Rosy Overdrive

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023 (75-51)

Welcome to part two (of four) of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023! For any and all background info, see part one.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist with all albums (Spotify link) (Tidal link)

75. Helpful People – Brokenblossom Threats

Release date: August 27^thRecord label: Tall Texan/Burundi Cloud
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

As if Glenn Donaldson didn’t have enough going on with the near-continuous stream of new music he’s releasing as The Reds, Pinks & Purples, he’s teamed up with Carly Putnam of The Ollies and The Mantles to form Helpful People. Brokenblossom Threats is a seamless, smooth collaboration–Putnam sings lead vocals throughout the album but she and Donaldson split music and lyric writing, and I hear a lot of the fuzzy side of The Reds, Pinks & Purples’ guitar pop all over these twelve songs. (Read more)

74. Florry – The Holey Bible

Release date: August 4^thRecord label: Dear Life
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Philadelphia’s Francie Medosch has been making music as Florry since at least 2018, but the third full-length from the alt-country group is the work of a massive seven-piece lineup. Medosch is still the songwriter on The Holey Bible, but the rest of the band’s performance on her songs is impressive and essential–balanced throughout, equally likely to lean into their rock and roll instincts as their earnest country side. It takes craftsmanship to make a record that feels as laid-back and loose as The Holey Bible does. (Read more)

73. Tee Vee Repairmann – What’s on TV?

Release date: February 4^thRecord label: Total Punk
Genre: Garage punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

The debut full-length from Sydney’s Tee Vee Repairmann follows a couple of EPs over the past two years, and their take on Australian garage rock-y power pop is quite compelling on What’s on TV? The group cut through a dozen songs in 24 minutes, although tracks like “Out of Order”, “Time 2 Kill”, and “Bus Stop” don’t need any more than their 1-2 minutes to make their marks. What’s on TV? is an energetic and occasionally less-than-polished album, but Tee Vee Repairmann are a pop group at their core, and the entirety of the record reflects this.

72. Worriers – Trust Your Gut

Release date: September 15^thRecord label: Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Genre: Power pop, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The second Worriers album of 2023 steps back from the low-key, bedroom-pop-ish aura of Warm Blanket to return Lauren Denitzio and their collaborators (including members of The Hold Steady and Against Me!) back into the world of sharp indie-pop-punk from which they originated. Denitzio’s songwriting has always been the main draw of Worriers, rather than the clothes in which their songs are dressed, and Trust Your Gut is a reminder that their lyrics can resonate and echo just as effectively in a “polished” pop context as in “intimate” bedroom rock. (Read more)

71. Lonesome Joan – On North Pond

Release date: October 23^rdRecord label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

On North Pond is explicitly a concept album about the North Pond Hermit, a recluse who lived in the titular area of Maine with virtually no direct human contact for 27 years until 2013. Lonesome Joan’s Amanda Lozada clearly found something resonant in this figure, channeling it into a quietly impressive collection of folk rock with a depth that reveals itself to me more and more on repeat listens. For a mostly self-recorded folk album, On North Pond is pleasingly dynamic–frequently hushed and intimate, yes, but also rousing and rocking in more places than one would expect. (Read more)

70. Royal Ottawa – Carcosa

Release date: October 17^thRecord label: Self-released
Genre: College rock, folk rock, psychedelic rock, Paisley Underground
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Royal Ottawa are an elusive Canadian band whose members have been sporadically releasing and playing music since the 1980s (originally as the early punk/post-punk band Bugs Harvey Oswald). For a band that’s existed under the radar for so long, Royal Ottawa are pretty good at selling themselves–they describe Carcosa as “sand-blasted through time to create a sonic experience that is at once familiar and hauntingly alien”. Listening to the album, it’s clear that Royal Ottawa have been playing the long game, following a unique, winding path to arrive here in the form of a nineteen-song, eighty-minute behemoth of desert rock, folk music, and psychedelia. (Read more)

69. Slaughter Beach, Dog – Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling

Release date: September 22^ndRecord label: Lame-O
Genre: Singer-songwriter, alt-country, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling, the fifth Slaughter Beach, Dog album, is a laid-back folk rock record that finds bandleader Jake Ewald completely in his element. It’s an album made by someone who’s always had a knack for songwriting–he’s cultivated a folk-indebted, earnest, and distinctly hand-drawn style over several Slaughter Beach, Dog releases–but who’s continued to grow and become more comfortable and trusting in his work (and in his band, who, having been given more room to explore than in past Slaughter Beach records, more than do these songs justice). (Read more)

68. Lydia Loveless – Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again

Release date: September 22^ndRecord label: Bloodshot
Genre: Country rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Lydia Loveless is back at the rebooted Bloodshot Records for Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again, and with it comes more of a return to the country rock from which Loveless had stepped away with 2020’s Daughter’s more “atmospheric indie rock” sound. Songs like “Runaway” and “Feel” suggest that it’s not an entirely clean break (nor should it be; Daughter was very good), although it’s always invigorating to hear Loveless rip through material like “Poor Boy” and “Toothache”, or wander their way through the heady but catchy maze of “Sex and Money”.

67. Aux Caroling – Hydrogen Bonds

Release date: October 27^thRecord label: Half a Person
Genre: Singer-songwriter, folk rock
Formats: CD, digital

Hydrogen Bonds is a reluctant indie pop record made by North Carolina’s Scott Deaver, finally seeing the light of day after resting in a Dropbox folder for several years. The first (non-holiday-themed) album from his project Aux Caroling is a collection of songs preoccupied with the passing of time and what that means for its narrators, albeit in a subtle and gradually-revealing way. Deaver and collaborator Mike Albanese give these thirteen songs a polished indie rock sheen, but they don’t get in the way of the compelling songwriting that helps Hydrogen Bonds stand out in a crowded field. (Read more)

66. Sparklehorse – Bird Machine

Release date: November 3^rdRecord label: Anti-
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, psych pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I did not expect to be listening to an entire new Sparklehorse album in 2023, but Bird Machine is here, and it’s full of delicately beautiful songs that remind us all just how impossibly gifted the late Mark Linkous was at all of this. These fourteen songs are notably less fussed-over than the four previous Sparklehorse records–supposedly Linkous intended to make a record this way, though one wonders if he would’ve continued tinkering with Bird Machine had he not passed away a year after its recording. Regardless, I’m grateful for this album, which contains several instant Sparklehorse classics and a few songs that ask for a bit more time and leeway before fully revealing themselves.

65. The Smashing Times – This Sporting Life

Release date: November 3^rdRecord label: K/Perennial
Genre: Jangle pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

This Sporting Life, the fourth Smashing Times album since 2019, might be the most fully-realized that the Baltimore quintet have sounded yet. It’s their most pop-forward offering, even as they haven’t abandoned the exploratory streak that made them stick out in the first place. The Smashing Times’ music is a warped wonderland where vintage jangle pop and folk rock take strange and unknowable twists and turns all over–there’s unsurprisingly a lot to get lost in on This Sporting Life, but there are also several memorable signposts in the form of sneakily brilliant pop songs. (Read more)

64. En Attendant Ana – Principia

Release date: February 24^thRecord label: Trouble in Mind
Genre: Jangle pop, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

En Attendant Ana eagerly slide pop song after pop song out toward the listener on Principia, the French band’s third album. Margaux Bouchaudon remains the band’s primary singer and songwriter, but the whole band give Principia its sound–the rhythm section keeps one foot of the record firmly rooted in post-punk, while the vocals, trumpets, saxophones, and shimmering guitars help push Principia into dreamy indie pop territory. En Attendant Ana are operating at a high level on Principia–it feels like the work of a band who we can expect to be a reliable source of good indie rock for a long time. (Read more)

63. Dusk – Glass Pastures

Release date: October 20^thRecord label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Country rock, alt-country, roots rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Glass Pastures is the first proper Dusk album in a half-decade, although it finds the Appleton, Wisconsin sextet in just as rare a form as they were on 2018’s Dusk. It’s a timeless-sounding collection of vintage pop music in the form of enjoyable country rock and roll, and there’s also a somewhat surprising depth to songs like the rambling “At the Roadside” that feels like a new facet of Dusk. On the whole, Glass Pasture’s vibes are immaculate, just begging to be played with the windows down in the summer–but it’s certainly sturdy enough to be enjoyed in all weather and terrain.

62. Flat Worms – Witness Marks

Release date: September 22^ndRecord label: GOD?/Drag City
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Los Angeles’ Flat Worms have always been one of my favorite modern bands who loiter at the corner in between post-punk and garage rock. Stuff like the Into the Iris EP and Antarctica take a no-nonsense, song-first, “workmanlike” approach to the genre, and on their first record in three years, they haven’t lost a step. Even for a band that excels at making music like this, Witness Marks particularly has a “back in the saddle” feeling, even more focused on rolling through sharp garage rock as a single, in-lockstep unit. Frontperson Will Ivy’s writing is heavier than ever this time around, and Flat Worms don’t soften their blows as they take his material on. (Read more)

61. Noah Roth – Florida

Release date: October 6^thRecord label: Rocket to Heaven
Genre: Singer-songwriter, folk
Formats: Digital

The third Noah Roth solo album in a year and change is a departure for the Chicago/Philadelphia singer-songwriter. After the studio-friendly folk rock of Breakfast of Champions and the noisy experiments of Don’t Forget to Remember, Florida is almost entirely drawn from Roth’s vocals and an acoustic guitar, recorded alone over a couple of days during a stay in the titular state. Roth remains an ornate pop songwriter, and the skeletal nature of the record does nothing to dampen the musical personality they’ve honed in on as of late. (Read more)

60. Screaming Females – Desire Pathway

Release date: February 17^thRecord label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Alt-rock, punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Five years after the last Screaming Females record (2018’s All at Once), the immediately-hitting Desire Pathway makes it feel like they were never gone. The trio sound as tight and laser-focused as ever on the new one–it’s a little surprising that they’ve returned with something this concise compared to All at Once’s sprawl, but Screaming Females sound so alive while playing songs like “Desert Train”, “Mourning Dove”, and “Ornament” that it’s clear that they’re exactly where they should be on Desire Pathway.

59. The Cowboys – Sultan of Squat

Release date: August 25^thRecord label: Feel It
Genre: Power pop, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

On their sixth album and first in three years, Bloomington, Indiana’s The Cowboys dive further into polished, gleaming power pop over thirteen songs of rock-and-roll rave-ups and dramatic cascades of hooks. Sultan of Squat’s opening title track and “Raining Sour Grapes” are some of the best pop moments of the year, bar none, and The Cowboys keep things full steam ahead with an exuberance and energy that reflects their garage rock roots, even as they sound as refined as ever. (Read more)

58. Frog – Grog

Release date: November 17^thRecord label: Audio Antihero
Genre: Experimental pop, folk rock, psychedelic rock, freak folk, prog-pop
Formats: Digital

The fifth album from Frog, the Queens duo of brothers Danny & Steve Bateman, is a pleasingly divergent record. Nearly every song on Grog takes a different tack than the track coming before it, even as the Batemans hold it together with shaky but intact pop hooks and Dan’s timeless-sounding, surprisingly versatile voice. Listening to Grog kind of feels like an alternate-universe oldies station in how it picks and chooses sounds from throughout the past to create a new listening experience. (Read more)

57. Guided by Voices – Welshpool Frillies

Release date: July 21^stRecord label: GBV, Inc.
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, 90s indie rock, power pop, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The current lineup of Guided by Voices has developed a reputation for slow-burners, for intricate prog-indebted records that take a few listens to soak in (the three or records before this one really seemed to cement this). In contrast, Welshpool Frillies, the group’s varied and limber second album of 2023, feels like the most immediate they’ve allowed themselves to be in at least a dozen records, rolling out vintage post-punk-pop Robert Pollard hits like “Why Won’t You Kiss Me” and even allowing some lo-fi acoustic highlights to sneak in with “Mother Mirth” and “Chain Dance”.

56. Greg Mendez – Greg Mendez

Release date: May 5^thRecord label: Forged Artifacts/Devil Town Tapes
Genre: Indie folk, slowcore
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

Greg Mendez is, loosely, an indie folk record with some classical pop touches and some moments (like the organ-and-vocals “Sweetie”) that sound a little Jeff Mangum-influenced–but mainly, the album sounds like whatever Greg Mendez thinks serves the songs best. It’s subtle, quiet, and not openly concerned with being immediately liked, but it’s undeniably captivating. Mendez’s blunt assessments of thorny and complex interpersonal situations are where his songwriting shines–there are a lot of good songs about sad subject matter, but Greg Mendez is a truly masterful example of spinning ugliness into prettiness. (Read more)

55. Hammer No More the Fingers – Silver Zebra

Release date: October 20^thRecord label: Trinity House/Defend Vinyl
Genre: Math rock, power pop, prog-pop, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

A great new-to-me discovery in the waning hours of 2023, North Carolina’s Hammer No More the Fingers have returned after a decade of inactivity with the all-hits, no-filler 22-minute Silver Zebra. J. Robbins recorded this, and the trio certainly trend towards the hooky end of Dischord Records (and of modern Dischord-influenced bands like Mister Goblin, through whom I found this band), although they’re also just straight-up prog-pop “XTC-core” on songs like “Afterlife”. Immediate, hard-hitting, interesting, and exploratory guitar music.

