Pressing Concerns: The Bug Club, Miniaturized, Samuel S.C., Lack of Knowledge

Happy April! Today’s Pressing Concerns covers a pretty wide range: we look at the recent output of The Bug Club (vinyl reissues of their two most recent studio records, plus a surprise-released live album), the debut LP from Miniaturized, the reunion album from Samuel S.C., and a reissue of Lack of Knowledge‘s debut record.

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.

The Bug Club – Pure Particles & Green Dream in F# (Vinyl Reissues) / Mr Anyway’s Holey Spirits Perform! One Foot in Bethlehem 

Release date: April 14th / March 24th
Record label: We Are Busy Bodies/Bingo
Genre: Power pop, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Tracks: Sitting on the Rings of Saturn / A Love Song / One Foot in Bethlehem

The Bug Club are a Welsh trio who’ve been steadily amassing a following since the release of their debut single on Bingo Records at the beginning of the decade. The group (guitarist/vocalist Sam Willmett, bassist/vocalist Tilly Harris, and drummer Dan Matthew) released the “mini-LP” Pure Particles in 2021, and their proper full-length debut Green Dream in #F followed last year (and made Rosy Overdrive’s Favorite Records of 2022 Year-End List). With initial U.K. pressings sold out and no North American-based release, The Bug Club signed with Canadian label We Are Busy Bodies to release these two records on the other side of the pond for the first time, as well as to put out Mr Anyway’s Holey Spirits Perform! One Foot in Bethlehem, a surprise-released live record comprised of fourteen brand-new songs. It’s a good time to revisit a couple fine collections of sharp power pop with personality.

The Bug Club’s bio mentions Jonathan Richman, and The Modern Lovers are a good a starting point comparison-wise as anything. They’re quite twee in their songwriting, marrying winning pop melodies to tunes about vegetable gardens, Saturn and Jupiter, and art. Nevertheless, there’s a power pop/garage rock edge to the group’s music that gives these songs a bit of an extra punch. Pure Particles I’d never heard in full before, and it’s a treat to find that the core Bug Club sound was largely in place by this record. If it’s slightly “simpler” than where they’d go on their next album, that’s hardly a complaint–album highlights include the runaway rock and roll of the excitedly profane “A Love Song” and (of course) “My Baby Loves Rock & Roll Music”.

From their first record, the effortlessly groovy pop rock of “Vegetable Garden” and the (slightly) tamer hooks of “If My Mother Think I’m Happy” are the ones that set the blueprint for Green Dream in F# to follow. The Bug Club’s first full-length still sounds as fresh and overstuffed as it did when I heard it last year–the early garage-power-pop-rock rippers (“Only in Love”, “Little Coy Space Boy”, “Love Is a Painting”) haven’t lost their brightness, and just as importantly, the more varied but no less potent styles of guitar pop offered on the record’s B-side (the big-finish of “Going Down”, the slightly unruly retroism of “Sitting on the Rings of Saturn”, the ever-so-light “Love Letters from Jupiter”) still remain intriguing.

Green Dream in F# is a step forward from their already-solid debut in its ability to captivate completely across fourteen songs and thirty minutes–and then there is the curveball that is Mr Anyway’s Holey Spirits Perform! One Foot in Bethlehem. Recorded by the band’s alter ego, Mr Anyway’s Holey Spirits, over the course of a United Kingdom tour in January and February, the album is an off-the-cuff adventure that allows the band to introduce some more classic pop songs into their canon (“One Foot in Bethlehem”, “It’s Not Mine”, “I Don’t Know How to Rock and Roll with Emily”), as well as serving as a fairly blistering sample of The Bug Club’s live prowess–the six-minute sprint of “Suck It”, the smoking “Clapping in Time”, and the closing duo of “I’m Not Going to Heaven” and “I Don’t Want to Go to Hell” all feel like they’d be remarkable to witness in person. Where to next, Bug Club? (Bandcamp link)

Miniaturized – Miniaturized

Release date: March 31st
Record label: Manchester
Genre: Alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Most

The members of San Diego’s Miniaturized have a pretty strong pedigree, with several of them having contributed to the city’s most well-known bands–drummer/percussionists Maria Rubalcala and Chris Prescott have played with Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes (for the former) and Pinback and No Knife (the latter), bassist Brian Desjean was also in No Knife, and their self-titled debut was produced by none other than Mitch Easter. Miniaturized’s bandleader, singer/songwriter/guitarist Timothy Joseph, is less familiar to me, but he’s been playing music in San Diego for a few decades, enough to pull together this supporting cast for what was initially supposed to be a one-off tribute show to one of Joseph’s biggest idols, Tom Petty. Petty’s heartland rock, the 80s college rock associated with Easter, and Hot Snakes’ garage rock all figure into the sound of Miniaturized, a nearly-hourlong collection of disparate alt-rock anthems.

Miniaturized starts off relatively unassumingly with the dreamy, low-key college rock of “Riots” and “Blue Glass”, but there’s a tough full-band undercurrent to these songs that starts to peak out in the mid-tempo march of the title track, and then fully roars to life in the power pop/alt-rock of “The Suitor” and “The Most”. Songs like “Life Underground” find Miniaturized layering up, building up a relatively barebones structure into blurry, swirling, psychedelic rock and roll. Joseph and the band offer up a couple slow-starting power ballads with “Cave In” and “Peligroso”, with the former in particular mimicking the cavalcade implied by its title to be a highlight of the record. Perhaps invigorated by his new backing band, Joseph tries on several different skins for his songwriting over fourteen tracks–it’s a lot to take in with one spin, but it’s worth continuing to listen actively until the end of Miniaturized, as the final trio of songs (particularly the Ted Leo-esque “Perfect Angles”) is a fine a run as anything else on the album. (Bandcamp link)

Samuel S.C. – High Places

Release date: February 17th
Record label: ORG
Genre: 90s indie rock, indie punk, emo
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Syracuse in Winter

You’d be forgiven for missing it during the holiday season, but towards the end of last year I wrote about 94-95, a compilation of recordings from 90s emo-punk band Samuel. The reissuing of their discography on vinyl was accompanied by the announcement of a band reunion and a brand new Samuel (now known as Samuel S.C., paying tribute to their original hometown of State College, Pennsylvania) full-length, High Places. The album is a mix of “reimagined” 90s Samuel songs and new songs written by the reunited quartet over the past couple years (I’d guess that the songs featuring a co-writing credit from former guitarist Josh Deutsch are the older ones). Long gap aside, High Places succeeds in both hanging together as a whole and in capturing the energy of an active, engaged group. High Places is unmistakably the work of a “90s band”–the decade’s roaring indie punk, Dischord Records jaggedness, and emo all figure into the record’s sound–but it takes a reinvigorated group of musicians to pull it off. 

When I highlighted opening track “All Up in It” last month, I compared the album as a whole to Majesty Shredding, and I stand by that in terms of career trajectory as much as sound. The first two songs on High Places are classic underdog punk anthems, before “Unfortunate” and “Syracuse and Winter” slow things down enough to allow the band’s emo side (and lead singer Vanessa Downing’s vocals) to shine. Downing’s voice is front-and-center throughout the entire record, and it remains one of Samuel S.C.’s strongest weapons (particularly when it combines with backing vocalist James Marinelli in “Syracuse in Winter” and “In Sleep”). The catchiness of High Places’ eight songs really stands out with repeat listens–one playthrough, the casual college pop rock of “Endless Golden” will stick out, another time it’ll be the intricate sprint of “The Front”. By the time Downing and Marinelli stop singing against each other and combine forces for the chorus of “In Sleep”, it’s apparent that High Places isn’t just “good for a reunion album”–this is a solid emo record, no qualifiers necessary.  (Bandcamp link)

Lack of Knowledge – The Uninvited (Reissue)

Release date: March 23rd
Record label: Floating Mill/No Plan
Genre: Post-punk, anarcho-punk
Formats: Cassette, vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Uninvited

London’s Lack of Knowledge are a piece of anarcho-punk history. Active from 1978 to 1986, the group got signed to Crass Records (and later their sublabel, Corpus Christi) as teenagers and put out a full-length and several EPs during their eight years. Their first release was a 7” record put out by the band independently, “The Uninvited” backed with “Ritual”, and the strength of it was enough to get the attention of Crass. Originally released in 1982, these songs have resurfaced forty years later thanks to the help of Pittsburgh archival label Floating Mill (The Antelopes, The Stick Figures, Self Improvement), who are releasing the two tracks plus one outtake on cassette for the first time ever (a corresponding vinyl reissue from Germany’s No Plan Records appears to have sold out quite quickly).

From the opening and title track to The Uninvited, it becomes apparent that Lack of Knowledge weren’t strict practitioners of breakneck-paced, unhinged anarchist punk rock–they start things off with fairly restrained-sounding, bass-driven, vintage post-punk. While it’s certainly a less “polished” version of the sound put forward by the biggest names in the genre, it’s certainly no less potent for it. “Ritual” and the previously-unreleased “The Men” both follow in a similar vein of dark but tuneful garage rock-sounding post-punk, although they differentiate themselves solidly–the faster-paced “Ritual” has a bit of Fall-esque punchiness to it, and “The Men” takes a skeleton that loosely sounds like punk and hollows it out to make something cavernous. All three of these songs sound fresh and worth uncovering some four decades after their humble beginnings. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Telehealth, Mystic 100’s, The Declining Winter, DJ Silky Smooth

The last Pressing Concerns of March covers a big release Friday! Three great records out tomorrow (from Telehealth, Mystic 100’s, and The Declining Winter) are here, plus an album from earlier this week from DJ Silky Smooth. If you missed Monday’s post (covering The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Rust Ring, Eggs on Mars, and Sakkaris), check that one out too.

