We’ve got two different Pressing Concerns going up this holiday-shortened week, and the first one’s a heater, featuring new albums from Arcwelder and Knowso, a compilation of EPs from Fust, and a new EP from Still Ruins. In other news, you can now browse the website by record label, which is a neat new feature to start off the year.
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.
Fust – Songs of the Rail
Release date: January 5th Record label: Dear Life Genre: Alt-country, folk rock, lo-fi folk, singer-songwriter Formats: Digital Pull Track: Battering Ram
Most people’s introduction to North Carolina alt-country band Fust was last year’s Genevieve, an incredible collection of songwriting from bandleaderAaron Dowdy, realized with the help of plenty of collaborators. For me, the introduction was 2021’s just-as-good Evil Joy, the first “full band” Fust record and their Dear Life debut, but Dowdy had been making music under the name even earlier than that, too–on his own, he put out seven EPs (featuring four songs each) in 2017 and 2018. When Fust became more than Dowdy and his computer (adding bassist Frank Meadows, guitarist John Wallace, and drummer Avery Sullivan), Dowdy began writing for a full band and decided to “leave the computer songs alone”, shelving his initial desire to expand these twenty-eight songs beyond their initial, raw forms. After Genevieve brought a certain amount of spotlight on the band, however, Fust and Dear Life put together Songs of the Rail, a digital compilation of all seven EPs–nearly 90 minutes of music–in one place.
The Fust of Songs of the Rail is something that feels very different than what the group would become in the 2020s–not worse, not better, just different. It’s reminiscent of the jump from drum-machine era Friendship to full band-era Friendship, except even more pronounced. Speaking of Friendship, that band circa Shock Out of Season is a good starting point for Dowdy’s intimate, lo-fi bedroom pop take on alt-country that’s found throughout Songs of the Rail, and I also hear a bit of Lambchop and Bill Callahan in these recordings. The nature of these tracks–mostly recorded solely by Dowdy at home, with scattered contributions from Meadows, drummer James Gibian, saxophonist Ryan Hoss, and guitarist Sasha Popovici–results in a blurry picture, with songs running into each other as Fust moves from one sleepy-sounding idea to the next. I never listened to those early Fust EPs when they were on Bandcamp, so I can’t compare, but it does feel right to take in all of these songs (which were mostly recorded over two separate two-week periods in mid-2017 and early 2018) as part of–not necessarily an album, but a collection, a full documentation of a productive time period that nevertheless leaves plenty of unanswered questions.
Songs of the Rail begins strongly with the relatively upbeat “Leave the Forest” and the slow-moving, scenery-imbibing “Rolling Prairie”. Popovici’s saxophone colors “Cow Calls”, an otherwise steady, pacing piece of electric bedroom-country-rock. There’s no shortage of pretty folk-country songs throughout Songs of the Rail (“New Morning Clover” is another such first-half highlight), although my favorite moments on the record are the ones where Dowdy marries this side of Fust with an oddness that feels like a half-remembered dream–where he’s spelling out “Cabbagetown” in “Battering Ram” or when he makes his voice sound like an incantation while singing “Here in Midas / There in Medusa” in “Dark One”. Dowdy appears to have resequenced these songs from their initial release order rather than just presenting them all chronologically–“Abandon”, the first song he wrote in the collection, appears towards the end of Songs of the Rail. It’s a beautiful and strange song, aching but seemingly ripped from whatever context could’ve made its lyrics all click into place. Dowdy was right to follow where it led. (Bandcamp link)
Arcwelder – Continue
Release date: January 5th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Paul’s Song
Anyone who reads Rosy Overdrive regularly is aware of just how important the indie rock music of the 1990s is to this blog, including many, many bands who released music on Touch & Go Records (Silkworm, Brainiac, The Ex, Nina Nastasia, Shellac, Bedhead/The New Year…the list goes on). Despite this, I don’t have a similarly long history with Arcwelder–in fact, I only just listened to their most popular album, Pull, last year. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed it a good deal and was impressed with how the Minneapolis trio merged the “Touch & Go sound” with that of the Twin Cities’–distinct from the way many alt-rock bands watered down The Replacements and Hüsker Dü for radio-ready singles, Arcwelder found a way to slow down the “punk” aspects of those bands while, if anything, turning their version of pop music into something even heavier. Although their most recent album had come out in 1999, Arcwelder never broke up, and, right on cue, they quietly put out their first new music in over twenty years, Continue, at the beginning of 2024.
If you wanted to call Continue a “mature Arcwelder album”, I wouldn’t disagree. They still rock here, although it’s in a more laid-back way, only occasionally rising to the level of “noise rock” across these eight songs. With some of the louder aspects of the band drawn back, Bill Graber, Rob Grabe, and Scott Macdonald’s pop song construction skills come clearer into focus here than in the past. I’m not even just talking about how the band incorporate it into their lyrics (see “Lafayette”, which begins the record with a surprisingly sentimental trip back in time to listening to rock radio in the 1970s, and “Paul’s Song”, a genuinely funny piece of power pop about a piece of writing advice that goes absurdly off the rails), but also of the harmonies and hooks that mark highlights like “Take It Slow” and “Swimming”. Although Continue is a digital-only release, it has a nice vinyl-ready sequencing, with many of the “hits” in the first half and getting slowly “heavier” in the second–“State of Decay” and “Borrowed” transitioning things into the closing duo of “Rooting for You” and “Integration”, which sound the most like Arcwelder of old, albeit wisened, and with writing that very much sounds like that of a three-decade old band. “As we move along and our gulf becomes wider / My last link to you is as content provider,” goes the surprisingly-affecting chorus of the former, and, in the latter, “Every mountain is Everest to climb, and to live I have to summit the peak”. In a way, it’s the heaviest Arcwelder has ever been. (Bandcamp link)
Knowso – Pulsating Gore
Release date: January 5th Record label: Sorry State Genre: Garage punk, post-punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Heavy Hauler
Garage punk trio Knowso have been skulking around the Cleveland underground for nearly a decade at this point. Bandleader Nathan Ward previously played in Cruelster and Perverts Again (at least one of which also featured current bandmate Mike Gill), and Jayson Gerycz drums in Cloud Nothings. They’ve put out a single on Total Punk Records and dropped two LPs on Drunken Sailor at the beginning of the 2020s; Pulsating Gore is their third album and first for Sorry State. All things (album title, artwork, label history) considered, one would be forgiven for expecting something significantly more hardcore- or metal-indebted than what Knowso actually offer up in Pulsating Gore. It’s a dark-sounding take on “egg punk” or “Devo-core” or whatever you want to call it–serious-feeling, blunt garage-post-punk in the Public Interest/Marbled Eye or DIÄT vein, yet more streamlined-sounding. The record’s Bandcamp page mentions that the lyrics are inspired by Ward’s day job as a trucker, which is the key to understanding Pulsating Gore: the way Ward pairs his horrifying, mundane, disquieting version of Americana writing with his dead-eyed, lucid vocal delivery is transfixing and effective.
It’s easy to imagine a good deal of Pulsating Gore originating as trains of thought in Ward’s head as he drives across the country, particularly the appropriately-pulsating title track and the cyclical preoccupations of “Do the Work” (“All of this work is for the cycle of decay…/ Leave me alone and I’ll become eternal rot,” Ward deadpans, observing his eventual fate with a chilly remove). The eerie chorus that answers Ward in “Heavy Hauler” pushes an already-memorable track even further–it’s recognizably garage punk in its structure, as Ward depicts vehicles careening off ledges and futile struggles with nature in the lyrics. Ward also mentions an unsuccessful attempt to unionize his workplace as fodder for Pulsating Gore, and “Be Your Own Killer” and “Drink from the Lake” both take an appropriately dim view of powerful figures, the workplace, and American culture in general (although they both seethe with enough of a purpose to suggest that Knowso isn’t just the work of pure nihilists). “Where Do You Fit” closes the album with a pointed question (“Where do you fit, fit in the grid?”) and answers it with a simple, despairing refrain: “I wish they liked the circle, but they only like the square”. We’ll all lose our shapes eventually, but it’s cold comfort for those of us still having to make due with the hand the universe dealt us in the meantime. (Bandcamp link)
Still Ruins – S/T
Release date: January 12th Record label: Smoking Room/Cercle Social Genre: Synthpop, sophisti-pop, new wave, New Romantic, post-punk Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: Perfect Blue
Still Ruins are an Oakland-based trio who’ve just released their self-titled debut EP, but the band have actually been around for a while now, forming as the duo of Frankie Soto and Jose Medina in 2018 and adding Cyrus VandenBerghe (of Welcome Strawberry) two years later. Although it may have taken a bit to get here, Still Ruins arrives fully-formed, with the trio nailing a sound straight out of the 1980s. These five songs find the band exploring polished, dreamy New Romantic pop music, confidently making their way through melodic, melancholic new wave and post-punk with the help of reverb-y guitar leads, synths, and vocals with an aching to match the instrumentals. Still Ruins recalls vintage dream pop, the more rock-based nascent version of the genre that still prioritized post-punk rhythm sections and strong songwriting instead of adhering to the vibe above all else.
“Silhouette” and “Perfect Blue”, the EP’s first two songs, introduce Still Ruins by showing off the band’s ability to create and present quite compelling pop music. “Silhouette” actually comes off as a bit understated and muted, even as the classic 80s-sounding synths and sweeping vocal melodies ensure that this song makes an impression. “Perfect Blue” is propulsive post-punk-pop, with the trio zipping through the track but not so fast that the core beauty of it gets lost. If you enjoy big 80s drum sounds, “Until Then” and “Of Devotion” lean on them to create the foundations of the dramatic center of Still Ruins, although the latter of the two in particular grows and expands to a busy-sounding piece of maximalist pop rock of which the drums are but one element. The reverb-y guitar flourishes that mark closing track “Left Against” help the track ensure that Still Ruins goes out on an upbeat note–and it also ensures that there are no duds on what ends up being a strong debut release. (Bandcamp link)
It’s the second week of January, and it’s time for the second Pressing Concerns of the new year! The first edition that entirely features music from 2024, today we’ve got new albums from Tristan Dolce, Lily Seabird, and Marking & Plating, plus an EP from Les Ailes, to look at. Monday’s blog post was the conclusion of my 1993 deep-dive; if you missed it, why not have some older music to go with today’s new music?
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.
Tristan Dolce – Medium True
Release date: January 12th Record label: I Love Camping! Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, indie pop, singer-songwriter Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Willow Springs
Tristan Dolce is a Los Angeles-based musician and recording engineer, having amassed technical credits on recent records from Califone, Psychic Temple, and Alex Dupree, among others. Other than a couple of singles in 2020, however, the eight-song Medium True cassette is his first solo release. It’s hardly a one-man effort–Dolce is backed by a full band, guitarist Max Knouse (a good singer-songwriter in his own right), drummer Christian Orozco, and bassist Anthony Beville, as well as nine other guest musicians and vocalists credited (including, presumably, several family members–Trevor Dolce contributes vibraphone, Anthony Dolce contributes guitar, and Megan Dolce vocals). Dolce reveals himself to be an engrossing and striking singer-songwriter on Medium True, using folk and country rock to dress his occasionally long-winded but overtly friendly pop songs. One hardly feels shortchanged by the eight-song-length of the album, and that has just as much to do with how Dolce and his band make every song feel like a self-contained world than the fact that a few songs stretch into the six-minute range.
The first Tristan Dolce song I heard was the album’s lead single, “Willow Springs”, an incredibly catchy piece of Death Cab for Cutie-ish breezy but substantial guitar pop. Dolce’s high, Ben Gibbard/John K. Samson-reminiscent vocals are a feature throughout Medium True, both holding together the record as a whole and allowing for Dolce to keep one foot in the world of pop hooks as the music wanders elsewhere in the record. The vivid storytelling in the lyrics of “Willow Springs” is more than matched by the rest of Medium True–the backing music isn’t as propulsive in opening track “Alaska”, but it makes sense for the uncertain, frozen-in-time energy with which Dolce chooses to begin the album. The variety throughout the record is also key in how memorable it is–Dolce chooses to keep “The Reservoir” and “Ring Ring” spare, almost entirely acoustic guitar-based, while letting his studio pop-side take over in “Digging Too Deep” and “Facts in the Case of M”, and both are effective backdrops for Dolce’s lyric-spinning. The twin six-minute songs that end Medium True mirror each other impressively to push the record a step further–“King of the Arroyo” is a rolling country-rocker that drifts off in its final minutes, while “I Went Up” is vintage big-tent, slow-burn indie rock that builds from its modest beginnings to a giant, horn-laden crescendo. I’d have to credit Dolce’s production work with how inviting Medium True feels on its surface, but the writing beyond that is what makes the record worth returning to. (Bandcamp link)
Lily Seabird – Alas,
Release date: January 12th Record label: Bud Tapes Genre: Country rock, folk rock, alt-country Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Grace
The latest singer-songwriter to throw their hat in the “folk rock/alt-country-influenced indie rock” ring is Lily Seabird, a Burlington, Vermont-based musician who put out her debut album, Beside Myself, back in 2021 and has returned with a strong follow-up this month with Alas,. Throughout Seabird’s sophomore album, I hear both moments of laid-back folk rock that should appeal to fans of Big Thief and stretches of explosive, wall-of-sound country rock that’ll be up the alley of Wednesday-heads, and while Alas, is out via Bud Tapes (Layperson, Jack Habegger’s Celebrity Telethon, Generifus) instead of 4AD or Dead Oceans, it sounds just as big as those “big ticket” indie rock records. Part of that must be attributed to the all-star cast with which Seabird has surrounded herself on the album, including longtime collaborator Greg Freeman, drummer Zack James (aka Dari Bay), and Noah Schneidman (aka Noah Kesey), as well as Benny Yurco’s production work. But it certainly doesn’t work without Seabird, who co-produced the album and offers up songs and performances that refuse to fade into the background like modern “indie folk” too frequently ends up doing.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Wednesday and Big Thief didn’t invent this strain of rootsy indie rock. It’s something that’s been in the air for a while–Lily Seabird is their peer, as are less-massive alt-country rockers whose music I also hear in Alas, like GracieHorse and Florry. Alas, is something of a gauntlet-throwing record in the genre, all things considered, a bold statement by someone making a case to be thought of as one of the most exciting and intriguing voices currently doing it. Alas, has one of the strongest opening duos of the year thus far–“Take It” is balance-beam country rock that is sold heavily by Seabird’s distressed but oddly in-control-sounding voice, while “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 agreeably chiming electric folk rock of “Twenty” follows gamely, and the stunning acoustic-based “Angel” also shows up in Alas,’s first half–with such a strong first side, the record flirts with being too frontloaded, but the less-immediate B-side of Alas, starts to come into focus as a vintage “grower” back half over time (not that “Cavity” isn’t imminently pretty folk rock, but Seabird and her band also take the opportunity to really explore on the six-minute “Waste”). Thus ends Alas, and the bar for good indie-country-rock has been raised yet again. (Bandcamp link)
Marking & Plating – Zéro Vague
Release date: January 9th Record label: Strange Mono Genre: No wave, experimental rock, lo-fi indie rock, noise rock, post-punk Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Space X Blow Up
A new band featuring a familiar face to Rosy Overdrive readers, Marking & Plating are a “Lo-Fi French No Wave” duo formed in Austin, Texas by Harold Whit Williams (longtime guitarist for Cotton Mather, and as of late a prolific lo-fi power pop artist in his own right as Daily Worker) and poet/translator Michael Perret. They became acquainted as library co-workers, discussions eventually leading to the creation of Zéro Vague, a bizarre and unique debut album recorded in Williams’ home studio and available on cassette via Philadelphia’s Strange Mono. On Zéro Vague, Marking & Plating take both rock and electronic music and shove them together to the point where it’s hard to tell the difference–guitars, drum machines, and synths are all funneled into a four-track and distorted to an eardrum-damaging level, and the songs’ droll, spoken-word French vocals do their best to make themselves heard over the cacophony. I hardly speak a word of French, but the song titles (here are three of them: “Space X Blow Up”, “Joe Rogan”, and “False Flag, TX”) give plenty of hints as to where Marking & Plating’s ammunition is aimed.
