Pressing Concerns: Above Me, Cape Crush, No Peeling, Golden Tiles

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Thursday Pressing Concerns! New albums from Above Me, Cape Crush, and Golden Tiles! A new EP from No Peeling! Check out the Monday post (TV Star, Urq, Dipper Grande, and Lupo Citta) if you missed it! Also check out the Tuesday post (Big Bluestem, Softjaw, Loto, and Shapes Like People) if you missed it!

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.

Above Me – Soften the Blows

Release date: May 1st
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Dream pop, shoegaze, electronica, psychedelia
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Water Drops

The San Francisco musician Rick Altieri currently drums in a couple of Rosy Overdrive-approved indie rock groups (Aluminum and Blue Zero) and he also played in the now-defunct Slumberland group Blue Ocean. Shortly after Blue Ocean dissolved, Altieri debuted a new solo project called Above Me, putting out a self-titled CD EP early last year on Bay Area fixture Dandy Boy Records. I called Above Me “heavily fuzzed-out, psychedelic pop music” with a “drum-machine-heavy palette” as it took Blue Ocean’s experimental shoegaze into a home-recorded indie pop setting. The second Above Me record and debut LP, Soften the Blows, was once again recorded almost entirely by Altieri himself, with guest vocals from Lauren Matsui (Rhymies, Seablite, Neutrals) the only outside contribution. Above Me seems to be Altieri’s place to play around with non-rock influences, specifically electronica (Autechre and Oneohtrix Point Never are listed as influences by Dandy Boy), but Soften the Blows is still primarily dreamy indie pop (when it’s not outright “dream pop”) with plenty of guitars.

Soften the Blows commits to the bold opening with one of the clearest forays into electronica in the soundscape “Feelsee” (oh, I see what Above Me’s doing with the title to that one). “Water Drops” follows it up with the first real pop song on the album, a lilting one with a bit of the modern alternative sound practiced by the likes of Dummy and the aforementioned Aluminum. “Monolith” is pretty much the only thing on Soften the Blows that I’d designated a straight-up shoegaze-rocker; it’s nice to know that Altieri can still pull those off even if his mind seems to be largely elsewhere here. It’s not all trending linearly to “more computer” necessarily, as the acoustic-favoring “Dissolving Charms” and (especially) “Windmill” prove (there are plenty of different ways to dream your pop music, you know). Subdued, perky, ambient, electronic, folky, distorted, glitchy…the “pop” part is the common thread on Soften the Blows. (Bandcamp link)

Cape Crush – Place Memory

Release date: May 1st
Record label: Wanna Hear It
Genre: Emo-punk, power pop, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Calm & Delivered

A self-described “power-emo” band from Massachusetts, the quartet Cape Crush first showed up in 2023 with an EP called San Souci, and they released a split record with the bands Impossible Dog and Good June early last year. Place Memory is the group’s first full-length album, as well as their first release with new drummer Mike O’Toole, joining vocalist/guitarist Ali Lipman, guitarist James Christopher, and bassist Jake Letitiza (former drummer Cody Rico, who left the band for health reasons, is credited with co-writing these songs). Recorded with frequent collaborator and prolific producer Zach Weeks (Cowboy Boy, Really From, Friendship Commanders), Place Memory is a strong and confident debut of emo-tinged power pop and pop punk songwriting. 

Cape Crush throw two of the best pop songs I’ve heard this year at us in Place Memory’s first half with “Calm & Delivered” and the title track; both tracks are archetypal emo-power-pop anthems carried by instantly-engrossing performances from Lipman as frontperson. Even if the rest of Place Memory was kind of a dud, those two would be worth the price of admission, but the rest of the LP is Cape Crush’s bid to establish themselves as a “long-player” kind of group, too. The bookends are a rainy-day emo-pop-punk track called “I Don’t Care About Anything” and then a leave-it-all-out-there finale called “I Care Too Much About Everything”; “Come Shed Your Light on Me” and “North Street” demonstrate Cape Crush’s ability to hold back just a little bit to let the eventual wrecking ball swing effectively, while “Train in Motion” and “Also-Ran” are slick emo-rockers from the get-go. Cape Crush came more than ready to fill an album’s worth of space with their ideas on Place Memory. (Bandcamp link)

No Peeling – EP2

Release date: May 1st
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Egg punk, synthpunk, post-punk, new wave
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Night Idea

The British quintet No Peeling brought together “five friends in the fertile Nottingham DIY underground” last year, and their self-titled debut EP was released last September on Feel It Records before the group (Dom Durkin on synths, Dan Sheen on bass, Nick Oakden of Plaids and Without Maps on drums, JT Soar studio-runner Phil Booth on guitar, and Sophie Diver on vocals) had even played live together. Featuring seven songs in eight minutes, No Peeling was a torrent and clatter that established the group at the forefront of British egg punk, synthpunk, no wave, or whatever they call it over “across the pond”. The once-again seven-song, eight-minute EP2 was recorded immediately after the group’s first tour of the United Kingdom; it’s recognizably the same band from their still-young debut record, but the tougher backbone and more easily-flowing journey of their sophomore EP shows off what No Peeling have learned in the interim. I’m not sure if 2025 No Peeling would’ve had the patience to pull off “Night Idea”, a droning synth-punk tune that’s as much Stereolab as it is Devo, and I’m also impressed by just how tuned into “power pop” they’re able to make their more new wave/jerky sound in “Stationery”. They still kick up plenty of synth-whirring dust, don’t worry– “Campaign for a Nice Time” and “HGV Ted” start EP2 by refusing to let anyone catch their breath, for instance. EP2 catches a band moving quickly and purposefully. (Bandcamp link)

Golden Tiles – Set Up on the Chairs

Release date: May 1st
Record label: Antiquated Future
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, 90s indie rock, fuzz pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Tracing

I first heard the Portland, Oregon trio Golden Tiles in late 2024–they’d just released their first record, a six-song collection appropriately titled The First EP, and I used phrases like “basement rock”, “fairly lo-fi”, and “low-key pop music” to describe it. Needless to say, Golden Tiles’ whole deal is very much up Rosy Overdrive’s alley (and, I’d imagine, plenty of its readers’ alleys, too), so a debut LP from the group is more than welcome. Led by vocalist/guitarist Oliver Stafford and also featuring bassist Joshua James Amberson (who runs the band’s label, Antiquated Future) and drummer Justin Hocking, Golden Tiles practice a religious devotion to familiar, fuzzy, vaguely Pacific Northwestern indie rock throughout Set Up on the Chairs. The chords and drumbeats are kept simple, Stafford’s vocals are relatively clear for this kind of thing, and there are unmistakable pop melodies–yet there’s something about Set Up on the Chairs that keeps it at a slight distance. Pick your favorite 90s underground event–Elephant 6, K Records, Guided by Voices–and you can hear a bit of it in Golden Tiles’ music, which feels like a long-buried cassette that’s been newly unearthed. Set Up on the Chairs is the kind of record that invites you to listen again just to see if the picture starts to come more into focus this time. (Bandcamp link)

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