If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

Telehealth – Content Oscillator

Release date: March 31st
Record label: Very Famous
Genre: New wave, synthpunk, egg punk, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Idiot Proof (nO SoUp Du JoUr)

Telehealth’s Content Oscillator is a rare album. The record is a collaboration between Seattle’s Alex Attitude (of Deep Sea Diver, Kithkin, and Brian John Appleby) and Kendra Cox (of Lemolo)–Attitude is the head songwriter, and both of them sing. Attitude stepped away from music for a few years to be an architect, but quickly became disillusioned with the paper-thin utopianism of this new industry–the dressing up of the status quo in progressive and deceptively-sustainable-seeming packages. Thus a return to rock music was in order for a decidedly reinvigorated Attitude, and Telehealth was born. 

Telehealth’s debut record, Content Oscillator, is an incredibly fun-sounding synthpop/egg punk/new wave record, devoting just as much time to jamming Attitude’s observations, sketches, and satirical portrayals into these songs as it does to making them as enjoyable and entertaining as possible. This is to say–Telehealth sound a lot like Devo on Content Oscillator. I’m not sure if I’ve heard a modern band that nails the “Devo” sound better than Telehealth. And, befitting of its subject matter, Attitude and Cox accomplish this by embracing much more than surface-level “Devo-core” aesthetics, going further and dedicating themselves to developing an entire green-tinted worldview over the course of the record.

“Idiot Proof (nO SoUp Du JoUr)” is a pure blast of an opening track, a positively sparkling piece of synth-punk whose call-and-response chorus will instantly lodge itself in your brain. The first half of Content Oscillator offers up a few withering songs in “Hyper Tech Green Investment Guy” (“I work hard–I’m not a cop!”) and “Unsafe Feeling” (featuring dagger after dagger of a delivery from Cox), but Telehealth don’t slow down the chugging egg-punk-pop machine from there, instead dragging their subjects along with them gleefully. Take “Do the In-Between” right in the middle of the record–the single turns the way true uniqueness and optimism can get sapped and watered down to nothing by bad-faith actors into a dance craze. 

Although Attitude takes the mic more frequently of the two, Cox’s turns up front end up being quite memorable, nailing the casually pulverizing nature of the post-punk-y “Blinding Hour”. Telehealth never lose their fire throughout Content Oscillator, but they do show a new dimension towards the end of the record with a few pretty synthpop tunes (“Cool Breeze”, “No Time Lost”). Still, the rousing “Yr Groove” is what Telehealth choose to send off Content Oscillator. As sharp and satisfying it is as a closing track musically, Attitude and Telehealth resist the trap of trying to wrap up something as thorny as Content Oscillator’s subject matters neatly. “If things are ending, does it mean I’m free?” Attitude wonders over a surging new wave instrumental. There’s no answer, just the groove. (Bandcamp link)

Mystic 100’s – On a Micro Diet

Release date: March 31st
Record label: Listening House/Online Ceramics
Genre: Psychedelic rock, experimental rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Windowpane

Mystic 100’s were, for their reign of terror in the 2010s, known as Milk Music, roaring in from the Pacific Northwest and making two beloved records of noisy, fuzzy, 80s-underground-inspired indie-punk-rock before disappearing following 2017’s Mystic 100’s. In the six interstitial years, Milk Music spread from their origins in Olympia and Seattle to across the West Coast, added two new members (percussionist Travis Coster and piano/synth player Abby Dahlquist join the original line-up of guitarist/vocalist Alex Coxen, guitarist Dave Harris, bassist Charles Waring, and drummer Joe Rutter), and took the name of their previous full-length record for the new edition of their band. Befitting of the name change, there are traces of Milk Music on On a Micro Diet, but it sounds like nothing the band has done before. A massive double album of pure psychedelic rock, the record takes the Milk Music garage rock sound and blows it up, out, and to pieces.

I would say that the opening title track sets the tone for what to expect on On a Micro Diet, but the only way that’s really true is that it tells you to expect the unexpected. “On a Micro Diet” feigns a classic Milk Music opening until immediately veering into a ten-minute acid-dripping psychedelic jam session–not long after it, the nine-minute “Drug Man” tops it by straight-up morphing into jazz-rock, and the two jams are connected by “Message from Lonnie”, which isn’t as freewheeling but is still eight minutes of the loosest psych-tinged ballad you’ll hear. Fans of Mystic 100’s’ work under their old name will be immediately drawn to “Windowpane”, a five-minute catchy fuzz-rock tune that feels more dramatic than Mystic 100’s as a whole but shows they can still pull off that “sound” quite well. After that song and the equally-accessible country-psych of “Two Souls”, however, it’s back to the nearly-twenty minute “Have You Ever Chased a Lightbeam?”, and the rest of On a Micro Diet’s vibes are only broken up by the sub-one-minute garage-punk yelp of “On a Micro Diet 2”. Tune into the Mystic 100’s frequency–it’s worth it. (Bandcamp link)

The Declining Winter – Really Early, Really Late

Release date: March 31st
Record label: Home Assembly/Rusted Rail
Genre: Slowcore, post-rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital
Pull Track: Song of the Moor Fire

Richard Adams is probably most well-known for his work with Hood, the northern English band he co-led with his brother Chris and which released a ton of post-rock-and-slowcore-indebted records in the roughly fifteen years they were actively recording. The last Hood album came out in 2005, and since then, Richard has been, if anything, even more prolific with his solo project, The Declining Winter. Not counting EPs, splits, and remix albums, I believe that Really Early, Really Late is the eighth Declining Winter record since 2008. Over three decades into making this kind of music, Adams’ new album reaches towards beauty like the best of this genre does–considering that emptiness and restraint are key factors in slowcore, Adams’ experience has likely only aided his ability to reach its heights.

Really Early, Really Late finds itself on the pastoral English, almost-folky side of slowcore, and post-rock–strings (from violinist Sarah Kemp and cellist Peter Hollo) abound–Adams cites the likes of Mark Hollis and Robert Wyatt as inspiration for the double album. Synths color the record as well–perhaps not as electronic-friendly as Hood at their most adventurous, but nor is Really Early, Really Late a Luddite album. Songs like opening duo “The Darkening Way” and “Song of the Moor Fire”, as well as “Yellow Fields”, build deliberately around acoustic, folk skeletons, while “This Heart Beats Black” gets tugged along by synths anchored by Adams’ bass playing. There are moments of (controlled chaos) in some of Really Early, Really Late’s longer numbers, but The Declining Winter build to them to the point where they’re just another piece of a larger puzzle. (Bandcamp link)

DJ Silky Smooth – I’m Glad for Life

Release date: March 27th
Record label: Bee Side Cassettes
Genre: Indie pop, indie folk, experimental pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Concorde

Although the “DJ” at the front of DJ Silky Smooth’s stage name might be a bit of a misnomer, the rest of the moniker fits his music just fine. DJ Silky Smooth (aka Jacob Schwartz) has been making music under the name since at least 2017, and his latest full-length record is full of bright, shiny, guitar-based indie pop songs. Schwartz is based in Brooklyn, but the friendly, warm sound of I’m Glad for Life isn’t far off from several acts originating in his label Bee Side Cassette’s home of Albany, like Another Michael, Blue Ranger, and (in nearby Troy) Russel the Leaf. Instead of sticking to more pure folk/baroque indie rock, however, Silky Smooth ensures that the “DJ” isn’t just there for show with some interesting electronic additions, the occasional vocal effect, and prominent drum machines. 

“Offbeat” touches aside, I’m Glad for Life is an indie pop record first and foremost. DJ Silky Smooth has plenty of tricks in his bag, but rather than overwhelm each of the album’s thirteen tracks, he’ll add a couple to each song, knock out a hook, and move on in about two minutes. Schwartz pitches his voice up and down in “Floaty” and adds some whirring synths, but the crystal-clear acoustic guitar is the main feature of the song. “Birds” in particular presents the two sides hand in hand, with a whimsical acoustic guitar, 80s synths, and some referee-whistle sound effects all taking their turns to underline Schwartz’s sincere, melodic vocals. Schwartz delivers a particularly affecting performance in “Concorde”, and it shines through the drum machines dancing all over the track. When we finally get a chance to hear Schwartz alone with his guitar in “Secret Track”, he’s singing “I’ve fallen in love with a toaster”–truly not a dull moment on this record. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Rust Ring, Eggs on Mars, Sakkaris

Welcome back! I know what you’re here for–It’s time to start your week off with new music. Today’s Pressing Concerns looks at new albums from The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Rust Ring, Eggs on Mars, and Sakkaris.

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.

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

Release date: March 24th
Record label: Slumberland/Tough Love
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Mistakes (Too Many to Name)

At this point, we know roughly how a Reds, Pinks & Purples album is going to sound–if for no other reason than we’ve received a lot of new music from the Glenn Donaldson project as of late. 2022 saw the release of three Reds, Pinks & Purples full-lengths, a couple of EPs, and an instrumental record. In recent years, Donaldson has used the Reds, Pinks & Purples to establish himself as perhaps the archetypical songwriter in a crowded San Francisco jangle pop scene. His records offer up gently-strummed chord progressions, generous melodies, and a wistful, melancholic voice overseeing it all. That being said, the first Reds, Pinks & Purples album of 2023, The Town That Cursed Your Name, feels pretty distinct from their last couple of full-lengths–it’s a bit louder, more electric, and fuzzier than Summer at Land’s End or They Only Wanted Your Soul.