54. Parister – Here’s What You Wonder

Release date: May 11^thRecord label: Candlepin
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, alt-country
Formats: Cassette, digital

The humble presentation of Here’s What You Wonder’s songs, in addition to Parister’s not-infrequent use of 90s indie rock distortion, helps them fit in with other bands on their label, Candlepin Records. There’s an obvious twang in the playing of the Louisville band and in the songwriting of guitarist/vocalist Jake Tapley that also puts them in the realm of modern fuzz-country (“country-gaze”, perhaps) groups. Here’s What You Wonder is a generous album, with its thirteen songs all feeling full and complete, unfolding with Tapley’s unassuming but steady vocals guiding them, and the band play as polished or as loud as any one track requires. (Read more)

53. Subsonic Eye – All Around You

Release date: September 13^thRecord label: Topshelf
Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, fuzz pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

On their third full-length record, Singapore’s Subsonic Eye pick up where 2021’s underrated Nature of Things left off–it’s an album of wide-eyed, big-sky indie rock marked by lead singer Nur Wahidah’s compelling, expressive vocals and hooks that work well with All Around You’s grandiose ambitions. All Around You feels fuller and bigger than its 29 minutes, with the band packing a lot into a lot of these songs’ relatively brief runtimes. As Subsonic Eye probe guitar-driven dream pop, amp-cranked fuzz-pop, and sparkling heartland rock, Wahidah holds them together, always ensuring the band’s personality shines through. (Read more)

52. The Pretty Flowers – A Company Sleeve

Release date: July 14^thRecord label: Double Helix
Genre: Power pop, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Although it took a half-decade for the second full-length album from Los Angeles’ The Pretty Flowers to finally materialize, A Company Sleeve is more than worth this wait–it’s a very strong collection of earnest guitar rock that incorporates bits of slacker rock, jangle pop, college rock, power pop, pop punk, and heartland rock, all led charismatically by frontperson Noah Green’s clear, everyman vocals. The whole record is stuffed with hits, with Green really tapping into a rich vein of later Replacements-indebted, big-chorus-featuring power-pop-punk again and again without wearing out their tools. (Read more)

51. Tough Age – Waiting Here

Release date: June 16^thRecord label: We Are Time/Bobo Integral
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

For a certain subset of guitar pop fans, you’re not going to find a more satisfying record in 2023 than the latest from Vancouver’s Tough Age. The trio tear through ten spirited tracks of Flying Nun-inspired indie rock music on Waiting Here, the band’s fifth album–frontman Jarrett Evan Samson is a gifted pop songwriter who captures a range of emotions with a relatively barebones setup, and rhythm section Lauren Smith and Jesse Locke enthusiastically give these songs a full-band energy that’s missing from a lot of modern Dunedin-inspired bands. (Read more)

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023 (100-76)

We’re finally here! Welcome to the fourth annual (and third annual ranked version of) Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of the Year. Today, albums 51 through 100 are being posted, and tomorrow (Wednesday, December 6th), the top 50 will be revealed. Wow! So much great music!

Thank you to anyone reading this list, anyone who has shared Rosy Overdrive with others, or anyone who even just makes it a part of their music life in some way. I am truly grateful. 2023 was the biggest year for the blog yet, and I am fully planning on bringing that energy with us into 2024 (plus, I’m aware that if I don’t keep Rosy Overdrive at 200% annual growth indefinitely, my shareholders will fire me and replace me with AI).

Here is a playlist featuring all of the records from this list that are available on streaming services: on Spotify, on Tidal. As with last year, separate lists for EPs and compilations/reissues will go up over the next couple of weeks. To read about 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. This year, we’re doing a Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll as well, so if you haven’t filled that out, get on it and be a part of all this, too! Okay, okay, let’s get to the important stuff!!

See also:
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

100. DJ Silky Smooth – I’m Glad for Life

Release date: March 27^thRecord label: Bee Side Cassettes
Genre: Indie pop, indie folk, experimental pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

DJ Silky Smooth (aka Jacob Schwartz) has been making music under the name since at least 2017, and his latest full-length record I’m Glad for Life is full of bright, shiny, guitar-based indie pop songs. Instead of just sticking to the more pure folk-y/baroque indie rock of bands like his labelmates Another Michael and Blue Ranger, however, Schwartz throws in some interesting electronic additions, the occasional vocal effect, and prominent drum machines. “Offbeat” touches aside, however, I’m Glad for Life is an indie pop record first and foremost. (Read more)

99. Living Dream – Living Dream

Release date: January 20^thRecord label: Long Gone Sound System
Genre: Psychedelia, jangle pop, dream pop, experimental rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

We’re reaching all the way back to January for this one, but it’s worth it. Living Dream are a four-piece group from Indianapolis whose self-titled debut record is an intriguing, fascinating album of lo-fi, hazy, but frequently accessible indie rock which also features a surprising amount of flute. Living Dream wanders around unpredictably, more often than not in the same song–charming, jangly electric guitars give way to psychedelic, flute-led passages, and then it’s back to indie rock all over again.

98. Upchuck – Bite the Hand That Feeds

Release date: October 13^thRecord label: Famous Class
Genre: Garage punk, noise rock, hardcore punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

I always appreciate a band that strikes while the iron is hot, and that’s exactly what Atlanta’s Upchuck have done on Bite the Hand That Feeds. Barely a year after Sense Yourself (one of my favorite albums of 2022), the garage punk quintet have returned with their Ty Segall-produced sophomore album. It doesn’t abandon what worked from their debut–hardcore punk ferocity balanced with plenty of undeniably “pop” moments–but it does find the band honing their skills and songs even further down into short, sweet daggers.

97. Six Flags Guy – And Nothing Did So What

Release date: July 14^thRecord label: 329
Genre: Post-rock, noise rock, 90s indie rock, post-hardcore, slowcore
Formats: Digital

Columbus, Ohio’s Six Flags Guy are a post-rock trio–specifically, they’re practitioners of the Slint-Unwound-Touch & Go-Quarterstick vein of the genre, the version with roots in post-hardcore and American 90s indie rock. The band find plenty of new and exciting ground in these old haunts; And Nothing Did So What’s eight songs prowl through smoky, dingy soundscapes unmoored from recognizable structure, with subtle vocals and guitar work both ready to launch into a frenzy of noise at any given moment. (Read more)

96. Bory – Who’s a Good Boy

Release date: December 8^th
Record label: Earth Libraries/Earth Worms
Genre: Fuzz rock, power pop
Formats: CD, digital

Bory is Brenden Ramirez, a Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s played with power pop ringers Diners and Mo Troper, the latter of whom produced Who’s a Good Boy. Although shades of Troper and Diners’ Blue Broderick can certainly be heard in the album’s songwriting, Ramirez develops a style distinct from either of them on the debut Bory full-length. Who’s a Good Boy is a comparatively cooler record–it’s a bit more muted, low-key, “slacker rock”-y in parts–which, in a way, makes the giant power pop choruses that Bory nonetheless offer up throughout the record hit even harder. (Read more)

95. The Reds, Pinks & Purples – The Town That Cursed Your Name

Release date: March 24^thRecord label: Slumberland/Tough Love
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The Town That Cursed Your Name offers up plenty of the hallmarks that the prolific Glenn Donaldson has established as leader of The Reds, Pinks & Purples–gently-strummed chord progressions, generous melodies, and a wistful, melancholic voice overseeing it all. That being said, Donaldson sounds a bit louder, more electric, and fuzzier than he has of late on this one–not that he needs a reason to turn the amps up a bit, but it feels appropriate for The Town That Cursed Your Name’s subject matter, which deals with the familiar plight of many fledgling bands and musicians. (Read more)

94. Podcasts – Podcasts

Release date: August 4^thRecord label: Prefect
Genre: Indie pop, post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The annoyingly-named Podcasts are an Oslo-originating four-piece (Kyle Devine, Tore Størvold, Emil Kraugerud, and Trust Fund’s Ellis Jones) who’ve been working on their debut record since 2019. Although it’s only their first album, Podcasts clearly shows the band has gelled as a four-piece–loosely speaking, the record recalls vintage British-inspired guitar-based indie pop groups, although there’s a trickiness to it as well, displaying the band’s fondness for unexpected twists and turns in their pop songs, which they pull off with confidence. (Read more)

93. Your Heart Breaks – The Wrack Line

Release date: July 7^thRecord label: Kill Rock Stars
Genre: Folk rock, power pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Seattle’s Clyde Peterson has been helming Your Heart Breaks for over two decades now–their peers include John K. Samson, Kimya Dawson, and Nana Grizol, all of whom appear over the course of The Wrack Line’s nineteen songs and 64 minutes. Peterson’s latest is a lot to take in, but it’s more than worth giving Your Heart Breaks all the leeway that The Wrack Line asks of us. The album boasts gorgeous folk songs, toe-tapping indie rockers, and a host of insights and observations that are completely unique to its creator.

92. Advertisement – Escorts

Release date: September 15^thRecord label: Feel It
Genre: Garage rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, krautrock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Seattle-originating sextet Advertisement have spent the last half-decade cultivating a singular sound, a freewheeling, adventurous take on rock-and-roll that evokes everything from Lou Reed to Creedence Clearwater Revival to The Men to heavy psychedelia. Escorts is fairly uncategorizable–it’s a jammy album made by a band that doesn’t really sound like a “jam band”, it feels indebted to classic rock but is quite liberal with synths, and it frequently wanders but always feels on its way to somewhere. (Read more)

91. Patches – Scenic Route

Release date: April 14^thRecord label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop, college rock
Formats: Digital

I wasn’t expecting Patches to return so soon after last year’s superb Tales We Heard from the Fields, but Scenic Route was certainly a welcome surprise. The sophomore Patches album picks up where their debut left off, but represents a sonic evolution for the remote-collaborative trio as well–instead of splitting the difference between darker and lighter material on a track-by-track basis, the songs on Scenic Route combine them individually, with just about every one of them containing a mix of both bright, poppy jangle pop and clanging post-punk. (Read more)

90. Daily Worker – Autofiction

Release date: February 3^rdRecord label: Bobo Integral
Genre: Lo-fi power pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Digital

Harold Whit Williams has played guitar with Austin jangle pop group Cotton Mather since the early 1990s, but the Alabama native also makes music on his own as Daily Worker. Autofiction, my favorite of the four 2023 Daily Worker records (two LPs, two EPs), is an album of lo-fi, home-recorded power pop whose ramshackle charms only enhance his songwriting. Williams presents his songs casually, but not enough so to diminish their power–it reaches the level of many “big” psychedelic pop records, with only a fraction of the excess production those albums possess. (Read more)

89. The Hold Steady – The Price of Progress

Release date: March 31^stRecord label: Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers
Genre: The Hold Steady
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Unlike the past couple of Hold Steady records, The Price of Progress wasn’t an immediate “hit” for me. I’ve warmed on it throughout the year–seeing them live undoubtedly helped–to the point where I’m finally, belatedly, fully on board with this one. Yes, the band sounds a bit more subdued on this album, but that slowly reveals itself as an essential part of The Price of Progress’ structure–Craig Finn is on fire here as a writer, and something like the powerfully self-contained “Sixers” undoubtedly couldn’t have been pulled off by the band in 2004.

88. Eyelids – A Colossal Waste of Light

Release date: March 10^thRecord label: Jealous Butcher
Genre: Jangle pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The fourth Eyelids full-length (five if you count the half-live, half-odds-and-ends Maybe More) contains plenty of the massive, blissful, timeless-sounding pop rock we’ve come to expect from Chris Slusarenko and John Moen (“Crawling Off Your Pages” kicks things off with an all-timer), although A Colossal Waste of Light feels a little exploratory as well. Songs like the title track and “Runaway, Yeah” feature some of Eyelids’ best choruses, but they take relatively unexpected paths to get there, suggesting there’s still plenty of fruit in the band’s core collaboration.

87. The Mountain Goats – Jenny from Thebes

Release date: October 27^thRecord label: Merge
Genre: Folk rock, piano rock, indie pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Jenny from Thebes is the first Mountain Goats studio album under 45 minutes long since 2012’s Transcendental Youth, but it feels like the quartet pack even more into this one than they did in some of their more rambling recent material. It’s something of a sequel to John Darnielle’s boombox swan song All Hail West Texas (those sons of bitches made a Hold Steady album, didn’t they?), but the band has evolved pretty far from the early lo-fi days. No tolerance of tape hiss or knowledge of these characters’ lore is required to enjoy the Mountain Goats’ ever-more polished pop rock here.

86. Hurry – Don’t Look Back

Release date: August 11^thRecord label: Lame-O
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Don’t Look Back is the fifth Hurry album, and it contains plenty of what’s made Philadelphia’s Matt Scottoline such a reliably great songwriter–heart-on-sleeve, bittersweet melodies, gorgeous guitar work, middling tempos and four-minute runtimes galore, and, of course, undeniable hooks. Scottoline doesn’t favor the louder, more distorted end of the power pop spectrum, instead trending towards intricate, deliberate song structure. Don’t Look Back is both a subtle record and an immediate one; it never passes up an instant-gratification chorus, but it’s full of tracks built to last for the long haul. (Read more)

85. Misophone – A Floodplain Mind

Release date: December 1^stRecord label: Another Record/Galaxy Train
Genre: Chamber pop, folk rock, psych pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

The English band Misophone (led by the songwriting duo of S. Herbert and M.A.) arose in the mid-2000s, releasing at least seven albums between 2007 and 2013. After a decade off, the massive A Floodplain Mind more than bridges the interstitial gap. The album is overwhelmingly long (thirty songs and 120 minutes), adventurous in its arrangements, but friendly and welcoming at its core. It’s just about as “digestible” as something of this size can be, with its sprawling but pleasing mix of chamber pop, orchestral psych pop, and earnest folk rock never growing stale or tedious. (Read more)

84. Glow in the Dark Flowers – Glow in the Dark Flowers

Release date: April 14^thRecord label: Born Yesterday
Genre: Dream pop, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Glow in the Dark Flowers is the duo of Jessee Rose Crane and Philip Lesicko, who gained notoriety over the past decade for their work in Chicago group The Funs. The self-titled Glow in the Dark Flowers album is some very good sleepy, distorted late-night indie rock, with elements of slowcore, post-rock, fuzz rock, and dream pop, but without slotting neatly into any of those. The songs on Glow in the Dark Flowers glide forward and the vocals are right in the middle of it all, creating an album that’s immediate but one that rewards digging under the surface as well.

