pretty Rude”) will do the trick between its post-Rozwell Kid grunge-power-pop guitar explosions and Beach Boys backing vocals hidden in the rough, while the choppy, meaty alt-rock slickness of single “Call Me, Ishmael” also does the trick. The breezy power pop of “Things I Do” bridges the two songs and its windows-down collapsing euphoria harbors what’s actually the sneakily best hook between the three of them, but this is a theme for Ripe–“Debbie and Lynn” figures to be a relatively nondescript mid-record track until the slight XTC influences starts showing up in the verses and the spirit of Fountains of Wayne possesses them for the chorus, for example. In the second half, the surprisingly bright rock and roll of “Polish Deli” and the 2000s alt-rock/pop-punk-via-Beach Boys charms of “The Work” are both highlights–I’ve named nearly every song on the record at this point, but that’s what happens when you’ve got a no-filler declaration of a debut LP like what Pretty Rude have done here with Ripe. (Bandcamp link)
Also notable:
- M(h)aol – Something Soft
- Shunkan – Kamikaze Girl
- Little Low – Sunshine Guilt
- Planet Opal – Recreate Patterns, Release Energy
- Wilson Tanner – Legends
- Cortada – Gānbēi ( 干杯 )
- Le Pain – Dirge Technique
- Sunday Junkie – Sunday Junkie
- Empty Bones – Speed, Commitment and Luck
- Babe Lewis – Sunspot
- John McKay – Sixes and Sevens
- Firecracker – Not Your City
- Kara-Lis Coverdale – From Where You Came
- Kristina Murray – Little Blue
- Naomi Westwater – Cycle & Change
- Plastic Hacks – Fabulously Melancholy
- Laibach – Alamut
- Men I Trust – Equus Caballus
- King Hüsky – King Hüsky
- Null Tone – Kutt
- The Freedom Affair – The Freedom Affair
- Basht. – Bitter and Twisted EP
- Ringdown, Caroline Shaw, Danni Lee – Lady on the Bike
- Billy Woods – Golliwog
- Butthole Surfers – Live at the Leather Fly
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