Pressing Concerns: Heavenly, Editrix, Pretty Bitter, Julian Cubillos

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Hey there, everyone! The Thursday Pressing Concerns for this week is looking at four records coming out tomorrow, July 25th: new albums from Editrix, Pretty Bitter, and Julian Cubillos, and a reissue of Heavenly‘s final (for now) full-length album. If you missed either of this week’s earlier blog posts (Monday’s Pressing Concerns looked at Dori, SleepMarks, Lammping & Bloodshot Bill, and Eaters Digest, and on Tuesday we looked at Pacing’s upcoming LP PL*NET F*TNESS), check those out, too.

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.

Heavenly – Operation Heavenly (Reissue)

Release date: July 25th
Record label: Skep Wax
Genre: Twee, indie pop, pop punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl
Pull Track: Space Manatee

In 2022, the cult British indie pop group Heavenly began a reissue campaign of their four LPs (originally released from 1991 to 1996) via some of the members’ current label, Skep Wax Records. Considering that I wrote about the first three re-releases, it’s no surprise that I am here on the blog yet again to talk about Operation Heavenly, the quintet’s fourth and final album before they abruptly disbanded after the death of drummer Matthew Fletcher (a few months before this LP even came out, in fact). It wasn’t intended as such, but Operation Heavenly became Heavenly’s final statement for nearly thirty years, and I’ve been anticipating that it’ll be the hardest of their albums for me to write about here. It’s impossible to divorce Operation Heavenly from its circumstances, but what I mean by the “hardest” goes beyond just that–Heavenly Vs. Satan, Le Jardin de Heavenly, and The Decline and Fall of Heavenly are all indisputable classics in the worlds of twee, indie pop, jangle pop, post-C86 guitar pop, whatever you’d like to call them. Operation Heavenly is still very good–possibly as good as the albums that came before it–but it’s also something else. 

Cleaner, bolder, and bigger than any of their previous albums, Operation Heavenly found Heavenly creeping towards a more mainstream, Britpop-evoking sound, although the band are still very recognizable as the “Heavenly of old” among these new angles. If Heavenly had been able to continue immediately after Operation Heavenly’s release, I suspect that we would’ve eventually come to view this album as a “transitional” one. With some of these songs, like “K-Klass Kisschase”, “Ben Sherman”, and “Snail Trail”, Heavenly sound like a souped-up, more higher-fidelity version of their old selves, the goofy and snappy twee attitudes (both instrumentally and vocally) blown up for the big screen. In particular, the extra-large production and presentation makes the excoriation of a pathetic partner in “Ben Sherman” feel even more brutal and nasty (not in an unearned way, obviously). This is one direction Heavenly could’ve found themselves headed after this album, but Operation Heavenly also contains a different–and arguably more intriguing–door.

This is the Heavenly of “Space Manatee”, “By the Way”, and “Fat Lenny”, the one that takes full advantage of their new trappings to reinvent themselves to a degree and pursue giant wall-of-sound British power pop hooks and production. The steadily-building “Space Manatee” is probably my favorite Heavenly song of all-time–they certainly had never made anything as jaw-droppingly massive (but so coy about it, too) before, and there’s nothing else on the album exactly like it, either.  And then there’s everything in between, from the pop punk throwback of “Cut Off” to the album-closing bright indie pop balladry of “Pet Monkey” (one last duet between Amelia Fletcher and Calvin Johnson) to the record’s two bonus tracks, faithful and audibly reverent covers of The Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down” and The Jam’s “Art School”. Now, jumping forward to 2025, Heavenly have released a new single called “Portland Town” and may have more new material on the way. It was certainly possible to appreciate Operation Heavenly for what it is before these recent developments, but Heavenly’s belated moves to ensure that this album no longer has to be the final chapter in the band’s history will only help us to understand it. (Bandcamp link)

Editrix – The Big E

Release date: July 25th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Math rock, post-punk, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: The Big E

It is nice to be once again talking about Editrix, one of the first bands I ever wrote about on Rosy Overdrive. Much has changed since the power trio formed in Easthampton, Massachusetts in the late 2010s and released their debut album, Tell Me I’m Bad, in 2021–for one, only one band member still lives in Massachusetts (that’d be drummer Josh Daniel, who performs the same role in Landowner). Vocalist/guitarist Wendy Eisenberg and bassist Steve Cameron are both based in New York City now; for the latter, the move was based on returning to school, while the former has immersed themself into the city’s avant-garde music scene via a steady stream of solo releases and work with legendary experimental guitarist Bill Orcutt. Despite all these moving parts, Editrix still seem to be going strong and were able to put together a new album called The Big E, adding a third LP to a discography of bonkers, topsy-turvy math rock. The Big E doesn’t precisely pick up where their previous album, 2022’s Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell, left off–Editrix still primarily sound like themselves, true, but The Big E is the album of theirs that’s the most comfortable being a “rock record”.