While no one is going to mistake Donaldson for a garage punk on The Town That Cursed Your Name, an indie music historian like him is well aware that beautiful melodies and distortion have long gone hand in hand. Not that anyone needs an excuse to crank up the amps a little bit, but the album’s somewhat meta-subject matter–which at the very least warmly nods to fledgling bands and musicians, if not outright treating them in an openly celebratory manner–feels like an appropriate pairing for it. The album opens with a sketch of a musician in “Too Late for an Early Grave” who’s never even had a “brush” with fame, and it’s unclear how much of the take-off tale of  “Leave It All Behind” is meant as hypothetical, real-life, or fantasy. Donaldson remains the unchanging, tilting-towards-emotion center of the record, whether he’s singing over acoustic guitars or the swirling distortion of songs like “Burning Sunflowers” and “Life in the Void”. 

Donaldson’s most emotive turn on The Town That Cursed Your Name probably comes with “Mistakes (Too Many to Name)”, a triumphant-sounding anthem that’s tempered by Donaldson wondering of himself “How can one person make so many mistakes?” in a tone that conveys real disbelief. In the title track, Donaldson takes a step back and lets the lyrics’ futility and failure speak for itself, moving along at a brisk pace. For album closer “Break Up the Band”, Donaldson offers up something not found elsewhere on the record–a full-on piano ballad. If it wasn’t already clear by this point where the Reds, Pinks & Purples stand on the matter of the town-cursed band, Donaldson’s closing benediction gives the game away. (Bandcamp link)

Rust Ring – North to the Future

Release date: February 24th
Record label: Knifepunch/Storm Chasers LTD
Genre: Emo, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Tiny Frame

I was always fascinated with Alaska when I was younger. There were a few other frigid, Arctic Circle locales that intrigued me as well (Greenland, Svalbard, the Canadian territories, Siberia), but the Last Frontier was the biggest one, I think. One of my favorite songs as a teenager (and, let’s be real, still today) was “Going to Alaska” by the Mountain Goats–something about traveling to the remote, rugged edge of “society” appealed to me in some way. Wonder why. Anyway, Alaska figures pretty heavily into North to the Future, the second album from Chicago’s Rust Ring. Named after the state’s motto, North to the Future uses the state’s isolation as a jumping point for frontwoman Joram Zbichorski to write about her relationship with gender in a fantastical but still very close-hitting way. Oh, and it’s also a jumping point for a bunch of very good, very cathartic, gang-vocal-sporting emo-punk anthems.

North to the Future kicks off the trek by trying on three big-screen numbers on for size–opening scene-setter “Outline Alaska” introduces the idea behind the record quite enthusiastically, and “Incognito” blows everything up and drags internal thoughts out in the open with a roar. “Tiny Frame” clutches its title line triumphantly, a true, confident moment of declaration. North to the Future is a really great-sounding record, with Zbichorski and her collaborators bringing their A-game musically–moments like when “One Polar Night” shifts into lumbering riff-rock add an extra layer to an album that’s already doing a lot. “‘Everytime We Touch’ Comes On”, right in the middle of the record, is a big old alt-rock ballad in reverse, riding chugging power chords to its quiet, floating titular line. Album highlight “Three Sunrises” feels (at the very least) Alaska-sized, its chorus sounding massive, sweeping, and levitating in a way reflectant of the fantasy element to which the refrain nods (and all this is before the saxophone kicks in!). North to the Future is, conceptually, one of the most interesting albums of the year for me–but this wouldn’t be nearly as remarkable if it wasn’t executed as well as it was by Rust Ring over and over again throughout the record (Bandcamp link)

Eggs on Mars – Warm Breakfast

Release date: March 21st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Psych pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: No Problem

Eggs on Mars are a four-piece “Midwestern soft psych” band from Kansas City, Missouri that have been self-releasing their music on cassette and CD for around a decade. Their latest record, Warm Breakfast, is an album of pop songs that indeed roll over the listener gently, borrowing melodies and a sense of hazy psychedelia from 1960s pop rock but presenting themselves in a relatively stripped-down indie rock package instead of layering on the orchestral instrumentation. Guitarist Brad Smith’s lead vocals are understated, but not buried in a dream pop way–he reflects Warm Breakfast’s melancholic sound in this manner, and it also helps emphasize the moments when Smith decides to look up from his shoes aurally and grab a hold of the listener.

Warm Breakfast starts with a couple of upbeat pop rock tunes that incorporate a bit of 90s indie rock influences–the sub-one minute “Especially Now” opens the record with a stomping beat and something of a chant of a vocal, while the jaunty “No Problem” is breezy and hooky, with Smith cramming a bunch of words into the chorus in a fun, XTC-ish way. Warm Breakfast kicks out a few more tracks that fall on the more “rock” side of indie rock (notably the handclap-aided “Never Change”, although parts of “All’s Well Elsewhere” and “My Words” fall under this banner as well), but the bulk of the rest of the record deals with unhurried, sprawled-out psychedelic pop songs.

“Wrong Way” and “Every Day I Cross the River” are both slow-moving and stoic-sounding (“You don’t have to ask me about me about my day, because I’ve already lived it,” Smith sings matter-of-factly in the latter), although Warm Breakfast certainly isn’t a cold record. Subtle by nature, one has to listen to hear the small moments of gratefulness and joy in the record, from recognizing the fragility of life in “Nameless Headline” to observing the titular creatures of “Earthwormin’”. (Bandcamp link)

Sakkaris – Ordinary Misery

Release date: March 10th
Record label: BIRTHDIY
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, surf rock, dream pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Ordinary Misery

Sakkaris are a Los Angeles-based indie rock duo made up of twin brothers Alex & Kevin Liu. The Lius have been releasing music constantly since Sakkaris began in 2020, from a steady stream of non-album singles to 2021’s Admire EP to last year’s Conditions. Earlier this month saw the release of Ordinary Misery, their second full-length, via BIRTHDIY (a digital label connected to Spirit Goth Records). Given this association, it’s no surprise that Sakkaris fit right in with the kind of lo-fi, reverb-y, surf/jangle-tinged indie rock that has been released through Spirit Goth–importantly, though, the Lius’ songwriting shines through the fuzz and offers up plenty of memorable pop rock moments. Reverb aside, there are few frills to Ordinary Misery–Sakkaris prefer to let the songs speak for themselves, and for (almost exactly) twenty minute and seven tracks, they do so.

The multi-layered, gliding opening track “You” sets up Ordinary Misery nicely–too dreamy to be “surf rock”, rocking too much for “dream pop”, and too lo-fi to recall most “shoegaze”, it’s just an ace noisy pop song. “Hold It Against You” and “Stillness” avoid being retreads by veering into the garage rock and 2010s dream/jangle pop ends of their sound, respectively, and the massive instrumental hook of the title track would brighten the corners of any subgenre of guitar pop record. Sakkaris get a little darker towards the end of Ordinary Misery with the downcast-sounding “Fear Again” and closing track “Years”, which sends the record off on an atmospheric, cavernous, synth-touched note. While a brief record, it feels like no time in Ordinary Misery is wasted, and all of it contributes to it being a quality pop album. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Connections, The Natural Lines, SLOT, Quiz Show

Welcome to the Thursday edition of Pressing Concerns! Today, we’re looking at three great albums that are coming out tomorrow, courtesy of Connections, The Natural Lines, and SLOT, and we also have the Quiz Show album from last week to discuss. If you missed the Monday edition, an eclectic one covering R.J.F., Feast of the Epiphany, Weird Numbers, and Spencer Dobbs, I recommend checking that one out too.

If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

Connections – Cool Change

Release date: March 24th
Record label: Trouble in Mind
Genre: Lo-fi power pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: In Space

Connections make classic rock for a small subsection of us. They rose from the ashes of 90s indie rock group 84 Nash, and between Ron House, Guided by Voices, and Times New Vikings, have been connected to several decades’ worth of a certain brand of underdog Ohio indie rock. Connections got off to a sprint upon conception in the early 2010s, releasing five full-lengths from 2013 to 2018, all of which are excellent power pop records–their debut Private Airplane may be “the one”, but 2016’s Midnight Run and 2018’s Foreign Affairs easily kept the quality at a similar level into their fourth and fifth outings. The five-year gap between the latter of those two and their newest record, Cool Change, then, is somewhat surprising; keeping things coordinated with a band of this size (they expanded to a six-piece during this LP’s recording) during a pandemic likely was difficult, so Connections went on ice for a bit. Lead songwriter Andy Hampel made a quality solo album. Bassist Philip Kim joined former member Adam Elliott’s new band, Long Odds.

But with Cool Change, their second album for Trouble in Mind, Connections are back. And, as opening track and lead single “In Space” makes quite clear, it’s not a soft re-launch. The five-minute introduction roars to life with a sense of clarity and purpose, kicking things into overdrive with its busy and appropriately spacey-sounding chorus. While the rest of Cool Change doesn’t quite shoot for the same level of gravitas, shades of it touch the eleven tracks of vintage Connections pop-rock hookiness that follow. While the suave power pop of “Slow Ride” could’ve appeared on any Connections album in some form, it’s presented here in a way such that all of its elements–jammy lead guitars, a melodic bassline, and, most surprisingly, some new wave-y Cars synths– get a chance to shine individually. 

