It’s the start of the new week, and the first Pressing Concerns of it is taking a look at four records that came out over the last couple days: new albums from Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates, States of Nature, and Shadow Show, and a new EP from The Special Pillow.
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.
Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates – Restless Spirit
Release date: February 17th Record label: WarHen Genre: Alt-country, country rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Shotgun
One of the first albums I ever wrote about in Pressing Concerns was Alive and Dying Fast, the debut full-length from West Virginia country rockers Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates. After serving time in bands like The Demon Beat (featuring Rozwell Kid’s Jordan Hudkins), Prison Book Club (with William Matheny and John R. Miller), and Bishops, Riggleman’s first quasi-solo effort was a sharp collection of tracks that emphasizes his strengths as a singer-songwriter, with The Cheap Dates playing to accentuate Riggleman’s sometimes heavy but always friendly writing. A follow-up to Alive and Dying Fast has been in the works for a while now–lead single “Virtue” showed up last April, and “Queen of Diamonds” (which was formally released last August) also appeared on last March’s Live at Clientele. Restless Spirit, the second Cheap Dates album, largely rounds up the contributors from last time–full-time Cheap Dates member Mason Fanning is a new addition, joining the familiar faces of drummer M. Tivis Clark, contributing vocalist Jason Brown, keyboardist/producer Duane Lundy, masterer Justin Perkins–Hudkins even contributes album artwork again for this record.
If Alive and Dying Fast was the sound of Riggleman & The Cheap Dates slowing down and displaying enough confidence in Riggleman’s writing to let it take the unquestioned center stage, Restless Spirit is where the band show that they can maintain the captivating quality of that record’s songs while also injecting just a bit more rock and roll into things. No one’s going to mistake Restless Spirit for a garage punk record, but it is very clearly an album where Riggleman’s formative alt-country and power pop influences peak through with regularity (and while Riggleman’s love of 80s post-punk/goth rock like The Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen isn’t exactly reflected in the music, it certainly informs his belief that sadness can sound big and beautiful). It all comes together in the subtly brilliant opening track “Educated”, with a chiming, jangly college rock lead guitar, a vintage alt-country-ish jaunty tempo, and Riggleman’s reminiscing but anything-but-rosy-nostalgia lyrical concerns–setting the stage for chilly country rocker “Virtue” to come barreling into the empty space.
The Cheap Dates sell Restless Spirit’s rockers impressively, and they also find a few different ways to present this side of the band. “Shotgun” is one of the most complete-sounding songs from Riggleman yet, glomming onto a polished, swaggering country-rock-power-pop tune and letting Riggleman’s self-effacing side battle it out with a less-frequently-seen confidence (for a lifer like Riggleman, it’s fitting that the key line in the chorus is “I let the music bring me back around”). Taking a different approach, the title track gets its edges across with a dark, blues-tinged, garage-y crawl–replete with organ work from Lee Carroll, it’s the closest Riggleman has come to repurposing The Cramps into something less campy and more sinister. The sung-spoken bitterness and disillusionment of “Paradise” is the Cheap Dates’ most ironclad-serious moment, but Riggleman hasn’t lost the playfulness in his writing, being just as likely to drape misfortune in a shrug and a shit-eating country grin (see “Familiar Bridge” and “Queen of Diamonds”). While the oddly harmonious synth-country closing track “Silver Tongue” feels largely like a cypher thematically, its final line rings loud and clear: “I don’t know how I’m supposed to make it / If I can’t raise a little hell”. Riggleman has more than enough experience to know that the chaos and darkness will always be hovering around–faced with this reality, why not try to take control of just a bit of it and make it into something of your own? (Bandcamp link)
States of Nature – Brighter Than Before
Release date: February 16th Record label: Sell the Heart/Little Rocket/Epidemic Genre: Post-punk, dance punk, post-hardcore, punk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Brighter Than Before
States of Nature may be from Oakland, California, but they sound right out of Washington, D.C. at the turn of the century. The quartet of E. Urbach (guitar/vocals/lyrics), L. Anne (bass/vocals), D. Orason (guitar/vocals), and I. Knife (drums) introduced themselves with three EPs from 2018 and 2020, which were collected via the Songs to Sway compilation in 2021. Brighter Than Before is States of Nature’s first LP of new material, and the group do indeed spend the entirety of the record backing up their Bandcamp page’s claim that they make “a danceable hybrid of Post-Hardcore and Rock N’Roll”. It’s a record with a ton of energy, announcing from the get-go that they’ve spent time with both the fiery garage punk side of Dischord Records (a la Nation of Ulysses and The Delta 72), the sharp post-punk of Jawbox, and the danceable loudness of Q and Not U. States of Nature can be thought of as part of a small but notable wave of bands attempting to revive this sound–like Perennial and Feefawfum–although Brighter Than Before sounds a bit less “new-wave” and more “heavier punk” than either of those bands (Urbach seems to have a hardcore background, which may partially explain that).
That being said, the opening title track is both a sucker-punch piece of fuzz-punk and a dynamic piece of dance-rock in its execution. It’s a high bar of a first statement, but Brighter Than Before doesn’t flag in the rest of its opening salvo, with the propulsive post-punk-garage of “Wicked World” immediately picking up where the previous song left off, and the glam-ish stomp of “Papered News” offering up a nice (slight) change of pace right after that one. The party slows down just a bit in the record’s midsection with “Undone”, a start-stop piece of jittery indie rock with crossed-wires guitars taking influence from a subtler side of Dischord’s discography–but it resolves into a big finish, and “New Foundations” gets things back into garage rock barnstorming mode to kick off side two. The flipside of Brighter Than Before also features States of Nature at their most combustible–perhaps unsurprisingly, the song called “American Drone” is their angriest, a white-hot burner and the one song where the band lets a little bit of straight-up hardcore creep into the mix. States of Nature pull back one final time in closing track “Oh the Light”, which, if it doesn’t quite approach Lungfish-level zen-rock, still finds space for the band to be a little more deliberate than one might expect. There are plenty of surprises in Brighter Than Before, and even when States of Nature are just “playing the hits”, they still sound fresh. (Bandcamp link)
The Special Pillow – The Special Pillow Meets the Space Monster
Release date: February 16th Record label: Self-released Genre: Psychedelic pop, psychedelic rock, college rock, indie pop Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: A Certain Level of Uncertainty
Hoboken’s The Special Pillow first appeared on this blog in 2022 when I wrote about their MindWipe EP, but the quartet have been at it for over two decades at this point, and bandleader/bassist Dan Cuddy has an even longer history as a member of the very underappreciated early 90s indie rock group Hypnolovewheel. When I wrote about Mind Wipe, I compared The Special Pillow to the Mekons and Yo La Tengo (the latter of which, should be noted, are contemporaries of Cuddy rather than precursors), and I stand by that, although The Special Pillow clearly have their own unique sound. The Special Pillow Meets the Space Monster, a brand new six-song EP from the band, only confirms this. Cuddy and the rest of the group (violinist/vocalist Katie Gentile, guitarist/vocalist Peter Stuart, and drummer/vocalist Eric Marc Cohen) have a sound that’s as pop-forward as it is rich and deep–breezy indie pop and folk music go hand in hand with all-in, noisy psychedelic rock, and the band’s orchestral side (aided by guest musicians Cheryl Kingan on the baritone sax and Steven Levi on the corner and valve trombone) enhances both sides of their music.
Opening track “Three on a Sundial” is the sound of The Special Pillow synthesizing their two halves to make full-sounding and hooky power pop–there are psychedelic and “chamber pop” flourishes, all in the service of something big-feeling and friendly. When The Special Pillow gear up to show off their “rock” side, the results are quite spirited, with the cruising drone-rock of “A Certain Level of Uncertainty” and the violin-aided psych-rock noir of “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be” both coming off as instant highlights. On the other end of the spectrum, Kingan’s saxophone and excellent guest vocals from Debby Schwartz help turn “Fond and Foggy” into a sharp piece of retro-feeling indie pop, while “Give Up the Ghost” digs into vintage psych-touched folk rock to create a Special Pillow version of college rock whose wistful melodies float along with plenty of patience and deliberate pacing. These days, it seems like The Special Pillow are primarily an “EP band”–their last full-length was in 2018, and this is the third EP that they’ve put out since then–but when they’re able to make pop music this adventurous and complete in twenty-minute, six-song packages like this one, why mess with a winning formula? (Bandcamp link)
Shadow Show – Fantasy Now!
Release date: February 16th Record label: Little Cloud/Stolen Body Genre: Garage rock, psychedelic pop, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Your Fantasy
Detroit’s Shadow Show have been around for a bit now, releasing their debut album, Silhouettes, back in 2020. Motor City garage rock groups aren’t exactly known for taking several years between releases, but that’s what the trio did–Fantasy Now!, the sophomore Shadow Show full-length, arrives almost exactly four years after their first LP. The new album feels like time well spent nonetheless–Fantasy Now! is inspired by immediate genres of music like 60s pop and garage rock, sure, but it’s also a multi-layered, surprisingly busy album which took me a few listens to wrap my head around. The band (guitarist Ava East, bassist Kate Derringer, and drummer Kerrigan Pearce) are not the first to slip some vintage psychedelia into this kind of music, but Shadow Show let the stranger aspects of their sound take the reins fairly frequently throughout the record’s dozen tracks and 40 minutes. All the while though, they keep Fantasy Now! within the confines of pop rock, creating an interesting push and pull dynamic that rewards repeat listening.
For Shadow Show’s dexterity, look no further than the record’s opening two tracks: “Your Fantasy”, a jangly piece of psych pop and rock and roll and “The Madrigal”, an acapella, harmonic song that actually lives up to its title and sounds closer to a fantasy novel than the “fantasy” described in the song preceding it. Although nothing else on Fantasy Now! is quite as stark as “The Madrigal”, tracks like “Illusions”, “Clown Song”, and “Wizard’s Harp” keeping the psychedelic and “fantasy” elements in the foreground throughout the record. On the other hand, Shadow Show still find plenty of time to lean into the “rock” part of garage rock, as “Vertigo”, “Fell into a Spell”, and “Still a Day” assert, and the “pop” end of psychedelic pop is on full display in the Beatles-y “Aunt Maizy” and jaunty closing track “On a Cloud”. Of course, not everything is so cleanly divided as this might make it sound–regardless of the dominant strain in any particular song, one should expect to find some proportion of psychedelia, pop, and rock and roll throughout Fantasy Now!. You might miss something if you just let it run together, sure, but you can always just listen again to catch it. (Bandcamp link)
In the third and final Pressing Concerns of the week, we’ve got an absurd level of new music for you: new albums from Lazy Sunday, Frances Chang, and Prize Horse (all out tomorrow, February 16th), as well as the new Pelvis Wrestley album (which came out yesterday). If you missed Monday’s post (featuring Guitar, Westall 66, Dead Bandit, and Pinkhouse) or Tuesday’s post (featuring Friko, Tim McNally, Otherworldly Things, and Loveblaster), I’d heartily recommend adding those to your list as well.
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.
Pelvis Wrestley – ANDY, or: The Four Horsegirls of the Apocalypse
Release date: February 14th Record label: Earth Libraries Genre: Synthpop, glam rock, indie pop, chamber pop, baroque pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: The World Is a Bucking Horse
One of my favorite albums of 2020 was something called Vortexas Vorever by Pelvis Wrestley, which is a project led by Austin, Texas musician Benjamin Violet. That album was a unique combination of synthpop and “glam country” that worked very well and was made up of some of the best pop music of this decade. Pelvis Wrestley had been quiet since their debut album, but last year they signed to Earth Libraries (Bory, Seriously, Cash Langdon) and reissued Vortexas Vorever (which had initially been put out by ATHRecords), as well as signaling new Pelvis music on the horizon. ANDY, or: The Four Horsegirls of the Apocalypse took four years after the debut album to appear, but its roots go even further back than that–the first part of the title refers to a synthpop band in which Violet played in Seattle before they moved back to their home state. Given the gap in releases, it’s understandable that Pelvis Wrestley sounds a bit different on ANDY; if Vortexas Vorever was Violet merging the synthpop of their past with the country music of the Lone Star State, this album merges the sound of the first Pelvis Wrestley record with a more polished, orchestral indie pop. The country moves of their last album are less obvious–not absent, but subsumed into a distinct “Pelvis Wrestley sound”.
Vortexas Vorever wasn’t “lo-fi”, but it was fairly barebones compared to ANDY, which isn’t afraid to add layer upon layer to its already gigantic-seeming pop music. Five-minute opening track “Found a Friend” is a scene-setter, kicking off this new era of Pelvis Wrestley with peak dramatic, building indie rock before cruising into the “hits” of the synth-glam “No One You Know” and “Act2ualize”. Even as catchy as they are, they’ve got full-band, cruising undercurrents to them, and it’s not until the soaring violins of “Holy Host” that Pelvis Wrestley openly embrace the sound of their previous record. Violet has plenty of other territory that they want to get to before the sun sets on ANDY–in one particularly memorable stretch, Pelvis Wrestley strut through the regal pop rock of “Open Letter”, dance through the busy of Montreal-esque bubblegum-synths of “Revenge”, and slink along to the tune of the slow-burning “Lily”. If you’re looking for the rootsy side of Pelvis Wrestley, I’d recommend following the horses–while “Horse Dreams” isn’t a country song, its beautiful chamber pop chorus evokes wide open spaces, and the band closes ANDY with its most energetic rocker in “The World Is a Bucking Horse”. Pedal steel dances through the country-dance-rock tune, Violet frantically describing life as a potential projectile “barely hanging on”. “I know people always come and go, I thought I should let you know / You were always on my mind, I can’t let go,” they sing, ending an album partially named after their past by trying to grab onto a piece of it before it fades away. (Bandcamp link)
Lazy Sunday – Another Summer
Release date: February 16th Record label: Salinas Genre: Pop punk, power pop,punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Ego Trip
For a certain strain of indie pop punk, Salinas Records is a pivotal institution. When it was at its most active, it was releasing landmark records from Martha, Swearin’, Big Nothing, Radiator Hospital, Delay, and Joyride! (among many others), music that would go on to shape the scrappy, back-to-basics era of indie rock that marked the second half of the 2010s. Salinas is still around, mostly releasing new music from older bands still on their roster (including the three of those six bands listed above in the past couple years), but their latest release is from a brand new group. It’s hard to say that Portland, Oregon quartet Lazy Sunday don’t fit on their roster, however. Barring a 2020 demo cassette, Another Summer is the band’s debut release, and it’s full of excellent Pacific Northwest indie rock–some of it is speedy pop-punk, some of the tracks hew towards rainy, mid-tempo fare, and both ends of Lazy Sunday’s sound are delivered with plenty of amplifier fuzz and hooks of one form or another.