The rumbling “Space X Blow Up” opens up Zéro Vague with some ear-splitting, pressurized rock and roll, sounding like something akin to fractured surf-punk with some surprising lead guitar work making itself known in the second half of the song. The minimal synth-bounce of “Joe Rogan” is pretty far from rock music but still pretty damn catchy, although by “South of Hugo”, Williams and Perret have mostly dispensed with hooks in favor of noise. The post-punk crawl of “Drag Queen, TX” is some vintage Lone Star experimental rock that’s the only other song on Zéro Vague with prominent guitar–the rest of the record cycles between whirlwind drum-machine forward pop assaults (“Loner Star”, “Castroville”) and industrial noise collages that are only sort of grounded by the vocals (“Chez Joe Rogan”, “Spanish Dog”). The one song that doesn’t feel like an outright attack is the eerie closing track “Starbucks Gun”–all we get in this sub-two-minute outro is some words in French about Starbucks and creepy synths that roll in and out as the vocals become increasingly manipulated and edited. It’s maybe more disorienting than the in-the-red no wave drum machines. (Bandcamp link)
Les Ailes – How to Greet a Praying Mantis
Release date: January 12th Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie folk, singer-songwriter Formats: Digital Pull Track: Comedown
Les Ailes is Rylie DeGarmo, a Seattle-originating, Portland-based singer-songwriter who’s been recording music since at least 2015 (first as The Rue with her father Chris, a metal/alt-rock lifer who’s played with Jerry Cantrell and Queensrÿche among others), and has been putting out a steady stream of singles, EPs, and even one full-length (2021’s Tennessee) for the entirety of this decade. As Les Ailes, DeGarmo has synthesized her jazz background with hushed but full-sounding indie folk, a combination that’s on full display on How to Greet a Praying Mantis, her latest EP. DeGarmo went overseas to record the EP, making it at Analogue Catalogue Recording Studios in Northern Ireland with musicians Declan Legge and Brian McClintic and producer Julie McLarnon–together, the group put together an EP of five songs that don’t go out of their way to be particularly showy but are more than strong enough to shine in How to Greet a Praying Mantis’s bare presentation.
How to Greet a Praying Mantis is a slow-moving EP–there is minimal to no percussion on these tracks, and DeGarmo never sounds hurried as a frontperson. “I Am Bad” is not the most attention-grabbing song on the record, but as an opener it’s a strong tone-setter–it sounds like whoever’s playing the electric guitar is trying to make as little noise as possible while still playing full chords, and DeGarmo’s voice, jumping from transportive high notes to nearly spoken-word simplicity, is just about the only other noticeable aspect of the song. “Comedown” and “In Stride” are a bit more built-out, and these are the songs where Les Ailes’ vocal jazz-pop influences make themselves the clearest; the former is a timeless-sounding, emotional ballad, while the latter is a bit more probing but still engrossing. Not wanting to get too busy, How to Greet a Praying Mantis ends with its sparsest moment in “San Francisco”, with nothing but a simple percussive beat (which could be little more than somebody lightly banging on an acoustic guitar) and what sounds like DeGarmo harmonizing with herself closing the record. It’s all Les Ailes need to make something worthwhile. (Bandcamp link)
This is part two of an exercise I started last September in the Rosy Overdrive Discord and published the first half of in October. In said exercise, I listened to one new-to-me album a day from 1993 every day for a month and wrote a paragraph about it, and I was so enthused about what I discovered that I decided to extend it to a second month. After slowing down and eventually taking a break due to year-end list season cranking up, I started up this project again over the holidays and have wrapped it up in one easy-to-read blog post here for you, the readers.
I actually went a bit overboard this time; my goal was a second set of thirty albums, and there are thirty-six here. These are always really fun to do; hopefully you find something enjoyable contained herein!
Bandcamp embeds are included when available.
October 1st: Tindersticks – Tindersticks (This Way Up)
I need a stamp that says something to the effect of “there’s no way I can reasonably figure out how I feel about this one after just one day”. For one, I didn’t realize this thing was 77 minutes long when I started listening to it, so I wasn’t prepared for that. Secondly, Tindersticks are clearly a very interesting and multi-talented band, and there’s definitely good songwriting going on here, but this also isn’t the most….personality-driven album. So what I’m saying is I can’t really tell the songs from one another at this point. Not necessarily a bad thing; turns the album into an “experience”. There’s some dark post-punky stuff that feels out of place in ‘93, some orchestral stuff that…well, that’s kind of out of place here also. Maybe the best album ever—probably not, but anything’s possible.
October 2nd: Edsel – The Everlasting Belt Co. (Grass/Stained)
DC post-hardcore band. Sohrab from SAVAK, who I have always liked, co-founded this one. One listen to The Everlasting Belt Co, seemingly their most popular album, reveals why this one doesn’t have the following of a Repeater or For Your Own Special Sweetheart or even, like, Smart Went Crazy’s Con Art. The songs are unfriendly—hardly angry post-hardcore punk anthems, there are few catchy choruses or slogans to grab onto here. You can just hear the band turning away from you and towards their equipment in these 18 songs. It’s almost like Bedhead tried to make a Dischord album or something. This is another too long one, it’s an hour, yet there’s something about this one, too.
If this record had a cult following or a vocal indie celebrity booster or a gaudy PR-driven reissue campaign, its lack of immediacy would be spun into part of its appeal. It’s a “grower”, not for casual indie rock fans, etc. But it doesn’t, so it’s just another indie rock record with some interesting moments to spend a moment on before continuing to flip through the digital filing cabinet.
A piece of self-advice I hold onto when listening to new-to-me music, especially “lost” older stuff, is to try to imagine someone in my ear telling me that it’s the greatest album of all-time. That it was the work of geniuses, that you can hear its influence all over today’s music, that it topped whatever critics’ poll. Bands like Unwound, Sonic Youth, Stereolab—even, like, Prince and Radiohead to an extent—they hardly did anything for me personally at first. But I kept trying those records because people and organizations I trusted told me they were good, that they were indirectly responsible for a bunch of music I knew was good, again and again until I got something out of them. If I’d just listened to New Plastic Ideas or Kid A once and never again, I wouldn’t have thought of them in years.
If you’re a person who fancies themselves as someone who “likes” music, who therefore is interested in it beyond what’s served up to us by the institutions at the top, why wouldn’t you at least strive to approach every album with this same sense of dogged persistence? If you’re somebody who is not hypnotized or obsessed with the idea of an objective “indie canon” (or rock, or music canon) and understands that the approximation of this is just an ephemeral cloud of opinions developed by humans with their own biases, contexts, and, above all, personal preferences, why wouldn’t I ascribe the contours of somebody’s basement/garage-recorded album to the same sort of casual brilliance bestowed upon Alex G or Guided by Voices? Why wouldn’t I approach The Everlasting Belt Co. like it’s been treated the same way that Crooked Rain Crooked Rain has been by the critical world? You start to view things differently, let yourself see things according to someone else’s view.
So yeah. The Everlasting Belt Co. by Edsel. Decent album. It’s better than Loveless and OK Computer but not Mezcal Head by Swervedriver or Bunny Gets Paid by Red Red Meat. 6/10
October 3rd: Lois – Strumpet (K)
If Cub is the sunny end of Pacific Northwest indie pop, Lois hews towards the rainier side. A little less aggressive in their pop hooks, a little more melancholy—they’re somewhere on a spectrum between The Softies (for their quieter songs) and The Spinanes (for their louder ones). After back-to-back hourlong albums, Strumpet being under 30 is both a relief and also leaving me feeling a little slighted. It didn’t blow me away to be sure, although what’s here is pretty solid and I can see the appeal more after starting a second listen. A respectable entry into a subgenre of music that I like a lot.
October 4th: Bailter Space – Robot World (Flying Nun/Matador)
I really like Bailter Space’s next album, Wammo, but I’d never heard this one which seems to be the closest thing they have to a “consensus” album. Unsurprisingly it’s solid stuff from the New Zealanders—it’s got some of the prettier shoegaze sound that marked Wammo but still dealing in the noisier sound that marked their earlier work/pre-Bailter Space band the Gordons. My first impression is that it doesn’t match Wammo but it’s also more interesting than your typical shoegaze album; recommended if any of this sounds relevant to you.
October 5th: PJ Harvey – 4-Track Demos (Island)
I’m no Elvis Costello. Rid of Me is my favorite PJ Harvey album, and how it sounds is, to me, a big part of that. I’ve never felt the need to hear those sounds in a different context. That being said, 4-Track Demos is quite strong in its own right. Harvey is of course more than capable of making a great-sounding and great-feeling rock record on her own. I didn’t realize that almost half of this album is songs that never got released, which helps it be more of its own thing and less of a curiosity (even if the Rid of Me songs are on average quite superior, the exclusive tracks don’t sound out of place, and a few of them, like “M-Bike” and “Reeling”, rise to the occasion). Maybe not “essential” but if you know Harvey’s more renowned work you’ll enjoy this.
October 6th: Strawberry Story – Clamming for It (Vinyl Japan)
British indie pop band, a little twee but with a lo-fi punk-pop streak to them also. Discogs calls this a compilation but what that exactly means is unclear to me. I was kinda feeling burnt out on this kind of music until I got to “Caroline” about halfway through which shook me from this stupor hard. “Finally I’ve got a weakness that doesn’t take a toll on my smile,” what a beautiful chorus. Music is magic. Anyway, the rest of the album sounded great after that, so either it’s backloaded or I just needed an indie pop sleeper cell within me to be activated this morning to enjoy it. Most likely the latter.
October 9th: Seaweed – Four (Sub Pop)
Alright, we’re fully into the world of 90s punk right now. It’s kind of surprising to me that, with all the 90s revivalism/fetishism and the continuing popularity of these genres, that these 90s emo-punk-y bands don’t seem to get much present day love. Like, people know Jawbreaker, but outside of small circles Samiam, Knapsack, and Seaweed don’t get much shine (even accounting for the fact that I’d guess today’s emopoppunk and Seaweed’s emopoppunk are more a case of parallel thinking than direct influence). Anyway this is some perfectly fine post-Husker Du punk rock; the first song rules, there’s some other ones that stick out (“Oversight”, “Kid Candy”) but it all does kinda blend together for me.
October 10th: The Mad Scene – A Trip Thru Monsterland (Flying Nun)
Some of you might complain that I’m covering too many New Zealand albums in this exercise, and to this guy I just made up, I’ll say: Actually, The Mad Scene was the band that The Clean’s Hamish Kilgour played in with his then-wife Lisa Siegel while they lived in New York. That being said, it’s still a Flying Nun album and certainly sounds like one-Kilgour is exploring the more low-key side of The Clean’s hazy indie rock here, and when Siegel takes the lead, her vocal melodies feel more like the straightforward indie pop that the Dunedin bands were adjacent to but never quite a part of. There’s some overlap, sure, and also a pretty psychedelic mid-section. If it’s a minor Kilgour/Clean-related release, it’s also one that does everything you want from a Flying Nun album.
October 11th: Arcwelder – Pull (Touch & Go)
Known about Arcwelder for a long time as “one of those Touch & Go” bands; this is my first time really checking them out. My impression of their “thing” after hearing Pull is “too obscure to be remembered by the Pavement-worshippers, too poppy to have a cult following from the insufferables”. We’re in a sweet spot here that’s very much my thing. The Husker Du comps that this fellow Minneapolis band has gotten aren’t wrong, but they’re the noise rock/90s indie rock version of it to the Huskers’ hardcore punk. No amount of pounding rhythm section can turn “It’s a Wonderful Lie” into anything but power pop; the messy “Criminal” comes close to reinventing grunge. “You” kicks ass to close things. Not sure if it’s a front to back classic or anything but I’m pro-Arcwelder after this.
October 12th: Kowtow Popof – Songs from the Pointless Forest (Wampus)
Hey, wait, we’re still in 1993, right? We’re taking a break from basement indie rock and shoegaze textures today to instead hear the folk rock of one Kowtow Popof. Mr. Popof has put out a bunch of albums since his ‘93 debut, which sounds like a folkier Elvis Costello and also like a lot of the more laid-back side of 80s college rock. This is another one where it didn’t exactly blow me away but I would recommend checking it out if this sounds like your area. Maybe start with the second half, though; this one is weirdly backloaded and my six favorite songs are quite possibly the last six.
October 13th: Suede – s/t (Nude)
Alright, we’re in the Britpop now, folks. Here’s where I stand for those who don’t remember—Oasis are monkeys bashing out garbage on the typewriter who did make a couple of okay songs, Blur are consistently interesting and just as consistently tedious, I’m sympathetic to the “actually Pulp is the best of them” big-brain take but I end up feeling the same way I do about Blur about them. The race is wide open for Suede to take the lead here, and while I’m not sure the self-titled Suede album does that immediately, there are certainly a good deal of hits on here. The first couple of songs, “The Drowners”, “Metal Mickey”, “Animal Lover”—just great pop music, no baggage on them at all for me. Is the other half of the album chaff? Maybe not, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
October 16th: The Verlaines – Way Out Where (Slash/Liberation)
If I had to choose a single Flying Nun record as “the one”, The Verlaines’ Juvenilia comp would be on the shortlist, if not the actual choice. Despite this, I haven’t heard most of their proper albums (probably due to a combination of not being moved by their most recent album and their presence on streaming services being rather spotty). That being said, Way Out Where is sounding pretty good via first impression, even as The Verlaines, especially after their earliest material, are not exactly a “first impressions” band (at least as much as a pop band can’t be). It takes a couple songs for this one to get going but the midsection (starting with “Cathedrals Under the Sea”) is fantastic; they do this subtle but noticeable thing where they’re both chaotic-sounding and refined at the same time. This one’s rising up the rankings as we speak.
October 17th: Seefeel – Quique (Too Pure/Astralwerks)
We’re listening to some electronic ambient music this morning. I’m on a Seefeel diet—I see music, I feel it! Hahaha. Anyway—we’re way, way out of what I normally listen to with this, but I thought I’d give this a try because Seefeel makes this kind of music while also loosely coming at it from a rock band perspective. Maybe this could be the entry point for me. The verdict? Not really. Ambient electronic stuff will elude me yet another day. I do find some moments on this album interesting, to be sure, but, well—I get tired of them significantly before Seefeel do.
October 18th: Karl Hendricks Trio – Sings About Misery and Women (Fiasco/Peas Kor/Fire)
Surprisingly, I’m pretty certain I’ve never heard this one. I’ve heard a few Karl Hendricks albums (I think I only really discovered him after his death in 2017), but this one which seems like it might be his most popular one slipped by me. I think Hendricks’ work would conjure a “what’s the big deal?” for people who don’t really look at it the right way (the boilerplate indie-punk music, Hendricks’, ah, “unprofessional”-sounding vocals) but the man could write a song like few others when you really zero in on them. Needed a second listen to actually do this, but I can already put this one up with the ones I already liked (For a While It Was Funny, Declare Your Weapons). I’m half asleep but maybe Hendricks and Car Seat Headrest have similar appeals. Just gonna throw that out there.
October 19th: Harry Pussy – s/t (Siltbreeze)
There are a lot of bands in the world, but there’s only one named Harry Pussy. Siltbreeze experimental noise rock with emphasis on the noise. This was guitarist Bill Orcutt’s band before he reinvented himself as a solo artist. This one makes me regret doing these early in the morning, because I probably needed to play this one complaint-level loud to really “get” it. Anyway, this makes Royal Trux and Trumans Water sound like the Beach Boys. A lot of it was just straight-up unlistenable to me, frankly. Sometimes the cloud takes a more enjoyable shape to me of crazy but still, like, discernible noise rock.
October 23rd: Pond – s/t (Sub Pop)
This is the 90s Sub Pop Portland Oregon Pond, not the 2010s Aussie Tame Impala understudies Pond (no shade to them, they’re fine). No mainstream success + lack of narrative hook (unless you count 2/3 of the band being from Alaska) = a band mostly remembered by the Gen Xers who were there in real-time. Is this a lost grunge classic? You could call it that, sure, although its ragged, psych-strained sound is closer to, like Screaming Trees and Love Battery than any of the A-listers (although there’s also some Jimmy Chamberlain-level drumming going on here). As for the “classic” part—well, it’s growing on me, although there do seem to be a few filler tracks (ironically, the album closer, actually called “Filler”, is pretty good).
October 24th: The Auteurs – New Wave (Hut/Virgin/Caroline)
Hey, I actually really enjoyed this one! I swear, it’s always the British records I least expect that actually hold up to some semblance of hype. In a time of excess (even more so than usual) The Auteurs succeed by just sounding…normal. Or, rather, the dressing is straightforward enough to see just how weird the center is. “Show Girl” and “Bailed Out” are transfixing openers, really really interesting and attention-grabbing. Not everything on New Wave is quite that stark but there’s still plenty of enjoyable headscratchers here from “Starstruck” to “Housebreaker” to “Valet Parking”.