Smack dab in the middle of Cool Change, the 90-second downcast jangle of “I Confess” feels like an odd choice for a single, but it’s a captivating exercise in subtlety for the band (especially in context, where it comes in between two big-sounding heavy hitters in “Steppin’ Out” and “It’s a Start”). Connections have always been a remarkably consistent group, so it’s no surprise that the back half of Cool Change possibly bests the A-side, both in terms of tracks that sport the “classic” Connections sound (“Let Me Eat Cake” and “Unsolved Mysteries”) and in the more “pensive” department (“Vacationland” and closing track “You Are All You Need”, both of which push the band’s chiming guitar pop into more meditative and/or haggard places). With a half-dozen records under their belt (and no plans to slow down for another half-decade now), Connections remain at their peak. (Bandcamp link)

The Natural Lines – The Natural Lines

Release date: March 24th
Record label: Bella Union
Genre: Folk rock, chamber folk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Alex Bell

Matt Pond PA was a fixture in 2000s indie folk rock, never finding themselves as the buzz band of the month but rather putting out records at a steady, workmanlike clip starting with their 1998 debut. Matt Pond declared his intention to retire the “Matt Pond PA” band name in 2017, although miscellaneous collections and reissues of Pond material continued to surface under the moniker until the announcement of a new Pond-led band, The Natural Lines, last year. The debut Natural Lines record was 2022’s First Five EP, which was an intriguing mix of upbeat pop rock (“It’s a Trap”), classic Pond folk (“The End of the World”), and more synth-based forays (“Spontaneous Skylights 2”). Perhaps in the interest of making a more thought-out formal opening statement, the self-titled Natural Lines full-length record doesn’t do as much genre-hopping as the EP, instead opting to focus and develop a full-sounding, well–orchestrated folk rock sound across its eleven songs.

The Natural Lines’ opening track, “Monotony”, is a classic Pond-penned tune, a wide-eyed piece of sweeping folk rock that wields its title deftly–declaring Pond’s capacity to find inspiration a few decades and over a dozen albums into this whole “singer-songwriter” thing. “No More Tragedies” and “HELP” help give the early part of the record and electric flavor, although the guitars don’t overwhelm the songs and instead sit nicely among several other contributions from the nine or so other musicians taking part in The Natural Lines. The midsection of The Natural Lines, where Pond and his bandmates lean into the “chamber folk” side of their sound, is the most rewarding over time–“Alex Bell” and “Spontaneous Skylights” float along, while in between, “My Answer” shapes the sound of The Natural Lines into something dramatic and frantic. Not every song on The Natural Lines is built to pop out immediately like “Monotony” or mid-record anthem “A Scene That Will Never Die”, but there are rewards hidden all throughout the record if one looks for them. (Bandcamp link)

SLOT – Limbo

Release date: March 24th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Noise rock, post-punk, industrial pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Doctor

Baltimore has been a sneaky hotbed for offbeat music of several stripes in recent years, from the fluttery psych-pop of Tomato Flower to Smoke Bellow’s minimalist post-punk to the bluesy noise rock of Gloop. The latter of those three bands features Max Detrich, who is also one-half of SLOT, along with Abby Chapple. In his other band, Detrich makes skewered Americana-flavored punk rock inspired by Captain Beefheart and the Butthole Surfers, but SLOT is noisy rock music of a decidedly different flavor. The nine songs on their debut album, LIMBO, are made up mostly of a drum machine backbeat, bass guitar, and Chapple’s memorable, sneering vocals. A self-described “industrial pop” duo, LIMBO lives up to this billing–equal parts catchy and seething, all parts in-your-face completely.

Sure, the average song on LIMBO is fairly barebones structurally, but SLOT never once leave you with the question of “is it enough?”–it’s more than. Opening track “Dig In” establishes that from the very beginning–the pounding drum machine, the lumbering bass guitar, and Chapple’s demented taunt of a vocal all leave very little breathing room for anything else, anyway. “Doctor” and “Sick Joke” keep this sound rolling in the record’s first half, prowling through some aggro-danceable noise rock. LIMBO is a tough record through and through, although the songs that emphasize the band’s industrial-pop side (“Pop!”, “Minto”) feel a little less threatening. The second half of LIMBO contains both the album’s heaviest song (“Peel”, which tilts toward drum-machine-metal) and the most purely industrial (the conveyor belt lurch of “Pearl”), but SLOT make sure to end things with the noisy dance party that is “Drusilla”. (Bandcamp link)

Quiz Show – Quiz Show

Release date: March 17th
Record label: Magic Door
Genre: Post-punk, post-hardcore, alt-rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: What If?

Chris Matthews was a founding guitarist in legendary D.C. post-hardcore group Shudder to Think, playing with them from 1986 to 1994 and contributing to all of their Dischord Records-era albums. After leaving Shudder to Think, Matthews pretty much stepped away from music–until about a half-decade ago, when he emerged with a new band, Quiz Show. Quiz Show singles began to show up in 2018, recorded at Magic Door Studios in Montclair, New Jersey with producer Ray Ketchem and drummer Kevin March–who, interestingly enough, also played with Shudder to Think, joining a couple of years after Matthews left (another Shudder to Think member, reunion-era bassist Jesse Krakow, is involved with Quiz Show–he did not contribute to the original singles, but is in the current lineup of the band).

Quiz Show’s self-titled debut full-length mostly collects the singles that Matthews recorded between 2017 and 2020, with a couple of previously-unreleased tracks thrown in as well. Quiz Show certainly sounds like the work of musicians that came up in Dischord-era D.C. Matthews’ songwriting style hews more toward the early “surging, alt-rock/punk anthem” side of his old band, less so the more offbeat material they’d make in their later records. It’s not a one-note collection, though–the full-throated singalongs like “Almost Famous” and “Pom Pom Boy” are Quiz Show’s predominant mode, but they deviate from it from the beginning (the thorny opening track “Sound of Kissing”) to the end (woozy, multi-part album closer “Mannequin Sun”) of the record. Sometimes Quiz Show pulls off the transition in the same song, like when the roiling verses of “What If” erupt into a pop-punk chorus. Matthews didn’t lose his ability to make rousing music while away from recording–Quiz Show is nothing but proof of that. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: R.J.F., Feast of the Epiphany, Weird Numbers, Spencer Dobbs

Welcome to a new week, and a new edition of Pressing Concerns. This is one of the weirder editions of the year so far (and I mean that in the best way possible); today we’re looking at new records from R.J.F., Feast of the Epiphany, Weird Numbers, and Spencer Dobbs.

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.

R.J.F. – Going Strange

Release date: March 17th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, experimental rock, minimalism, dub
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Cutting

Ross John Farrar has plenty of credits to his name already–he’s been the longtime lead singer of beloved California punk band Ceremony, and more recently has fronted SPICE as well, in addition to being a published poet. Two things that Farrar hasn’t been, however, are a recording musician (handling only vocal duties in his bands up to this point) and a solo artist–both of which have now changed with the release of Going Strange, his debut release as R.J.F. While Ceremony’s more recent post-punk-leaning material and SPICE’s exploratory alt-rock might spiritually prepare the listener for what to expect with Going Strange, it still ends up sounding quite unlike any of Farrar’s previous music projects. The album is presented on streaming services as a single 47-minute track–though the music all flows continuously, it does feel like there are discreet “songs” with stopping and starting points hidden here (and this is confirmed by how the record is laid out on Bandcamp), so I’d file this more as a “stylistic choice” than a necessity.

Taking in Going Strange all at once gives one the feeling of witnessing someone cautiously and deliberately figuring out how to make and present music in a new way. The record begins intriguingly with a floating instrumental opening, before establishing the minimal sound that most of Going Strange takes–for the first few “songs” (“Farrow’s Birthday”, “Totem of Love”, “Peace in Anger”), the record steps forward to the pace of a probing bassline, some synth accents, and Farrar’s low-key but capable vocals (as barebones as his accompaniment can be, Farrar still sings on this album). The bright keyboard and drum machine that kicks in at the beginning of “Cutting” is a welcome surprise, veering into pretty lo-fi pop–Farrar moves back into bass-driven, rhythmic post-punk afterwards, but at this point it sounds a bit “fuller” than the first third of the record. Going Strange engages in a bit of symmetry by drifting off towards its ending, although it also features a piano-soundtracked piece of spoken word and a subsequent outro in “Cleveland” that pushes it into ambient music territory. Nevertheless, Going Strange ends with one last song (“Emelie’s Dream”) in which Farrar’s bass and trippy synths are joined by prominent handclaps—he never stops moving forward and trying on new ideas. (Bandcamp link)

Feast of the Epiphany – Significance

Release date: February 22nd
Record label: Strategy of Tension
Genre: Art pop, synthpop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: A Further Flame

New York’s Nick Podgurski has played in the bands GRID, Extra Life, MONAD, and Yukon, and has also been making music under the name Feast of the Epiphany for over a decade. Podgurski frequently takes on the role of drummer in his various musical collaborations, but he does a bit of everything (piano, synths, guitar, and bass, in addition to writing and singing the songs) on Significance, the latest Feast of the Epiphany record. Podgurski has made music all over the map, genre-wise, but Significance clearly carves out its own niche—slow-moving, deliberate, ornate 80s-influenced art pop. Although Significance’s artwork evokes the world of early 80s synthpop records (and there’s definitely some of that in there), Significance takes the busyness of that kind of music and merges it with the record’s biggest single reference point–the carefully-constructed, orchestrated wide-open sound of later Talk Talk records.