I’m not sure if an album like Another Summer can be “subtle”, exactly, but if one can, this would be what it sounds like. Bandleaders Rani Gupta and B Okabe (who both play guitar and trade off vocals) sing a bit lower in the mix against the tuneful racket of their band (aided by bassist KT Austin and drummer Jeremy Dunlap). Generally speaking, I can make out their voices, but they’re not always the focal point of these eleven tracks. Even when the guitars are roaring, however, Gupta and Okabe’s voices are delivering sharp melodies, holding the kinetic rock and roll of the record’s first few songs (the zippy, riffy “Everything You Wanted”, the blaring, fuzzed-out indie pop of “Differentiation”, the…wistful pop punk of “Long Con”) together nicely. The ability of “Long Con” to be noisy and hooky while still coming off as quite insular is a core tenant of Another Summer, and it gives extra oomph to songs like “You Said” and “Ego Trip”. Of course, Lazy Sunday never abandon the full-on rocker, and they shine as a unit when they hit the gas–Austin’s bass anchors “Peaches” as the rest of the band stomp through the anthem, while Dunlap hammers “Flutter” home in particular. Another Summer ends with “Closer”, a song in which Gupta and Okabe sing “Ooh, I wanna get closer to you,” in harmony while the band play loud, distorted rock music around them. It might seem contradictory, but Lazy Sunday make it sound congruous. (Bandcamp link)
Frances Chang – Psychedelic Anxiety
Release date: February 16th Record label: Ramp Local Genre: Experimental rock, art pop, folk rock, prog-pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Eye Land
Back in 2022, I wrote about Support Your Local Nihilist, the solo debut album from Brooklyn’s Frances Chang. One of the more intriguing first statements from that year, I was impressed with how Chang–already a veteran of experimental soundscapes and musique concrète with her work in several other bands–used indie rock as a jumping point to make unpredictable mazes of guitars, synths, and percussion that nevertheless all hung together as a pop (or, at the very least, pop-adjacent) statement. That album came out on Chang’s own Destiny Is a Dog imprint, but she’s jumped to Ramp Local (a natural fit) for her sophomore album, Psychedelic Anxiety. The album’s title in addition to Chang’s own description of her solo records (deeming them “slacker prog”) are both incredibly accurate, succinct summations of what she’s accomplished on her latest record, but I’ll do my best to elaborate on them. When Psychedelic Anxiety rocks, it rocks harder than Chang had previously, but she doesn’t lose track of her stranger, more insular side as well on these eight songs.
The way Psychedelic Anxiety centers Chang while surrounding her with busy but not-too-obtrusive music feels very “bedroom pop”, but it has a full-band might to it (aided by several guest musicians, including Liza Winter of Birthing Hips, the now-defunct rock band which also featured Wendy Eisenberg and perhaps pioneered a more “explosive rock” version of what Chang is pursuing here). If one isn’t prepared for it, the frayed-at-the-edges folk rock of opening track “Spiral in Houston” and the stop-start, woozy rock of “Eye Land” are going to sound off, but if you come in with a wider definition of pop music, then they’ll both positively sound like aural candy. Chang and her collaborators glide from there into the more challenging midsection of Psychedelic Anxiety–from “Sci Fi Soap Opera” to “Body of the Lightning”, Chang is more likely to surround herself with synths and/or other strange effects, and in the former of those songs, she becomes a spoken-word narrator. Still, even in this part of the record, the sparse woodwinds-featuring ballad “First I Was Afraid” and the slowcore art pop “Darkside” are both friendlier moments. The five-minute closing track “Rate My Aura” wraps up “psychedelic anxiety” quite nicely, Chang pouring out line after line against a rhythmic instrumental–“We don’t have control over what we don’t yet have control over,” is one such offering. (Bandcamp link)
Prize Horse – Under Sound
Release date: February 16th Record label: New Morality Zine Genre: Fuzz rock, alt-rock, space rock, shoegaze, post-hardcore Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Dark Options
After kicking around for a few years, Minneapolis heavy shoegaze/grunge-revivalists Prize Horse made their debut in the beginning of 2022 with their Welder EP. Their downcast, blown-out sound recalled serious, focused 90s alt-rockers like Hum and Failure and was a key part of what felt like a great time for this kind of music (just in the first half of 2022, Clear Capsule, Downward, and ASkySoBlack also released EPs in a similar vein, with Prize Horse’s label New Morality Zine being responsible for the bulk of them). The band (singer/guitarist Jake Beitel, drummer Jon Brenner, and bassist Olivia Johnson) didn’t rush a follow-up to Welder, instead taking two more years to deliver Under Sound, their debut full-length. Once again out via New Morality Zine and once again produced by Gleemer’s Corey Coffman, it’d be easy for Prize Horse to merely run back the sound of Welder for a half-hour and change, but signs of development abound throughout these ten songs.
The band seem to have given real consideration to what a longer-form Prize Horse release should look like, and they’ve come up with something more expansive and dynamic than their previous work. Welder was impressive with how just about every moment seemed like it could’ve been pulled from a lost heavy 90s alt-rock single; Under Sound is just as impressive with how it fills in the gaps with something less immediate but still sharp and hard-hitting. One such valley is nearly the entirety of first track “Dark Options”, which is a restrained, mid-tempo, five-minute opener that has more in common with chilly emo and even slowcore than anything even remotely “grunge” aside from a (surprisingly brief) loud moment towards the end. “Your Time” and “Further From My Start” are a little heavier, although they still deal in the uncertain climes of “Dark Options”, and by the title track and “Leave It”, Prize Horse are even more resistant to straightforward rock music. It’s easy to get lost among the band’s stone-faced riffs and Beitel’s just-as-stony vocals, although the second half of Under Sound actually contains more fire on average than the first (everything from “Reload” to “Know Better” has at least a few moments of heaviness). “Awake for It” closes the record by veering even further away, almost into dream pop territory, appropriately summing up a record that does plenty of fascinating work at the margins. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the second Pressing Concerns of the week! This Friday (February 16th) is such a big release week that I’m going ahead and starting early by looking at two records coming out then: a new album from Friko and a new EP from Otherworldly Things (although the latter is already up on Bandcamp if you just can’t wait). In addition, two records from January that flew under the radar appear here as well, in the form of new albums from Tim McNally and Loveblaster. If you missed yesterday’s post, featuring Guitar, Westall 66, Dead Bandit, and Pinkhouse, check it 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.
Friko – Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here
Release date: February 16th Record label: ATO Genre: Indie pop, college rock, fuzz rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Get Numb to It!
One of my favorite albums last year was Turtle Rock by Sharp Pins, and one of my favorite reissues was Dwaal Troupe’s Lucky Dog. Both of those records were either wholly or partially the work of singer-songwriter and zine-maker Kai Slater, but more generally, both acts are also part of an exciting Chicago indie rock scene that also features the acclaimed Horsegirl, another one of Slater’s bands in Lifeguard, and Friko. Friko was founded by Niko Kapetan, Luke Stamos, and drummer Bailey Minzenberger in Evanston (where Kapetan and Stamos had previously played together in a group called Thee Marquees), but became associated with Chicago’s “Hallogallo” scene (named after a Neu! song, which is the name of Slater’s zine as well) early in the band’s lifespan when they played a show with Horsegirl in 2020. Many shows with other Hallogallo bands, several singles, and one EP later, the debut Friko album is finally here–Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here is a communal effort, largely made by the band’s core trio with producers Scott Tallarida and Jack Henry but with vocal and instrumental contributions from musicians around the Windy City (such as Free Range’s Sofia Jensen and Finom’s Macie Stewart).
The “Hallogallo” bands range from blistering post-hardcore to dreamy, reverb-y indie rock, but Friko come the closest to the playful guitar pop of Sharp Pins and Dwaal Troupe–albeit with a bit more “rock” in tow. Kapetan is a compelling vocalist, sounding in command but close to breaking while delivering sharp melodies (the writing is credited to him and Minzenberger) over top of instrumentals that veer into noisy indie rock freak-outs and then back to gorgeous chamber pop with ease. Friko are incredibly energetic and excited-sounding about these songs, with Kapetan and Minzenberger layering guitars, pianos, cellos, and violins in an overwhelming but never-not-tuneful way. Although Stamos departed the band after recording, the bassist’s playing leaves a mark on Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here–the record’s first three tracks, “Where We’ve Been”, “Crimson to Chrome”, and “Crashing Through” are all (at least partially) noise pop rave-ups, but the low-end still finds moments to stick out impressively. Friko have more than a bit of range throughout the record, as they began to intersperse the still-very-exhilarating rockers (“Chemical”, “Get Numb to It!”) with the dreamy piano-and-strings “For Ella”, the refined, gentle pop of “Until I’m With You Again”, and the spare acoustic closing track “Cardinal”. Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here swings drama and intensity around, but the projectiles are enjoyably well-crafted, going a long way towards defining Friko as standouts in a crowded and talented scene. (Bandcamp link)
Tim McNally – On the Way to Pompeii
Release date: January 11th Record label: Self-released Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, roots rock, singer-songwriter Formats: Digital Pull Track: Lake Pontchartrain
Tim McNally is a name I’ve only just now heard of, but that doesn’t mean that the New Jersey-originating, Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter hasn’t been busy before now. In fact, McNally’s been a pretty hard-working musician over the past few years–he released three different albums in 2021 and another one in 2022. McNally’s fifth solo album, On the Way to Pompeii, is the first one I’ve heard (he took a little under two years to follow up his previous record, Sundown–an eternity compared to his previous pace), and I was pretty immediately taken by his fresh take on Jersey/Philly folk and roots rock. McNally may be a somewhat under-the-radar musician, but he writes with a confidence and a faith that whoever is paying attention will give these songs the close looks they deserve. Although sometimes dressed as an acoustic folk troubadour, McNally carries himself through On the Way to Pompeii with a rock and roll swagger, whether that means Springsteen-esque bombast or an interconnected intricacy reflecting of the more esoteric moments of Cooley and Hood.
“Volcano”, the acoustic folk-pop song that opens On the Way to Pompeii, finds McNally headed toward Vesuvius armed with little more than a guitar and a harmonica and his mind decidedly elsewhere. The album offers up a couple of fuzz-rockers in its first half–most notably “Deafening Silence”, but “Lonesome Adventures” works its way up to it as well–both of which capture the restlessness of McNally’s writing just as effectively as his folk songs. McNally pushes forward, expanding what he’s developed in the second half of the album, ripping through the almost psychedelic alt-rock of “AM Radio” or sounding in motion yet completely lost on “Roam”. The final stretch of On the Way to Pompeii is its strongest section–“Different Reasons” is a curious-sounding epiphany, the peace and equilibrium it seeks to establish sounding fairly uneasy. The record’s best song is “Lake Pontchartrain”, an absolutely gorgeous piece of orchestral guitar pop in which McNally’s protagonist’s entire journey unspools itself in a seedy ecstasy, before a sudden shift happens and the record ends with the plodding country-folk “Vampires” instead. The aural shrug mirrors the record’s opening track and offers little concrete answers to the fear and displacement running through On the Way to Pompeii, a record that sounds completely at home wandering. (Bandcamp link)
Otherworldly Things – Heavy Dream Cycle
Release date: February 16th Record label: Magic Door Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Work Out Right
Otherworldly Things is a New York band led by songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Jim Browne–they’ve been around for a decade and put out their debut album, Beeline to the “A” List, back in 2017. I hadn’t heard of Otherworldly Things or Browne before the announcement of their long-awaited second record, the five-song Heavy Dream Cycle EP, but there are plenty of familiar faces involved with this band–the current lineup features bassist Jason Binnick of Upper Wilds and drummer Travis Harrison (Guided by Voices’ in-house producer and unofficial sixth member), and it’s being released by Magic Door, the label co-owned by current Guided by Voices drummer Kevin March. The quartet (also featuring guitarist/keyboardist Matt Revie of Clouder) recorded Heavy Dream Cycle at Harrison’s Serious Business Studios, and if you were to guess that it’s a record full of power pop and psychedelic pop–two classic Guided by Voices-core genres–you’d be right. It’s more of a case of drawing from similar influences, I think–Browne’s songwriting is too straight-up power poppy and not quite prog enough to feel like a direct descendant of Robert Pollard.
More than anything, the EP reminds me of recent material from Daily Worker, the power pop project of Cotton Mather’s Harold Whit Williams. The five songs on Heavy Dream Cycle similarly aim for big-idea psychedelic power pop despite their relatively barebones garage rock band foundations, and Otherworldly Things succeed at pulling this trick off. Opening track “I’m Tired of Monsters” is completely infectious, with the lo-fi-sounding but still quite discernible guitar and bass melding with Harrison’s pounding percussion to make a straight-up anthemic rock and roll song, and “No Use” cranks up the 60s influences in the form of a skewed but incredibly catchy piece of psych-garage-pop. The 90-second singalong “Work Out Right” reminds me of bands like Connections and other such undersung creators of jangly but hefty guitar pop, while the keyboard touches on “Time Turns to Memories” push its chugging psychedelia over the top. The one song on Heavy Dream Cycle that truly strikes me as “Pollard-esque” is “Escape”, a shockingly sparse, acoustic-guitar-and-vocals closing track that could’ve been pulled from one of the Suitcases the way it sounds both off-the-cuff and fully-formed, eerie, and transfixing. Even though it’s the EP’s starkest moment, the extra shade feels like the final piece in cementing Heavy Dream Cycle as something substantial beyond its meager fifteen-minute runtime. (Bandcamp link)
Loveblaster – The Way Things Work
Release date: January 5th Record label: Pounds of Love Genre: Slowcore, folk Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Wings Over Madison
There are a lot of bands these days making the Duster version of slowcore–electric guitar-based, mumbling, and fuzzy. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy plenty of it, but it’s reassuring to hear bands still making my personal favorite kind of slowcore, the kind with clear vocals, a debt to folk music, and, above all, a love of vast empty space. That’s the kind of territory in which we find Madison, Wisconsin’s Loveblaster–think early Low, Ida, and Idaho–on their first album, The Way Things Work. The trio (vocalist/guitarist Marley Van Raalte, vocalist/drummer/pianist Abby Self, bassist/vocalist Neal Jochmann) deliver eight songs at the pace of molasses–the percussion is spaced widely (when it’s even there at all) but steady, the pianos are quite pretty but not attention-grabbing. The band members’ voices intertwine over top of the sparse instrumentals, making them (to me) the clear star of the record–what’s there is more than enough to carry us through the moments of (near) silence where no one is singing.
The Way Things Work’s opening track, “Halfway”, is (graded on the slowcore curve, to be clear) one of the more lively songs on the record, the occasional drum kicks sounding dramatic against the vocal tradeoffs that sit comfortably but somewhat coldly at its center. “Without Work” is the genre at its “can’t-look-away” best, with the vocalists wringing something absolutely vital out of little more than a steady beat, their shared singing, and Self’s piano. “(More Than) Bad Luck” feels particularly minimalist, floating through the clouds before we get to the polished, slow folk of “Wings Over Madison”, probably the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard that steals its name from a local chicken wing restaurant. It’s a great first half, but plenty of the most interesting moments on The Way Things Work come on the second side, particularly the four-minute-long sigh of “Watching You Change” and the aching “The Need to Fail”. Closing track “The Low Hum” starts off as a piano ballad before trailing off into noise–but it’s only after Loveblaster finish what they set out to achieve on The Way Things Work that they allow the static and distance to take over. (Bandcamp link)
It’s the start of yet another busy week in February in terms of Pressing Concerns! Today, we’re looked at two records that came out last week–a new album from Dead Bandit and a new EP from Guitar–plus catching up on two January EPs I missed earlier in the year from Westall 66 and Pinkhouse.