October 25th: Cypress Hill – Black Sunday (Columbia/Ruffhouse)
Okay, alright. Black Sunday is not as…uh….timeless-sounding as the Digable Planets album, to be sure. This is a Big Mainstream 90s rap album, and with it come more of the things that prevent me from fully getting into it. That said, this feels like a more me-friendly version of that kind of thing, from the distinct rapping of both of the emcees to the weird psych/bass-heavy instrumentals (is this the Latin rap influence? Not versed enough to say for sure). Also, bless them for keeping it under 45 minutes.
October 26th: Two Pound Planet – Songs from the Hydrogen Jukebox (Alternative)
I wish I remembered where I initially heard of this one; this is a pretty cool under-the-radar find. Two Pound Planet is a power pop/college rock group from North Carolina, this is their Mitch Easter-produced debut. A bunch of slightly jangly pop rock hits here, FFO the Strum & Thrum compilation and, like, Guadalcanal Diary. I’m not ready to declare it a Windbreakers’ Terminal-level lost southern rock masterpiece at this point, but…this should probably be more well-known than it is. Significant overlap between regular blog readers and people who’d dig this, I think.
October 30th: The Walkabouts – New West Motel (Sub Pop)
Discovered this band two years ago with 1996’s Devil’s Road, an album I thought was okay but whose opening track “The Light Will Stay On” won me over. Gothic, string-heavy alt-country stuff. It was enough for me to give one of their two different 1993 albums a shot. New West Motel isn’t any more consistent than the last Walkabouts album I tried—there are maybe more songs I enjoyed on this one, but there’s also definitely several that did nothing for me which, on an hour-plus record, really didn’t need to remain on the final version of this album. Will probably be skipping their other ‘93 record, the also-hourlong Satisfied Mind.
October 31st: Royal Trux – Cats and Dogs (Drag City)
Royal Trux albums I’d heard before: Accelerator, a grotesque funhouse mirror version of glam rock and Twin Infinitives, which is purely alien music. Cats and Dogs is the most “normal” one by default—Accelerator might be more catchy on average but this is the one that at the very least feels like it’s speaking the same language as bands like The Grifters, Polvo, Smog, and Pavement. That is to say it’s the most “Drag City”-sounding album I’ve heard from them. That’s a good place to be—that label has more than earned its distinguished status. Obviously I’m not that familiar with Royal Trux but of what I’ve heard from them I think it’s the best one.
[November and most of December: Extended break to make all the blog’s year-end lists and such]
December 25th: The Hang-Ups – He’s After Me (Clean)
Debut from Minneapolis college rockers. Associated with Soul Asylum, later recorded an album with Don Dixon and Mitch Easter—and does indeed sound like it. Jangle pop with an alt-rock backbone to it. The first song on here is a great single, they were probably just a little too late for it to get its proper due. What follows is a kinda weird album; the production’s a bit excessive throughout but these are good songs, if a bit meandering. A few more upbeat songs in the first half also might’ve helped their case but if you stick with it it’s pretty consistent with maybe a stronger back half overall.
December 26th: Mercy Rule – God Protects Fools (Caulfield)
Some indie rock that actually rocks from [checks notes] Lincoln, Nebraska. A bit post-grunge, a bit punk, a bit glam—this kind of reminds me of a scrappier version of fellow Great Plains rockers Chainsaw Kittens. Add to all that a compelling, attention-grabbing frontperson in Heidi Ore and one begins to wonder why this stuff didn’t take off at least across the underground circuit. If there’s a knock on it it’s that it’s a bit one-note, for me at least—taking this whole thing in at once is a lot—but it’s an admittedly pretty strong note. Bet they killed live.
December 27th: The Bevis Frond – It Just Is (Woronzow)
Time to check in on an old, reliable standby for Rosy Overdrive’s bread-and-butter music—Nick Salomon’s The Bevis Frond. There was always (at least) one Bevis Frond album a year during this time period, and It Just Is doesn’t seem to be one of the more beloved ones, but there’s plenty of good stuff on here. Salomon’s albums are long odysseys, but on this one he cuts down on the lengthy prog-psych and offers up eighteen tracks, only one of which crosses the six-minute mark. Plenty of blistering guitar solos and gritty rockers, but beautiful guitar pop all around (“Everyday Sunshine”, “Not for Now”, “Time – Share Heart”, and “Day One” would be candidates to pull for a “best of” playlist/compilation).
December 28th: Dirt Fishermen – Vena Cava (C/Z)
We’ve really been hopping all over the US with these last few—here we have Boise’s Dirt Fishermen, who were signed to C/Z and are proof there was more than just Built to Spill and Treepeople going on in Idaho indie rock at the time. Like the Mercy Rule album this is some punky 90s indie rock stuff, although this one isn’t quite as heavy—adept bass playing, some splattered melodic guitar lines, while the vocals sound more indebted to 80s post-punk/college rock. Not exactly Earth-shattering but solid stuff nonetheless and worth checking out if any of this sounds relevant to you; it got reissued back in 2020.
December 29th: The Shadow Ring – City Lights (Dry Leaf)
Veering hard into left field today with The Shadow Ring, a side project from The Dead C’s Graham Lambkin. Just by virtue of being “minimalist” and having (for the most part) rather traditional 2-4 minute song lengths, this album is more “accessible” than Lambkin’s main band, although we’re grading on a very steep curve here. It lands somewhere between Beefhearty deconstructed indie rock like US Maple and the more experimental side of post-punk—the majority of songs here have vocals, almost entirely of the gruff, spoken-word variety. I don’t always gel with this sort of thing but I found this one compelling overall—even the ten-minute racket of “Faithful Calls” (which sounds like if Tall Dwarfs didn’t know what pop music was for most of its length) I don’t find too tedious.
December 30th: Angel’in Heavy Syrup – II (Alchemy)
Well, well, well. If it isn’t our old friend, Japanese psychedelic rock. A lot of the psych music from Japan from around this time is of the incredibly noisy, wall-of sound assault variety; I chose this one in part because it seems a little bit on the “chiller” side. Compared to High Rise and the Boredoms, it is, although there are plenty of fiery electric guitar moments on II (it’s heavier than, like, Fishmans). The bulk of the album is the first three songs, which are a combined 26 minutes—an admittedly quite impressive journey (although it took me a second listen to get sucked in). After all that, their inexplicable decision to cover “I Got You Babe” fairly faithfully feels pretty inessential but at least it’s only three minutes of my time.
December 31st: Freakwater – Feels Like the Third Time (City Slang/Thrill Jockey)
Been circling around Freakwater for a while—obviously I love Janet Bean’s work in Eleventh Dream Day, and enjoyed the Freakons album (with, naturally, the Mekons) from 2022. I’m pretty sure this is the first album of theirs I’ve heard in full, and it’s…alright. It’s definitely a successful re-creation of traditional, bluegrass-y folk-country—honestly, at times, it feels a bit too devoted to authenticity and not enough towards fleshing out the songs beyond that. I like quite a bit of it, though— “Crazy Man” is a great song, “You Make Me” is a really interesting low-key track, and the duo sound great even on the songs that don’t really stick with me.
January 1st: Wimp Factor 14 – Ankle Deep (Harriet/Little Teddy)
I swear to God, this band only exists for me to confuse with Milky Wimpshake. A lot of wimpy music going on in the 90s. Anyway: I actually really enjoyed this one! It’s some classic 90s underground indie rock (Pittsburgh band, with connections to Tullycraft, Karl Hendricks Trio, and Vehicle Flips), “lo-fi” more by loose attitude and barebones band structure more than “sounding like shit” or anything like that. Hendricks’ earnest brand of indie rock is a good starting point for this, but it’s not as loud and more twee-indebted (although it’s not really straight-up indie pop). This stuff would decidedly Not have been called any variety of “emo” at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, the line feels fairly thin in places here.
January 2nd: The Bear Quartet – Cosy Den (A West Side Fabrication)
We all know that 1993 was a great time for American indie rock, with the underground ballooning and expanding all over the country. Here’s some evidence that it wasn’t confined to just the States, in the form of Sweden’s The Bear Quartet. They were a fairly prolific group (apparently this isn’t even the only full-length they put out in ‘93) I only just heard about, but Cosy Den is some excellent melodic 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 (note that “polished” Pavement didn’t really exist as of this time, suggesting that THAT band probably get too much credit for a sound that was all over the zeitgeist at the time, but that’s a different discussion). This might feel too smooth/sweet for some but I’m a power pop fan, I’ll eat dessert for breakfast.
January 3rd: Prisonshake – Roaring Third (Scat/1 + 2/Shake the Record Label)
A lot of the indie rock from this era has a defined sound and aesthetic apart from the rock music that came before it—this on the other hand is “indie rock” by necessity and nothing else. This is sleazy Midwest garage punk—not of the blistering Detroit variety; Prisonshake are pulling from hard rock, power pop, the Ramones etc here. I do feel the need to take a shower after some of these lines—questions of intent arise, but they’re deep into kayfabe here regardless. Lines like “You know I hate the skinny girls with their pretty little feet / I let my dog have the bones, but a man likes meat” walk a very fine line; others obliterate it entirely (though “Irene” and “Quits” try to make it seem like a two-way street). Robert Griffin is fond of absurd, cataclysmic, empire-level metaphors (see “Carthage Burns”!) for his exploits. “Every word I say is true /This time it’s quits for me and you” Griffin sings in “Quits”—he’s lying, he knows he’s lying, and he expects you to know it, too.
January 4th: Pram – The Stars Are So Big the Earth Is So Small…Stay As You Are (Too Pure)
Pram is another band I’ve been meaning to listen to for a long time, and I’m glad I got around to it because I enjoyed this one a good deal. The closest reference point for this that’d make sense is Stereolab although that doesn’t really capture this—Pram are looser, less drone-y, less committed to analog synth worship. It sounds more human and less alien/robotic. Maybe the way they sound most like Stereolab is that they both sound like bands in spite of themselves. It’s kind of inverted post-rock; instead of using rock instruments to make non-rock music, it’s pop rock made with kitchen-sink instrumentals. Oh, and also there’s a random sixteen-minute song in here too, which, maybe it didn’t need to be doing all that but it doesn’t derail things either.
January 5th: The Lucksmiths – s/t (AKA First Tape) (Banana)
Now this is indie pop. This is twee. This is…a pretty solid debut release. There’s a lot to like here, definitely— “Weatherboard” is genuinely stunning, there’s plenty of very fun pop songs and lines that make me go “ah, that was a good one, The Lucksmiths” (sample line: “I’d like to throw the switch on the nuclear family” from “Remote Control”). It’s quite short (twenty-some minutes) and tempered with a couple of “joke” songs where we’re just waiting around to get to the punchline (which is a different thing than being clever or even funny—some songs, like “English Murder Mystery”, thread the needle better than others). I’m weak for this kind of music and it’s a pretty enjoyable take on it; should probably check out some of their later albums.
January 6th: Hammerbox – Numb (A&M)
We’re headed back to Seattle! Thanks to their city of origin, Hammerbox has been given the “grunge” tag which, based on Numb, feels fairly inaccurate. They at times share a “Pixies gone punk” attitude with Nirvana, otherwise I don’t see any similarities (actually, their love of blunt, one-word titles is also pretty era-reminiscent). This big, loud, catchy alt-rock—poppy and punky, not really “pop punk”. Combined with the full, commanding lead vocals I get a real Screaming Females vibe here, never a bad thing. Shockingly catchy and fresh-sounding; just about every song on this one could’ve been a single. Would recommend.
January 7th: Stick – Heavy Bag (Arista)
Some more Great Plains rock music, but this time we are in straight-up grunge territory. Lawrence, KS’s Stick are heavy and have got catchy riffs; they’re sort of doing an early Soundgarden thing with the punky, sludgy, meaty, smoky-guitar alt-rock. Before this sound got all mealy-mouthed and interchangeable big burly crying man. The members used to be in a band called Kill Whitey (judging by their Spotify photo they were at least a mixed-race group); not that I’ve conducted a deep analysis on Stick’s lyrics but I do hear a couple lines that might’ve been in the same vein of their old band’s sentiment. Really fun, great sounding rock music for the most part regardless, if a bit top-heavy.
January 8th: Th Faith Healers – Imaginary Friend (Too Pure)
This is an intriguing one to close with. Recognized the band name (it’s a memorable one, “Th” and all) but didn’t know a thing about them—English indie rock here. They covered CAN on their other album and their drummer played with Stereolab, which explains their drone-y kraut-y side but unlike those bands, Th Faith Healers do it in the guise of barebones 90s indie rock. It’s ramshackle electric guitars propelling these songs to their six and seven minute conclusions over the rhythm section, and vocals that are closer to indie punk than any kind of retro pop. Seems like a band that in the right context could and should get some attention in present times.
Welcome to the first Pressing Concerns of 2024! This is not the first blog post of the new year (the December 2023 playlist/round-up went up on Tuesday), but it’s the first one to (primarily) focus on music from the new year. In previous years, I’ve waited a couple weeks to re-start this column, but there was no reason to wait this time. Less than a week into 2024, we’ve already got three records to talk about (a new album from Yungatita and new EPs from Pile and Fire Man) plus one record that came out last week after Christmas that I didn’t want to leave behind in 2023 (a new album from Kingbird).
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.
Pile – Hot Air Balloon
Release date: January 5th Record label: Exploding in Sound Genre: Experimental rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Scaling Walls
Pile make music that can take a bit of time to wrap one’s head around. That’s part of why, if pressed to choose a favorite band of the 2010s, their name always pops into my head. When I first heard 2017’s A Hairshirt of Purpose, I didn’t get anything out of it–now it just might be my favorite record from them. Last year saw the release of the eighth Pile album and the first in four years, All Fiction–the trio of Rick Maguire, Kris Kuss, and Alex Molini had never sounded further from the band’s early kinetic post-hardcore days as they did there, but even as they’ve pushed the limits of a “Pile sound”, they still have a recognizable one. Coming less than a year after All Fiction, the five-song Hot Air Balloon EP is drawn from the same sessions that produced their last album, but it’s not a collection of outtakes from the LP so much as a second (similar but distinct) record made concurrently with it. The post-rock experimentation and atmospheric explorations that marked All Fiction are here too, but in miniature, condensing it into a concise, eighteen-minute package that might actually be a more impressive feat than the sprawling tendencies of Pile’s most recent full-length.
Hot Air Balloon kicks off with “Scaling Walls”, a song that’s both fairly unclassifiable and recognizably Pile–laser-precise drumming, 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. The middle of the EP is where the band let the music stray the most–“The Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon” is a compelling Pile ballad with some odd flourishes, and the synth-heavy “Only for a Reminder” is the most out-there moment on Hot Air Balloon (although the band do bring it back into more recognizable territory for its conclusion). The prowling, rhythmic “Exits Blocked” is maybe the most All Fiction-reminiscent track on the EP–it has the rock band instrumentation that should be more in line with Pile’s previous work, but it just feels slightly off–before the band offer up one final “Pile classic”-sounding song with “You Get to Decide”. Of course, there are more than a few surprising turns in that song, too–it wouldn’t be Pile if there weren’t. (Bandcamp link)
Fire Man – Territorial Conquest 2024
Release date: January 1st Record label: Self-released Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, metal Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Territorial Conquest 2024
Look, I didn’t want to start off 2024 this way, either. Unfortunately, Fire Man’s Caio Brentar is cursed with the gift of prophecy. When Brentar set out the create a record about “the anxiety, confusion, and hatred the fog of war instills in us all”, he’d been inspired by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine–only for an even deadlier colonialist conflict to take center stage in the leadup to the release of the band’s latest EP, Territorial Conquest 2024. The previous Fire Man record, last year’s Yerself Is Fire, impressed me with how the band (Brentar and drummer Kiyoshi Chinzei) balanced vintage post-hardcore and noise rock (inspired by the best of Touch and Go, SST, and Alternative Tentacles) with a bit of fun and even some catchiness. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Territorial Conquest 2024 is more serious and heavy-sounding–if you’ve ever wondered how the seedy-underbelly-reflecting noise rock underground of the 1980s would have approached the unique horrors of the 21st century (admittedly an oddly specific thing to wonder), Fire Man off up an approximation of it, and they pull absolutely zero punches while doing so.