83. Silicone Prairie – Vol. II

Release date: July 28^thRecord label: Feel It
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, punk rock, power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Although My Life on the Silicone Prairie Vol. II still very much feels like a bedroom rock record, it’s polished in comparison to the first album from Kansas City lo-fi punk musician Ian Teeple. The success of Vol. II comes first and foremost due to Teeple’s songwriting, which is wide-ranging beyond the vast majority of lo-fi garage rockers; underneath the Tascam-recorded sheen is a vintage college rock-inspired record, one that reminds me of a more off-the-cuff version of early Game Theory, and there’s plenty of bizarre psychedelic pop moments on Vol II. as well. (Read more)

82. Madder Rose – No One Gets Hurt Ever

Release date: August 4^thRecord label: Trome
Genre: Dream pop, psych pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Billy Coté and Mary Lorson went through the pandemic differently–the latter “didn’t feel much music”, while the former wrote an album’s worth of songs. Luckily the Madder Rose co-leaders have each other–with Lorson on lead vocals, the two have made a great record of dreamy, lightly psych-y, lightly slowcore-y indie rock with No One Gets Hurt Ever that holds up quite well against the group’s canonical 1990s albums. Made with the patience of musicians who have been at it for three decades, No One Gets Hurt Ever is pop music at its most substantial.

81. Brian Mietz – Wow!

Release date: April 21^stRecord label: Sludge People
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Brian Mietz is a subtly great pop songwriter–he’s one of the best modern practitioners of “bummer” power pop, as seen on his underrated 2020 album Panzarotti. On the follow-up to that record, Wow!, Mietz remains skilled in pop songcraft–these ten songs sound laid-back but emotional, and Mietz keeps the melodies simple, but he isn’t opposed to building around them a little bit, with several songs on the record sounding surprisingly busy. Songs like “Caller” and “Buried Alive (Too Tired)” sound incredibly effortless, but “Cranefly” and “Steal Some Time” lose nothing in their relative complexity. (Read more)

80. The Unknowns – East Coast Low

Release date: March 10^thRecord label: Bargain Bin
Genre: Garage punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The Unknowns are yet another excellent Australian garage rock/power pop band, a subset that really shone in 2023. The Brisbane group have been around for awhile and are associated with Aussie punk superstars The Chats, although their second album, East Coast Low, is a lot more indebted into classic punk-adjacent power pop than the bigger band’s pure punk rock. Songs like “Shot Down”, “Thinking About You”, and “Crying” are pure rock and roll with massive hooks and plenty of shout-along moments.

79. Deep State – Diary of a Nobody

Release date: April 15^thRecord label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country
Formats: Digital

I hadn’t heard of Athens, Georgia’s Deep State before stumbling upon Diary of a Nobody, which, according to their Bandcamp page, seems to be their final album. Diary of a Nobody is a comfortable, rootsy sounding garage rock album led by singer-songwriter Taylor Chmura and also featuring Rosy Overdrive favorite Christian “Smokey” DeRoeck (Blunt Bangs, Little Gold). Deep State sound just as adept barreling through rockers like “Young People” and “Tired Medium” as they do in the laid-back “Secret Freezer”.

78. Vulture Feather – Liminal Fields

Release date: June 2^ndRecord label: Felte
Genre: Post-punk, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Vulture Feather have risen from the ashes of Wilderness, a Baltimore-based 2000s indie rock band that seemed to disappear at the end of that decade. Half of the band (guitarist Colin McCann and bassist Brian Gossman) have recently reemerged in the tiny northern California town of Hayfork, added drummer Eric Fiscus, and picked up where their last band left off, making a slow, deliberate, Lungfish-esque version of guitar-heavy post-punk on their debut together. The rhythm section lumbers, McCann’s guitar chimes and drones, and his vocals sound focused but emotive, gamely supplying Liminal Fields with the final ingredient in turning these songs into unlikely anthems. (Read more)

77. Fixtures – Hollywood Dog

Release date: February 24^thRecord label: Naturally/Bobo Integral
Genre: Power pop, 90s indie rock, post-punk, “noir pop”
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Brooklyn’s Fixtures were a six-piece band who stuck around for a half-decade, just long enough to put out their first, last, and only full-length album. On Hollywood Dog, Fixtures commit fully to a familiar-feeling but nevertheless distinct sound–they start off with the foundation of sturdy, guitar-forward 90s indie rock and blow it up with a 2000s indie-esque love of big choruses, auxiliary musicians, and several vocal contributions from various members. Fixtures contained multiple full-time horn players (trumpet player Riley Cooke and saxophonist Jules Block), and neither’s prominence feels out of place throughout the album. They’ll certainly be missed by me, and, after you listen to Hollywood Dog, you as well. (Read more)

76. Guided by Voices – La La Land

Release date: January 20^thRecord label: GBV, Inc.
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Sixteen albums into their “new lineup”, this iteration of Guided by Voices still have a ton left in the tank, as their trio of 2023 releases has demonstrated. La La Land kicked off the band’s 2023 in January with the lineup’s fourteenth full-length, and it feels like a departure from GBV’s twin 2022 releases–a bit less muscular than Trembler and Goggles by Rank and Crystal Nuns Cathedral and a little more ornate and regal. Really, though, listen to the stretch from “Ballroom Etiquette” to “Slowly on the Wheel”–four completely different-sounding songs, all classic, all recognizably Guided by Voices.

Click here for:
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)

Pressing Concerns: Pespi, Cime, Joe Ziffer, Otis Shanty

It’s a Monday in December, and we’re kicking the week off with a good, old-fashioned classic edition of Pressing Concerns. New albums from Pespi and Joe Ziffer, a live album from Cime, and an EP from Otis Shanty are featured in this edition. This is the last Pressing Concerns before Rosy Overdrive’s Year-End List season begins, but far from the last Pressing Concerns of 2023, so stay tuned for both of those in the coming days and weeks.

And, of course, this is your regular reminder to vote in the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll by 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.

Pespi – Salt Pepper Catshit

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Chemical Plant
Genre: Emo, punk
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Rats Don’t Dance

The memorably-named Pespi are a new New York-based emo-rock trio, although their roots stretch back to Connecticut a decade ago. The band’s lead singer and guitarist Harrison Watters has been releasing solo material for the past ten years, and brothers Rob and Matt Falcone have played bass and drums (respectively) in the band Blonde Otter since 2017. However, before that, the three played together in a high school band, and after reuniting to play a Modest Mouse cover set for Halloween last year, they found that a spark was still there, and Pespi was born. Salt Pepper Catshit, the debut Pespi release, is an odd record earning its curious name–Watters is clearly a striking and driven emo frontperson, and while his compositions form the backbone of the record, the Falcones’ rhythm section turns them into something else entirely, interspersing Watters’ ruminations and soul-pourings with lengthy instrumental passages that owe more to noisy, kinetic post-punk than the expected Midwest emo.

The inaugural Pespi album comes in at under a half-hour and only seven songs in length, a couple of which don’t seem to have actual titles–Salt Pepper Catshit sounds anything but incomplete or half-assed, though. Although the Falcones are largely responsible for blowing these songs wide open, Watters’ guitar playing is more than game to rise to what they lay in front of him, either chugging alongside the bass and drums when necessary or adding strange, memorable moments of melodies to the instrumentals (I mentioned that Pespi started by playing Modest Mouse covers, right?). Pespi holds out for over a minute in opening track “Rats Don’t Dance” before letting the vocals step onto the instrumental treadmill they created, while “Woes” finds time for both Dischord-y post-punk and emo-rock textures in about ninety seconds. With “Pespi_10”, it feels like Pespi is finally going to bust out a no-strings-attached emo anthem (“Overthinking everything / Underfeeling nothing,” Watters roars over a soaring instrumental), but they spend the second half of the song circling back and deconstructing it. This combination by and large works–listening to something like “Cereal”, it’s remarkable how Pespi toggles from Watters’ earnest indie-emo to sleek, instrumental math rock like it’s completely normal. (Bandcamp link)

Cime – Frida and the Filibusters Bid Farewell and Fall Asunder

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Syzygy/Skyline Tapes/BSDJ/Reasonable
Genre: Art punk, jazz punk, post-hardcore, noise rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Compay (Independencia)

Back in August, I wrote about the latest EP from Honduras-originating, California-based musician Monty Cime. Laurels of the End of History is a torrent of Latin music-influenced noise rock and art punk which I called “one of the most unique-sounding records I’ve heard this year”. Although the project bears Cime’s name, the credits of her latest EP reveal that it’s far from a “solo” endeavor–and several of those collaborators are responsible for Cime’s whirlwind live show, as well. Frida and the Filibusters Bid Farewell and Fall Asunder was recorded live at the FTG Warehouse in Santa Ana, CA on Laurels’ release date (August 18th), and features a seven-piece Monty Cime band tearing through songs from the new EP as well as last year’s The Independence of Central America Remains an Unfinished Experiment.

Frida and the Filibusters… serves to introduce a new player to the band (alto saxophonist Sean Hoss), wave goodbye to a few older members (drummer Aron Farkas and guitarist Diego Gonzalez, as well as Jack von Bloeker V, who couldn’t appear on the record), and capture the energy of all of them together (bassist Jay Ingram, guitarist Rowan Collins, and multi-instrumentalist Ian Dennis round out the live band here). The band truly is a unique experience that merits this recording–it’s a pummeling, horn-laden, unique punk-noise-jazz-Latin-rock-experimental-hardcore experience led by Cime haranguing the audience both in her full-throated performances of the songs and in the space between them (memorably, she threatens to kill anyone who leaves before the next band’s set multiple times).

The interludes and between-song banter (particularly Cime’s discussion of Honduran music legend Guillermo Anderson before covering his “Por Esa Negra” and discussing how she and Farkas met through “a very silly and dumb website called Rate Your Music”) don’t derail any of the band’s momentum–they’re contextual strengtheners that sharpen the subsequent performances of older tunes and new ones (one can tell that they’ve been playing the year-old songs together for a while, although new ones “Yoro” and “City Upon a Hill” are integrated seamlessly into the set). The big conclusion is a frantic, hurricane-like version of Laurels… closing track “The Lost Last Man”, a song that feels destined to be a set-capper. It’s certainly a fitting curtain-drawing for this era of Cime, but I think we’d better to stick around to see the next band–or else. (Bandcamp link)

Joe Ziffer – Long Shadows

Release date: November 24^th
Record label: Tenth Court
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, folk rock, psychedelia, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Master of Ceremonies

I’ve covered plenty of Australian rock music this year on Pressing Concerns, although I do believe that Joe Ziffer has facilitated Rosy Overdrive’s first foray into what’s going on in Adelaide. There’s been a lot of music from the continent as of late that combines guitar pop (in some form) with a lo-fi indie rock sensibility, but the debut Joe Ziffer album stakes out a uniquely memorable position in the field. Out on Tenth Court (Spice World, Mope City, The Sprouts), Long Shadows moves at a snail’s pace through ten deliberate pieces of unmarked pop music, with our guide creating a lovingly-crafted if not wobbly world of twilight rock music as he plays nearly everything on the record himself. The core tenet of Ziffer and his guitar is never toppled throughout Long Shadows–he’s clearly inspired by lost-sounding 1960s psychedelic folk, but while organs and keyboards add tallies to the psychedelic side of the equation, Ziffer stubbornly remains a molasses-moving troubadour throughout the album.

Joe Ziffer buries a good deal of pop melodies throughout Long Shadows–you’ll have to go digging for some of them, but that’s part of the appeal of Ziffer’s writing to me. The slow-breaking waves of opening track “Seaside” recall some of the lighter moments from labelmates Mope City, and the flute-aided “Master of Ceremonies” is a Flying Nun pop tune carefully traversing a gravel road. If one makes it through the sparsely hypnotic “Wishing Well”, Long Shadows rewards the listener with its version of “rock-and roll” in the form of “Waves”, “Mayday”, and “Ouroboros”, which lean on full band arrangements to take the record in some surprising directions (particularly the latter of the three, which rises to the level of “fluttering psychedelic pop” quite gamely). Along with Lucy May’s flute and vocals on “Mayday”, Elusive Radar’s bass on “Ouroboros” is one of the few outside contributions to Long Shadows–another one from Radar, organ on “Jet Streams”, is scarcely different from Ziffer’s own key-playing. Something like Long Shadows evokes an incidental, random air, but its pieces don’t fit together this well by accident. (Bandcamp link)

Otis Shanty – Early Birds

Release date: October 6^th
Record label: Boston Street
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, folk rock, dream pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Parting Ways

Otis Shanty are an intriguing quartet who formed in upstate New York in the late 2010s and are currently based in Somerville. They appear to be named for the town in western Massachusetts where they rented a cabin to record their debut EP, Space for Good Things, which came out in 2019; the Suite 33 full-length followed two years later. The band’s second EP and third overall record, Early Birds, is a four-song record that portrays the confidence and skill of a band who’s making something special together. The group (vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Sadye Bobbette, guitarist Ryan DiLello, bassist Julian Snyder, and drummer Jono Quinn) take their time letting these sparkling pieces of indie rock develop–the EP reaches nearly twenty minutes in length, and no individual song is under four. DiLello’s guitar playing is incredibly laid-back, sketching plenty of hazy, Real Estate-esque dreamy, jangly melodies as the rest of the band wander through sprawling, timeless-sounding folk and indie rock.