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.
Guitar – Casting Spells on Turtlehead
Release date: February 7th Record label: Spared Flesh/Julia’s War Genre: Shoegaze, experimental rock, noise pop, fuzz rock, garage rock, lo-fi indie rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Baying of Dogs
Back in August 2022, I wrote an EP called Guitar by a band called Guitar (at that point, basically just Portland’s Saia Kuli), which I thought was one of the more intriguing debuts from that year. Perhaps predestined by the name of the project, the seven-song cassette flew under the radar, but its weird, transfixing lo-fi post-punk sound stuck with me. Guitar has linked up with Julia’s War Recordings for its second EP–the Philadelphia label who’s right at the center of modern experimental shoegaze is co-releasing Casting Spells on Turtlehead with the band’s previous home of Spared Flesh. Based off of Guitar, it’s kind of an odd pairing, but after listening to Casting Spells on Turtlehead, it starts to make a lot of sense. Kuli brings a louder, noisier sound to the project’s latest release, and he gets a little more help this time around (his partner Jonny, the only other person to contribute to Guitar, appears on this EP as well, but Kuli also enlists drummer Nikhil Wadhwa, vocalist Zoe Tricoche, and harmonica player Lukas Hanson for the record). As it turns out, a more fleshed-out Guitar sounds surprisingly like it fits right in with the current wave of omnivorous noise pop/shoegaze acts.
Although Casting Spells on Turtlehead doesn’t sound quite like the Guitar I enjoyed at first, it’s not a huge departure, and I can’t fault Kuli for changing up his sound a bit when the results are this good. This EP kind of reminds me of Guided by Voices–there are shoegaze bands like Gaadge and Ex Pilots who invoke GBV by sneaking Robert Pollard-like melodies underneath their distortion, but Guitar do it in a different way, by reflecting that band’s grab-bag, collage-inspired nature. Like an early Guided by Voices EP, Casting Spells on Turtlehead feels like a collection of disparate but connected moments–the beautiful, melodic guitar riff that runs through “Baying of Dogs”, the basement-acoustic immediacy of the title track, the lumbering but somehow fun fuzz rock of “Kiss Me You Idiot”, Jonny’s turn on lead vocals on the even-more-of-a-left-turn-than-usual, trippy dream pop of “Twin Orbits”. Not that Guitar was the most predictable record, but Guitar are truly all over the place on Casting Spells on Turtlehead, even straight-up rocking harder than they ever have before on the Ovlov-ish opening track “My City My Rules” and the wall-of-sound garage-gaze of closing track “Unleashed”. Even these songs are unpredictable, with Hanson’s harmonica turning up on the former and Tricoche’s screaming on the latter. Guitar have stepped things up a bit on their newest release, and hopefully some more people take notice accordingly. (Bandcamp link)
Westall 66 – Staring at the Sun
Release date: January 19th Record label: Slippery Slope Genre: Power pop, pop punk, alt-rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Leaving Me Behind
I’ve covered plenty of Australian rock music in Pressing Concerns before, but Melbourne’s Westall 66 is in a bit of uncharted territory. Neither the sardonic “Devo-core” garage punk of bands like Delivery, Vintage Crop, and CLAMM nor the minimalist indie pop of Spice World, Soft Covers, and Pretty in Pink, Westall 66 trades in the business of big, hooky, polished pop punk. The quartet cite The Menzingers as an influence, and while that doesn’t exactly describe their debut EP, Staring at the Sun, it’s a decent starting point–in their opening statement, the band offer up five songs incorporating widescreen heartland rock, loud and boisterous power pop, perennially out-of-style “orgcore”, and a pop punk earnestness. Although the members of Westall 66 aren’t musical neophytes (they’re “all aged over 35”, per their Spotify bio), they sound as energetic and enthusiastic as a brand new band should throughout Staring at the Sun.
The choppy, slicing power chords and torrential guitar leads of “The Weekend” open Staring at the Sun in a familiar but welcome way, the lead singer’s slight but noticeable Aussie accent the only real hint that Westall 66 aren’t straight out of Philadelphia circa 2016. As strong as the chorus is, the guitars that roar up in between the verses compete directly with it for the catchiest moment of “The Weekend”, a great little competition to have going on throughout your record. Just about every chorus on Staring at the Sun is power pop excellence–“Leaving Me Behind” one song later just might have my favorite refrain, with the lead singer riding the titular line out for all it’s worth after the enjoyable building-up the verses provide. The title track keeps the momentum rolling just as powerfully–the thundering, swaggering refrain reminds me almost of a pop punk version of Upper Wilds’ gigantic space rock. The grand, universal scale of these five songs is quite impressive for a pop punk EP (hell, for any EP)–“Nothing Left to Give” is probably the most insular song on the record given its slight emo tinge, but it’s no less committed to carving out an impressively large mark than the rest of Staring at the Sun. Similarly, the EP closes with “Slam!”, its heaviest moment, featuring shades of hard rock and a tougher version of punk rock than the rest of the EP, but it’s still a catchy cap to the rest of the songs. “Slam!” somehow finds another gear, which is pretty impressive for a record that never takes its foot off the gas. (Bandcamp link)
Dead Bandit – Memory Thirteen
Release date: February 9th Record label: Quindi Genre: Post-rock, ambient, experimental folk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Memory Thirteen
Dead Bandit is an instrumental duo made up of a couple of musicians originally from Canada, although one of them (Ellis Swan) has been living in Chicago for some time now. Swan also makes experimental folk music under his own name, an attitude he does bring to Dead Bandit, a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist James Schimpl. Swan and Schimpl released their first album as Dead Bandit, From the Basement, back in 2021 on Quindi Records (Monde UFO, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, American Cream Band), with Memory Thirteen (also on Quindi) following both that LP and Swan’s 2022 solo album 3am. Together, the duo make wide-open, guitar-led post-rock, delivered in (yes) thirteen different 3-4 minute intervals but also running together as a single piece. The sparse nature of Memory Thirteen tilts the record towards rock-band-played ambient music in a way reminiscent of a lot of acts from Swan’s current city of residence, but it’s of a different strain–rather than the glitchy, jazz-influenced, art-school kind of post-rock frequently found in the Windy City in the 90s, Dead Bandit hew towards a deserted, post-folk kind of emptiness (perhaps more reflecting of their desolate homeland).
Folk and guitar-based influences aside, Dead Bandit aren’t Luddites–opening track “Two Clocks” introduces the record with some gentle, organ-toned synths before an even gentler-sounding guitar and steady percussion take over in the second half. The fuzzed-out introduction of the title track begins the most immediate section of the record–both “Memory Thirteen” and “Blackbird” have melodic guitar lines at their center, sounding like stripped and slightly corrupted pieces of folk rock or indie rock–and while “Circus” introduces prominent atmospherics again, they’re accompanied by some gorgeous acoustic guitar picking as well. Around the middle of Memory Thirteen, “Peel Me an Orange” shows that Dead Bandit can put together glistening, crescendoing guitar-led post-rock when the moment calls for it–and it’s best to enjoy it while it lasts, as the B-side of the record is even more insular and downtrodden than the first half. Starting with the ambient country of “Somewhere to Wait”, Dead Bandit keep Memory Thirteen in suspense through the aural halo of “Revelstoke” and the late-night plodding of “Wabansia”. “Blowing Kisses” is one last moment of beauty before “Across the Road” ends the album with a fuzzy drone–I can make out some shapes as Dead Bandit ride off into the desert, but it might be a mirage. (Bandcamp link)
Pinkhouse – Vanity Project
Release date: January 19th Record label: Long Island Sounds Genre: Pop punk, indie pop, power pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Oh Well
On the Bandcamp page for Washington, D.C.’s Pinkhouse, the quartet refer to themselves as “punk lite”, and in an email to me, the band’s frontperson Max Fillion qualified the group as “punk-adjacent”. This approach to describing Pinkhouse might come off as an exercise in lowering expectations, but after listening to the group’s debut EP, Vanity Project, I get what Fillion was getting at by presenting the band’s music this way. Their first record (after a couple of singles in 2019 and 2022) is much closer to bright, sparkly indie pop than any kind of sharp-edged, Dischord-influenced post-hardcore punk group, but Pinkhouse (also featuring guitarist Steven Hacker, drummer, Brandon Breazeale, and bassist Nick Cervone) play these pop songs with a full-band enthusiasm featuring glimpses of power pop and pop punk. Vanity Project feels bigger than its five songs and twenty minutes; it’s a bit all over the place and too excited to settle on one clear defined “style”, but thankfully, Pinkhouse are pretty good at everything they try their hand at on the record.
The two catchy pieces of pop rock that open Vanity Project, “13th Street” and “Dumb Expression”, fit well together but are different enough from one another to fully prevent us from getting a handle on this EP or this band easily. The former is a pretty ambitious-sounding opener, a multi-part piece of guitar pop that contains plenty of immediate melodies while at the same time building its way to a well-deserved, big, noise pop finish. “Dumb Expression” is the band zipping through more straightforward indie pop-punk, aided in no small part by a striking lead vocal performance from Fillion. Just as it seems like they’ve settled into a toe-tapping tempo, however, they bust out the acoustic guitar and strings for mid-record ballad “Mr. Jack”, and the EP’s closing track, the möbius strip-like “Brand New Day”, turns a slow-moving alt-rock chugger into a woozy, mid-tempo farewell. The best “rocker” on the album is probably the slightly mussed-up and paranoid-sounding “Oh Well”–I know this is kind of a deep pull, but it reminds me of 90s Barsuk band MK Ultra. “Back to being stupid / Oh well, ignorance is bliss,” Fillion memorably sings in the chorus of that one, sounding not particularly blissful or ignorant–but even in the darkest moment on Vanity Project, it’s still delivered in a fun package. (Bandcamp link)
Hard to believe it, but we’re already at our first “Three Pressing Concerns in one week” moment of the year. This one looks at four albums that are coming out tomorrow, February 9th: new ones from Ducks Ltd., Worse Off, Itasca, and The Problem With Kids Today. If you missed Monday’s post (featuring J. Robbins, Memory Cell, The Maureens, Spiral XP, and TV Star) or Tuesday’s post (featuring Rick Rude, Anika Pyle, Skyjelly, and Lupo Citta), I recommend those as well.
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.
Ducks Ltd. – Harm’s Way
Release date: February 9th Record label: Carpark/Royal Mountain Genre: Jangle pop, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: The Main Thing
I’ve spent plenty of time on Rosy Overdrive talking about Toronto’s stealthily robust guitar pop scene, whether it’s mid-level standard-bearers like Kiwi Jr. and Young Guv or lesser-known gems like Dan Darrah and Motorists. One band I haven’t touched on before but who seem to be right in the middle of it all is Ducks Ltd., the duo of singer/guitarist Tom McGreevy and guitarist Evan Lewis who showed up in 2021 with two records’ worth of energetic and quite impressive jangle pop in the form of the Get Bleak EP and the Modern Fiction LP. Harm’s Way, the duo’s second full-length, was recorded in Chicago and features a wide cast of guests (members of Finom, Ratboys, and Dehd contribute to the instrumentals, and members of Dummy, Lawn, and Patio supply backing vocals). The Ducks Ltd. of Harm’s Way do seem to have expanded their palette a bit compared to previous releases, but it’s not a radical reinvention–the core of the band is still quick-darting jangle pop with excellent, almost nonstop melodic guitar leads from Lewis, ushered forward by a brisk rhythm section (now provided by their live lineup, drummer Jonathan Pappo and bassist Julia Wittman).
Like every other Ducks Ltd. release, Harm’s Way is a short one (nine songs, 27 minutes), but the band do so much in every track that they make it impossible to feel like you’re being shortchanged in any way. The record feels very much in line with the more “pure pop” end of classic Flying Nun bands, the ones like The Bats and The Chills that always seem to be chasing the perfect hook, although the band also has a caffeinated peppiness to them (both in the tempo and in the guitar leads) that sets them apart from those bands’ tendencies to ramble a bit (and reminds me of one of the best jangle pop albums of the decade thus far, Chime School’s self-titled debut record). Harm’s Way is at its most immediately enjoyable when Ducks Ltd. just put the foot fully on the gas–I’m not sure if I’ve heard songs more invigorating than “Train Full of Gasoline” and “On Our Way to the Rave” yet this year, and Lewis’ guitar playing sounds positively giddy throughout “The Main Thing”.
The chiming guitar riff that begins “Hollowed Out” is probably one of my favorite “opening statements” of the year, and I like how it leads into a song that feels lost and hopeless despite everything going on around it (enjoyably, it all comes to a head when McGreevy sings “I’m hollowed out from the inside” in the chorus). “Deleted Scenes” feels like a particularly reflective moment lyrically, but even in that one the band can’t resist deploying plenty of sparkling guitar moments over top of it. Only on closing track “Heavy Bag” do they pull their punches; “I keep on listening to ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’,” McGreevy sings over top Lewis’ subtle guitar picking. When the drums pick up again as the song wraps up, closing Harm’s Way with a string-clad, full-band instrumental, it doesn’t sound like Thin Lizzy, but it is the sound of a band who aren’t going to let their music fade off into the sunset without one last swing. (Bandcamp link)
Worse Off – Over, Thinking
Release date: February 9th Record label: All We Got! Genre: Pop punk, punk rock Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Always-Life Crisis
New York punk duo Worse Off have been kicking around for a while (“established 2015 technically”, per their Bandcamp), but they made their on-record debut earlier this decade with their 2021 EP You Win Some, You Lose…a Lot. 2024 has brought the band’s first full length album, Over, Thinking, and it’s a sturdy and energetic collection of vintage, 90s-style pop punk. Over eleven songs and twenty-eight minutes, the band’s core duo of Jac Falk and Colin Jay range from catchy power pop to Worriers/Chumped-esque scrappy “indie punk” to speeding skate-punk, but the connecting threads are also Over, Thinking’s strongest assets–big hooks, melodic but punk-y vocals, and, uh, plenty of power chords. Aside from a couple of guest contributions (guitar on “Dislike, Unsubscribe” and “Fun Fact II” from Patrick Bradford, backing vocals on “Fun Fact II” by Jared Hart), Over, Thinking is all Falk and Jay, who trade off lead vocal duty, each matching the other and ensuring that the record doesn’t flag for a moment.