There are plenty of palpable differences between the last Fire Man record and this one, although it can be distilled down to two key aspects–the heavy, assaulting storm that Brentar and Chinzei whip up with their instruments, one that crosses over into heavy metal territory at times, and Brentar’s vocals, which he contorts and pushes from its natural Alice Donut-ish timbre to growls, barks, hardcore yelps, and dramatic intonations. The opening torrent of the title track goes from fairly standard punk rock into something hotter to the touch, and “Great Power Conflict (I Am a Spy)” is a compelling marriage of Brentar’s unique lyrics (“How could any group of anyone get anything so wrong?” goes the chorus) with a more inflammatory noise-punk, one that can burn for six minutes without going out. The eight-minute “Hamburger Hill” is a tough listen, but one that is key to Territorial Conquest 2024 in how it links previous wars (in this case, Vietnam) with the not-so-different reality of 2024–and if you make it through it, you get rewarded with “World Peace Eventually”, a brief but earned piece of punk rock sloganeering that, even after everything Fire Man elucidate earlier on Territorial Conquest 2024, doesn’t let the EP end on a note of defeatism. (Bandcamp link)
Kingbird – Kingbird
Release date: December 27th Record label: Self-released Genre: Alt-country, folk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Only When the Sun Shines Through
I don’t have very much to go on with Kingbird, a mystery of a new band that showed up in my inbox recently. Their Bandcamp page says they’re from Brooklyn, and what appears to be a self-titled debut record was quietly uploaded there on December 27th, while the rest of the music world (other than Rosy Overdrive, of course) lay dormant for the holidays. Befitting of its pseudonymous, under-the-radar nature, Kingbird deals in frequently quiet-sounding folk and alt-country–although it doesn’t exactly have the lo-fi, creaky, derelict vibes possessed by similar haunted-seeming folk albums I’ve written about from Spencer Dobbs and Jason Allen Millard. Kingbird have more of a full-band sound on their first album (again, I don’t know if “Kingbird” is the name for a one-person project or an actual group); sometimes they’re playing straight-ahead folk music, but they flesh out their compositions with vocal harmonies, keyboards, and multiple guitar parts in a way that’s traditionally-informed but also reminiscent of delicate country rockers like Jeff Tweedy and Styrofoam Winos (or that band’s members’ various soloprojects).
The bouncy acoustic guitar-led “Little Rose” is a warm welcome to Kingbird, with piano accents and a harmony-laced chorus ensuring that we’ve got all we need to make ourselves comfortable. The unhurried “One Drink at a Time” and the hushed “Healed Already” are even more subtle, even as they both have plenty going on beyond its surface–and while “Orphans” doesn’t represent a major shift in the makeup of Kingbird’s music, they rearrange themselves just enough to signal a shift into something darker, almost “gothic country”, to match the song’s dour lyrics and vocals. Kingbird doesn’t strike me as a “dark” album as a whole, but rather a pensive one–songs like “Won’t Pass for Flowers” and “There Were Things That Needed Forgiven” reveal more complexity beyond their stark exteriors, and while “Hi Di Hos” ends the album with pin-drop quiet, they’re also not opposed to filling the empty space with compelling, swelling strings like they do in “Only When the Sun Shines Through”. Though it might be “simple” in some ways, Kingbird is a well-rounded and wide-ranging take on folk music. (Bandcamp link)
Yungatita – Shoelace & a Knot
Release date: January 3rd Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, pop rock, fuzz rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Armchair
Yungatita are a Los Angeles-based quintet that have amassed a bit of buzz ahead of the release of their debut album–they’re set to embark on an extensive tour with Rosy Overdrive favorites Cheekface later this year, and they’ve already had a song blow up (“7 Weeks & Three Days” from their 2020 debut EP). The band began in the 2010s as a solo project for keyboardist/vocalist Valentina Zapata, but has since rounded out to include guitarists Gil Simo and Ernie Gutierrez, bassist David Lopez, and drummer Christian Gurrola, reflected in Shoelace & a Knot, the first Yungatita full-length. Zapata’s songwriting is reminiscent of that found in bands like The Beths–they’re an ace creator of pop hooks, and indie rock is just the form in which they’ve chosen to deliver them. That being said, Yungatita are also pretty good at rocking on Shoelace & a Knot, a record that’s messy, energetic, noisy, and, above all, entertaining.
Shoelace & a Knot surprisingly chooses to introduces itself in a relatively low-key manner–the two-minute, synth-y “Poppy” is basically just an extended intro track, and while “Reckless” is attention-grabbing, the distorted, shoegaze-influenced instrumental doesn’t offer up some of the big choruses that show up later on the album. The bright slacker pop of “Other” and the nervous power pop of “Armchair” blow the record open not long after that, however, and then the middle of the album contains “Descenda” and “Pick at Your Face”, a pair of garage-y, noise-y indie rock anthems showing that Zapata is just as much at home as a thorny indie rock frontperson as they are helming catchy slacker pop. Shoelace & a Knot doesn’t really lose steam as it rolls to its conclusion–the chugging fuzz rock of “Whiplash” is one of the best songs on the record, and although “Pack It Up” feigns at a subdued conclusion, it rips into a piece of punk-y indie rock to send the record off on a characteristically ornery note–capping off a debut with plenty to offer. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to 2024! We’re kicking off the new year with the December 2023 playlist, one last good, long, hard look at everything the previous year had to offer in terms of music. There’s some stuff from December and November of last year in here, some music from earlier in 2023 that I came to later, and a few miscellaneous things.
Bory and Sleeping Bag have multiple songs on this playlist (Earth Libraries strong!).
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal, BNDCMPR. If you missed some of Rosy Overdrive’s late December posts (like, for example, our favorite reissues and compilations of 2023 or the results of the first annual Reader’s Poll), I highly recommend giving those a read. 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.
“Pour It on Lightly”, Half Catholic From Art in Heaven (2023, Mostly Annoyed)
Alright, here’s a “band to watch” for you. Half Catholic are a four-piece power pop group from Rockford, Illinois (I know, right) who put out their debut EP Art in Heaven last August, and they kick it off with a bang in the giant-sounding “Pour It on Lightly”. John Tallman is an instantly compelling frontperson, singing with a thrown-against-the-wall desperate energy that apparently can only be learned by being from a mid-sized Midwestern city (see Mike Adams in Bloomington, Graham Hunt in Madison, Local Drags in Springfield…). Tallman sounds both damaged and nebulous in the lyrics of “Pour It on Lightly”–what to make of someone who sings “the Tik-Tok Taliban closets of skeletons” and makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world?
“Everyone in Town”, The Brights From Oyster Rock! (2023, Meritorio/Stable)
The debut record from Sydney quintet The Brights is a late but strong entry in what has been a banner year for Australian indie pop. Oyster Rock! traffics in laid-back, wandering folk rock, although there’s plenty of classic jangly guitars on the record, too. Coming smack dab in the middle of the album, the swaggering power pop of “Everyone in Town” is Oyster Rock!’s one true no-holds-barred rocker, although its impossibly smooth alt-country-ish sound–splitting the difference between Lou Reed and early Wilco–isn’t a complete outlier among the rest of its tracks. Read more about Oyster Rock! here.
“Happy to Hide”, Pile of Love From Super Sometimes (2023)
For the third year in a row, Los Angeles’ Pile of Love have offered up a record of hooky alt-rock/power pop in the waning hours before the calendar flips. The four-song Super Sometimes EP might even be their strongest one yet–at the very least, its massive opening track, “Happy to Hide”, probably became my favorite Pile of Love song within hours of hearing it. The group continues to draw inspiration from Super- bands (-chunk, -drag, -crush) as well as Sugar and Matthew Sweet–the way the pop punk edge of the verses gives way to the earnest power pop in the chorus is a late entry for “best music moment of 2023”.
“Blackfeet Death Eyes”, Friends of Cesar Romero From Queen of All the Parliaments (2023, Doomed Babe)
South Dakota’s J. Waylon Porcupine has been reliably churning out hooky garage-power-pop for some time now, previously as part of The Reddmen and, for the past decade or so, as Friends of Cesar Romero. I’d recommend taking a deep breath before putting on his latest record, Queen of All the Parliaments–there aren’t many opportunities to catch a breath on it. A big part of that is due to its 40-second opening track–the Ramones-y first-wave pop punk of “Blackfeet Death Eyes” wastes absolutely zero time offering up loud, fast, and massive hooks. Read more about Queen of All the Parliaments here.
“The Recipe”, Gut Health From Singles ‘23 (2023, Marthouse)
Melbourne’s Gut Health might win the “did the most with the least amount of music” award for 2023. They followed up last year’s Electric Party Chrome Girl EP with three different perfect pieces of sharp, garage-y post-punk, and then put them all on a 7-inch that snuck onto my best compilations/reissues of the year list. “The Recipe” is the EP’s hard-charging opening track–it’s fun, danceable new-wave-punk-rock that sets the tone for what to expect throughout the rest of Singles ‘23, which ends all too soon thereafter.
“We Both Won”, Bory From Who’s a Good Boy (2023, Earth Worms/Earth Libraries)
Who’s a Good Boy reminds me of another great power pop/singer-songwriter record from this year, Rob I. Miller’s Companion Piece. Both deal with crumbling relationships with sharply-written pop hooks that manage to sound both depressing and bright all at once. Unlike “Our New Home” (appearing later in this playlist), “We Both Won” comes barreling out of the gate with its excellent melody and energy–it makes sense that this was the record’s lead single. Regardless of its veracity, “Don’t worry about me, because we both won,” is a particularly cutting sentiment for a breakup song. Read more about Who’s a Good Boy here.
“Emergency Contact”, Graham Hunt From Try Not to Laugh (2023, Smoking Room)
The late 90s “alt-pop”-laced version of power pop practiced by Madison’s Graham Hunt is in full bloom throughout mid-December’s Try Not to Laugh, a late entry into the catchiest album of the year sweepstakes. “Emergency Contact” is a brilliant lost-pop-hit single just about packed with hooks in every aspect, a deceptively-laid-back-pop-dagger hidden right in the middle of a record full of songs like this. You, Rosy Overdrive readers, voted this as the co-song of the year, and it’s impossible to listen to “Emergency Contact” without thinking “god damn, that’s a great choice”. Read more about Try Not to Laugh here.
“New Year’s Reprieve”, Bad Moves (2023, Don Giovanni)
When it’s all said and done, Bad Moves’ 2018 debut LP Tell No One is probably one of my favorite albums of the 2010s, and while 2020’s Untenable was a little less immediate, it’s still on the shortlist for the best record of that year. The Washington, D.C. power-pop-punk quartet has been pretty quiet as of late (aside from the two great singles that band member David Combs released as Dim Wizard last year), but “New Year’s Reprieve” is the first single from the third Bad Moves full-length, as of yet unnamed and due sometime in 2024. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an instant holiday classic–the song’s cheery, bouncy pop rock feels smoother than anything the band has done yet, but it’s perfect to counter some fairly dour lyrics. The band refer to it as a “pessimistic holiday song”, but really, it’s just a realistic and uncertain one. These are interesting feelings to explore, especially in the context of pop music and New Year’s, two arenas that reward and encourage certainty and strong pronouncements above all else.
“Higher Than Love”, Haint From RZRGRL (2023)
On her latest album as Haint, Atlanta’s Stone Irvin is nothing if not adventurous. Instrumentally, RZRGRL is (loosely) poppy but unpredictable industrial pop, and there’s plenty of high-concept, heady, and even dystopian lyrical concerns going on throughout the record. After traversing through quite a bit over thirty minutes or so, Haint offers up something of a reward towards the record’s end: the sweet “Higher Than Love”, which, out of nowhere, gives RZRGRL a perfect, earnest pop song in the penultimate track slot. Read more about RZRGRL here.
“2008”, Natural Sway From & the Squished Lilies (2023, Just Because)
Out of the way, out of the way, Columbus, Ohio indie rock lifers coming through. Natural Sway is closely associated with Delay, another Columbus band I wrote a bit about at the end of 2021–like that band, Natural Sway also quietly dropped a very good album as the year’s calendar ran out. Two-thirds of Delay feature on & the Squished Lilies–Ryan J. Eilbeck, who fronts Natural Sway, and Austin Eilbeck, who’s on the drums. There’s a bit more earnest, folk-ish rock here compared to Delay’s pop punk sound and (occasional) attitude, but when it comes together, as it does on “2008”, it’s the kind of stuff that’ll stop you in your tracks. Natural Sway absolutely soar through this one, Eilbeck giving it his all in the vocal take and getting plenty of help from the other Eilbeck and bassist Drew Cline in the chorus.
“It Was Easy”, Dowsing From No One Said This Would Be Easy (2023, Asian Man/Storm Chasers LTD)
Chicago quartet Dowsing are a fourth-wave emo cult favorite band (alongside Kittyhawk, with whom they share at least one member) who quietly released their fourth full-length near the end of 2023. No One Said This Would Be Easy is the first Dowsing record I’d listened to in full, and I was surprised at how smooth and catchy these songs are, with highlights like “It Was Easy” basically offering up the band in power pop form. Like a lot of this kind of music, Dowsing excellently balance the weariness of a band who’s been at it for a while now with the energy of a group who still know how to really sell a song.
“Gus (Cockatiel)”, Sleeping Bag From Pets 4: Obedience School Dropout (2023, Earth Libraries)
I first heard of Bloomington-originating, Seattle-based lo-fi rockers Sleeping Bag because they did a collaborative record with Rosy Overdrive favorite Rozwell Kid. Their latest album, Pets 4: Obedience School Dropout (featuring artwork by Rozwell Kid’s Jordan Hudkins), is going to appeal to people who like Rozwell Kid but think they 1) should be way more lo-fi, 2) should feature a lot more slide whistle, and 3) need to write songs exclusively about pets. The first two aspects of Pets 4 makes the eighteen-song album a bit hard for me to listen to in one sitting, but the best songs on the album, like “Gus (Cockatiel)”, rule. “I love my reflection / I look so handsome / Give me some affection / And I’ll give you back some”…brilliant stuff.
“Pour Un Instant”, Feeling Figures From Migration Magic (2023, K/Perennial)
Migration Magic is the debut full-length from Montreal/New Brunswick quartet Feeling Figures, and it’s the work of a band steeped in several decades’ worth of underground indie rock–and one that doesn’t see why rock and roll, controlled chaos, and pop all can’t go together in one neat package. On this album, you’ll get psych pop, garage punk, and “Pour Un Instant”, a giddy piece of straight-up French-language power pop right in the middle of the record. The louder moments of Migration Magic are reflected in the muscle hiding underneath the hooks on this one, giving “Pour Un Instant” an extra punch. Read more about Migration Magic here.
“Shy of a Nurse”, Dari Bay From Longest Day of the Year (2023, Dark Bay)
Longest Day of the Year came out in January 2023, which means that it stayed on my “I should check this out” pile for almost an entire year before I finally got to it. It got a little bit of year-end list attention, and that feels like a good call–yes, we’re in the 90s indie rock/alt-country/bedroom rock/folk arena here, there’s a ton of music like this out there, but Dari Bay (which is a guy from Brattleboro, Vermont named Zachary James) have the tunes to carry an entire album of this stuff. “Shy of a Nurse”, my favorite song from the album, is an excellent downcast guitar pop song, falling towards the more electric end of the Hovvdy/LVL UP/Peaer continuum. I won’t be waiting eleven months next time a Dari Bay full-length rolls around.
“I Don’t Wanna Make New Friends”, Little Oso From Happy Songs (2023)
Just a nice little song from a nice little band. Little Oso hail from Portland, Maine, and they’ve been around since at least 2018–Happy Songs is the quartet’s third EP, and it’s exactly the kind of sturdy, subtly impressive collection of reverb-y, poppy indie rock tunes that I’d write more about on this blog if I had infinite hours to do this. I’ll instead offer up the EP’s opening track, “I Don’t Wanna Make New Friends”, to all of you–the hook here is especially catchy, as the vocals from Jeannette Berman (who co-writes the band’s songs with guitarist Ricky Lorenzo) let the melody speak for itself over top of a spirited instrumental.
“Uncle Disney”, Patterson Hood From Killers and Stars (2004, New West)
Is “Uncle Disney”–the first song on Patterson Hood’s first solo album, Killers and Stars–just an amusing song about waking up the famed cartoonist from his cryogenic sleep and his subsequent wrath? The Pitchfork review of this album seems to think so, although there’s something about a few lines of the song that feel like they’ve got a double meaning to me. More than anything, it’s the way that Hood hangs on the refrain: “Someone will be held accounted / For forty years of decisions made” (it should be noted that Hood was born in 1964, which I believe is pretty relevant here). When I saw Hood live, he referred to it (presumably, to some degree, with tongue in cheek) as an “attempt at writing a children’s song”–where was “When they thaw out Uncle Disney” when I was a kid?
