Welcome to Pressing Concerns! Today’s issue looks at new albums from Total Downer, The Church, and Cor de Lux, and a new EP from Jordan Holtz. This Friday (February 24th) is a pretty big release day, so I’m going to be tackling records from this week for a while.
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.
Total Downer – Caretaker
Release date: January 27th Record label: Just Because Genre: Power pop, pop punk, emo Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Taylor Lautner
Total Downer are a Cleveland quartet led by guitarist/vocalist Andy Schumann and also featuring bassist Arfil Pajarillaga, guitarist Clay Reid, and drummer Dante Foley. Schumann’s been making music under the name for a while now, but Caretaker is Total Downer’s debut full-length album, and it’s an excellent collection of punk-y power pop tunes that establishes Schumann as both a hooky and weighty songwriter. Caretaker is a brief record, coming in at about 26 minutes, but Total Downer tear through thirteen fiery and catchy tracks that find Schumann covering lyrical subjects that can be as wide-ranging as they are hard-hitting.
Caretaker doesn’t start in the shallow end, so to speak–opening song “Stupid Smile” is a sixty-second pop punk song that’s unmistakably about childhood sexual assault. Over top of a careening instrumental, Schumann’s uniquely emotive vocals swing between understandably violent imagery and a couple moments of more pensive self-analysis–it’s the strongest example I’ve heard in a while of wielding a “fun” genre like power pop in the service of pure catharsis. Total Downer simply roll on full speed ahead from that point on, with a handful of pop-culture-figure referencing songs in “Dr. Phil” (which feels like it’s grasping at straws in a personal way), “Dolly Parton” (also grasping at straws but on a, like, societal level), and “Taylor Lautner”. The latter of the three is Caretaker’s finest single moment, a song about body image that uses the genuinely disturbing-in-hindsight way that a literal teenager was treated by the media at large for a conflicted-sounding but empathetic message from Schumann.
Schumann’s lyrical subjects stay memorable throughout Caretaker, whether he’s enjoyably skewering a shitty boss in “Big Man”, calling down an acquaintance who’s hurt other people in “Big Mouth”, or mourning the loss of a close friend on closing track “Luis”. Total Downer offer up an excellent rendition of Blue Album-esque loud power pop on most of these songs, but the record sounds freewheeling enough that all the songs differentiate themselves (and some of the biggest departures from the “Total Downer sound”, like “Shut Up”, which combines Dazy-esque minimalist, groovy power pop and some Cheekface sing-speaking, are some of the most successful). Caretaker is an instantly enjoyable and listenable record, but both Schumann and the band leave plenty here to reward coming back to it. (Bandcamp link)
The Church – The Hypnogogue
Release date: February 24th Record label: Communicating Vessels Genre: Psychedelic rock, college rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: C’est la Vie
When I think of Sydney, Australia’s The Church, I (along with, I imagine, a fair amount of Rosy Overdrive readers) recall their 1988 record Starfish, which is a masterpiece of psychedelic-tinged jangle pop and the catalyst for some commercial success beyond their home country, as well as some of the records immediately preceding and succeeding it. It should be noted that The Church never went away after their time as college rock stars, with sole constant member Steve Kilbey (vocals, bass) continuing to explore and expand his band’s unique sound for over four decades at this point. The Hypnogogue is The Church’s twenty-sixth record, and the first since 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity. Although that six-year gap represents the largest between The Church albums up to this point, Kilbey and his crew (drummer Tim Powles, guitarist Ian Haug, and newcomers Ashley Naylor and Jeffrey Cain) offer up a massive record that certainly doesn’t feel like the work of a band intending to slow down.
The Hypnogogue spans thirteen songs and clocks in at over an hour, with the majority of these songs stretching past five minutes. The Church have mixed and changed up their sound over the years; their latest falls squarely into the “dense-sounding, leaning heavily into their psychedelic side” camp. With The Hypnogogue, The Church first and foremost are building an intricate world of the kind of fascinating textures that the album title implies, rather than focusing on offering up friendly pop songs. Still, the “entry points” are there if one is looking for those– “C’est la Vie” and “I Think I Knew” are both pretty and hummable jangly alt-rock tunes early on in the record–once those grab you, you’re ready for the minimal atmospheres of “Flicking Lights” and the towering title track immediately afterwards. The Hypnogogue continues this balance in the second half, with highlights like “The Coming Days” and “No Other You” containing some light in their own layered structures. The Hypnogogue is a lot to take in, but it’s not too much–and it’s a commendable way to approach things for a band who’s been at it for as long as The Church. (Linktree)
Jordan Holtz – Not Close for Comfort
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Pretty Purgatory Genre: Slowcore, 90s indie rock, experimental bass rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Sweaty at Palm Beach
Seacoast, New Hampshire’s Jordan Holtz is known to me through her work in a couple of notable Granite State bands–she’s the bassist and vocalist for Dover 90s indie rock revivalists Rick Rude, and she also plays bass for the Peterborough alt-country/folk group Footings. Not Close for Comfort is Holtz’s debut release as a solo artist, however, and this EP (released on cassette by Maine’s Pretty Purgatory Records) finds her embracing a slow, deliberate sound that utilizes her electric bass prominently. Not Close for Comfort’s five songs are centered around Holtz’s striking vocals and carefully plodding bass, but they are layered with synth and guitar additions from Holtz, not to mention help from collaborators like Pretty Purgatory labelhead Peter McLaughlin, Rick Rude bandmate Ryan Harrison, and Mount Misery’s Ty Ueda.
Not Close for Comfort eases in with “When I’m Around”, which is based on a simple repeating bass riff and some glowing synths. This is the primary mode in which the EP settles itself, although it isn’t overly stubborn in staying there–“Sweaty at Palm Beach” similarly begins with the bass, but it adds percussion, guitar, and explodes into an alt-rock finish. Holtz’s singing throughout the EP is very full-sounding–even on Not Close for Comfort’s weirdest moments, like the deconstructed-sounding “Blinders”, her firm and grounded singing gives the track a foot in pop songwriting. Not Close for Comfort apparently took five years to come together, but coheres thanks to Holtz’s distinctive musical style–she had already developed one with Rick Rude, but stripped of that band’s noisy indie rock veneer, it’s even clearer and more obvious. (Bandcamp link)
Cor de Lux – Media
Release date: February 10th Record label: Self-released Genre: Post-punk, psych rock, dream pop Formats: Cassette, CD, digital Pull Track: Snap Out of It
Hailing from Kill Devils Hills, North Carolina (nope, definitely haven’t written about a band from the Outer Banks before), Cor de Lux is a quartet that makes post-punk music that’s both icy and noisy, reigning in the sprawling nature of mid-to-late-period Sonic Youth with dream pop swirliness. Their sophomore album, Media, finds the band (guitarist/vocalists Tim Lusk and Dawn Moraga, bassist John Bliven, and drummer Thomas McNeely) charging through ten songs of towering instrumentals and vocals that are frequently understated but never enough to get overshadowed or drowned out by the music.
The dramatic “Idol Season” sets the stage for Media with a pensive, meditative opening, hanging up quite a bit of empty space, and then the driving “Futures” follows it by setting up several Cor de Lux hallmarks (shimmery guitar leads, dual vocals, and a steady, brisk tempo) in a three minute pop song. The rest of Media serves up varying levels of Cor de Lux’s noise-and-melody mix, veering into post-punk darkness (“Whose Side”) and bright new wave (“Snap Out of It”) equally enthusiastically. The songs on Media are very tight, with the quartet all sounding in tune with each other–tracks like the speeding “Syncopated” and the crashing fuzz of “Glass Like Drinking” work because every aspect of the songs feel like they’re placed just right. Media closes with “Ships”, a dreamy piece of guitar pop in which Cor de Lux relinquish their grip on the song just a bit and let it float on and stretch out. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the second Pressing Concerns of the week! This one’s got new albums from Blues Lawyer, koleżanka, and Daily Worker, and a new EP from Spiral XP.
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.
Blues Lawyer – All in Good Time
Release date: February 17th Record label: Dark Entries Genre: Indie pop, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Someone Else
Oakland’s Blues Lawyer is part of the Bay Area’s busy and rich guitar pop scene, and have been for awhile now–the band was founded in 2017 by singer-songwriters Rob I. Miller (who also plays guitar) and Elyse Schrock (who drums), and All in Good Time is their third full-length record. They’re now a quartet (also featuring guitarist Ellen Matthews and bassist Alejandra Alcala), which certainly helps round out the sound of their new record–a full-sounding power pop album. It’s not that there aren’t traces of the sleepier, dreamy jangle pop of their San Francisco-areacontemporaries (and of Blues Lawyer’s earlier albums), but that’s just one ingredient in what goes into dressing up Miller and Schrock’s well-crafted, approachable pop songs, of which there are plenty (the album has thirteen songs, and not much in the way of filler).
All in Good Time opens with a big power pop anthem in “Chance Encounters”, which sounds massive but also has a melancholic, almost nostalgic streak to it that evokes their stated influence of Teenage Fanclub (there’s some nice early TFC-esque revved-up lead guitar on the track), as well as countless 80s indie pop bands. Past-evoking instrumental aside, however, Miller’s first line on the album finds him declaring “I wanna stop talking about the way things used to be”. Blues Lawyer remain a band focused on the right-now throughout the record–“Salary” feels like a very time-and-energy-conscious meditation that works as a metaphor or taken at face value, and “Crystal Ball” finds Miller declaring he’s “through with all the what-ifs?” and asking the song’s addressee to “just settle for less with me”.
The songs Shrock sings are more likely to be a little rough around the edges, injecting tracks like “I Won’t”, “Late Bloomer”, and “Return Policy” with an indie pop-punk sensibility, but they sit nicely both musically and thematically with Miller’s songs. In particular, “I Won’t” takes the “underappreciated and undervalued” undercurrents of some of Miller’s tracks and shouts it into a megaphone (and the one Shrock and Miller co-write, “Scenic Route”, is as fluffy as it is weighty). All in Good Time’s songs are full of hard-earned realizations about interpersonal relationships–as uncomfortable or desperate things can get in these songs, however, they all sound fantastic. (Bandcamp link)
koleżanka – Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes
Release date: February 17th Record label: Bar/None Genre: Indie pop, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: Canals of Our City
Kristina Moore has been making music as koleżanka since 2017’s self-released Vessel; they began making music in their hometown of Phoenix before moving to New York and joining Brooklyn art rockers Foyer Red while continuing to develop their solo project. Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes is the second koleżanka record for Bar/None, following 2021’s Place Is, and it’s a hypnotic, busy, space-y indie pop record that recalls bands like Stereolab and Broadcast. Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes is a well-realized creation from Moore; it does sound like the work of someone who’s spent time in an experimental rock group, but it’s also clearly their own endeavor, with Moore leading the songs where they need to go to compliment their voice and lyrics.
Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes pulls off “full-on rock band” songs in tracks like “Koszmary” and “Canals of Our City”, but the record then pulls back some layers to reveal more minimalist tracks like the floating pop of “Mania”, the time-ticking “Slapstick”, and the brisk, bouncy “City Summer Sweat”. Despite all the instrumental layers and busy psych pop moments going on in the record, Moore remains front and center, which particularly makes sense when they delve into traumatic, dark, and thorny subject matter in “Canals of Our City” and “Cheers!”. Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes is an enjoyably-stuffed record throughout, but Moore ups the ante with the last couple of tracks, the swirling “Saddle Up Cowboy” and–especially– the massive six-minute closing track “River Rushing”, which roars to life and calms itself back down before all is said and done. (Bandcamp link)
Daily Worker – Autofiction
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Bobo Integral Genre: Lo-fi power pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Digital Pull Track: Autofiction
Harold Whit Williams is probably best known to power pop fans (also known as “the average Rosy Overdrive reader”) as the longtime guitarist for Austin jangle pop group Cotton Mather, with whom the Alabama native has played since the early 1990s. He also makes music on his own as Daily Worker–and Williams has been especially prolific as of late, averaging at least a record per year so far this decade. For Williams’ latest, Autofiction, he’s hooked up with Bobo Integral (The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness, Mo Troper, Motorists) for a record of lo-fi, home-recorded power pop whose ramshackle charms only enhance Williams’ songwriting.