Opening track “Dislike, Unsubscribe” is melodic punk at its best, a high-flying rhythm section and triumphant guitars whipping up a sub-two minute storm and the vocals coming at you a mile a minute. “Grand Scam Home Run” and “Always-Life Crisis” don’t find Worse Off accelerating quite as hard, but they still keep Over, Thinking’s energy up, as they’re both excellent, catchy pieces of pop punk with massive choruses (and stealthily just as catchy verses, too, especially the excellent radio-ready alt-rock of the latter). The other two most “punk” moments on the record are “Fitting to the Hat”–an explicit rebuke of hatred and bigotry that balances catharsis and “being fun to listen to” deftly while not…overthinking it–and the rabble-rousing classic punk rock of “Fun Fact II”. The rest of Over, Thinking is just as alive-feeling–my favorite moment in the album is probably the back-to-back excellence of “Title, Track” (featuring some really ace vocal trading between Jay and Falk in the chorus) and “Apathy” (which rises from its acoustic beginning to a piece of anthemic power pop). The (perhaps ironically so, given the title) confident-sounding “Memorialize My Horribleness” proves Worse Off continue to excel at lean punk-pop, and closing track “Knot” ends Over, Thinking with an example of their ability to spread out. Between the hooks, the energy, and the performances of both frontpeople, Over, Thinking makes quite the first impression. (Bandcamp link)
Itasca – Imitation of War
Release date: February 9th Record label: Paradise of Bachelors Genre: Folk rock, psych folk Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Milk
Imitation of War is the first album by Itasca that I’ve heard, but the project and its leader, Los Angeles’ Kayla Cohen, have been at it for a while now. The two most recent Itasca albums (2016’s Open to Chance and 2019’s Spring) came out via Paradise of Bachelors, who are also releasing Cohen’s first new record in five years, Imitation of War–at first glance, it’s full of the kind of sprawling folk rock that fits well alongside the other acts on her label (Hiss Golden Messenger, Nathan Bowles, Mega Bog). There is no shortage of “cosmic country” artists in this arena, musicians pulling together sunny psychedelia and Americana in their blissed-out records, but there’s something compelling about Itasca’s take on it that I keep coming back to. Imitation of War was co-produced by Robbie Cody of Wand, and while you aren’t going to mistake it for a Wand album, it makes ample use of psychedelic electric guitars in its own way.
The opening two tracks of Imitation of War go a long way towards defining and establishing Itasca’s version of psychedelic rock. Both songs are marked by spindly, rippling electric guitar lines that sound like they’re being played from up high on some nearby bluff or cliff–in the first song, “Milk”, the guitar is playing what sounds like a molasses-slow Meat Puppets riff, and it also recalls desert rockers The Gun Outfit (in which Cohen currently plays bass, and the band’s Daniel Swire drums on this record, as well). The title track takes what “Milk” hinted at and blows it up, lurching into a mid-tempo rocker that’s just as beautiful as the previous track despite (or perhaps because of) the clutter. Cohen’s more acoustic folk-based past shows up a bit more prominently with “Under Gates of Cobalt Blue” and “Dancing Woman”, but her eclectic guitar work still runs through Imitation of War, dressing the folk rock of “Tears on Sky Mountain” and “El Dorado” in another layer. It’s also, of course, an integral part of the most ambitious song on the album, the nine-minute “Easy Spirit”, which begins as a, well, spirited piece of shimmery psych rock, veering into pop balladry, and then fading away into something quieter but still alive. It’s no surprise that Itasca spend the final moments of Imitation of War coming down from that peak, but as the subtle but intricate guitar playing of “Moliere’s Reprise” and the acoustic “Olympia” show, the valleys are pretty awe-inspiring, too. (Bandcamp link)
The Problem With Kids Today – Born to Rock
Release date: February 9th Record label: The Problem With Records Today Genre: Garage rock, garage punk, punk rock, fuzz rock Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: What Else Can I Say
Now, let’s hope on over to New Haven for this next one. The Connecticut city has produced some real good music as of late from Perennial, Hellrazor, and Dagwood (and related bands)–The Problem With Kids Today are the latest group to make a bid to be considered among the Constitution State’s best with Born to Rock, their second album. The trio of “rock n roll delinquents” are still a relatively new band–they formed in 2020 and released their debut album Junk a year later–but from the sound of it, guitarist/vocalist Tate Brooks, bassist/vocalist Silas Lourenco Lang, and drummer Reena Yu were born to rock indeed. Born to Rock is garage rock at its excited best, fuzzed out and punk-y but with plenty of big, bad hooks to be found along the scorched-earth trail. It’s full steam ahead from the feedback that kicks off the record, with the trio bashing out eleven rock and roll anthems in under half an hour–any moment the band could be rocking, they certainly are rocking.
The Problem With Kids Today strut onto the scene with “Rock Show”, a piece of tricked-out, revved-up pop music, and “Johnny Rockets” contains more than its share of sharp moments too. Brooks’ vocals on “What Else Can I Say” are frantic, plain and simple, while playful lead guitar and handclaps dance around him in a way that invokes the “fun danger” feeling of first-wave punk rock. Born to Rock is certainly informed by power pop and vintage pop rock, but when the Kids want to bust out a pummeling garage punk tune like “Leather Jacket Blues” or “Slobberknocker”, they sound equally in their own wheelhouse. Retaining a bit of an edge while still effectively making loud pop music helps keep Born to Rock burning bright well into its second side–the hard rock of “Speed Freak” gets a ton of mileage out of its main riff, while “Good Grief” is dramatic garage punk of the shout-along variety. Brooks is both a compelling punk frontperson and rock guitarist, letting the two sides of himself alternatively throttle the listener throughout Born to Rock. The record as a whole is something of an aural DNA test–put on Born to Rock, and if it makes sense to you, then you probably were, too. (Bandcamp link)
Second Pressing Concerns of the week and it’s only Tuesday! I hope you’ve been keeping up, but even if you haven’t, this is the perfect opportunity to get into some brand-new music. Today we’re looking at new albums from Rick Rude and Lupo Citta, a new EP from Anika Pyle, and an expanded reissue of last year’s Skyjelly EP. If you missed yesterday’s blog post, featuring J. Robbins, Memory Cell, The Maureens, TV Star, and Spiral XP, 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.
Rick Rude – Laverne
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Midnight Werewolf/Best Brother Genre: 90s indie rock, math rock, power pop, fuzz rock, noise pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Laverne
Although Rick Rude has never appeared in Pressing Concerns before, traces of the Maine-originating, New Hampshire-based quartet have turned up on Rosy Overdrive on several occasions.. They contributed an excellent version of “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” to one of the Neil Young cover compilations I wrote about, I highlighted band co-leader Jordan Holtz’s solo EP Not Close for Comfort last year, and Holtz has also contributed to alt-country group Footings. Not to mention, the labels that released the band’s first two albums–Sophomore Lounge for 2017’s Make Mine Tuesday and Exploding in Sound for 2018’s Verb for Dreaming–also show up quite regularly on the blog. I’ve enjoyed their previous work (particularly Make Mine Tuesday), and it’s comforting that, despite the six-year gap in releases, Rick Rude (Holtz on bass and vocals, Ben Troy on guitar and vocals, Chris Kennedy on guitar, and Ryan Harrison on drums) sound as great as ever on Laverne, their third full-length. The group are still balancing the poppy and noisy sides of 90s indie rock in a pleasingly Built to Spill-esque way–they’re approaching catchy power pop one minute and whipping up a barrage of guitars the next.
Laverne may be, on average, a little more accessible than Rick Rude’s previous two albums, but it’s not a huge departure, and the band haven’t lost any of their white-hot ability to turn into huge riff-wielders (or maybe Welders) at any given moment. Between Holtz and Troy, the band remains in possession of two compelling frontpeople whose vocals more than hold their own against the noise the band is still very capable of cranking out. As much as I enjoyed Holtz’s slowcore-y solo EP, it’s very satisfying to hear her perched atop of the heavy, smoking alt-rock of “Real TV”, the twisting guitar maze of “P2PU”, and the excited, hooky fuzz-pop of the title track. Not to be outdone, Troy is able to ground the math-rock-as-power pop opening track “Wooden Knife” with a stoic but arresting performance, and the stop-start lost 90s-hit-single vibes of “Winded Whale” might just be the strongest song on the entire record. After one last noisy pop song in “Swept Up Slept In”, Rick Rude bow out with the two oddest tracks on the record–the choppy but roaring instrumental of “Area Woman Yells at Junk Mail” and “The Ells”, a lo-fi piano ballad written and sung by former member Noah Lefebvre. I do like that Rick Rude close the album by nodding to their past–after all, they’ve more than proven to be a strong rock and roll band in the present tense with the rest of Laverne. (Bandcamp link)
Anika Pyle – Four Corners
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter Formats: Digital Pull Track: Arizona
Last time we heard from Anika Pyle in Pressing Concerns, it was 2021, Rosy Overdrive was still in its infancy, and the former Chumped and Katie Ellen frontperson had just released Wild River, their first-ever solo album. Wild River was a pretty big departure from the indie pop punk of their previous bands–it’s an incredibly sparse album, built from minimal synths, quiet acoustic guitar, and Pyle’s vocals, which were spoken as often as sung. Pyle did release a live version of Wild River the following year, but they’d been pretty quiet since then. However, the Colorado-based artist has now returned with yet another left turn in the form of the four-song Four Corners EP. Hardly the minimalist indie music of their last record but not pop punk either, Four Corners finds the singer-songwriter embracing folk rock and alt-country enthusiastically. The EP is more upbeat than Wild River, so that aspect of it might appeal to Katie Ellen and Chumped fans, but it doesn’t abandon their last record’s personal, writing-first approach (even though it does expand up on it). I love a good geographic conceit, and the Four Corners EP (in which each song takes place in a different “four corners” state in the southwestern United States) delivers an enjoyable one. As it turns out, Pyle (who grew up in Colorado and moved back there from the East Coast circa Wild River) has plenty of regional material from which to draw.
Although Four Corners plants its flag out West, Pyle’s time in Philadelphia is felt in its impressive guestlist (Slaughter Beach, Dog’s Zack Robbins, Petal’s Kiley Lotz, All Away Lou’s Lou Hanman, Kayleigh Goldsworthy, and Mike Brenner, among others), which helps develop “Arizona” and “New Mexican Blues” into wide-eyed Americanca/country rock (for the former) and laid back, full-on country music (the latter). As impressive as they are musically, neither of the instrumentals take away from the experiences Pyle describes in the songs, and the quieter second half of the EP only further emphasizes Pyle’s writing. “Diné Utah Homecoming Queen” is a delicate piece of quiet but poppy folk–it’s the only song that’s not directly about Pyle, but their recounting of the story (of Mahala Sutherland, the “first Indigenous person to win homecoming royalty at Southern Utah University”) is delivered with no less care and thoughtfulness. The only completely stripped-down song on Four Corners is the closing track, “Colorado Sage”, in which Pyle sings about the farmhouse in which they grew up armed with only an acoustic guitar. It’s a chilly song, but the ending (“I felt rich, wild, and free / Running through the fields of Colorado sage”) reverberates beyond its modest instrumental and setting. (Bandcamp link)
Release date: January 26th Record label: I Heart Noise/Wormhole World/Mahorka Genre: Psychedelic rock, art rock, experimental rock, desert blues Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: What Have You Done
Skyjelly are a somewhat-mysterious trio from Fall River, Massachusetts (the names I have are Rick “Skyjelly Jones” Lescault, Scott Levesque, and Andrew Payne) who make “psychedelic, Middle-Eastern blues”–I’m not sure if I’ve seen a modern band cite Red Red Meat as an influence before, let alone live up to the comparison the way that their latest release does. Spirit Guide مرشد حقيقة was initially released in 2023 as a six-song EP and got a decent amount of buzz (at least, from the kind of places that would be open to something like this), and so we’ve been gifted an expanded, “deluxe” edition of the record to take with us into 2024. There are in fact three different new versions of Spirit Guide مرشد حقيقة: Boston label I Heart Noise, U.K. label Wormhole World, and Bulgaria’s Mahorka have all put out CDs featuring the initial six tracks of the EP and four songs from the same sessions, but all three of them offer different, exclusive bonus material aside from that. Since I Heart Noise is the one who initially contacted me about this release, their version is the one I’m most familiar with, but it does seem worth pointing out that Wormhole World’s CD includes two bonus tracks and the Mahorka version features an entire album’s worth of remixes from across Skyjelly’s discography.
The original six songs of Spirit Guide مرشد حقيقة are freewheeling psychedelic rock at its best, holding together quite well even as you’re never sure exactly where Skyjelly will take you next. “I Know” is a captivating opening statement, keeping one foot in rock and roll even as all sorts of inspired instrumental choices swirl around the band. “Killer B” is the one that really earns the Red Red Meat comparison, a piece of desert blues with prominent slide guitar that wanders aimlessly but impressively. The EP continues to be engrossing with the curious psych-ballad “Laisse Jeyedin Jeden”, the explosive rhythms of “What Have You Done”, and the fractured blues rock of “Yaslemle”. The “culled from the same sessions” bonus tracks are pretty enjoyable too, and add another layer to Spirit Guide مرشد حقيقة–there’s nothing quite like the swaggering glam rock of “B Sharafek” or the garage-y psych rock of “The Cops Came In” on the original EP, at least. I Heart Noise’s two bonus tracks certainly feel removed from the rest of the record, with the ambient post-rock “Providence (Episode One)” and the weird, thumping electronica of “Motorola Monkey” sounding like two completely different bands–but, of course, it’s all Skyjelly. (Bandcamp link)
Lupo Citta – Lupo Cittá
Release date: January 12th Record label: 12XU Genre: Garage rock, 90s indie rock, noise rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Rust Belt River
Lupo Citta are a new band out of Boston made up of three longtime indie rockers in Sarah Black (guitar/bass), Chris Brokaw (guitar/vocals), and Jenn Gori (drums/vocals). Brokaw has long been familiar with me due to his work with 90s indie rock groups Come and Codeine, and more recently as a solo artist and part of The Martha’s Vineyard Ferries. Black and Gori, meanwhile, go way back together–they used to live in Minneapolis and played in the bands Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. Although I’ve not been familiar with Black and Gori’s previous bands, they seem well-matched with Brokaw; as Lupo Citta, they make ragged garage rock with plenty of impressively screeching guitars in a way that’s not too far off from Come or Brokaw’s solo work. Neither as dramatic as Come nor sprawling as Brokaw’s solo albums, however, Lupo Cittá’s rock and roll is more precise and punctual–it still has a Crazy Horse looseness to it, but it’s doled out in more measured portions.
Considering Lupo Citta’s background, they’ve more than earned the right to lead off their debut album with something as strange as “Onde”, which floats through atmospheric, spoken-word verses, kicks up a bit of dust in its chorus, and then goes back to impenetrability. We’re ready for just about anything after that, and that’s exactly what we get–the next three songs are all disparate but memorable, from the fuzzed-out garage-y punk of “White Bracelet” to the rhythmic, classic rock-feeling “Rust Belt River” to the cavernous, country-inspired “Gallup to El Paso”. Lupo Cittá develops a recognizable sound but never quite “settles into a groove”–after they bash out two different punk-y fuzz-rockers in “Shawano Pickup” and “Machine Operator”, the mid-tempo indie rock of “Sucker” cleans up their sound to just as effective ends. Brokaw and Gori find the same territory as lead vocalists, able to sound afraid or emotionless to fit the music, a key piece of harmony that goes a long way towards holding Lupo Cittá together–given how well the three of them gel as instrumentalists, however, it only makes sense that the rest would follow accordingly. (Bandcamp link)
Good morning, happy Monday, and welcome to the first Pressing Concerns of the week! This time around, we’ve got new albums from J. Robbins and The Maureens on the docket, as well as two EPs, one from Memory Cell and one made by TV Star and Spiral XP together.