“Blue”, Dan Darrah & The Rain From Rivers Bridges Trains (2023, Sunday Drive)
Rivers Bridges Trains is Toronto singer-songwriter Dan Darrah’s first with his backing band, a talented five-piece dubbed The Rain. The Rain dress Darrah’s songs up in a blissful and wistful version of power pop, drawing on the more melancholic side of Teenage Fanclub in a way that tapers some of the album’s grander moments and bolsters some of its quieter ones. The guitar melodies throughout Rivers Bridges Trains are some of the most captivating I’ve heard this year, particularly felt on highlights like “Blue”, where the guitarwork is the central piece of the track. Read more about Rivers Bridges Trains here.
“All the Ghosts of Evening”, Misophone From A Floodplain Mind (2023, Another Record/Galaxy Train)
A Floodplain Mind is certainly a lot to take in at once–it’s a massive 120-minute, thirty-song double cassette/CD–but Misophone’s sense of pop songwriting makes it just about as “digestible” as something of this size can be. “All the Ghosts of Evening” is the first proper song (following an instrumental introduction track), and it ease us into the album with a pleasing mix of chamber pop, orchestral psych pop, and earnest folk rock. The band cites Elephant 6 as an influence, and “All the Ghosts of Evening” (like many of the album’s highlights) comes off as something like a more-put-together older sibling of that scene’s scattered psychedelia. Read more about A Floodplain Mind here.
“Daisy”, Silvis From White Pocket (2023)
This is just another really fun Midwest guitar pop song. “Daisy” is the standout track from White Pocket, a brief three-song dispatch from Columbus quartet Silvis, and while penning something like this isn’t exactly a ticket to the big time these days, it’s no less impressive of a hook-fest. It’s got an earnestness and a “whatever choices that will make this song the catchiest” approach that reminds me of Mike Adams at His Honest Weight’s Graphic Blandishment, and it’s got plenty of “Whoa-oh”s and melodic bass work to the point where it takes a while before one realizes just how difficult to parse the song’s chorus is (“Searching lucidity”, “The artist’s enemy”, and “My heart, my head, to be as one” are all phrases in it).
“Our New Home”, Bory From Who’s a Good Boy (2023, Earth Worms/Earth Libraries)
The Bory album has only continued to grow in my esteem in the weeks since its release (including a December album on a year-end list is always something of guesswork, but it’s looking more and more like my only mistake was having it too low). “Our New Home” is a bunch of the strengths of Who’s a Good Boy distilled into a single track–it starts off subtle, kind of chilly, but still quite melodic underneath its surface (with appropriately dour lyrics to match, though Brenden Ramirez’s delivery is hardly restrained by them). Then, the song just explodes in the chorus, a stunning anthem to disintegration and uneasiness. Read more about Who’s a Good Boy here.
“Crashing Waves”, Fastener From Fastener (2023, Anything Bagel)
Everyone knows mid-to-late December is a dead zone for new albums, but it’s hard to imagine a better time for Fastener’s self-titled debut album to introduce itself. The Olympia, Washington emo/punk/PNW lo-fi rock quartet features a couple of members of Pigeon Pit–singer/guitarist Jim Rhian (who co-founded and co-leads the band with Sam Costello) and bassist Josh Hoey (who comprises the rhythm section along with drummer Ian Francis). Fastener is messy, all-over-the-place emo-rock–my favorite song on the record, “Crashing Waves”, is a wobbly pop song that builds to the thundering conclusion of Rhian and Costello singing “Sorry mom, sorry dad” over top of each other. I hope nobody asks how their holidays were when they go back to work!
“Spoonful of Peanut Butter”, The Michael Character From Patti in the Dining Car (2023, Dollhouse Lightning)
I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of Boston’s The Michael Character before now. Patti in the Dining Car is apparently the project’s sixteenth album, and bandleader James Ikeda seems to be a pretty tireless musician across the northeastern U.S., trucking his Emperor X-ish “acoustic punk” straight into your “combination kitchen/laundry room”. “Spoonful of Peanut Butter” speedruns through a breathless diatribe and a careening full band arrangement (featuring Lonesome Joan’s Amanda Lozada on guitar, among others) in under two minutes. “I’ll eat a spoonful of peanut butter / So I have the energy to sit on the couch,” spills Ikeda in the song’s climax, sounding like he has enough energy to do significantly more than that.
“Hardcore Maps”, Axis: Sova From Blinded by Oblivion (2023, GOD?/Drag City)
On Axis: Sova’s fifth album and first in a half-decade, the Chicago trio cruise through loose psychedelic rock and vintage glam-inspired fare in a way that’s heavy, fun, and lively enough to never get stuck in neutral. After a relatively subdued opening number, “Hardcore Maps” is the subsequent payoff, a blistering behemoth of glam-garage sporting a riff worthy of labelmate Cory Hanson or Ty Segall, who produced the record and put it out on his GOD? imprint. Read more about Blinded by Oblivion here.
“Dumb Luck”, BAT BOY From Fun Machine (2023, Asian Man)
Fun Machine by Richmond’s Bat Boy is a big, fun, emotional Asian Man Records pop punk record done very well; it really could’ve been on my year-end list if I’d spent more time with it. When it was time to choose which songs went on this playlist, my favorite song from the album was “Dumb Luck”, a pick that holds up well to my ears now. It feels incredibly short but it’s almost three minutes long–it’s a very zippy track, to be sure–and that chorus (“It feels like summer ended, I’m not cold at all..”) is pure precision. Is there a half-time, dramatic bridge? You bet. Is there some showy melodic bass stuff going on throughout the track? Well, of course.
“Run, Run, Run”, McKinley Dixon From Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (2023, City Slang)
I was planning on checking out McKinley Dixon’s Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? even before you all voted it one of the best albums of 2023 in the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll. Dixon is a jazzy rapper from Virginia who’s slowly been gaining in popularity over the past couple of years–the brief Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? is too fun and busy to burden itself with being the breakout album, offering up excellent jazz-rap-pop songs like “Run, Run, Run” at a steady clip. Dixon balances the jaunty instrumental (pianos? horns? flute!?) with verses of a decidedly darker shade that give the song its name.
“Everyday Sunshine”, The Bevis Frond From It Just Is (1993, Woronzow/Fire)
It Just Is is perhaps not the most essential Bevis Frond record around, but, like just about any album from Nick Salomon’s project that I’ve heard, it’s got plenty of strong numbers, and none grabbed me more heavily than “Everyday Sunshine” did. It Just Is is one of Salomon’s more streamlined efforts, which turns out to be a good vehicle for delivering three-minute, all-hook power pop anthems like this one, which certainly doesn’t need any extra bells and whistles to succeed more than it already does.
“Tumbleweed”, Wish Kit From Guitars Take Flight (2023, Chillwavve)
Wish Kit started 2023 by contributing the excellent “Buhd” to the Rock Against Bush split EP and ended the year with Guitars Take Flight, my favorite record of theirs yet (and one of my 25 favorite EPs of 2023). The Denton power pop/alt-rockers offer up both high-energy pop punk and some more restrained moments on their latest release–my favorite song on Guitars Take Flight, “Tumbleweed”, splits the difference by featuring some airborne six-string but also giving the lyrics (“I’m a little bit tired, I’m a little bit sore…I’m in my later twenties, and I know how dumb this sounds”) space to breathe.
“The Grifter”, Flat Mary Road From Little Realities (2023, Whatever’s Clever)
The fourth album from Philadelphia quartet Flat Mary Road is familiar-sounding in a welcome way. Little Realities is one part folk rock and alt-country, another part jangly power pop–but there’s also an almost-psychedelic, Paisley Underground-like fullness to the album, and lead singer Steve Teare’s distinct vocals help the band land somewhere in the midst of Miracle Legion-like college rock as well. In the record’s second slot, the laid-back, relatively straightforward “The Grifter” feels like a vintage college rock radio hit. Read more about Little Realities here.
“Black Cloud”, The Make Three From You, Me & The Make Three (2023, Mint 400)
The Make Three is a collaboration between a few power pop lifers–bassist Peter Horvath plays in The Anderson Council and guitarist Jerry Lardieri in The Brixton Riot–and last year they teamed up with drummer Chris Ryan (who also played in The Anderson Council at one point) to record a rock-solid album as a trio. You, Me & The Make Three has a bit more bite to it than you’d expect from long-in-the-tooth power poppers–it sounds great, with a 90s rock edge that they attribute to mastering from Dan Coutant (who’s also mastered J. Robbins and Jawbox). “Black Cloud” is a tight rocker, with edges that don’t dampen its pop hooks in a very Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, or even major-label-era Dinosaur Jr. way.
“Time”, Almost Lovers From EP #2 (2023, Howlin Banana)
Who are Almost Lovers? I’m not entirely sure, but they appear to be from some combination of France and Belgium, and they’ve put out two EPs on French label Howlin Banana–the first one back in 2021, the second this December. The six songs of EP #2 are high-energy, garage-y, punk-y power pop done quite well–the entire first half of this EP was in the running to get put on this playlist–and opening track “Time” does an impeccable job of hooking us all right off the bat with a somewhat bratty-sounding yet impressive vocal performance and no-nonsense rock and roll from the rest of the band.
“Stars (Twilight Mix)”, Hydroplane From Selected Songs 1997-2003 (2023, World of Echo)
I’d been into the succinct guitar-based indie pop of The Cat’s Miaow for awhile now, but this year I began to fully appreciate the group that Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings, and Kerrie Bolton formed after that band’s dissolution in the mid-nineties. The Selected Songs 1997-2003 compilation makes a strong argument for the more experimental, ambient, and synth-based textures that Hydroplane would go on to explore, and the friendlier tracks like the faded retro pop ballad of “Stars (Twilight Mix)” are key to “getting” the band.
“Don’t Say Goodbye”, The Age of Colored Lizards From Diver (2023, Sotron)
Oslo’s The Age of Colored Lizards are a classic “prolific lo-fi jangle pop project”–the band is led by singer/guitarist Christian Dam, sometimes with a backing band, sometimes on his own, and they put out three full-length albums in 2023. Diver, the third of them, found Dam, Anders Bøe, and Håvard Berstad offering up deliberate, delicate pop songs of both the slower and distorted variety. One of the most upbeat moments on Diver is found in the record’s second slot–“Don’t Say Goodbye” is a sleepy but fuzzy piece of jangle pop with a hook that perhaps cements it as the album’s “hit”. Read more about Diver here.
“15 Minute City”, Hygiene From 15 Minute City (2023, Static Shock)
I am, regrettably, fluent enough in right-wing conspiracy theories to be aware that the “15 Minute City” has become a buzzword in their braindead circles as of late. I don’t want to get to into why conservatives believe that walkable cities are a Satanist, Stalinist plot–perhaps the correct response is to repurpose all that junk and make some great nervy, panic-y egg punk inhabiting the mindset, as it were. That’s what London’s Hygiene have done–this is a good punk band that I don’t think I’d heard of before, and we all know I love a good song about urban planning and transportation.
“Holly Garland”, Dot Dash From 16 Again (2023, Country Mile)
First seen on Rosy Overdrive around the release of last year’s Madman in the Rain, Washington D.C. jangly power pop/post-punk/new wave trio Dot Dash made their vinyl debut back in October with the 16 Again compilation. Pulling from seven previously-CD-only full-lengths, it’s “a ‘greatest hits’ album by a band with no hits” (per the band), but by Rosy Overdrive’s standards, there’s nothing but hits. “Holly Garland” is the only selection from 2016’s Searchlights to turn up on 16 Again, but the two-minute, melodic-bass-boosted track packs enough energy for several songs. Read more about 16 Again here.
“Black Snake”, Tali & The Arms From Tali & The Arms (2023, Marthouse)
Rosy Overdrive is notably a fan of snakes, but then again, I don’t live in Australia, so I can certainly understand how Tali & The Arms might come across the nervous metaphor at the center of “Black Snake” differently. Tali & The Arms is the new project of Melbourne’s Tali Harding-Hone, who’s also played in labelmates Dr. Sure’s Unusual Practice (they’re both on Marthouse, who also just put out an excellent EP from Gut Health). Harding-Hone’s vocals–dramatic but restrained when the song calls for it–ensure that Tali & The Arms doesn’t slot neatly into the “garage-y post punk” template of her other band, instead sounding like the work of a smoldering, unpredictable indie rock group.
“Slipping”, Ambulanz From II (2023, It’s Eleven)
Ambulanz open their second record with “Slipping”, which perhaps perfectly distills the Leipzig quartet down into two minutes. The song begins as your typical shouty egg-post-punk-garage workout, but then the synth lines begin to make themselves known quite early on, functioning in a new wave-y, hook-delivering way, fighting against the runaway six-string tide. The drums slip off beat in the chorus, but it doesn’t come off as an accident, but rather a clever way for the band to punctuate frontperson Felix Bodenstein’s lyrics (“Reality is slipping!” he barks in the chorus–I can’t make out every line, but he’s a compelling enough lead singer that I can get the gist). Read more about II here.
“Forgettable Guy”, The Terminal Buildings From Coming to Terms with The Terminal Buildings: Best Ones 2021-2023 (2023)
“Forgettable Guy” should’ve been on the November playlist, but I…forgot about it (“Never had to tone it down, I’m a forgettable guy / Just floating by”). Coming to Terms with The Terminal Buildings is certainly not a forgettable compilation, though, mind you–it’s fifteen songs and twenty-eight minutes of guitar pop of many, many stripes. The propulsive, swinging “Forgettable Guy” stands out among a bunch of other good songs–one of the Terminal Buildings’ biggest influences is Ovens/Tony Molina, and if you stick around past the two-minute mark on this one, you’ll be gifted with an unforgettable guitar solo reminiscent of Molina’s. Read more about Coming to Terms with The Terminal Buildings: Best Ones 2021-2023 here.
“Sparkle”, Labasheeda From Blueprints (2023, Drums & Wires/Presto Chango)
On Blueprints, Amsterdam’s Labasheeda make “for the love of the game” indie rock, with hints of noise rock, post-punk, and even a bit of post-rock, but without neatly slotting into any clearly defined subgenre. “Sparkle” is an immediate highlight in the album’s first half, transforming the band into high-flying, Archers of Loaf/Sebadoh-ish indie rock anthem writers with relative ease. The song has a firm foundation, and frontperson Saskia van der Giessen’s vocals prowl around said platform remarkably. Read more about Blueprint here.
“For the Home”, Guided by Voices From Nowhere to Go But Up (2023, GBV, Inc.)
I mean, it’s another classic Guided by Voices song. Like a lot of my favorite songs from the band’s recent output, “For the Home” was a single but it didn’t really click for me until I heard it as part of the full album. Nowhere to Go But Up is far from my favorite GBV album (of 2023, even), but Robert Pollard is always good for at least one song that’ll stop me in my tracks every now and again, and that’s what the swinging, bouncing “For the Home” is to me. It’s got a bit of that August by Cake-ish carnival energy, played with the sweeping rough-prog energy of Sweating the Plague and…well, of most of the rest of this album. Worth a listen, but then, aren’t they all.
“Mr. Reynolds (Cat)”, Sleeping Bag From Pets 4: Obedience School Dropout (2023, Earth Libraries)
I had to dip back into the Sleeping Bag album because there’s some really, really good animal-based lo-fi power pop on this one. “Mr. Reynolds (Cat)” is short and sweet ode to the titular feline (“a sophisticate who loves chasing flies”) that lasts barely a minute. However, that’s enough time for Sleeping Bag’s Dave Segedy to deliver the lines “I’m working on my doctorate in meowthropology / I hold a masters in, guess what, meowsic therapy” as well as “Here we are, dust of the stars / All we are are animals”. Huh.
“Laughing – Melt Banana Remix”, Coffin Prick From Energy Crisis (2023, Laughing Digital)
Coffin Prick is Ryan Weinstein, a Los Angeles-based musician who put out an all-over-the-map record called Laughing on Sophomore Lounge last June. Weinstein then chose to cap off his 2023 with the Energy Crisis EP, a four-song record that’s shorter than Laughing but no less unpredictable. It opens with a remix of the title track from his last record provided by Japanese noise rock group Melt Banana, and the result is a post-punk-y piece of indie rock sped up and punched up by the remixing band’s traditionally bonkers tempos and percussion. Weinstein is apparently planning a full-on remix album for 2024–as a preview, this remix of “Laughing” is pretty enticing.
“Six Falcon”, All Structures Align From Cut the Engines (2023, Wrong Speed)
There’s always a slow-crawling, Quarterstick/Touch & Go-indebted band that shows up towards the end of the year for me, I swear. All Structures Align are a British group that aren’t exactly a “playlist band”, but I just kept coming back to “Six Falcon”, the second track from their latest album, Cut the Engines. Apparently the members of the band have been making this kind of music for a long time–Tim and Adam Ineson played in a group called Nub that I hadn’t heard of back in the 90s, where they made Slint and Mogwai-inspired music. There’s a bit of the subtle end of Dischord Records in “Six Falcon”, too–it’s got an edge, but the song is too busy tiptoeing around itself to ever do any stabbing.
