Pressing Concerns: Lou Turner, Really Great & Miss Bones, Wilder Maker, Slack Times

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Welcome to a Thursday Pressing Concerns! It has four records coming out tomorrow (November 6th): new albums from Lou Turner, Wilder Maker, and Slack Times, plus a split EP between Really Great and Miss Bones. The October 2026 playlist went up on Monday, so check that out too if you haven’t yet.

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.

Lou Turner – Strangels

Release date: November 6th
Record label: Spinster
Genre: Folk, country, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Rattle Yr Dags

Lou Turner hasn’t yet properly gotten her due as one of the great folk artists of this decade thus far, but the Nashville singer-songwriter is thriving in her lane(s) nonetheless: her alt-country group Styrofoam Winos has gotten a bit of well-deserved attention this year, she’s been touring as part of Ryan Davis’ Roadhouse Band, and she’s returned with her first solo album in four years, Strangels, this month. Like her previous solo album, Microcosmos, the title of Strangels is a portmanteau that sheds a little light on Turner’s unique way of seeing things, but while Microcosmos took a laid-back folk rock journey through contentment and domesticity, the cosmos and the living room are traded for the earthbound and outdoor on Strangels. Recorded almost entirely by Turner herself at home (engineering and pedal steel from her partner and Styrofoam Winos bandmate Trevor Nikrant being the only other contribution), Strangels looks away from humanity (on the surface, at least) on a collection of songs populated by animals from horses to snakes to ants.

Being a Michael Hurley acolyte and a Roadhouse Band member, Turner is committed to both the storytelling core of “folk music” and non-rock explorations (her Alice Coltrane influence isn’t just lip service). The flute-aided mini-chamber folk beginning “Ants Underfoot” (leading up to Turner switching between “bewilder me” and “rewilder me”) and the twinkling, pedal steel-heavy country shamble of “Rattle Yr Dags” are the opening salvo, leading to Turner’s more patience-seeking compositions in the middle. “Hidden Lake” and its meditation on the noble serpent (perhaps my favorite denizen of Strangels) is immediately likable upon engagement (much like, well…), while the self-harmonies and dream-folk atmospheres of “Sure Ain’t a Horse” require a bit of letting go. In the semi-titular closing track “Strange Angels”, Turner lets the music do most of the talking: all she says is “Strange angels / Find them / Flying / Close to the ground”. This is, of course, exactly what Strangels does. (Bandcamp link)

Really Great & Miss Bones – Laugh It Off

Release date: November 6th
Record label: Disposable America/Don’t Live Like Me
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, folk rock, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Walk It Off

Miss Bones and Really Great are two bands right in the middle of Boston indie rock at the moment–in addition to the sizable amount of good music both of them have put out, they’re connected to (T-T)b, Lonesome Joan, The Michael Character, King’s Evil, and Bedbug between the two of them. Really Great (led by vocalist/guitarist Owen Harrelson) hews towards pop punk and emo-tinged power pop while Miss Bones (led by vocalist/guitarist June Isenhart) operates in the realms of folk rock and folk-pop, but the two acts aren’t so disparate where a split cassette EP couldn’t possibly work. What’s more, the two bands even cover one another’s songs on Laugh It Off: each side features two originals and a take on one of the other group’s.

Really Great make the commendable decision to take on one of the best Miss Bones songs, “I-93”, turning the alt-country banger into something that rocks harder than I would’ve thought possible; it’s pretty distinct from the Really Great originals here, but the dramatic opening track “Bird” and the relatively streamlined pop rock of “Calling Me Back” hold their own. My favorite song on Laugh It Off comes from the Miss Bones side in the almost-title track “Walk It Off”; it’s a pretty and catchy two-minute pop song featuring some of the best “Two Princes”-themed wordplay I’ve ever heard. Meanwhile, “Snacktime” might be the oddest thing I’ve heard Miss Bones do yet–they have a weirdo art punk side too, who knew?–and their version of “Skateboard Amp” taps into that excitable energy that Really Great always bring to the table. Laugh It Off is a quick and easy introduction to two good Boston bands that stands up on its own, too. (Bandcamp link)

Wilder Maker – Smoking the Bunny

Release date: November 6th
Record label: Western Vinyl
Genre: Experimental rock, jazz-rock, post-rock, psychedelia, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: City of Gold (Room 23)

I first heard Wilder Maker back in 2022, and the Brooklyn band were a pop group then–they’d just put out Male Models, a record full of accessible folk rock and chamber pop. Wilder Maker bandleader Gabriel Birnbaum has significantly changed things up since then, however; starting with last year’s The Streets Like Beds Still Warm, Birnbaum and his bandmates (bassist Nick Jost, drummer Sean Mullins, and guitarist Adam Brisbin) began exploring more experimental climes, adding elements of jazz and post-rock to their recordings. The Streets Like Beds Still Warm is apparently the first of a planned trio of likeminded records, with the second entry, Smoking the Bunny, following a little over a year later. This seventeen-track, forty-one-minute album is a fragmented affair, featuring full band recordings run “through tape machines and guitar pedals and then back into computers” by Birnbaum. The Tortoise, Talk Talk, and late-period Lambchop influences are keenly felt, as early songs like “Hands Off the Suit, Creep” and “Last Call at the Star’s Ascent” embrace the gaping holes at their centers. The electric blues-tinged rock instrumental of the title track and the relatively straightforward, rustic folk rock of “City of Gold (Room 23)” are some of the more obvious surprises found along Smoking the Bunny, but there are no shortage of intriguing moments in the strange corners of the LP’s second half, too. I appreciate when a band takes a big, bold swing, and Smoking the Bunny is very much that. (Bandcamp link)

Slack Times – Casting

Release date: November 6th
Record label: Meritorio
Genre: Jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Swing the Dial

The Deep South has a rich history of jangle pop, thanks to classic college rock groups like Alabama’s The Primitons and Mississippi’s The Windbreakers, among others. It’s nice to hear new bands continuing that legacy, which brings us to Birmingham janglers Slack Times. Vocalist/guitarist Chris McCauley and guitarist Stuart Norman co-founded the group at the beginning of this decade alongside departed member Will Stewart; they’ve recorded with Bronson Tew and Matt Patton (Drive-By Truckers, The Great Dying) at Dial Back Sound, put out music on local label Earth Libraries (Cash Langdon, The Medium, Sonny Falls), and eventually welcomed vocalist/drummer Abby Anderson (circa 2024) and bassist Jonathan Ruiz (2025) to the fold. Slack Times have typically put out music as EPs–the nine tracks and twenty minutes of Casting make it the band’s biggest release yet. Casting is smooth, sneakily-hard-to-categorize jangle pop: Slack Times aren’t full-on 60s psych pop revivalists, nor are they fully committed to 1980s, post-punk-influenced indie pop or twee disciples, either. It’s just strong guitar pop music. “Swing the Dial” has a simple power pop bounce to it, while the sweeping guitar lines of “Cast-Out” feels like a less-distorted version of what their Canadian labelmates Prism Shores are doing. It’s a good time to check up on what’s going on down south. (Bandcamp link)

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