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.
J. Robbins – Basilisk
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Dischord Genre: Post-punk, post-hardcore, 90s indie rock, alt-rock, art punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Gasoline Rainbows
Most of 2019 was a blur for me for personal reasons, but I do remember really enjoying Un-Becoming, the first ever solo album from longtime Washington, D.C. indie rocker and producer J. Robbins. Not that it’s surprising that I enjoyed Robbins’ solo work–I hear the influence of his bands Jawbox and Burning Airlines in countless modern artists I enjoy, from Mister Goblin and Two Inch Astronaut to Fox Japan to Hammer No More the Fingers, to say nothing of his prolific career in engineering and production work (for instance: that Arcwelder album I wrote about last month? He mixed it). To me, Jawbox–muscular, noisy post-punk/post-hardcore anchored by the dynamic but smooth vocals of Robbins–defines Dischord Records’ 90s sound (my favorite era of the label) better than any other band. Still, Un-Becoming was welcome proof that Robbins could helm a rock record and write new material with the zeal of his younger bands (not to mention his younger devotees).
It makes some sense that it took five years for Robbins to follow up Un-Becoming given his engineering work and the fact that Jawbox have reunited and even released new material–really, we’re lucky that we’re getting a sophomore J. Robbins album at all. This new album, Basilisk, sounds familiar in a most welcome way. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Robbins is a key architect of the indie rock music that’s proliferated in the decades since his most canonical works, so to hear him return to this same well and pull up something that sounds no less fresh than For Your Own Special Sweetheart does today is quite remarkable. It’s reminiscent of current-era Bob Mould–it’s a short list, the number of indie musicians evoking their golden era as rewardingly as Robbins does here. That being said, Basilisk doesn’t exactly sound ripped from the world of Jawbox circa 1993–it picks up about where Un-Becoming left off, with Robbins writing art-punk anthems with both “maturity” and “edge” and a fearless awareness of the present.
Robbins kicks off Basilisk with some hammering synths to begin “Automaticity”, but he does it in a way that makes it sound exactly like a vintage Robbins-led song, and when the band (Robbins, Jawbox bassist Brooks Harlan, and Kerosene 454/Channel drummer Darren Zentek) kick into gear, it’s a natural transition. The cold but kinetic drama of “Exquisite Corpse”, the post-punk “Last War”, and the huge guitars that introduce “Gasoline Rainbows” usher in Basilisk with an impressive amount of energy, and if “Not the End” slows things down a little bit, “A Ray of Sunlight” and “Deception Island” are there to pick the record right back up. Robbins has never been a completely opaque lyricist but he’s not exactly a punk sloganeer, either–when he sings “No such thing, life after history / There’s no sleepwalking security / It’s not Weimar 1933 / But it’s not far enough for me,” he sounds like he’s staring down the present without completely tying his writing to it. And I’m thankful for that–I get the feeling that I’m still going to be listening to Basilisk several years from now, and I suspect that it’s going to sound just as fresh then as it does in 2024. (Bandcamp link)
Memory Cell – Holding on to It
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Math rock, experimental rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Portal
Between Wowza in Kalamazoo and Handturner, there’s a surprising amount of wild, experimental rock music coming out of Kalamazoo, Michigan these days, and recently I’ve heard another band to add to this list. Memory Cell are a quartet who are maybe a little less indebted to noise rock and krautrock than the previously-mentioned groups, but their indie rock is still very all over the place, dealing in math rock and even a bit of basement prog. They put out their debut album, Spatial Reasoning, in 2022, and followed it up last year with a three-song EP called Burden of a Body. They must’ve liked the three-song EP format, as they’re back with another one, Holding on to It, less than a year later, featuring tracks that the group (guitarist/vocalist Kayley Kerastas, guitarist Rory S., bassist Levi Hambright, and drummer Evan Asher) worked out last year while touring around the Midwest and playing shows with bands like Shady Bug, Negative Glow, Rust Ring, Cheer-Accident, The Fever Haze, Sorry Machine, The Ladybug Transistor, and Disco Doom (wow, they played with a lot of bands I’ve written about on the blog last year!).
It makes sense that Memory Cell have played with multiple Exploding in Sound bands, because I hear a good deal of vintage EIS thorny, mathy indie rock (bands like Shell of a Shell, Maneka, and Pet Fox) on Holding on to It. It’s a short EP–under ten minutes long–but the band still finds the time to cram a bunch of twists and turns into it. Opening track “Portal” starts off as a lost-sounding, jammy number before picking up the tempo into a jittery piece of math-pop in its second half (if you liked Palm, it’s reminiscent of what that band loved to do). “Shapes” also follows the two-sided format the previous song does, although this one comes out as a swirling rocker and kind of folds in on itself as it goes along. At nearly five minutes long, closing track “Shadows” is Holding on to It’s “big finish”, and it’s also the EP’s least structured moment, cycling through several different types of rock music in the first two minutes before crashing its way into a feedback-heavy noise outro. Holding on to It definitely feels like an EP whose songs were honed and sharpened live, and Memory Cell have ended up with something that translates amazingly to tape. (Bandcamp link)
The Maureens – Everyone Smiles
Release date: January 19th Record label: Meritorio Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, folk rock, psych pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Fell in Love
I wrote about Belgian quintet Capsuna a couple weeks ago, and now we’re stopping in another one of the Low Countries thanks to the latest from Utrecht’s The Maureens. I have admittedly not covered a lot of indie pop from The Netherlands in Pressing Concerns–there’s been traces of it in the folk rock of Nagasaki Swim and Grapes of Grain, sure, but Everyone Smiles is pure guitar pop, through and through. Although Everyone Smiles is their first record for Meritorio Records, The Maureens aren’t exactly a new group–they’ve been around since 2013, and although the lineup has changed from its inception (the band currently features drummer Stefan Broos, bassist Wouter Zijlstra, and guitarist Ruud Oude Avenhuis), singer-songwriter Hendrik-Jan de Wolff has been the steady bandleader for four full-lengths now. Everyone Smiles does sound like the work of seasoned veterans–its thirteen songs are all smartly-penned guitar pop which pull from 60s psychedelic pop and folk music as well as jangle pop, power pop, and college rock.
Even within the field of jangly indie rock, Everyone Smiles is a subtle record–I’ve known that it’s good for a while now, but I had to really dig into this one to get at the nuances The Maureens give to these songs. Upon closer inspection, it’s hard not to come away even more impressed with songs like the opening track, “Stand Up!”, which stitches together propulsive, bass-led verses and a slowed-down, triumphant chorus in a way that feels like two different pop ideas welded together seamlessly. The Maureens are definitely a “jangle pop” band–if “Sunday Driver” and “Fell in Love” aren’t jangle pop, I’m not sure what is–but with so many of modern janglers burying their vocals under reverb-y, dreamy guitars, de Wolff’s up-front, full-sounding singing feels especially fresh. On songs like “Do You”, there’s a confident clarity to it that reminds me of pop rock studio wizard Jon Brion. The second half of Everyone Smiles is just as strong as the first, if a bit less immediate–I eventually keyed in on the breezy, acoustic-led “Warning Sign”, the mid-tempo power pop of “Only Child”, and the quietly brief but memorable “Morning Papers”. As the rest of Everyone Smiles comes clearer into focus, it becomes apparent that The Maureens never run out of material from their seemingly-endless bag of guitar pop tricks. (Bandcamp link)
TV Star & Spiral XP – TVXP
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Fuzz rock, psychedelic pop, shoegaze, dream pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: TVXP
TV Star and Spiral XP: the collaboration that none of us knew we needed until we got it. The two Seattle bands both initially came to my attention last year–the latter released a good EP of psychedelic, noisy shoegaze called It’s Been Awhile that I wrote about, and the former put out two EPs of fuzzy power pop that I didn’t write about (but were still good, particularly last February’s Hallucinate Me). With a co-headlining West Coast tour set for later this month, the two bands did what more indie rock bands worth their salt should think about doing–they all (ten band members between the them) filed into TV Star’s practice space last December and bashed out a four-song collaborative EP. The resulting TVXP EP (mixed by Cameron Heck and mastered by Justin Pizzoferato) doesn’t sound exactly like either band, but moments of both are certainly present–it’s as catchy as TV Star’s best songs, as noisy as Spiral XP, and with a surprising Madchester/alternative dance vibe that was sort of present on It’s Been Awhile but not to the degree that gets teased out here.
TVEXP starts off with what seems like its most musically simple song in “Winter Snow”, but that’s not a slight–with Max Keyes’ wistful, downcast vocals combined with the rainy-day, Paisley Underground-esque jangly instrumental, it’s perhaps the most “TV Star” song on the EP, despite the Spiral XP frontperson singing it and the psychedelia floating underneath the song’s surface. “Maida” then rolls into the noisiest moment the two bands kick up, but it’s not so noisy that the Madchester-style beat gets buried over top of its Pumpkins-y 90s alt-rock sheen. “Space Person” is yet another left turn for TV Star and Spiral XP–it keeps both the danceable vibes of the previous song and the noisiness, but funnels it into a song that’s not all that different from bizarre but catchy late-90s “alternative pop”. The closing title track feels like what the entire EP has been working up towards–a full-bloom piece of blissed-out, fuzzed-up psychedelic-dance-pop that feels right out of 1991 but also right at home for Spiral XP and TV Star. Featuring some of the best work either of these groups have done thus far, TVXP is a strong argument for bands attempting to learn and expand through collaboration. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the second Pressing Concerns of the week! In this issue, we look at four records that have come out or will come out this week: new albums from True Green, Liquid Mike, and Sea Dramas, and a new EP from Flight Mode. It’s been an eventful week for Rosy Overdrive; if you missed the January 2024 wrap-up/playlist post or Monday’s Pressing Concerns (featuring Heavenly, Cheekface, Girls Know, and Fantastic Purple Spots), 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.
True Green – My Lost Decade
Release date: February 1st Record label: Spacecase Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi pop, psych pop, singer-songwriter Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Polycarp
If I took every word of My Lost Decade at autobiographical face value, I’d have to conclude that True Green’s Dan Hornsby has lived a thousand lives. He’s danced every dance. He’s a ruthless self-made businessman. He’s “actually Elvis”, and his roommate is Jesus Christ. He owes you $3,000 and “eleven years of unconditional love”, but he’s good for it, he swears. I didn’t know it before I sat down to write this, but it doesn’t surprise me at all to learn that Hornsby is also a novelist. What does surprise me is how the Minneapolis singer-songwriter chooses to dress his storytelling–namely in lo-fi, reverb-y psychedelic guitar pop. There are acoustic guitars, but Hornsby isn’t a folk troubadour, rather making music that’s generally thought of as the domain of Beatlesesque bashers like The Cleaners from Venus and Guided by Voices. My Lost Decade is a pleasingly varied-sounding record, but Hornsby and multi-instrumentalist Tailer Ransom develop a distinct musical style, a busy, kitchen-sink pop attitude that reflects True Green’s confidence that Hornsby’s striking songwriting will shine even if they whip up an instrumental storm around it. And it does.
The first half of My Lost Decade is one “statement song” after another, different stories in different genres held together by Hornsby’s writing. The opening title track is lo-fi retro rock and roll, its attitude blunted by the narrator who’s spent the last ten years doing everything he shouldn’t have been doing and knows it. “Buzzerbeater” is gorgeous, trebly lo-fi guitar pop at its best, simple and warped in a way that is only enhanced by how simple Ransom and Hornsby make it sound. The next trio of tracks keep one-upping themselves–“My Peccadilloes” and “Midtown Matt” are both genuinely stunning in wildly different ways. The boisterous, cape-twirling pop rock of the former is a coming-in-hot tale of greed and throat-cutting that feels like a kid brother to Malkmus, Bejar, and Berman, while the mid-tempo, cold-air ballad of the latter sounds like if Alex G tried to write a Hold Steady song, its looseness married to some sharp observations worthy of fellow Twin Citean Craig Finn. In these moments, I see glimpses of Slaughter Beach, Dog’s Jake Ewald and (especially) Noah Roth–people who have taken “literate indie rock” as an influence and attempted to do something just as ambitious musically with it.
And similarly to Noah Roth and Slaughter Beach, Dog, True Green aren’t averse to a big pop hook–“My Peccadilloes” is an earworm of the most dangerous sort, and the middle of the record even has “Hopeless Diamond”, in which Hornsby and Ransom do their best to deliver a piece of all-in, straightforward power pop (if they’re not entirely successful, it’s because they ended up creating something even more interesting). And yet, my favorite song on My Lost Decade comes in the second half, and Hornsby doesn’t even sing it. Someone named Alice Bolin who I hadn’t heard of before sings a song called “Polycarp”, a beautiful piece of dream-y pop/folk rock, a song where every single lyric is deserving of an entire analysis of its own. After a record full of songs where Hornsby excels at situating us right in the middle of a certain character’s life (the Elvis-wannabe in “Comeback Special”, the Coors Light-light-bathed “Midtown Matt”), True Green just as effectively depict a complete unmooring (“You make me feel like a fishbowl in the ocean / I can’t tell the water from the glass”). I need all of the ambient-country closing track “Bugbomb” to decompress–although when I did finally focus on that one, there’s a lot floating in its ether to grab onto, too. Intermittent banjo picking closes out the record as Hornsby sings about dogs barking at ghosts and hearts the size of small cars. It feels like the sound of nowhere, but also arriving right where you’re supposed to be. (Bandcamp link)
Liquid Mike – Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, pop punk, fuzz rock, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Mouse Trap
The breakout act of 2023 was a punk band from the upper peninsula of Michigan called Liquid Mike. The band has been putting out music at a steady clip for most of the 2020s, but it was their fourth full-length–last year’s self-titled album–that got them a fair amount of buzz. There’s so much to like on that eleven-song, 18-minute record–a pop punk energy, power pop hooks, a 90s indie rock sense of driven listlessness–and I was pleased to see it show up in the top ten of the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll (by a fair amount, the smallest band to make the top ten). Liquid Mike took eleven months to follow up S/T with Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, and I can’t help drawing a comparison with another forward-motion-themed fifth album from a band from a Midwestern state who released a few albums before getting much attention. When Guided by Voices released Propeller in 1992, it was to be the Ohio band’s final album, and they put everything they had into it–against all odds, it slingshotted them into the indie rock canon.
Obviously, this is not a perfect comparison, but one thing feels right on the money: with Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, Liquid Mike are giving it all they’ve got. It’s the sound of a band completely rising to the occasion–they’ve turned around and made a record that feels like a huge step forward from the (quite good, mind you) music that got them the modicum of attention in the first place. For one, it’s longer–sure, 25 minutes is still short for a full-length, but these thirteen songs are developed and lethally effective on their own and when grouped together. There are songs on here that power pop bands would kill to write that Liquid Mike didn’t even release as singles, and the songs that were singles sound even better in context (I’m particularly thinking about the 90s alt-rock wrecking ball “Mouse Trap”, a towering piece of guitar power that flexes even harder amongst poppier fare).
