Pressing Concerns: Bellows, The Cowboys, Horse Lords, Yea-Ming and the Rumours

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In this Thursday Pressing Concerns, we’ve got new albums from Bellows, The Cowboys, Horse Lords, and Yea-Ming and the Rumours, all of which are out tomorrow (June 12th). Check them out below! The May 2026 playlist went up earlier this week, so also queue that one up if you missed it.

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Bellows – “Que Bello!”

Release date: June 12th
Record label: Bloody Knuckles
Genre: Art pop, synthpop, indie pop, folk-pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Delta9 Self Immolation

Next of Kin by the Brooklyn project Bellows is an album I remember fondly from the early-ish days of blog–Oliver Kolb’s technicolor, multi-layered art pop explored death in an unusual package in a way that made an unlikely choice for one of my favorite LPs of 2022. Arriving four years later, Kolb’s follow-up to Next of Kin once again lands on the maximalist side of indie pop, but the hour-long double LP “Que Bello!” puts Bellows’ intricacies on an even larger canvas. The core of Bellows (Kolb, Jack Greenleaf, Ian Cory and Frank Meadows) recorded the bulk of “Que Bello!” in 2023 and 2024, with Kolb, Greenleaf, and vocalist Emily Reo putting the finishing touches on it last year; the band has released the eighteen-song album in five “chunks” over the past two months, perhaps an acknowledgement that it is indeed a lot to take in. 

Even in Rosy Overdrive’s most long-winded era I probably would’ve struggled to do justice to something like “Que Bello!”; it’s an album that has so much to it that I’m still finding new and interesting angles every time I put it on. Bellows draw us in perfectly with two of the record’s best songs right up front: “Chrysanthemum Flowers” is the jaw-dropping, kaleidoscopic “tapestry” piece as the opener, and then “Delta9 Self Immolation” is the punchy, sub-two-minute hook-infested robot-pop song that follows in slot number two. This listen, I’m struck by the hushed horror of “To the God Nemesis”, the mid-tempo zigzagging of “Fung Wah Bus”, and the bursting-at-the-seams folk rock of “Swing into London”. That’s just a sampling of what Bellows are doing in “Que Bello!” (a “chunk”, if you will), an album that continues to hold court in Kolb’s unique niche of soft rock, 2010s Brooklyn indie pop/twee-folk, and synth-y, glitzy pop. It sounds like a Bellows album, a concept that’s as nebulous and intriguing as it’s ever been. (Bandcamp link)

The Cowboys – Captain Easy’s Downfall

Release date: June 12th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Sugar in the Shoe

The Cowboys are garage rock/power pop legends to people who have at one time or another spent too much money on a purchase from Feel It Records; we last heard from them in 2023, when they dropped the very good Sultan of Squat (which paired nicely with an album also out that year from frontperson Keith Harman’s other project, Good Looking Son). The Bloomington, Indiana-originating band may be spread out between Indiana, Ohio, and Mexico City these days, but that didn’t stop vocalist/keyboardist Harman, guitarist Mark McWhirter, bassist Zack Worcel, and drummer Jordan Tarantino from assembling the rollicking nineteen-song Captain Easy’s Downfall.

Rock ‘n’ roll/power pop missiles like “The Hate in Your Heart”, “Sugar in the Shoe”, and “Not a Lot Goin’ On” are Stiff Records throwbacks that The Cowboys could probably bash out in their sleep, but the time and distance haven’t dampened the energy they inject into them. Harman’s predilection for piano-aided crooning remains arguably The Cowboys’ defining feature; I can’t think of many punk bands who could pull off something like “Joey, You Love Too Much” or (especially) “Punk House Bidet”, which regales us with a tale from the DIY indie rock circuit that keeps us in constant suspense as to when the titular contraption will finally show up (it’s in the final line). The second half of Captain Easy’s Downfall is The Cowboys burning through as many great ideas as possible–said ideas include rockers like “Sisters of Correction” and “Ever Since the Accident” and weirdos like “Bright Colors Indicate Toxicity” and “Where the Buffalo Roam”. As always, whatever they’re doing is working. (Bandcamp link)

Horse Lords – Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!

Release date: June 12th
Record label: RVNG Intl.
Genre: Art rock, post-rock, krautrock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Brain of the Firm

Horse Lords are demanding to be taken to heaven alive–and why shouldn’t they? They’re an experimental instrumental rock institution at this point, a four-way partnership that began in Baltimore in the early 2010s and now has spanned six proper albums and a boatload of incidental music in between them. The majority of the band (guitarist Owen Gardner, bassist Max Eilbacher, and saxophonist Andrew Bernstein) now live in Germany, but it hasn’t slowed them down in recent years–Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! follows 2022’s Comradely Objects, live releases in 2023 and 2024, and a collaboration with Arnold Dreyblatt last year. 

Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! sounds a lot like the krautrock/jazz-inspired band from their previous LPs; the main obvious difference is the choral vocals from Nina Guo and Evelyn Saylor, injected in between (and, sometimes, during) Horse Lords’ instrumental squall. The otherworldly touch that Guo and Saylor give this album is palpable; less so is the more freewheeling and, indeed, angelic bent to the quartet’s playing (the three Germans assembled their parts in Berlin, with drummer Sam Haberman beaming in from Maryland). The heavy groove of Comradely Objects is replaced with something much more spacey, despite being built from the same foundation. It’s as good an example as any as to how Horse Lords have earned their reputation as one of the most interesting bands currently active. (Bandcamp link)

Yea-Ming and the Rumours – Residue

Release date: June 12th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Indie pop, folk rock, dream pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Cold

Rosy Overdrive readers will remember Oakland musician Yea-Ming Chen and her band The Rumours from their incredibly strong 2024 album I Can’t Have It All, the project’s third LP. For those in the know (or about to be in the know), I’ve good news: the 60s pop, folk rock, and gentle-side-of Yo La Tengo conjured up by I Can’t Have It All once again factor heavily into Residue, Yea-Ming and the Rumours’ fourth album. On this LP, the Rumours once again overlap heavily with Chen’s other band, Ryli–that band’s guitarist and vocalist Luke Robbins and bassist Rob Good play on Residue, with longtime Chen sideperson Eóin Galvin on guitar rounding out the quartet.

The Rumours are heavily linked to the San Francisco Bay Area’s indie pop scene (their label, Dandy Boy, is at the center of it), but their take on the genre has always been a different, “proto-” version than that of their janglier/twee-er peers. There’s a freedom to this that The Rumours embrace in Residue–they’re smoothly moving from relatively dense pedal-steel dream pop in “Paper Doll”  to the soft rock swoon of “Sweet Opiate” to the stop-and-go power pop of “Cold” to the striking, familial 60s pop of “Treasury of Loved Ones”. I’m still getting a handle on Residue, which I’m learning to expect from Yea-Ming and The Rumours records–they’re immediately likeable, but it takes time for these songs to fully sink in. The Rumours have earned this leisurely pace. (Bandcamp link)

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