Significance sounds cinematic, and that’s intentional–Podgurski created the record as the soundtrack for a nonexistent film. Podgurski and his collaborators on the album–a diverse group befitting of the bandleader’s background, featuring musicians who have played with Lydia Lunch and Robert Fripp and members of everything from Dust Star to Gorguts–guide these ten songs deftly through movements and turns. Podgurski’s soaring, melodic voice is always the center of Significance, and its most frequent accompaniment is a warm, droning synth. A lot of Significance is built around sustaining a specific mood, and its moments of transition (like when the explosive start of “A Further Flame” unravels) take their time to feel natural. Some of the less-synthetic touches on Significance (like Tony Gedrich’s upright bass on the opening track, or Cameron Wisch’s live drums in a few songs, most notably the title track) stick out among the washes of keyboards, but that’s not a bug–it’s just another way Significance feels living. (Bandcamp link)

Weird Numbers – Weird Numbers

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Post-punk, garage punk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Uzis and Bikinis

Weird Numbers are four-piece West Coast punk rock band that formed in Seattle from the ashes of several Pacific Northwest groups that I’m just going to trust are real and not made up (Wasted USA, The Girls, Tourist, Maniac)–guitarist/vocalist Zache Davis has since moved to Los Angeles, but he and the rest of the group (bassist Collin Griffiths, drummer Ethan Jacobsen, and keyboardist/guitarist Alex Robert) have kept Weird Numbers going across multiple state lines. Their debut EP came out on Dirt Cult Records back in 2019, and their Dandy Boy-released first full-length record (featuring a couple songs re-recorded from that EP but mostly new material) shows off a sound well in-line with their first label’s brand of garage punk, but one distinct on its own as well. Weird Numbers’ ten songs are delivered with the measured, straight-faced nature of post-punk, but also pulsate with a scuzzy, dirty punk rock energy underneath the sleek exterior. 

“Green” begins the record with a basketball-dribbling rhythm section and a mostly-deadpan delivery from Davis. The first half of Weird Numbers keeps all of these ingredients intact, even when the band dip into a few more garage rock-flavored tracks like “Pretty Punctual” and “Switching the Code”. Weird Numbers balance their furious rock band energy and post-punk restraint throughout the record, pulling it off impressively on tightly-constructed tracks like “Truth to Tease” and the hypnotic “Soda”. Weird Numbers ends with the requisite six-minute scorcher, “Uzis and Bikinis” (re-used from their debut EP, but no complaints from me here). Davis pushes his vocals on this one as the band trek forward determinedly, building to a big finish where Davis is, frenetically, “drowning in pastis and regret”. Weird Numbers takes a refined-sounding tour through the scummy–by the end of the record, it makes sense that it’s permeated everything. (Bandcamp link)

Spencer Dobbs – If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Dust Press
Genre: Outsider folk, blues
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Funeral Band

There’s not too much information about Spencer Dobbs out there. The singer-songwriter hails from Texas, and has been making music for at least a decade, although the earlier releases under the name don’t appear to exist online anywhere at the moment. The two most recent Spencer Dobbs releases have come out through Dust Press, a label that appears to exist solely to publish Dobbs’ music. If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You follows last year’s Bayou Keening, and the label has referred to it as an “archival” album. It’s listed on streaming services as being from 2004–are these songs nearly twenty years old? It’s certainly possible–the music of If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You offers little to nothing in terms of timestamping itself.

If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You is a haunted, lost-sounding album. It’s sparse, empty-space folk music that erupts itself into feedback-laden electric guitar outbursts when it sees fit to do so. It reminds me more than anything else of a post-rock Simon Joyner–comparisons to fellow Texas outsider Jandek would also not be off-base here. Opening track “Funeral Band” is nearly seven minutes and harrowing, with its unmoored, bluesy electric folk rock building and deconstructing itself over the song’s length. From the screeching riffs of “Barbed Wire” to the slowly-advancing “Heaven”, If the Moon Don’t Turn Its Back on You finds a lot to mine in this sound, although the record closes with a couple acoustic, more purely folk songs and “Choir”, which sounds like a Spencer Dobbs version of what the title implies and sends the record off on an appropriately spiritual note. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable: 

Pressing Concerns: Whitney’s Playland, The Lost Days, Tedward, Natural Velvet

Hello! It’s Pressing Concerns time again! Another big release day is nearly upon us–today’s post looks at three records coming out tomorrow, March 17th (Whitney’s Playland, The Lost Days, and Tedward), plus an EP from Natural Velvet that came out a couple weeks ago. This has been a rare three-post week on Rosy Overdrive: If you missed me going long on the new Emperor X EP on Tuesday, or Monday’s look at Timeout Room, Cel Ray, Gramercy Arms, and Dogs at Large, I recommend checking both of those out as well.

If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

Whitney’s Playland – Sunset Sea Breeze

Release date: March 17th
Record label: Paisley Shirt/Meritorio
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Sunset Sea Breeze

Whitney’s Playland was formed during the pandemic by Inna Showalter and George Tarlson, two San Francisco musicians who have played in several noisy Bay Area pop bands previously (Blades of Joy, Modern Charms, Grandma’s Boyfriend). The group (which recently added Evan Showalter and Paul DeMartini to become a four-piece) are releasing their debut record, Sunset Sea Breeze, on vinyl via Meritorio and cassette via Paisley Shirt, and it’s certainly a strong opening statement of a first album. Whitney’s Playland feels a bit more low-key than some of Showalter and Tarlson’s louder old bands–it fits right in with the sleepy, dreamy Bay Area jangle pop that Paisley Shirt has been chronicling in recent years. Dreaminess aside, however, Sunset Sea Breeze is also one of the straight-up catchiest records I’ve heard this year–it’s a lo-fi power pop record first and foremost.

The record’s opening title track is a transcendent indie pop experience, riding a simple ascending acoustic-guitar-and-bass progression triumphantly in a way that sounds like The Crabs crossed with The Sundays. The big-electric-guitar-wielding “Mercy” follows it up one song later, and it’s no less of a melodic wrecking ball than “Sunset Sea Breeze”. Whitney’s Playland can jangle, too– “Backwards Forever” is a fine entry into the genre that highlights the first half of the album as well. There’s a wistfulness to Showalter’s vocals and in the home-recorded nature of the record–perhaps it reflects more on me than the music, but I was already thinking about Guided by Voices even before they bust out a slowed-down, shimmering cover of “Motor Away” midway through the album. Not losing steam at all, the second half of Sunset Sea Breeze offers up the noisy, drum-machine-driven “Rain Song” and the acoustic, floating charms of “Sketches of Dino” and “Tiger by the Tail”–all of which feature equally melodic vocals from Showalter. Sunset Sea Breeze offers enough strong hooks for several records’ worth of indie pop–or, you could just listen to this one album and get drawn in immediately. (Bandcamp link)

The Lost Days – In the Store

Release date: March 17th
Record label: Speakeasy Studios SF
Genre: Lo-fi indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: For Today

The Lost Days is a collaboration between Tony Molina (of Ovens and a pretty impressive solo career) and Sarah Rose Janko (who leads folk rock group Dawn Riding) that began a few years ago in an Oakland warehouse. The duo released their debut record, the Lost Demos EP, in 2021, and their first album was written remotely and recorded whenever schedules lined up after Janko moved to New Orleans. The music that inspired In the Store is eye-catching–Bill Fox, The Byrds, Dear Nora and Guided by Voices–and the record does live up to what one might imagine reading those acts’ names. It’s homespun-sounding, lo-fi, acoustic-based pop music–it’s neither Janko’s rambling country-folk nor Molina’s sharp power pop, but it’s also not a world away from either (in fact, In the Store feels like the midpoint in their disparate sounds).

As anyone familiar with Tony Molina’s solo work knows, he is the master of the short song, and he doesn’t change this up for In the Store–these ten songs zip by in about fourteen minutes, only about four longer than their EP. Likewise, those familiar with Molina know that this is ample time for his songs to take hold. In the Store is breezily-strummed pop songs from the get-go, with “Gonna Have to Tell You”, “Half the Time”, and “For Today” all humbly making their mark and departing. Janko’s vocals are conversational and cheery, which helps mask some of the record’s darker undercurrents (“It seems to me the hardest part of staying sober / Is anytime that you come over today”, observes Janko in “For Today”, not the only song touching on alcoholism on the record). Molina sounds more downcast in the couple of songs he sings–“Pass the Time” is about as dire as this kind of music can get. In the Store is a casual-sounding record whose intimacy and depth are only enhanced by its presentation. (Bandcamp link)

Tedward – Floater

Release date: March 17th
Record label: I’m into Life
Genre: Fuzz rock, shoegaze, noise pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Shooting Star

Cincinnati has been host to a lot of great garage punk music lately (Crime of Passing, The Drin, Choncy), and while the city’s Tedward certainly rock as hard as any of those groups, they do it in a decidedly different vein. Led by singer-songwriter Terence Lee, Tedward’s debut cassette, Floater, is loud, amped-up fuzz rock in the vein of Ovlov and a few other northeastern, Exploding in Sound-core groups (Lee is pretty open about being a big Ovlov fan–Floater‘s opening track “Ablona” was inspired by a dream of seeing the band play live), as well as omnivorous, poppy shoegaze-influenced rock bands like Enumclaw. Floater is a brief debut tape–like the Lost Days album, it’s over in about fourteen minutes, with the band ripping through these seven songs with the enthusiasm of a newly-minted group.