As good as the opening two songs are, “Town Ease”–with its buzzing synths, thump-thump rhythm, and aggressively delicate vocals from singer Mike Maple–is where I started to get the sense that this was a special album. Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot is basically a murderer’s row of guitar pop from that point forward–there’s the aforementioned “Mouse Trap”, whose dead-serious cartoon violence imagery and dramatic pauses take up so much real estate in my head these days, there’s the laser-precise, bouncy slacker pop rock of “Drug Dealer” and “Pacer”, a song that rides its jangly intro into a six-string-fireworks chorus. The two lo-fi snippet songs “AM” and “-” remind me of a certain lo-fi indie rock band I’ve already spent too much of this review talking about, and the latter is particularly welcome in the LP’s second half, where songs like the almost-contemplative “Small Giants” and the slow-burn “American Caveman” offer up stabs at what a more pensive Liquid Mike might sound like (it sounds pretty similar to normal Liquid Mike at this point, not that that’s a bad thing). Every second of Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot sounds exciting for several reasons, not the least of which is that it feels like it’s breaking something wide open, like it’s unlocking an exciting new Liquid Mike future. (Bandcamp link)
Flight Mode – Tøyen, ‘13
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Sound As Language/Tiny Engines Genre: Emo-y indie rock Formats: Vinyl (as part of The Three Times), cassette, digital Pull Track: Thirtysomething
Oslo’s Flight Mode first showed up on my radar in 2022, when I wrote about their Torshov, ‘05 EP. I enjoyed that record’s emo-adjacent indie rock sound, which was an apt vessel for bandleader Sjur Lyseid’s reminiscent, introspective songwriting. Torshov, ‘05 was a sequel to 2021’s TX, ’98, and, as it turns out, was also to be the middle of a trilogy which sees its conclusion with Flight Mode’s third EP, Tøyen, ‘13. The release of Tøyen, ‘13 also marks Flight Mode’s move from Sound As Language to its sister label, the recently-rebooted Tiny Engines (and a more fitting home for their sound, anyways); Tøyen, ‘13 is technically being released through Sound As Language, but Tiny Engines is putting out The Three Times, a vinyl compilation of all three EPs on one record. Lyseid continues to chronicle moments of his past–rather than his time as a teenager in Texas or a jaded young adult in Torshov, Tøyen, ‘13 finds the singer-songwriter losing his father and becoming a parent in the same year, certainly two defining adulthood moments.
Lyseid the subject has grown older, but the Flight Mode telling the story (guitarist Anders Blom, also of the similarly-minded Neighboring Sounds, drummer Eirik Kirkemyr, and bassist Rudi Simmons) sound as sharp as ever, their large-sounding, polished emotional indie rock ebbing and flowing as necessary to match. “For future reference, I’ve stopped counting the years,” Lyseid confesses in opening track “Thirtysomething”, a song that opens Tøyen, ‘13 with weighed-down, contemplative verses before launching into a cathartic chorus. The middle of the EP contains the two biggest rockers–single “Hyperventilate”, a living, heavy-breathing example of how age doesn’t always necessarily bring tranquility, and the big-picture uneasiness of “Surprised At All”. Lyseid closes Tøyen, ‘13 and this entire chapter of Flight Mode with “My Brothers & My Sister at the Funeral”, an explicit rumination on the death of his father–when he sings “I am not here, these are not my tears / Spaced out and sad as fuck, something got stuck,” one can either interpret it as an attempt at capturing real-time feelings or that of attempting to revisit them a decade later. What Tøyen, ‘13 and The Three Times as a whole seem to suggest, however, is that this isn’t such a clean dichotomy. (Bandcamp link)
Sea Dramas – Escape Scenes
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Royal Okie Genre: Folk rock, psychedelic pop, jangle pop, dream pop Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Long Goodbye
San Francisco’s Sea Dramas are a new-to-me group, but they’ve been around for a while, releasing three full-length records in the 2010s as well as a few more recent, pandemic-era home recordings uploaded to their Bandcamp page. It appears that plenty of musicians have played with and/or in Sea Dramas over the years, but the band is led by singer-songwriter Scott Pettersen, and the majority of what you hear on the fourth Sea Dramas album was recorded by Peterson himself. On Escape Scenes, Sea Dramas make a beautiful version of guitar pop that fits both their band name (somewhere between “unsettled” and “tranquil”) and their Bay Area home; Petterson is an ace songwriter of vintage college rock, containing shades of folk rock, C86 indie/jangle pop, and dream pop across the record’s ten songs. Escape Scenes feels in line with yet distinct from a lot of California jangle pop I’ve covered, coming off as a folkier version of Melancolony’s 80s-revival college rock or a more polished version of Evening Glass’ nautical, Dunedin-inspired pop.
Aside from a few remote contributions (violin and vocals from Sara Mohan on “No Poetry” and percussion from David Brandt on “Daybreak”), Escape Scenes was recorded by Petterson at his Livermore home studio. With plenty of home recording experience, Sea Dramas sound anything but “lo-fi” here–Petterson manages to turn these songs into fully-fleshed-out pieces of baroque, psychedelic pop music with a toolkit far beyond his languid guitar playing and wistful vocals. The instrumental folk of “Daybreak” is a disarming opening statement, setting the scene for the listener to become fully engrossed in the lush psychedelic folk rock of “Long Goodbye” and the smooth, dreamy pop feeling of “Nite Passengers”. The busy bassline and slightly-sped-up tempo of “Running Thoughts” helps it earn its “single” status without disrupting the record’s main vibe, and although the album flows from one song to the next seamlessly, instrumental choices in “Moon Breaks” and “No Poetry” are attention-grabbing second-half choices. By the titles alone, it’s clear that Sea Dramas are wrapping things up with the final two tracks on Escape Scenes (“Sundown” and “Turn the Tide”), although these songs will stick with you after the waves have receded and night has fallen. (Bandcamp link)
Hello, and welcome to the first 2024-based edition of Rosy Overdrive’s monthly playlist and round-up! The December/January ones are always fun because they’re the most random of these: you’ve got stuff from January releases, singles from records coming out later in the year, a bunch of songs from 2023 that I found through other people’s year end lists, and a few old songs from my 1993 project. It rules. If you missed yesterday’s Pressing Concerns, featuring new records from Cheekface, Girls Know, and Fantastic Purple Spots plus the most recent Heavenly reissue, you oughta check that one out, too.
Fust and Now have two songs on the playlist this time.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal (missing two songs), BNDCMPR (also missing two songs). 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.
“Maybe”, Rotundos From Fragments (2024)
“Shoulda never said ‘I love you’ if I didn’t mean it,” and then the guitars kick in–now that’s how you start a pop punk song. Chicago’s Rotundos are decidedly more than just that–their latest EP, Fragments, is only four tracks but it covers art punk, garage rock, post-punk, and maybe even a bit of mathy post-hardcore–but they make their opening statement with their catchiest side. “Maybe” is excellently ragged power poppy-punk rock that still finds some time to stop and start and rip thorough long, guitar-hero instrumentals in between the verses and chorus. I don’t know too much about this band, but they’ve left a strong impression on me, and I’ll be keeping my eye on Rotundos in the new year.
“Pink Slip / White Truck”, Dead Billionaires From Disaster Preparedness Coloring Book (2023, Possum Lick Farms)
Dead Billionaires are a pop punk/90s alt-rock/power pop trio from Richmond, zippier, scrappier, and maybe a bit more theatrical than the grunge rock of the other such RVA band I know about, Gnawing. “Pink Slip / White Truck” is two minutes of careening, hooky pop rock and roll music, a brief highlight on their brief debut album, Disaster Preparedness Coloring Book. As one might guess from their name, Dead Billionaires are “punk” in more ways than just chord choices, and while “Pink Slip / White Truck” isn’t as explicit about it as, say, “15 Words” from the same album is, frontperson Warren Campbell has a lot to run through before letting it all out in the chorus (“I don’t wanna be a pawn anymore”).
“Asymmetrical”, Capsuna From Capsuna (2024)
Capsuna are a Belgian band formed by former Cincinnati resident David Enright and fronted by lead vocalist Louise Crosby, and they just released their debut cassette at the beginning of the year. The first ten Capsuna songs are vintage guitar-forward indie pop at its best, with Crosby’s vocals maximizing these songs’ melodies over top of instrumentals that can be somewhat charmingly fuzzy and lo-fi, but not overwhelming so. The garage-y “Asymmetrical” kicks off Capsuna with arguably its loudest moment, but the distorted guitars chug along to a catchy pop song progression and Crosby’s vocals, while somewhat buried, are prominent enough to deliver hooks in that form as well. Read more about Capsuna here.
“Grace”, Lily Seabird From Alas, (2024, Bud Tapes)
Burlington, Vermont’s Lily Seabird is responsible for the first great “folk rock/alt-country-influenced indie rock” record of the year; throughout Alas,, Seabird offers up both laid-back folk rock and explosive, wall-of-sound country rock reminiscent of both the genre’s heavy hitters (Big Thief, Wednesday) and lesser-known peers (GracieHorse, Florry). My favorite song on Alas, is part of a particularly strong opening punch–“Grace” is a Cheshire Cat grin of a country song that roars into its fuzz rock chorus in a way that ought to make you throw your fist up. The cheery verses that introduce us to “Grace” (the song and the subject) are all the more effective when chased with such bombast. Read more about Alas, here.
“Roses After H.D.”, Now From And Blue Space Is Burning Noon (2023, Sloth Mate)
There is a lot of great music coming out of the Bay Area (to state the obvious to anyone who reads this blog regularly), so it’s not surprising that a couple of good such bands would escape my notice in this recent flurry of activity. I didn’t know about the trio of Now until Rosy Overdrive favorite Chime School listed And Blue Space Is Burning Noon as one of their top albums of last year–and while it’s still new to me, I can safely say it’s–at the very least–one of the most intriguing albums from 2023 that I’ve heard. Singer-songwriter Will Smith (who, of course, also plays in Cindy, because all these Bay Area bands bleed into each other) sounds like a young Scott Miller (or The Telephone Numbers’ Thomas Rubenstein), but the rest of the band are groovier, more psychedelic, and…more rubbery than either of those singers’ bands, exemplified but the excellent exploratory dream-prog-psych-pop of highlight “Roses After H.D.”.
“Armchair”, Yungatita From Shoelace & a Knot (2024)
On their debut album, Los Angeles’ Yungatita remind me a bit of bands like The Beths–ace creators of pop hooks delivered in indie rock form. That being said, Shoelace & a Knot is more all over the place: messy, energetic, noisy, and, above all, entertaining. “Armchair” is a nervous-sounding power pop song that rides an exploratory indie rock instrumental introduction into a giant-sounding anthem that blows the entire record wide open. Bandleader Valentina Zapata is just as compelling a performer (changing their inflection and delivery in unexpected ways throughout the song) as they are a lyricist (not that “Armchair” is the most straightforward song, but lines like “It’s one thing to call me crazy / But it’s just weird, you’re the one that raised me” offer hints). Read more about Shoelace & a Knot here.
“Heavy Hauler”, KNOWSO From Pulsating Gore (2024, Sorry State)
Cleveland garage punk group Knowso’s latest album, Pulsating Gore, is inspired by singer Nathan Ward’s day job as a trucker–the way Ward pairs his horrifying, mundane, disquieting version of Americana writing with his dead-eyed, lucid vocal delivery is transfixing and effective. The influence of Ward’s line of work is made explicit in “Heavy Hauler”, an early highlight on the record. It’s recognizably garage punk in its structure, as Ward depicts vehicles careening off ledges and futile struggles with nature in the lyrics, and the eerie chorus that answers Ward in the song’s refrain pushes an already-memorable track even further. Read more about Pulsating Gore here.
“Nuclear Football”, Stuart Pearce From Nuclear Football (2024, Safe Suburban Home)
Last year, I wrote about Red Sport International, the debut studio album from Nottingham’s Stuart Pearce. They’re a band with a clear debt to The Fall, but they succeed more than most Fall imitators in making fresh-sounding music by emphasizing the more flexible and fun end of the band rather than the drab, one-note side (which you realistically need to be a Mark E. Smith to pull off). Nothing emphasizes the appeal of Stuart Pearce better than “Nuclear Football”, the opening track of an EP of the same name (which is otherwise made up of live recordings) and the band’s best song yet. On “Nuclear Football”, Stuart Pearce have their foot on the gas from the get-go–they’ve got plenty to say, some of it quite sharp, but they sound like they’re having a blast while doing so.
“Belt of Orion”, Crystal Canyon From Stars and Distant Light (2023)
They seem to have a pretty impressive “dream pop bands per capita” ratio going on in Portland, Maine. In last month’s playlist, I highlighted a song from Maine group Little Oso, and Crystal Canyon have made it two in a row this time around with “Belt of Orion”, my favorite track from their 2023 album Stars and Distant Light. They’re more shoegaze-indebted than Little Oso’s indie pop, but “Belt of Orion” in particular has a classic jangly, dreamy, almost college rock-y sound that is the recipe for one hell of a guitar pop song. It’s got a tough-feeling backbeat that’s perhaps the greatest evidence of their ability to get heavier, but on “Belt of Orion”, Crystal Canyon train their might on filling out the song with chiming guitars and sparkling harmonies.
“Mother Mary”, Late Bloomer From Another One Again (2024, Dead Broke/Self Aware)
It feels so good to have “rock” Late Bloomer back. I thoroughly enjoyed their introspective turn on 2022’s Where Are the Bones EP, but it was the catchy but loud stylings of 2018’s Waiting that initially won me over, so it’s quite exciting that we’re finally getting its follow-up in Another One Again. Of the two singles the Charlotte alt-rock revivalists have released from it, the one I love the most is “Mother Mary”, a five-minute song that’s a bit more restrained and even alt-country-indebted compared to the other one, “Self Control”. What really puts “Mother Mary” over the top is the second half, where its slow build starts to pay off in the form of transfixing guitar soloing and excellent, passionate dueling vocals. I’ll have more to say about Another One Again soon.
“Here”, Texas 3000 From tx3k (2023)
One of my favorite albums from last year was No Guitar by Curling, a trans-Pacific duo made up of Berkeley’s Bernie Gelman and Tokyo’s Jojo Brandel. However, Brandel has a completely different band that also released an entire album in 2023–Nakano City’s Texas 3000, in which he sings and plays guitar along with drummer Hirotaka Sakiyama and bassist Hiro Tamang. Although No Guitar is hard to beat, tx3k has a lot to love on it as well–it’s more emo-indebted than Curling are at this point, but it does feature plenty of Brandel’s other band’s experimental, studio-friendly pop side. The gorgeous guitar pop of penultimate song “Here” is as good as anything by Curling–Brandel is a triumphant, timeless-sounding rock bandleader when delivering the line the entire song leads up to (“All cops die here”).