Autofiction’s ten tracks are all quite catchy, even as Williams presents his songs in an oh-so-casual manner. Sitting in the second slot, the record’s title track is a low-key power pop masterpiece, managing to sound as big and full as any massive Britpop single or Summerteeth-era Wilco, with only a fraction of the excess production. Much like Robert Pollard, Daily Worker is directly filtering 60s pop rock influences through a fairly barebones filter–this is apparent from the psychedelic streak that runs throughout the album and presents itself early on in “Irish Goodbye” and “The Great Whatever”. A few of the tracks on Autofiction reflect Williams’ southern upbringing and residency– “My Alabaster Girl” and “Posers’ Parade” are rootsy and twangy country songs that still pack a melodic punch. Everything on Autofiction is in service of the pop hook, whether it’s the straightforward stomp of “All the Way Gone” or the new wave-y weirdness of “Like an Echo”. (Bandcamp link)
Spiral XP – It’s Been Awhile
Release date: February 17th Record label: Danger Collective Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Deja Vu
It’s Been Awhile is the second release from Spiral XP, a Seattle-based noisy and loud pop group made up of members of other notable bands from the city (Versing, Julia Shapiro’s band, Coral Grief). The five-piece group released their debut EP, Drop Me In, in 2021, and their most recent record finds them stepping a bit away from their last release’s relatively gray, bleak sound. It’s Been Awhile’s six songs feel like a turn toward the more colorful and vibrant end of the shoegaze spectrum–the tracks are covered in reverb and guitars wash over the listener all the way through, to be sure, but these songs bloom and soar instead of trudging along while staring at the ground.
The EP starts with the majestic kick-off of “Deja Vu”, which is essentially a sweet piece of psychedelic pop with the levels thrown into the red–but its pretty and hooky core is never obscured by any of it. It’s Been Awhile kicks up some classic shoegaze-rockers in its first half–“The End” rides Spiral XP’s giddy streak, while “Free Thinking” ends the first side of the EP on a (relatively) dark note. The second half of It’s Been Awhile features a couple of left turns–“The Hunger” is a captivating song in which blaring guitars roar over a baggy-esque drum machine groove, and the record ends with the surprisingly straightforward (and very well done) downer alt-rock of “My Personal Hell”. Hell or no, however, the typically triumphant guitar leads that end the track (and the EP) sound downright heavenly. (Bandcamp link)
Happy Monday! First Monday Pressing Concerns of the year! New music time! Today, it’s new albums from Pearla and Tiny Microphone, and new EPs from Outwest and Lithobrake.
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.
Pearla – Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming
Release date: February 10th Record label: Spacebomb Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Funny in Dreams
Pearla is Brooklyn’s Nicole Rodriguez, whose debut full-length record Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming arrives three years and change after her first release, 2019’s Quilting & Other Activites EP. Rodriguez’s first EP was a fairly substantial record on its own, but with Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming, she has put together a complete statement of a folk and country rock album. The record’s dozen tracks show off Rodriguez’s songwriting talents–these songs are approachable and casual without sacrificing any of their deeper aims to come off this way, and the music of Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming is fully-realized without getting in the way of Rodriguez’s lyrics and vocals. “Strong” opens Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming with a brief but spirited, gently loping country rocker, a song that wouldn’t be out of place on a Charlotte Cornfield or a recent Julie Doiron album, even as Rodriguez begins the process of staking out her “own” voice here.
Rodriguez takes a few turns away from the sound of “Strong” immediately afterwards, offering up the chirping country-tronica of “Ming the Clam” and the dramatic “Effort”, which pulls off a detour into big-tent indie folk ably. Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming continues to find different sides of Pearla to explore as the record goes on; the folk rock ballad “About Hunger, About Love” and the waltzing “With” highlight the album’s mid-section, and the joyful parade of striking images in “Funny in Dreams” is one of Rodriguez’s finest moments as a lyricist. The record does wind down toward the end with a couple quieter songs, but these are also some of the album’s most rewarding tracks as well–the acoustic folk of “Flicker”, the hushed, slow-building keys-and-horns “The Glistening Onion”, and closing track “The Mysterious Bubble of the Turkey Swamp” could all be my favorite one on different days. With so many of its songs rising to this level, Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming is a record worth spinning many times. (Bandcamp link)
Tiny Microphone – Other Cities
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Littlemusic Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, dream pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Holiday
Tiny Microphone is the solo project of Kristine Capua, who began recording under the name in the mid-2000s while living in Chicago, releasing her debut record, Home, in 2008. Capua spent the last decade fronting the bands Tiny Fireflies and Very Truly Yours, moved to Portland, and now 2023 finally sees the release of the second Tiny Microphone album, Other Cities. Home was a relatively lo-fi dreamy bedroom pop record; Capua’s newest record isn’t unrecognizable compared to her older sound, but it feels like a more polished and refined version of guitar-forward indie pop. On the album’s ten songs, Capua is aided by percussionist Hampus Öhman-Frölund, multi-instrumentalist and former bandmate Lisle Mitnik, and multiple guest vocalists, all of whom help give the record more shades and depth.
There is no shortage of wistfully beautiful melodies on Other Cities, carried by Capua’s friendly vocals and a host of instrumental touches. The record’s first half offers up well-crafted pop songs of several stripes– “Sound Advice” is the pure jangly tune, “Night” is a chilly piano-led, 80s-evoking track, and “Holiday” features some triumphant, soaring electric guitar work that matches Capua’s energy. Capua duets with The Ladybug Transistor’s Gary Olson on “Stranger”, a song that, along with “Lighting a Fire”, gives the center of the record a very solid foundation. The first half of Other Cities is strong enough that it took me a bit to appreciate the B-side of the album–through no fault of these songs’ own, as they are quite good too, particularly the string-heavy “Haunted” and “The Lake”, an sneakily upbeat jangle pop track hidden toward the end. Other Cities is an excellently-executed indie pop record–whether it’s Tiny Microphone or another group, here’s hoping we hear from Capua again soon. (Bandcamp link)
Outwest – All the Wild Horses
Release date: February 1st Record label: Candlepin Genre: Fuzz rock, punk rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: All the Wild Horses
Boston’s Candlepin Records has been an early 2023 M.V.P., following up a fertile 2022 (Garb, Poorly Drawn House, Tuxis Giant) with releases from bands like Stalled, Roseville, The True Faith, and 13 Necklace that triangulate various sub-sections of the cassette label’s “modern acts who sound like Numero Group bands” sound. Of their prolific last few months, one release that really caught my ear is an all-too-brief but very rewarding four-song EP from Ventura, California’s Outwest. All the Wild Horses is Outwest’s third EP, and it doesn’t slot neatly into the their label’s typical stable of slowcore, shoegaze, or noise rock. There is plenty of distortion on these four tracks, to be sure, but it’s all in the service of loud, anthemic fuzz rock.
Throughout All the Wild Horses, Outwest come off as, more than anything else, a wildly in-the-red punk rock group. Opening track “Could Have” takes its time, waiting about a minute before launching into a vintage California indie-pop-punk anthem. The title track matches it in terms of forceful-catchiness, barreling its way excitedly into its bellowing of the titular line. The extra-fuzzy “Don’t Let Me Run” rises and falls–it’s the closest thing that All the Wild Horses has to an “instrumental workout” track. Outwest save the biggest surprise for last–closing track “Carousel” is a chugging, straight-up power pop tune that evokes Miracle Legion and Spiral Stairs just as much as Jawbreaker or Samiam. All the Wild Horses is an exciting fifteen-minute snapshot of a talented group, and one I’ll be watching in the future. (Bandcamp link)
Lithobrake – EP1
Release date: February 1st Record label: Cassowary Genre: 90s indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Bats
Lithobrake are a Washington, D.C.-based power trio which formed last year and, as of earlier this month, now have a full EP’s worth of songs to their name. The five-song EP1 is a promising debut release from the group, a record of low-key 90s-inspired indie rock that nevertheless has a punk edge and comes off as the work of a group of musicians that really just enjoy making music together. In one of the EP’s tracks (album closer “Kelly Green”) the band makes a quip about “stealing Yo La Tengo riffs”, but the spirited guitar work that immediately precedes and follows that line is anything but rote repetition.
“Bats” opens EP1 with what feels like a lost slacker rock classic, an incredibly hooky pop rocker with a nice formula of ennui and angst to give it a bit of a bite (“All the nice tomatoes are sold out / Turquoise aviators in a small town”, now there’s a 90s indie rock lyric if I’ve ever heard one). “Stay” and “Kicking” are the two biggest “rockers” on the EP, with the former rolling out some sharp guitar lines and the latter reveling in fuzz-rock punchiness. Drummer Al Shipley (of Western Blot) sings lead vocals on the dark, bass-heavy “Losing a Fight with a Mountain”, an interesting left turn whose empty-space chorus still fits in well with the rest of the record’s tracks–weighty, but not showy. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to a new Pressing Concerns! I’m glad you’re here. Today features new albums from Vista House and Dignan Porch, a new EP from The Royal Arctic Institute, and a reissue of the discography of Grey Factor. Earlier this week, I shared some thoughts on a bunch of albums from 1997 that I listened to for the first time this year, so check that post out too if you missed it.
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.
Vista House – Oregon III
Release date: February 10th Record label: Anything Bagel Genre: Alt-country Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Vivista House
Portland, Oregon’s Tim Howe first appeared on my radar last year as one half of First Rodeo, a project he started with Cool Original’s Nathan Tucker and whose self-titled debut was one of my favorite records of 2022. Howe has also fronted the country rock group Vista House since the mid-2010s, and 2023 sees the release of Oregon III, the latest full-length from the band. Released on cassette tape by Anything Bagel Records, Oregon III contains plenty of the twangy sound found in Howe’s contributions to First Rodeo, but it also feels on the whole a bit fuzzier and rockier than the more folk-rocking First Rodeo. It achieves a full-band indie rock sound in places, although it also has a bedroom pop charm in others as well. Howe’s voice is the main constant throughout Oregon III, a comforting and deep-felt presence throughout the record.
Oregon III eases us in with “Halfway Home”, a collage-esque opening track with piano, saxophone, and audio clips that feels a bit like Howe’s take on Cool Original’s kitchen sink pop, before the determined roots rock of “King of Rock ‘N’ Roll” shows off Vista House’s louder, anthemic side. Songs like “Fate” and “Room to Breathe” hit on big choruses that show off Vista House’s power pop and 90s indie/alt-rock influences, and both of them have fun wrinkles (the melodic guitar leads in the former, and Howe pushing his vocals in the latter). The busy “Vivista House” is one of the more sonically surprising songs on the record, an excited drum machine-led piece of country-tronica that nevertheless feels right at home in the middle of the album. The last two songs of Oregon III sum up the record quite well: the acoustic duet “Prickly Bear” tiptoes its way into “Rage On”, an electric alt-country tune that closes things out with grinning straight-up classic rock–and Howe sells them both equally enthusiastically. (Bandcamp link)
Dignan Porch – Electric Threads
Release date: February 10th Record label: Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home/Hidden Bay Genre: Lo-fi pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Pictures
Dignan Porch began over a decade ago in South London as a vehicle for singer-songwriter Joe Walsh, whose early, Captured Tracks-released records revealed a knack for slightly fuzzy, slightly psychedelic jangle pop music. Now based in Manchester, Walsh remains devoted to lo-fi, hooky indie rock, as the fifth Dignan Porch record, Electric Threads, reveals enthusiastically. Clocking in at under half an hour and featuring ten songs, Electric Threads is split fairly evenly between brief, zippy lo-fi indie rock tracks and some longer numbers that embrace the project’s more psych-indebted side.
Opening track “Pictures” is an immediate acoustic-guitar led pop song that feels reminiscent of 60s pop rock groups (particularly The Kinks), and Electric Threads offers up a few more quick hits in the brisk noise pop of “Hidden Levels” and the brightly-hued “Mezmerized”, neither of which break the two-minute barrier. The first third of Electric Threads certainly feels like the most straightforward part of the record, although “Simulation One” and (especially) “Walk!” hold down the pop rock fort in the album’s second half. The midsection of Electric Threads is where Dignan Porch really let the songs float along, with the title track and “VR Park Keeper” taking their time to get to their destinations, and while “States Revealed” has a quicker tempo, it settles into a drone-pop groove over its four minutes. Electric Threads is a subtle record–there’s quite a bit to reveal itself here, and it’s worth spinning it until the landscape begins to come closer into focus. (Bandcamp link)
Grey Factor – 1979-1980 A.D. – Complete Studio Recordings
Release date: January 27th Record label: Damaged Disco/Tiny Global Productions Genre: Synthpop, post-punk, coldwave Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: All in a Day’s Work
Grey Factor surfaced in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, originally a four-piece group made up of Jeff Jacquin, Joey Cevetello, Jon Pospisil, and Paul Fontana and later featuring Anne Burns and John Cevetello during their brief two-year window of activity. Grey Factor was an early West Coast outpost for synth-heavy post-punk music, recording two EPs that saw no official release beyond self-dubbed cassettes handed out at shows before breaking up in 1980. Some four decades later, Damaged Disco (a new label run by Dave Trumfio of The Pulsars and Mekons) has given the group’s The Perils of Popularity and The Feel of Passion EPs a single vinyl release, revealing an intriguing sound that still sounds fresh today.
The first six songs of 1979-1980 A.D. are from The Perils of Popularity, and they’re the more “minimal” version of Grey Factor–these songs are pretty much just synths, vocals, and a drum machine. This combination proves more than enough to fully realize these tracks, however–the pure dread of “Guerilla Warfare”, the driving synthpop of “You’re So Cool”, and the electronic pastoral charms of “All in a Day’s Work” showcase the band’s range. The instrumental expansion of the final four tracks (The Feel of Passion) doesn’t result in a new “Grey Factor sound” so much as the band exploring a few new lanes–the industrial, bass-led “No Emotion Needed” is the closest the band got to a “normal” post-punk song, “Inhibitions Run Wild” remains minimal despite some prominent saxophone, and “Looking for the Hotel” is a bright and shining song that fully takes advantage of the band’s expansion. (Bandcamp link)
The Royal Arctic Institute – From Coma to Catharsis
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Already Dead Tapes Genre: Post-rock, jazz rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: K-Style Circuit
New York five-piece group The Royal Arctic Institute have been establishing themselves as consistent purveyors of instrumental jazz rock and post-rock over the past few years, as exhibited by 2021’s Sodium Light and 2022’s From Catnap to Coma EPs. Their third EP in as many years, From Coma to Catharsis positions itself as a sequel to last year’s Royal Arctic Institute record just by the title, and, like From Catnap to Coma, the band recorded it at Neumann Leather Factory in Hoboken with Yo La Tengo’s James McNew and is releasing the record on cassette via Already Dead Tapes. From Coma to Catharsis finds the five-piece lineup of The Royal Arctic Institute solidifying, with the three newer members (keyboardist Carl Baggaley, guitarist Lynn Wright, and bassist David Motamed) taking a more active songwriting role alongside the founding duo of drummer Lyle Hysen and John Leon.
The Royal Arctic Institute is already a fairly “chilly” sounding group, and From Coma to Catharsis may be their mellowest through-journey yet–there’s nothing as openly dramatic as From Catnap to Coma’s “Shore Leave on Pharagonesia” here, although the cresting “Passover Buckets” and some particularly inspired guitar work on “K-Style Circuit” give the EP some immediately attention-grabbing moments as well. Perhaps the best example of subtlety on the EP is Wright’s “The Elated World”, a swirling bass-led track that fits right in with the rest of the half-dozen tracks. From Coma to Catharsis marks something of the end of this fertile era of The Royal Arctic Institute, with Wright moving to Berlin and subsequently bowing out as a full-time member of the band. Judging by “The Elated World”, Wright’s contributions will be missed, but I suspect The Royal Arctic Institute will continue to soldier onward. (Bandcamp link)
Today, I take a break from my typical new music posts or playlisting to present something a little different. My “archival” listening habits are typically done one year at a time, and with new music slowing down at the end of last year, I decided to really tackle 1997 in January by listening to one new-to-me record from that year every day. I mentioned that I was doing this in the Rosy Overdrive Discord, and RO Discord power user Dan Gorman (aka The Discover Tab) suggested I keep a log of what I listen to in a channel there.
So I did, and what I ended up with is, I think, something interesting enough to share with the entire class, so to speak. Some of these albums are acclaimed and beloved, and some are quite off the beaten path. It’s a bit more casual than your typical Rosy Overdrive post, sure, but I can be casual, too. Anyway, enjoy, and if you’re interested in things like this, I’ll probably do it again in Discord at some point in the future, so I recommend joining in the action if Discord is something you use (or, if not, it’s a great opportunity to start!). 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.
January 1st: Fuck – Pardon My French (Matador)
Ah, the band with the name. Fuck are frequently cited as a great undersung version of the kind of 90s indie rock that I like, although Pardon My French’s sixteen slippery tracks are less of the underdog lo-fi Sebadoh/Guided by Voices variety and more of a mix between Unrest’s vibe-y indie pop and Yo La Tengo’s atmospheric side (a lot of this is, like, weirdo soundtrack music). But they’ll also bust out acoustic sleepy tunes like “For Lori” and whatever “Raggy Rag” is. I’d say I find it interesting more than straight-up “like” it, at least initially.
January 2nd: Chris Whitley – Terra Incognita (Sony)
Apparently he’s more associated with Americana/roots rock, but Chris Whitley’s third album is very 90s alt-rock, even going into grunge/post-grunge territory. Whitley has a blues background, which is apparent in a couple songs, but not overly. I originally heard the song “Power Down”, which I still think is an excellent radio rock-type song. “Automatic” is another highlight that comes close; he kind of sounds like an edgier guy from Counting Crows there. Production bogs this record down, it becomes a slog to listen to by the middle with the dated alt-rock sound. There could be more good songs buried in here, but they aren’t sticking with me.
January 3rd: The Softies – Winter Pageant (K)
I already knew the title track, it’s on my Christmas/winter playlist, but I’ve never listened to this as a whole. The just electric guitar/vocals setup asks for more of your attention than the rockier, more naturally-head-turning Tiger Trap and Go Sailor (blink and you’ll miss some of these songs) but it’s still charming pop music. I like the two-guitar interplay.
January 4th: The Holy Cows – Blueberrie (Big Pop)
Alt-country/college rock from Michigan. Somewhere on the more energetic/pop-punky side of the R.E.M./Westerberg/Gin Blossoms spectrum. I’m predispositioned to like this kind of music, and the album’s pretty consistent throughout (even when they slow it down and get extra rootsy). Bet they’d be fun live. Not life-changing, but if you have a soft spot for, like, Buffalo Tom (as I do)—or for that matter, newer bands like Big Nothing—you’ll find stuff to enjoy here.
January 5th: Tsunami – A Brilliant Mistake (Simple Machines)
I thought I would like this album more on the second listen, and I was correct. Grower energy. I’m familiar with Jenny Toomey through her Franklin Bruno covers; Tsunami never grabbed me too much, but this is solid no-frills indie rock. Really—no bells and whistles here, it’s all about the songs. Which are pretty good, especially in the first half—second could’ve lost a couple of tracks.
January 6th: Strictly Ballroom – Hide Here Forever (Waxploitation)
Alright, now we’ve got some really spaced-out emo music. Like a lot of similar bands at this time, it balances pretty and ugly, but hews more toward the former. There are moments of this album that’ll appeal to slowcore and post-rock fans (the last song is fifteen minutes long!), but it’s first and foremost a good, clean 90s emo record with just a bit of post-hardcore screaming in a couple tracks. Fun fact: bassist Jimmy Tamborello went on to become, yes, the other Postal Service guy.
January 7th: The Summer Hits – Beaches and Canyons 1992-96 (X-Mas)
This one is really intriguing on paper. California band that combined surf rock and sunshine pop with heavy noise pop, lo-fi fuzz-fest indie rock and almost-shoegaze. A sound that’d become a lot more popular in recent years. But is it actually good? Well—since it’s technically a singles etc. compilation, it’s not surprising that it’s kind of hit or miss, but the songs that “hit” that dug-up lost-sound pop peak (“Stony Creation”, the title track, “Caramel Feelin’”) really nail it. Fun fact: drummer Josh Schwartz went on to play in Beachwood Sparks with (in a complete coincidence) Chris Gunst from yesterday’s pick, Strictly Ballroom.
January 8th: Cornelius – Fantasma (Trattoria)
I liked this more than I thought I would. I listened to it sort of out of obligation—it’s one of the “big” critically-acclaimed loosely-defined indie records from this year I hadn’t heard—even as these stitched-together 90s records rarely hold up for me. This one does, however—it feels like a bunch of songs, for one. The collage elements are a factor, but not the whole thing; I’m listening to a lot of Elephant 6 right now, and the similarities would be there even if Robert and Hilarie from Apples in Stereo didn’t guest on a track. Now, hopefully there aren’t any weird scandals about this guy that’d detract from my enjoyment of this music…..
January 9th: Bruce Cockburn – The Charity of Night (True North)
Revered in Canadian singer-songwriter and folk circles, unknown out of them. Bruce’s career had been going on for a quarter-century at this point, but this album does contain one of his most well-known songs, “Pacing the Cage” (apparently covered by Jimmy Buffett, oddly enough). If you like long, winding, frequently political progressive folk with impressive fingerpicking, The Charity of Night continues to explore Cockburn’s strengths. Needless to say, it’s not for everyone.
January 10th: Plumtree – Predicts the Future (Cinnamon Toast)
Canadian punk-pop group, most famous for their song “Scott Pilgrim”, which apparently later became a book or a movie or something, I don’t really care. You could call this album twee if you wanted to, but it sounds slicker than most of their contemporaries in that genre, and a few of these songs have an alt-rock edge to them. So, fairly radio-friendly. I like it well enough. Carla Gillis is a good frontperson, songs like “You Just Don’t Exist” and the Scott Pilgrim song are both really big pop songs, and I like when they get rockier too, like in “Why Won’t You Stop”.
January 10th (BONUS): Elf Power – When the Red King Comes (Drug Racer)
Not technically part of this, but I’m also listening to a lot of new-to-me Elephant Six albums because I’m reading the book, and since this one is from ‘97 I’ll throw it in here as well. The few Elf Power albums I’ve heard have been pretty disparate; this one feels like a midpoint between the lo-fi indie rock of their debut and the shiny power pop of their third album. There’s some early NMH acoustic distortion going on here sonically, even if the songwriting hews more toward Apples in Stereo and more obviously 60s-inspired tunes. Definitely a highlight of this scene.
January 11th: The Eclectics – Idle Worship (Jump Up!)
This is ska-punk recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio. It sounds a lot like ska-punk recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio. It does it in a weird way, though, where these are “normal” ska-pop songs that will all of a sudden have a noise punk section, or the bass will sound like the Jesus Lizard for a few seconds. Once the novelty wears off it doesn’t sound like anything super special to me, although I imagine people who enjoy ska more than I do would probably like it. Also, the album ends with Wesley Willis shouting them out.
January 12th: Archer Prewitt – In the Sun (Carrot Top)
Between John McEntire’s work with Tortoise and Sam Prekop’s solo career, Archer is probably the Sea and Cake member I know the least about (I know he was in the Coctails, but I haven’t gotten to them either). In the Sun doesn’t appear to be his most popular solo album, but I have been enjoying it. It’s a very light, airy chamber pop/minimal indie rock album—it’s colored with horns, strings, and woodwinds in various places, but it never gets overly busy or cluttered. It’s not a hidden Sea & Cake album, but as long as you don’t go into it expecting that, there is a lot to like here.
January 13th: Mogwai – Mogwai Young Team (Chemikal Underground)
I can already tell this is going to be more difficult to keep up with as more new music starts coming out. Still, I plan on finishing out the month. Anyway, it’s another “big one” today, as I’ve never heard a Mogwai record in full until now. I think this is fine—it falls somewhere between the sprinting-away-from-indie-rock, Godspeed version of post-rock (that I can enjoy sometimes), and the more American, more indebted to noise rock/slowcore/post-hardore underground version of post-rock (that’s more my thing). I can see myself putting this on if I want to hear something grand and heavy. I get the sense that they softened their sound on their more recent work, which is less appealing to me, but I’m basing this mostly on hearing a song here and there and how people talk about Mogwai, so I know this isn’t exactly a fair assessment.
January 14th: Prolapse – The Italian Flag (Radar)
It’d also be easier to keep up with this if I didn’t keep choosing hour-plus-long albums to listen to, but here we are. According to my notes, I’ve actually listened to every other Prolapse album before this one and they didn’t make much of an impression on me, but this one seems to be particularly acclaimed and the one song I heard was good so…this record is a lot—beefy, noisy British dual vocal post-punk. Clangs and clatters but can also pull out something really pretty like “Autocade”. Good synthesis of underground rock.
January 15th: Veruca Salt – Eight Arms to Hold You (Outpost/Minty Fresh)
Veruca Salt is a band that seems to be taken just seriously enough to be dismissed as less than the sum of their influences. I think I listened to American Thighs forever ago and it didn’t stick with me, but Nina Gordon being a big Game Theory fan has intrigued me and made me want to give her band another shot. “Volcano Girls” is still a really great 90s alt-rock single (and them doing the “Glass Onion” thing with their last hit song is very amusing). There’s a pretty clear gulf between Gordon’s songs and the other songwriter’s—“With David Bowie” and “Benjamin” back to back is one of the record’s brightest spots, while even Post’s most memorable song (“Sound of the Bell”) doesn’t feel quite fully-formed. Much has been made about the Bob Rock production on this one apparently, but that’s not the issue—something like “Loneliness Is Worse” is maybe dinged a little bit with the over-the-top sound but it still shines through because it’s a good song. The problem is that too many of the tracks aren’t on its level.
January 16th: Laddio Bolocko – Strange Warmings of Laddio Bolocko (Hungarian)
When a band’s “fans also like” section on Spotify includes U.S. Maple, Oxbow, and The Dead C, you know you’re in for some shit. Laddio Bolocko was a New York “free jazz-inspired” noise rock band who (as others have pointed out) is pretty clearly indebted to This Heat (a band that in recent years has been added to the experimental rock/art punk canon but hadn’t really reached that level of their cult status at this point). It starts out as fairly typical (but good) instrumental noise-math-rock, and from there the songs start to grow and mutate to the point where the last track is a two-parter that’s half an hour in total. The saxophone gets broken out about halfway through. I’m more into the songs like “Goat Lips” and the first half of “Nurser”, yes, but I can appreciate what “Y Toros” is doing, sure.
January 17th: Kenickie – At the Club (EMI/Warner Bros.)
Late 90s UK buzz band that I’m surprised doesn’t really come up more nowadays. Appears to have been marketed as something along the lines of “Britpop’s riot grrl band!” (Oh, British press…) ; it’s probably best appreciated when one doesn’t bring any of that kind of baggage near it. It’s a pretty big-sounding album, often sounding like it’s trying to do too much. Smaller-time songs like “Brother John” are the ones that are sticking with me, although they hit with the “anthems” enough too (“Classy”). And “Punka” isn’t as embarrassing as it could’ve been. A mixed bag, but some worthwhile things here to be sure.
January 18th: My Dad Is Dead – Everyone Wants the Honey But Not the Sting (Emperor Jones)
Now THIS—this is “indie rock”. My Dad Is Dead gets the post-punk tag sometimes thanks to their early cold, drum machine-aided sound (with which I’m somewhat familiar), but here, over a decade into the group’s career, it’s full-band power trio rock music (although the gloominess is still here, yes). It reminds me of other Ohio groups like Gaunt, Ron House’s bands, and Scrawl, or Karl Hendricks—stuff that’s very good but largely hasn’t survived into the 21st century due to lack of huge (on an indie level) success or an obvious narrative hook. This is the best of a certain kind of 90s indie rock, where it’s very confessional while also being loud and rocky instead of treating those two things as opposites. Here’s where my biases come into focus—somebody with less tolerance for no-frills alt-indie-rock stuff might find this record same-y, but I like the zone into which it settles, and I think the record’s best tracks (“Don’t Look Now”, “Two Clean Slates”, “A Million Questions”) are pretty universal.
January 19th: Free Kitten – Sentimental Education (Wiiija)
Hey, we were just talking about Sonic Youth in another [Discord] channel. I heard Nice Ass awhile back and it didn’t do much for me, but this is more like it. Not that it’s the greatest record in the world or anything, but it realizes just a bit of the potential of Kim Gordon, Yoshimi, and Julia Cafritz making a record together. It’s an hourlong marathon to be sure but it starts off great, with actual 90s SY vibes for the first few songs. Most of the second half is taken up by the 10+ minute title track, which is…alright. For the longer/repetitive songs I prefer “Never Gonna Sleep”, which feels like the right amount of SY/Yoshimi fusion.
January 20th: The 3Ds – Strange News from the Angels (Flying Nun)
The 3Ds have always been one of my favorite “second-tier” Flying Nun bands off the strength of their first two records, the noisy pop Hellzapoppin and the slightly more refined Venus Trail, but I hadn’t heard their third, final, and least popular album until now. This one is pretty messy—the first few songs don’t grab me, then they launch into a couple of excellent fuzz-rock songs with “Vector 27” and “Ride the Whale”, and then it feels like the record is oddly backloaded, with songs like “Devil Red” and “Big Red Heart” hitting the electric Sonic Youth/Bailter Space sweet spot. I’d definitely recommend not starting with this album if you’re unfamiliar with the band, but if you like them or are a huge fan of this kind of music you’ll probably enjoy it.
January 21st: Flake Music – When You Land Here, It’s Time to Return (Omnibus)
This is—it isn’t even “James Mercer’s pre-Shins band”, it’s basically the whole first Shins lineup under a different name. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s rougher and more 90s indie rock-indebted than The Shins, sort of like Zumpano vs. The New Pornographers but maybe even a little more stark. In theory “rougher, more rocky The Shins” is something I should like—and I think I do. Me being a casual-at-best Shins fan is a double-edged sword—I’m not going to be disappointed because it doesn’t sound “Shins-y enough”, but also Mercer et al’s music has never meant so much to me that merely approaching it would be enough for Flake Music to stand out on its own. So, it’s a solid power pop-influenced indie rock record, opener “Spanway Hits” kind of towers over everything else, although “The Shins” (the song) lights up the second half nearly as brightly.
January 22nd: The Crabs – What Were Flames Now Smolder (K)
Ah, I love this band! Jackpot! is probably one of my favorite 90s indie pop albums, but I hadn’t heard this one yet. It’s an electric guitar and drum duo, both of them sing, and their best songs sound like pop-punk at its most humble and likable (“February 15th”) or like ageless pop music (“Mission Impossible”, “Private Eye”). Calvin Johnson plays bass on “Temper Temper”, which is also the one that most sounds like a Calvin Johnson song. Towards the end of the record “1863” is definitely an unexpected turn—musically it’s one of their finest moments, and while twee might feel like an odd medium for this kind of message at first, I think the Crabs stick the landing. Great under-discussed band, solid record.
January 23rd: For Against – Shelf Life (World Domination/Independent Project)
Everyone’s favorite dream pop/post-punk group from Nebraska, I’d been meaning to give a full For Against record a listen for a while and this one seemed promising. I’m going in for a second listen right now and this record really benefits from that. This sound never really went away and I’ve heard a bunch of bands/albums that throw both post-punk and dream pop hallmarks in the mix, but the songs here are hooky in a vintage 80s college rock kind of way. The jangly guitar arpeggios and melodic bass are both the best of this kind of music, and I like that the vocals aren’t buried either.
January 24th: Isotope 217 – The Unstable Molecule (Thrill Jockey)
It’s time for some jazz! Isotope 217 is a Chicago jazz-funk sextet featuring 3/5 of Tortoise, including guitarist Jeff Parker, who makes a lot of music like this on his solo albums. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this album sounds like a more jazzy version of 90s Tortoise; songs like “Kryptonite Smokes the Red Line” and “La Jeteé” have post-rock empty-space moments. It’s very much an ensemble album, with no instrument rising above the other—I do wish we heard more of Parker’s guitar explorations here, but I understand that’s not the main point of Isotope 217. This is an enjoyable listen, even as I’m still probably more inclined to just listen to Tortoise (perhaps relatedly, my favorite song on the album, the funky “Phonometrics”, is the least Tortoise-y).
January 25th: The Jayhawks – Sound of Lies (American Recordings)
An album I haven’t heard from the foundational Minnesota alt-country group. Although this one is pretty far away from the country rock of Hollywood Town Hall etc—it’s the first album after co-songwriter Mark Olson left the band, and Gary Louris responds by embracing the power pop/60s pop rock side of the band. It’s sort of like what Wilco did a couple years later with Summerteeth, although not quite as jarring. There are some beautiful songs on here (the piano is utilized excellently, and pretty melodies and harmonies abound), although it’s also quite long and the tracks start to blur together a bit by the time we get to the second half. It’s a lot of elements that I like, so I do like it, but in terms of standing out it doesn’t quite do it all the way through.
January 26th: Discount – Half Fiction (Kat/California Roll)
This is another “first, lesser-known band from somebody who’d get big in the 2000s” pick—in this case, lead singer Alison Mosshart would go on to front The Kills. Discount isn’t garage rock; on Half Fiction, they’re a melodic, driven pop punk band. Discount have a scrappiness to them that puts them in line with a lot of other emo/Replacements/Jawbreaker-tinged indie punk bands from this time, but Mosshart already had a superstar voice at this point, and her singing is key in this record hitting as hard as it does (of course, all those power chords don’t hurt, either).
January 27th: Acetone – Acetone (Vapor)
I have seen Acetone grouped in with your typical 90s slowcore bands (your Ida(ho)s and Bedheads), so their 1997 self-titled album wasn’t quite what I expected. It’s delicate-sounding and plodding like a lot of slowcore, sure, but it’s equally if not more so in the realms of alt-country and 60s pop. It reminds me of Yo La Tengo’s decade-spanning crate-digging indie rock as much as anything else, although it also meanders a bit in a way that more than earns the “slowcore” tag. It’s just less…cold than most of that music. I’m warming to it.
January 28th: Blonde Redhead – Fake Can Be Just as Good (Touch and Go)
I listened to another Blonde Redhead album a few years ago and it didn’t stick with me, but figured it was time to give them another try. And I’m glad I did, because I quite enjoyed this one. They’re very much a 90s underground indie rock group at this point—the Sonic Youth comparisons I’ve seen fit here, and Vern Rumsey plays bass on this album, so I hear Unwound too. Like the best of those bands, the album balances dissonance with beauty; the inevitable repetitive post-punk grooves and the lengthy noise rock instrumental sections both feel like they’ve got real purpose here.
January 29th: Comet Gain – Magnetic Poetry (Wiiija)
The second album from the long-running British indie pop group. Opens with the barnstorming “Strength”, which is a classic of Jazz Butcher-y post-C86 pop music to me. The rest of the record isn’t as immediately grabbing but has plenty of good-in-their-own-right tunes. However, there’s also a couple of unremarkable songs, and at least one of them (“Pier Angeli”) kind of drags; not ideal for an eight-song, 24-minute album. The peaks are high, though, and I’d listen to another record from this band; I get the sense this may not be their best work.
January 30th: Ween – The Mollusk (Elektra)
Alright, fine. I put this one off until almost the end because I didn’t wanna do it. Ween annoy me. But I kinda like the “Ocean Man” song, and how can I completely dismiss Gene and Dean without giving their “masterpiece” a shot? Well, listening to the obnoxious opening track, I’m feeling pretty justified…but the rest of The Mollusk is more interesting. The title track and “It’s Gonna Be (Alright)”—these are good songs, as is the country Ween of (sigh) “Waving My Dick in the Wind”. “Mutilated Lips” is an interesting one; I definitely hear how it influenced Kurt Vile. Is it for me? Still no. Is it awful? Yeah I guess not, either.
January 31st: The Orange Peels – Square (Minty Fresh)
The first album out of many to come from the long-running pop rock group. Square is more indie pop than power pop, but there’s still a fun energy in these harmony-led tunes. Allen Clapp’s vocals and Jill Pries’ bass both stand out in terms of melody. It’s fifteen songs in under 40 minutes so a lot of these tracks kind of fly by at first, although there’s also no shortage of songs that hit immediately here (“Didn’t You Know”, “Something Strange Happens”, “All the World Could Pass Me By”).
Alright, I’ll do one more of these since I wanted to hear this one and didn’t get to it. Rye Coalition’s debut came out in ‘97, but it feels very early 2000s. With its combination of irreverent lyrics/song titles, math-y sections, post-hardcore assault, and stop-start post-punk sections, it fits neatly as the link between 90s DC Dischord groups and, like, the 2000s Providence bands (not to mention the heavier dance-punk groups). It’s interesting; I like parts of it. “White Jesus of 114th Street” is a fun song.
Welcome to the first Pressing Concerns of February! Today, we’re looking at new albums from Soft on Crime, The Men, and Equipment Pointed Ankh, as well as a split release featuring Wish Kit, New You, Mo Troper, and Gnawing. Rosy Overdrive’s January 2023 Playlist went up earlier this week, so check that out as well for a bunch more new music.
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Soft on Crime – New Suite
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Eats It Genre: Jangle pop, power pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Telex Eyes
Soft on Crime waste no time establishing just what you’re in for with New Suite. The Dublin-based three piece band open their debut record (well, cassette tape) with the massive, triumphant jangly guitars that lead off “Telex Eyes”, a moment that recalls vintage power pop groups like The dB’s and The Soft Boys. It’s a fitting introduction to Soft on Crime’s eager exploration into guitar pop of several stripes–New Suite is catchy through and through, whether the trio are trending in the direction of retro psychedelia, fuzzy lo-fi indie rock, or starry-eyed college rock. The pitch-perfect “Telex Eyes” is the highlight on Side A of the cassette, but New Suite also offers up the nearly-as-catchy “Crying Swimming Pool” early on, which utilizes giddily melodic guitar leads for maximum effect, and the crunchy, almost-glam “Splendid Life”, which closes out the tape’s first half.
Side B of New Suite is a little more subtle–but only just. It contains the album’s straight-up prettiest moment (the gorgeous, sunny jangle-pop ballad “Conditioned Reaction”) and its clearest foray into garage rock (side opener “Posturing”), and the groovy power pop of songs like “I Know You Like Me” and “Born Astride the Rave” are as strong tracks as anything on the flipside. Soft on Crime jam these dozen songs with as many instrumental and vocals hooks as possible per track, even when they’re putting together numbers that reflect their less overtly poppy influences, like the jerky, Devo-ish “Pretty Purgatory”. If you read Rosy Overdrive regularly, you’re aware that the best pop music isn’t coming from the bands with the best numbers on streaming, or those getting the most blue checkmarks to argue about them online–New Suite is one of those belief-reaffirming records. (Bandcamp link)
The Men – New York City
Release date: February 3rd Record label: Fuzz Club Genre: Garage rock, garage punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: God Bless the USA
Brooklyn’s The Men are back with their ninth album since 2010 and their first for Fuzz Club Records. In a move embracing their un-Googleable name, they’ve simply christened this one New York City, and it’s good news for anyone who’d like the quartet to rip through another fiery garage rock record a la 2012’s landmark Open Your Heart. New York City was recorded live to 2” tape by Travis Harrison (Guided by Voices, Cub Scout Bowling Pins), who has recorded The Men’s last couple of records as well. The Men’s most recent record, 2020’s Mercy, was an eclectic listen, putting epic swamp rock and quiet country-folk next to songs like “Breeze” that proved that the band could still indeed rock hard. New York City, then, is a record-length affirmation of their ability to find plenty of fertile ground in their good old garage rock roots.
The album starts off with a full-on assault in “Hard Livin’’”, a grimy and gritty garage punk song, and doesn’t let up with the smoldering “Peace of Mind” following immediately after. “God Bless the USA” finds the band conjuring up their best Dead Moon impression (Fred Cole and Toody, now those are two real reasons to be proud to be an American). The mid-section of the record does have a bit of variation without abandoning New York City’s prime mission, throwing out the riff-rocking “Eye”, the subterranean “Eternal Recurrence”, and the swaggering “Round the Corner”. Album closer “River Flows” hints at some of The Men’s previously-explored rock excess with its six-minute length, but like the rest of the album, it shows how it can be done with maximum precision. (Bandcamp link)
Various – Rock Against Bush
Release date: January 31st Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, pop punk, alt-rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Buhd
Who doesn’t love a good split release? The best releases of this nature give the listener a healthy dose of variety while also holding together due to some common thread between the various bands, and the four-song, four-artist Rock Against Bush split EP does exactly this. All four of these songs are brand-new, and all the offerings are from artists making some combination of power pop, 90s indie rock, and pop punk, leading to what’s effectively a collection of four massive hit singles. Three of the four contributors to Rock Against Bush have been reviewed on their own in Pressing Concerns, and these songs all feel on-par with the songs that made proper records–there’s no dumping of unwanted leftovers here.
The EP opens with “Buhd” by Wish Kit, the one group here that I haven’t written about before–and it just might be the best song on the whole thing. Its combination of fuzzy 90s power pop (check those “woo”s out in the chorus) and slacker rock energy is first-rate, and I’ll be keeping my eye on Wish Kit from here on out. New You’s “Hi-Wire” rivals it in terms of fizzy, catchy alt-rock energy, with the Blake Turner-led group wielding an all-out chorus that would’ve fit well on last year’s Candy EP. Mo Troper’s “Recipe for Loving” is the heart of Rock Against Bush–instead of conjuring up the fuzzier, louder moments of MTV and Dilettante to better “fit in” here, Troper instead embraces his acoustic, intricate Elliott Smith-inspired pop side. Richmond, Virginia’s Gnawing, meanwhile, close Rock Against Bush with a bang, a zippy piece of 90s-inspired alt-rock that’s somewhere between major-label Dinosaur Jr. and something off of Bleach. (Bandcamp link)
Equipment Pointed Ankh – From Inside the House
Release date: January 18th Record label: Bruit Direct Disques Genre: Experimental rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Rubber Slacks
Equipment Pointed Ankh is a Kentucky- and Indiana-based sextet featuring members of State Champion and Tropical Trash, among other bands. Like the group’s previous two records, their third, From Inside the House, probes more experimental grounds than some of the members’ other projects, with the album’s mostly-instrumental seven tracks featuring a whirlwind of percussion, clavinet, synths, and all kind of intriguing sounds on top of them. Particularly in the second half of From Inside the House, Equipment Pointed Ankh explore their atmospheric and their drone-heavier side. For the majority of the album, however, From Inside the House is an experimental rock record that evokes the “rock” side of the descriptor as well as “experimental”, at least as a jumping-off point.
Opening track “Rubber Slacks” is grounded with a steady drumbeat that holds as the clavinet and synths kick in, and the pounding backbeat to “Port of Indiana” one song later sits squarely in the middle of an even busier track featuring an arsenal of synths and some foghorn-evoking brass parts. The minimal brass and techno of “Belmont Hand Wash” gives way to “Late Night A.I.”, a hypnotic mix of underwater sounds, piano, and some of the more palpable Appalachian/folk influences on the record. Nearly half of From Inside the House is taken up by its two most unmoored songs, the title track (featuring spoken word vocals from Jenny Rose) and the ambient, scooped-out sound of “Paper Sink”. It’s a completely different road, but then Equipment Pointed Ankh end things with the industrial stomp of “Swords Against the Ritz”. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the Rosy Overdrive January 2023 playlist! This one features less “new” music than these typically do–there is some here, to be sure, but the bulk of my January listening was taken up by two “projects”. One was that I read the entirety of Endless Endless: A Lo-Fi History of the Elephant 6 Mystery by Adam Clair and subsequently listened to about two dozen Elephant 6 albums I hadn’t heard before (plus I re-listened to almost all the ones that I had heard previously), and the other was listening to a ton of music from 1997 (if this part of the playlist interests you, stay tuned for another blog post about it in the coming weeks).
The Tubs, The Apples in Stereo, and The Olivia Tremor Control get multiple songs on the playlist this time.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify (missing one song), Tidal (missing two), BNDCMPR (missing a few). 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.
“Spanway Hits”, Flake Music From When You Land Here, It’s Time to Return (1997, Omnibus/Aural Apothecary)
“Spanway Hits” opens When You Land Here, It’s Time to Return, the only record by proto-Shins band Flake Music. It’s pretty easily the best song on the album, and a lot of what makes James Mercer’s writing on the first two Shins records great is already present here. It’s a little more lo-fi and “rocking” than those big Shins songs, but “Spanway Hits” is deft power pop no matter in what clothes it dresses itself.
“Good I Feel Bad”, The High Water Marks From Songs About the Ocean (2004, Eenie Meenie/Racing Junior)
The High Water Marks are very much still around (last year’s Proclaimer of Thingsappeared on Rosy Overdrive’s Top Albums of 2022 list), but this was my first listen to the debut record from Hilarie Sidney and Per Ole Bratset’s band. They hit the ground running with “Good I Feel Bad”, an opening track that features plenty of the group’s hallmarks: a catchiness rivaling the best from Sidney’s other/older band The Apples in Stereo, a noisiness that colors rather than overwhelms the melody, and excellent trading-off vocals from Sidney and Bratset.
“Wretched Lie”, The Tubs From Dead Meat (2023, Trouble in Mind)
The debut full-length record from The Tubs is here, and it delivers on the promise of their 2021 EP Names as well as singles like “Sniveller”. As the record’s third advance song, “Wretched Lie” was an excellent piece of jangle pop with a chilly streak; as the closing track on Dead Meat, it’s downright stunning. The song is quite full between the post-punk bass and an excellent instrumental guitar hook, and Owen Williams’ vocals deliver the title line (“I have told a wretched lie”) with understated horror.
“Skyway”, The Apples in Stereo From New Magnetic Wonder (2007, Simian/Yep Roc/Elephant 6)
The Apples in Stereo’s reinvigoration/reinvention of themselves as a slick Electric Light Orchestra-inspired power pop group is one of my favorite later-era Elephant 6 developments. The “big” songs from New Magnetic Wonder (“Energy”, “Same Old Drag”) still sound magical and hold up better than you’d think if you haven’t heard them in awhile, but even lesser-heralded tracks like “Skyway” are so infectious and, yes, energetic as well.
“About Last Night”, Peter Hall From About Last Night (2023, Subjangle)
About Last Night is the second solo album by Nottingham singer-songwriter Peter Hall and his debut for Subjangle Records, which proves to be a fitting home for Hall’s jangly indie pop music. The opening and title track to the record brings big hooks out from the beginning, throwing out all the stops from massive leads and brightly-strummed acoustic guitar to full-sounding self-harmonies and melodic bass work.
“Crayon Box”, The Gerbils From Are You Sleepy (1998, Hidden Agenda)
I’ve probably listened to “Crayon Box” more than any other Elephant 6-related song that I’ve discovered since reading Adam Clair’s book on the scene. There’s something really refreshing about, after listening to a lot of music that goes deep into heavy psychedelia and opaque/symbolic lyrics, just enjoying a song that’s openly about indie rock and awkward relationships. Scott Spillane really sells the Portastatic and Sebadoh name-drops, and I can just see the shit-eating grin when he cheerfully bellows “I feel so empty”.
“Live Forever”, Ex-Pilots From Ex-Pilots (2019/2023, Smoking Room)
Ex-Pilots is a Pittsburgh noise pop band featuring members of other excellent groups from that area like Gaadge and Barlow; their self-titled debut record was released four years ago, and has now gotten a remastered release from Oakland’s Smoking Room Records. Ex-Pilots feels like a key puzzle piece to this “scene”, with noisier, more shoegaze-invoking songs sitting alongside tracks like “Live Forever”, which is a very pretty piece of reverb-dressed indie pop.
“Clap and Cough”, Discount From Half Fiction (1997, Kat)
Discount was Alison Mosshart’s 90s band, where she made excellent melodic pop punk before blowing up in the following decade as part of the garage rock revival with The Kills. “Clap and Cough” is an excellent single–it’s clearly part of the Jawbreaker/Samiam/etc wing of indie punk rock that was in full swing around this time, but differentiates itself in no small part due to Mosshart’s voice.
“Gypsum Oil Field Fire”, The Olivia Tremor Control From Presents: Singles and Beyond (2000, Cloud)
The Olivia Tremor Control’s Presents: Singles and Beyond is full of gems like this–these really infectious and catchy lo-fi poppy indie rock tracks that feel like you’re stumbling onto something hidden when you hear them. “Gypsum Oil Field Fire” is originally from a 1994 split single with The Apples in Stereo, which makes a lot of sense–The Olivias hadn’t quite hit on their dense, layered psychedelic pop sound yet, and, at this point, didn’t sound too far off from the 90s indie rock/60s pop synthesis the Apples were also doing. I like where both bands ended up, but this early stuff is very cool too.
“Power Down”, Chris Whitley From Terra Incognita (1997, Sony)
Terra Incognita is a perfectly fine alt-rock album with some blues and Americana undertones, although “Power Down” is the one song from the record that really sticks with me. It’s an excellent song that I could’ve imagined being a hit radio rock single around this time, with Chris Whitley sounding like a post-grunge Adam Duritz in the song’s monster chorus.
“Temporary Arm”, Elf Power From Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs (1995, Arena Rock/Orange Twin)
Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs was effectively an Andrew Rieger solo recording, although longtime Elf Power multi-instrumentalist Laura Carter already pops up on this song playing drums. The record’s lo-fi, home-recorded sound doesn’t quite reflect where Elf Power would end up headed sonically (they got “more Elephant 6-ized” starting with their next album and blossoming with 1999’s A Dream in Sound), but the chugging “Temporary Arm” is as catchy as anything from their later psych/power pop-indebted sound.
“Lilly Isn’t There”, That One Crocodile From Many States (2022, Canadaway)
That One Crocodile is the project of Rochester, New York’s Ben Baker, although it features a host of contributions from other musicians, including bassist Dan Jircitano (Rectangle Creep, Shitcanned) and Ann Rorick, who is the co-lead vocalist on album highlight “Lilly Isn’t There”. It’s a very intriguing song that sets the stage for Many States quite nicely, starting out as a singer-songwriter piano track that morphs into a pedal-steel featuring folk-country tune as Rorick and Baker introduce Lilly and trade off vocals.
“Volcano Girls”, Veruca Salt From Eight Arms to Hold You (1997, Outpost)
It’s not often you’ll find a song that one could also conceivably hear on alt-rock radio in one of these playlists, but I gave Eight Arms to Hold You a full listen last month, and my biggest conclusion from it is that “Volcano Girls” is still an excellent 90s rock single. It’s a big hook and riff fest from Nina Gordon, who I do appreciate as a songwriter a little more after hearing some of her album tracks as well, and I like that they do the “Glass Onion” self-referential thing with the lyrics. That’s amusing to me.
“Weird Sisters”, The Telephone Numbers From Weird Sisters (2023, Meritorio/Prefect)
The Telephone Numbers’ 2021 album The Ballad of Doug was a slow-burner for me that year (it’d be significantly higher on my year-end list if I redid it today), so I’m happy to welcome the San Francisco band back again with their “Weird Sisters” single. I know that The Telephone Numbers’ Thomas Rubenstein is a big Game Theory fan, and I can hear some Scott Miller in the vocals of this song, where the breezy jangle pop of the verses pushes for something higher-up in the chorus.
“Sparkly Green Couch”, Secret Square From Secret Square (1995, Elephant 6)
One of the first new bands to emerge from the Denver division of Elephant 6, Secret Square was the project of Hilarie Sidney (Apples in Stereo) and Lisa Janssen (probably most known otherwise for her bass work on Neutral Milk Hotel’s On Avery Island), who wanted to make weirder music than Robert Schneider was making with the Apples. Secret Square is definitely a more-difficult-to-crack record than anything Sidney’s other band was doing at the time, but “Sparkly Green Couch” is quite catchy in a mid-tempo, late-night/early-morning slacker rock kind of way.
“The Deserter”, Leiah From Endless (2023, Thirty Something/Coypu/Friend of Mine)
There’s something about Scandinavia that seems to excel at producing emo-tinged, nostalgic-sounding indie rock groups at a high rate. Leiah fits into this mold, but it’s also worth noting that they’ve been around for a while–they arose in the late 90s, broke up in 2004, and have returned nearly two decades later with Endless. “The Deserter” is one of my favorite songs of the year so far, a massive power pop tune with an explosive, synth-aided chorus.
“Death Drive with Julie”, Fire Man From Yerself Is Fire (2023)
Yerself Is Fire is a fun and exciting noise rock/post-hardcore record; it recalls the best of 80s labels like Touch & Go and Alternative Tentacles, but its lack of self-seriousness helps it not sound like some kind of dull past imitation. Some of the best moments on Yerself Is Fire are the most overtly pop ones, like “Death Drive with Julie”, which is a “car song” for people with their knuckles gripped ghost-white to the steering wheel that nevertheless explodes into a noisy rock and roll conclusion. Read more about Yerself Is Fire here.
“Rough Necks”, Handturner From Good Moon (2022)
Handturner is the Michigan-based duo of Franki Hand and Isaac Turner, who readers of Rosy Overdrive know as two-fifths of kraut/psych-rockers Wowza in Kalamazoo. Handturner has released tworecords over the past two months; December’s Good Moon is “both an album and a sizzle reel…for those seeking music for soundtracks [etc]”. A lot of the album thusly feels more interstitial, but “Rough Necks” is a solid indie pop tune in its own right, with Hand’s vocals singing melodically over chiming keyboards and percussion. Not on streaming, get it on Bandcamp.
“Boyfriend”, Ex-Vöid From Bigger Than Before (2022, Don Giovanni)
I already talked about The Tubs earlier in this playlist, but the other prominent ex-Joanna Gruesome band is still getting spins from me in 2023, too. I put the Ex-Vöid album at number six on my year-end list; if I made it again today, it might crack the top three. It’s songs like “Boyfriend” that do it–it’s almost too short, cutting out or condensing a lot of the things that feel like pop-song no-brainers (for example, Alanna McArdle cramming some of her best lyrics in between the “normal” verse lines) to make something just slightly off and even more memorable.
“Hooray for Tuesday”, The Minders From Hooray for Tuesday (1998, spinART)
I thought it was interesting how The Minders are discussed by Endless, Endless–Martyn Leaper and Rebecca Cole’s early connections to Robert Schneider and Bill Doss notwithstanding, they’re acknowledged as somewhat as a “peripheral” Elephant 6 band, but they also seem quite revered as people and musicians by a lot of the “core” (read: Athens-based) Elephant 6 figures. I don’t know them personally, but Hooray for Tuesday and (especially) its title track are both great–it’s more straight-up power pop than most Elephant 6 music, sure, but that’s far from a bad thing.
“State Line to Eagleville”, Labrador From Hold the Door for Strangers (2023, No Way of Knowing)
Philadelphia alt-country five-piece Labrador waste no time establishing themselves on the first song of their new record, Hold the Door for Strangers. The gorgeous, jangly instrumental that begins both the album and its first track, “State Line to Eagleville”, is a triumph right out of the gate, shading a song that both fulfills and transcends the band’s “alt-country meets power pop” ambitions. Read more about Hold the Door for Strangers here.
“Autocade”, Prolapse From The Italian Flag (1997, Radarscope)
The Italian Flag is all over the place from Prolapse, a British group that understandably has a bit of a cult following after releasing four really interesting, noisy indie rock records in the 90s. The Italian Flag is probably my favorite one of them–there’s both clanging post-punk and tracks like “Autocade”, a really beautiful early Stereolab-invoking drone pop single.
“Chapter 8 – Seashore and Horizon – ”, Cornelius featuring Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney From Fantasma (1997, Trattoria)
My 1997 listening and Elephant 6 listening intersected here–how could I not highlight this song? It certainly helps that it’s a very good track, revealing just how well of a match Cornelius’ cribbed-from-many-decades-before it collage pop is with Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney’s 60s inspired music. “Chapter 8 – Seashore and Horizon – ” could very well be an Elephant 6 song, although it’s more Olivia Tremor Control float-along psych pop than the Apples’ more band-centric records.
“Prison Song”, Beauty Pill From Blue Period (2023, Ernest Jenning)
Beauty Pill’s much-welcome Blue Period compilation re-releases their 2004 debut full-length The Unsustainable Lifestyle, in addition to the You Are Right to Be Afraid EP and various non-album tracks. “Prison Song” is a spare, vulnerable highlight from The Unsustainable Lifestyle (there’s a reason why the band explored it again for their 2020 Please Advise EP), with vocalist Rachel Burke delivering lyrics that are almost challenging in how straightforward they ring. Read more about Blue Period here.
“Don’t Look Now”, My Dad Is Dead From Everyone Wants the Honey, But Not the Sting (1997, Emperor Jones/Scat)
My Dad Is Dead was (at this point, over a decade into their career) making power trio indie rock recalling stuff like Karl Hendricks, Gaunt, or Ron House’s bands–very good if not especially-remembered songwriting-first rock music. Everyone Wants the Honey, But Not the Sting is something of a litmus test to see just how barebones you can take this kind of music, but the pop hooks in the chorus of opening track “Don’t Look Now” make this song for everyone, in my opinion.
“Dying to Go”, Spice World From There’s No “I” in Spice World (2023, Meritorio/Tenth Court)
Western Australia’s Spice World land squarely on the “loose and ragged” end of the guitar pop spectrum on their debut record, There’s No “I” in Spice World. “Dying to Go” comes at the end of the record, and the band saves one of their peppiest numbers for last, with a chorus heavy on the “oh oh oh”s. “Dying to Go” is also the song where Spice World establish themselves as the biggest Spice Girls fans in jangle pop by calling out the girl group directly in their lyrics. Read more about There’s No “I” in Spice World here.
“Motorcar”, The Apples in Stereo From Science Faire (1996, spinART/Elephant Six)
Maybe it’s due to the sheen on some of their later work, but I feel like early Apples in Stereo maybe does not get its proper due as excellent lo-fi 90s indie rock. Their 1996 Science Faire compilation in particular is full of fuzzy hooks–Robert Schneider and his bandmates were just as inspired by Pavement as they were by 60s pop groups at this time, and anyone who’s a fan of the more tuneful side of underground 90s bands like Guided by Voices and Built to Spill should give it a listen.
“All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today”, Chocolate USA From All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today (1992, Bar/None)
Chocolate USA was Julian Koster’s band before joining Neutral Milk Hotel and starting The Music Tapes (or, at least, before The Music Tapes became an on-the-record band), and featured at various points Bill Doss and Eric Harris from The Olivia Tremor Control. They don’t seem like the most fondly-remembered group in the context of Elephant 6 (I believe Koster said the records never captured the band in the way he wanted them to), but I thoroughly enjoyed both of their albums, particularly All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today, the title track of which is sublime, sleepy indie pop.
“Strength”, Comet Gain From Magnetic Poetry (1997, Wiiija)
“Strength” opens Magnetic Poetry, the sophomore record from long-running British indie pop group Comet Gain, and it’s an excellent piece of Jazz Butcher-y, post-C86 pop music. Horns feature prominently throughout the track, the electric and acoustic guitars both do their jobs in being melodic and bouncy, and David Christian’s vocals soar to match the giddy instrumental as well.
“Nixon Peace Fingers”, Slime Lush From Custom Slaughter (2022)
Slime Lush are a nineties-inspired indie rock group from Oklahoma, and their latest record, last year’s Custom Slaughter, opens with “Nixon Peace Fingers”, an eighteen-wheeler of a desert rock song. They cite the usual 90s indie guitar hero names (Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr.) on their quest to make indie rock as classic rock, a thing that Silkworm (and, yes, sigh, Pavement) did well. “Nixon Peace Fingers” is six minutes of fairly straightforward rock and roll that derails just a bit before it’s over.
“Punched a Friend”, The Holy Cows From Blueberrie (1997, Big Pop)
The Holy Cows came from Michigan, and they put together a fun Midwestern college rock/alt-country mix on their second album, 1997’s Blueberrie. Like a lot of bands from this time, the Holy Cows land somewhere between R.E.M. and The Replacements, but these songs are spirited enough to not fade into the background. Opening track “Punched a Friend” makes the titular question land like, well, a punch, I suppose.
“Ballroom Etiquette”, Guided by Voices From La La Land (2023, GBV, Inc.)
Hello, it’s another Guided by Voices album! La La Land 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. The straightforward “Ballroom Etiquette” is a clear and early highlight on the record; it’s jangly and has some nice bass work going on in it, and Pollard’s delivery of the refrain (the “most likely if you go…” part) is nice and understated, letting the hook work for itself.
“Love Athena”, The Olivia Tremor Control From Presents: Singles and Beyond (2000, Cloud)
Another excellent lo-fi pop hit from the early stages of the Olivia Tremor Control, “Love Athena” originally kicked off the 1994 California Demise EP. The band was effectively Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss, and Jeff Mangum at this point, and although a lot of early music produced by this trio was fairly experimental, “Love Athena” is a perfect, simple pop song buried underneath fuzz.
“California Summer”, The Summer Hits From Beaches and Canyons 1992-96 (1997, X-Mas)
The Summer Hits were a California band that combined surf rock and sunshine pop with heavy noise pop, lo-fi fuzz-fest indie rock and almost-shoegaze on a string of singles collected here. Not every song on Beaches and Canyons “works” for me, but the big “pop” hits of the compilation are all great realizations of an intriguing combination of genres. “California Summer” is brightness and chaos all at once.
“Illusion Pt. II”, The Tubs From Dead Meat (2023, Trouble in Mind)
The Tubs open Dead Meat with “Illusion Pt. II”, a song that references (but is not the same as) “Illusion” from their 2021 Names EP. The original “Illusion” was a sharp two-minute pop song about not feeling like a real person; “Illusion Pt. II” stretches itself out to over four minutes with a post-punk bass groove running underneath it, highlighting the urgency that The Tubs always seem to be putting out on display in some form or another.
“Bumper Ships”, Hello Whirled From The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun (2022, Sherilyn Fender)
Late 2022 and early 2023 saw the release of three Hello Whirled albums over the course of as many months. The IN THE NO trilogy, as Hello Whirled head Ben Spizuco deemed the three, found the project both excelling in and pushing around their lo-fi indie rock core sound. “Bumper Ships” is from the second of those albums, The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun, and it’s one of the most intriguing things I’ve heard from Spizuco. It’s a tight march of a pop song with some fun synth additions, a key addition to the ever-expanding Hello Whirled songbook. Read more about IN THE NO here.
“Meadowport Arch”, The Ladybug Transistor From The Albemarle Sound (1999, Merge)
The Ladybug Transistor were, along with their sibling band The Essex Green, a couple of New York groups that became associated with Elephant 6 thanks to Robert Schneider’s efforts to expand the label in the late 90s. Unlike The Essex Green, I don’t think Elephant 6 released any of the Ladybug Transistor records, but listening to songs like the baroque pop “Meadowport Arch”, there’s a clear stylistic fit here.
“Glide”, Status / Non-Status From January 3rd (2023, You’ve Changed)
Following last year’s Surely Travel (which appeared on Rosy Overdrive’s 2022 best-of list), Status / Non-Status rang in the new year with the three-song January 3rd EP. My favorite song on the record is the acoustic closing track “Glide”, an incredibly moving tribute (to “our dear mother, mentor and friend who slipped into the ice and never came home”) that bandleader Adam Sturgeon left unfinished for emotional reasons.
“Life Forms (Transmission Received)”, Major Organ and the Adding Machine From Major Organ and the Adding Machine (2001, Orange Twin)
Major Organ and the Adding Machine is the quintessential Elephant 6 project, comprised of recordings made by, seemingly, almost everyone in the Athens Elephant 6 scene and passed between each other for years. The result is a very strange record; few of its tracks are as straightforward as closing track “Life Forms (Transmission Received)”, whose vocal chant is obscured but is otherwise a pounding, uplifting benediction song.
Welcome to another Pressing Concerns. Today, we have new albums from Moscow Puzzles and The Drin, a new EP from Florry, and a reissue from Beauty Pill to discuss.
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.
Beauty Pill – Blue Period
Release date: January 20th Record label: Ernest Jenning Record Co. Genre: Experimental indie rock, post-punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: You Are Right to Be Afraid
In 2004, Beauty Pill put out The Unsustainable Lifestyle, the first full-length record from Chad Clark since the dissolution of his previous band, the critically-acclaimed Dischord group Smart Went Crazy. The Unsustainable Lifestyle retained many of the great qualities that marked the final Smart Went Crazy album, Con Art, while at the same time establishing Beauty Pill as a separate and unique entity–it received rave reviews from many notable music publications and sold extremely well. It should be noted, however, that this success came about twenty years later, when it was included as part of Blue Period, a compilation made up of the first Beauty Pill album, 2003’s You Are Right to Be Afraid EP, and a few outtakes and demos. The record’s contemporary reception isn’t really worth getting into here.
To me, The Unsustainable Lifestyle is up there with Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are, the band’s triumphant 2015 comeback album (and both of them are up there with the justly-beloved Con Art). The record doesn’t hold one’s hand, sure, but giving yourself over to the music (a worthwhile endeavor in most cases, and particularly in the case of an artist who had already made and would continue to make great records) reveals a lot. “Goodnight for Real” makes a fuss about turning its back on you, but Clark’s “There’s only so much oxygen” is, in its own way, a surging chorus. Co-lead vocalist Rachel Burke adds another dimension to the band’s sound; her stoic delivery in “Lifeguard in Wintertime” (by my metrics, one of the heaviest songs ever to come out on a Dischord release) is key, and the exuberant “Such Large Portions!” and the weary “I’m Just Gonna Close My Eyes for a Second” land impressively far off from each other in no small part due to her voice.
The other half of Blue Period is split between You Are Right to Be Afraid and a half-dozen previously-unreleased recordings. The former is a smaller-stakes release than The Unsustainable Lifestyle, but its peaks (the title track, a rocker that sounds like nothing else Beauty Pill ever did even as the strutting chorus hits the familiar “dread” notes, and “You, Yes You”, a spare, vulnerable song that rivals “Prison Song”, The Unsustainable Lifestyle’s champion of this) are no less high. The unearthed, new-to-us material is a nice mix; in particular, the alternate version of “This Is the Hidden Track”, a very good song from 2001’s The Cigarette Girl from the Future EP, is welcome, and “I Don’t Live Today” joins the Beauty Pill repertoire of song “studies”, being a take on the Jimi Hendrix song of the same name. And the towering “Fugue State Companion”, which doesn’t exactly sound like most of the songs from this period and yet feels like it would’ve fit well on either of the original records, is worth it on its own. It’s far from being on its own on Blue Period, however; here, it’s one more great song from an era finally getting its due. (Bandcamp link)
Moscow Puzzles – Cicadas Are Sensitive to Parallel Lines
Release date: January 13th Record label: 5cm Recordings Genre: Math rock, post-rock, noise rock Formats: CD, digital Pull Track: Radix
Instrumental duo Moscow Puzzles come from Iowa City, Iowa, and the band (drummer Tony Andrys and guitarist Tobin Hoover) make the kind of barebones, basement-friendly post-rock that’s befitting of such a lineup. Their debut full-length record, Cicadas Are Sensitive to Parallel Lines, is five songs’ worth of lengthy jams that feel indebted to 90s indie labels like Thrill Jockey and Quarterstick, and Moscow Puzzles sound invigorated whether they’re exploring their louder, noisier side or probing into something sounding a bit more subtle and intricate. Opening track “Radix” is the only song on Cicadas Are Sensitive to Parallel Lines that doesn’t break the seven-minute mark (it’s an easy four-and-a-half), and it’s Moscow Puzzles at their most “noise rock”, pulling together a swirling, Unwound-esque riff with some distortion and a pounding drumbeat.
The rest of the record has louder moments, but typically contained as one movement in a series of several per song; “Channel Nine”, for instance, reaches a loud, rocking conclusion, but not before spending several minutes building a power-duo version of Tortoise-esque clock-ticking post-rock and then stepping it all up. Closing track “North/Northwest” is the other song on the record that more or less follows the “build-up” structure, ending Cicadas Are Sensitive to Parallel Lines with a bang. The center of the record is made up of “Salted Pine” and “Colt”, which together stretch to about eighteen-minutes; the former races out of the gate only to pull back into something more pensive, and with “Colt”, Moscow Puzzles build their biggest song out of, primarily, tension and uneasiness. (Bandcamp link)
Florry – Sweet Guitar Solos
Release date: January 25th Record label: Dear Life Genre: Alt-country Formats: Digital Pull Track: Cowgirl in a Ditch
Florry is a Philadelphia alt-country band led by Francie Medosch, who were last seen releasing the album Big Fall in 2021. Since then, the group has ballooned to a seven-piece band (featuring dedicated pedal steel, lap steel, and fiddle players Sam Silbert, John Murray, and Will Henrikson in addition to vocalist Victoria Rose, drummer Joey Sullivan, and bassist Jared Radichel) and signed to Dear Life Records. The first release from this new version of Florry is the four-song Sweet Guitar Solos EP, featuring two all-new songs, an updated version of an older Florry tune, and a Drive-By Truckers cover.
Dear Life Records has a good track record when it comes to records made by DBT-indebted musicians with “Guitar Solo” in the title, and Sweet Guitar Solos doesn’t disappoint on this front. Opening track “Cowgirl in a Ditch” takes full advantage of Florry’s current configuration, turning in a wonderfully ragged, steel-guitar-heavy country tune sung by committee. The other new one, “When I Kicked You Out of the Band (I Wasn’t Kicking You Out of My Life)”, is just as fun, leaning hard on the fiddle even as its starts and stops put it more on the “rock” side of country rock than the last song. Their version of “Lisa’s Birthday” is surprisingly restrained, but the energy returns in full force with “Big Fall”, which ramps up a track from Florry’s last record excitedly, so much so that the band keep going long after the “song” ends. (Bandcamp link)
The Drin – Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom
Release date: January 27th Record label: Feel It/Drunken Sailor/Future Shock Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, experimental punk Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull Track: Venom
Feel It Records began highlighting the rich underground rock scene in their adopted hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio last year with the release of Crime of Passing’s self-titled debut record, and they continue to dig up gems by signing The Drin and putting out their third record on vinyl (Like Crime of Passing, Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom is being co-released by Cincinnati cassette label Future Shock, and Drunken Sailor Records is stocking the record in Europe). Although The Drin may frequently be grouped in with other Cincinnati punk bands like Crime of Passing and The Serfs, they differentiate themselves clearly on Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom.
While all of the aforementioned bands embrace a Midwestern/Rust Belt industrial-adjacent sound, The Drin rely more on empty space and post-punk and experimental leanings rather than their peers’ icy synths. Lead vocalist Dylan McCartney’s vocals are neither Crime of Passing’s catharsis nor The Serfs’ Devo-core robotics–they primarily skew toward “absentminded mutterings”. “Venom” is lo-fi, up-close garage punk at its finest, although The Drin proceed to deconstruct things from there, whether it’s the drum-led “Peaceful, Easy, Feeling” or the dub-inspired “Eyes Only for Space”. Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom still offers up plenty of rocking moments– “Stonewallin’” is inspired punk buried beneath some grime, and six-minute closing track “Mozart on the Wing” is a genuine post-punk anthem–but it doesn’t stay there. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the second Pressing Concerns of 2023! Today, we look at new albums from Fire Man, Megadose, and Spice World, and a new EP from The Primitives.
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.
Fire Man – Yerself Is Fire
Release date: January 13th Record label: Self-released Genre: Noise rock, punk, experimental rock, post-hardcore Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Death Drive with Julie
Fire Man is the solo project of Caio Brentar, who also plays in the post-hardcore band Died and seems to be a decently popular music critic under the handle “Punk Revolution Now!”. Following a couple of EPs and a compilation of early material, Yerself Is Fire is the debut Fire Man full-length, and it’s a blast. It’s an exciting noise rock record, both heavy and playful in a way that recalls a host of 80s underground bands and labels (Touch and Go, SST, Alternative Tentacles…), and it’s too excitable to sound like some kind of dull past imitation. Caio sends most of these songs into post-hardcore howling tailspins at some point, but Yerself Is Fire has its share of humor, fun, and even pop hooks as well. The band’s bio cites Nomeansno, a band that walked this particular tightrope well; I also hear no small amount of Alice Donut in Caio’s vocals and lyrics.
At seven songs, Yerself Is Fire doesn’t exactly have any breather or filler tracks; all of these songs are heavy hitters, unless you count the pin-drop, almost-slowcore first three minutes of “Just Around the Corner…” before it explodes into a full-throated post-hardcore scorcher at its end. The rest of the record’s songs similarly have multiple sections, covering a range of genres– “Gun Cures Brain” lurches and tiptoes its way to a big, lumbering riff-rock chorus, and “I Feel Like Dying” and “Machine” both veer from lean punk rock into heavier finishes. Some of the best moments on Yerself Is Fire are the most overtly pop ones; “Death Drive with Julie” is a “car song” for people with their knuckles gripped ghost-white to the steering wheel, and, against all odds, “Twenty-Five” ends with a big old (albeit depressing) singalong. Yerself Is Fire doesn’t really differentiate between the noisy and poppy “sides”; they’re all smashed together here. (Bandcamp link)
Megadose – Heating Up
Release date: January 20th Record label: Self-released Genre: Power pop, pop rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Tahuya Cruisin’
Seattle indie pop quartet Megadose have their roots in Anacortes, where frontman Stephen Steen and guitarist Mikey Ferrairo grew up, and were rounded out by rhythm section Laura Seniow (bass) and James Kasinger (drums) when they formed in late 2019. Their debut full-length, Heating Up, is a slick-sounding record that is colored with 80s new wave, reverb-y dreaminess, but Megadose make things clear enough for these songs’ pop hooks and Steen’s vocals to shine front and center. Heating Up is a leisurely record, “slacker rock” at its most ornate. The triumphant jangle pop of opening track “Silver Cup” and the rippling sophisti-pop of “Rock Yer Head” have huge pop choruses, but neither are particularly showy about it, and both of those tracks are less meandering than single “Hey 911” one song later.
Heating Up gets a little peppier with the appropriately-titled “Tahuya Cruisin’”, where Steen’s vocals ground the song even as it zips along, and “Jackie’s Gotta Run”, in which Megadose indulge in a little bit of rootsiness and in one big finish. Steen’s delivery of “I need a second to think!” in “Pig” demonstrates that he can push himself out of his vocal comfort zone to rewarding results, and the second half of Heating Up as a whole feels a bit more exploratory. The atmospheric turns of “Minor Groove” and “Fade In” showcase some of the band’s more overt dream pop leanings, and “Mote of Reflection” does this a bit too before it gives way to the loudest, noisiest song on the record. Nevertheless, everything resolves with the pristine chamber pop of “The Voyeur” to close out a pleasant, warm listen of an album. (Bandcamp link)
Spice World – There’s No I in Spice World
Release date: January 20th Record label: Meritorio/Tenth Court Genre: Jangle pop, lo-fi pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Dying to Go
If Megadose are on the slick and shiny end of the guitar pop spectrum, Australia’s Spice World have staked out on a position among the “loose and ragged” side of the genre. The five-piece band formed in Fremantle, Western Australia in 2021, and their full-length debut There’s No I in Spice World is ten songs of meandering, unhurried pop rock that’s equally likely to sound laid-back and content or wistful and melancholic. Spice World (whose name, they prove by quoting “Spice Up Your Life” in “Dying to Go”, does not coincidentally share a name with the Spice Girls’ 1997 film) sound economical, not cluttered, on their first album–voices drop in and out, and not infrequently, there’s only one instrument playing at any given moment.
Opening track “What a Pity What a Shame” sets the mood with its easy-out-of-the-gate stops and starts–it captures the feeling of halfheartedness while still sounding full itself. “Useless Feeling” and “Decorated Boy Scout” kick the energy up in the record’s first half without being true changes of pace–from that point on, Spice World save their most upbeat moments for the shortest (the sub-minute-jangle of “Time Time Turn Around”) and last (the “oh, oh, oh”-chorused “Dying to Go”) tracks on the record. There’s No I in Spice World is a rolling album, and while the more brisk tracks are the “peaks” in terms of tempo, they aren’t always the clearest highlights–Spice World is a band that works very well with sparseness and emptiness as well. (Bandcamp link)
The Primitives – Don’t Know Where to Start
Release date: January 20th Record label: HHBTM Genre: Indie pop, power pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Don’t Know Where to Start
Like a lot of people, I’m mainly familiar with The Primitives via their excellent college rock-era indie pop hit “Crash”, but over the past decade or so, the band has put together a substantial second act, releasing a couple albums and EPs since their reunion in 2009. The latest of these is the four-song Don’t Know Where to Start EP, headlined by the record’s title track and featuring a few more pieces of indie pop. Don’t Know Where to Start is brief and only features two all-new songs, but what is there makes the most of its short time.
Among the two new tracks, “Don’t Know Where to Start” is the obvious “single”, with singer Tracy Tracy leading an incredibly catchy, 60s girl-group-inspired song that feels particularly timeless. The bass-led, Paul Cort-sung “Till I’m Alive” is still catchy, although here the Primitives’ pop is shot through with a bit of post-punk obscurity. The other two songs on Don’t Know Where to Start are a live version of “Panic” (an actual 60s girl group song originally by Reparata and the Delrons and covered by the band on their 2012 album Echoes and Rhymes) and an acoustic version of “Don’t Know Where to Start”–the former in particular finds the band paying tribute to their influences with an infectious energy that puts it on the same level as the Primitives originals. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to January 2023, and the first Pressing Concerns of the new year. And it’s a good one! I look at new albums from Labrador and Julian Never, a new EP from Perfect Angel at Heaven, and catch up on the latest threeHello Whirled records. What a great start to the year, no?
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.
Labrador – Hold the Door for Strangers
Release date: January 13th Record label: No Way of Knowing Genre: Alt-country, country rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: State Line to Eagleville
Labrador is an alt-country band based in Philadelphia and led by singer-songwriter (and music writer) Pat King. Although Hold the Door for Strangers isn’t the first Labrador release, it’s the first one from the Philadelphia incarnation of the group (which was formerly a Brooklyn-based King solo project). Now a five-piece, Labrador’s latest record (produced by Kyle Gilbride of Swearin’) is a full-sounding folk rock album that takes full advantage of contributions from violinist Grace Kim and drummer Chris Arena, not to mention the two-guitar method of King and longtime collaborator Kris Hayes. The upstate New York-originating King sings in a hollering, lonesome manner, which contributes to the cavernous feeling of Hold the Door for Strangers’ nine songs in a way that reminds me of one of Labrador’s biggest influences, Jason Molina and the Magnolia Electric Co.
Although lumbering, Neil Young-inspired country rock doesn’t always make the most room for variety, Labrador pull out their fair share of it throughout Hold the Door for Strangers. The gorgeous, jangly instrumental that begins both the record and “State Line to Eagleville” is a triumph right out of the gate, leading into a song that both fulfills and transcends the band’s “alt-country meets power pop” ambitions. The spoken-word “I Lost My Gun” reflects their quieter, folk-troubadour-inspired side, and one song later the scorching “Guy with a Job (That Nobody Wants)” is Labrador at their most Crazy Horse. One of the most “country” things to me about Hold the Door for Strangers is its tempo–it’s not afraid to take its time. Even when the songs sound urgent, the album doesn’t come off as hurried. I do, in fact, believe that this album would take the few extra seconds to hold the door open for me. (Bandcamp link)
Hello Whirled – IN THE NO (It’s a Difficult Joy, But It’s a Joy / The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun / Here Comes the World)
Release dates: November 4th / December 2nd / January 6th Record label: Sherilyn Fender Genre: Lo-fi indie rock Formats: Digital Pull Tracks: The Makings of a Cop /Bumper Ships / Falling into Your Head
It’s been a bit since we checked in on Hello Whirled. Last year, the Ben Spizuco project released its physical debut, the Hoping for a Little More…Pizzazz cassette, on Repeating Cloud Records (Teenage Tom Petties, Log Across the Washer, FonFon Ru) but I’m guessing the notoriously prolific Spizuco has been–oh, Jesus, we’ve got three whole albums to cover now. Hello Whirled closed out 2022 and are opening 2023 with their IN THE NO trilogy, unveiled over three months with November’s It’s a Difficult Joy, But It’s a Joy, December’s The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun, and January’s Here Comes the World.
IN THE NO finds Hello Whirled continuing to explore heavier sonic territory. Spizuco is associated with noise pop groups like Ex Pilots and Gaadge, and while these aren’t shoegaze albums, Spizuco is as game to amp up the fuzz and distortion on his lo-fi 90s-inspired indie rock as ever. It’s across these albums, but particularly apparent in the second half of It’s a Difficult Joy…, from longer noise collages (“Girlfriend with Bangs”) to brief, chugging pop-punk (“The Makings of a Cop”), and “You Can Be a Hero When You’re Dead”, which might as well just be shoegaze at this point.
The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun boasts a similarly-beefy sound (with eight songs in 35 minutes, Hello Whirled’s stretching out a bit here), but it feels a bit more varied musically. “Bumper Ships” is one of the most intriguing things I’ve heard from Spizuco, a tight march of a pop song with some fun synth additions–and none of my other favorite tracks from the album (the warped ballad “Imaginary Star”, the gliding “Breathing Underwater”, the minimal “Self Parody”) sound much like each other, either.
The third installment of IN THE NO goes even further, recalling 2021’s Masters Copy in how it offers just six songs over half an hour. Here Comes the World accomplishes this with a couple of multi-part, Spizuco-prog tunes; the seven-minute “Your Bright Blue Evening” and twelve-minute blowout closing track “I. Disappeared Boy. II. Destroyed Man. III. I Am Obliterated”–although the quieter in-between songs are, I think, where this record shines. If I have to choose the best album of the trilogy, I’d go with The Kids Don’t Wanna Have Fun, but all three are distinct and full enough to stand on their own. (Bandcamp link)
Perfect Angel at Heaven – EP
Release date: January 6th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock, noise rock, post-punk, no wave Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Tunnel Vision
Perfect Angel at Heaven is a new Indianapolis trio made up of members of other Hoosier state bands–vocalist/guitarist Casey Noonan played in Spandrels, bassist Alex Grove in Kevin Krauter’s band, and drummer Daniel Thacker with…the Indianapolis Colts drumline. The group’s debut release is a self-titled EP that feels inspired by 1980s and 90s underground rock–Perfect Angel at Heaven specifically cite Sonic Youth and no wave, although these songs don’t fit neatly into those boxes. Even though Perfect Angel at Heaven only spans four songs, it doesn’t feel slight for a first record–all the songs are substantial, and “Miami” and “Tunnel Vision” especially find the group stretching out beyond basic indie rock structures.
Even as the band take inspiration from noisier groups, there’s a refreshing clarity to Perfect Angel at Heaven, both in Noonan’s upfront vocals and in the instrumentals, which have a pristine, unadorned feeling, even when the trio launch into long instrumental breaks like they do in “Tunnel Vision” (and the more chaotic moments, like the pretty overtly no wave middle part of “Miami”, feel like natural progressions). Noonan’s vocals hew toward the theatrical side, almost crooning at points, in a way that evokes a completely different kind of 1980s music than the rest of Perfect Angel at Heaven. It works to add another layer of intrigue to Noonan’s observations and questions that populate the EP, from him asking “Is it God or is it Mom who keeps you from having fun?” in “Is It Mom”, or opening “Tunnel Vision” by matter-of-factly stating “Every man I’ve met needs a mother / But my body can’t deliver” over a post-punk instrumental. (Bandcamp link)
Julian Never – Pious Fiction
Release date: January 13th Record label: Mt.St.Mtn. Genre: Jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Silver One
Julian Elorduy was a fairly active musician in the late 2000s and early 2010s, playing in Sacramento bands like Mayyors and Fine Steps, but after a few quiet years and a couple of self-released solo recordings, Elorduy is beginning 2023 with the full-length debut of his new home-recorded jangle pop project, Julian Never. Pious Fiction is nothing if not generous, featuring fifteen songs of light, synth-touched guitar pop that recall both C86 and 80s sophisti-pop. The album was recorded over several years and in several locations (mostly by Elorduy on his own, but aided in part by Mark Kaiser of Mayyors and Male Gaze), and it feels about as “sprawling” as this kind of music can be.
Pious Fiction is a consistent and steady listen; Elorduy keeps the songs flowing into another naturally even as some tracks (“Come On (Now)”, “High School”, and “Silver One”) shoot for big pop rock anthem status and others (the slow-moving “Grassharp”, the blurry noise pop of “Luv”) occupy their own lanes. Pious Fiction is too casual to feel overstuffed, but it does take a few listens for one to appreciate each individual pop moment and turn (especially when a few of the record’s best songs, like the post-punk-inspired “Precious” and single “Radio Memphis”, are tucked away near the end of the album)–and that’s a fairly good problem to have. (Bandcamp link)
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