The first two songs on Floater hit with full force–“Ablona” washes over the listener with a steady, roaring sound, and Lee’s vocals push through the noise in the 90s alt-rock-evoking “Shooting Star”. The speedy fuzz-punk of the title track is the one other breakneck rocker on Floater, although the rest of the tape is pretty sturdy too. The streak from “Spencer Dr.” to “Keep It Moving” doesn’t turn off the fuzz so much as deploy it in a way to let the tracks differentiate themselves from each other–the one song that unplugs the amps for a bit is closing track “Ending”, which lets Lee perform an acoustic number for about a minute before the band kicks in for a triumphant, massive electric rock finish. (Bandcamp link)

Natural Velvet – Cruel Optimism

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Plastic Babylon
Genre: Alt-rock, post-punk
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Signifier (Desire)

Baltimore’s Natural Velvet have been around for a decade or so, but this month’s Cruel Optimism is their first record in a while–aside from a pandemic-era remix EP, their last album came out back in 2017. No context is really needed to enjoy the quartet’s latest offering, however–Cruel Optimism is five enthusiastic songs that jump from 90s alt-rock to post-punk to dream pop to jangly college rock while still cohering with each other. Vocalist/bassist Corynne Ostermann is a theatrical punk rock singer whose range is on full display throughout the EP, and the rest of the band (guitarists Kim Te and Spike Arreaga, drummer Greg Hatem) play in a way complimentary of her voice, be it furiously or deftly. 

Cruel Optimism’s first two tracks hit both ends of Natural Velvet’s sound–EP opener “Guarantee” rips into things with crunchy, noisy alt-rock, but then the band effortlessly roll into the bouncy pop-rock of “I Keep You Honest” immediately afterwards (it sounds kind of like Screaming Females playing a 10,000 Maniacs song). Natural Velvet stretch out a bit on the sprawling “Signifier (Desire)” and let their Sonic Youth influence show in some pretty hanging guitar lines, although it’s the EP’s final two songs that really find the band pushing themselves. Both cross the five-minute line– “Data Trail” uses its time to rip through a scorching post-punk (with the emphasis on punk instrumental) before guiding the song to a jangly finish, while “Swan” floats through a dream pop sound that’s delicate despite still having full-band might. Varied but consistent, Cruel Optimism excels throughout its twenty minute runtime. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Emperor X, ‘Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor’

Release date: March 9th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, folk punk, electro-folk, experimental rock
Formats: Digital

When Emperor X released The Lakes of Zones B and C (one of my favorite albums of 2022) last year, it was Chad Matheny’s first full-length record in about half a decade. Those who follow Matheny and Emperor X closely, however, know that Matheny isn’t resting on his laurels between proper albums–one can count on a steady stream of new Emperor X music in some form, such as 2020’s United Earth League of Quarantine Aerobics EP and 2021’s “Sad React” single. The occasion of an Emperor X Northeastern U.S. tour has resulted in a new EP from Matheny, and this one already feels like it matches the strength of the last few full-lengths for me. The six-song Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor EP is, more or less, what its title suggests–each of the half-dozen tracks are rooted in the transit systems of one of the cities on Matheny’s upcoming tour, and are, as he says, pulled from “transit policy and 30 years of public infrastructure memories” from Matheny, an American expat currently living in Berlin.

If anyone could write emotionally-resonating songs grounded in transit policy, it’s Chad Matheny, who’s rung pathos out of everything from air conditioners to Facebook statues. Eschewing the relative polish of The Lakes of Zones B and C, Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure… was recorded via four-track, aiding its feeling of scribbled observations by Matheny made while riding the mobile town halls of the American Northeast. This is particularly apparent in opening track “Friendship Heights Metro Station and Related Proposal for Alignment Adjustments to the Purple Line (for WMATA)”, a lo-fi acoustic Emperor X classic that establishes immediately that the EP is not going to just be, as Matheny puts it, “cold hyper-local policy recommendations”.  In the song, Matheny ponders a missed connection with someone playing Pavement songs on said poorly-routed trainline. Don’t get me wrong, the transportation-related complaints are present–“Forty years later, I still yell a lot / I’m still annoyed / They routed wrong,” Matheny proclaims, but, more tellingly, he follows that with “One hundred years later when I yell again for one last time / The song you played, still on my mind”.

If one fails to see the universality in these songs already, “An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME (for SEPTA and PRA)” spells it out for you. There’s a lot to pick from here: “How can you call this a development / When the only thing that’s going up is my rent?” certainly says a lot concisely, as does Matheny shrieking “It was a cash grab!”, but Matheny straight-up acknowledging that what’s happening in Philadelphia is also occurring in “a hundred other towns and a thousand other cities” is the biggest moment of clarity. And as someone who has seen plenty of invaluable, irreplaceable cultural and natural artifacts lost in the service of building “your dumb roads”, the second verse is particularly cathartic. Speaking of catharsis, did I mention that “An Objection to the Location…” is an all-time Emperor X indie pop banger that ends with Matheny shouting “guitar!” and “even more guitar!” and being answered by blistering guitar soloing?

“Shoegaze Hydroplane City USA (for CDOT)” and “DMT/JMZ (for MTA and NYCHA)” are both classic lo-fi Emperor X ballads, pulling from frozen moments in time and periods of life to really build up the humanity and tranquility that one can find in motion (and they’re both especially fitting after “We Demand Tri-County Rail Now! (for NJDOT)”, the one song where Matheny dives headfirst into his experimental electronica side and reads a Wikipedia article to veer into the other direction). “Shoegaze Hydroplane City” is a particularly gorgeous snapshot of an overly stormy carpooling session with “the shoegaze engineer”, with the role of the “lack of funds, lack of planning, and general lack of will” in the creation of these hazardous driving conditions mostly staying in the undercurrents of the overwhelmed storm drains (“We were a car, we were a boat, we were a hydroplane,” will stick with me for a long time, I think), while “DMT/JMZ” finds escape from a shitty living situation in taking alternate transit routes “for a change”.

The catharsis of  “An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME” is matched by the bright closing track “Bullet Train to Worcester (for MBATA)”, an irresistible piece of piano pop that rightfully sneers at those who naively or disingenuously ask the question in the song’s refrain (“But how you gonna pay for it?”) but ends itself and Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure… by hopefully imagining a better and more efficient future and by taking pleasure in working towards these goals at any scale. “Hurry up and join, we’re printing trillion dollar coins / We’ll spend them all on the public,” cheerily declares Matheny–a plan better than anything offered by anyone with any individual power in the transportation world. After asking a particularly pointed question in “An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME”, Matheny says “This is not rhetorical”, which is a statement that applies to Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure… in full. This EP isn’t the work of a policymaker several degrees removed from the systems it discusses; it’s a dispatch from somebody right there, riding the rails. (Bandcamp link)

Pressing Concerns: Timeout Room, Cel Ray, Gramercy Arms, Dogs at Large

It’s Pressing Concerns time! Today, we have three new-ish albums (from Timeout Room, Gramercy Arms, and Dogs at Large) plus one new EP (from Cel Ray) to look at. Look for another Pressing Concerns this Thursday!

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.

Timeout Room – Tight-Ass Goku Pictures

Release date: February 3rd
Record label: Tough Gum
Genre: Power pop, lo-fi pop, jangle pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Smooth in Your Element

For most of the 21st century, S.T. McCrary played in Baton Rouge punk group The Melters, releasing several records with the band before they ceased being active.  Now based in New Orleans, McCrary has a new solo project in Timeout Room, whose debut cassette tape was released last month by Tough Gum. The first Timeout Room release, fascinatingly called Tight-Ass Goku Pictures, is a guitar pop album with personality and hooks to spare in its thirty minutes. McCrary’s home recording style is lo-fi but clear-sounding, in a way that reminds me of The Cleaners from Venus (the bizarre intros and fake rock radio interlude tracks, while being of a decidedly different strain than Martin Newell’s overly English whimsy, are in the same spirit as well). McCrary’s influences range from bright indie pop groups like those on Flying Nun’s roster to more punk bands like the Wipers–Tight-Ass Goku Pictures ends up a unique mix that doesn’t quite sound like either.

Timeout Room balances the two ends of their sound from the get-go with opening track “Oozin’ Out”, an incredibly catchy tune with some equally incredibly grotesque imagery. McCrary continues to lob excellent pop songs at the listener from that point—handclaps and synths color the eager-to-please but also melancholic “Finish the Fall”, and “Smooth in Your Element” is a groovy punk-pop banger. Tight-Ass Goku Pictures is a weirdo pop album, to be clear–songs like “They’ll Come” and “How Do They Know?” are as catchy as the record’s more “pure” pop moments, but they’re off-kilter and swerving songs as well, and the final “proper” song on the album, “Electric Success”, surprisingly leans into big, triumphant new wave (albeit in Timeout Room’s own lo-fi way). Tight-Ass Goku Pictures is a trip of a record, coming off crooked one instant and then throwing out something as effortlessly brilliant as “Black ‘n’ Milds” the next. (Bandcamp link)

Cel Ray – Cellular Raymond

Release date: February 20th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage punk, egg punk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Surf’s Up (Garfield Park)

Cellular Raymond is the debut release from Chicago’s Cel Ray, and this six-song cassette EP is fifteen minutes of full-force Windy City punk rock at its finest. The sound of the quartet (vocalist Maddie Daviss, drummer Alex Watson, bassist Kevin Goggin, and guitarist Josh Rodin) certainly has traces of the egg-punk, Devo-core sound that the band’s name, album title, and cover art all would suggest, but one should definitely file the EP first and foremost under “ripping, guitar-forward garage punk”. Daviss’ vocals are superb and the work of an instantly compelling punk frontperson, while the rest of Cel Ray are crisp and tight, playing as fun or as heavy as best fits each song with the ease of a band far beyond its debut EP.

