Pressing Concerns: Mercyland, Laika Songs, Soft on Crime, Evening Glass

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This Thursday, we’re taking a look at four records out tomorrow, December 5th: new albums from Laika Songs and Evening Glass, a new EP from Soft on Crime, and an archival collection from Mercyland. If you missed either of this week’s earlier blog posts (Monday’s Pressing Concerns covered Earwig, Sting Pain Index, Dietz, and Addicus, and the November 2025 playlist went up on Tuesday), 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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2025 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

Mercyland – Mercyland

Release date: December 5th
Record label: Propeller Sound Recordings
Genre: Punk rock, garage punk, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Radio Thieves

Georgia musician David Barbe is probably most famous for his role as the bassist in Bob Mould’s (recently reunited) early-1990s power trio Sugar, and his work has been widely heard thanks to a prolific career as a producer (making records with everyone from the Drive-By Truckers to Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires to Bambara). Before any of that, though, Barbe was immersed in the thriving 1980s Athens, Georgia music scene, forming a band called Mercyland in 1985. They only released one album while they were active, 1989’s No Feet on the Cowling, but another album’s worth of songs they recorded shortly before breaking up in 1991 was finally released in 2022 by Propeller Sound Recordings as We Never Lost a Single Game.

Once again, Mercyland and Propeller Sound have teamed up for an archival release, but this time it’s a collection focusing on the early years of the band. Originally recorded between 1985 and 1987, the eleven songs that make up Mercyland represent the earliest version of the group that’s been officially released yet. Subsequently, it’s a raw and particularly punk-y look at the band, before they’d go and (relatively) clean up their sound on later recordings. Mercyland reflects a band right in tune with the 1980s underground indie rock catalogued in Our Band Could Be Your Life–Hüsker Dü, with its mix of noise, punk energy, and skewed pop songwriting, is the closest analogue (and I’m not just saying that because of the Mould connection), but Dinosaur Jr., The Replacements, and their home city’s college rock/power pop sound are all applicable at different points, too. Not everything on Mercyland is as hard-charging as the high-octane punk opening track “Amerigod”, but garage-y pop songs like “Black on Black on Black”, “Radio Thieves”, and “Vomit Clown” are charming in their own way (they’d fit nicely on a block together with later Paul Westerberg, The Lemonheads, and earlier Buffalo Tom). Maybe Mercyland were being pulled in a couple of different directions in these early recordings, but that’s the same push and pull that makes, say, Hüsker Dü such an interesting band all these years later. (Bandcamp link)

Laika Songs – I Can Feel an Ending

Release date: December 5th
Record label: Two Worlds/Galaxy Train
Genre: Folk rock, dream pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Press Coverage 

Brooklyn musician Evan Brock (previously of the quartet Neil Jung) debuted his solo project Laika Songs last year with an LP called Slowly Spiraling Towards the Light; inspired by Trace Mountains and Mount Eerie, he traded his last band’s fuzzy guitar pop for wide-eyed indie-Americana. A second Laika Songs album began taking shape very quickly, and here we are with I Can Feel an Ending, for which Brock assembled an impressive group of backing musicians including Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Kris Hayes (Labrador, Neil Jung) on guitars, Dominic Angelella on bass, and Dan Bailey (Father John Misty) on drums. The resultant album is an incredibly comfortable one: it’s just as large as Slowly Spiraling Towards the Light is and has at least as many great pop moments, but it’s even less concerned with presenting them punctually or linearly.

The first half of I Can Feel an Ending is the more “difficult” one, and a good deal of that feeling likely has to do with Brock’s decision to open the album not with any of the half-dozen or so undeniable guitar pop anthems here but rather “Visitor”, a hushed five-minute slow-builder. “Shaking” (which marries a wobbly Neil Young/Jason Molina-esque skeleton with lush indie folk rock) and “Arpeggiator” (which is aptly titled) are the “hits” of the A-side, but so many of the most immediate tracks on of I Can Feel an Ending come in its second half: the gentle power pop charms of “Optimism Shame”, the shimmering guitar leads of “The Plan”, the short, to-the-point, imminently repeatable “Press Coverage”. It makes sense that I Can Feel an Ending finishes with a song called “I Get Lost”, a synth-shaded moody rocker that doesn’t really sound like the rest of the album but fits in well enough. It’s an odd note on which to end, but Laika Songs feel their way there just as they do through the rest of the album. (Bandcamp link)

Soft on Crime – Noz Mat

Release date: December 5th
Record label: Eats It
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, garage rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Whistle and I’ll Come to You

Dublin trio Soft on Crime have been one of the most reliable purveyors of power, jangle, and psychedelic pop ever since their debut album, 2023’s New Suite (one of my favorites of that year). Dylan Philips, Padraig O’Reilly, and Lee Casey have since offered up a “rarities” compilation and a proper sophomore album, and they don’t let 2025 pass them by without new music either thanks to the five-song Noz Mat cassette EP. It’s slighter than the last couple of Soft on Crime records, sure, but that doesn’t lessen the thrill of hearing a handful more bursts of guitar pop straight from the garage: early on we get “Relativity USA”, a sloppy garage rocker that takes a second to get to the Beach Boys-inspired payoff hinted by its title (but it sure does get there), and Noz Mat actually seems to get stronger and more solid as it goes on between the mid-tempo jangle-rock clinics of “London Billy”, “Anthologist”, and “Whistle and I’ll Come to You”.  The bounciness of the former of those three is slightly tempered by the more restrained moments found in the EP’s final two songs, although only “Whistle and I’ll Come to You” could even be partially described as a “ballad”. It’s “pastoral’’, but only because that’s what makes sense for that hook. Soft on Crime are experts at putting in the little bit of extra effort required to make the sell by this point. (Bandcamp link)

Evening Glass – Postcards

Release date: December 5th
Record label: Crazy Ha!
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, folk rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Wait Until 3

Sonoma, California quartet Evening Glass released their debut EP, Steady Motion, in late 2022; the record’s half-dozen songs established the group (vocalist/guitarist Zachary Carroll, bassist Thomas, guitarist Chris Miller, and drummer PJ Hakimi) as impressive practitioners of the quieter, gentler side of jangle pop. A couple of towns over from San Francisco and Oakland, Evening Glass feels slightly removed from those cities’ indie pop scene but still close enough to be enjoyed by fans of it. Evening Glass’ first full-length album, Postcards, is full of the laid-back melodies and lackadaisical Flying Nun tempos we heard on Steady Motion, confirming that the band haven’t lost their charm in the intervening three years. Steady Motion lull us with four sleepy but quite tangible pop songs (I like “Wait Until 3” or “Natural Light” the best, but they’re all solid) before the crashing fuzzed-out guitars of the appropriately-titled “Stumblin’ Stoned” gives us the album’s first curveball (it’s also pretty New Zealand of them, honestly). “Small Crooked Smile” is also just a little more feedback-drenched than one would expect from Evening Glass, and “Stabilize Yr Brainwaves” ends Steady Motion by adding just a hint of garage-y muscle to the fuzz-pop. There are enough glimpses beneath the surface of Evening Glass to add a bit of mystique, but not so much that it detracts from the glistening cool water above. (Bandcamp link)

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