“Love Me Again This Summer”, The Woods From So Long Before Now (2023, Dot Matrix)
The Woods were an underground New York band from the 1980s who only ever released a single during their original time as a band (and also featured Linda Smith, who went on to have a notable solo career); a recent reissue campaign collects both that and some songs that were supposed to be on an album that never came together. “Love Me Again This Summer” is from the latter camp–it’s a hypnotic, nearly six-minute piece of folky psychedelia that’s similar to contemporaries like The Feelies (post-Crazy Rhythms) and The Trypes, although it feels more indebted to straight-up folk rock than those other bands’ more post-punk-laced material.
Rosy Overdrive has already chosen its favorite albums, EPs, and compilations/reissues of 2023, but we’re closing out our year-end list season by handing it over to you, the readers. We asked you about your favorite albums, songs, EP, and label of the year, and you certainly answered–we received 61 different ballots from November 27th to December 26th. You voted for 397 different albums, 356 different songs, 44 different EPs, and 29 different record labels. Some of these results surprised me, but the biggest takeaway from this poll isn’t shocking at all: Rosy Overdrive readers have great taste. Pat yourselves on the back.
Your top choices are revealed below; for more detailed and complete results, here’s a spreadsheet with everything that got at least one vote on it. For albums and songs, your top choice got ten points, second place got nine, et cetera; tiebreakers were broken via number of ballots something appeared on and number of first-place votes received.
Of course, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to turn these results into a playlist, so here’s one of every song that either A) appeared on multiple ballots and/or B) got a first-place vote (Spotify, Tidal).
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. To anyone who participated in this poll, or even if you didn’t, if you shared the blog or even just regularly read it this year: thank you very much. I’ll see you all in 2024!
Well, here we are. The final Pressing Concerns of 2023. We’re nearing the end of what’s been a banner week for the blog (featuring Rosy Overdrive’s Favorite Reissues and Compilations of 2023 on Tuesday, and a Pressing Concerns featuring Axis: Sova, Sugardeer, Cast of Thousands, and a Guided by Voices cover compilation on Wednesday), as well as what’s been a banner year for Pressing Concerns. Over the course of 103 blog posts, Pressing Concerns has covered exactly 400 albums and EPs this year. That’s more than one a day! Not bad for an unknown music blog. Anyway, here is post number 103, featuring records 397 through 400: new albums from Gumfairy and Witching Waves, and new EPs from Mystery Danse and Postal Blue. We’ve still got the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll to get to this week, but in terms of Pressing Concerns, we’ll see you in 2024!
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.
Mystery Danse – Fuck Fascism ‘23
Release date: December 13th Record label: Model City Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi punk Formats: Digital Pull Track: Seasons Change
One of my favorite EPs of 2023 was Everything Turned Out Alright by New Haven, Connecticut power-pop-punk group Dagwood. That record cranked out one giant alt-rock-tinged hook after another across its all-too-short dozen minutes, so I was intrigued to hear that Dagwood’s bassist, Tim Casey, has a new solo project which just put out its debut EP. With Mystery Danse, Casey (who also used to play in defunct Connecticut melodic punk band Hostage Calm) is clearly embracing something more lo-fi and casual than Dagwood’s spit-polished sound. “Many of the ‘solo project’ tropes apply,” Casey self-consciously acknowledges about Fuck Fascism ‘23–presumably, he’s referring to the kind of messy, off-the-cuff home-recorded feeling that’s prevalent throughout these five tracks. As different as it is from Everything Turned Out Alright, though, I can see the links between the two–Casey brings a big, all-in energy to this seemingly low-key EP, practically willing big choruses and a dramatic flair into existence throughout the record.
“Summer Falls” kicks off the EP with some disorienting, loud pop music–there’s an odd but palpable melody at the heart of the track, but Casey layers a loud, distorted rhythm section on top of it, and then puts some smoking guitar leads on top of that. “She Sings With the Choir” is similar to the first song on Fuck Fascism ‘23 but is somehow even further into overdrive–it’s a power pop track that’s bursting at the seams, with Casey pushing through the carnage falling from the rafters to croon the titular line for all its worth. “Seasons Change” is lo-fi acoustic “side project” pop at its finest. The somewhat fuzzed-out guitar-and-vocals take of the sub-two minute song is not really any functionally different than a demo–credit to Casey for recognizing that “Seasons Change” didn’t need anything more than that. The crunchy acoustic guitar also features prominently in Fuck Fascism ‘23’s closing track, “Jewett City Vampires”, although Casey breaks out the full-band arrangement for this one as well. Mystery Danse closes out their debut EP with a piece of dynamic noise pop, vacillating between all-out instrumentation and plainer acoustic passages before actually getting a big finish together. I’ve been listening to this EP a lot over the holidays. There’s definitely something to this Mystery Danse. (Bandcamp link)
Gumfairy – We Said Bye to Kitty
Release date: November 3rd Record label: Call Call Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Hi/Bye
Rosy Overdrive doesn’t take days off. Boston musician Christian Locke emailed me on Christmas Day about We Said Bye to Kitty, their debut release as Gumfairy, on Christmas Day–I threw it on, I started it again once the album had played through, and quickly came to the conclusion that I wanted to write about this one in Pressing Concerns before the year was out. On Gumfairy’s Bandcamp page, the record is referred to as a “personal album about [Locke’s] summer and winter after graduating high school”–given that it was recorded and written between 2021 and 2023, I’m to assume that Locke is fairly young, but they’ve got an excellent handle on making underground 90s indie rock on We Said Bye to Kitty–Modest Mouse is definitely the biggest influence on this album, but fellow Massachusettsans J. Mascis and Lou Barlow hover over these songs at times as well, plus more modern indie rock revivalists like Gnawing (and weirdly enough, I’m actually reminded of the rockier moments from the most recent Frog record on this one, too).
We Said Bye to Kitty is impressively fully-formed and developed for a debut release (ten songs, 37 minutes), and it’s got a sharp sense of both melody and dynamics that are good weapons to have in one’s arsenal when making at-times thorny-guitar-heavy indie rock. The subtle opener of “Action Figure” (which leans heavily on melodic but simple guitar lines) gives way to the explosive, Dinosaur Jr.-esque “Hi/Bye” one song later. Songs like “Umm Umm Umm” and the banjo-sporting “Go Kitty” are dead ringers for The Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse, although Locke tapers tracks like “Yesteryay” with a more 2010s-bedroom-rock sense of odd effects and suspended anonymity that help the record feel like more than just hero worship. And although We Said Bye to Kitty is far from the first such indie rock record to end with a bang, its is no less impressive of one–the pin-drop quiet “Who Let It Get So Cold?” rolls into the eight-minute, multi-movement all-out rock of “I’ll Be Alright” to cap off the album. It’s a very strong introduction to a new project, and I suspect we’ll hear more music that’s just as worthwhile from Gumfairy in the future. (Bandcamp link)
Witching Waves – Streams and Waterways
Release date: December 1st Record label: Specialist Subject Genre: Indie punk, alt-rock, post-punk, emo-rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Everytime
I’d vaguely recognized the band name “Witching Waves”, but I’d never really listened to them–which, after some further investigation, seems to have been an oversight on my part. The London trio have been around for a decade now, putting out albums on labels like HHBTM (My Favorite, The Garment District, The Primitives) and Specialist Subject (Long Neck, Martha, Supermilk). The latter of those two imprints is responsible for the release of Streams and Waterways, the band’s fourth full-length; on this one, founding members and band co-leaders Emma Wigham (drums) and Mark Jasper (guitar) are joined by new bassist Will Fitzpatrick (of Good Grief). Streams and Waterways is, at its core, a great power trio rock album–there’s a bit of punk, post-punk, 90s indie rock, and emo in the foundation of Witching Waves’ sound, but they’re not overly committed to the frequently suffocating orthodoxy of any of those genres, and the album resists easy categorization.
I’m struck by just how consistently hard-hitting Streams and Waterways is, particularly in its first half–“The Valley” is a fiery piece of punk-shaded alt-rock that ensures the record hits the ground running, and the chilly “Everytime” sports a thirty-second restrained intro before it gets right back into making captivating emo-y, rhythmic rock music. I think part of the reason why I hesitate to call Witching Waves a straight-up post-punk band is Wigham’s vocals–the instrumentals to “Choice You Make” and “Vessel” could easily pass as thought-up by the bands of the current revival of the genre, but Wigham’s melodic, dramatic contributions are pretty far from the droll monotone that’s currently in favor among their British peers. That being said, the Jasper-led “It’s a Shame” steers the record into new wave and almost Cure-ish territory to start to give the record some variety, and the band does relent and offer up a few relatively quiet songs (the acoustic “Open a Hole”, the restrained “Vision of You”) before closing things out with one last rocker in “Chemistry”. Brisk, efficient, and unimpeachable rock music from start to finish on this one. (Bandcamp link)
Postal Blue – Anxiety of Influence
Release date: December 7th Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, C86, post-punk, college rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Quiet Heart
Brazilian indie pop group Postal Blue has been around since the late 1990s, although they’ve only put out two full-lengths, 2004’s International Breeze and 2015’s Of Love & Other Affections. The band (which has become a solo project by bandleader Adriano do Couto after the initial four-piece lineup went on indefinite hiatus) had previously filled in the gap between records with EPs and singles, but they went away entirely for eight years after their last LP’s release, only resurfacing with last month’s “Chance Occurrence” single. Do Couto is planning on releasing more Postal Blue music in 2024, and he’s gotten an early jump on it with Anxiety of Influence, a five-song EP of covers that’s only available as a free download after signing up for the band’s mailing list (it’s a very 2000s-era move, but considering the current state of digital music and social media, it is, potentially, a pretty savvy one as well).
Looking at Anxiety of Influence’s tracklist, it’s abundantly clear that do Couto is paying homage to a bygone era of guitar pop music that is reflected in Postal Blue’s entire sound. The EP opens with “Brighter”, a song originally by vintage college rock group The Railway Children–do Couto begins the song with some hypnotizing synths before transitioning to a more traditional post-punk/new wave structure to communicate the earnestness at the heart of the track. Postal Blue’s version of “Quiet Heart” by The Go-Betweens (which is the only song available on streaming services as a sampling of the collection) is a balance of tuneful guitars, with steady power chords, pleasantly strummed acoustic chords, and jangly, rippling melodic leads all making up the track (plus some harmonica–why not?). Do Couto balances “wistful” and “upbeat” in a way reflecting many college rock “hits” of the past on Anxiety of Influence–his version of Wild Swans’ “Northern England” is all New Order-y propulsive new wave, while “Josef’s Gone” (originally by June Brides) sends the EP off with a big, stuffed finish, featuring prominent melodic bass, upfront percussion, and soaring violins. For fans of this strain of indie pop and rock music, checking out Anxiety of Influence is worth letting Postal Blue into your inbox. (Mailing list link)
Also notable (Stolen from Other People’s Year-End Lists Edition):
Even though it’s the final week of 2023, we’ve got a surprisingly full schedule on the blog this week. Yesterday, we unveiled Rosy Overdrive’s Favorite Reissues and Compilations of 2023, and today we get another Pressing Concerns, featuring a new album from Axis: Sova, new EPs from Sugardeer and Cast of Thousands, and a Guided by Voices cover compilation from Rusted Gear Records. And we’ve still got more to come this week! Stay tuned!
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.
Various – An Academy of Lies: A Guided by Voices Cover Compilation
Release date: December 22nd Record label: Rusted Gear Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, fuzz rock, garage rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Dust Devil
Eric Gaines is a Tampa-based singer-songwriter who’s released a good deal of music via his solo project, Nova Robotics Initiative–typically of the lo-fi indie rock variety, with hints of punk, emo, and folk in the mix. Like any good bedroom rocker, Gaines has started a record label to release his various projects, and he’s launching Rusted Gear Records with a Guided by Voices cover compilation. I’m of the opinion that there can never be too many Guided by Voices cover compilations in the world, and I’m happy to report that Nova Robotics Initiative and the seven other artists that Gaines recruited for An Academy of Lies are well-stocked with the most important ingredient in making these things work–an excited, all-in energy. The song selection is concentrated from the early-to-mid-90s “golden era” of Guided by Voices, although there are still a couple of surprising choices within this context–but whether they’re playing what are effectively indie rock standards or more off-the-beaten-path material, everyone sounds driven to do these songs justice.
As a nice bonus to regular Pressing Concerns readers, there are a few bands here who’ve shown up in this column before, and all three of them offer up highlights. Soft Screams, a tireless lo-fi power popper in their own right, crunches their way through a power-chord-led version of “Don’t Stop Now”, speeding up the song but keeping its core fragility intact. Post-punk-tinged college rock revivalists Patches are uniquely equipped to take on the bass-led “The Best of Jill Hives”–the original version is one of Robert Pollard’s finest moments as a vocalist, and Evan Seurkamp’s performance is able to hang with it. Iffin’s take on “Dust Devil” might be the most impressive thing on the whole compilation–Mira Tsarina extracts the song’s early-Pollard wistful melody with surgical focus and grafts it seamlessly onto a dramatic, sweeping, Koji Kondo-inspired instrumental. The new-to-me bands acquit themselves nicely here, as well–Tonsil Hockey don’t fuck with “Game of Pricks” too much, because why would you, but Total Vacation’s garage-y power pop version of “Jar of Cardinals” is an inspired revision (as is With Willows’ slow-moving, synth-y ballad version of “Awful Bliss”, maybe the one true “breather” on the album). I think we can close 2023 out by taking some valuable lessons from An Academy of Lies–namely, that Guided by Voices are a good band, and if you put together a cover compilation of their music, I’ll probably write about it, especially if you invite artists I already like to participate. (Bandcamp link)
Axis: Sova – Blinded by Oblivion
Release date: October 6th Record label: GOD?/Drag City Genre: Garage rock, glam rock, psychedelic rock Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: Hardcore Maps
Drag City has done a lot of good things over the years, but letting Ty Segall run his own imprint as a sub-label (GOD? Records) is probably one of their better recent moves. I’ve been a fan of one of GOD?’s most prominent bands (Flat Worms) for a while now, but the latest album from another of the label’s flagship acts has caught my attention as of late. Blinded by Oblivion is Axis: Sova’s fifth album, but its first in half a decade–whether they’re reintroducing themselves to you or you’re hopping aboard for the first time (like me), though, the Chicago garage rock trio sound as fresh as anything on their new Segall-produced LP. Rather than Flat Worms’ caustic post-punk, Axis: Sova (led by Brett Sova, backed by bassist Jeremy Freeze and drummer Josh Johannpeter) explore a different side of the Segall spectrum, cruising through loose psychedelic rock and vintage glam-inspired fare in a way that’s heavy, fun, and lively enough to never get stuck in neutral.
It becomes apparent early on in Blinded by Oblivion that Sova is both a sharp pop songwriter and that he has an ace rhythm section backing him–opening track “People” walks a fine line between being a song-length introduction and an interesting tune in its own right in large part to Sova’s melodies and the restrained but forceful instrumental behind him. “Hardcore Maps” is the subsequent payoff, a blistering behemoth of glam-garage sporting a riff worthy of another modern garage rock titan, Cory Hanson. A lot of Blinded by Oblivion works because the songs are, at their core, vintage 60s and 70s pop rock (dare I say power pop?), but punched up by Axis: Sova’s collective might. “Trend Sets” and “Plastic Pageant Show” are both incredibly catchy but also full-on, no-well-of-energy-left-untapped rockers, and even when the band gets more into heavy psychedelic rock in the record’s second half, it’s never completely at the expense of giving up melody. As long as Sova is at the head of the band, they’re going to have one foot in the world of pop music–but as long as Freeze and Johannpeter are behind him, Axis: Sova could end up anywhere from that starting point. (Bandcamp link)
Sugardeer – Good Names for Strays
Release date: November 17th Record label: Race to the Finish Genre: Piano rock, pop rock, singer-songwriter Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Papercup
Danny Kit Boyle is a Cleveland-based musician with a background in classical and orchestral music, but as of late they’ve been trying their hand at pop rock with their new project Sugardeer. Since 2021, Sugardeer have put out a couple of singles and a brief live recording, but Good Names for Strays is the project’s debut EP, and it’s a fairly substantial opening statement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a fairly musically busy record, although it’s also very much a “pop” one (one of Sugardeer’s first recordings was a Death Cab for Cutie cover, and while they don’t exactly sound like that band, they sit at a similar intersection of “pop music”, “indie rock”, and “emotional, not necessarily emo” music). Boyle’s instrument of choice is the piano, although that’s hardly the only one you’ll hear on Good Names for Strays (Boyle alone is credited with clarinet, synth, guitar, and bass, and drummer Ben Wolgamuth and violinist Micaela Murphy also contribute heavily to the EP).
