The Thursday Pressing Concerns is the first one of the week, featuring three albums coming out tomorrow (October 3rd) from Stay Inside, Prewn, and Rainwater, plus a Mythical Motors compilation from earlier this week. Earlier this week, we had the September 2025 playlist plus a rundown on the recent Silkworm reunion shows, so check those posts out 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.
Stay Inside – Lunger
Release date: October 3rd Record label: Tiny Engines Genre: Emo, art rock, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Ain’t That a Daisy?
Stay Inside became one of the best emo bands currently active so naturally and quietly that I didn’t even notice until now. The quartet (guitarist/vocalist Chris Johns, bassist Bryn Nieboer, guitarist Chris Lawless, and drummer Vishnu Anantha, with saxophonist Shelley Washington and trumpet player Matt Hull now billed as “sometimes” members) put out a very good post-hardcore album in 2020 called Viewing and then followed it up four years later with the more polished alt-rock of the independently-released Ferried Away. I enjoyed Ferried Away and I know I wasn’t alone in doing so, but it now feels like it was a warm-up for Lunger, their third and best LP (coming merely months after their last album). Lunger is fourteen songs of Stay Inside delivering a emo-rock blow informed by heavy-gravity groups like mewithouYou and The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, only chiseled down to punchy, poppy emo-rock songs. Stay Inside do their best to outrun a sense of decay through sweeping rockers like “Wish It Away”, “Monsieur Hawkweed”, and “Ain’t That a Daisy?” (the latter of which is one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard this year in any genre)–really, just about every song on Lunger feels like it’s in motion in some form. Stay Inside’s progress had largely flown under radar until now, but I’m at least listening after Lunger. (Bandcamp link)
Mythical Motors – The Painted Unseen: Selected Singles and EPs
Release date: October 1st Record label: Subjangle Genre: Lo-fi power pop, indie pop, psychedelic pop Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Alive in Wildness
Yes, we do need more Mythical Motors records, thank you very much. Matt Addison’s Chattanooga, Tennessee-based lo-fi power pop project is one of the most prolific bands to regularly appear on Rosy Overdrive; typically, we get multiple Mythical Motors albums a year. In addition to a plethora of CD and cassettes, however, there’ve been a ton of digital-only Mythical Motors EPs and singles over the years, and that’s where The Painted Unseen comes in, collecting five such releases on one CD courtesy of Subjangle Records. A couple of these songs (“Omega Highway”, “Shadow That Comes from Nothing”) ended up on proper albums, but the vast majority of these twenty-seven songs are making their physical debut on The Painted Unseen. Addison’s proper albums find him more often than not laser-focused on punchy Guided by Voices hooks and guitars, and this applies to much of The Painted Unseen (hard to believe “Alive in Wildness” got “left off” anything), but we also get oddities like the garage-junk “Pinpoint Nosedives” and psychedelic debris “Someone Has Been Eating the Red Ribbon” (both of which are from 2018’s Negative Eleven EP, arguably the highlight of the whole collection). Mythical Motors’ music has a crate-digging appeal, and, with that in mind, The Painted Unseen is as an enjoyable a listen as their “normal” albums. At the very least, it’ll keep us busy for a few months until the next one. (Bandcamp link)
Prewn – System
Release date: October 3rd Record label: Exploding in Sound Genre: Art rock, experimental rock, folk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Dirty Dog
Exploding in Sound Records introduced us to Prewn in 2023 with Through the Window, the debut album from the Northampton, Massachusetts-based project of one Izzy Hagerup. On Through the Window, Hagerup’s intense and odd mixture of slow, electric indie and folk rock felt a bit hard to categorize, and she hasn’t made it any easier on me with the sophomore Prewn album, System. System feels nearly psychedelic in its construction, with a sound (played entirely by Hagerup once again) that feels both cavernous and uncomfortably up-close (a trick perfected by Prewn’s onetime labelmates Pile). Hagerup is pleading, nearly desperate in opening track “Easy”, a PJ Harvey-esque collision of strings, dread, and little else, but not even this scorcher prepares us for just how “widescreen” System is capable of getting. “Commotion” gets little more synthetic, “My Side” a little more string-heavy, “Dirty Dog” a little more deconstructed, but all of System is equally held together by Hagerup’s voice and her just-as-striking musical decisions. If a lot of System sounds like it’s being held together by little more than a thread, it should be pretty clear by now that that’s a feature of Prewn’s records. (Bandcamp link)
Rainwater – Yesturday & Tamarlow
Release date: October 3rd Record label: Self-released Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter, 2000s indie rock, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Shadow
Seattle’s Blake Luley has been making music as Rainwater since the mid-2010s, and the impression I’ve gotten of the project via releases like 2021’s In-Between and 2023’s Wave EP is that of a sleepy Pacific Northwest dream-folk act. Rainwater’s latest record, Yesturday & Tamarlow, is largely inspired by Luley becoming a new father, so we should expect the extremely gentle vibes to continue, right? Well, yes and no. Earlier this year, Rainwater put out an EP called A Tired Light featuring re-recorded versions of a young Luley’s more post-punk/alt-rock-influenced writing, and Yesturday & Tamarlow, picking up the thread to a degree,isn’t afraid to get a little loud and “sweeping” itself. There’s still plenty of dream pop and indie folk throughout Yesturday & Tamarlow, but wide-eyed 2000s indie-style rockers like “Baby’s Alright”, “Shadow”, and “Bluebelly” are now a central–perhaps the central–part of Rainwater’s sound. Opening track “Cottonwood Snow” clings to its acoustic guitar foundation even as Luley and his collaborators turn it into something larger, and songs like “Visiting” and “Goosebump Skin” are intricate, soaring ballads that feel like they’d be entirely different (and more insular) experiences had they been recorded for an earlier Rainwater record. Instead, though, Rainwater made something just a bit different with Yesturday & Tamarlow. (Bandcamp link)
Happy Tuesday! Time for the September 2025 Playlist. It’s yet another edition featuring two hours of mostly-new, all-great music. Of course.
Lawn, Miss Bones, and Golden Apples have two songs on this playlist. Silkworm and Liquid Mike have three.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
“Youth Unit”, Pea Sea From A Pyke of Patina Slate (2025, Sea)
I don’t really know anything about whatever “Pea Sea” is, but this song rules. Well, after doing some research, I’ve learned that apparently Chris Rollen has been making music under the name since 1997, and A Pyke of Patina Slate is the third in a “trilogy” of LPs that began in 2013 with The Debatable Land. Rollen has some connections to Peter Brewis of the art-pop group Field Music (Brewis contributes production to this latest LP), and together with Maximo Park drummer Tom English, Pea Sea veer all over the place on A Pyke of Patina Slate. “Youth Unit” is some great polished anthemic power pop with just a bit of a new wave slant to it; whatever it is, Pea Sea have nailed it.
“Davie”, Lawn From God Made the Highway (2025, Exploding in Sound)
New Orleans’ Lawn remain one of the most interesting bands in indie rock today (it makes sense that they found a home at Exploding in Sound after their previous label, Born Yesterday, folded up). Nobody is as committed to veering between noisy, knucklehead post-punk and angelic jangly guitar pop as Rui DeMagalhaes and Mac Folger–I recommend listening to the entire of God Made the Highway to get the entire “Lawn experience”, but the jangle pop moments are perfect to cut and paste into this playlist (listen to “Davie” and try to tell me any different, I dare you).
“Crop Circles”, Liquid Mike From Hell Is an Airport (2025)
If a tad less grandiose than last year’s Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, Hell Is an Airport is the smoother and tighter Liquid Mike album: fourteen songs of 90s-fuzz-laden, pop punk-baiting power pop in under thirty minutes. Everything on Hell Is an Airport feels like a hit, and the songs bleed and squeal into each other like the Marquette, Michigan group are running frantically from one idea to the next before the fire burns out. “Crop Circles” initially came out as a standalone single last year, but hearing it in the context of Hell Is an Airport is what sold me on it. Read more about Hell Is an Airport here.
“Double Dutch”, Liquid Mike From Hell Is an Airport (2025)
I like the transition between “Crop Circles” and “Double Dutch” so much that I decided to preserve it on this playlist. It’s a pretty stupid thing to try to pick favorite hooks on Hell Is an Airport, but bandleader Mike Maple and his associates (synthesizer player/backing vocalist Monica Nelson, drummer Cody Marecek, bassist Zack Alworden, and guitarist Dave Daignault) don’t let up at all throughout the massive “Double Dutch”. Read more about Hell Is an Airport here.
“Happy Halloween”, Dancer From More or Less (2025, Meritorio)
More or Less is Dancer’s first album with new drummer Luke Moran, but despite the lineup change, More or Less has the Glasgow quartet sounding more fluid and locked-in as a band than ever before. The jerky post-punk/offbeat indie pop structures from previous records are still part and parcel of More or Less, yes, but they’ve been more effectively ironed into a wider tapestry of expansive, exploratory art rock and (for Dancer, at least) more laid-back pursuits of pop music. There’s still boundless energy in songs like “Happy Halloween”, but this track’s almost late-period Sonic Youth-esque fuzz rock displays a bit of patience, too. Read more (or less) about More or Less here.
“Everyone Chicago”, BRNDA From Total Pain (2025, Crafted Sounds)
BRNDA’s Total Pain both re-ups the Baltimore group’s penchant for bizarre, groovy art-dance-punk-whatever stuff and expands their range beyond that. Even the hilarious and absurd “Everyone Chicago”, a post-punk rant-raver that sounds just like a slightly darker cut from 2021’s Do You Like Salt?, distinguishes itself thanks to what I can only call “blistering noise rock flute soloing” (credit Mike Gillispie, who also plays on the album’s “A Little Balloon”). Read more about Total Pain here.
“Fantasia”, Golden Apples From Shooting Star (2025, Lame-O)
Pieced together in a handful of different locales by bandleader Russell Edling with various contributors, Golden Apples’ Shooting Star pulls off the trick of sounding more like an insular folk-influenced record while at the same time retaining the bright, distorted, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic power pop of 2023’s Bananasugarfire. There are too many great pop moments on Shooting Star to highlight all of them, but if I had to choose just one, the roaring power pop of “Fantasia” would be my selection. Read more about Shooting Star here.