The opening title track to Early Birds is a workmanlike piece of guitar pop, with hooks baked into the song’s structure but not coming off as overly showy (in the same way that Bobbette’s vocals, which hover between conversational and wistful, are sneakily very impressive). “Early Birds” eventually builds to an impressive conclusion, while “Inch Away” takes much of the same ingredients and shows a bit more restraint in its more subdued finale. “Daylight Savings” lets Snyder’s bass dominate the opening half of the song, crawling along slowly but steadily before the big, horn-featuring conclusion that perhaps functions as the climax of the EP takes shape. “Parting Ways” closes Early Birds out with another slow-build, although it’s DiLello’s shimmering guitar that both comprises the bulk of the foundation and becomes the instrument of its Yo La Tengo-esque torching in the last minute. It’s a lot of space to traverse, but Otis Shanty are locked-in enough that it feels like a breeze. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Misophone, The Brights, Gabby’s World, Get Wrong

December is upon us, and before we dive into year-end list season, the first Friday of the last month of the year has a surprisingly stacked line-up of new releases for our collective consideration. I’ll be highlighting four of them below: new albums from Misophone, The Brights, and Gabby’s World, and a new EP from Get Wrong. This busy week has also featured the November 2023 Playlist/Round-Up and a Monday Pressing Concerns (featuring Neighboring Sounds, Dot Dash, Flat Mary Road, and Colt Wave), so check those too if you missed them earlier. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

Misophone – A Floodplain Mind

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Another Record/Galaxy Train
Genre: Chamber pop, folk rock, psych pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: All the Ghosts of Evening

Around Christmastime 2017, I discovered The Machine That Made Us by Flotation Toy Warning because somebody (I believe it was Trust the Wizards) had put it on their year-end list. The sophomore album from the cult chamber pop group was like nothing I’d heard before at the time, a collection of grandiose pop statements that seemed to materialize out of nothing and hover around in the ether indefinitely. I bring this up because I’m about to suggest you spend time with a two-hour-long album called A Floodplain Mind that checks a lot of the same boxes that those two Flotation Toy Warning albums do for me. The English band Misophone (led by the songwriting duo of S. Herbert and M.A. Welsh and featuring a host of other instrumental contributors) arose in the mid-2000s, releasing at least seven albums between 2007 and 2013. However, their only release in the past decade has been the archival And So Sinks the Sun on a Burning Sea–but the massive, ten-years-in-the-making A Floodplain Mind more than bridges that gap. The album–being offered as a double CD or double cassette–is as overwhelming in its composition (thirty songs and, as stated previously, 120 minutes) and adventurous in its arrangements as it is friendly and welcoming at its core.

A Floodplain Mind is certainly a lot to take in at once, 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” and “Heart for Hills” ease us all into the album with a pleasing mix of chamber pop, orchestral psych pop, and earnest folk rock–they cite Elephant 6 as an influence, and the record comes off as something like a more-put-together older sibling to that scene’s scattered psychedelia. Featuring over a dozen guest musicians, A Floodplain Mind is more prone to surprise the listener in discrete moments throughout the record than throw everything at you at once–yes, there’s harp and bassoon and hurdy gurdy strewn throughout the album, but the core of Welsh and Herbert’s sprawling but accessible folk-pop writing is rarely flooded. Picking favorite songs from this one is difficult because just about the entire album is made up of legitimately well-crafted pop music and can strike at any given listen, but I will say to make sure you stick around for the second half of the album, because plenty of the most immediate numbers (“Night Comes Early”, “Strange and Sombre”, “Flickering Lights”) come after the break. To every band that’s been away for a decade–the bar for their returns has been set incredibly high with A Floodplain Mind. (Bandcamp link)

The Brights – Oyster Rock!

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Meritorio/Stable
Genre: Folk rock, indie pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Everyone in Town

Between Spice World, The Small Intestines, and Wurld Series, Meritorio Records has dug up plenty of odd but captivating indie pop from the edge of the world this year. Their latest foray Down Under comes in the form of the debut record from Sydney quintet The Brights, who’ve put out a couple of EPs since their origin in the late 2010s. Oyster Rock! contains plenty of the jangly guitars that are a hallmark for their label, but the band (vocalist/guitarist Sunny Blayney, vocalist/bassist Samuel Morris, drummer Cooper Anderson, guitarist Dylan Ferguson, and keyboardist Will Maddock) dress up these dozen tracks in laid-back, wandering folk rock skins that lead to this album sounding even more timeless and stateless than those of their peers. Oyster Rock! is (for the most part) slow-moving, but it’s not exactly “minimal”, with Maddock’s keys and Blayney and Ferguson’s six-strings frequently stacking on top of each other to make an album that’s either on the “ornate” side of “plain” or vice versa.

“Waiting”, the track with which Oyster Rock! opens, feels aptly named. It manages to sound joyous while opting for a hold music level of quietness–we’re almost in Belle & Sebastian territory here. The Brights shift into gear a song later on “Enough of You”, which that takes its time getting to the meat of the track and borrows a bit of drone-y guitar pop charm from their neighbors over in New Zealand. There’s a rainy and melancholy streak that turns up throughout the record–it really comes into focus on the shimmering “Quiet as a Cloud” and the folk strumming of “You Know That I’m Wrong”, but these aren’t the only instances (for example, there’s a song called “Overcast Hangover” on here, and it sounds like it). The swaggering power pop of “Everyone in Town” is the one true rocker on Oyster Rock!, although some of the more hushed moments are also broken up by the country-rock groove of “River Dogs” (which might be one of the most “early Wilco”-sounding songs I’ve ever heard come out of Australia) and the slow-building dream-psych-pop conclusion of “Detour Sign”. The Brights’ primary mode is more casual and subtle than these louder moments, but when taken as a single piece of relaxed but developed guitar pop, everything makes sense. (Bandcamp link)

Gabby’s World – Gabby Sword

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Carrot All
Genre: Indie pop, synthpop, indie folk, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Just for You to Hear

Gabby’s World is the project of Gabby Smith, a New York singer-songwriter who initially came up during the bedroom pop/indie folk boom in the mid-2010s alongside acts like Told Slant, Florist, Bellows, and Free Cake for Every Creature. A handful of records and singles led to 2015’s Double Double Whammy-released O.K., a stunning, dexterous album that remains one of my favorites to come out of that entire era, and the just-as-good Year of the Rabbit EP the following year. Smith’s songs could range from delicate folk constructions to grandiose, sweeping indie rock, something that remained true with O.K.’s full-length follow-up, 2018’s Beast on Beast. That album was underappreciated in its time, and preceded a half decade of silence from Gabby Smith the musician. Gabby’s World went on ice for a half-decade as Smith took a break from music, until inspiration from their now-wife, fellow musician Barrie Lindsay, led to Gabby Sword. Released song by song over 2023’s twelve months, the album reflects Lindsay and Smith’s romantic and creative partnerships in the music (which probes new territory for Gabby’s World) and in the subject matter (dealing with Smith’s newfound queer identity and the partner they found in Lindsay).

The thirteen tracks of Gabby Sword embrace the “pop” end of bedroom pop–although it’s not exactly a “studio as instrument” reinvention of their entire style, the indie folk of past Gabby’s World records is largely superseded by a wider-ranging, synth-driven indie pop rock sound. I’d still consider it on the more minimal side of synthpop, and though the prominent drum machine beats of songs like “Just for You to Hear”, “Powerful”, and “Open the Door” are certainly stark, there are plenty of moments more reflecting of their previous output, like the quiet “33” and the electric folk rock of “Restore”. Even as the music changes, however, Smith remains the focal point, and their writing is recognizable even as it covers some different ground. The question that hangs at the end of “Just for You to Hear” feels like a look into their mind as they stepped away from music while at the same time sounding like vintage Gabby’s World, and the piano pop of “Fabby” lets Smith deliver a straight (well, er…) love song in a way I don’t think they’ve gotten to do as of yet. Smith and Lindsay balance the new and familiar on Gabby Sword in a way that makes for a welcome return. (Bandcamp link)

Get Wrong – Get Wrong

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Father/Daughter/Alcopop!
Genre: Synthpop, indie pop
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Too Late to Hide

Get Wrong is a new project that brings together two underground indie rock ringers in Naomi Griffin of Martha and Adam Todd of The Spook School–although the duo take a turn away from the fizzy British power-pop-punk that’s defined both of them in my mind on their debut EP as a group. The five-song Get Wrong EP was recorded and produced by Peter Brewis of Field Music, and finds Griffin and Todd diving headfirst into full-on 1980s-inspired synthpop. It’s a bit surprising that these DIY indie rockers have committed so completely to their new sound on the EP, but given that their backgrounds are nevertheless in pop music (whenever Martha comes up, I simply must mention that 2016’s Blisters in the Pit of My Heart is one of the best albums of any kind from the past decade), it’s not a shock to see them excel at it as well.

Although Get Wrong isn’t a lush, oversaturated work of electronic music, it’s not rudimentary either, displaying Griffin and Todd’s intent to actually explore the various new doors and openings that synthpop affords them rather than just plugging in keyboards where guitars would’ve been. Synth accents and flourishes color these five songs, adding to a rich pop canvas that’s already quite strong due to the singers’ emotional, full vocals bursting through the music. Griffin’s hooks on “Something to Tell You” (“…I don’t wanna hurt you, but keeping it in would hurt you too”) and “Crying My Eyes Out” (“…for hours, thinking of you”) are as tangible and potent as anything she’s done with Martha, and while the music is a bit subtler on these slightly rawer ones, it’s still just as polished an exploration of synthpop as the more straight-up anthems found earlier in the EP (although as massive as something like “Too Late to Hide” sounds, there’s still plenty going on under the surface of that one, too). All told, it’s more than enough to make Get Wrong an intriguing starting point. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

New Playlist: November 2023

Rosy Overdrive is rolling full steam ahead into December, but first, a look back at a bunch of songs I’ve enjoyed over this past month. Plenty of miscellaneous 2023 releases in here as I put together the blog’s various year-end lists and give everything I’ve meant to give a listen a little bit of attention before closing the curtains on the year (this will continue into December, don’t worry). Also, we had a Pressing Concerns go up yesterday (featuring Neighboring Sounds, Dot Dash, Flat Mary Road, and Colt Wave), so check that out too if you missed it. Plus, the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll opened up yesterday–go vote!!!

Mo Troper, Teenage Tom Petties, and These Estates have multiple songs on this playlist.

Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal, BNDCMPR. 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.

“Ona”, Hammer No More the Fingers
From Silver Zebra (2023, Trinity House/Defend Vinyl)

I hadn’t heard of Durham, North Carolina’s Hammer No More the Fingers until recently, when I read a Talkhouse interview between the band’s Duncan Webster and Sam Goblin of Mister Goblin. That’s an A-tier cosign, so I checked out Silver Zebra–their first release since 2012, as it turns out–and it’s very good! To me, this is “XTC-core”; you could get away with calling this “power pop”, you might be able to sneak “math rock” in there mostly due to the band’s name, but what stuff like “Ona” is more than anything else is immediate, hard-hitting, interesting, and exploratory guitar music.

“Citgo Sign”, Mo Troper
From Troper Sings Brion (2023, Lame-O)

Mo Troper! We’ve gotten (at least one) Mo Troper full-length every year since 2020, and while this year is no different, the Portland power pop hero has taken a different tack with Troper Sings Brion. The concept–Troper records fleshed-out, full-band versions of cast-off songs that the legendary behind-the-scenes popsmith Jon Brion didn’t include on his sole solo “pop” album Meaningless–is brilliant, and Troper is just the ringer for the job. I hadn’t heard most of these songs before, including “Citgo Sign”, so I don’t know how much of its jangly instrumental and incredibly tight chorus are the creation of Brion versus Troper (I hear a ton of both in all aspects of this song); honestly, it doesn’t matter, it’s a killer single regardless.

“This One’s on You”, Teenage Tom Petties
From Hotbox Daydreams (2023, Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home)

Hotbox Daydreams is the second album from Wiltshire’s Teenage Tom Petties in as many years, and the first with a full-on backing band. I’m pleased to say that not only does Hotbox Daydreams retain the spark of last year’s self-titled debut, it’s a leap forward for frontperson Tom Brown and his collaborators in every way. It’s deeper, more energetic, more consistent, and it sounds better. The crunchy power chords, giant chorus, and “slacker rock anthem” vibes of “This One’s on You” maybe make it the best song on the album, although this is a record where every song could’ve been a single, so it’s hard to speak definitively on that. Read more about Hotbox Daydreams here.

“Love, If It Is So”, Maria Elena Silva
From Dulce (2023, Astral Spirits/Big Ego)

On Dulce, Wichita/Chicago’s Maria Elena Silva and her collaborators dive headfirst into the realm of experimental rock and jazz; plenty of empty space is here, although a surprising amount of Dulce is quiet yet probing pop music at its core. The slow-burning, blistering psychedelic rock of “Love, If It Is So” opens Dulce in particularly striking fashion–in under three minutes, Silva and her band go from delicately building its precarious structure to burning it down in an excitingly PJ Harvey-esque fashion. Read more about Dulce here.

“Pillbox”, Seablite
From Grass Stains and Novocaine (2019, Emotional Response/Dandy Boy)

Between their brand-new sophomore album Lemon Lights and their even-more-brand-new remastered reissue of their debut album, Grass Stains and Novocaine, 2023 is a great year to be San Francisco’s Seablite. Compared to Lemon Lights’ more straight-up shoegaze textures, Grass Stains and Novocaine is more recognizably inspired by indie pop and power pop; songs like early highlight “Pillbox” come off more than anything else as louder versions of vintage guitar pop in the vein of K, Slumberland, and Sarah Records. Read more about Grass Stains and Novocaine here.

“Like Skin”, These Estates
From The Dignity of Man (2014, Comedy Minus One)

I discovered Regina, Saskatchewan’s These Estates thanks to Comedy Minus One digitally reissuing their entire discography (two full-lengths and a single) earlier this year; it’s a great fit, as these Canadians bear more than a passing similarity to Comedy Minus One’s flagship group, Silkworm. These Estates get what makes that band so great, though–songs like the cavernous, edge-of-the-earth manifesto that is “Like Skin” would hardly work if the executors of it were just interested in rote copying of their influences.

“Rude Life”, Brontez Purnell
From Confirmed Bachelor (2023, Upset the Rhythm)

We checked in on Brontez Purnell back in September, when the lead single from his then-just-announced upcoming solo album, Confirmed Bachelor, was just released. The album is now out in full, and though it’s short, it’s full of moments that deliver on the single’s ambitious but immediate garage-rock-power-pop promise. “Rude Life” is a second-half highlight of the record–I hear what sounds like a violin underneath the classically-Purnell fuzzy rock and roll guitars. Its mid-tempo first half is a bit more subtle than some of Purnell’s other songs, although it eventually kicks into gear and delivers the pure sugar loud guitar pop we’ve all come to expect from him.

“Six Day Sunday”, Model Shop
From Check the Forecast (2023, Meritorio)

In hindsight, “Lucky” by Model Shop was probably one of my favorite songs of 2022. The Seattle band really delivered an arresting reminder of just how high the ceiling is for well-executed guitar pop music with that song, and “Six Day Sunday”, while being just a little more low-key and less overtly sweeping than “Lucky”, continues to showcase the best of the band. The song opens up the four-song Check the Forecast EP with the kind of wistful exuberance that the band do very well; I don’t think I want to hear anyone other than them attempt to pull off lines like “Thursday, tied up in office drama / And I lost my grip at happy hour again,” in the middle of a verse that upstages its own chorus in terms of melody.

“Riding with Paul”, The Exbats
From Song Machine (2023, Goner)

I’ve been aware of The Exbats for a while–the Arizona group has been making their sunny pop rock since at least 2015, relatively recently sliding onto garage rock kingpins Goner Records’ roster to continue to do so. “Riding with Paul”, a single and the opening track from their latest full-length, Song Machine, caught my attention as I was trawling through new releases–it’s an absolutely perfect piece of retro jangle pop, informed by 60s pop rock but sounding incredibly fresh thanks to everything from the exuberant opening riff to the cheerful backing vocals to the infectious confidence of Inez McLain’s lead vocals.

“Cavalcade of Faces”, Dan Koshute
From Intravolve (2023, Magna Person)

Dan Koshute recorded Intravolve entirely on his own in “a secret recording studio in the back of a Pittsburgh yoga studio”–all things considered, it’s a great-sounding collection of power pop/garage rock tunes delivered with an all-in attitude. Koshute (who has also contributed to Jennifer Baron’s Garment District project) is a direct and urgent performer on his fourth solo album and first since 2018–opening track “Cavalcade of Faces” is a cavalcade of energy, gleefully hanging on one chord before the rest of the band (I mean, Koshute on different instruments) kicks out a garage-pop anthem. Read more about Intravolve here.

“La Modelo de Mis Fantasias”, Sandy Pylos
From Notas de Voz (2023)

Ana Diaz has previously made music in the Paraguyan psychedelic power pop band EEEKS, but they’ve taken a confident step away from that sound on their new solo project Sandy Pylos, which embraces an atmospheric synthpop sound on their debut record. Nota de Voz’s track “La Modelo de Mis Fantasias” gets off to a sprinting start with its bouncy, EEEKS-ish power pop. However, almost as if to assert that this is Sandy Pylos, the song then deconstructs itself, shifting into a more low-key but still catchy pop rock tune in its midsection, and ending with a sound collage of hushed music from the song, bird sounds, and ambient noises. Read more about Nota de Voz here.

“Lord of Shelves”, Wurld Series
From The Giant’s Lawn (2023, Meritorio/Melted Ice Cream)

The third album from New Zealand’s Wurld Series feels like the full realization of their always-apparent promise and talent–on The Giant’s Lawn, they meander through a patchwork sound for seventeen songs, displaying themselves as masters of delicate pop music, indie guitar jams, and spacey acoustic psych-folk detours. Early highlight “Lord of Shelves” is an impressive piece of power pop, giving off an especially Guided by Voices-y air of shit-kicking melancholy that definitely falls on the more immediate end of the record’s spectrum. Read more about The Giant’s Lawn here.

“Old Death – 12” version”, Car Colors
From Old Death (2023, Absolutely Kosher)

Instead of the fourth Wrens album that so many of us waited for for over twenty years, we have instead gotten a public break-up, Kevin Whelan’s Aeon Station, and Charles Bissell’s Car Colors (and, in what should register as more than a footnote in all of this, the revival of stalwart California independent label Absolutely Kosher). Aeon Station put out a full-length back in 2021; Car Colors have moved at their own pace, but, finally, the three-song Old Death EP is out into the world. Two of these songs will appear on a Car Colors full-length…eventually…but there’s more than enough to chew on right now with this single, particularly the title track and A-side. “Old Death” is pretty damn close to what I imagined a fourth Wrens album would sound like–seven minutes, intricate and emotional, surprising and familiar. Looking forward to hearing more of this.

“Willow Springs”, Tristan Dolce
From Medium True (2024, I Love Camping!)

Who’s ready for 2024? Not me–I still have a bunch of music from this year I want to explore before 2023 closes its doors. Still, if the new year brings more music that’s as good as the lead single from Tristan Dolce’s upcoming Medium True–well, it’ll be another year to remember. “Willow Springs” is an excellent piece of wistful, ornate-but-lo-fi power pop, with Dolce’s high and conversational, Ben Gibbard-ringer vocals leading a memorable lyric and several excellent moments of pure melody.

“Giddy Up!”, Molly O’Malley
From Noise Beyond the Mantle: A Mixtape (2023, Mollywhop Record Shop)

The eight-song Noise Beyond the Mantle “mixtape” is the most we’ve heard from Cleveland’s Molly O’Malley in one sitting thus far, and what we get with it is a blurry but undeniably recognizable snapshot of a talented pop singer-songwriter helming a catchy, messy collection of material with a center that feels sharper and fuller than ever in the midst of it all. The mixtape’s second song, “Giddy Up!”, chugs along, its dreamy, reverb-y rock slightly obscuring but unable to hide some of the most interesting writing I’ve heard from O’Malley yet (everything in that second verse could be the line that sticks with you on any given day). Read more about Noise Beyond the Mantle: A Mixtape here.

“Can I Borrow Your Lighter?”, Spiritual Cramp
From Spiritual Cramp (2023, Blue Grape)

Ooh, boy. Spiritual Cramp. I heard 2021’s Here Comes More Bad News EP and enjoyed it, although I definitely didn’t see Spiritual Cramp coming based off of those four songs. I admit, I didn’t listen to these (quite catchy!) Bay Area punks and think they had a British-buzz-band-bait album in them, but their self-titled album is full of completely nuts, overdriven dance-post-punk-rock-and-roll-pop-whatever stuff. I have to say, the weird stutter that the main guy is doing in the verses completely works for me–it might even be catchier than the big, all-out gang-vocal chorus.

“Bang”, Melenas
From Ahora (2023, Trouble in Mind)

I’m not sure if there’s that much to say about Pamplona, Spain’s Melenas, their third album, Ahora, or single and highlight “Bang”. It’s just good pop music! Trouble in Mind Records is, of course, one of the most respectable outlets for rock music today, so it’s hardly surprising that I found something worth sharing on Ahora, but “Bang” is truly a breath of fresh air every time I hear it. The sparkling and droning synths and organs, the simple but transfixing vocals, the solid, slow-moving five-minute structure–this is continental European indie rock at its finest.

“Renter Not a Buyer”, Dead Gowns
From How (2022, VMP)

Geneviève Beaudoin is a Portland, Maine-based folk-country singer-songwriter who self-released the four-song How EP last year. I first heard it thanks to an expanded vinyl reissue that it got this month, although “Renter Not a Buyer” is a track that’d appeared on the original version as well. It’s an excellent piece of electric, sauntering country rock that kicks off the EP in pleasing fashion, featuring some notable New Englanders in the band (Pretty Purgatory’s Peter McLaughlin on drums, Nat Baldwin on bass) but, to be clear, this song is Beaudoin’s show and she’s great in its starring role.

“Junk Drawer Heart”, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
From Dancing on the Edge (2023, Sophomore Lounge)

On Ryan Davis’ first solo-ish album and first “song” record since the last album from his country rock group State Champion in 2018, the Louisville singer-songwriter is as sprawling and as “country” as ever. On the surface, both Davis’ unbothered Kentucky tones and the Roadhouse Band’s post-post-country rock and roll sound brilliant, but the core of album highlight “Junk Drawer Heart” is equally striking. The chorus (“Maybe there’s something of use deep down in the matchbox bottom of my junk drawer heart / Maybe there’s nothing there but joker cards and keychains”) is obviously a headliner, but the lines about chewing on an apple in an archery range and the “Sultans of Swing”-stuck jukebox should be up there as well. Read more about Dancing on the Edge here.

“Oh No!”, Physical Congas
From Oh No! (2023, Stress Test)

Late November? Doesn’t matter. I’m still hearing good new-to-me music daily out here. Allow me to introduce you to Physical Congas, a pair of Montreal pop weirdos (Adrian Popovich and Alexander Ortiz) who just put out their debut release, the all-too-brief four-song Oh No! EP. These tracks zip by with a lo-fi, offbeat pop charm–the opening title track is a little over two minutes long, but it still finds time to offer up bizarrely memorable synth bursts, a pleasingly plodding bass guitar part, and surprisingly all-in lead vocals.

“Into the Atlantic”, Mo Troper
From Troper Sings Brion (2023, Lame-O)

Another selection from Troper Sings Brion, because, Jesus Christ, it’s Mo Troper singing Jon Brion. “Into the Atlantic” is the first proper song on the album after the forty-five second “Heart of Dysfunction (Excerpt)”, and it sets up a lot of what makes Brion a great songwriter (and what makes Troper a great translator for him, as well)–intricate construction, lethal melodies, bizarre turns both musically and lyrically (leave it to Troper-Brion to make “raw sewage and seagull excrement” sound brilliant), and above all a striking determination–we are going into the Atlantic. We’re going down.

“Away from the Castle”, Video Age
From Away from the Castle (2023, Winspear)

Away from the Castle is my first full-length experience with the laid-back, dreamy indie pop of New Orleans’ Video Age, although I’ve encountered Ross Farbe (who is half of the band, along with Ray Micarelli) before due to his recording work. The gorgeous title track to Away from the Castle certainly sounds like the work of a couple of musicians who know their way around the studio, although Farbe and Micarelli also know that, when they have a brilliant pop song on their hands, some targeted streamlining is the best course of action with regards to presenting it. It’s kind of an odd place to hear one of the best jangle pop songs of the year, but that’s exactly what “Away from the Castle” is.

“Chance Occurrence”, Postal Blue
(2023)

“Postal Blue” is a great name for a dreamy jangly indie pop group; I’m surprised nobody had claimed it before. Not that they’re a new act, mind you–I was surprised to learn that Brazil-based Adriano do Couto has been making music under the name since 1998 (first as a full band, eventually as a solo project), and “Chance Occurrence” is actually the first new Postal Blue material in eight years. For a comeback single, it’s a bullseye–it starts off fairly low-key, then shifts into gear for a giant indie pop chorus indicating that do Couto is certainly a veteran at making this kind of music.

“Turquoise”, Jon Winslow
From I’m Here Now (2023, Shiny Boy Press)

Jon Winslow is not a guy, but it is the project of a guy–specifically, Baltimore-based folk singer Taylor DeBoer, who just released I’m Here Now on cassette. He seems linked to experimental pop group Surf Harp–he contributed layout and design to their latest album, four out of five Surf Harp members play on I’m Here Now, and both records are out through Shiny Boy Press. Some of Surf Harp’s offbeat art pop shows up on DeBoer’s album, although in the catchy slow-folk-rock of “Turquoise”, it’s more of a tamped-down undercurrent to DeBoer’s acoustic foundation.

“Hiding in My Home”, Uni Boys
From Buy This Now! (2023, Curation)

It’s just good pop music, you know? The Uni Boys’ latest, Buy This Now!, has a bunch of effortless-sounding power pop hooks, but I decided to go with the introvert anthem “Hiding in My Home” as the highlight. Singing about how they absolutely don’t want to go outside–now that’s how you prove that you’re true power pop fans. Handclaps, soaring lead guitars, slick keyboards–despite all of this, “Hiding in My Home” is still able to sound as laid-back as a night staying in should sound. Ordering takeout food is the maximum level of social interaction booked for the evening!

“Baciami”, Mel Stone
From Princess (2023, Honey Machiine)

There’s a lot of music in this world, and it can provide the listener with an infinite possibility of experiences. For example, sometimes you want to listen to a trans woman absolutely sing her heart out for an entire album’s worth of music–if you find yourself in this cohort, Princess by Mel Stone is certainly for you. Princess (initially released as a pair of EPs in 2021 and 2022) is a ton of maximal rock and roll anthems in a row–Stone’s Bandcamp bio mentions Ezra Furman, who I absolutely hear in my favorite song on the album, “Baciami”. As bold as that title (as well as the subsequent English translation of it in the chorus) is, Stone more than backs it up in this song’s performance.

“Center of Attention”, Summer Set
From Summer Set (2023, Fort Lowell)

The members of Wilmington, North Carolina’s Summer Set have played together in some form for over twenty years, although this self-titled album is the first full-length to have surfaced yet under the Summer Set name. It’s a breezy, timeless collection of indie rock of several stripes–some heavier and spacier than others, but consistently interesting. Opening track “Center of Attention” sets a high bar with its deft rendition of alt-country, folk rock, jangle pop, and power pop–a bunch of ingredients to make a song that sounds incredibly simple and incredibly catchy.

“Rain”, The Chills
From Brave Words (1987/2023, Flying Nun/Fire)

The Chills! Statistically speaking, you probably like The Chills, or at least some Chills-inspired bands (Lord knows I’ve covered plenty of them on this website). Despite their beloved status in this particular corner of indie rock, the New Zealand band’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. There’s plenty on this album I could highlight here, but “Rain” is a great picture of early The Chills–almost perfect pop magicians, but still holding onto a Flying Nun-ish oddball, “zany” streak in the song’s presentation.

“Blue Shadows”, Lower Plenty
From No Poets (2023, Bedroom Suck)

I hadn’t heard of Melbourne’s Lower Plenty before the release of their most recent album, but apparently the band has been around since 2010 and features members of a bunch of notable Australian groups (Dick Diver, Total Control, Deaf Wish, UV Race). The quartet has actually been on something of a hiatus as of late; their fifth album, No Poets, is actually their first since 2016 (busy with all their other bands, I’d imagine). “Blue Shadows” is a nice, representative track from early on in the record–it’s got that enjoyable casual Aussie folk-pop sound, informed by Flying Nun but with a more open, straightforward twist.

“Put the Poison in My Body”, These Estates
From Triumph, Reign (2014, Comedy Minus One)

I’m not sure which These Estates album I like more–The Dignity of Man probably has more “hits”, but the darker Triumph, Reign has a pleasing amount of meat on its bones. The upsettingly-relevant “Stolen Blues” nearly made this playlist, but opening track “Put the Poison in My Body” is such an incredible indie rock anthem that I had to get this one on the playlist somewhere. The title line is a wrecking ball–as is the absolutely boundless guitar solo that the band let loose halfway through the track.

“Dandy”, The Smashing Times
From This Sporting Life (2023, K/Perennial)

This Sporting Life might be the most fully-released The Smashing Times have sounded yet. It’s the Baltimore jangle-psych group’s most pop-forward material to date, even as they haven’t abandoned the exploratory streak that made them stick out in the first place. The sparkling “Dandy” is a hidden gem that This Sporting Life saves towards the near conclusion of the record–the first half is uncharacteristically repetitive for the nonlinear popsters, but it does switch into a different (but no less catchy) kind of pop song in its second half. Read more about This Sporting Life here.

“Til It’s Over”, Marnie Stern
From The Comeback Kid (2023, Joyful Noise)

We’ve been waiting for this one for a while. Marnie Stern took a decade-long break from releasing music after 2013’s The Chronicles of Marnia (but not from music as a whole, as she’s been a longtime member of The Late Show with Seth Myers’ band), and the aptly-titled The Comeback Kid does not disappoint. Stern’s all-over-the-place, math-y-pop-rock guitar hero stuff was part of a mini-scene in the late 2000s, but I’ve always seen plenty of substance in those albums outside of that context, and the success of a Marnie Stern album in 2023 serves to confirm this. “Til It’s Over” is low-key…for a Marnie Stern song, which means it’s still a pretty intense rocker, just in a less confrontational way than one might expect.

“All into the Day”, Forestlike
From Forestlike (2023, Patsy Presents)

Joshua Wayne Hensley will probably be most familiar to Rosy Overdrive readers as one half of undersung northern Indiana indie rockers The Rutabega, a band that released a solid album last year. Hensley also self-releases music under his own name, and now he’s started a new band with a long-time acquaintance in Jared Myers (of Daytime Volume). With Forestlike, the duo explore folk rock music of several stripes, including the delicate but fully-developed “heartland” indie rock of opening track “All into the Day” whose deliberate pace and wandering melody hew true to the project’s woodsy title.

“Dipshit”, Teenage Tom Petties
From Hotbox Daydreams (2023, Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home)

I’ll say it yet again, because it bears repeating: everything on Hotbox Daydreams is a hit. Just massive power pop success after success from Tom Brown and his gang of Teenage Tome Petties. Is “Dipshit” the best of all of them? Perhaps–it’s an instantly memorable lo-fi showtune with one hell of a chorus hook, and the only thing stopping it from dominating the airwaves is probably its title. Read more about Hotbox Daydreams here.

“Maybelline”, Frog
From Grog (2023, Audio Antihero)

Listening to Grog, the fifth album from Queens-based sibling duo Frog, kind of feels like dropping in on an alternate-universe oldies station. It picks and chooses sounds from throughout the past to create a new listening experience, pulling from freak folk, piano pop rock, space-y psych rock, power pop, and scuzzy lo-fi indie rock. “Maybelline”, towards the middle of Grog, is a vintage Frog experience–its power pop is perhaps more sped up than some of the record’s more exploratory fare, but it’s no less intricate. Read more about Grog here.

“Hey, Useless”, Quitter
From Monument Road (2023, GoldMold/Heavenly Creature)

Kenny Bates is a Glasgow-based lo-fi indie rocker who’s been making downcast pop as Quitter (an appropriately glass-half-empty name) since 2016. I believe that Monument Road is the third Quitter full-length, and Bates is joined by a full band for a good portion of this one, giving an extra kick to Bates’ songwriting. “Hey, Useless” is my favorite song here–it’s an undeniable power pop single that’s as chilly as it is catchy. The first verse of the song is about having a rough emotional moment in an ice cream parlor, which feels just about right.

“W”, Handturner
From Works and Shoots (2023, Steno Pool)

Somebody needs to do one of those in-depth scene reports to figure out just what’s happening in Kalamazoo, Michigan these days. Handturner is led by the duo of Franki Hand and Ike Turner, who also play together in the experimental krautrock group Wowza in Kalamazoo and the Kalamazoo Drone Society. At the same time, three Handturner albums have turned up since last December, the latest of which, Works and Shoots, is a thorny collection of experimental, almost-industrial crossed-wires rock music. “W” is the only thing on the record that’s even sort of a pop song, with Hand’s sung-spoken vocals balancing precariously over a warped noise rock/post-punk instrumental.

VOTE! In the Rosy Overdrive 2023 Reader’s Poll

Hello, Rosy Overdrive readers! Rosy Overdrive’s year-end lists are just around the corner (just as soon as I, you know, make them), but first I wanted to ask y’all what you thought the best of 2023 is. So, this year I’m trying out doing a Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll! Wow! The question I’m most interested in is: What are your ten favorite albums from 2023? This is the only question that you’re required to answer in order to submit (please, choose at least five), but I’ve also included questions for your favorite songs, EP, and record label of 2023 that are optional but encouraged to be filled out as well.

If you need help remembering what came out in 2023, here’s a list of everything that Rosy Overdrive wrote about in Pressing Concerns this year. Obviously, it’s a not comprehensive list of the year’s best (and you’re more than welcome to vote for albums I haven’t covered), but it’s a starting point!

The deadline to submit your choices will be at midnight (EST) on Christmas Day, and the results will be compiled by the end of that week. And remember: this is the most important election of our lifetimes.

Click here to participate in the reader’s poll!

Pressing Concerns: Neighboring Sounds, Dot Dash, Flat Mary Road, Colt Wave

I’m hoping all U.S.-based Rosy Overdrive readers had a nice holiday weekend. Since I’m guessing a lot of you missed the second post from last week (it went up the day before Thanksgiving and featured The Veldt, Feeling Figures, The Ground Is Lava, and The Anderson Tapes), I’ll go ahead and re-share it before we dive into today’s Pressing Concerns. Caught up? Great–now it’s time to look at some great new albums from Neighboring Sounds, Flat Mary Road, and Colt Wave, as well as a compilation from Dot Dash.

Neighboring Sounds – Cold in the Smart City

Release date: October 13^th
Record label: Friend of Mine/Adagio 830/Friend Club/Lilla Himmel/Sound Fiction/BCore/strictly no capital letters
Genre: Emo-y indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Grandhotel

Cold in the Smart City is the first full-length record to bear the name of Neighboring Sounds, but the roots of this Bergen, Norway-based emo-indie rock band go back more than twenty years. The band formed as Crash (n) in 2000 and were then known as The First Cut for a few years afterwards, releasing at least one album under each name. After a lengthy hiatus, the band (vocalist/guitarist Arild Eriksen, guitarist Kristian Gundersen, and drummer Thomas Milford) reconvened as Neighboring Sounds in 2014, putting out a few singles before finally (after adding Flight Mode’s Anders Blom on bass) getting their debut album out last month. In what I’m certain is a Pressing Concerns record, Cold in the Smart City is being put out by seven different labels across various nationalities–between this fact and its long gestation time, there’s a certain weight attached to Cold in the Smart City. Thankfully, Neighboring Sounds have put together an album more than up to the task of bearing it.

Norway has been a fertile ground for emo-tinged anthemic indie rock bands in recent years (Blom’s other band being but one prominent example), and Cold in the Smart City similarly falls along an “early Death Cab for Cutie to 90s emo-punk” axis. Although they’re clearly inspired by it, I’d hesitate to call Neighboring Sounds “punk” here–there’s energy here, to be sure, but they’re refined in a way that comes back as relatively slick (but still emotional and not cheap-sounding) alternative rock. The quartet gives these ten songs a gravitas that makes it feel much grander than its 30-minute runtime–from the chilly opening title track to the fast-paced “No Commons” to the giant chorus of “Grandhotel” to the steady-building crescend-emo of “Of the Woods”, Cold in the Smart City establishes itself as an animated and all-in record. An incredibly tight album, its only true breather is the 90-second interlude “Moss/Pine”, after which Neighboring Sounds gear up for another side of rockers. “Polis” is the band at their most blistering, and the one song where their hardcore roots really show (although it’s more in the form of fiery post-hardcore). No steam is lost as Cold in the Smart City chugs to its conclusion, although “Sleepercar” does end things on a somewhat pensive note. Leave it to Neighboring Sounds to sound purposeful and inspired singing about sleep, though. (Bandcamp link)

Dot Dash – 16 Again

Release date: October 13^th
Record label: Country Mile
Genre: Power pop, college rock, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Holly Garland

I received my introduction to Washington, D.C.’s Dot Dash last year in the form of Madman in the Rain, a brilliant collection of jangly power pop that nevertheless contained a bit of post-punk ruminations on death and mortality and would probably be even higher on my year-end list if I redid it today. Even though they were new to me, however, Dot Dash (vocalist/guitarist Terry Banks, drummer Danny Ingram, and bassist Hunter Bennett) have been amassing a pretty impressive back catalog over the past decade or so–Madman in the Rain was actually preceded by six other full-length records since 2011. All seven Dot Dash full-length albums received CD releases through The Beautiful Music, but they’ve never put out a vinyl record, which seems like a major missing piece for a band that so deftly makes music that sounds straight out of the vinyl era. Thankfully, Country Mile Records has rectified this with 16 Again, a compilation of fifteen songs selected from across Dot Dash’s discography (plus one new cover)–the band calls it “a ‘greatest hits’ album by a band with no hits”, which is, frankly, the best kind.

16 Again makes the intriguing decision to go in reverse chronological order, which means that it starts with four selections from Madman in the Rain. I won’t go too much into them since I already covered that one (I might’ve found room here for “Dead Gone”, but it’s already the most well-represented album so I can’t complain), but the band keep the quality consistent as they plow further backwards. The three songs from 2018’s Proto Retro are all ace (particularly the soaring New Order-jangle pop “Unfair Weather”), and the one song from Searchlights (“Holly Garland”) packs enough energy for three. By the time we get to the selections from Half-Remembered Dream, we’re a decade back, showing that the band was always fully capable of delivering transcendent pop rock anthems (“(Here’s to) the Ghosts of the Past”) and slightly weirder but still hooky pieces of guitar pop (“The Sound in Shells”). If you stick around to hear the two songs from their 2011 debut spark>flame>ember>ash, you get to hear the only “rough-around-the-edges” moments on the record, with the garage-mod “The Color and the Sound” and the somewhat pained post-punk of “There and Back Again Lane” being curious but still worthwhile offerings. The whirlwind tour complete, Dot Dash end with a new cover of Television Personalities’ “Jackanory Stories”, which is an appropriate sendoff to this summary of Dot Dash–not shy about their debt to the past, but nevertheless continuing to offer something new. (Bandcamp link)

Flat Mary Road – Little Realities

Release date: September 22^ndRecord label: Whatever’s Clever
Genre: Folk rock, college rock, psychedelic rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Grifter

Flat Mary Road is a quartet from Philadelphia, led by guitarist/vocalist Steve Teare and also featuring a pair of Alexes (Alex Irwin on drums, Alex Lewis on guitar) and bassist Dan Papa. The band has been around since the early 2010s–their latest album, Little Realities, is at least their fourth full-length. Little Realities showed up earlier this year on Whatever’s Clever (Dave Scanlon, Keen Dreams, Office Culture), and while there isn’t exactly a shortage of indie rock records coming out of Philly these days, Flat Mary Road have an interesting and striking sound that helps them stick out from the pack. Some of Little Realities‘ ingredients are familiar–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 Teare’s distinct vocals help the band land somewhere in the midst of Miracle Legion-like college rock as well.

Little Realities cheerily rejects a “band record” versus “singer-songwriter” record dichotomy–it clearly builds itself around Teare’s writing across its eleven songs and 45 minutes, but it also devotes plenty of time to lengthy instrumental passages and lets the musicians wander on plenty of occasions (even two entire songs’ worth in “Running the Tape Back” and “A Lofting Song”). Busy opening track “The Announcement” gets mileage out of Papa’s plodding, prominent bass, Irwin’s brisk drumbeat, and Teare’s strangely-veering but no less effective melodies. It feels like a more contemporary indie rock single, while the song that follows it (the laid-back, relatively more straightforward “The Grifter”) is more of a vintage college rock radio hit. “Friends” balances simplicity and intricacy, and sides one and two are buffered by two of the strongest choruses on the record (the surprisingly urgent-sounding “The Gardener and I” and the starry power pop of “Change Is Not Enough”). These are some of the more immediate ones, but the other end of Little Realities–best exemplified by the record’s final two songs, which combine to reach over twelve minutes in length–contains plenty to enjoy as well. Once the melodic guitar solo kicks in about halfway through closing track “Landscape”, it becomes clear that there isn’t so much daylight in between them, anyway. (Bandcamp link)

Colt Wave – On Call

Release date: November 3^rd
Record label: Too Deluxe
Genre: Lo-fi pop, jangle pop, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Deep Regret

Colt Wave is the California-based project of Colby Mancasola (best known as the drummer for Knapsack) and Ken Lovgren (who is occasionally a touring member for The Wind-Ups). The two of them are longtime musical acquaintances–they apparently first played together before Knapsack even emerged in the mid-90s, and with On Call (which appears to be the fourth Colt Wave album since 2021), the duo confidently take on a genre of music very different from the emo-punk of Mancasola’s other band–lo-fi, dreamy, jangly guitar pop. It’s a casual but nonetheless substantial-feeling album–Mancasola and Lovgren float through eleven songs in twenty-two minutes, declining to add too many bells and whistles to any of them but displaying a knack for writing memorable pop hooks which are more than enough to carry On Call.

“Dark Night Soul” opens up the album by sounding just a tad offbeat–there’s just a bit of 60s psychedelia in here, even as Colt Wave still keep the song barebones enough to let the melodies reverberate completely. The folk-y undertones of “Cold Cold Heart” back up On Call’s strong start, while the lo-fi basement pop of “Deep Regret” feels like a more West Coast version of early Guided by Voices’ hidden retro-pop. On Call breezes by, not spending too much time overthinking any of its offerings, but there are certainly plenty of moments that stick out on the quick but unhurried journey–the upbeat “Shaking You” is Colt Wave mustering up just enough zeal to nail their version of power pop, “Survive You” balances handclaps and hovering guitar lines to marry “dream” and “pop”, and “CALL U” feels just a bit more “full” than the rest of the record as Mancasola and Lovgren add a bit of Western desert rock to it. Colt Wave wrap it up with the 75-second “Only Night”, which goes from the “Be My Baby” drum intro to a piece of hazy jangle pop and then ends with a chorus of crickets. In spite (or perhaps because) of how low-key On Call is, it remains engrossing right up to its close. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The Veldt, Feeling Figures, The Ground Is Lava, The Anderson Tapes

Welcome to a Wednesday Pressing Concerns, the rarest of Pressing Concerns! Due to “Thanksgiving”, this post is going up a day early, so (to residents of the United States, at least) enjoy the holiday, and read about new music at the same time below. In this eclectic post, we have a new album from Feeling Figures, a new EP from The Anderson Tapes, a full-length reissue from The Ground Is Lava, and a previously-unreleased thirty-year-old shelved debut album from The Veldt. See you next week!

The Veldt – Illuminated 1989

Release date: November 24^th
Record label: Little Cloud/5BC
Genre: Dream pop, shoegaze, post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Willow Tree

One of the more intriguing bands from the initial wave of shoegaze was formed by two twin brothers in the mid-80s in Raleigh, North Carolina. Guitarists Daniel and Danny Chavis are lifelong musicians who began making music inspired both by the gospel and Motown of their youth, the burgeoning “alternative rock” and “post-punk” scenes, and the just-as-wild world of Sun Ra. One of their biggest influences was the Cocteau Twins, so it’s not surprising that the Chavises enlisted the band’s Robin Guthrie to produce their debut album in 1989. Their label was apparently unhappy with what they produced together, however–they shelved the recordings, and some of the songs ended up on their debut EP, Marigolds, in 1992. The Veldt went on to release the acclaimed Afrodisiac LP in 1994, and they never really went away–the brothers made music as Apollo Heights for a while, but brought back the Veldt name for last year’s Entropy Is The Mainline To God. Illuminated 1989, however, returns us to that time thirty-four years ago–collecting these initial Guthrie-helmed recordings, this finally-released album is a snapshot of a strong partnership, a confident group effort, and a still-in-development genre that’d be come to known as “shoegaze”.

As much of a curiosity that Illuminated 1989 is, it’s also very strong devoid of all this context, something which becomes apparent almost immediately. “Aurora Borealis” opens the record on a very Cocteau Twins note, with dreamy, reverb-y guitars chiming–but instead of Elizabeth Fraser’s impenetrable vocals, we’re instead greeted by a completely different but equally compelling frontperson in Daniel Chavis. Clear where Fraser is unintelligible and right in front of the music where many of their contemporaries buried their vocals, Chavis brought a clear soul influence to his singing that is perhaps the most immediately striking aspect of the record. Chavis gives it his all in songs like “C.C.C.P.”, an emotional piece of Cure-ish post-punk-pop that might be the missing link between Robert Smith and shoegaze. The floating “Angel Heart” is The Veldt at their most dream pop, but Chavis is no less restrained vocally here, and there’s plenty of other interesting incorporations (like “It’s Over”, which feels like The Veldt’s version of the jangly college rock that was more prevalent in the American South at this time than most of their other influences). Pointing to an exact moment and saying “Aha! There’s the shoegaze!” is a bit reductive, but the pummeling pop of “Shallow by Shallow”, the steady noise of “Willow Tree”, and parts of the experimental rock opus “Heather” all feel like examples of what was about to come down the line. Like I alluded to earlier, though, regardless of historical value, Illuminated 1989 sounds fresh and inspired. (Bandcamp link)

Feeling Figures – Migration Magic

Release date: November 24^th
Record label: K/Perennial
Genre: Post-punk, 90s indie rock, lo-fi pop, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Pour Un Instant

Feeling Figures are a quartet from Montreal–those Canadians got their Thanksgiving out of the way last month, and are certainly not going to be deterred from putting out new music on an American holiday weekend. The band was founded by the songwriting duo of guitarist/vocalists Zakary Slax and Kay Moon in Sackville, New Brunswick a decade ago, and picked up bassist Joe Chamandy and drummer Thomas Molander after relocating to Quebec. Migration Magic is Feeling Figures’ first album, following a debut self-titled three-song 7” single back in 2021. They may hail from the wrong coast, but Feeling Figures certainly feel at home on K Records with Migration Magic–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.

Nothing exemplifies the range of Feeling Figures more than how Migration Magic’s opening track–the fiery, fuzzy garage punk anthem “Dream Death”–gives way to the C86-literate guitar pop of “Across the Line” one song later. Once the initial jarring feeling passes, it starts to make sense–after all, “Dream Death” has one hell of a chorus in the middle of it, and “Across the Line” meanders in its guitarplay in a 90s indie rock kind of way. Although “Across the Line” is relatively polished, the percussion-led, psych pop drone of “Don’t Ever Let Me Know” and the piano-in-a-basement charm of “I Should Tell You” indicate that the band can deliver pop music of various fidelities and states of undress. Feeling Figures bring some muscle to pull off “Pour Un Instant”, a giddy piece of straight-up power pop right in the middle of the record, and “Movement” in Migration Magic’s second half similarly finds the band at full capacity. Their primary mission accomplished, Feeling Figures close up shop by getting weird towards the end with the post-punk blaze of “Sink” and the Ramones-y fast-pop-punk conclusion of “Remains”. Migration Magic is just as entertaining while knocking down what Feeling Figures built up earlier in the record. (Bandcamp link)

The Ground Is Lava – Bottle Rockets (Reissue)

Release date: October 24^th
Record label: Really Rad
Genre: Midwest emo, emo-punk, pop punk
Formats: Cassette, CD, digital
Pull Track: Willow Tree

From 2009 to 2015, the Brunswick, Ohio emo trio The Ground Is Lava put out two full-length records and multiple compilations’ worth of loose tracks before calling it a day. The second of those albums, 2013’s Bottle Rockets, appears to have gotten a Japanese CD release through Waterslide but was otherwise just self-released digitally by the band (vocalist/guitarist Jon Rogers, vocalist/bassist Jordan Valentine, drummer Eric Sandt). Punk/emo label Really Rad Records has commemorated the tenth anniversary of Bottle Rockets by putting it out on both CD and cassette, successfully arguing that it deserves to be heard beyond its initially limited reach a decade ago. I’ve heard more than enough emo of both the 2013 and 2023 variety, but listening to Bottle Rockets for the first time, The Ground Is Lava immediately stuck out to me. It has a polished sound (the album was co-recorded and mixed by Joe Reinhart, who also contributes vocals to the record) and a sturdy, song-first writing style that perhaps helps it connect beyond emo diehards, even as it declines to ditch any of the signifiers of the time–math-y midwest emo guitar riffs, emotional, soaring pop punk vocals, and dramatic, crescendoing instrumental flare-ups–to get there.

Opening track “Not Tonight, Jeff” is an ace submission to the “fun-sounding but meaty” emo-rock hall of fame, as the twinkly guitars give way to the sweeping chorus, which begins with “I wanna have the most intimate moments, where we share in laughter”. Some other highlights of the record’s first half use various tools to chisel their way there, from the prominent pop punk bassline that undergirds “Look, Babe, an Island (We Can Live on It)” to the gang-vocal-emo-anthem-overdrive of “Willow Tree”. Over the 32 minutes of Bottle Rockets, The Ground Is Lava work to keep it consistent with the deployment of emo balladry (“The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being Stupid for Dummies: A Self Help Book”, the one true concession to the emo title gods, and “Driving Through the Mountains at Night (Tight)”) and slick rock (“Smashers”, “Excuse Me, Can You Fill My Void?”). A decade out from Bottle Rockets, “emo” music looks pretty different at this current moment; to be clear, I’ve covered and enjoyed plenty of new emo groups the past couple of years, but it’s nice and even refreshing to be reminded of this era of the genre, where something like Bottle Rockets could come out, make a small but real impression, and that was enough. (Bandcamp link)

The Anderson Tapes – Broken

Release date: November 9^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, garage rock, indie pop, 90s indie rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Something You Wanted

The Anderson Tapes are a quartet from London (via Argentina, Poland, and Middlesbrough) who have been stubbornly releasing EPs and singles since 2019. The five-song Broken is, I believe, the fourth EP from the band (comprised of guitarist/vocalists Olga Ambrosiewicz and Delfina Davaro, bassist/vocalist Martin Keane, and drummer Chris Taylor), coming on the heels of 2021’s Everyday Again and last year’s “Fed Up” single. “Fed Up” appears on The Anderson Tapes’ newest record along with four brand-new tracks that show the band’s appreciation of guitar pop music both lazy and loud. Out of the various bands they cite as influences, Throwing Muses and Sonic Youth feel like the most accurate ones, although, really, Broken runs the gamut from fuzz rock to slowcore in twenty minutes.

On the more electric side of things, Broken offers up “Something You Wanted” to begin with–its initial guitar intro gives way to a mid-tempo piece of garage-punk that saunters with a Detroit energy and sounds impressively confident in its assets. The other straight-up rocker on the EP is the other bookend, “Fed Up”–that song similarly comes out fuzzy and blaring and emanating classic rock-and-roll coolness. In between these two tracks are three more probing, less in-your-face songs, although the bass-driven fuzz-pop of “The Great Outdoors” has some louder moments. The heart of Broken is probably the five-minute title track, which slowly moves across the timeless pop song from which it’s built at its core. The icy “The Game” is the one song where The Anderson Tapes let themselves be consumed with downtrodden 90s indie rock sentiment–although they can’t help but shake off the uncertainty and roll out a fantastic, rolling guitar solo to cap it. As much as Broken has a “found, underground” quality to it, it’s hardly blurry or distant-sounding–it’s an EP that’ll grab you by the collar and decline to let go. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The Terminal Buildings, Long Hair in Three Stages, Psychic Shakes, Dan Koshute

We’re kicking off the holiday week with a traditional Monday Pressing Concerns! We have a new compilation from The Terminal Buildings and new albums from Long Hair in Three Stages, Psychic Shakes, and Dan Koshute to look at today. Just a programming note: due to the American Thanksgiving holiday, the normal Thursday Pressing Concerns will be going up on Wednesday instead.

The Terminal Buildings – Coming to Terms with the Terminal Buildings: Best Ones 2021-2023

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi pop, power pop, bedroom pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Forgettable Guy

The Terminal Buildings are a one-person guitar pop project led by a Glasgowian home recording enthusiast named Finlay. If you’ve read Pressing Concerns long enough, you’re familiar with the type–a project with a huge back catalog on Bandcamp recorded entirely by themselves, usually available for a name-your-price download, containing a ton of hidden pop gems in the vein of Robert Pollard, Martin Newell, Mo Troper, et cetera. Taking in a band in this exploratory kind of way is exciting for certain listeners, but the good news for the rest is that The Terminal Buildings have done this for us, in a way. Coming to Terms with the Terminal Buildings: Best Ones 2021-2023 is indeed what it sounds like–fifteen songs from the past two years of The Terminal Buildings, culling tracks from a half-dozen different releases and presenting them in an easily-digestible 28-minute package. The Terminal Buildings of Coming to Terms sound fairly humble, with the songs often containing the bare minimum amount of instrumentation required to qualify as “power pop”–nevertheless, it’s a compilation absolutely stacked with successful pop music.

The compilation hits the ground running with the basement-version-Big-Star track “Cruel World” and “Struck Me Down”, a lazy-sounding piece of C86-ish jangly indie pop with some melancholic undertones. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Coming to Terms cements itself as something special, although some point around the handclap-baiting “More Like That” and the undeniable rock and roll (in spite of itself) of “Forgettable Guy” might be where to set the stake. Tony Molina feels like an obvious point of influence for The Terminal Buildings, which the brief brilliance in songs like “Knew It from the Start” (which darts from casual college rock to guitar-hero power pop in about 60 seconds) and “There’s Still Something About You” serves to underline. With less than thirty minutes to spare, there’s no time for filler here–“Mr L.A.” has some odd moments, but the payoff is more than worth the journey to get there, and Coming to Terms certainly ends strongly with the surprisingly fully-realized pop rock of “Your Dance” and acoustic ballad “I Don’t Want to Wrong My Baby” (recorded to cassette and sounding like whichever folk-pop troubadour feels the most “intimate” to you). Regardless of how many people had heard these fifteen songs before now, Coming to Terms has plenty of material worthy of a real-deal “greatest hits” collection. (Bandcamp link)

Long Hair in Three Stages – The Oak Within the Acorn

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: NoiseWave
Genre: Noise rock, post-punk
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Dunning-Kruger-Voight-Kampff

A Sicilian noise rock band who’s named themselves after a U.S. Maple song, huh. Don’t mind if I do. The Oak Within the Acorn is the third full-length album from Catania quartet Long Hair in Three Stages (drummer Giovanni Piccinini, bassist Santi Zappalà, vocalist Giuseppe Iacobaci, and guitarist Fabio Corsaro), and the first album from the group in nearly a decade (following 2014’s Burn/Smother and their 2008 debut, Like a Fire in a Cave). Although the band have certainly learned a bit from U.S. Maple’s guitar squall, they’re more comfortably in the realm of post-punk and art-punk than deconstructed post-rock–Iacobaci’s vocals are more Jello Biafra than Beefheart, for instance, and they’ve probably listened a good amount to their fellow Europeans in The Ex as well. Similarly, Iacobaci doesn’t let any language barrier get in the way of his fiery lyrics–largely in English, his topics range from fascism to Alternative Nation to misogyny to extraction capitalism in a way that is refreshingly not self-serious but hardly a “joke” either.

Honestly, the most “U.S. Maple moment” on The Oak Within the Acorn just might be the clang of feedback that begins the album, before the song launches into an Ex/Kennedys-ish piece of agit-punk. The album is lean but slippery, with Corsaro’s winding guitar coiling and striking over top of Piccinini and Zappalà’s razor-sharp rhythm section. Iacobaci, meanwhile, is all over the map–he’s referencing Karl Popper, Kalergi, and Qanon in “Dunning-Kruger-Voight-Kampff”, then he’s name-dropping Tindersticks and Sonic Youth in “1991” and on “Mysogynocyde” he’s–well, use your imagination on that one. While this is certainly an album with a good deal of appeal to those of us who know what Alternative Tentacles and Amphetamine Reptile are, I do want to emphasize that Long Hair in Three Stages are, more than anything, a fun and driven rock and roll band on The Oak Within the Acorn. The musical and lyrical references swirl about, but one doesn’t need to catch them with any regularity to get something out of this record. (Bandcamp link)

Psychic Shakes – Forever Now

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Good Eye
Genre: Bedroom pop, jangle pop, indie pop, dream pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Little One

Psychic Shakes is the project of Plymouth, England’s Max McLellan, who’s been making music under the name since 2016. Despite this, Forever Now appears to be the first Psychic Shakes full-length, as McLellan’s output had been restricted to EPs and singles up until now. On his first album, McLellan embraces a wide-sounding and sincere version of jangly, dreamy guitar pop (putting Psychic Shakes right at home on Good Eye Records, and it also reminds me of the recent Lost Film album). Forever Now is a short album, at nine songs and twenty-five minutes, but feels full and self-contained due to both the expansive sound that McLellan is able to pull off despite the “lo-fi” origins of the record and because of its driven, purposeful writing. Brought on by pandemic-induced instability and the impending birth of his daughter, Forever Now is deliberately constructed as a snapshot of McLellan’s past and present as he looks at the future.

Forever Now begins with a collection of huge, unstoppable pop songs. The first proper song on the record, “Little One”, starts off as a trebly piece of Cleaners from Venus-sounding jangle pop (Martin Newell is assuredly a big influence on Psychic Shakes), although it develops into a confident and modern-sounding piece of bedroom pop from there. “Fifteen Forever” and “Home” chase that song by offering up a similar level of energy and hooks–the former song in particular is a deft piece of wide-eyed new wave pop rock, and what “Home” lacks in a giant chorus it makes up for with a brisk tempo and a great ratio of melodic guitar parts for its relatively short length. Earning its “full length” status, Forever Now steers us into a contemplative midsection (the probing ballad “When We Die” and the spare instrumental “Island”) before rousing itself with the curious distorted folk of “Embrace”, one more dream pop hit single with “Unfold You”, and the acoustic epilogue of “My Baby Girl”. McLellan is skilled at articulating where he’s at in his life, and his use of arresting guitar pop to do so is a big part of why Forever Now works. (Bandcamp link)

Dan Koshute – Intravolve

Release date: July 26^th
Record label: Manga Persona
Genre: Power pop, glam rock, garage rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Cavalcade of Faces

I first became aware of Pittsburgh musician Dan Koshute via his contributions to Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World, the latest album from The Garment District, a collective led by The Ladybug Transistor’s Jennifer Baron. He contributed guitar and sang lead vocals on two of the tracks (including highlight “The Starfish Song”), his piercing and confident singing providing a nice counterbalance to the swirling psychedelia of the music. As it turns out, 2023 has been a big year for Koshute–it also featured the release of Intravolve, his fourth full-length album and first since 2018. On his own, Koshute is a much more direct singer-songwriter and performer–on this album, he puts his foot on the gas for a breathless collection of power pop/garage rock tunes delivered with an all-in attitude reflecting someone who doesn’t know how many fully “on-his-own” statements he’ll be able to make.

Koshute recorded Intravolve entirely on his own in “a secret recording studio in the back of a Pittsburgh yoga studio”–all things considered, it sounds great. Opening track “Cavalcade of Faces” is a cavalcade of energy, gleefully hanging on one chord before the rest of the band (I mean, Koshute on different instruments) kicks out a garage-pop anthem. “For Reasons”, “The Mysteries”, and “Till Then” rival the runaway-train spirit of the opening track, delivering hooks and speed in equal measure, and the record’s final two songs (“Leonids” and the title track) ensure that Intravolve ends with just as much zeal as it begins. Koshute does find a little bit of time to deliver something that’s slightly less frantic–“Glow Area” and “Coeternal” are still loud and fuzzy enough, but the mid-tempo power pop of the two of them do work as more than just moments of relative levity. Perhaps most importantly, nothing on Intravolve serves to dampen its identity as a record absolutely bursting with hooks deserving to be heard beyond the confines of a yoga studio. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Molly O’Malley, Frog, Wurld Series, Major Awards

This Thursday in November, Pressing Concerns rolls on uninhibited, offering up new albums from Frog and Wurld Series, a new EP from Major Awards, and a “mixtape” from none other than Molly O’Malley. Read on!

Molly O’Malley – Noise Beyond the Mantle: A Mixtape

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Mollywhop Record Shop
Genre: Dream pop, power pop, noise pop, synthpop, emo
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: They Don’t Sing All the Time

Last time we checked in with Louisville-originating, Cleveland-based Molly O’Malley, it was October of 2021 and they’d just put out Goodwill Toy, an ambitious little four-song indie pop EP that snuck onto my best of the year list. O’Malley has kept busy in the interim–the three-song Nobody Parties (Like Molly) EP last year, a few demos on their Bandcamp this April, a song on a Blink-182 covers compilation for Smartpunk–but Noise Beyond the Mantle is their most substantial release yet. The eight-song “mixtape” is the most Molly O’Malley we’ve had in one place thus far, and what we get with it is a blurry but undeniably recognizable snapshot of a talented pop singer-songwriter. The songs here are as catchy as they are messy, given a full dose of controlled chaos in their presentations, and O’Malley’s writing feels sharper and fuller than ever in the midst of it all.

Listening to the opening power pop hooks of “Don’t Say When”, one gets the sense that Molly O’Malley could be a genuine pop hitmaker if they wanted to be, even as the rest of Noise Beyond the Mantle resists being so straightforward, instead letting noise and friendliness alternate for control of the record. “Giddy Up!” chugs along, its dreamy, reverb-y rock slightly obscuring but unable to hide some of the most interesting writing I’ve heard from O’Malley yet (everything in that second verse could be the line that sticks with you on any given day). The biggest vocal hook on the entire record just might be “I just don’t know what I’d say at your funeral / When they ask me to speak,” from “They Don’t Sing All the Time”, and the biggest hook of any kind is probably the blaring, Rentals-y synth that stakes out a position smack dab in the middle of “I’ll Guess I’ll Get Going (If Going Is What I Need to Get)”.

There’s a sort of lightness-darkness balance going on in that latter song, with O’Malley delivering “Either way I’ll be disappointed in you” with all the emotion they’ve got in the chorus. “I’ll Guess I’ll Get Going…” guest vocalist Karah Goldstein of Smol Data is in unfamiliar territory here, eschewing the cartoon-y dramedy vibes of their most recent record for something that’s more “unblinking stare” and less “winking” (Goldstein and O’Malley may have used up all that song’s silliness with its Brak Show-referencing title). When O’Malley sent me this mixtape, they mentioned that they were working on their debut full-length as well, and while I’m certainly interested in hearing what that eventually sounds like, there’s more than enough on Noise Beyond the Mantle to enjoy as more than an appetite-whetter. (Bandcamp link)

Frog – Grog

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Audio Antihero
Genre: Experimental pop, folk rock, psychedelic rock, freak folk, prog-pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Maybelline

Frog are a Queens-based duo of brothers (Danny & Steve Bateman) who have been making music since 2015 to a fair amount of acclaim, even as their fifth album, Grog, is the first I’ve heard from them. I know that the band’s first four albums are beloved by a fair amount of people, and from my limited knowledge, their first new music since 2019’s Count Bateman is something of a departure for them, but from someone bringing no history or baggage to Grog, it sounds like an excellent collection of music from collaborators operating at their peak. It’s a pleasingly divergent record, with nearly every song taking a different tack than the track coming before it, even as the Batemans hold it together with shaky but intact pop hooks and Dan’s timeless-sounding, surprisingly versatile voice. Listening to Grog kind of feels like an alternate-universe oldies station in how it picks and chooses sounds from throughout the past to create a new listening experience.

This feeling is more pronounced than ever in Grog’s opening stretch, where the opening snippet track gives way to the space-y psych pop ballad “Goes w/o Saying”, a fascinating song whose falsetto vocals evoke a highly specific time period where bands like Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, and Grandaddy were incorporating the piano-pop-songwriting side of Neil Young into their indie rock. They follow that one up, of course, with the freak folk of “420!!”, a track that reminds me of the same feeling I get listening to Bruiser and Bicycle’s Woods Come Find Me, an indescribable campfire experience–and then after that comes the cascading, vintage power pop rock of “U Shuld Go 2 Me”. More twists keep coming, like the Grifters-y guitar möbius strip that is “Doom Song”, but by the second half of the record, something of a distinct “Grog style” starts to emerge in the form of folk-y, poppy journeys like “New Ro” and “Gone Back to Stanford”, one that can be slowed down (“So Twisted Fate”) or sped up (“Maybelline”) to best fit the song. As a document of a band developing a particular sound in real-time, it’s both successful and highly enjoyable to hear. (Bandcamp link)

Wurld Series – The Giant’s Lawn

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Meritorio/Melted Ice Cream
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, jangle pop, 90s indie rock, psychedelic pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: World of Perverts

Christchurch’s Wurld Series seem like a band made in a lab to appeal to me–a New Zealand guitar pop group that is inspired both directly by the classic Flying Nun bands that put their country on the indie rock map and indirectly via the American 90s indie rock groups that made the Dunedin Sound into something heavier and thornier. That being said, although I liked their 2021 breakthrough record What’s Growing, it didn’t end up fully “sticking” with me–but their follow-up and third full-length, The Giant’s Lawn, caught my attention just about immediately and has only rewarded this sleeve-tug since. Luke Towart, Brian Feary, Ben Woods, and Ben Dodd meander through an impressive patchwork sound throughout the album’s seventeen songs, displaying themselves as masters of both delicate pop music, indie guitar jams, and spacey acoustic psych-folk detours.

If thinking about The Giant’s Lawn as an Alien Lanes-ish mix of hits and strange interludes helps you understand it, Wurld Series certainly invites you to do so, especially early on, when the quartet offer up more than a few perfect guitar pop songs (the alt-rock chug of “Friend to Man and Traffic”, the especially Guided by Voices-y shit-kicking melancholy of “Lord of Shelves”, the deceptively affecting mid-tempo sparkle of “World of Perverts”) interspersed between the instrumental “The Giant’s Lawn Part I” and the warped piano snippet of Britishness that is “The Pugilist”. Particularly in the record’s second half, however, The Giant’s Lawn starts to melt in the sun, and the oddball and pop sides feel more likely to be directly intertwined. Not that, say, “Resplendent Fortress” isn’t as poppy as anything on the record’s A-side, but stuff like “Alive with Flies” and “Illustrious Plates” can’t be dismissed as interstitial even as they decline to be “normal” indie rock tunes. The last two songs of The Giant’s Lawn feel to me like divergent endpoints–on the one hand, there’s the multi-part prog-alt-rock-folk-swill of “Soft Ranks” and on the other one, the starkly beautiful acoustic/strings Pollardesque ballad “The Cloven Stone”. Both are highlights, and both represent The Giant’s Lawn well. (Bandcamp link)

Major Awards – It’s a Good Night to Have a Bad Time

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, alt-rock, college rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Dial Direct

Los Angeles’ Major Awards are a “sunshine punk” group made up of the core trio of Dylan Hensley (guitar/vocals), Mario Carreno (drums), and Josh Abarca (baritone guitar/trumpet), and joined on their debut EP by bassist James Bullock and pianist Tony Ramirez. It’s a Good Night to Have a Bad Time, which follows their debut single, September’s “Luxurious Sarcophagus”, is a four-song slow-burn of an EP with a familiar-seeming but nonetheless intriguing sound. Abarca’s prominent trumpet reminds me a bit of Fixtures’ most recent album in how just a single instrument is able to elevate a traditional “rock band” foundation beyond its starting point, and there’s a bit of Menzingers-y weary heartland punk (sapped of “attitude” to the point where only trace elements of “punk rock” can be ascertained) mixed in as well.

I’m not sure It’s a Good Night to Have a Bad Time could’ve started any more laid-back than with “Psalm 151”, whose mid-tempo power chords and Fender Rhodes accents give way to a lazily floating chorus (“Carry my thoughts and prayers to Heaven / On a plume of cigarette smoke,” Hensley sings alongside Abarca’s trumpet). Major Awards muster up just a bit of pep for “Let’s Be Resentful Again (Like We Were Last Year)”, although the cyclical, simmering emotions featured in the song keep the track from pushing the heat past “medium low”. Major Awards’ sound is just right to pull off “Red Eyes on the Red Line”, whose chorus feels like it’s frozen in time. It’s a Good Night to Have a Bad Time closes with “Dial Direct”, the EP’s busiest moment, and the one that feels like it most takes advantage of the newly-minted quintet lineup. Pretty much every instrument gets a moment in the spotlight throughout that track’s four-minute roots rock finale–a punctuation mark that only bodes well for Major Awards going forward. (Bandcamp link)

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