Classic rock guitar riffs, blistering solos, low-end-heavy noise rock rumbling–you’re gonna find all of this on The Big E. In fact, you’re going to hear it all on “The Big E”, the opening title track to Editrix LP3. In “The Queen”, Editrix tries out some Shellac-y start-stop material, and Eisenberg gets to really push their vocals into hard rock bravado territory instead of their typical slapdash sing-song cadence. The pounding, earthquaking “The Jackhammer” sounds pretty much like its title, but Editrix explore new realms of experimental but more restrained rock music with material like “Another World” (which grinds and creaks through a dingy cellar of cobwebbed guitar riffs) and “No” (a five-minute post-punk quiet-loud adventure that starts with basically a giant stoner rock/heavy metal riff). The spindly math rock guitars that marked the first two Editrix records continue to mark the third one, although the Talking Heads-like art punk of “Something Sweet” is a new way to deliver them, as is the chunky, drilling “Flesh Debt”. And then Editrix have one last surprise for us with the closing track, “Slight Return”–the first half of the song is all restraint and build-up, a crawling Slint-like thing that eventually roars into focus in the final three minutes. Editrix wrap up The Big E with one big, uncontainable final solo, burning down everything in sight before abruptly receding into thin air. This is the kind of thing that great rock bands do. (Bandcamp link)

Pretty Bitter – Pleaser

Release date: July 25th
Record label: Tiny Engines
Genre: Emo-y indie rock, folk rock, 2000s indie rock, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Thrill Eater

Pretty Bitter have been on a steady upward trajectory for a bit now–the Washington, D.C. quintet put out their debut album, Hinges, in 2022, made a collaborative EP with the similarly-minded Flowerbomb last year, bassist Miriam Tyler has found success in her other band, Ekko Astral, and now the group has signed to Tiny Engines for their sophomore album. The group (Tyler, vocalist/lyricist Mel Bleker, guitarist/keyboardist Zack Be, guitarist Drew Carter Thronton, and drummer Jason Hayes) recorded Pleaser with the same duo that recorded last year’s EP–Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss and Strawberry Boy’s Simon Small–and the album they’ve made together follows in a proud lineage of polished, “emo-adjacent” indie rock. Names like Rilo Kiley, Ratboys, Football Etc., Great Grandpa, and Hop Along come to mind, although Pretty Bitter avoid trying to sound too much like their influences both in terms of their music (which is just as likely to deploy a fluttering, wistful synth part as a surprise banjo) and in terms of the lyrics and vocals (that’s on Bleker, who proves themself to be an impressive and compelling frontperson who sometimes seems right at home and other times charmingly out of place helming a synth-y emo-rock band).

Pleaser feels like a real group effort, the result of a bunch of talented artists getting together and working towards something–not only does Weiss have a co-production credit, but he plays a bunch of miscellaneous instrumentals on the album, while Tyler, Thornton, and Be all have “arrangement” credits for individual songs, and Bleker’s writing manages to sound like someone pouring everything they’ve got into these words while at the same time managing to keep almost everything close to the vest. Take “Thrill Eater”, which begins with a strange banjo part and acoustic guitar strumming from Be and then Bleker’s first words are “My brother’s baking bread / The call to 911 dropped and I felt like a child again”. I could call either one of their contributions the centerpiece of the song, but I point them both out to emphasize the symbiosis going on here (perhaps “A dead kid owes me favor / And I’m younger when I’m sober” would’ve haunted me regardless, but the subtle synth touches that Be adds at the end of the line certainly help). Pretty much every song on Pleaser benefits from this fine-toothed-comb level of examination (and I hope someone who writes longer-form reviews takes up the mantle on this), and that’s where the polish of Pretty Bitter’s instrumentals and the strength of Bleker’s vocals (they really earn that “RIYL 10,000 Maniacs” tag that Tiny Engines gave them) come in handy. Pleaser just continues to be worth looking into. (Bandcamp link)

Julian Cubillos – Julian Cubillos

Release date: July 25th
Record label: Ruination
Genre: Folk-pop, psychedelic pop, indie pop, soft rock, synthpop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Fruit Stripe

Julian Cubillos has been plenty busy this decade–the Queens-based musician is a frequent collaborator with Ivy Meissner of Little Mystery (he’s all over her project’s latest self-titled album), and he’s also contributed to records by everyone from Okkervil River and Joe Henry to Field Guides and Scree. Cubillos hasn’t been making solo albums for a bit, though–he put out three in the 2010s, but 2018’s In Heaven had remained his most recent one for seven years up until now. Julian Cubillos is largely the work of the singer-songwriter himself, with just a few guests popping up on the album–Meissner and Alena Spanger each contribute vocals to a few songs, Levon Henry (son of Joe) contributes saxophone, and Jason Burger (Office Culture, The Bird Calls) drums on one track. This record is just an absolute blast of pop music–it’s short and pretty straightforward in its instrumental choices, but Cubillos has jammed so much stuff into it nonetheless. Cubillos has the touch of a studio rat and auteur (Wilson, Rundgren, Prince, et cetera), and though he’s an understated frontperson, he has the material and attitude to justify a mini-whirlwind through funk, folk, psychedelia, and R&B (among other stops).

“Returning” kicks off Julian Cubillos with a two-minute acoustic folk-pop song that, while quite compelling in its own right, also kind of feels like it exists to set us up for “Talking to Myself”, a stunning 80s synth-funk pop creation that is just executed perfectly. “Flesh & Blood” features most guests than any other track on the album, and while its grounded folk rock is a little more “full”-sounding than the rest of the record, it’s hardly out of place alongside subtler songs like the chill lo-fi pop of “Does It Hurt You?” and “Price of Guilt”. Julian Cubillos finds an impressive second wind in its B-side between the Elliott Smith/Ty Segall/fuzz-folk curiosity of “I Used to Be Someone”, the bright, bouncy pop rock of “Haunted Paradise”, and something called “Fruit Stripe”, which is 60s pop sped up and slightly distorted to create something sugary and intoxicating out of nowhere. It’s a tight collection, wrapping its ten songs up in under thirty minutes with hardly a wasted moment. It’s a bit surprising that someone who sounds so natural on his own took this long to make another solo album, but regardless of how Julian Cubillos came about, I won’t be forgetting its architect any time soon. (Bandcamp link)

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