“Bad Feeling”, Absolute Losers From In the Crowd (2025, We Are Busy Bodies/Having Fun)
Many of us know about Canada’s rich tradition of power pop music, but I can’t think of much of it that came from Prince Edward Island (unless we count Alvvays, I suppose). Don’t tell that to Absolute Losers, though, a trio from Canada’s smallest province who’ve just dropped their sophomore LP, In the Crowd. Much like peers on the mainland Kiwi Jr. and Motorists, Absolute Losers (guitarist Josh Langille, bassist Sam Langille, and drummer Daniel Hartinger) have mixed post-punk into their jangly guitar pop before, but my favorite song on their newest album, “Bad Feeling”, is pure bubblegum. It’s half Spoon-Cola-Strokes-kinda indie garage rock, half chiming melodies–it won’t leave my head!
“Garden City Blues”, Silkworm From In the West (1994, C/Z/Comedy Minus One)
I saw my favorite band, Silkworm, three times last week. I’ve been unable to stop thinking about Silkworm ever since then, unsurprisingly, so there are a handful of Silkworm songs strewn throughout this playlist. All three songs on this playlist were played during their Chicago shows, and there’s one apiece from the band’s three lead vocalists (I had to have some kind of parameters, lest this just become “Silkworm: the playlist”). “Garden City Blues” was, I believe, the earliest Tim Midyett song to show up during the shows, but his Missoula-inspired opener to In the West is one of his best. Read more about those Silkworm shows here.
“Precious Coffee Moments”, Curling (2025, Royal Oakie)
It’s been about two years since guitar pop trio Curling’s most recent album, No Guitar(one of my favorites of 2023), but the bi-Pacific-Coastal group (co-founders Bernie Gelman & Joseph Brandel, now featuring drummer Kynwyn Sterling) have stayed active in the interim. Last year they signed to Royal Oakie Records, released a “deluxe version” of No Guitar, and remixed a few cuts from their 2018 album Definitely Band. Looks like we’re getting at least one brand-new Curling song this year, too, with the (thus-far) non-album single “Precious Coffee Moments”. It’s a Curling classic, combining their penchant for labored-over, prog/math-influenced “studio pop” music with an almost breezy jangly power pop attitude.
“I-93”, Miss Bones From Sap Green (2025)
“Ooh, shoulda taken care of that / Ooh, how’d you let it get so bad?” This is a song about car troubles, kind of. Miss Bones take several shapes throughout their debut LP, but one of the most rewarding moments on Sap Green is when the band (bandleader June Isenhart, Eugene Umlor on synths, Jasper Park on bass, Mat Bloomfield on drums, Melisande Pope on guitar, and Rachel Eber on vocals) go full roots-pop mode on “I-93”. The good news is that this song sounds great and Miss Bones has a bright future ahead of them if they’re already pulling something like this off, but the bad news is that I just remembered I need to get my brake pads replaced. Read more about Sap Green here.
“Townies”, Wednesday From Bleeds (2025, Dead Oceans)
Rosy Overdrive was an early MJ Lenderman adopter, but I have to confess that I’ve never loved Wednesday as much as the hype suggested I ought to have (a familiar story, yes). I like plenty of moments on Rat Saw God and (especially) Twin Plagues, but Bleeds is pretty easily their best one yet and the first one where I can fully see “it”. The band finally got their promising, inspired mix of Drive-By Truckers southern rock bravado, nu-shoegaze noiseiness, and Appalachian folk rock songwriting to the perfect levels. The proof of concept is called “Townies”, a relatively simple song in which Karly Hartzman sounds completely prepared to pull off her lofty ambitions as a frontperson and the band ready to shape themselves around someone who demands it.
“Why I Bought the House”, Asher White From 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living (2025, Joyful Noise)
Asher White’s 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living is one of the wildest albums I’ve heard this year. Do I like every second of this album, which is an unholy (actually, no, pretty holy) mixture of experimental electronica, industrial, heaviness, and pop music? Well, no, but quite a bit of it sounds brilliant to my ears, and that includes all of “Why I Bought the House”. White displays an aptitude for Beach Boys-y/Jon Brion-esque studio power pop throughout 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living, but “Why I Bought the House” is the one song where she fully embraces it, 60s pop piano and power pop guitar meanderings doing heavy lifting (alongside her excellent, capable guidance as lead vocalist).
“Pulling Teeth”, Bones Shredder From Morbid Little Thing (2025, Sunken Teeth)
You’ll hear a bit of that darker Chicago pop punk sound–Smoking Popes and Alkaline Trio, the latter of which Bones Shredder’s Randy Moore has been linked to multiple times in the past–in Morbid Little Thing’s ten songs, but no amount of “dark cabaret” vibes can cover up the other source material: suburban Fountains of Wayne-esque power pop and big old Blue Album power chords. The ascendent power pop of “Pulling Teeth” is probably my favorite song on Morbid Little Thing, but it’s far from the only piece of evidence that Bones Shredder may possibly be the best new power pop band of 2025. Read more about Morbid Little Thing here.
“You-Shaped Forever”, Dan Darrah & The Rain From There’s a Place (2025, Sunday Drive)
There’s a Place features the same backing cast as the last Dan Darrah record (bassist/producer Scott Downes, guitarist Darian Palumbo, vocalist Danielle Clark, and drummer Jacob Hellas) and, much like 2023’s Rivers Bridges Trains, it’s nothing less than forty-six minutes of sprawling, unhurried, melancholic guitar pop. The record’s entire opening trio is a (relatively speaking) tight parade of pop hits, with first track “You-Shaped Forever” in particular standing out as a masterclass in jangly power pop from the Toronto group. Read more about There’s a Place here.
“October”, The Cords From The Cords (2025, Slumberland/Skep Wax)
A new indie pop band on Slumberland Records, huh? The Cords’ sound should be a recognizable one for guitar pop fans–it’s an amalgamation of groups like The Vaselines, Heavenly (who’ve signed The Cords to their label Skep Wax in the U.K.), and Tiger Trap. They fit right in with current labelmates like The Umbrellas and Jeanines, and (like these acts) they stick out on a crowded and well-traveled road due to unflagging energy and pretty unimpeachable songwriting. The Cords cram a baker’s dozen indie pop nuggets into their first impression–blink and you’ll miss “October”, a highlight in which The Cords crank up the electricity just a bit to rip through some quick indie-pop-punk. Read more about The Cords here.
“Treat the New Guy Right”, Silkworm From Lifestyle (2000, Touch & Go)
“Treat the New Guy Right” was probably the first Silkworm song that I heard, and it was definitely the first Silkworm song that I loved. It was a free mp3 on the Touch & Go Records website (as well as “(I Hope U) Don’t Survive” and maybe one other one I can’t remember). I think this is one of the few Silkworm songs that can be enjoyed casually (maybe even more than “Couldn’t You Wait?” or “Nerves”), although in hindsight I don’t know how someone could hear a song about how “Motorhead is coming for you” and not want to figure out exactly what this Andy Cohen guy’s whole deal is. I really loved Tim Midyett’s addition of a different inflection of “Ain’t you ever been alone in your life?” in the chorus when they played it all three nights that I saw them in Chicago. Read more about those Silkworm shows here.
“Angus Valley”, Thomas Dollbaum From Drive All Night (2025, Dear Life)
I hadn’t really connected with New Orleans singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum’s work in the past, but I’m glad I gave Drive All Night a shot–it’s very good! Drive All Night is more stripped-down than Dollbaum’s previous music, and its writing is quite personal, but the hushed folk music of the majority of the EP doesn’t feel any more intimate than the bombast of the album’s one rocker, “Angus Valley”. This impact is something Dollbaum and his collaborators pull off throughout the entirety of Drive All Night. Read more about Drive All Night here.
“Passenger Princess”, Cheerbleederz From (Prove Me Wrong) (2025, Alcopop!)
Fans of the uniquely British, Martha-ish style of “indie pop punk”/power pop will find Cheerbleederz’s latest EP (Prove Me Wrong) much to their liking, and no previous knowledge of the myriad other London bands in which the members have played is necessary to appreciate this loud, cathartic-sounding pop music. (Prove Me Wrong) skips along across four songs all too briefly but not without leaving a trail of bubblegum-flavored carnage in its wake. “Passenger Princess” might be the best one, a song about learning to drive as an adult that, I suspect, is about a little more than even that insurmountable-feeling topic. Read more about (Prove Me Wrong) here.
“Alta Vista”, Dragnet From Dragnet Reigns! (2025, Spoilsport/Idiotape)
I’ve enjoyed the stylings of Geelong, Australia garage punks Vintage Crop for a while now, but it’s taken me all too long to get around to checking out lead singer Jack Cherry’s other group, Dragnet. As it turns out, Dragnet sounds a lot like Vintage Crop: Aussie garage rock and thumping post-punk in the instrumentals, Cherry talk-singing like a madman on top of them. Dragnet Reigns! is less than twenty minutes of tension being hastily built up and then torn down ad nauseum–the garage rock joyride “Alta Vista” is just one piece of the chaotic tapestry, but it’s an incredible one. Read more about Dragnet Reigns! here.
“Quiet Storm King”, Fig Dish From That’s What Love Songs Often Do (1995/2025, Polydor/Forge Again)
Recorded by Lou Giordano and originally released on Polydor, Fig Dish’s 1995 debut album That’s What Love Songs Often Do is a mid-90s “alternative rock gold rush” classic, fifty minutes of “slacker” fuzzed-out power pop now available as a double LP for the first time thirty years later thanks to Forge Again Records. The 90s indie rock underground collides with Midwestern power pop a la Cheap Trick and Material Issue and post-grunge bluntness on That’s What Love Songs Often Do, but the Chicago group still found time for deviations like “Quiet Storm King”, a surprisingly baggage-free piece of garage-pop. Read more about That’s What Love Songs Often Do here.
“What’s the Story, Mother?”, Miss Bones From Sap Green (2025)
Miss Bones is part of a nice little indie folk/folk rock/pop rock scene in Boston alongside acts like James Ikeda’s longrunning project The Michael Character and Amanda Lozada’s Lonesome Joan. More pop-forward than the latter act, more laid-back than the former one, Miss Bones’ debut album Sap Green is a rock-solid coming-out party from the could’ve-been adult alternative/folk rock hit “What’s the Story, Mother?” (in which frontperson June Isenhart pleads “I’ll split my head wide open just to prove / That you and I share the same skull”) on down. Read more about Sap Green here.
“Force Fed”, Sunnyboyy From Sunnyboyy (2025, RTF)
Jersey City, New Jersey’s Sunnyboyy are a new practitioner of a genre that’s received plenty of shine on Rosy Overdrive in recent years. On their five song self-titled EP, band founder Patrick DeFrancisci and his crew (guitarist Robert Scheuerman, bassist Pete Wilderotter, and drummer Steve Cerri) adhere to the fuzzed-out, alt-rock inspired side of 90s power pop (names like Sugar, Superdrag, Matthew Sweet, and Weezer from then, acts like Dazy, New You, and Supercrush for now). Not only that, but Sunnyboyy have the “bitter and jaded” aspect of 90s power pop down too, as they sing an ode to being force-fed bullshit and a request to fuck off with incredible polish on “Force Fed”, the EP’s opening track.
“If I Ever Ever Needed You”, Grant Pavol From Save Some Time (2025, Sonder House)
Save Some Time is the third Grant Pavol EP of 2025, and it’s the hardest of the three to categorize thus far. Pavol names Yo La Tengo, The Velvet Underground and Women as influences for this EP, and that’s a pretty wide range of possible sounds–nonetheless, it’s a pretty accurate list of sources for Save Some Time’s opening track and “hit”, the fuzz-country-tinged pop song “If I Ever Ever Needed You”. Read more about Save Some Time here.
“Taxi2”, Understanding From The Joy of Living (2025, Cooked Raw)
Understanding may be fresh out of the gate, but the majority of the Toronto band has been featured on this blog as members of Westelaken and Cootie Catcher. The Joy of Living, for the most part, pursues a rambling, keyboard-heavy indie rock sound that streamlines the sprawling folk rock of the former associated band and/or mellows out the chaotic, electronic-tinged twee pop of the latter. Recorded by Squiggly Lines’ Rob McLay, The Joy of Living is six songs of Understanding locking into place and riding a low-key but fervent vibe to a memorable debut. The swiftly humming “Taxi2”, like the rest of the EP, keeps the ivories front and center. Read more about The Joy of Living here.
“Unreal Cities”, OUT From Billie (2020, Comedy Minus One)
I saw the band OUT from Kalamazoo open up the first night of Silkworm’s three-night stand in Chicago (read more about that here). Though I’d written about OUT-related acts Future Living and Wowza in Kalamazoo, I hadn’t gotten this quartet on the blog before now. I heard several good songs I could’ve put on this playlist on that Tuesday night (“Wound Up”, “Rashomon”), but I’m going with the exasperated garage rock of “Unreal Cities” from their 2020 sophomore album Billie. It seemed like the right performance to reintroduce Silkworm (and Ike Turner’s delivery of “I’m forty-two years old / With forty-one records sold / In the last ten years or so, I am told” is pretty unbeatable).
“Why Won’t You Let Me Keep It”, Léna Bartels From The Brightest Silver Fish (2025, Glamour Gowns)
I enjoyed Léna Bartels’ intimate bedroom folk-style half of It’s Gonna Be a Wonderful New Year (her split EP with Nico Hedley) earlier this year, but as it turns out, they were hardly sufficient to prepare me for the full range of her sophomore LP, The Brightest Silver Fish. It’s (loosely speaking) a “folk rock” album that explores either end of that spectrum as well as other avenues entirely across its thirty-four minutes. On the rock side we have fuzzed-out, soaring alt-rock stuff like “Why Won’t You Let Me Keep It” that will appeal to fans of Lily Seabird’s Alas, or even Wednesday, but lo-fi bedroom pop, rootsy alt-country, and even synthpop have their moments on The Brightest Silver Fish too. Read more about The Brightest Silver Fish here.
“To Voicemail”, Big Cry Country From Something Blue (2025)
If you’ve enjoyed what fellow D.C. bands like Pretty Bitter and Flowerbomb have been doing (not to mention the 2010s Midwestern indie rock bands that inspired them like Remember Sports and Ratboys), the sophomore EP from the District’s Big Cry Country will be a satisfying and promising listen. Despite being a relatively barebones group, the pop punk bass and (relatively) subtle keyboard hook of Something Blue’s opening track, “To Voicemail”, feel as grand as the most polished arena “indie” rock could be. Read more about Something Blue here.
“Barroom Wonder”, Lawn From God Made the Highway (2025, Exploding in Sound)
Yes, a second Lawn song, because “Barroom Wonder” is neck-and-neck with “Davie” for the best Flying Nun-inspired jangle pop tune on God Made the Highway. To be clear, though, “Barroom Wonder” isn’t merely a repeat of the aforementioned other song–it’s a more distinctly American take on guitar pop music, as I can hear everything from Big Star to 80s southern college rock to 2010s “lo-fi”/“bedroom” pop stuff in its genesis. I kind of wish every Lawn song sounded like this, true, although one also must respect their devotion to doing the incredibly specific thing they do without flagging.
“The Days We Had Each Other”, Prathloons From Breadbox (2025)
Even for a Prathloons album, Breadbox is pretty hushed and low-key–it largely eschews the swooning crescendos in which 2022’s The Kansas Wind occasionally indulged and instead seeks to expand and open up the space around frontperson Colin Dall’s voice even further. The most upbeat song on the album, “The Days We Had Each Other”, is just a little perky in an early Death Cab for Cutie way, but it doesn’t derail Breadbox from pursuing some immaculate slowcore-infused vibes. Read more about Breadbox here.
“All Over Again”, Tanner York From Welcome to the Shower (2025, Trash Tape)
I’m deep into power pop subgenres you haven’t even dreamt of. “Jangly power pop with high-pitched chipmunk vocals” is a surprisingly prolific one (there’s one practitioner of it in particular who used to appear on this blog a lot)–I’m not sure what the appeal of it is for creators, exactly, but (like most other strange subsets of pop music) it hardly matters when the songs are good enough. Tanner York’s Welcome to the Shower, out via Trash Tape (Rain Recordings, Hill View #73, Tombstone Poetry), is a promising debut of such music, and my favorite song on the album, “All Over Again”, is a beautiful jangly chimer made by somebody who can trace a straight line from Big Star to Teenage Fanclub to Jon Brion to Sharp Pins.
“Grand Am”, Liquid Mike From Hell Is an Airport (2025)
A third Liquid Mike song, huh. Well, it’s a short one–around ninety seconds–so I think we’ve got room for “Grand Am”. While not a full-on lo-fi detour, “Grand Am” finds Liquid Mike channeling their inner Alien Lanes and seemingly dropping us right in the middle of a pop song from another universe. “Grand Am” is arguably a tease, never fully wringing everything it can out of its main hook and even cutting out mid-guitar-solo (?!), but what’s here is more than enough to make it one of the best tracks on Hell Is an Airport. Read more about Hell Is an Airport here.
“Dream Destroyer”, Sloan From Based on the Best Seller (2025, Two Minutes for Music/Yep Roc)
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, dream destroyer”. Aside from the obvious, has there been another band that’s been more dangerous with the “yeah, yeah, yeah”s than Sloan? Time will tell how the Nova Scotian power pop legends’ fourteenth album will stack up to the rest of their discography (including 2022’s late-career highlight Steady), but Based on the Best Seller sounds pretty good to me on first blush. “Dream Destroyer” is the early highlight for me, a swinging party penned by Patrick Pentland that struts onto the scene in the LP’s second slot.
“Downhill”, Carson McHone From Pentimento (2025, Merge)
I first heard of Carson McHone thanks to her work in the Canadian phenomenon Daniel Romano’s Outfit, but the Austin, Texas-originating, Ontario-based singer-songwriter has been making folk-country records under her own name for a decade as well. Carson McHone LP number four, Pentimento, is an album that could look intimidating from a distance (between the rambling, sixteen-track length and the spoken-word interludes which regularly crop up) but is quite friendly at its core. McHone’s music isn’t nearly as boisterous as Romano’s, but it’s “Americana”-tinged folk rock with a pulse and a more-than-passing interest in pop music. The electric jangle of “Downhill” in particular is a first-half winner. Read more about Pentimento here.
“Breeze”, Golden Apples From Shooting Star (2025, Lame-O)
I mentioned Sparklehorse two times when writing about Golden Apples’ Shooting Star, although no comparison I could make is as clear as the power of listening to “Breeze” with even a passing familiarity with Mark Linkous’ music. The point of comparison isn’t meant to imply that Russell Edling is just a homework-copier, to be clear–Sparklehorse didn’t invent this specific, wide-eyed combination of delicate and noisy, they’re just the most obvious example of it in our corner of the music world, and it’s useful for describing what, exactly, Golden Apples have tapped into throughout Shooting Star. But, I mean, that opening guitar riff is also pure Good Morning Spider, right? Read more about Shooting Star here.
“Yen + Janet Forever”, Silkworm From Libertine (1994, El Recordo/Comedy Minus One)
I never thought I’d hear “Yen + Janet Forever” live–or any of Joel Phelps’ songs from Libertine, for that matter. As much as I love “Pilot” and “Raised by Tigers” from In the West, Phelps’ greatest moment as a member of Silkworm to me was his three-song-stretch in the middle of Libertine: the six-minute, tortured “Yen + Janet Forever”, the uneasy breeze of “Oh How We Laughed”, the white-hot fury of “The Cigarette Lighters”. Silkworm played “Yen + Janet Forever” twice in Chicago, and each time Phelps’ simple, haunted lyrics in between an instrumental torrent (as well as the climax, of course, perhaps my favorite Joel Phelps moment in the entire Silkworm catalog) hit very hard. Read more about those Silkworm shows here.
“Hard to Love a Man”, Friendship From I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina (2025, Run for Cover)
Despite arguably shaping the current sound of “indie rock” more than any other indie musician, there’s a surprising lack of curiosity around huge swaths of Jason Molina’s work at this present moment. I Will Swim to You, a new Molina covers compilation from Run for Cover,isn’t equipped to change this, but it understands this, and it’s a good deal of how it stays interesting for its entirety. My favorite band who appears on the compilation, Friendship, are in particular up to the task with their choice of a relatively obscure Molina track: they offer up a hypnotic, dark version of the Magnolia Electric Co. song “Hard to Love a Man” that lands somewhere between the coverer and the covered, somehow. Read more about I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina here.
“Maldição”, Oruã From Reflectors, Vol. I (2025, Half Shell/Dead Currencies)
Nashville experimental label Dead Currencies have recently announced a split LP series called “Reflectors”, and they’ve kicked off this new project with two titans of modern psychedelic music in Seattle’s Reverse Death and Brazilian Built to Spill associates Oruã. For the latter band, they’ve offered up a handful of demos and outtakes from Oruã’s upcoming K Records debut, Slacker, featuring a more rock-focused psychedelia than their Pacific Northwest counterparts. Even so, the nine-minute electric guitar explosion of “Maldição” sticks out like a sore thumb–it’s worth the price of admission on its own. Read more about Reflectors, Vol. I here.
I saw the band Silkworm live in Chicago, Illinois. Three times, in fact. The first three shows of the group’s mini-tour from The Windy City to Tolono, Illinois (that’s Champaign-Urbana, effectively), and then Gonerfest in Memphis. Originally, they’d only announced one Chicago show, and my plan had been to hit Sleeping Village and then drive down to Matt Talbot of Hum’s bar in Tolono, the Loose Cobra, but after three Chicago shows eventually showed up (“Sorry about the Tuesday night,” Andy Cohen said on the first night at The Chop Shop, the final show of the three to be added, “…but, due to overwhelming demand…”), cooler heads prevailed (note: I’ve yet to see the Loose Cobra setlist at the time of this writing, so the regret factor has probably yet to fully kick in). I took off work and prepared myself for a three-night stand in the greatest city in the world with Tim Midyett, Andrew Cohen, Joel R.L. Phelps, and Jeff Panall.
There was a different opening act every night. Tuesday night brought OUT from Kalamazoo, made up of members of bands you might have read about on this blog like Wowza in Kalamazoo and Future Living (including Isaac Turner, who, like me, contributed a chapter to Lay It Down in Full View: Collected Writings on Silkworm and Their Music–but I’m getting ahead of myself). The “rocking in spite of themselves” vibe of OUT was markedly different from Pittsburgh’s The Gotobeds on Wednesday, who brought their renowned (in certain circles) sense of chaos to Sleeping Village (“They’ve cleaned their act up a little bit over the years,” Moon Orchids’ Jacob Simons told me after their set, implying that they must diligently rehearse their desecration of venue lighting fixtures and messing with the tuning on each others’ instruments). The Thursday opener, Dianogah, peers of the members of Silkworm for thirty years, brought to the table their two-bass guitar attack and something completely different: a Chicago post-rock (or math rock, whatever) stillness.
So: Silkworm. Aside from the four songs they played at Steve Albini’s memorial service (the entire impetus for this reunion), these were the first “Silkworm shows” in twenty years, and the first ones with Joel Phelps in (I believe) around thirty. They were as good as I could have hoped. Andy Cohen and Tim Midyett played songs from across their entire time as Silkworm co-leaders, and Phelps was there on second guitar for a bunch of songs he’d never played on before those shows. Phelps sang lead vocals on two of Midyett’s songs (“Swings” twice and “The Bones” every night) and two of Cohen’s (“White Lighting” and “Severance Pay” once apiece) over the course of the three nights, and while these were all chill-inducing, his guitar contributions were equally impressive (and despite all of the above, my favorite “Phelps on a later Silkworm song” moment might’ve been him standing up from his chair to shout “Whenever you might think it’s over” alongside Midyett during “‘Don’t Look Back’”).
(photos are by me; there are much better ones out there–plus whole videos of a lot of the shows!–if you look on social media)
The first night started with “Couldn’t You Wait?”, of course, and then “Treat the New Guy Right” and (in an inspired choice) “Insomnia”. Every song knocked my proverbial socks off: A show-stopping performance of “Raging Bull”. Andy giving his all to canonical Silkworm classics (“Don’t Make Plans This Friday”) and to songs that should be (fucking “The Old You”). Closing the non-encore set with an electric “Dirty Air” (jeez, Italian Platinum is so good), and breaking out the posthumously-released “Bar Ice” in the encore. Midyett dedicating “Clean’d Me Out” to Gerard Cosloy, who he admitted probably wasn’t there (“He’ll probably be at Gonerfest”).
They played at least one song from every album, including L’ajre (Phelps’ “Little Sister”, believe it or not). Every time Joel stepped up to the mic, the air changed and shit “got real”: this, unsurprisingly, happened with Silkworm’s performances of all three of his In the West songs, but it was no less palpable when he sang Midyett’s “Swings” (a song written in the aftermath of Phelps’ initial departure from Silkworm in the mid-90s, and the performance of that night seemed to bring something full circle). To Jeff Panall, tasked with the impossible, I bestow the highest possible compliment: he did it.
Night two at Sleeping Village couldn’t possibly top the rush of night one, right? If it could’ve though, it probably would’ve went something like how Wednesday night went. A solid third of the setlist (eight out of twenty-two songs) were songs that hadn’t been played the previous night, quite impressive given everything about the circumstances (I would’ve been happy with one or two new additions!). In the main set, we got “The City Glows” (holy shit), “Grotto of Miracles” (holy shit), and “Ritz Dance” (truly one of the last songs I would’ve expected them to pull out, good on them), among others. The first encore was almost entirely new additions, featuring two Lifestyle selections and perhaps the biggest treat of the entire night, Joel Phelps’ “Yen + Janet Forever”.
(As a sidebar: everyone seems to love Phelps’ In the West songs, and of course I do too, but I’ve always believed that his Libertine tracks were even better, even though I rarely hear anyone talk about them. Perhaps because he left the band around that time, I don’t think they were played live contemporaneously very much (certainly not in comparison to the In the West ones), and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever hear any of them live. It was amazing, and if anyone from Silkworm is reading this, please learn “Oh How We Laughed” and/or “The Cigarette Lighters” and play them next time you play in Chicago. )
It’s night three and Silkworm are still pulling out surprises. It was a great night for those of use who love Italian Platinum (which, I would hope, included everybody in the room), as “The Third”, “LR72”, and “White Lightning” (as previously mentioned, with Joel singing) all made appearances. Cohen trotted out “Sheep Wait for Wolf” and “Tarnished Angel” for the first time this tour, but a lot of the highlights from night three were Silkworm’s performances of the run’s staples. I was listening to “‘Don’t Look Back’” before the show and had the thought that, despite hearing it two nights in a row, I would be disappointed if it didn’t show up the third night (I needn’t have worried). Ditto to “Treat the New Guy Right” (which they saved for the second encore that time), and repeat performances of “Yen + Janet Forever”, “Pilot”, and “The City Glows” all seemed to gain something.
And then there’s “The Bones”, which ended all three nights. It was actually one of the few Silkworm songs I’d seen live before this tour–it’s a staple of Midyett’s solo shows, along with “Young”–but given that it’s possibly my favorite Silkworm song, I was still very stoked to hear it every night. That’s not even taking into account the fact that Joel Phelps sang it: like “Swings”, there’s some incredible subtext to the performance (Midyett has said the song is “partially” about Phelps, as well as Midyett’s wife), but the emotions stirred out by the two of them singing “The Bones” together are of a different sort (the kind that unambiguously end the show–there’s nowhere to go after that).
At The Chop Shop, Phelps sang “The Bones” off-mic, and though the first half was marred by chatter from the bar and the shushing thereof, I didn’t find myself wanting him to move any closer to the microphone. The third night’s performance of “The Bones” was my favorite, though. Tuning issues threw the band for a loop, with Midyett informing Phelps and Cohen that they’d have to sing and play the song (respectively) higher than they’d previously been doing at the last minute. It turned into a duet between Midyett and Phelps–the former perhaps trying to guide the now-in-unfamiliar-territory song and the latter absolutely nailing the challenge with, if anything, even more flair (needless to say, the Hebrew Hendrix had no problem with his role either).
I’m leaving a bunch of stuff out, but I do want to acknowledge that it was nice to meet a bunch of people in person that I’d only talked to on the internet beforehand. Thanks to Paul and Jane Duffus for everything they did in putting Lay It Down in Full View together, a book I’m eager to read (finally!). Did you know they came all the way from England to see the shows (and hawk their book, I suppose, but still)? You can still purchase the book from Comedy Minus One in the States and from Jane Duffus herself in the U.K., by the way. Also, hello to Jon Solomon (who studiously refused to look at my real name when I was buying a T-shirt and tote bag so as to “not ruin the mystique”), Jacob from Moon Orchids and Dori, Galen from Repeating Cloud and Gum Parker, and Joni Elfers.
Slightly before this current run of shows commenced, Silkworm announced three more upcoming gigs in Louisville, Atlanta, and Columbia, South Carolina. As someone who grew up in Appalachia and currently lives in the Midwest, the locations of these shows warm my heart: fuck off, Coastal Elites. Hey New Yorkers, Philadelphians, Californians, etc–if you want to see Silkworm, you’re going to Kentucky or South Carolina (yes, I figure these show locations were chosen based on logistics more than anything else, I’m just having fun). The fact that these shows were announced before they’d even played the first run bodes well, I’d think. I hope to see everyone listed above (and some more of you) at a Silkworm show again sometime soon.
We’ve got four records coming out tomorrow (Friday, September 26th) in the Thursday Pressing Concerns! A new EP from Thomas Dollbaum and new albums from The Cords, Studio Electrophonique, and Technopolice. Also, if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Léna Bartels, Bones Shredder, Baltimore at an Angle, and Big Cry Country) or Tuesday’s (Fig Dish, Closed Quarters, Grant Pavol, and Wide Orbit), 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.
Thomas Dollbaum – Drive All Night
Release date: September 26th Record label: Dear Life Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter Formats: Digital Pull Track: Angus Valley
The New Orleans singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum put out an album in 2022 called Wellswood that I didn’t really connect with, but I’m glad I gave Dollbaum another shot with Drive All Night, because I really like this one. Dollbaum has recently been touring the country playing shows with the likes of Tony Jay, Lily Seabird, and Cash Langdon and his latest record is out via the always great Dear Life Records, so he’s been on my radar, and Drive All Night is a really lovely six-song folk rock EP that delivers on a fair amount of potential. The Bandcamp page for the EP mentions heady names like Damien Jurado and Richard Buckner; it’s not wrong to, and I hear David Bazan and Owen Ashworth in Dollbaum’s voice, too. Dollbaum reaches back to his Florida upbringing in these six songs, with guitar from Josh Halper and backing vocals from Kate Teague aiding the singer-songwriter through acoustic folk pieces like “Whippits/Trailer Lights”, “Lives of Saints”, and the title track, the EP’s one rocker (the sadness-tinged ecstasy of “Angus Valley”), and the alt-country-dressed “Warlock’s House”. Drive All Night is more stripped-down than Wellswood, and its writing is quite personal, but the hushed closing track “William Duffy’s Farm” doesn’t feel any more intimate than the bombast of “Angus Valley”, per se. It’s something Dollbaum and his collaborators pull off throughout the entirety of Drive All Night. (Bandcamp link)
The Cords – The Cords
Release date: September 26th Record label: Slumberland/Skep Wax Genre: Indie pop, power pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: October
A new indie pop band on Slumberland Records, huh? Eva Tedeschi and Grace Tedeschi are The Cords, a duo from Greenock, Scotland who are now about to release their debut LP after a stream of singles that began last year. The Cords’ sound should be a recognizable one for guitar pop fans–they’ve built their self-titled first album via an amalgamation of groups like The Vaselines (for whom they’ve already opened), Heavenly (whose members’ current label, Skep Wax, is releasing The Cords in the United Kingdom), and the roster of K Records (in particular, I hear a bit of Tiger Trap here). They fit right in with current labelmates like The Umbrellas and Jeanines, and (like these acts) they stick out on a crowded and well-traveled road due to unflagging energy and pretty unimpeachable songwriting. The Cords cram a baker’s dozen indie pop nuggets into their first impression, doing their absolute best to seize their moment. For “October”, “Vera”, and “You”, The Cords crank up the electricity just a bit to rip through some quick indie-pop-punk, “Doubt It’s Gonna Change” leans heavily on prominent handclaps, “Yes It’s True” is very nearly noise pop in its distorted main riff, and “When You Said Goodbye” ends things on a dreamy note. The Cords gives us the grand tour, and it could very well just be the beginning. (Bandcamp link)
Studio Electrophonique – Studio Electrophonique
Release date: September 26th Record label: Valley of Eyes Genre: Indie pop, soft rock, jangle pop, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: David and Jayne
James Leesley spent the 2010s fronting Sheffield guitar pop group High Hazels, though in recent years he seems to be putting out music via a solo project called Studio Electrophonique. After EPs under the name in 2019 and 2022, Leesley is finally releasing the first Studio Electrophonique full-length, a self-titled LP on new imprint Valley of Eyes Records. Like the old analog recording studio from which the project takes its name, Studio Electrophonique’s influences come from decades past: Leesley talks about writers and performers like Carole King, Burt Bacharach, and Dusty Springfield, as well as “60s French cinema”. It’s all presented in a distinctly “British indie pop” way: soft rock built from delicate vocals, drum machines, and lots of Casio keyboards (“Pipe Organ mode”). I can’t get away with not mentioning Belle & Sebastian here, although the bossa nova-influenced indie pop of recent Peel Dream Magazine is probably a more accurate comparison. Studio Electrophonique moves through eleven songs at a leisurely pace, the opening lazy indie pop of “David and Jayne” beginning a collection of sleepy, floating melodies and writing that does indeed feel in conversation with “pop music” from a half-century or more ago. There’s a lot worse you could than to listen in on the discussion. (Bandcamp link)
Technopolice – Chien De La Casse
Release date: September 26th Record label: Howlin Banana/Idiotape/Ganache Genre: Garage rock, power pop, garage punk, synthpunk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Regretter Après
Nothing wrong with a bit of French garage rock, certainly. Today we’ve got a quartet from Marseille (members: Léo Joussellin and Charles Priem on guitar and vocals, Zacharie Capitant on bass, and Jules Massa on drums) who’ve played in local bands like La Flemme, Flathead, and Avenoir before coming together and dropping a pair of EPs in 2022 (Technopolice) and 2024 (In Your Pocket). Technopolice and its members already have a bit of history of their own, true, but they also come off as true fans of current garage rock/power pop/“egg punk”, naming everyone from Prison Affair to Gee Tee to R.M.F.C. as influences for their music. There’s a bit of that “Australian sound” in Chien De La Casse, their debut full-length–it’s really catchy, high-speed garage rock where the hooks are just as likely to come from squealing keyboards as Joussellin and/or Priem’s vocals, but it also certainly fits in with what’s been coming out on their local(ish) label, Paris’ Howlin Banana (Lùlù, TH Da Freak, Cathedrale). Choppy post-punk, garish synths, and garage rock energy collide obviously in the biggest hits like “Regretter Après” and “Hellastic Mr Pox”, and aside from the lo-fi psychedelic pop turn of closing track “Puke”, Technopolice are masters of brevity. These are quite good students. (Bandcamp link)
Pressing Concerns #2 (of the week) brings us new albums from Closed Quarters and Wide Orbit, a new EP from Grant Pavol, and a reissue of Fig Dish‘s first album. Read on, and if you missed yesterday’s blog post (featuring Léna Bartels, Bones Shredder, Baltimore at an Angle, and Big Cry Country), check that 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.
Fig Dish – That’s What Love Songs Often Do (Vinyl Release)
Release date: August 1st Record label: Forge Again Genre: Alternative rock, power pop, post-grunge Formats: Vinyl Pull Track: Seeds
Last year I wrote about Feels Like the Very First Two Times, the long-lost third album from cult Chicago alt-rock band Fig Dish, which finally saw the light of day twenty-five years after its recording thanks to Forge Again Records. I described the band’s sound at the time as “a mix of Midwestern power pop a la Cheap Trick and Material Issue with some 90s indie rock-like irreverence and just a bit of post-grunge bluntness”; needless to say, it sounds great in 2025 and I’m pleased to see that the Fig Dish/Forge Again partnership has now resulted in the release of the band’s first album, 1995’s That’s What Love Songs Often Do, on vinyl for the first time. Recorded by Lou Giordano and originally released on Polydor, That’s What Love Songs Often Do is a mid-90s “alternative rock gold rush” classic, fifty minutes of “slacker” fuzzed-out power pop now available as a double LP. My favorite song on the album, “Seeds”, kind of sounds like Archers of Loaf trying to make a post-grunge hit, while “Weak and Mean” and “Wrong Nothing” are nice and crunchy alt-rock wrecking balls and “Quiet Storm King” is a surprisingly baggage-free piece of garage-pop. Admittedly, That’s What Love Songs Often Do still feels like a “CD album”, but I’ll happily take this occasion as an excuse to revisit a thirty-year-old LP that’s as fresh as this. (Bandcamp link)
Closed Quarters – The Pagan’s House of Leaves
Release date: August 8th Record label: Gothic Death Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, goth-folk, lo-fi pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: The Sphere
Closed Quarters are a “lofi emo/goth/punk” group from Kansas City, Missouri whose only constant member appears to be a musician named Tim Kruse. The project was fairly active in the late 2010s, releasing three EPs from 2017 to 2020 before going quiet for a half decade. A compilation called Hollow Days (which collected miscellaneous material from the aforementioned period) appeared earlier this year, and it turns out that it prefigured a brand-new Closed Quarters LP called The Pagan’s House of Leaves. Aside from Tyler Perryman playing guitar on two tracks, The Pagan’s House of Leaves was entirely self-recorded and played by Kruse; as a mostly-solo project, Kruse’s Closed Quarters display a knack for the darker corners of lo-fi indie rock, indeed jamming bits of goth and doom-folk into what’s more or less a “bedroom rock” foundation. At Closed Quarters’ friendliest, “The Octopus” and “The Sphere” are fuzzed-out indie rock/pop songs with as many hooks as moments of darkness, but even most of the “pop” moments are unmistakably goth-tinged (the dread-filled “Big Surprise”, the fuzz rock “The Crimson Pagan, Thick in the Pudding, Calls the Rams to Fix My Blood”). Those expecting a “normal” bedroom pop album or gothic-folk LP won’t find it in The Pagan’s House of Leaves, but Closed Quarters made something for the adventurous basement-dwellers here. (Bandcamp link)
Grant Pavol – Save Some Time
Release date: August 22nd Record label: Sonder House Genre: Fuzz folk, bedroom pop, psychedelic folk Formats: Digital Pull Track: If I Ever Ever Needed You
Grant Pavol is three for three with his 2025 EPs so far. Save Some Time is the third of four EPs planned by the New York singer-songwriter and frequent Shamir collaborator throughout the year; January’s Collegekicked the project off with some viola-laden folk music, and Left That Party veered into the realms of fuzzed-out power pop in May. Save Some Time was recorded with “several members” of the band Sloppy Jane (one of whom, Isabella Bustanoby, has played on all three Pavol EPs now) and is the hardest of the three to categorize thus far. Pavol names Yo La Tengo, The Velvet Underground and Women as influences for this one–needless to say, there’s a lot of ground contained within those three acts, and Save Some Time reflects this between the fuzz-country-tinged “hit” “If I Ever Needed You”, the sparkling, cavernous studio pop creation “Save Some Time”, the distorted, hushed dirge “Don’t Forget”, and the relatively straightforward dream-folk closer “I Wanna Be Like You”. I can hear moments that wouldn’t have been out of place on either of Pavol’s earlier two EPs in these four songs, a sign that we’re dealing with somebody who’s able to keep himself intact while genre-hopping. Save Some Time is the sound of the pieces coming together. (Bandcamp link)
Wide Orbit – Introducing… Wide Orbit
Release date: September 5th Record label: 22TWENTY Genre: Indie pop, pop rock, jangle pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: What’s the Point?
We’ve got a new indie pop band from Chicago for you today. Introducing… Wide Orbit, a six-piece group from the Windy City led by one Ryan Tuohy that have just released their debut record. Introducing… Wide Orbit is a generous first statement, a dozen songs in a little over thirty minutes recorded “in a cramped room outside the city”. While it can be pretty neatly labeled “pop rock”, Wide Orbit’s debut has a pretty wide-ranging definition of the term that goes back to the 1960s to present day–bits of jangly indie pop, roots rock/alt-country, psychedelic pop, and power pop shade these tracks, though I’d decline to file the LP cleanly under any of those genres. Wide Orbit are at their best when they really go for it with these songs–the most obvious highlights include the sunny, piano-aided guitar pop of “Full of Feathers”, the alt-country-infused “He’s a Wizard”, the psychedelic, almost jazzy “Soil”, and the jangle pop bubblegum of “What’s the Point?” The songwriting on Introducing… Wide Orbit feels fairly polished but the band’s performances are fairly loose, giving a bit more color to an already pretty strong debut release. Wide Orbit should feel good about their first impression. (Bandcamp link)
First Pressing Concerns of the week! New albums from Léna Bartels, Bones Shredder, and Baltimore at an Angle! New EP from Big Cry Country! Let’s go!
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.
Léna Bartels – The Brightest Silver Fish
Release date: September 12th Record label: Glamour Gowns Genre: Fuzz rock, alt-country, bedroom rock, art rock Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Why Won’t You Let Me Keep It
Léna Bartels put out her first album, Preservation, in 2022, but she first got onto my radar earlier this year thanks to a split EP with Nico Hedley called It’s Gonna Be a Wonderful New Year. I enjoyed Bartels’ intimate bedroom folk-style contributions to that EP, but as it turns out, they were hardly sufficient to prepare me for the full range of her sophomore LP, The Brightest Silver Fish. Featuring Izzy Oram Brown and members of Youbet and The Big Net and coming out via Glamour Gowns (Charlie Kaplan, Peaceful Faces, Josh Halper), The Brightest Silver Fish is (loosely speaking) a “folk rock” album that explores either end of that spectrum as well as other avenues entirely across its thirty-four minutes. On the one hand we have fuzzed-out, soaring alt-rock stuff like “Amber” and “Why Won’t You Let Me Keep It” that will appeal to fans of Lily Seabird’s Alas, or even Wednesday, while we also get the rootsy alt-country breathers of “Bad Sugar” and “Give Myself A Way”, pin-drop quiet lo-fi bedroom pop recordings “Lead Me On” and “Nothing Makes Me Feel Touched”, and a kind of freaky synthpop song called “I Knew” that reminds me of Laurie Anderson (with the vocal manipulations and all, I suppose). The Brightest Silver Fish won’t bore you, but it’ll do just about everything else. (Bandcamp link)
Bones Shredder – Morbid Little Thing
Release date: September 19th Record label: Sunken Teeth Genre: Pop punk, power pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Pulling Teeth
Oh, great, here comes Mr. Bones Shredder. A pop punk artist with a dark cabaret aesthetic, eh? A horror-themed musical vampire-mad-scientist whose Frankenstein’s monster is a Morrissey that only knows how to write Ramones/Misfits songs? Yes, he has played in multiple Alkaline Trio side projects, good on you for asking. No, it’s not 2007–it’s 2025, and I’m writing about the debut album from a San Jose musician named Randy Moore called Morbid Little Thing that happens to be everything I described above and one of the best power pop albums I’ve heard this year, too. You’ll hear a bit of that darker Chicago pop punk sound–Smoking Popes and, yes, Alkaline Trio–in Morbid Little Thing’s ten songs, but no amount of blonde-streaked dark hair can cover up the other source material: suburban Fountains of Wayne-esque power pop and big old Blue Album power chords. Kicking the thing off with lean pop punk attention-grabbers “There You Are” and “Daylight” works, and Bones Shredder is streaking through stuff like the ascendent power pop “Pulling Teeth”, the refreshingly-simple belter “Stay Away”, and the earthquaking fuzz-grunge-pop of “Who Cares” in no time. Stick around to the end for the chugging power chords that construct an otherwise pretty faithful Beatles cover (“Baby’s in Black”) and the five-minute closing track, too–both are black sheep, true, but that’s Morbid Little Thing’s thing. (Bandcamp link)
Baltimore at an Angle – I Thought
Release date: August 1st Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, lo-fi pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Sky Blue Sky
Last year, I wrote about an album called Once Upon a Time in Battersea by Grr Ant, which is the new solo project of a London musician named Grant Gillingham. Once Upon a Time in Battersea, an excellent collection of confident jangly guitar pop, was the debut Grr Ant release, but it turns out that Gillingham has been putting out music under a different project called Baltimore at an Angle since 2020. I Thought is actually the fourth Baltimore at an Angle LP, and appears to have been recorded entirely by Gillingham himself–what precisely differentiates it from Grr Ant isn’t entirely clear, but more music from the apparently fairly prolific musician is welcome. I Thought retains the jangle pop and classic C86-inspired indie pop side of Once Upon a Time in Battersea, although it’s perhaps more laid-back, meditative, and a little more openly “British” in its execution. “Starting Again” is a practically pastoral opener, and the slightly-post-punk-influenced “KIA” has the most polite “I hate you / You stupid cunt” I’ve ever heard. It’s an economical ten songs in thirty minutes, but its unassuming packaging doesn’t make highlights like “Sky Blue Sky” any less impressive. Grant Gillingham, under whatever name he chooses, knows how to make songs like that click. (Bandcamp link)
Big Cry Country – Something Blue
Release date: September 5th Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie punk, power-pop-punk, emo-y indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: To Voicemail
A power pop/pop punk/emo-indie band from Washington, D.C. called Big Cry County? Seems like they should fit right in here in Pressing Concerns. This quartet (Roxanne Bublitz, Jill Miller, JP Salussolia, and Jarrod Brennet) have been around since the beginning of the 2020s but, after a few one-off singles, they got my attention via their debut EP, 2023’s Living Conditions. If you’ve enjoyed what fellow D.C. bands like Pretty Bitter and Flowerbomb have been doing (not to mention the 2010s Midwestern indie rock bands that inspired them like Remember Sports and Ratboys), the sophomore Big Cry Country EP will be a satisfying and promising listen. Something Blue is admittedly more barebones than many of the names mentioned above, but that doesn’t stop Big Cry Country from putting on a memorable show nonetheless–both the pop punk bass and (relatively) subtle keyboard hook of opening track “To Voicemail” feel as grand as the most polished arena “indie” rock could be. They may not be a straight-ahead “punk” group, but all six of these pop songs have foot-on-gas energy, even (perhaps especially) when Bublitz’s lyricism is a bit of a bummer. I respect the ethos. (Bandcamp link)
Thursday Pressing Concerns! We have new albums from Golden Apples and Frog, a new EP from Public Opinion, and a split LP between Oruã and Reverse Death. All of these are out tomorrow (September 19th)! Cool! And if you missed either of yesterday’s Pressing Concerns (on Monday we looked at Dragnet, Carson McHone, Miss Bones, and Dan Darrah & The Rain, and on Tuesday it was Understanding, Prathloons, BRNDA, and Shallowater), 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.
Golden Apples – Shooting Star
Release date: September 19th Record label: Lame-O Genre: Fuzz pop, noise pop, psychedelic pop, lo-fi indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Fantasia
Russell Edling has been making music as Golden Apples (and before that, as Cherry) for several years, but 2023’s Bananasugarfirewas a big milestone for the Philadelphia artist. With a solid lineup behind him, Edling’s pop music became louder and fuzzier, incorporating shoegaze and psychedelia into Golden Apples’ sound. The latest Golden Apples LP, Shooting Star, takes the ambition and expanse of their previous album and refocuses it in a decidedly different manner. Pieced together in a handful of different locales with various contributors (Cave People’s Mimi Gallagher, Lowercase Roses’ Matthew Scheuermann, and Slaughter Beach, Dog’s Zack Robbins, among others), Shooting Star pulls off the trick of sounding more like an insular folk-influenced record while at the same time retaining the bright, distorted, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic power pop of Bananasugarfire (I’m only going to say this once: it sounds more like Sparklehorse than anything I’ve heard since the posthumous Sparklehorse album). There are too many great pop moments on Shooting Star to highlight all of them: there’s “Ditto”, the Golden Apples version of a Dazy/Graham Hunt danceable fuzz pop song, the laidback folk rock of “Mind”, the roaring power pop of “Fantasia”, and “Breeze”, a song that makes me wish I hadn’t already used up my one Sparklehorse comparison. Between Bananasugarfire and Shooting Star, there’s now a distinct “Golden Apples sound”–I think I like this new take on it the best so far, but there’s no wrong choice. (Bandcamp link)
Oruã / Reverse Death – Reflectors Vol. I
Release date: September 19th Record label: Dead Currencies/Half Shell Genre: Psychedelic rock, psychedelia, post-rock, ambient pop Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: Maldição
Nashville experimental label Dead Currencies (Monde UFO, Simon Joyner, Matthew J. Rolin) have recently announced a split LP series called “Reflectors”, and they’re kicking off this new project with two titans of modern psychedelic music. Reflectors, Vol. I (also available on cassette via Half Shell Records) brings together Seattle musician Daniel Onufer’s Reverse Death and Brazilian Built to Spill associates (and recent K Records signee) Oruã for two distinct but complimentary takes on the spacier, acid-tinged corners of rock music. Reverse Death’s music is a weightless mixture of ambient, drone, and jazz, and it’s impressive to hear Onufer and company turn this towards the realm of pop music (in a very loose sense) on their side of Reflectors, Vol. I. The final three tracks of Reverse Death’s side are actually one long twelve-minute song, a sprawling psychedelic chamber pop suite that gives way to something pretty different from Oruã.
The Brazilians, all of a sudden, introduce grounding rhythms back into the mix–the first things we hear in “De se Envolver” are a shuffling drumbeat and plodding bassline. Apparently these are all demos or outtakes from Oruã’s upcoming K Records debut, Slacker–two of these song titles appear on that album’s tracklist–so we’ll see how the “final” product holds up, but Oruã’s more rock-focused psychedelia is a nice counterpoint. It’s still a pretty “soft” version of psych-rock–with the one exception of the nine-minute electric guitar explosion of “Maldição”, which is worth the price of admission on its own. The two sides of Reflectors, Vol. I may just be two stops in an infinite journey, but each one is a little world. (Bandcamp link)
Public Opinion – Perpetual Motion Machine
Release date: September 19th Record label: SideOneDummy Genre: Punk rock, pop punk, post-hardcore, power pop, garage punk, emo-punk Formats: Digital Pull Track: Finale Rack
When I wrote about Public Opinion’s debut LP, Painted on Smile, last year, I said that the Denver group “combine hardcore might, garage rock raggedness, and huge pop hooks”–it was an excellent introduction to a quintet joining the “hardcore bands making music that’s not necessarily hardcore” movement. Since the release of Painted on Smile, Public Opinion apparently signed with SideOneDummy, and the group’s first release for their new label is a three-song, eight-minute EP called Perpetual Motion Machine that manages to roll their best qualities into a bite-sized, sampler portion. “Laughing Academy” features guest vocals from Patrick Kindlon of Drug Church, whose blistering punk frontperson routine (with Hart as the more polished counterpart) makes it the “heaviest” track on the EP. “Finale Rack” is basically just a pedal-on-the-floor, catchy-as-hell melodic punk rock (and roll) rave-up, and the closing title track ends Perpetual Motion Machine with a curveball in the form of a mid-tempo, emo-y pop punk track (with a bit of an edge to it here and there nonetheless). Those who remember the quieter moments of Painted on Smile won’t be fully surprised by “Perpetual Motion Machine”, but Public Opinion giving so much real estate to this side of themselves on a pretty brief (re)introduction feels like a harbinger of some kind. Maybe Perpetual Motion Machine represents three different doors, or maybe Public Opinion will do their best to keep all of them open on their next full-length. I’ll be listening. (Bandcamp link)
Frog – The Count
Release date: September 19th Record label: Audio Antihero/Tapewormies Genre: Indie pop, piano pop,folk-pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Chelsea Piers
So we get a second Frog album in 2025. February’s 1000 Variations on the Same Song is barely even cold in the ground, and now The Count has risen from his coffin to greet us. The seventh album from the cult New York group comprised of brothers Daniel and Steve Bateman (and their third LP since returning from a hiatus in late 2023) is both a logical continuation of their most recent record and a unique entry in their ever-expanding discography. Daniel Bateman sings all of The Count in-character as the titular figure (see the album’s Bandcamp page for an entertaining description of him)–and what do you know, this “Count” fellow’s music sounds an awful lot like a Frog album. In fact, it’s more of a “Frog album” than ever: the back-to-school-special pianos, the soulful falsettos, the hip-hop-inspired cadence and attitude (and, increasingly, lyricism) have all been ratcheted up to dangerous levels. It’d be bordering on self-parodic for a lesser band (not that that’s even an inherently bad thing), but The Count feels free above anything else. Maybe Daniel Bateman needed a degree of remove to sing lines like “You took a piece of me like Crimea” (“Come Come Come Var. XIV”) like he means it, but, if so, good on Frog for letting The Count take it away. (Bandcamp link)
This Tuesday Pressing Concerns introduces to us new albums from Prathloons, BRNDA, and Shallowater, and a new EP from Understanding. Pretty cool if you ask me! If you missed yesterday’s blog post (featuring Dragnet, Carson McHone, Miss Bones, and Dan Darrah & The Rain), check that out here.
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.
Understanding – The Joy of Living
Release date: August 29th Record label: Cooked Raw Genre: Art pop, indie pop, piano rock, folk rock, chamber pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Taxi2
It’s time for some Understanding. I am, of course, referring to the brand-new quartet out of Toronto, who’ve just put out their debut EP on Cooked Raw Records. Understanding may be fresh out of the gate, but the majority of their lineup has been featured on this blog as members of other acts before: bassist Alex Baigent and keyboardist/vocalist Lucas Temor are one-half of Westelaken, while guitarist/vocalist Nolan Jakupovski co-leads Cootie Catcher. Drummer Avalon Tassonyi (Whitney K, Eliza Niemi) rounds out the group for The Joy of Living, a record that doesn’t really sound like either of Understanding’s sibling bands but contains shades of both nonetheless. The Joy of Living, for the most part, pursues a rambling, keyboard-heavy indie rock sound that streamlines the sprawling folk rock of Westelaken and/or mellows out the chaotic, electronic-tinged twee pop of Cootie Catcher. Recorded by yet another member of Westelaken, Squiggly Lines’ Rob McLay, The Joy of Living is six songs of Understanding locking into place and riding a low-key but fervent vibe to a memorable debut.
The prominent, ringing piano-keys combined with the rootsy rest of the band’s sound reminds me of classic-era Okkervil River, although the singer(s) come more from the 90s indie-slacker school of lead vocalist approaches. The polished, smooth indie pop of opening track “Flesh Is Word” is nearly in Silo’s Choice territory, although the strange, muted performance by the lead singer (I think it’s Temor) keeps the song something of an enigma. Showy pianos and (relatively) shrinking vocals are the core of The Joy of Living, an interesting mix that feels like Understanding attempting to navigate the task of centering an instrument with so much gravitas while also making music that works best with a little bit of remove. “Carry Me Up” and “Tracing Hands” are Understanding’s version of “piano pop”, quick-paced but meandering, and even slight detours (the slower-paced “Nature Knows a Shape”, the swiftly humming “Taxi2”) keep the ivories front and center. The EP’s weird coda, a two-minute AutoTuned breakbeat-pop experiment called “As a Builder”, seems like it should be the only respite from the piano on The Joy of Living, but it’s in there beneath the effects, too. Understanding seem to have figured out what their deal is, even when they veer as far away from it as seemingly possible. (Bandcamp link)
Prathloons – Breadbox
Release date: September 12th Record label: Self-released Genre: Slowcore, 90s indie rock, emo-y indie rock, folk rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: The Days We Had Each Other
When I wrote about Prathloons in 2022, the Colin Dall-led project was based in Minneapolis and had just released their third album, The Kansas Wind. For a certain subset of indie rock fans, The Kansas Wind is a bullseye, incorporating bits of slowcore, emo, and post-rock in an ornate, string-laden package, and Dall and company have stayed busy since then. Despite a move to Chicago, Dall has remained accompanied by much of the same cast (John O’Brien, Matt Ciani, Nico Ciani, Audrey Alger-Daniels) on last year’s Incredible Things in High Speed EP and this year’s LP, Breadbox. Even for a Prathloons album, Breadbox is pretty hushed and low-key–it largely eschews the swooning crescendos in which The Kansas Wind occasionally indulged and instead seeks to expand and open up the space around Dall’s voice even further. The most upbeat song on the album, “The Days We Had Each Other”, is just a little perky in an early Death Cab for Cutie way, but Breadbox as a whole is the closest that Prathloons have veered (in the time that I’ve been listening to them, at least) towards straight-up slowcore music. The glacially-paced indie rock, post-rock detours, and similarly-slowed down folky string parts are all natural extensions of what Prathloons have been doing lately, although Breadbox also feels like new terrain, entered carefully but deliberately. (Bandcamp link)
BRNDA – Total Pain
Release date: September 12th Record label: Crafted Sounds Genre: Post-punk, garage rock, art punk, no wave, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Everyone Chicago
It’s been four years since BRNDA’s Do You Like Salt? graced the pages of Pressing Concerns, meaning we’ve been due for new material from the Washington, D.C. post-punk weirdos for a bit now. For their fourth LP, BRNDA (drummer Leah Gage, guitarists Dave Lesser and Mark McInerney, and bassist Nick Stavely–all vocalists) have given us Total Pain, an album that both re-ups the group’s penchant for bizarre, groovy art-dance-punk-whatever stuff and expands their range beyond that. Sure, BRNDA are their regular old no wave nonsense selves on stuff like “Books Are Bad”, but they’ve also followed their muses into the realms of buzzy, fuzzy noise pop (“Peach Pit”), low-key, Velvets-y indie pop (“MT Eyes”), and starry-eyed, toe tapping mid-tempo guitar pop (“Cool Night”). Even the hilarious and absurd “Everyone Chicago”, a post-punk rant-raver that sounds just like a slightly darker Do You Like Salt? cut, distinguishes itself thanks to what I can only call “blistering noise rock flute soloing” (credit Mike Gillispie, who also plays on “A Little Balloon”). It’s just a nice reminder that BRNDA are one of the more interesting bands operating in the District of Columbia currently in case any of us forgot, and a confirmation that they can still pick up some new tricks. (Bandcamp link)
Shallowater – God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars
Release date: September 5th Record label: Sans Soleil Genre: Slowcore, post-rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars
This Texas slowcore thing is pretty good, I’d say. Shallowater are a trio currently based out of Houston, but I believe they have roots in the desolate western half of their home state (perhaps near the Lubbock County town from which they took their name). Their debut album, There Is a Well (released on December 30th of 2023), was a cult hit of a sort–it’s bolded on Rate Your Music, if that means anything to you. They’ve been on the rise ever since–every post about them I’ve seen mentions that they’ve been “co-signed” by Ethel Cain (this is what they mean by that, I believe), they’ve toured with Horse Jumper of Love, and their sophomore album, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars, was recorded by Alex Farrar, the guy who’s recorded everyone of those Asheville bands. God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars sounds like how you’d hope an album with this kind of pedigree sounds–six songs and forty minutes, with song titles like “Untitled Cowboy” and “Highway”, with a recognizable “country rock” sound occasionally rearing its head only to get swallowed up by the vast blank expanse of eight-plus-minute behemoths like “Ativan” and the aforementioned nameless cowboy ode. Feels like a million cursed bucks. (Bandcamp link)
Hey there folks! We’re here with a Monday Pressing Concerns looking at new albums from Dragnet, Carson McHone, Miss Bones, and Dan Darrah & The Rain. It’s looking like these blog posts will be on the shorter side for the foreseeable future, but it’s the price we must pay for keeping the blog updated regularly at the moment. There will be a post tomorrow!
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.
Dragnet – Dragnet Reigns!
Release date: August 15th Record label: Spoilsport/Idiotape Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Alta Vista
I’ve enjoyed the stylings of Geelong, Australia garage punks Vintage Crop for a while now, but it’s taken me all too long to get around to checking out lead singer Jack Cherry’s other group, Dragnet. As it turns out, Dragnet sounds a lot like Vintage Crop: Aussie garage rock and thumping post-punk in the instrumentals, Cherry talk-singing like a madman on top of it. Originally begun as a Cherry solo project, Dragnet are now a sextet featuring Dane Brunt, Tom Woodruff, Daniel Oke, Meaghan Weiley, and Alicia Nolan (the latter two of which amicably left the band after the recording of Dragnet Reigns!) and two whole Dragnet LPs have come out since the most recent Vintage Crop album. Dragnet Reigns! is less than twenty minutes of tension being hastily built up and then torn down ad nauseum: the opening post-punk lurch of “What It’s Worth” gives way to the fiery “Red Square” and the garage rock joyride “Alta Vista” before we’ve had a chance to process any of it. One can certainly hear traces of high concept “egg punk” godfathers Devo and Pere Ubu (not to mention, unsurprisingly given their name, The Fall) in Dragnet’s whole deal, but they’re too “rock and roll” to indulge all too much–the spoken-word “Heroic Dose” is the main exception, and it’s over in ninety seconds. It seems like the right amount of time to me. (Bandcamp link)
Carson McHone – Pentimento
Release date: September 12th Record label: Merge Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Downhill
I first heard of Carson McHone thanks to her work in the Canadian phenomenon Daniel Romano’s Outfit, but the Austin, Texas-originating, Ontario-based singer-songwriter has been making folk-country records under her own name for a decade as well. McHone’s third album, 2022’s Still Life, was put out by Merge Records (as well as a 2024 covers EP called Odes), and that’s who’s putting out Carson McHone LP number four, Pentimento. Featuring backing from Romano (who is McHone’s husband, by the way) and a crew of other Canadian music veterans, Pentimento is an album that could look intimidating from a distance (between the rambling, sixteen-track length and the spoken-word interludes which regularly crop up) but is quite friendly at its core. McHone’s music isn’t nearly as boisterous as Romano’s, but it’s “Americana”-tinged folk rock with a pulse and a more-than-passing interest in pop music. The polished, technicolor refrain of “Winter Breaking” (not to mention those handclaps), the electric jangle of “Downhill”, and the slightly psychedelic “Idiom” are first-half winners, and letting oneself get immersed in the likes of “Wake You Well” and “Fruits of My Tending” in the second half of Pentimento comes recommended as well. The warm “September Song” is an excellent bookend, like the rest of Pentimento made stronger by what it takes to get there. (Bandcamp link)
Miss Bones – Sap Green
Release date: September 13th Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie folk, folk rock, folk-pop, pop rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: I-93
There’s a nice little indie folk/folk rock/pop rock scene happening up in Boston, the participants of which have appeared on this blog a few times. There’s James Ikeda’s longrunning project The Michael Character, and current Michael Character bandmembers Amanda Lozada and June Isenhart have their own projects called Lonesome Joan and Miss Bones, respectively. Sap Green, the first Miss Bones album, follows a 2023 EP called Grey Lady and features Isenhart backed by an assortment of Boston-area musicians: Eugene Umlor on synths, Jasper Park on bass, Mat Bloomfield on drums, Melisande Pope on guitar, and Rachel Eber on vocals (not to mention Lozada as co-recording engineer). More pop-forward than Lonesome Joan, more laid-back than The Michael Character, Sap Green is a rock-solid coming-out party from the could’ve-been adult alternative/folk rock hit “What’s the Story, Mother?” (in which Isenhart pleads “I’ll split my head wide open just to prove / That you and I share the same skull”) on down. The roots-pop anthem “I-93”, the multi-layered folk-pop closing ballad “Moving Song”, the soaring heartland rock “Sign-Off”–any of these could be the center of Sap Green. We get it all on Sap Green, though, and a handful of more patience-requiring moments, too. (Bandcamp link)
Dan Darrah & The Rain – There’s a Place
Release date: June 13th Record label: Sunday Drive Genre: Jangle pop, folk rock, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: You-Shaped Forever
I wrote about Dan Darrah & The Rain in the waning moments of 2023–it was mid-December, but I had to make sure everyone who reads Rosy Overdrive heard the blissful, wistful jangle pop of Rivers Bridges Trains. I am yet again slightly late to the Darrah train, as There’s a Place came out back in June, but once again the LP is strong enough that I can’t let it slip by without a mention in Pressing Concerns. Once again somewhat uncharacteristically released by emo-punk label Sunday Drive Records (Prim, Squint, Broken Head), There’s a Place features the same backing cast as the last Darrah record (bassist/producer Scott Downes, guitarist Darian Palumbo, vocalist Danielle Clark, and drummer Jacob Hellas) and is nothing less than forty-six minutes of sprawling, unhurried, melancholic guitar pop. The record’s opening trio is a (relatively speaking) tight parade of pop hits, whereas the middle of There’s a Place finds The Rain stretching into folk and even country tinged-numbers. “The Last Green Valley” and “Maze/January Runner” inject some energy into the album’s second side, but one shouldn’t sleep on subtler highlights like “George (Was My Favourite Beatle)” either–you’re listening to There’s a Place all wrong if you do. (Bandcamp link)
The Thursday blog post is here! We’ve got four new albums coming out tomorrow, September 12th, from Dancer, Liquid Mike, Spite House, and $500 below. Earlier this week, the August 2025 playlist went up, so check that out if you missed it.
It’s a shorter than normal blog post today, you may notice. I’m doing what I can to keep Rosy Overdrive rolling while being busy in my life outside of it, and I’m hoping to return to full force sooner rather than later.
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.
Dancer – More or Less
Release date: September 12th Record label: Meritorio Genre: Indie pop, post-punk, art rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Happy Halloween
Hopefully I’ve been clear enough on this blog that Glasgow’s Dancer is a special group. We’ve all had plenty of chances to see as much over the past two years, from the twoEPs in 2023 to a debut full-length and a split LP with Whisper Hiss last year. Dancer have continued their winning streak into 2025, as their sophomore album, More or Less, is their most substantial release yet at a dozen tracks and nearly forty minutes. It’s the band’s first album with new drummer Luke Moran, who’s replaced founding member Gavin Murdoch behind the kit, but despite the lineup change and the fact that half the band (bassist Andrew Doig and vocalist Gemma Fleet) have been busy with their side project The Chop, More or Less has Dancer sounding more fluid and locked-in as a band than ever before. The jerky post-punk/offbeat indie pop structures are still part and parcel of More or Less, yes, but they’ve been more effectively ironed into a wider tapestry of expansive, exploratory art rock and (for Dancer, at least) more laid-back pursuits of pop music. There’s still boundless energy in songs like “Happy Halloween” and “Deadline”, but the almost late-period Sonic Youth-esque fuzz rock of the former and the spacey synthetic pop meandering of the latter display an occasional bout of patience, too. Dancer may be taking their time, but they aren’t slowing down. (Bandcamp link)
Liquid Mike – Hell Is an Airport
Release date: September 12th Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, pop punk, alternative rock, fuzz rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Crop Circles
I can’t say it enough: Liquid Mike have taken their moment and seized it better than any band I can think of in recent memory. I liked the Marquette, Michigan’s 2023 self-titled breakthrough album perfectly fine, but it was the record that Mike Maple and company made with the spotlight on his project, last year’s Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, that made me really appreciate them as one of the best power pop acts currently operating. Hell Is an Airport strikes while the iron is hot: Maple apparently quit his job at the USPS to focus on Liquid Mike full-time, and founding members Maple and synthesizer player/backing vocalist Monica Nelson have been joined by drummer Cody Marecek, bassist Zack Alworden, and guitarist Dave Daignault to make a well-oiled five-piece alternative rock and roll band. If a tad less grandiose than Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, Hell Is an Airport is the smoother and tighter album: fourteen songs of 90s-fuzz-laden, pop punk-baiting power pop in under thirty minutes. Everything on Hell Is an Airport feels like a hit, and the songs bleed and squeal into each other like Liquid Mike are running frantically from one idea to the next before the fire burns out. The urgency makes for exhilarating listening, but I don’t think there’s any act currently going that needs to worry less about their flame being extinguished than Liquid Mike.
Spite House – Desertion
Release date: September 12th Record label: Pure Noise Genre: Post-hardcore, punk rock, emo-punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: 10 Days
If you like 90s-style punk albums that evoke names like Jawbreaker and Knapsack, then–well, maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right word, but you should check out Spite House. I wrote about the Montreal trio’s New Morality Zine-released debut album in 2022, referencing names like Seaweed and Samiam while talking about a catchy but heavy punk album inspired by the death of vocalist/guitarist Max Lajoie’s mother. Regarding Spite House’s second album, Desertion, Lajoie says “There’s nothing happy about these songs,” and he’s not overstating things a bit. Writing not only about his mother’s death from cancer but also the death of his father when he was a teenager, Lajoie (with aid from bassist Nabil Ortega and drummer Marc Tremblay) leans more than ever into hard-hitting, intense post-hardcore as some kind of release on Spite House’s first album for Pure Noise. These are still, stubbornly, “punk anthems”, with Lajoie’s roared refrains, the gigantic guitars, and the pounding rhythms from the rest of the band all wielding an uncomfortably blunt hammer with arresting force. Much of Desertion is delivered in relatively brief missives like “10 Days” and “Ashen Grey”, but these two-minute bursts of revisited turmoil just end up being more concentrated punches. (Bandcamp link)
$500 – Twelve Eyes
Release date: September 12th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock, slowcore, fuzz pop Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Dead C
There are probably a few different 90s indie rock-inspired collectives in New York City and the surrounding areas these days, but one particularly strong one seems to center around the power trio Slake/Thirst and its associated acts like Beagle Scout and bcc:. We can now add Kingston-based trio $500 to the list–bassist/vocalist Kaitlyn Flanagan and guitarist Ian Donohue perform the same roles in Slake/Thirst, and they’re joined by the new-to-me Jonathan Crisafulli on drums. All of these aforementioned bands have made their statements via relatively brief EPs or “mini-LPs”, but $500 have cut to the chase by making their debut release a full-length ten-track album–there’s an eight minute song on here and everything! Twelve Eyes, like $500’s associates’ records, has one foot in the world of the “pop” side of Pavement, Built to Spill, and the Exploding in Sound Records roster, although there’s a more probing, almost droning element to $500’s pop music here. Between Donohue’s friendly but unpredictable guitars and Flanagan’s eager shadowboxing performance as a frontperson, I’m reminded a bit of the underappreciated Rick Rude. Don’t worry if you don’t know them or any of the other acts I mentioned earlier, though–just listen to the ninety-second fuzz-pop showcase “Dead C” and you’ll start to pick up on everything. (Bandcamp link)
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