Opener “Papercup” showcases Boyle’s sense of dynamics and song-building–they hold back in the song’s first half before allowing the track to blossom into a full-on orchestral, piano-led rock song about midway through its runtime. Boyle’s vocals are impressive throughout Good Names for Strays, although “Cherry Picker” (an emotional rocker with some choice guest guitar work from Jennifer Weathers) is perhaps their most standout moment as a frontperson. In addition to the in-song ups and downs, Good Names for Strays also rises and falls as a whole–the hushed piano-and-violin ballad “Creek 232” gives way to “Callie” and “The Tower, inverted”, two lengthy, intricate pieces of chamber pop that reach thrilling climaxes before trailing off into the quiet clarinet-led “Wishes” to close the record. One can tell that Good Names for Strays is a pop rock record made by someone coming at it from a different field, and that’s a good thing–the frequently personal writing throughout Sugardeer’s debut EP calls for a similarly human performance to match, without any sanded-down edges. (Bandcamp link)
Cast of Thousands – First Six Songs
Release date: October 17th Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, college rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: I Need
If Rosy Overdrive had been around in 2019, I assuredly would’ve been telling you all about Never See Snow, the third album from Austin trio Flesh Lights. The band had been hanging around the Austin scene for a while (Never See Snow came out on Austin Town Hall Records, the one before it on 12XU, and they started playing together in the late 2000s), but that album was the first I’d heard of them, and I was very taken with Flesh Lights’ high-energy, high-speed take on garage-y power pop. Unfortunately, Never See Snow also proved to be the final Flesh Lights album–they broke up the same year–and while I never completely forgot about them, the band faded somewhat from my memory. That is, until I found out about frontperson Maxwell Vandever’s new band, Cast of Thousands, a couple of months ago. The quartet has been playing a lot of shows locally (with Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Class, and Lewsberg, among others) and rolling out singles since late last year, culminating in October’s First Six Songs cassette EP.
On their debut record, Cast of Thousands proves to be no less of an effective power pop group than Flesh Lights were. Vandever is still quite adept at writing and delivering hooks, and while I would’ve accepted a carbon copy of Never See Snow no questions asked, Cast of Thousands are not just a recreation of the former trio. First Six Songs is less garage-y, and a bit more deliberate, polished, and refined–we’re still in upbeat and propulsive territory here, although decidedly closer to “later Replacements” than “early Replacements” this time around. The half-dozen songs on this cassette offer up timeless, just-a-bit-rootsy power pop (“Mari”, “Hard to Read”), jangly college rock (“New Band in Town”), and a couple of bold slowdowns (“Out in the Streets”, “Is It Really the End?”). One of the most striking moments on First Six Songs might also be the catchiest one–“I Need”, a chugging power chord anthem that surprisingly lasts for five and a half minutes without losing steam. It’s a well-rounded debut, and I’m curious to see where Cast of Thousands go from here. (Bandcamp link)
Today, we’re closing out Rosy Overdrive’s 2023 editorial lists with my favorite reissues and compilations from this year. As this list encompasses a fairly wide range of releases, it is unranked, unlike my Top Albums and Top EPs lists. This isn’t the end of all year-end lists on the site, however: the results of the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll will go up later this week. Plus, there’ll be one last Pressing Concerns before the New Year.
Here are links to stream this list on various services: Spotify, Tidal. To read about much more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thanks again for reading.
Beauty Pill – Blue Period
Release date: January 20th Record label: Ernest Jenning Record Co. Genre: Experimental indie rock, post-punk Formats: Vinyl, digital
In 2004, Beauty Pill put out The Unsustainable Lifestyle, the first full-length record from Chad Clark since the dissolution of his previous band, Smart Went Crazy. The Unsustainable Lifestyle retained many of the great qualities that marked Clark’s past work while at the same time establishing Beauty Pill as a separate and unique entity, although it’s taken the rest of the music world nearly twenty years to catch up. Blue Period compiles the first Beauty Pill album, 2003’s You Are Right to Be Afraid EP, and a few outtakes and demos to finally give the era of the band its due, and, while this music doesn’t exactly hold one’s hand, there’s a lot to love in here to those willing to give it proper attention. (Read more)
The Chills – Brave Words (Expanded)
Release date: October 13th Record label: Fire Genre: Dunedin sound, jangle pop, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
There’s been no shortage of interesting New Zealand reissues this year, from Bilderine’s Split Seconds to Gate’s The Numbers, but it’s hard to top The Chills. Despite their beloved status in their particular corner of indie rock, Martin Phillipps and crew’s first album, 1987’s Brave Words, has been long overdue for a remastered reissue–thankfully, their recent home of Fire Records has finally done so. The band would go on to make refined guitar pop masterpieces with Soft Bomb and Submarine Bells, but Brave Words is an album-length snapshot of early The Chills that’d previously only been widely available on compilations–almost perfect pop magicians, but still holding onto a Flying Nun-ish oddball, “zany” streak.
Drive-By Truckers – The Complete Dirty South
Release date: June 16th Record label: New West Genre: Southern rock, country rock, alt-country Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I’m inclined to give the slight edge to Southern Rock Opera, but the Drive-By Truckers could do no wrong during this time period, and this expanded reissue of 2004’s The Dirty South reflects this. When you have three singer-songwriters writing some of the best material of their respective careers, why not make a seventy-minute album, and why not re-release it as a ninety-minute one when you’ve got the cachet to do so? Patterson Hood’s “Puttin’ People on the Moon” is still a singular raw distillation of American hopelessness, Mike Cooley’s “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” is one of his best straight-up country rock anthems, and there’s a reason why “Danko / Manuel” and “Goddamn Lonely Love” are still revered in Jason Isbell’s catalog even after he’s had a historically fruitful solo career.
Dwaal Troupe – Lucky Dog
Release date: February 10th Record label: Ally Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, jangle pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
Chicago’s Kai Slater released the excellent lo-fi pop record Turtle Rock as Sharp Pins earlier this year, but another Slater-centric record that initially came out towards the tail end of 2021 deserves our collective attention as well. Dwaal Troupe (also featuring Charlie Johnston and Desi Kaercher, with the bulk of the songs written by Slater) is yet another side to Slater (who also makes noisy post-hardcore in Lifeguard), but one that has quite a bit in common with Sharp Pins’ tuneful but lo-fi 90s-style indie rock. Lucky Dog is a sprawling record that has more of a Flying Nun/Elephant 6 psychedelic tinge to it compared to Sharp Pins, but, unsurprisingly, just about any type of guitar pop skin sounds great on Slater’s songwriting.
Ex Pilots – Ex Pilots
Release date: January 20th Record label: Smoking Room Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, lo-fi indie rock Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Ethan Oliva has recently been an increasingly prevalent member of Pittsburgh’s Gaadge and has long been the frontperson of Barlow–that’s more than enough shoegaze-y, noise poppy indie rock involvement for most people, but Oliva has also been leading the band Ex Pilots (also featuring contributions from other Gaadge and Barlow members) for just as long as any of those other bands have been around. Ex Pilots’ self-titled debut record was released four years ago, and has now gotten a remastered release from Oakland’s Smoking Room Records. Ex Pilots slots right in comfortably to the rest of the Pittsburgh “scene”, with noisier, more shoegaze-invoking songs sitting alongside pretty pieces of reverb-dressed indie pop.
The Exploding Hearts – Guitar Romantic (Expanded)
Release date: May 26th Record label: Third Man Genre: Power pop, garage rock, punk rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
It’s got a reputation, and it more than deserves it. Along with Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, Portland’s The Exploding Hearts led the “punk-y” side of the 2000s indie power pop revival, with their 2003 debut Guitar Romantic standing as a more pure, substantial version of the garage rock revival playing out concurrently on a more major stage. Guitar Romantic is a completely timeless-sounding record–there are several indie labels today primarily focused on trying to capture this kind of sound (including the one this originally came out on, Dirtnap), and it’d fit right in on any of them. If you know anything about this band, you’re aware of their tragic end that resulted in Guitar Romantic becoming their sole full-length–time and time again, though, these songs have continued to ensure that The Exploding Hearts will be remembered for what they accomplished while they were still around.
Flotation Toy Warning – I Remember Trees / The Special Tape
Release date: March 21st Record label: Talitres Genre: Chamber pop, space pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
One of the great cult bands of the 21st century, London’s Flotation Toy Warning have been making sprawling, transfixing chamber pop at a sadly irregular pace for quite some time now–their debut, the underappreciated classic Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck, came out back in 2004, and their even-more-underappreciated follow-up The Machine That Made Us arrived in 2017. The Special Tape and I Remember Trees actually predate either, with the twin EPs first appearing in 2002, but the band already had their formula down on both of these records. The Special Tape is a little more fractured and friendly, I Remember Trees more of a singular post-rock pop odyssey, but they’re both memorable, generous, and sturdy pieces of music.
Grandaddy – Sumday Twunny
Release date: September 1st Record label: Dangerbird Genre: 90s indie rock, power pop, indie pop, art rock Formats: Vinyl, cassette (Sumday: The Cassette Demos only), digital
Like with the Drive-By Truckers album discussed above, Sumday might fall slightly below a more-ambitious record that preceded it (in this case, The Sophtware Slump), but this is, twenty years later, far from a settled question, as this reissue successfully argues. Everything great about Grandaddy–sonically, lyrically, thematically, aesthetically–is present on Sumday, and Jason Lytle has his best moments as a pop writer here, easily. Sumday Twunny also offers up forty-five minutes of outtakes and incidental music in Excess Baggage (a reminder that Grandaddy continue to have a wealth of great music aside from their proper LP tracks) and an intriguing collection of cassette demos.
Gut Health – Singles ‘23
Release date: November 24th Record label: Marthouse Genre: Post-punk, art punk, dance-punk, egg punk Formats: Vinyl, digital
Ah, let’s put a 7” single on here, why not. This probably could’ve fit on the EP list too, but I discovered it after that one went live, so we’re filing Gut Health’s Singles ‘23 under “compilation”. The Melbourne five-piece band burst onto the scene with last year’s Electric Party Chrome Girl, and they followed it up over the course of this year with three different perfect pieces of sharp, garage-y post-punk, all of which are collected on this record. The quintet certainly ascribe to the idea that post-punk can and should be incredibly fun and danceable–the new-wave-punk “Uh Oh” in particular exemplifies this brilliantly, but it (and, even more so, hard-charging opening track “The Recipe” and the bass showcase “Juvenile Retention”) also prove that they don’t have to give up their edge to get there.
The Human Hearts – Viable
Release date: October 20th Record label: Open Boat Genre: Indie pop, power pop, 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
Franklin Bruno is a songwriter who doesn’t always save the “hits” for the albums, be it with his 90s indie rock group Nothing Painted Blue, his solo material, or his new(ish) band The Human Hearts. The strength of Viable, a compilation which collects non-album Human Hearts material from 2011 to 2015, only confirms this. Viable is a bit all over the place, but Bruno’s songwriting feels instantly recognizable, whether he’s leading his band in “rockier” power pop or offering up smoother indie pop. For those unfamiliar with Bruno’s work, Viable is as good a place to start as any, and for those of us already on board, the gathering of some not-so-easy-to-find material on this record is a welcome development. (Read more)
Hydroplane – Selected Songs 1997-2003
Release date: September 1st Record label: World of Echo Genre: Indie pop, ambient pop, experimental pop, dream pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
The reissue campaign centered around Melbourne’s Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings, and Kerrie Bolton has continued into 2023. Last year saw Songs ’94-’98, a compilation from their first band, The Cat’s Miaow, appear on Rosy Overdrive’s Best Reissues list, while Hydroplane (the debut record from the band the three of them formed after The Cat’s Miaow’s drummer, Cameron Smith, moved out of country) was also re-pressed that year. While I’ve been more inclined to appreciate the laid-back but still succinct guitar-based indie pop of their previous band, Selected Songs 1997-2003 makes a strong argument for the more experimental, ambient, and synth-based textures that Hydroplane would go on to explore. The 70-minute compilation is a peaceful, tranquil listen of intermittent pop music–sometimes just as friendly as The Cat’s Miaow, sometimes probing but still linked by Bolton’s melodic vocals, and sometimes something else entirely.
Inu – Don’t Eat Food!
Release date: October 6th Record label: MESH-KEY Genre: Punk rock, post-punk, art punk Formats: Vinyl, digital
I’d never heard of Inu before encountering this reissue–apparently, Don’t Eat Food! is one of the most revered and acclaimed punk albums in Japan, but the Osaka band are little-known outside of their home country. Their sole album, Don’t Eat Food!, came out in 1981 and the band broke up almost immediately after, but thankfully this stands as a potent document to their time together all these years later. Don’t Eat Food! certainly has its fiery first-wave punk rock/garage punk moments, but it’s also a little more adventurous than a lot of landmark Western punk albums, with a lot of music that we’d call post-punk, art punk, or noise rock over here–no matter what, though, it’s done with a decidedly blunt punk rock energy.
Ivy – Apartment Life (25th Anniversary Edition)
Release date: March 3rd Record label: Bar/None Genre: Indie pop, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
Ivy emerged from New York in the mid-90s, a trio made up of Andy Chase, Adam Schlesinger, and Dominique Duran whose lineup stayed consistent until their final album in 2011. The three of them combined their love of 1980s jangle pop with 90s dreaminess and electronic influences to make some of the best indie pop music of their era. Apartment Life was the band’s sophomore record and, quite possibly, their best–the entire album is a winning mix of breezy French pop, synth-accented dream pop, and more traditionally guitar-based alt/indie rock, and while they’re a pretty different strain than Schlesinger’s other band, those looking for pop hooks of comparable quality to the best of Fountain of Wayne will not be disappointed by Apartment Life. (Read more)
Lync – These Are Not Fall Colors
Release date: October 20th Record label: Suicide Squeeze Genre: Post-hardcore, 90s indie rock, noise rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
The fertile Pacific Northwest indie rock scene was a perfect environment for creating one-album wonders like Olympia’s Lync, who released These Are Not Fall Colors on K Records as well as a handful of singles in their two years of activity in the early 90s. Their lone proper album has been given an overdue vinyl reissue by Suicide Squeeze after being out of print for over a decade, and it sounds about as fresh as you could imagine something like this could. It exists in the middle of an underground music crossroads–if you like Dischord Records’ agitated post-punk, the punky-post-hardcore of Drive Like Jehu, the still-congealing sound of “emo”, or sloppy early Built to Spill lo-fi pop, you can find something to enjoy on this one. (Read more)
R.E.M. – Up (25th Anniversary Edition)
Release date: November 10th Record label: Craft Genre: Art rock, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Up has to be up there with Monster as the most misunderstood, unfairly dismissed R.E.M. record–it’s always had its believers, but it’ll probably never be treated by the critical consensus the same way their IRS albums and Automatic for the People are. And yet, when I listen to Up, I hear one of the best albums of the late 90s pop moment–exploratory but without losing itself to trends, plenty of dark undercurrents but still friendly, rock-solid song after rock-solid song. Maybe Up is the sound of R.E.M. getting “lost” after losing drummer Bill Berry, but if you don’t try to take this as evidence of its flaws and instead view it as merely a condition of its creation, it sounds perfect.
The Replacements – Tim (Let It Bleed Edition)
Release date: November 3rd Record label: Rhino Genre: Punk rock, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I wasn’t going to consider this one because I kind of got burnt out on the Replacements retrospective/reissue/re-imagining industrial complex a while back, but I finally got around to listening to it, and there’s no way I could leave it off here. Tim is the stout middle section to one of rock music’s great three-album runs–its highs are maybe a little less showy than Let It Be or Pleased to Meet Me’s, but it just might be the most consistent of the three. I mean, what else is there to say–the original version of Tim sounded just fine to me, but, yes, the correction to its long-maligned production does uncover something to these songs that might’ve been lost. You know, “Little Mascara” is a brilliant song, we don’t talk about that one enough. And between “Left of the Dial”, “Here Comes a Regular”, and “Bastards of Young”–did I really say that its highs aren’t as high as the albums buffering it? How could that be?
Seablite – Grass Stains and Novocaine
Release date: November 3rd Record label: Dandy Boy Genre: Shoegaze, jangle pop, indie pop, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
San Francisco noise pop quartet Seablite released their second album Lemon Lights back in September, and, just two months later, their 2019 debut album Grass Stains and Novocaine saw a remastered vinyl reissue through Dandy Boy Records. If you liked the follow-up record, you’ll find plenty to enjoy on their first full-length, but Grass Stains and Novocaine has a more straightforward indie pop/power pop sound upon which the band have gone on to expand. With Lemon Lights indicating that Seablite has no intention of attempting to recreate their debut faithfully over and over again, it’s worth appreciating Grass Stains and Novocaine as a singular entry into what one hopes will grow to be a large discography. (Read more)
Release date: October 27th Record label: Merge Genre: 90s indie rock, pop punk, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Back in February (was it really only earlier this year?), drummer Jon Wurster stepped away from Superchunk after 31 years. Wurster also drums for the high-flying Bob Mould Band, the ever-prolific Mountain Goats, and appears on The Best Show with Tom Scharpling most weeks to do a telephone-based comedy skit–I had subconsciously viewed Superchunk as the least strenuous of his commitments. However, Misfits & Mistakes, the fourth non-album-tracks Superchunk compilation, shows just how active the North Carolina indie rock heroes have been in their “middle-aged” era. Since they returned from their hiatus in 2007, they’d put together two-and-a-half hours of outtakes, alternate versions, and covers in addition to the four full-lengths and a re-recording of 1994’s Foolish–Misfits & Mistakes, then, both wraps up the Wurster era of the band and argues that the post-hiatus era has been their strongest yet.
Bobby Sutliff – Only Ghosts Remains Plus
Release date: September 22nd Record label: Jem Genre: Jangle pop, college rock, power pop Formats: CD, digital
Bobby Sutliff will be remembered first and foremost for his work with The Windbreakers, the 1980s Jackson, Mississippi jangle pop/college rock group he co-led with Tim Lee (currently of Bark). The Windbreakers broke up in the early 90s, but both Lee and Sutliff continued to make solo material reflecting their songwriting talents–Sutliff’s solo debut, Only Ghosts Remain, actually came out in 1987, when The Windbreakers were still active. Sutliff passed away last year, but he left behind plenty of under-appreciated gems of guitar pop songs, including the eleven tracks that originally appeared on Only Ghosts Remain, and the extra eleven that appear on Only Ghosts Remain Plus, an expanded CD reissue of the record. In an unusual move, the “bonus” tracks are all selections from Sutliff’s other solo albums, both an acknowledgement that they were under-heard at the time of their releases and a reminder that he continued making sublime music decades into his career.
Two Inch Astronaut – Bad Brother (10th Anniversary Mix)
Release date: June 10th Record label: Lonely Ghost Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, post-punk Formats: Cassette, digital
Before he was conquering the world with Deady and Mister Goblin, Sam Goblin was the leader of a Maryland Dischord/post-hardcore/post-punk trio called Two Inch Astronaut. My position has long been that Two Inch Astronaut got better as they went along, with their final album, 2017’s Can You Please Not Help, being their masterpiece, but a tenth anniversary remix and remaster of 2013’s Bad Brother shines a light on one of their earliest releases. The band’s signature combination of melody and skewed, noisy indie rock was already quite potent on Bad Brother, and the remix work from K. Nkanza of Spring Silver (who has taken a Two Inch Astronaut-esque sound and done new and interesting things with it in their solo work) emphasizes the link between this album and the band’s later records (as well as Sam Goblin’s Mister Goblin material). True Maryland excellence all around, here.
Various Artists – 14
Release date: February 23rd Record label: Prefect Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
Prefect Records is a Northeast England-based label co-founded by Owen Williams of Joanna Gruesome and Mark Dobson of The Field Mice around 2019, and they have found themselves squarely in the center of the international guitar pop scene ever since. As the title implies, their 14 compilation features fourteen contributions from fourteen different jangle pop groups–Prefect Records alumni (EggS, The Telephone Numbers, The Natvral), like-minded groups, and plenty of bands with whom regular Rosy Overdrive readers will be familiar (Chime School, Massage, The Reds, Pinks & Purples). The bands with which I was less familiar–The Kitchenettes, Semi Trucks, Dressed Like Wolves–also take this moment to put a solid foot forward on 14. (Read more)
Various Artists – Bee Side Beats 2: For Gaza
Release date: October 19th Record label: Bee Side Cassettes Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, electronic, ambient, shoegaze, indie folk, hyperpop, R&B, post-rock, hip hop, punk, screamo, singer-songwriter… Formats: Digital
Bee Side Beats 2: For Gaza is a 106-song compilation (referencing the 106 years that have passed since the Balfour Declaration) assembled by Albany’s Bee Side Cassettes, only available via digital download and from which all the proceeds go towards The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. You should absolutely care about this underlying cause, but even if you don’t, you should still donate, because it contains a ton of great music. The meat of this compilation is the kind of music in which labels like Candlepin and Julia’s War (both of whom teamed up with Bee Side trade to source bands for the compilation) trade–lo-fi indie rock, bedroom pop-rock, folk rock, shoegaze, indie punk, and slowcore–and there’s shining examples of all of these genres here (although one can also find everything from screamo to J Dilla-esque instrumental hip hop to dub to ambient to video game music on For Gaza). (Read more)
Various Artists – Cool English Jumpsuit: A Tribute to Guided by Voices, Circa 20 Something 13 and 14 / Poor Substitutes: A Tribute to Ricked Wicky
Release date: March 27th / August 4th Record label: Silly Moo Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, post-punk, garage rock, noise rock, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
Last year, Bunnygrunt’s Matt Harnish put together Keep It in Motion, a covers compilation featuring songs selected from Guided by Voices’ three 2012 albums. Harnish has continued to mine this era of Robert Pollard and company this year by assembling Cool English Jumpsuit (covering Guided by Voices’ 2013 and 2014 output) and Poor Substitutes (which pulls from the three 2015 albums from Robert Pollard and Nick Mitchell’s short-lived group Ricked Wicky). Although the material is obscure, Cool English Jumpsuit is very user-friendly, with great-in-their-own-right acts like Strapping Fieldhands, Mythical Motors, Posmic, Joseph Airport, and Jonny Swift ripping through songs that deserve to be thought of among the best power pop, garage rock, and indie rock of the era. Poor Substitutes might be more “for the heads” (even I, an aficionado of this sort of thing, scarcely recognize any of the bands here), but for those open to such a thing, it’s also a very fun romp through an underrated era of the greatest rock songwriter of all-time.
Various Artists – STOP MVP: Artists From WV, VA & NC Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline
Release date: December 1st Record label: WarHen Genre: Folk, country rock, bluegrass, experimental, ambient, hip hop Formats: CD, digital
WarHen Records, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia, has curated an impressively stacked compilation in support of the effort to stop the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline from wreaking havoc across Appalachia. Over the course of two CDs, forty musicians from Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina offer up a wide variety of songs for a collection whose proceeds go to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund, specifically for “bail, legal defense and defendant support”. Those expecting to find traditional “Appalachian music” here will certainly not be disappointed–folk, bluegrass, and country feature heavily into this lineup, but this only scratches the surface of the diversity showcased on STOP MVP, a compilation full of artists who brought their best in service of a cause that merits it. (Read more)
In what I believe will be the penultimate Pressing Concerns of 2023, we look at two albums that are out this week from Lee Baggett and Haint, as well as two recent LPs from Friends of Cesar Romero and Lose a Leg. We’ll be back with the results of the reader’s poll, Favorite Reissues of 2023, and one more Pressing Concerns after Christmas!
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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll by Christmas!
Friends of Cesar Romero – Queen of All the Parliaments
Release date: December 13th Record label: Doomed Babe Series Genre: Power pop, pop punk, garage rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Blackfeet Death Eyes
Our latest entry in Pressing Concerns’ quest to cover every prolific power pop artist out there takes us to Rapid City, South Dakota. That’s the city where J. Waylon Porcupine moved after leaving the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in the mid-1990s, and where he co-founded garage rock group The Reddmen with Miyo One Arrow shortly thereafter. The Reddmen have been mostly inactive since the early 2010s, but Porcupine has since begun to occupy himself with his Friends of Cesar Romero project–on its Bandcamp page, one can find forty-something different records that have come out between 2011 and now, a pace that’s only increased in recent years. Porcupine has been favoring brief two-to-three-song EPs and singles as of late (see Temporary Anne, Gameboy America, and Spiral Eye Roll, among others, from this year alone), but Friends of Cesar Romero have decided to cap off their 2023 with their most substantial of the year. Queen of All the Parliaments bashes through fifteen four-track-recorded pieces of garage-y, punk-y power pop in about twenty minutes. Several of these songs don’t even last for sixty seconds, but that’s more than enough time for each of them to get their kicks and hooks in–there’s hardly a wasted moment here.
I’d recommend taking a deep breath before putting on Queen of All the Parliaments, as the opening one-two punch of “Blackfeet Death Eyes” and “A Better Who” doesn’t really offer any opportunities to catch a break. The Ramones-y first-wave pop punk of the former song and the snotty, messy vintage power pop of the latter are both nonstop hook fests, and the garage rock stomp of “Kicking the Eternal Flame” is only “tame” in comparison to what it immediately follows. There is a bit of variety on Queen of All the Parliaments after the initial barrage–“Psych Trials” indeed throws a bit of psychedelic noisiness into its garage rock, the mid-tempo “Bleach Tears” is some excellent Guided by Voices-core lo-fi pop rock, and “Tomorrow’s Weather Girl” is a forceful Friends of Cesar Romero take on Strum & Thrum jangle pop (of course, these are all interspersed with minute-long pop ragers like “Pantheon Restroom Riots” and “Jennifer Echoes”). If the hooks weren’t enough to remember him by, Porcupine delivers plenty of lyrics that’ll stick with me throughout the album, either by subverting traditional power pop fare (“Doomsday Hotties”, which is positively Cramps-ian in its prose) or ignoring it entirely (“Atheist Mantis”, which is a Robert Pollard title if I’ve ever heard one). Queen of All the Parliaments likely won’t be the last chance to hop aboard the Friends of Cesar Romero train, but it’s hard to imagine a more inviting one. (Bandcamp link)
Lee Baggett – Echo Me On
Release date: December 21st Record label: Perpetual Doom/Curly Cassettes Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: All Star Day
Although Echo Me On is only the third proper Lee Baggett solo album, the Philippines-born, West Coast-based singer-songwriter has been hovering around the Cosmic Americana/psychedelic folk/alt-country/whatever you like to call it world for two decades now. Perhaps you’ve heard his Lee Gull solo project, or his guitar work in long-running folk rock group Little Wings, or seen him be championed by musicians like Phil Elverum. Last year, Baggett put out Anyway, a sublime collection of relaxed, vintage, wisened folk music that I unfortunately didn’t have time to get to on this blog, but Baggett is back a year and three months later with Echo Me On, which matches his previous work in charm, in personality, and in unhurried, rambling songwriting. There’s no question that Baggett’s voice is the star of Echo Me On, but he’s got a wide cast of musicians and vocalists behind him throughout the record–the keyboards provided by Zeb Zaitz and Nick Aives, Amanda Lawrence’s violin, Emma Wood’s cello, and Cory Gray’s various arrangements are all key pieces of this record as well.
“Nature’s Vagabond” begins Echo Me On with some horns and piano, and also features some excellent upright bass from Anthony Zaitz–appropriate for the endlessness and transience evoked by the title, it feels like we’re dropping into the middle of something already in progress (but a program that is nevertheless welcoming to those of us streaming into the building late). Single “All Star Day” is throwback 60s folk rock at its best, albeit a version of it that’s been slowed down, stopping to view the scenery instead of racing to its conclusion. In “Zipper Ride”, the electric guitar becomes just another instrument in coloring Baggett’s molasses carnival rides, while “Simmer Down” and “Hideaway with Me” both build their timeless pop songwriting around jaunty piano playing. By the time we get to the keyboard-heavy southern rock grooves of penultimate track “Little Soggy”, Echo Me On feels like it could go on forever, but “Weeds & Flowers” is a “wrap-up song” if I’ve ever heard one. Baggett’s singing is even more deliberate here than elsewhere, the backup singers (both Zaitzes, Aives, Judy Butterfield & Anya Rome) helping to emphasize his lyrics. In the midst of chronicling various life cycles, Baggett offers up some advice: “Give off a good vibration / On this trail you’re traveling on”. This line resonates precisely because he’s spent an entire album practicing what he’s preaching. (Bandcamp link)
Haint – RZRGRL
Release date: December 21st Record label: Self-released Genre: Industrial pop, dance-pop, post-punk, synthpop, darkwave, experimental pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Higher Than Love
Stone Irvin, aka Haint, is an Atlanta-based musician who’s been at it since at least 2016–a self-titled Haint record showed up back in 2017, the Drain EP followed in 2019, and now RZRGRL, her second full-length, slides in under the wire in late December of 2023. Judging by RZRGRL, Haint is an adventurous project, in more ways than one. Instrumentally, I’d describe it loosely as “industrial pop”–it sounds streamlined but unpredictable, relatively guitar-forward but still falling under the larger “dance music” umbrella, and containing more than its fair share of catchy riffs and refrains. Conceptually, RZRGRL continues Irvin’s interest in high-concept, heady, even dystopian territory–the “garx” in “All the Garx” being short for “oligarx”, fascism hovering over the album when it isn’t being displayed in the open, and the “razor” of the title being invoked both for its ability to cut and the thin margin it represents (and although the tool’s hair-shearing purposes are never explicitly referenced, one could see its relevance in the idea of “New Flesh” around which the album circles).
RZRGRL begins in full force between its opening title track and “Been Dead”, two immediately-attention-grabbing songs. “RZRGRL” is an incredibly sharp structure of drum machines, synths, and big, bold guitars that’s just about as catchy as this kind of music gets, while “Been Dead” shoots for something eerier and darker despite using the same ingredients, and its warning-tone chorus might actually trump the previous song’s hooks. Irvin backs off the guitars a bit in the record’s midsection, although they’re seething under the surface of shrieking highlight “Laydown”, and “Balance Beam” needs its kitchen-sink electronic makeup to really convey its high-stakes uncertainty. Just when things start to think about spinning completely out of control, “New Flesh” throws some lost but fiery guitarplay into the mix, and then the sweet “Higher Than Love”, out of nowhere, gives RZRGRL a perfect pop song in the penultimate track slot. Instead of ending the record there, though, Haint closes things out with “All the Garx”, a jaunty piece of deconstructed industrial rock that crashes us back down to a harsher reality. Stone Irvin hardly sounds frightened about it at this point, though. (Bandcamp link)
Lose a Leg – Lose a Leg
Release date: November 24th Record label: Self-released Genre: Post-rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: The Tunnel
David Roy is a Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist who’s been making music since at least the beginning of the 21st century–he’s played in plenty of bands over the years, including Sputniks Down, Multiplies, Dananananaykroyd, Text Adventure, and Alarm Bells, and since 2020, he’s been putting out instrumental rock records as Lose a Leg. Roy considers Lose a Leg to be the project’s fourth album (he’s not counting a “rarities” compilation and five different “drone or noise or weird” records released under the name Balaclavichord during the same time period) in as many years, and it represents something of a “back to basics” moment for the musician. Although it’s remained guitar-based, Lose a Leg has explored orchestral post-rock over its first three records, peppering Roy’s compositions with strings and horns–with Lose a Leg, the project downsizes a bit. Inspired by revisiting and subsequently disposing of the tapes he made as a teenager, Roy decided to make an album using only electric guitar, bass, and drums, inspired by the 90s indie rock bands of his youth.
Lose a Leg, while certainly invoking some of the more exploratory rock music of the 1990s, doesn’t slot neatly into any particular subgenre–it’s too pretty to be Touch & Go-related, not ornate enough to hang with Mogwai or the other British practitioners, too guitar-based to be compared to either the Tortoise or Godspeed! You Black Emperor strains, and not consistently subdued enough to be fully “slowcore”. What it is is a very capable collection of guitar music–often tranquil but not “chill”, frequently finding melody but never vainly attempting to do so in the same way bands with vocalists do, flowing together effortlessly but also being just about as “song-based” as something like this can be. Just in the first half, the welcoming, shimmering “The Tunnel”, the lurching, rhythmic “Put Josh On”, and the expansive “The Irish Sea” all distinguish themselves from each other. Lose a Leg takes its time but remains strong up to the end with the bright but hefty “Crabtree” and plodding, downcast closing track “ttaped Over”–all told, the album is a fruitful visit to the beginning of David Roy’s musical journey. (Bandcamp link)
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