Cellular Raymond opens with “Surf’s Up (Garfield Park)”, a straight-up perfect garage punk tune–Cel Ray put on their best surf rock clothes (which includes a good bucket hat, I think), and Daviss’ delivery of everything from the various iterations of the song title to the way their voice cracks at the end (“Where is my towel?”) is just right for the track. “Clorox Wipes” dabbles in germophobia in a way that recalls Devo-esque nervousness, but Cel Ray sound a lot more confident and angry than paranoid here. The midsection of Cellular Raymond is full of lean but potent post-punk-y garage rock tunes (the rumbling “Clock Me Out” is an attention-grabber, as is the following song, in which Daviss literally shouts “Give me all your attention”). The EP ends with “Dog War”, which appropriately ups both the song length and the stakes, really leaning into the low end throughout the track. Still, the song sends the EP off into the sunset with Daviss barking like a dog and Cel Ray ripping some red-hot punk rock. (Bandcamp link)

Gramercy Arms – Deleted Scenes

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Magic Door
Genre: Post-college rock, jangle pop, folk rock, indie pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Deleted Scenes

Like most people who care a lot about 1990s indie rock, Dave Derby is most familiar to me as the vocalist and bassist for The Dambuilders, the Boston-by-way-of-Honolulu group who released the post-Nirvana-alt-rock-gold-rush cult classic Encendedor on Elektra in 1994, and whose ranks also included Kevin March (Guided by Voices, Shudder to Think) and Joan Wasser (Joan As Police Woman). About a decade and a half ago, however, Derby began leading Gramercy Arms, a New York-based “collective” of a decidedly different stripe than The Dambuilders’ post-Pixies noisy pop stomp. The guest list for Deleted Scenes, the third Gramercy Arms record and first in nearly ten years, is pretty overwhelming, including members of Elk City, The Royal Arctic Institute, and Aeon Station, among many others.

Nevertheless, Deleted Scenes doesn’t feel so much like the work of a revolving door of musicians–it’s united by Derby’s songwriting and lyricism, coming in the form of breezy, gorgeous guitar-based indie pop. Thematically, the record follows a clear, nostalgic throughline guided by a lifetime’s worth of observations from Derby–and interestingly enough, this is where the guest contributions become most noticeable. Songs like “Yesterday’s Girl” and “Fucked Up and Beautiful” begin with Derby reminiscing about women from his past–nothing wrong with a song like that now and again, but both then cede the spotlight to female vocalists (Renée Lo Bue of Elk City in the former and–I think–Hilken Mancini of Fuzzy in the latter) to transform the songs into something with another dimension entirely. Most of the musical flourishes in Deleted Scenes–the 70s-pop horn section in “Tricky Love Stuff”, the super-classy guitar solo in the title track–fit the songs like a glove to the point to where I’m not trying to match which indie rock ringer to which part. (Bandcamp link)

Dogs at Large – County Line

Release date: March 2nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country, roots rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Feels Like the Last Time

Chicago’s Dogs at Large is the project of singer-songwriter Sam Pirruccello, who has been prolific under the name–County Line is the band’s seventh record since 2015. Along the way, Dogs at Large has solidified into a four-piece band (also featuring guitarist Jamie Yanda, bassist Adam Gilmour, and drummer Chris Kolodziej), and this group, plus a few additional players (namely, pedal steel player Steve Malito, keyboardist Andrew Marczak, and violinist Mallory Linehan), gives County Line’s dozen tracks a warm, country rock feeling.  Pirruccello’s songwriting and vocals remain the focal point of the record–he has a heartland rock, weary punk-adjacent way of singing, and a compelling way of making the conversational feel grandiose in his writing.

Much of County Line was inspired by Pirruccello driving extensively around Chicagoland for work, and the songs have a rambling feeling–Dogs at Large really lean into country influences to dress these tracks, which feels appropriate. Songs like “Theseus” find Pirucello and the band embracing a Will Sheff-ian mix of simple effective melodies, Americana, and some sprawling lyrics. Not every song on County Line leans as hard into the twang as, say, “Tennessee”, a genuine country ballad, but the first half of the album in particular is full of songs that put these traces to good use (like in the jaunty “Robes of White”, or the breezy, keyboard-heavy “Feels Like This Is the End”). Likewise, the second half of the album pokes around with violin-heavy, layered indie rock (“I Don’t See You Anymore”) and 70s classic rock (“Vogue Beauty”) without losing the general feeling of County Line–that is, it’s only a few miles down the highway to the next one. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The Toms, Nature’s Neighbor, Dancer, Sewage Farm

Welcome once again, friends, to Pressing Concerns. In what I’m going to go ahead and call an “eclectic one”, this time we’re looking at a reissue of The Toms’ self-titled debut album, a new full-length from Nature’s Neighbor, and new EPs from Dancer and Sewage Farm. You’ll love ’em!

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.

The Toms – The Toms (2023 Reissue)

Release date: March 10th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Let’s Be Friends Again

The Toms’ 1979 self-titled album has rightfully earned its place as a power pop cult classic over the past forty years. Like many records in this vein, The Toms was entirely the work of one man–Tom Marolda wrote, recorded, and produced every note of the original twelve-track album. The Toms has, unsurprisingly, been reissued a few times on various formats with various extra material over the years–the latest version of the record comes out on Cincinnati garage rock imprint Feel It Records (which just makes sense), has been remastered, and is, I believe, the first ever double-vinyl edition of the album (containing the original album, several outtakes from the same sessions, and a few odds and ends).

The original version of The Toms hasn’t lost any luster whatsoever–the opening one-two punch of “Let’s Be Friends Again” and “You Must Have Crossed My Mind” are eternal-sounding pieces of power pop that rank among the finest examples of the genre, bar none. The hits don’t stop rolling out from that point on–the slithering “It’s Needless” and the frantic guitar explosion of “Other Boys Do” mark the rest of the first half, the insistent “I Did the Wrong Thing” kicks off the second side nearly as catchily as the first, and “The Flame” and “The Bear” deliver some of the album’s strongest hooks towards the end. 

The seven tracks from The Toms’ original sessions offer a sturdy appendix to the album proper. While it does feel like, on the whole, the strongest songs from this era were the ones to make it to the final record, these extra tracks are all strong pop tunes on their own terms, and any of them could’ve been slid onto the 1979 version of The Toms and fit perfectly well (the high-flying “You Put Me Up to This” and the mid-tempo, bittersweet “I Cannot Spot You” are my two favorites). The rest of the bonus tracks have intriguing moments as well–”Mixed Up Shook Up Girl” and “Talk to Me Girl/When Do Dreams Sleep?” find Marolda incorporating some Cars-y synth-y new wave influences while not losing the pop hooks. This issue of The Toms ends with Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) singing a previously-unreleased cover of “The Flame”–I wouldn’t say it holds a candle to the original version, but it’s a nice way of punctuating in just what company The Toms finds itself in 2023. (Bandcamp link)

Nature’s Neighbor – The Glass Album

Release date: March 10th
Record label: Tai Duo Music
Genre: Indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Jeane

Mike Walker began making music as Nature’s Neighbor in the mid-2010s while he was living in Chicago, and the several records that he’s made under the name feature a wide ensemble of Windy City-area musicians (perhaps most prominently Seth Engel of Options and Mister Goblin, whose drumming and production work are on virtually every Nature’s Neighbor album). Since late 2021, Walker has been living in Kyoto, Japan and working as an English teacher, but right before he departed his longtime home, he recorded The Glass Album in Humboldt Park with Engel, Adrian Kobziar, and a host of guest musicians (some of which, like Engel and piano player Terrill Mast, have been Nature’s Neighbor regulars, while others, like violinist Macie Stewart of Finom, are new faces).  Nature’s Neighbor has been an ambitious project in the past, swinging from breezy indie folk to expansive, experimental kitchen-sink pop music, and The Glass Album doesn’t disappoint in this fashion–in fact, it leans particularly hard into eclecticism. 

“Jeane” kicks off the album with a strummed acoustic guitar and gives way to a pedal-steel-featuring (courtesy of Andrew Krull) country-folk tune, and Walker and company then follow it up with the light-R&B indie pop of “Sounds Like a Siren”, the alternatively lumbering and pondering spoken word rock of “Half Remembered Dreams”, and the string-heavy, slow-moving chamber pop of “Sweetbriar”. No two songs on The Glass Album are all that similar–Walker’s gentle vocals are the connecting thread, sweetening some of the louder moments like the surprisingly crunchy alt-rock of closing track “Michael & The Whale”, and sounding perfect while delivering the emotional wrecking ball of album centerpiece “Song for Bella”. The Glass Album is, by my count, the eighth or ninth Nature’s Neighbor album, and it’s remarkable that the project feels like it’s still searching, probing, and pushing itself forward at this stage. Perhaps it marks the finale of Walker’s “Chicago era”, but Nature’s Neighbor doesn’t come off as something that a mere long-distance relocation can end. (Bandcamp link)

Dancer – Dancer

Release date: February 10th
Record label: GoldMold
Genre: Post-punk, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: The Split

Glasgow’s Dancer are a new group, but the members’ other bands should be familiar to Rosy Overdrive readers. Featuring members of Order of the Toad, Nightshift, and Robert Sotelo, Dancer recorded their six-song debut EP in their home city over the winter, and it saw release last month via cassette on GoldMold Records. Dancer is a half-dozen tracks that straddle bright indie pop and sharp post-punk–I certainly hear traces of the members’ other bands on these songs, as well as fellow Glasgow band Life Without Buildings (whom Roberto Sotelo’s Andrew Doig cited when he emailed me about the record), but it takes its various building blocks to make a distinct “Dancer sound”.