“Kill Your Body, Metaphor”, Uncouth (2024, Ratbag)
One of my favorite new bands of the past couple of years has been Athens, Ohio jangle pop group The Laughing Chimes, so when I heard that the Chimes’ core duo of Evan and Quinn Seurkamp were part of a brand new quintet that had just released its debut single, I was keen to spin it. Uncouth (also featuring Chason Anthony, bassist Scott Moore, and drummer Casey Rees) are a bit darker than The Laughing Chimes’ sparkling sound, although “Kill Your Body, Metaphor” is still quite catchy. Uncouth is an attempt to merge the Seurkamps’ guitar pop influences with emo and post-hardcore brought forth by the rest of the band, and what they’ve created is something that isn’t quite either of them. “Kill Your Body, Metaphor” is a weird convergent evolution version of post-punk, one that is both poppier and angrier than the wild-type variety of it. It’s very good!
“Mock the Hours”, David Nance From David Nance & Mowed Sound (2024, Third Man)
Anyone who’s been following his Bandcamp page hasn’t exactly been hurting for new David Nance material as of late (his album-length cover of Devo’s Duty Now for the Future is certainly worth a listen, as is an alternate version of his 2018 album Peaced & Slightly Pulverized called, naturally, Pulverized & Slightly Peaced). Still, it’s been over three years since the last “proper” album from the Omaha garage rocker (2020’s Staunch Honey)–but he’s now with Third Man Records, and judging by the first single from the upcoming David Nance & Mowed Sound, the man hasn’t lost a step in the time since. “Mock the Hours” is an excellent fuzz-roots-Americana-whatever anthem–I hear all kinds of inspired instrumental choices going on underneath the surface, but it still has that hot-to-the-touch quality of earlier Nance.
“Burned”, Veruca Salt From Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity (2008, American Laundromat)
I listened to a lot of Neil Young covers compilations in January, but Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity is the only one of them that’s streaming, so I’m choosing my favorite cover from this one for the playlist. That would be by none other than Veruca Salt, who make the inspired choice to turn Buffalo Springfield’s 1966 song “Burned” into a ripping alt-rocker. Appearing on a compilation that features a lot of folk rock and adult alternative, their version of “Burned” immediately sticks out, both by being a somewhat less-obvious song to cover and because Veruca Salt turn it into a “Veruca Salt song” with amazing ease. Read more about Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity here.
“Leash Biter”, Savak From Flavors of Paradise (2024, Peculiar Works)
I saw Savak live when they were fresh off recording Flavors of Paradise–I didn’t know the name of the album, let along any of the songs on it, but they played just about everything that ended up on the record that night and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing them. “Leash Biter” (which in my notes from that concert I decided to call “Dogs on Every Corner” in honor of its first line) is classic Savak, somewhere between garage rock, post-punk, and catchy alt-pop-rock in a way that’s distinctly them. It’s got a loitering sleaziness to it–it wouldn’t have struck me as the lead single when I heard it live, but it’s both representative and a strong track on its own as a finish product. I’ll have more to say about Flavors of Paradise soon.
“The Rougarou”, Field Studies From The Rougarou (2024)
Well, well, well, if it isn’t another pretty-sounding indie pop band with “Field” in their name. It’s not Field Guides nor Field School nor The Field Mice–it’s Field Studies, and the Maine quartet (again, Maine with the vintage guitar pop music!) just put out their first non-demo release, the three-song EP The Rougarou. The opening title track is the best song on the record–it’s an incredibly strong statement of purpose, singer/keyboardist Bekah Hayes sounding confident up front while the rest of the band (guitarist Zach Selley, drummer Tim Scanlon, and bassist Josh Denk) put forth a gently rolling but still relatively “brisk” instrumental. Selley’s guitar reaches for a winning dream-jangle combination, while Denk’s low-end is prominent enough to feel a little post-punk inspired.
“Battering Ram”, Fust From Songs of the Rail (2024, Dear Life)
Before North Carolina’s Fust was a full band releasing great alt-country records, songwriter Aaron Dowdy put out seven EPs (featuring four songs each) in 2017 and 2018. The new digital-only Songs of the Rail compiles all seven EPs–nearly 90s minutes of music–in one place. Dowdy’s intimate, lo-fi bedroom pop take on folk/country is pretty far from where his band ended up, but it’s a brilliant and singular documentation of a productive time period. My favorite song on Songs of the Rail, “Battering Ram”, has an oddness to it that feels like a half-remembered dream, especially when Dowdy is repeatedly spelling out “Cabbagetown” as the song winds down. Read more about Songs of the Rail here.
“Paul’s Song”, Arcwelder From Continue (2024)
The trick to making good “funny” music is to not put all your eggs in that particular basket, no matter how good the joke is. For instance, I’d been listening to Continue (the first new album from Minneapolis Touch & Go legends Arcwelder in over twenty years, by the way) for quite some time and enjoying “Paul’s Song” in particular even before I listened closely enough to understand what the song’s actually about. The conceit and execution of “Paul’s Song” are both genuinely hilarious, but everything from Scott Macdonald’s stoic swagger to the (explicitly) McCartney-influenced songwriting are key to both selling the song and having it stand on its own as a piece of hooky indie rock. Read more about Continue here.
“Sunny”, Flesh Tape From Flesh Tape (2024, Power Goth)
Flesh Tape are a new shoegaze-y quartet from Fort Collins, Colorado who’ve been getting a bit of buzz lately around the release of their self-titled debut album (mastered by Heather Jones of Ther). The whole thing is worth a listen–some of the songs are full-on, wall-of-sound noisy shoegaze, others have a more downcast 90s indie rock feel to them, but of course the song I liked the most from Flesh Tape is the least representative one. The bright guitar pop of “Sunny” doesn’t exactly discard the heaviness of the rest of the album, but it pushes it to the periphery for three vibe-y minutes, revealing the band (Larson Ross, Nick Visocky, Jae Smith and Jake Lyon) as bittersweet but potent pop songwriters beneath the distortion.
“The House That I Grew Up In”, Loto From A Year in Review (2024)
Loto is Lautaro Akira Martinez-Satoh, a Montreal-based musician who seems to be quite busy and juggling several different projects at the moment but still found time to put out A Year in Review, a brief but impressive collection of lo-fi music that’s surprising and all-over-the-place but quite accessible when it wants to be. “The House That I Grew Up In” reflects both Loto’s penchant for storing pop melodies inside of slapdash-feeling and chaotic packages and their frequently dark and pained writing. When they sent me the lyric sheet to A Year in Review, they purposefully left this one out–beneath the charging, lo-fi indie fuzz rock, the chorus (“I think I’m gonna die inside the house that I grew up in”) says more than enough to understand where the track’s mind is at. Read more about A Year in Review here.
“Shotgun”, Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates From Restless Spirit (2024, WarHen)
Three years in the making, the second full-length from West Virginia country rockers Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates is just a few weeks away, but you can hear “Shotgun”, possibly my favorite song from the record, already. One of Restless Spirit’s rockers, “Shotgun” is one of the most complete-sounding songs from Riggleman yet, glomming onto a polished, swaggering country-rock-power-pop tune and letting Riggleman’s self-effacing side battle it out with a less-frequently-seen confidence (for a lifer like Riggleman, it’s fitting that the key line in the chorus is “I let the music bring me back around”). I’ll have more to say about Restless Spirit soon.
“Understand”, Twikipedia From Still-Life (2024)
Twikipedia is a “19 year old experimental artist and producer” from Rio de Janeiro, per their Bandcamp page. They’ve put out a couple of records, most recently the six-song Still-Life EP at the beginning of this year (Small Albums shared this one, is how I found it). Still-Life is a charming lo-fi bedroom pop EP that’s primarily built around guitars but with some electronic and synth touches throughout. My favorite song on the EP, “Understand”, is one of the more low-key songs in terms of instrumentation, but don’t mistake that for something lightweight–the two-minute, acoustic guitar-based track is a muted but brilliant pop song, and by the end of its runtime it feels like an anthem in spite (or maybe, somehow, because of) Twikipedia’s insular delivery of it.
“Hazy Road”, Bong Wish From Hazy Road (2023, Feeding Tube)
I found this album and band through Post-Trash’s best of 2023 list–that’s probably my favorite music blog, so most of the records on that list I’d already heard or at least heard of, but somehow Bong Wish’s Hazy Road slipped by me. Rest assured, though, it’s an excellent collection of Feelies-ish indie rock that’s deserving of “best of year” honors, merging jangly guitar pop with psychedelia, folk rock, and dream pop in a really friendly and welcoming way. The title track hits on a bright, sunny guitar riff and rides it out for over four minutes, never losing steam as it adds in some arresting bass playing and unpredictable synth touches throughout its length.
“The Shopkeeper”, Healing & Peace From Healing & Peace (2023)
So there was this band from Columbus called Kneeling in Piss who released an album and a few EPs’ worth of garage-y post-punk from 2019 to 2021 on Anyway Records (St. Lenox, Smug Brothers, Joe Peppercorn). Apparently, head piss-kneeler Alex Mussawir got tired of being in a band called “Kneeling in Piss”, so last year he rechristened the project Healing & Peace and debuted it with a self-titled EP. Healing & Peace actually does reflect the new name, offering up a casual, lo-fi, and friendly collection of folk-y indie rock. “The Shopkeeper” opens the EP with a slow, deliberate vignette that’s also a pretty catchy piece of Pavement-ish indie pop. It’s quite good, and I’m ready for the Healing & Peace era.
“Prose Kaiser”, Rip Van Winkle From The Grand Rapids (2024, Splendid Research)
I’ve liked-to-loved every Guided by Voices album that the band’s most recent, surprisingly stable lineup has put out, but Robert Pollard is always at his most brilliant with a little bit of unpredictability. This is why I’m particularly excited for whatever his Rip Van Winkle project is–of course, it helps that the first single from the upcoming EP, “Prose Kaiser”, rules. It’s got a lo-fi brittleness to it that harkens back to the underappreciated Please Be Honest or even Plantations of Pale Pink, but what’s different from those two is that Pollard appears to be plowing through a multi-part, nü-Guided by Voices-esque prog-pop skeleton of a song with a relatively rudimentary setup (sounding kind of like the transitional but brilliant August by Cake). Whatever The Grand Rapids EP ends up sounding like, it’s already got one winner on it.
“Uranium Baby”, Christy Costello From From the Dark (2024, Hollander)
I hadn’t heard of Minneapolis’ Christy Costello (aka Christy Hunt) before this year, but she’s been playing in bands since the 1990s–leading or co-leading Ouija Radio and Pink Mink, and playing guitar in The Von Bondies. From the Dark is surprisingly her first solo album, but it rocks–it’s an excellent and spirited collection of garage-y power pop which also includes a girl-group-influenced cover of the Smoking Popes’ “Need You Around”. Hard-charging single “Uranium Baby” is my favorite song from the record, a massively catchy piece of new wave-y power pop (Matt Pahl is credited with “Elvis Costello Style keys” on the track, and lives up to the billing).
“When You Find Out”, The Umbrellas From Fairweather Friend (2024, Slumberland/Tough Love)
In between their first and second albums, San Francisco jangle pop quartet The Umbrellas toured with Fucked Up and Ceremony, and while I’m not going to say I heard any hardcore in Fairweather Friend, it does “rock” a bit more than the pure platonic indie pop of their debut record. There’s more than a bit of fuzzy punk-pop and quick tempos on Fairweather Friend, although it comes in bits and pieces for the most part–my favorite track on the album, “When You Find Out”, is pretty clean-sounding, but its giddy energy takes it beyond its guitar pop foundation. Read more about Fairweather Friend here.
“Drop Me Anywhere”, The Bear Quartet From Cosy Den (1993, A West Side Fabrication)
This was a highlight from my 1993 deep dive that I completed at the beginning of the year. It turns out, Sweden had some good indie rock happening around this time too–at the very least, they had The Bear Quartet. Cosy Den (one of, it looks like, two different albums they put out in 1993) is some excellent melodic indie rock music that’s right up my alley—if you like the more “polished” sides of Pavement and Dinosaur Jr., this is a 16-song, 50-minute treat, and my favorite song from the album, “Drop Me Anywhere”, sounds like a refined reunion Dino-era J. Mascis song before that band had even gotten there. There’s a little bit of distortion, but for the most part this falls under “indie rock as power pop”, which is perfectly fine by me.
“Axe Falls”, Be Safe From Unwell (2024, Count Your Lucky Stars)
Frostburg, Maryland’s Be Safe are a new band comprised of several indie rock and emo veterans–together, the quartet meet at the intersection of thorny but oddly tranquil math rock, chilly emo, vintage slowcore, and the golden era of basement indie rock on their debut album. Unwell does “rock” on occasion, but Be Safe rarely ride this side of them for an entire song, and the band’s ability to sharpen their sound a bit makes the quieter moments of Unwell hit even harder. The instrumental outro to “Axe Falls” comes after some all-in emo-rock in its first half, and it subsequently feels like the aftermath of its own title. Read more about Unwell here.
“Crazy Man”, Freakwater From Feels Like the Third Time (1993, Thrill Jockey)
Freakwater’s Feels Like the Third Time was one of the many new-to-me 1993 albums to appear in my most recent listening log post, and even though my impressions of it at the time were somewhat mixed, “Crazy Man” is easily one of the best songs I heard through that project. As I said previously, the album as a whole is a successful re-creation of traditional, bluegrass-y folk-country, but it’s at it’s best when it sounds particularly inspired by its subjects, which “Crazy Man” achieves effortlessly. Hearing Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean sing “I won’t have far to go when I go crazy” with the kind of zeal they bring to the song is the kinda thing that country music is all about.
“No Connection”, Power Pants From PP5 (2024)
Power Pants is a new-to-me band, but they were all over the place last year, releasing four full-length albums in 2023. The Winchester, Virginia-based band kicked off 2024 with their fifth album (PP5), and that record’s opening track, “No Connection”, does a pretty good job of summing up Power Pants’ whole deal in under two minutes. Lo-fi, punky, and catchy, “No Connection” is right in the center of “egg punk”, “power pop”, and “synthpunk”, with worried-but-hooky guitars and synths intertwining over top of nervous-sounding lyrics whose Internet-inspired poetry would make Devo proud. It’s a pleasant surprise to find an Appalachian band making this kind of music, and, even more pleasantly, Power Pants seem like they’ve become quite good at it, too.
“Muriel’s Big Day Off”, Being Dead From When Horses Would Run (2023, Bayonet)
Being Dead’s When Horses Would Run showed up on quite a few “best of 2023” lists, including a few by people/organizations that I actually trust, so I added it to the “check out during the early January lull” pile. It’s pretty dang good—all-over-the-place poppy indie rock that’s not always my thing but hitting on plenty of moments of brilliance. One of these moments is the entirety of “Muriel’s Big Day Off”, which cycles through different moments of indie pop, trippy indie rock, and jazz-rock, but is always catchy, energetic, and transfixing. Congratulations to Being Dead, who made something that I have no problem at all with being “critically acclaimed”, even though it’s not something that’d be on my personal list.
“Eu Não Existo”, Fantasma From Demo 2023 (2023)
I discovered Demo 2023 through the year-end list of Zachary Lipez’s Abundant Living newsletter–realistically, if you’re looking for good demo EPs from underground punk bands, there’s probably not a better follow out there. The six-song EP from the New York-via-Brazil duo is some excellent blunt-object-post-punk, with monotone vocals perching threateningly over top of instrumentals that can feel immovable and surprisingly liquid at various points. “Eu Não Existo” is my favorite of the three, a sub-two-minute piece of dead-eyed punk rock that gets a lot of mileage out of a frightening guitar lead accompanying its title line.
“Cocteau Jetplane”, Now From And Blue Space Is Burning Noon (2023, Sloth Mate)
I had to throw another one from the Now album on here, because it’s just that good. “Cocteau Jetplane” is one of the shorter tracks on And Blue Space Is Burning Noon but it’s still quite substantial–it starts off as scampering, rhythmic indie pop and it blossoms into a chaotic piece of orchestrated but ramshackle psychedelic pop in its second half. The Bay Area group made something that’s worth taking in as a full statement with this record, but the smart, unpredictable, and overflowing-with-ideas energy of songs like “Cocteau Jetplane” ensure that it’s got plenty of “single-worthy” moments as well. Definitely a band on my radar now.
“Scaling Walls”, Pile From Hot Air Balloon (2024, Exploding in Sound)
There’s nothing like a good Pile song, and the band’s latest EP has plenty of them. Hot Air Balloon kicks off with “Scaling Walls”, a song that’s both fairly unclassifiable and recognizably Pile–laser-precise drumming, Rick Maguire’s weary, haunting vocals, eerie, dramatic synths, and a weird, distorted, almost country-ish guitar line come together in a way that only would ever make sense for this band. Although Maguire isn’t yelling like on earlier Pile records, he’s still a dynamic vocalist–as “Scaling Walls” builds to a chaotic crescendo, he’s more than able to deliver a performance matching it. Read more about Hot Air Balloon here.
“Härvest”, Poison Ruïn From Härvest (2023, Relapse)
I came to Philadelphia’s Poison Ruïn all backwards–at first I heard Mopar Stars, Poison Ruïn band member Nao Demand’s independent power pop side project, and from there I’ve gone on to check out his more well-known, Relapse-signed garage punk/post-punk group. Härvest is not as much “my thing” as Mopar Stars’ Shoot the Moon EP is, sure, but I’m enjoying its title track quite a bit. It’s got a one-minute atmospheric instrumental opening which then kicks into a catchy piece of post-punk that kind of sounds like if the Ramones were dead serious all the time. It also reminds me of the most recent Flat Worms album, which is high praise because I think they’re one of the best modern post-punk bands going.
“Gloom and Doom”, Raul Gonzalez Jr. From Wanderer (2023)
Another discovery from Small Albums, Raul Gonzalez Jr. appears to be a prolific bedroom rocker from Austin, Texas–last year, there were two different Gonzalez Jr. LPs and three EPs. The Wanderer full-length was the first of these, coming out last January, and it seems to have a lot of gorgeous, lo-fi guitar pop on it. There are some moments on the album that are more “rock”, but my favorite is the dream pop/post-punk “Gloom and Doom”, which polishes up Gonzalez Jr.’s sound and deploys prominent bass guitar to create a complete four-minute indie pop picture that I find quite impressive.
“Beware Magical Thinking”, Zowy From Beware Magical Thinking (2024, Lost Sound Tapes)
As Zowy, Zoë Wyner embraces electronics and synths in a way that her previous bands (Halfsour, Temporary Eyesore) didn’t even really hint at, although the Beware Magical Thinking EP remains accessible both due to her strong pop songwriting and due to how similarly Wyner seems to approach making guitar- and synth-based music. There’s a rock band exuberance and energy to be found within its four songs–the drum machine backbeats are hard-hitting, not in a cold, industrial way but rather a punchy rock-and-roll kind of way, and the synths rise and fall and drop in and out like guitar leads would. The EP’s title track begins with a lo-fi chamber pop instrumental, eventually beginning to march forward alongside some dreamy guitar playing that works well alongside swooning synths. Read more about Beware Magical Thinking here.
“Cow Calls”, Fust From Songs of the Rail (2024, Dear Life)
I wouldn’t necessarily say that Songs of the Rail is my favorite Fust release at this point (those two proper albums are going to be very hard to beat), but it’s a fascinating compilation that I just keep coming back to and finding new things to enjoy. “Cow Calls” is a beautiful piece of Lambchop-esque ambient country rock, with Aaron Dowdy’s low, possibly manipulated vocals gliding over slow, choppy electric guitar and saxophone from Ryan Hoss, one of the few non-Dowdy musicians on the record. When Dowdy pushes himself in the chorus, it’s very recognizable as the Fust we all know and love, however. Read more about Songs of the Rail here.
Welcome to the last Pressing Concerns of January, and the first of the week! We’ve got a big couple of days ahead of us, starting off with today’s post, which looks at the new Cheekface album, new EPs from Girls Know and Fantastic Purple Spots, and a reissue of Heavenly‘s third album (which also includes that “Atta Girl” and “P.U.N.K. Girl” singles/EPs).
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.
Heavenly – The Decline and Fall of Heavenly (Reissue)
Release date: February 2nd Record label: Skep Wax Genre: Indie pop, twee, jangle pop, power pop, pop punk Formats: Vinyl Pull Track: Me and My Madness
The year is 2024, and I have to say that I like the band Heavenly more right now than I ever have before. To be clear, I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated the music of the British indie pop legends, but the recent entire-discography reissue campaign from Skep Wax (run by the band’s Amelia Fletcher and Robert Pursey, who also use it to release music from their currentprojects) has caused me to look closer at their short but hefty discography and realize just how well it holds up under scrutiny. After their first two records, 1991’s Vs. Satan and 1992’s Le Jardin de Heavenly, saw vinyl re-pressings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, Skep Wax has moved onto 1994’s The Decline and Fall of Heavenly this year. Although all the vinyl reissues have featured bonus tracks drawn from non-album singles released concurrently, this reissue’s extra material is particularly notable–1993’s “P.U.N.K. Girl” and “Atta Girl” singles and their B-sides (also released together as an EP in 1995) both appear on side two of The Decline and Fall of Heavenly, ensuring that those five songs–regarded as some of the best the band ever put to tape–aren’t left out of this reissue series.
Even for a Heavenly album, the proper The Decline and Fall of Heavenly is a short one (about twenty-five minutes), but the band’s momentum hadn’t slowed down a bit on the original eight songs. The band continued to get more polished and impressive in their song construction–songs like “Me and My Madness” and “Skipjack” in the first half of the album are giant-sounding, fully teased-out pop songs, and there are plenty of moments–the strings in the former of the two mentioned tracks, the horns punching up “Modestic”, the guitar solo in “Itchy Chin”–that show just how hard the band were trying to pack every song with just about everything they could. The vocal interplay between Fletcher and guitarist Cathy Rogers is a more important part of the band than ever here, both in the rockers (the chaotic pop chorus of “Me and My Madness”, answering each other in the retro romp of “Sperm Meets Egg, So What?”) and even on the relatively subtler songs (like “Three Star Compartment”, where they drift into and out of each other).
Fletcher and Rodgers singing over each other is also a key component of the “P.U.N.K Girl” / “Atta Girl” songs, particularly the A-side of the latter. These five songs are clearly of a piece, loosely and deftly weaving a narrative around some pretty heady topics together. The assault at the center of the EP is explicitly described in “Hearts and Crosses”, but the rest of the EP doesn’t shy away from it–with “Atta Girl”, the way Fletcher and Rodgers sing completely different lyrics is a compelling portrait of conflicting emotions, while on the other hand, the a cappella “So?” delivers its final verdict with pure certainty. What strikes me about these songs is that Heavenly neither tone down their “twee” indie pop side while writing about “serious” subjects, nor do they “play it up” in some sort of twisted, ironic way. They approach it the same way they would anything else, which shouldn’t be surprising when looking at “Atta Girl” and “P.U.N.K. Girl” in the context of Heavenly’s body of work (and, hell, the various other bands the members have formed after this one’s dissolution). Heavenly were true believers in the power of this kind of music–indie pop, twee, whatever you’d like to call it–and its ability to tackle anything head-on, and they left behind four albums that only proved them right. (Bandcamp link)
Cheekface – It’s Sorted
Release date: January 22nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Dance-punk, post-punk, art punk, Cheekface Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Life in a Bag
We know the drill with Cheekface by now, right? The Los Angeles trio release strong one-off singles whenever they feel like it, and then around once a year, with no pre-release or fanfare, an album shows up containing a few of those singles as well as some new material. That was the case with 2021’s Emphatically No. (the lead-off album of the first-ever issue of Pressing Concerns), that was how it went with 2022’s Too Much to Ask (their first self-released album and one of my favorites from that year), and now we’re back again in early 2024 with It’s Sorted, the fourth Cheekface LP. All four original songs they put out as singles last year make the cut (I’m not counting their cover of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”), plus six new ones. The band still largely sound like Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, and Television devotees, and frontman Greg Katz is still sing-speaking and delivering line after quotable line to a degree that makes it difficult not to turn this writeup into a recounting of my favorite ones.
And yet, It’s Sorted is something different than anything Cheekface has done up to this point. I went into the album blind, and, after a couple of listens, became struck with just how groovy it is. I dug around for the press release, and I found Katz talking about how the band decided not to worry about how they were going to play the album live while putting it together in the studio (apparently a departure for them). For Cheekface, this new approach resulted in something a little less “rock” and more rhythmic and dancefloor-ready. When they flirted with this kind of thing in previous songs (“Featured Singer”, “Vegan Water”) it was something of a novelty for them–this time around, it’s songs like the zippy punk of “Trophy Hunting at the Zoo” and the power poppy “Popular 2” that are the outliers. Call it Cheekface’s Berlin era, or say It’s Sorted is their Wide Awake!–either way, the trio are quite good at it.
Bassist Amanda Tannen and drummer Mark Echo Edwards can lock in with the dance-punkiest of them, transforming songs like “Grad School” and “Largest Muscle” into a completely new kind of Cheekface anthem, and adding a new dimension to more recognizably-Cheekface tracks like “I Am Continuing to Do My Thing” and “Life in a Bag”. Katz still sounds likes Katz, of course, but he’s also shifting his approach to meet the band’s new sound, juking, dodging, and stuttering his way through his lyrics (“I contain multitudes! I contain multiple dudes!”) like a millennial Max Headroom as necessary. It’s Sorted’s biggest surprise might be penultimate track “Don’t Stop Believing”, a guitar ballad unlike anything else in the band’s catalog. Katz actually sings in a way he doesn’t typically do on this one, and even though the lyrics aren’t exactly a departure from typical Cheekface fare, the change in delivery seems to unlock something the band hadn’t yet offered. Sure, Katz nicks one of the most iconic song titles of all-time to make his statement, but to paraphrase the song’s most memorable lyric–who can blame him? He lives in a society. (Bandcamp link)
Girls Know – All This Love Could Kill Me!
Release date: January 26th Record label: Friend’s House Genre: Fuzz rock, noise pop, lo-fi indie rock, garage rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Stranger
Girls Know are a Bellingham, Washington-based indie rock band started in 2022 by main songwriter Paul Sawicki, and they released their debut single “Some Words” the same year. They’ve since grown into a full band and have played a good deal of live shows in northern Washington, and have kicked off 2024 with the release of All This Love Could Kill Me!, their debut EP. Listening to the EP’s distorted, fuzzy rock music with a few electronic elements thrown in, it’s tempting to lump Girls Know in with the current wave of experimental shoegaze/dream pop groups, although they’re coming at it from a different angle than a lot of those bands. Underneath the waves of fuzz, Sawicki’s songwriting hews towards post-Strokes poppy garage rock more often than not, and there’s also a bit of early Car Seat Headrest-era lo-fi Bandcamp rock coming through on All This Love Could Kill Me! and even some emo-punk (notably, it also reminds me of fellow Washingtonians Enumclaw, another omnivorous rock group that uses copious distortion to color their guitar pop).
Girls Know take their time getting to their hooky side–“What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse…” is a bizarre introduction, found-sound spoken-word vocals over top of a synth-heavy soundscape, and “Stranger” glitches out before the curtain is finally pulled back and the band launch into a catchy fuzz-pop anthem. The “noise” and “pop” continue to stand side by side in “Ruin” (which starts off as the EP’s clearest moment before distorting itself just so) and “Lovesick” (whose reverb and special effects can’t obscure the mid-tempo ballad at the center of the song). The most urgent-sounding, quickest-paced moment on All This Love Could Kill Me! comes with “All That I Do”, a foot-on-the-gas rocker that steers itself into post-punk revival territory with its hard-hitting nervousness. Girls Know close the EP right where they started–“Girls3xxx”, All This Love Could Kill Me!’s closing track, is another sound collage-esque piece of experimental pop that bookends the record’s more familiar-sounding middle section. It gives the sense that Sawicki is working with an overarching vision in mind, making me intrigued for future Girls Know material–but, more importantly, All This Love Could Kill Me! is a blast to listen to. (Bandcamp link)
Fantastic Purple Spots – Vibrations Now
Release date: January 26th Record label: ATHRecords Genre: Indie pop, fuzz pop, twee, psychedelic pop, psychedelic rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Vibrations Now
Fantastic Purple Spots are an Austin-based psychedelic pop group co-led by Barrett Jones and Dave Junker. They debuted with a self-titled album in 2022, which was impressive enough to shake local indie rock chronicler ATHRecords (Flesh Lights, Pelvis Wrestley, Swansea Sound) out of a semi-hiatus to put out their follow-up record, the five-song Vibrations Now EP. Judging by this EP, Jones and Junker are fans of vintage indie rock and indie pop–they bring a Yo La Tengo-esque noise-pop dichotomy, a Guided by Voices-ish sense of melodic guitar playing, and a Flying Nun/K Records-y looseness and irreverence to their songwriting. All of this is shot through across Vibrations Now with psychedelic sensibilities that are, indeed, right out of the 1960s, whether it’s achieved through the instrumental textures, lyrics, or both.
Vibrations Now starts off with the hypnotizing, catchy, and melodic guitar riff that introduces opening track “Wondering, Wandering”, a piece of echo-y chamber pop that’s a fittingly low-key beginning for the EP. Second track “All Beings Happy and Free” ups both the band’s “psychedelic” and “pop” dials–the friendly acoustic strumming that anchors the track feels right out of Dunedin, while the mantra-like repetition of the titular line and the fractured guitar solo break that happens in the song’s second half both turn the song into something that floats cheerily above its simple pop structure. “Flyways of the Purple Spotted Tern” goes even further, a spoken-word piece of bright indie pop about the titular (fictional) bird and “the swift, imminent collapse of human civilizations”. The two more electric-sounding songs on Vibrations Now are the title track and closing number “You Can Always Come Down”–the former is a gently chugging tune that’s dripping with both fuzz and pop, and the latter is an indie pop skeleton that echoes via the cavernous-seeming recording and sails into backmasking drone-pop oblivion. It’s an enjoyably confusing punctuation mark to an enjoyably confusing record. (Bandcamp link)
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