The low-key “Disposable Vape” opens up the EP with several excellent Dancer hallmarks–shining, melodic guitar, a prominent, pointed rhythm section, sung-spoken vocals, and some vocal interjections that remind me of early XTC (or, yes, Life Without Buildings). In “Arch Nemesis” and “Ferret Fancier”, Dancer up the stakes to groovy, chugging post-punk, although the former has some chiming guitars in it as well. “The Split” is Dancer’s biggest pop moment, a glittering instrumental with vocals that, while not departing overly from the conversational speak-singing, take every right melodic turn for the track as well. The five-minute closing track “Telemark”, however, is truly the biggest left turn on the EP–a genuine ballad that feels downcast and melancholic, but is just as listenable as Dancer at their snappiest. (Bandcamp link)

Sewage Farm – Mould

Release date: March 10th
Record label: Safe Suburban Home
Genre: Fuzz rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Broken Bridge

York’s Sewage Farm are a trio made up of guitarist/vocalist Sam Forrest (who most notably fronts Manchester alt-rock group Nine Black Alps), bassist Danny Trew Barton (who plays in fellow Safe Suburban Home band Cowgirl), and drummer Danny Hirst. Although the members have their various other projects, Sewage Farm is far from a one-off endeavor–the band has released three full-length records since forming in 2015, and Mould is its second EP. Judging by their latest release’s five tracks, Sewage Farm are vintage, fuzzy indie rockers. Although their band name (as well as the title and artwork to Mould) conjure up images of scuzzy noise rock and roughed-up underground punk groups, Sewage Farm hew towards the tuneful side of the Our Band Could Be Your Life-core sound.

Sewage Farm come off as kind of like a fuzzier, more distorted version of fellow English indie punk revivalists Good Grief—opening track “Broken Bridge” in particular kicks Mould off with all the right kinds of Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr.-inspired moves. “Cry” and “Strawberry Strawberry” keep the hooky lo-fi indie rock train rolling–the former is a bit more mid-tempo, but the chorus is as good as anything else on the EP, and the latter bounds infectiously. Sewage Farm mix it up a little bit with the swirling, lightly psychedelic riff around which they build “Cage”, but the song still fits in with the rest of the tracks–as does closing track “Starting Tomorrow”, which roars to a Sugar-esque wall of melodic sound to end Mould with one last loud pop statement. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Taleen Kali, Fixtures, Nagasaki Swim, Proto Tip

Welcome back to Pressing Concerns! Last week, the February 2023 playlist took the spot of a Thursday album post (check that post out, by the way, it’s very good), so here we’re looking at two great albums that came out last Friday (from Taleen Kali and Nagasaki Swim), plus albums from last month from Fixtures and Proto Tip.

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.

Taleen Kali – Flower of Life

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Dum Dum
Genre: Indie pop, shoegaze, dream pop, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Flower of Life

Although Flower of Life is Los Angeles’ Taleen Kali’s first full-length solo album, they’ve been making music in some form for the bulk of this decade. Their previous band, TÜLIPS, released an album in 2015 before breaking up the following year (though they’ve put out a couple of one-off singles since then), and Kali themself released a solo EP, Soul Songs, in 2018, and another one (Songs for Meditation) in 2021. There are certainly traces of TÜLIPS’ lo-fi, poppy garage rock on Flower of Life, but the record as a whole aims for something heavier and denser than their past work. Kali and their band (Royce Hsu, Rhys Hastings, and Miles Marsico, plus contributions from producers Josiah Mazzaschi and Jeff Schroeder) pound through ten loud, electric shoegaze-tinged tracks that still retain a pop core and are carried by Kali’s strong presence as a frontperson.

Taleen Kali and the band come barreling out of the gate with hard-charging opening title track. A swirling, foot-on-gas piece of distorted psych rock, “Flower of Life” blows open the rest of the record–songs like “Crusher” and “Only Lovers Left Alive” incorporate a bit more of a layered, dream pop-esque sound, but still sound like the work of a sharp rock band. Flower of Life doesn’t let up for the majority of its runtime, laying down rockers like the low-end-heavy, post-punk-y “Fine Line” and the speedy “Trash Talk”. The final few songs are where Kali throws a few curveballs– “Summer of Sound” quells the noise for two minutes to deliver a short but sweet, sunny 60s pop ballad, while, in “Vague Flesh”, Kali stretches out and fully embraces dream pop with a five-minute, synth and drum machine-aided track. “Spirit Plane” ends the record by once again returning to fuzzy rock, albeit in a slower and more deliberate way than the rest of Flower of Life–but no less striking. (Bandcamp link)

Fixtures – Hollywood Dog

Release date: February 24th
Record label: Naturally/Bobo Integral
Genre: Power pop, 90s indie rock, post-punk, “noir pop”
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Emo Phillips (Hole in My Head)

Brooklyn’s Fixtures are a six-piece band that have been around for a bit (they released an EP in 2018, and another one in 2020), and last month saw the release of Hollywood Dog, their first album.  The group is led by guitarist/vocalist K. Liakos, and their debut full-length is being co-released by Liakos’ Naturally Records and the great Bobo Integral (Mo Troper, Daily Worker, The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness). On Hollywood Dog, Fixtures commit fully to a familiar-sounding 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. To put it one way–Fixtures contains multiple full-time horn players (trumpet player Riley Cooke and saxophonist Jules Block) and neither’s prominence feels out of place on these ten tracks.

Hollywood Dog kicks off with “21/1”, a steady-building indie rock anthem that captures Fixtures’ sound quite well–a saxophone intro gives way to chugging, clear-eyed indie rock that then gets punctuated with an instrumental, horn-based refrain. Fixtures offer up plenty of meat and melody on the record’s first half, from the downcast guitar riff that anchors the deliberate “Jimmy Needs the Money” to the way Liakos’ vocals emote in “Ghost Relays” to match the triumphant-sounding horns. The B-side to Hollywood Dog actually might be my favorite half, starting with an excellent three-song-run kicked off by the speedy, handclap-aided title track, continuing into the righteous-sounding but bittersweet “Song for Last Summer”, and then going into the gorgeous, not-doing-too-much “Emo Phillips (Hole in My Head)”. Records like Hollywood Dog are up my alley by nature, but even considering that, these songs are excellently-executed and I’ll be spinning this one for a while. (Bandcamp link)

Nagasaki Swim – Everything Grows

Release date: March 3rd
Record label: Excelsior
Genre: Indie folk, country-folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Weight, Pt. 2

Nagasaki Swim is a project led by Jasper Boogaard, a musician who hails from Rotterdam, Netherlands but plays a mix of indie folk and gentle country-rock that’s the kind of music that frequently gets tagged as “Americana”. Everything Grows, the band’s second album, follows 2021’s The Mirror, and retains bassist Jasper Werij and drummer Jim Luijten, while also introducing guitarist/pianist Kat Kalkman and featuring a host of guest musician contributions. Everything Grows is an incredibly warm and comforting listen, with trumpets, violins, and lap/pedal steel (the latter provided by Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner of Songs: Ohia) shading the record’s nine songs.

Everything Grows comes in at under thirty minutes in length, and two of its tracks come in at under a minute. Being a brief record certainly doesn’t mean that Everything Grows isn’t a substantial one, however–the album’s first three tracks are all excellent, sublime country-folk songs that showcase Boogaard’s songwriting skills and the band’s range. “American Dipper” is clear-sounding, giving the song space to breathe, while “Window” builds to a big instrumental crescendo. The album’s centerpiece is “The Weight, Pt. 2”–it’s a gorgeous song, with a full instrumental surrounding Boogaard’s lyrics dealing with but not being bogged down by mortality (“Death is on my mind / Some things are just always there / And that’s OK”). “The Weight, Pt. 2” is enhanced by the violin of Molly Germer (Alex G’s band), as is second-half highlight “Sleep”. Everything Grows ends with the end-credits feeling of the title track–it begins with just Boogaard and an acoustic guitar, but like the rest of the album, it builds to something fuller than that. (Bandcamp link)

Proto Tip – S ivice sanjanja

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Pop Depresija/Kišobran
Genre: Indie rock, post-punk, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl (forthcoming), digital
Pull Track: krećem se

Pop Depresija (aka Pop Depression) is a Serbian record label that co-released Macedonian/Slovenian indie rock band Rush to Relax’s sublime Misli last year, and their latest offering is an indie rock group from their own home country. Belgrade’s Proto Tip released their debut EP back in 2017, and their first full-length album, last month’s S ivice sanjanja, has been in the works for the past five years. Befitting of its long gestation time, many people had a hand in creating S ivice sanjanja–Proto Tip began as a trio led by Nikola Čučković, but its membership has ballooned in the intermittent time, and the record features a host of guest musicians as well.

S ivice sanjanja (English: “From the Edge of Dreaming”) is a dark-sounding album, taking a guitar-forward, 90s indie rock core and adding post-punk atmospherics and moodiness throughout its eight songs. Opening track “krećem se” introduces the record with hypnotic, shimmering guitar leads, downcast vocals, and prominent, plodding bass, while “svet se menja” keeps things running with its late-night-drive tempo, alarm-sounding guitars, and deadpan singing. The rest of S ivice sanjanja balances almost-dreamy guitar playing with the never-flagging low-end for an interesting combination of indie rock genres–at least until the heavy, noise rock catharsis of closing track “kako ovde” blows everything away. Although Proto Tip represents the entirety of Serbian indie rock I’ve heard so far, S ivice sanjanja suggests that there’s more worth looking into there. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable: