Rosy Overdrive

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 (25-1)

Here it is! Rosy Overdrive’s 25 favorite albums of 2022, revealed today along with albums 50 through 26, and coming a day after albums 51 through 100. Needless to say, these are all great records. You simply can’t go wrong with any of them. It was a three-record race for number one; I’m satisfied with the one I ended up choosing, but all three of them occupied the top spot at various points. Once again, thank you for reading.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Playlist with all albums (Spotify link) (Tidal link)

25. Kevin Dorff – Silent Reply

Release date: September 16^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: 90s indie rock, singer-songwriter, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Kevin Dorff is a Brooklyn-based, Des Moines-originating singer-songwriter and playwright whose debut record, Silent Reply, is a thematically heavy one. A meditation on death and those left behind, every track on the record is about a friend or acquaintance of Dorff’s who died between 2010 and 2015. The darker moments on Silent Reply are tempered by Dorff’s pleasing 90s indie rock, alt-country, and folk rock-indebted sound, and a writing style that declines to focus solely on these lows. Every track on the seven-song record contains an entire world, appropriate for capturing a life. (Read more)

24. Lou Turner – Microcosmos

Release date: September 2^nd
Record label: Spinster
Genre: Folk rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Microcosmos is Styrofoam Wino Lou Turner’s third solo album since 2017, and it’s absolutely the work of a skilled songwriter at the peak of their output. The album’s title is, for Turner, an attempt to give a name to the feeling of attaining adventure and motion in the domestic and fixed world (“a constellation of microcosms”) that is a (in fact, the) theme of the record. This is reflected in the way Microcosmos sounds like a contented, laid-back 70s folk-rock record, even as Turner’s lyrics and subjects probe and roam within their contexts. Microcosmos is, true to its title, a record that reveals both its ambition and its success in realizing it with closer and repeat listens. (Read more)

23. Upchuck – Sense Yourself

Release date: September 30^th
Record label: Famous Class
Genre: Garage rock, garage punk, hardcore punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Upchuck is a fierce five-piece band that hails from Atlanta, and their debut full-length record, Sense Yourself, is a fully-developed look at the group’s heavy but unique take on southern garage punk. The group show off their talents throughout the record, jumping from hardcore punk to zippy post-punk to slow, grunge-y tracks, and songwriter and vocalist KT manages both hardcore-esque barks and more “classic punk rock” sing-speaking with gusto. Upchuck are confident enough in their abilities throughout Sense Yourself to let these songs stretch out to five or so minutes, a rarity in this type of punk rock–and their belief is well-placed. (Read more)

22. First Rodeo – First Rodeo

Release date: April 15^th
Record label: Forged Artifacts
Genre: Alt–country, country rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

First Rodeo is the duo of Nathan Tucker and Tim Howe—the former makes experimental pop music as Cool Original, the latter plays No Depression country rock in Vista House. Their self-titled debut record together is a wellspring of excellent folk rock/alt-country songs, with Tucker and Howe’s songs sounding both fun and noticeably deep. Tucker’s singing injects a playfulness into songs like “Pucker Up, Amelia”, while Howe’s drawl gives tracks like “Didn’t It Rain Last Night” and “Patience” even more heft.

21. Bellows – Next of Kin

Release date: March 23^rd
Record label: Topshelf
Genre: Indie pop, indie folk, art pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital

The latest album from Bellows, the project of New York’s Oliver Kalb, has grandiose ambitions, but Next of Kin seems equally concerned with not losing the plot at the record’s sturdy core. Kalb’s songs are dressed up in colorful, brimming palettes throughout the record, but his vocals are breathy and impassioned even in Next of Kin’s busiest moments, which preserves the songs’ intimacy. It’s an important wrinkle for Next of Kin, an album that sits with losses that are felt from the slight-remove of the title on down. (Read more)

20. Good Grief – Shake Your Faith

Release date: March 8^th
Record label: Everything Sucks/HHBTM
Genre: Indie punk, punk rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Good Grief are quite adept at making loud, punk-influenced hooky rock music that’s immediately familiar and recognizable to fans of 90s indie rock, and their long-awaited debut record (practically a decade in the making) reflects this. The Liverpool trio are extremely open Bob Mould disciples, songs like “The Pony Remark” could’ve come straight from Superchunk’s On the Mouth, and there’s a heart-on-sleeve earnestness that puts them into Samiam/Knapsack-esque emo-punk territory. No matter how many older groups Shake Your Faith evokes, it all sounds remarkably fresh and present.

19. Dogbreth – Believe This Rain

Release date: August 5^th
Record label: Phat ‘n’ Phunky
Genre: Jangle pop, alt-country
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

The fifth album from Tucson, Arizona’s Dogbreth (formerly of, at various points, Phoenix and Seattle) is a sincere, starry album that’s equal parts desert country and classic jangle pop. Believe This Rain takes inspiration from vintage college rock (think names like Tommy Keene and Teenage Fanclub), but there’s also a wide-openness to these songs’ sound that befits their Arizona home and distinguishes them from their influences. Tristan Jemsek’s songwriting gets dressed up in gorgeous jangly ballads, cinematic heartland rock, and amped-up fuzz rock throughout Believe This Rain—barely crossing the half-hour mark, the record feels more than full enough. (Read more)

18. Gordon M. Phillips – Seasonal

Release date: July 22^nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

On his debut full-length solo record, Gordon M. Phillips does not attempt to recreate the baritone-guitar-led, cinematic emo sound that his band, Downhaul, has chased recently. Seasonal was recorded entirely by Phillips on a Tascam 4-track, and it’s subsequently a sparse-sounding album. While it’s certainly pared-down, Seasonal isn’t all quietness, either—songs like “Tarmac” and “The Fall” strain against their acoustic foundations and show Phillips’ penchant for big choruses. The record remains decidedly Phillips-sounding, whether he’s evoking the country-ish material he recorded with Maxwell Stern in “April” or the moodiness of the most recent Downhaul record with “At, At”. (Read more)

17. The Trend – Sgt. Pepper II

Release date: August 26^th
Record label: Good Soil/Yellow K
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The Trend hail from the Maryland panhandle and have been around since the early 2000s—their Bandcamp page lists four and a half members, but their latest record Sgt. Pepper II was written and recorded entirely by two of them: Kenny Tompkins (aka Mr. Husband) and Brian Twigg. Sgt. Pepper II is squarely in the realm of 90s alt-rock-flavored power pop, legitimately earning a Blue Album-era Weezer comparison with grunge-influenced amp-cranking, wild catchiness, and Beach Boys-esque harmonies in songs like “Come Home” and “If Yr Leaving”, and also containing shades of other fuzzy, poppy alt-rock bands like Superdrag and Sloan. (Read more)

16. Jim Nothing – In the Marigolds

Release date: September 15^th
Record label: Meritorio/Melted Ice Cream
Genre: Jangle pop, Dunedin sound
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Christchurch, New Zealand’s Jim Nothing are a guitar pop trio whose latest record certainly recalls plenty of music from the original wave of Dunedin groups that put New Zealand on the map for indie rock—In the Marigolds pulls from the breeziness of The Bats, the haziness of The Clean, the fractured pop of Chris Knox, and the prominent violin from vocalist Anita Clark reminds me of music from Alastair Galbraith and the Jefferies Brothers. Most of the 28-minute record settles into breezy, jangle pop, although rockers like “Never Come Down” and “Yellow House” also showcase the band’s strengths. (Read more)

15. Norm Archer – Flying Cloud Terrace

Release date: August 9^th
Record label: Panda Koala
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop
Formats: Digital

Norm Archer is the new project of Portsmouth, England’s Will Pearce, and his debut record under the name, Flying Cloud Terrace, is a reflection of his recent interest in home-recording and one-man-band status in service of lo-fi pop music. Pearce cites many Rosy Overdrive-approved bands as inspiration for Flying Cloud Terrace—there’s Guided by Voices in the Who-indebted prog pop of “South Parade”, among other tracks, and there’s a lightly psychedelic haziness that recalls Flying Nun Records, even as plenty of these songs have a revved-up, indie punk tempo.

14. Mike Adams at His Honest Weight – Graphic Blandishment

Release date: September 9^th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The latest record from Bloomington, Indiana indie rock lifer Mike Adams and his backing band is a pretty undeniable, really-going-for-it pop rock album with a compelling personality at its front. Graphic Blandishment’s ten songs feature full-sounding but simple enough instrumentals that serve Adams’ huge choruses about…well, a bit of everything, really. Titles like “Arrow & Asa in the Year 3000” and “Tie-Dyed & Tongue Tied” deliver hooks that bely their wordy titles, not to mention the aw-shucks power pop of “How’s the Messes” (which turns “It doesn’t take a lot of shame to make a mess like the one I’m in,” into a kind of anthem).

13. Mo Troper – Mo Troper V

Release date: September 2^nd
Record label: Lame-O
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Not only does Mo Troper V (aka MTV) continue Mo Troper’s foray into lo-fi, self-made recordings that began with last year’s Dilettante—it’s a full embrace of the inherent messiness by the Portland power pop musician. At its extremes, the fuzziness of MTV results in straight-up noise pop, although the majority of the record strikes a balance between in-the-red distortion and pop hooks: spare acoustic tracks sit unapologetically alongside disorienting, thornier songs. MTV is something of a dispatch from the world of Mo Troper—and there’s more going on there than ever. (Read more)

12. 2^nd Grade – Easy Listening

Release date: September 30^th
Record label: Double Double Whammy
Genre: Power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The third album from Philadelphia’s 2^nd Grade, Easy Listening, may “only” have sixteen songs (as opposed to the twenty-four on 2020’s Hit to Hit), but the five-piece band make the record feel like 2^nd Grade’s most diverse yet. Bandleader Peter Gill’s vocals are delicate and melodic as he steers 2^nd Grade through amp-cranked, glam-influenced power pop, shining, effortless pop rock, and hissing lo-fi recordings. The crop of musicians Gill has assembled is effectively a supergroup ,comprised of members of Friendship, Remember Sports, The Fragiles, and Ylayali, among other acts, and they all help Gill realize the full potential of his excellent songwriting. (Read more)

11. Cheekface – Too Much to Ask

Release date: August 2^nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, Cheekface
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Cheekface’s third album picks up the thread where last year’s Emphatically No. (not to mention their 2019 debut, Therapy Island) left off; Greg Katz’s monotone vocals and flung-at-a-cultural-dartboard lyrics pared with pop-friendly instrumentals that are nonetheless somewhat hard to pin down musically yet again abound. On Too Much to Ask, however, the Los Angeles trio also show some willingness to stretch their sound, like the band speeding everything up on opening track “When Life Hands You Problems”, Katz absolutely shredding his vocals in the chorus to “I Feel So Weird!”, or the Cheekface-as-dance-music banger “Featured Singer”. (Read more)

10. Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires – Old-Time Folks

Release date: August 5^th
Record label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Southern rock, country rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires may slow things down, comparatively speaking, on their fourth record, but the fiery southern rock band has no intention of going “smaller”. Old-Time Folks doesn’t abandon the scope of 2017’s Youth Detention (which is on the shortlist for album of the last decade), nor do they forget that they were once the band that made 2014’s fuzz-fest Dereconstructed, as rockers “Done Playing Dead” and “Caligula” show. Still, Old-Time Folks embraces more acoustic guitars and elevates Bains’ vocals higher in the mix than they’ve been in their last couple of records, really helping out with the impact of songs like the breathtaking “Rednecks” and the massive “God’s A-Working, Man”.

9. Friendship – Love the Stranger

Release date: July 29^th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Alt-country, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Friendship may have been reduced to a four-piece band for the first time with Love the Stranger, but, if anything, the Philadelphia band’s fourth record is as full-sounding as they’ve been yet. Songs like “Hank” and “Ugly Little Victory” have surprisingly driving tempos for a band that has justifiably referred to itself as “ambient country” before, and Love the Stranger also has time for synth-based experiments (“Alive Twice”) and dramatic alt-rock (“Ryde”). Still, there’s no mistaking Love the Stranger for anything but a Friendship record—Dan Wriggins sounds just as in his element singing about ramekins with grape jelly remnants and red-tailed hawks over these instrumentals as any others.

8. Perennial – In the Midnight Hour

Release date: February 1^st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-hardcore, dance punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

The second album from New England’s Perennial feels like a completely inhibition-less rock record, where thrashing post-hardcore, expanded-palette art punk, and catchy garage rock all combine to make something unforgettably attention-grabbing. Vocalists Chelsey Hahn and Chad Jewett trade off their taunts and howls on pretty much every song on In the Midnight Hour, Jewett’s guitar and Wil Mulhern’s drums slice and punch through each track, and the entire Christ Teti-produced record sounds great. Perennial are pretty much always “on”—forget breather tracks, the only respites in In the Midnight Hour are a few tapering-off outros. (Read more)

7. Sadurn – Radiator

Release date: May 6^th
Record label: Run for Cover
Genre: Alt-country, indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

Philadelphia’s Sadurn make a very intriguing and attention-grabbing version of alt-country—it’s sincerely devoted to the “country” aspect of the genre, but they still sound quite accessible and built to emphasize frontperson G DeGroot’s songwriting. Sadurn started as DeGroot’s solo project, but the full band that they’ve assembled for their debut record is an asset throughout Radiator, and it’s rarely guilty of overplaying. For every shuffling roots-rock anthem like opening track “Snake”, there’s something like the unflinching relationship analysis of “Icepick”, in which drum machines and synths are DeGroot’s main accompaniment. (Read more)

6. Ex-Vöid – Bigger Than Before

Release date: March 25^th
Record label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

There has been a lot of music to come from of the former members of Joanna Gruesome after the Welsh band broke up in 2015, but the debut album from Ex-Vöid might be the strongest single record from them yet. Bigger Than Before is the full-length reunion of Joanna Gruesome singer-songwriters Alanna McArdle and Owen Williams— they released an EP together under the Ex-Vöid name in 2018, and Williams has also been playing in The Tubs lately. Bigger Than Before is a big, hooky, indie pop record that’s got just a bit of an edge to it. It’s power pop at its wistful best, with McArdle and Williams’ harmonies being shot through with just enough noisiness to punch the songs up a tad.

5. MJ Lenderman – Boat Songs

Release date: April 29^th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

At 34 minutes, Boat Songs is the most substantial album to come out of MJ Lenderman’s recent flurry of activity. In what has become a much-deserved breakout record for the Asheville alt-country musician (and member of Wednesday), Boat Songs should immediately grab any curious new listeners with the roaring country rock opener “Hangover Game” and the mid-tempo southern groove of “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat”. The rest of the record is a showcase for all of Lenderman’s talents, from the lo-fi fuzz-fests of “SUV” and “Dan Marino” to the affecting wrestling-themed ballad of “TLC Cagematch” to the “how-does-he-do-it” genius of “You Are Every Girl to Me”. (Read more)

4. Joyride! – Miracle Question

Release date: April 15^th
Record label: Salinas
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Joyride! come from San Francisco, and they’ve been around for a decade or so, but I only heard of them after they released their fourth album, Miracle Question, earlier this year. But they’re quickly becoming one of my favorite new discoveries of 2022. Miracle Question is a classic 2010s lo-fi power-pop-punk album at heart, even as polished as it sounds at points (chalk it up to experience). Joyride! get all of this done in under a half hour, with most of these songs making their impression both musically and lyrically (there is a lot going on beneath the surface on Miracle Question) in about two minutes or so.

3. Emperor X – The Lakes of Zones B and C

Release date: April 10^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk punk, electro-folk, experimental rock
Formats: Digital

The first Emperor X album in a half-decade is certainly more than worth the wait. The Lakes of Zones B and C delivers on pretty much every front that Chad Matheny has explored over his career as Emperor X –surging modern folk anthems, quieter electronic explorations, and beautiful acoustic ballads. The Matheny that grappled directly with the last few years of chaos in 2020’s United Earth League of Quarantine Aerobics EP and last year’s “Sad React” single is present in highlights like “False Metal” and “Communists in Luxury”, as is the more pensive version of his songwriting in vaguer (but no less substantial) tracks like “Freeway in Heaven” and “The Crows of Emmerich”. And this isn’t even taking into account how The Lakes of Zones B and C finds some genuinely new areas for Emperor X to probe in its last few songs, ending with the pure catharsis of “Stars”.

2. Zinskē – Murder Mart

Release date: February 14^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Everything’s tight and in its right place on Murder Mart, the debut album from Philadelphia’s Zinskē. It’s a sleek, well-put-together record that reminds me both of austere, controlled post-punk and mid-tempo 90s alt-rock. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Lipczynski’s low, dry, and stoic vocals stick out throughout the record, as do Emily Cahill’s prominent and frequently melodic basslines. There’s a “sharp dullness” to Murder Mart—the songs might seem opaque at first, but there’s too much going on underneath the surface to ignore. Lipczynski and the band perform this balancing act of being a subtle band that yet always sounds animated by something—even in the lyrics (hell, whole songs) on Murder Mart that I can’t quite parse. (Read more)

1. Mister Goblin – Bunny

Release date: April 22^nd
Record label: Exploding in Sound
Genre: Post-hardcore, alt-rock, indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The third record from the Maryland-originating, Indiana-based Mister Goblin is the first to feature a full-on backing band–Sam Goblin is joined by bassist Aaron O’Neill and Options’ Seth Engel on drums. Mister Goblin was already one of the best under-the-radar indie rock acts of its time—if you’ll recall, 2021’s Four People in an Elevator and One of Them Is the Devil placed highly on last year’s list—but the upgrade to a three-piece gives Bunny a full-throated sound that adds another dimension to their sound. The band really go for it in the Brainiac post-hardcore opening track “Military Discount” and turn in invigorated versions of the Mister Goblin/Two Inch Astronaut sound in “Good Son/Bad Seed” and “Holiday World”, and (just as importantly) the trio still find room for Sam Goblin’s songwriting to breathe in the largely-acoustic final three songs on the record. Four People in an Elevator… was a big step forward for Mister Goblin from a songwriting perspective; Bunny matches it song for song while, at the same time, taking just as large of a musical leap. (Read more)

Honorable mentions:

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 (50-26)

Hello! Welcome back (or just welcome) to Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022! Today reveals the top 50 albums on the list. Yesterday unveiled numbers 100 through 51, so be sure to check those out as well if you haven’t yet.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist with all albums (Spotify link) (Tidal link)

50. Scarves – Delicate Creatures

Release date: August 26^th
Record label: Good Eye
Genre: 90s indie rock, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The fourth-full length record from Seattle’s Scarves points toward rainy, sprawling Pacific Northwest indie rock while retaining an indie pop simplicity as well. Guitarist/singer Niko Stathakopoulos’s high, comforting vocals evoke both Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch and John K. Samson of The Weakerthans on Delicate Creatures, and his songwriting veers between the found poetry that’s a hallmark of the latter and twee-indebted straightforwardness in which the former has dabbled. As tender as Delicate Creatures can sound, Scarves also probe the darker and deeper side of animal nature to striking effect. (Read more)

49. Blanche Blanche Blanche – Fiscal, Remote, Distilled

Release date: February 14^th
Record label: La Loi
Genre: Jazz-pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Blanche Blanche Blanche is the duo of singer Sarah Smith and multi-instrumentalist Zach Phillips (also of Fievel Is Glauque and a bunch of other bands). The two have made a lot of music together; so far, I’ve only heard their latest record, 2022’s Fiscal, Remote, Distilled, but it rules. It’s a shiny, original record of jazzy pop marked by Smith’s clear vocals that are sung-spoken but still quite melodic and by Phillips’ arsenal of jazz and rock band instruments that can both overwhelm and draw back to fit the songs. Fiscal, Remote, Distilled is smart, but comes off straightforward—songs like “That’s Siberia”, “Overdry Sensation”, and “Only Yesterday” have been bouncing around my head since I heard them initially.

48. The John-Pauls – Bon Mots

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: Aagoo
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

It feels wrong to call The John-Pauls’ second album “stripped down”, given that it’s made with three guitar players and a keyboardist, but the Austin five-piece band has a straightforward, no-frills sound that compliments Bon Mots‘ ten strong 1990s-inspired indie rock tunes. The record bounces back and forth in terms of formality, from the regal “Didn’t I” to the exuberant “Same Dweller, Different Cave”, but Bon Mots is consistent in its offering of economic pop hooks. There’s precious little on Bon Mots that feels unearned or superfluous in any way. (Read more)

47. The Paranoid Style – For Executive Meeting

Release date: August 12^th
Record label: Bar None
Genre: Country rock, folk rock, garage rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The latest record from Washington, D.C. quintet The Paranoid Style is a particularly potent combination of long, unspooling lyricism, energetic garage rock, and rootsier influences. Lead singer Elizabeth Nelson is a singular songwriter and a conversational, compelling vocalist throughout For Executive Meeting—these songs remind me of the likes of John K. Samson, Christine Fellows, and Franklin Bruno, but with a full-band kick to them (aided in part by Rosy Overdrive favorite William Matheny on keyboards) that ensures that the album, is, above anything else, an incredibly fun listen.

46. Patches – Tales We Heard from the Fields

Release date: February 25^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: Digital

Patches are a new remote-collaboration trio comprised of Evan Seurkamp (of The Laughing Chimes), RKC, and Aaron Griffin. Their debut release is the full-length Tales We Heard from the Fields, a generous 14-song collection that takes cues from all over the map of the past 40 years of alternative rock music. Several hallmarks of post-punk characterize songs like “Plastic and Gold” and “Revisitation”, and there’s also clear influence from classic guitar pop in the sunny “Parallel Mind” and the triumphant “Rosaley”. Plodding, expressive bass guitar tempers some of Tales We Heard from the Fields’ brighter moments, and hooks still mark the moodier ones. (Read more)

45. Oneida – Success

Release date: August 19^th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Garage rock, psychedelic rock, krautrock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Brooklyn’s Oneida has amassed a heady, intimidating discography of colossal, unpredictable masses of heavy psych, kraut, and experimental rock music over their twenty-five years as a band, but Success invites the listener to throw out one’s per-conceived ideas of what Oneida should sound like and just enjoy some roaring garage rock. While bursts of noise, feedback, and some long jams still populate Success, they sit alongside plainly-presented, three- (or even two-) chord euphoric rockers—declaring that the Oneida way is, in fact, consistent with rock and roll. (Read more)

44. Camp Trash – The Long Way, the Slow Way

Release date: July 1^st
Record label: Count Your Lucky Stars
Genre: Power pop, emo, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The first Camp Trash full-length record echoes and expands on the promise that their 2021 debut EP, Downtiming, showed. The sound that’s most recognizably Camp Trash (the end-of-the-20^th-century pop rock that pulls from both the 90s underground and 00s pop culture) is here on tracks like “Weird Florida”, “Let It Ride”, and “Lake Erie Boys”, but they also find space in The Long Way, The Slow Way‘s dozen tracks for LVL UP-evoking fuzz-drone (“Another Harsh Toyotathon”) and power ballads (“Poured Out”). It’s a stubbornly timeless-sounding record for evoking such a specific era of guitar music. (Read more)

43. Near Beer – Near Beer

Release date: July 15^th
Record label: Double Helix
Genre: Punk rock, alt-rock, power pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Near Beer’s self-titled debut record is high-octane pop and punk that doesn’t sound like most “pop punk”—think something like a snottier Hüsker Dü, or even Hot Snakes trying to make power pop. They’ve also got a heartland sincerity to them (belying their hometown of Los Angeles)—a good portion of Near Beer has shout-along choruses, and the trio (particularly vocalist Joey Siara, who always sounds all-in on these songs) play like they want you to notice, get sucked in, and take part in the communal nature of music.

42. Office Culture – Big Time Things

Release date: September 30^th
Record label: Northern Spy
Genre: Sophisti-pop, jazz rock, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Over Office Culture’s first couple of records, the Brooklyn four-piece band have cultivated a distinctive sound that pulls from 80s sophisti-pop and jazz fusion, and their third full-length album is the sound of the Winston Cook-Wilson-led group getting comfortable with stretching this sound and stripping it down to its basic elements (frequently little more than melodic bass and keyboard). Cook-Wilson’s keyboard tones give Big Time Things an inviting and warm feeling, and Office Culture continuously feel like they’re locked into a groove throughout the record. (Read more)

41. Hellrazor – Heaven’s Gate

Release date: August 2^nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Fuzz rock, grunge, punk rock
Formats: Digital

Hellrazor’s Heaven’s Gate is blatantly indebted to classic alternative rock (you know, the underground version of it), but, as the album’s nine songs helpfully demonstrate, there’s a wide range of music within this field for Hellrazor to explore. Different songs on the trio’s record evoke everything from Nirvana’s intense pop music to Soundgarden riff rock to acid-fried Butthole Surfers punk, all shot through with a Dinosaur Jr.-esque fuzzy noise pop recording style. The group (whose core duo of Michael Falcone and Kate Meizner also play in Jobber) cover plenty of ground in a mere 26 minutes. (Read more)

40. Frank Meadows – Dead Weight

Release date: July 1^st
Record label: Ruination
Genre: Folk, alt-country
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Frank Meadows’ fingerprints are all over Rosy Overdrive as one of the three co-founders of Dear Life Records (MJ Lenderman, Wendy Eisenberg, Trevor Nikrant), but as Dead Weight demonstrates, he’s no slouch when it comes to his own music as well. Meadows has probed some experimental climes in his prolific solo career, but the latest from the New York-via-North Carolina artist is a compelling piano-heavy folk-country record that radiates accessibility. Meadows’ lightly-accented vocals confidently hold the center of Dead Weight, over top of instrumentals that are notably layered but never feel like “too much”.

39. My Idea – CRY MFER

Release date: April 22^nd
Record label: Hardly Art
Genre: Indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The debut full-length record from My Idea, the duo of Lily Konigsberg (Palberta, a solo career) and Nate Amos (Water from Your Eyes, This Is Lorelei) is predictably great, predictably full of intriguing and rewarding pop songs, and somewhat surprisingly dark underneath its surface. Konigsberg and Amos are both mainstays of Rosy Overdrive (This Is Lorelei has an album on this list, and both Konigsberg as a solo artist and Palberta made last year’s), but CRY MFER stands out among their respective discographies with its autobiographical relationship fracturing at the record’s center. This doesn’t stop songs like “I Should Have Never Generated You”, “Yr a Blur”, and the title track from being some of the best pop moments in either of their music careers, however.

38. Romero – Turn It On!

Release date: April 8^th
Record label: Feel It/Cool Death
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The debut album from Melbourne, Australia’s Romero is a non-stop blast of classic punk rock-infused power pop that rips through eleven sturdy songs gleefully and deftly. Most of Turn It On! has a big, go-for-it kind of energy that evokes the 1970s as much as any of the deliberate “retro” flourishes in their music do—it reminds me of Sheer Mag’s starting points of influence, as well as the poppier moments of Screaming Females. Turn It On! demands to be played loud, and lead singer Alanna Oliver is more often than not belting out her lyrics—these are professionally-done pop songs that don’t let their foot off the gas for a second. (Read more)

37. Oso Oso – Sore Thumb

Release date: March 18^th
Record label: Triple Crown
Genre: Pop punk, emo, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Oso Oso’s latest release, Sore Thumb, is apparently comprised of what were supposed to be demos recorded together by Oso Oso bandleader Jade Lilitri and his frequent collaborator and cousin Tavish Maloney, and then left basically untouched after Maloney’s sudden death last year. The record sounds awesome (even without a “for demos” caveat), and as a collection of songs Sore Thumb approaches the exhilarating consistency of 2017’s The Yunahon Mixtape. From the absolutely stunning opening track “Computer Exploder” to less aggressive but equally potent album songs (“Describe You”, “Father Tracy”) to new weird places (the hypnotic “Pensacola”), it’s a complete triumph.

36. SAVAK – Human Error / Human Delight

Release date: April 15^th
Record label: Peculiar Works
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The members of Brooklyn’s SAVAK share a wealth of experience playing in several other notable bands, as well as a love for the less exploited (and subsequently more interesting) sides of punk and post-punk music. The SAVAK of their fifth record, Human Error / Human Delight, is the result of years of honing the friendlier sides of Wire, Sonic Youth, and Mission of Burma into something new and distinct, and seemingly guided by the principles of not only “making the music they want to make”, but “making what they’d want to listen to” as well. (Read more)

35. Motherhood – Winded

Release date: June 24^th
Record label: Forward Music Group
Genre: Post-punk, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

An “avant-punk” trio hailing from the rather unlikely location of New Brunswick, Fredericton’s Motherhood have been marching to the beat of their own drum for nearly a decade now. Their latest record, Winded, has a barebones, almost live-in-studio feel, with the core of guitarist/vocalist Brydon Crain, bassist/vocalist Penelope Stevens, and drummer Adam Sipkema tearing through both garage rock rippers and weirder turns. Crain’s delivery somehow sounds both lazy and rushed at the same time, which serves Motherhood’s revved-up but still frequently eerie and hypnotic take on post-punk. (Read more)

34. Jeff Tobias – Recurring Dream

Release date: January 7^th
Record label: Strategy of Tension
Genre: Experimental pop, post-punk, synthpop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The debut “pop” record from New York multi-instrumentalist Jeff Tobias is something new for the Sunwatchers/Modern Nature saxophonist. Recurring Dream is an adventurous album—Tobias alone is credited with playing fourteen different instruments on the record—but it’s also a highly cohesive one. Tobias’ fervent yet intimate vocals help to ground Recurring Dream when it’s jumping from, say, the urgent chaos of opening track “Our Very Recent Past” to the minimalist funk rhythms of “We’re Here to Help”. Tobias has a lot to say on Recurring Dream, but this doesn’t get in the way of the “pop” side of things either—pretty much every song on the record has a strong hook, and it ends with “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”, a shimmering piece of synthpop propulsion that feels like it could go on forever. (Read more)

33. Meat Wave – Malign Hex

Release date: October 14^th
Record label: Swami
Genre: Noise rock, post-punk, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Five years after the release of their cult classic 2017 record The Incessant, Chicago’s Meat Wave has offered up an incredibly potent 35-minute document of their particularly lean brand of noise rock and post-punk with Malign Hex. It picks up the thread of last year’s excellent Volcano Park EP; hard-hitting garage rock, nervous, bass-driven post-punk, and chilly, subtle, more atmospheric moments all populate the album. From the opening horror tapestry of “Disney” through several moments of tension and release, Malign Hex feels like an album made up of pure cauldron-stewing.

32. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

Release date: February 11^th
Record label: 4AD
Genre: Indie folk, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital

I had been on the Big Fence about Big Thief for years now, rolling my eyes at some of the hyperbolic praise they’ve gotten even as the electric catharsis of Two Hands scraped my 2019 year-end list and I’ve been impressed by the prolific nature of the band’s members. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is the first time I’ve strongly felt that the group is where they should be musically—it sounds like a record made by four people in tune with themselves and no one else, giddily embracing all of their own ideas just to see where they go.

31. Oceanator – Nothing’s Ever Fine

Release date: April 8^th
Record label: Polyvinyl/Plastic Miracles/Disposable America
Genre: Indie punk, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Elise Okusami’s follow-up as Oceanator to 2020’s Things I Never Said (one of my favorite albums of that year) delivers another collection of deep (in multiple ways) but frequently accessible songs, even as it forges ahead a bit in terms of advancing Okusami’s sound. Nothing’s Ever Fine doesn’t exactly hold the listener’s hand, giving the cold shoulder initially with thorny opening duo “Morning” and “Nightmare Machine”, but “The Last Summer” and “Beach Days (Alive Again)” eventually reveal Okusami’s urgent, frantic version of upbeat and catchy indie rock.

30. J. Marinelli – Putting the World to Rights

Release date: August 19^th
Record label: ORG
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, folk punk, country punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Putting the World to Rights is far from the first record from Norway-by-way-of-West-Virginia’s James Marinelli, but the latest solo album from the lo-fi indie rock lifer feels like a major entry into his discography. Putting the World to Rights is “folk punk” in the sense that Marinelli uses an acoustic guitar, his Appalachian background, and no small amount of state-of-the-union invective to color his Guided by Voices-esque off-the-cuff pop music—the history lesson of “Antifa Grandpa” isn’t too difficult to grasp, but Marinelli is just as compelling spinning a more opaque yarn about “What Columbus Wants” or “Where They’d Have Us”.

29. Guided by Voices – Crystal Nuns Cathedral

Release date: March 4^th
Record label: GBV, Inc.
Genre: Indie rock, post-punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Judging by both Crystal Nuns Cathedral and the also-on-this-list Tremblers and Goggles by Rank, Guided by Voices are in a heavier, denser mood as of late. I’m on board with it. While Crystal Nuns Cathedral does contain plenty of muscular guitar pop that this current iteration of Guided by Voices can easily churn out (see “Come North Together” and “Never Mind the List”, not to mention the title track), there’s a darkness to these dozen tunes that colors songs like towering opening track “Eye City” and the surprisingly dramatic “Climbing a Ramp”. As the band’s “new lineup” enters a half-decade of playing together, Robert Pollard and his collaborators sound as invigorated as ever.

28. Vintage Crop – Kibitzer

Release date: June 24^th
Record label: Anti Fade/Upset the Rhythm/Weather Vane
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Geelong, Australia’s Vintage Crop have been tearing through their mix of ripping garage rock and talky post-punk since 2017, and their third full-length, Kibitzer, is perhaps their strongest collection of material yet. The band barrel through ten hooky but muscular pieces of egg punk over top of confident-as-ever observations from vocalist Jack Cherry. Kibitzer works as well as it does in large part because of how well-oiled Vintage Crop sound on these songs—particularly on rhythm-forward constructions like “Under Offer” and “Hold the Line”, kibitzing never sounded so good. (Read more)

27. The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

Release date: September 16^th
Record label: Carpark
Genre: Power pop, pop rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital

Consistency is the nature of The Beths—I mean this in terms of their career, which has now featured three incredibly solid pop-rock records, and I also mean this with regards to Expert in a Dying Field, a more-than-worthy addition into their relatively small but rich discography. The Auckland band offer up a dozen power pop hits that balance wistfulness and exuberance deftly, but Expert in a Dying Field doesn’t feel too same-y, either; they hit different sub-sections of their range with the acoustic-strummed “I Want to Listen”, the zippy “Silence Is Golden”, and the chilly, unanswered final question of “2am”.

26. Non Bruises – Non Bruises

Release date: October 21^st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie rock, garage rock, psych rock, post-punk
Formats: Cassette, CD, digital

Non Bruises is a four-piece band comprised of a group of Cleveland music veterans, and their self-titled debut album does indeed sound like a record made by indie rock ringers. Non Bruises is the kind of humble but incredibly capable rock music that can shift from all-encompassing and wide-open to short and punchy without fundamentally changing its sound—fans of bands like Yo La Tengo, Silkworm, and Eleventh Dream Day will find a lot to appreciate here. The record casually, languidly moves through psychedelic workouts, breezy guitar pop, and lengthy slow-building jams with remarkable ease. (Read more)

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 (75-51)

Welcome to part two (of four) of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022! For any and all background info, see part one.

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

75. Spacemoth – No Past No Future

Release date: July 22^nd
Record label: Wax Nine/Carpark
Genre: Space pop, experimental pop, krautrock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Spacemoth’s Maryam Qudus has amassed quite the resumé as a producer and engineer, interning at San Francisco’s Women’s Audio Mission and John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone before going on to produce everyone from Thao to Sad13. Her debut studio album as Spacemoth, unsurprisingly, has an excellent and unique sound—No Past No Future is a synth-heavy record that frequently rocks, dealing in hard-hitting programmed drums and Stereolab-esque analog “space pop” electronics but always serving Qudus’ pop songwriting.

74. Freakons – Freakons

Release date: March 25^th
Record label: Fluff and Gravy
Genre: Folk, country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Freakons is, naturally, a collaboration between Jon Langford and Sally Timms of The Mekons and Freakwater’s Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean (also of Eleventh Dream Day) with several ringers (Jean Cook, Anna Krippenstapel, Jim Elkington) getting in on the action as well. They have been playing together in some form for awhile now, but their self-titled debut record as a group is a must-listen for fans of protest folk music, as the two bands find solidarity in the shared coal-mining backgrounds of their states of origin (England and Kentucky). The American Chestnut Blight, railroad culture, deadly mining disasters, and organized labor all get their moment in the spotlight on Freakons.

73. Weak Signal – WAR&WAR

Release date: March 25^th
Record label: Colonel
Genre: Psychedelic rock, garage rock, fuzz rock
Formats: Digital

March’s WAR&WAR follows up Bianca, Weak Signal’s sophomore album (originally released in 2020 and reissued last year), and on their latest, the New York trio of Sasha Vine, Tran, and Mike Bones still have it—”it” being quality guitar-heavy, psych-infused indie rock. There’s a cavernous quality to these tracks and vocal interplay that makes WAR&WAR sound like a fuzzier, edgier Yo La Tengo at times, and there’s also straightforward garage rock stompers like “Poor People” and “Don’t Think About It” that feel loose in a new way for Weak Signal.

72. This Is Lorelei – Falls Like Water Falls

Release date: February 7^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie pop, indie folk
Formats: Digital

Nate Amos may have been slightly less prolific as This Is Lorelei in 2022 compared to last year (“merely” a full-length record, a couple of EPs, and some one-off singles), but Falls Like Water Falls is perhaps Amos’ biggest statement he’s made under the name yet. The record (which Amos apparently found time to make in between full-lengths from the two bands he’s also in, Water from Your Eyes and My Idea) is a mix of weird airy minimalism (“Woof!”), Elliott Smith indie-folk (“He Was Leaving”), and sharp pop songs (“He Loves Me”) that feels like fully-realized in spite of the jumping around.

71. Kiwi Jr. – Chopper

Release date: August 12^th
Record label: Sub Pop
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop, 90s indie rock, synth rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Like many a guitar-forward 90s indie rock-inspired group does eventually, Kiwi Jr. have used their third record as their “pivot to synths” moment. It works better for them on Chopper than it has for most bands—instead of weakening and watering down their sound, their take on the genre is of the Cars-esque, garishly-accented new wave variety (probably aided by their producer, Dan Boeckner, no stranger to making forceful-sounding synth rock). The Kiwi Jr. songwriting of Cooler Returns and Football Money takes no hits here—“The Sound of Music” might be the most “Kiwi Jr.- sounding” song ever, and all ten of these songs feel fully realized.

70. Bad Heaven Ltd. – In Our House Now

Release date: January 28^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, dream pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Bad Heaven Ltd. is the solo project of Pennsylvania-based John Galm, and In Our House Now is his third album under the name since 2016. Galm is probably most famous for his cult emo group Snowing, but In Our House Now falls squarely into the category of “hazy, downcast indie rock” and sounds more like Hovvdy, Sparklehorse, and Grandaddy than anything else. Like the best records in this genre of music, Bad Heaven Ltd. avoids the common pratfalls of grayness and facelessness with memorable melodies and inspired instrumental choices from the get-go. Galm’s tender voice is a highlight throughout In Our House Now—it’s striking despite sounding humble and breathy, and is an essential part of these songs. (Read more)

69. EggS – A Glitter Year

Release date: November 4^th
Record label: Prefect/Howlin Banana/Safe in the Rain
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Those of us who recall 1980s college rock fondly should do themselves a favor and check out A Glitter Year, the debut full-length record from Paris’ EggS. I read a Game Theory comparison for this band which intrigued me—I don’t really hear it, but the stuff it does actually remind me of (a louder Miracle Legion, Eleventh Dream Day with a saxophone) is all in the same ballpark and is bound to appeal to a similar audience (i.e., Rosy Overdrive readers). A Glitter Year is full of anthemic, loud indie guitar pop songs with just the right amount of vocal interplay.

68. Delivery – Forever Giving Handshakes

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Feel It/Spoilsport/Anti Fade
Genre: Garage rock, garage punk
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digita

The debut record from Melbourne, Australia’s Delivery is a garage rock tour de force, sounding sharp and well-honed with a live-in-studio feel that reflects the five-piece band’s heavy gigging that predated its recording. Forever Giving Handshakes demonstrates impressive range as well—it contains synths without it falling cleanly under “synthpunk” and offers up power pop and post-punk moments without either tipping the scales. It all adds up to a full-on forty-minute record with little-to-no fat on it, which is particularly impressive in a genre known for its brevity and brief spurts. (Read more)

67. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Toast

Release date: July 8^th
Record label: Reprise
Genre: Country rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I suppose that Toast should go on the album proper list instead of the reissue/compilation one, considering as it was never issued in the first place and it isn’t a compilation. This “lost” Neil Young & Crazy Horse album was recorded and shelved in the early 2000s, with most of its songs eventually ending up on the not-very-good Are You Passionate?. Toast goes to show that Young was, in fact, on to something with these tracks after all, with the delicate opener “Quit”, blaring rocker “Standing in the Light of Love”, and the ten-minute, ascendant “Gateway of Love” all standing as 21^st-century Neil highlights.

66. Big Nothing – Dog Hours

Release date: February 18^th
Record label: Lame-O
Genre: 90s alt-rock, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The members of Philadelphia’s Big Nothing have put their time in with various bands for a few years now; that is to say, they’ve earned their “indie punk band goes mellow alt-rock” moment. The ten tracks of Dog Hours evoke a very specific period of beginning-of-the-90s “college rock”—bands like late-period Replacements/early Paul Westerberg’s solo material, The Lemonheads, and Buffalo Tom. There’s a weariness to Dog Hours, but it doesn’t sacrifice hooks or pop songwriting either—it makes messiness and uncertainty sound simple and breezy. (Read more)

65. Kids on a Crime Spree – Fall in Love Not in Line

Release date: January 21^st
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Noise pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Bay Area noise pop trio Kids on a Crime Spree have been kicking around for a decade or so, but it took until 2022 for a full-length record of theirs to emerge, and Fall in Love Not in Line doesn’t disappoint. Plenty of fuzzy, reverb-y pop songs that reflect the Bay Area trio’s “singles band” past abound, including the opening one-two punch of “Karl Hardel Building” and the brisk “When Can I See You Again?”, although Mario Hernandez and crew also find time in Fall in Love Not in Line’s 25-minute runtime to expand their sound a little bit while still staying at the top of their loud indie pop game. (Read more)

64. Dazy – OUTOFBODY

Release date: October 28^th
Record label: Lame-O/Convulse
Genre: Power pop, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

James Goodson’s Dazy exploded onto the scene last year with the contents of the 24-song MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD compilation, but OUTOFBODY is the one-man-power-pop band’s first attempt to present their sound in a dozen-track, one-statement format. Dazy’s debut record offers up big, hooky fuzz rock from the get-go (the opening trio of songs is as good a pop run as anything else from this year), and it also makes the requisite “probing a bit beyond their one (admittedly very good) trick” moves with the quiet “Inside Voice”, the melancholic “Motionless Parade”, and the multi-layered closing track “Gone”, among others. (Read more)

63. Options – Swimming Feeling

Release date: July 1^st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Slowcore, emo-indie-rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

The eighth album by Chicago’s Seth Engel under the Options moniker falls a bit closer to the chilly, serious indie rock of 2020’s Wind’s Gonna Blow and Window’s Open and further from the playful bedroom pop of 2021’s On the Draw, but there’s elements of that one here too, as well as songs that don’t fit neatly into either of those two camps. Swimming Feeling has a downcast but punchy alt-rock sound to it, with songs like “Toast” and “The Bend” chopping through solid Engel vocal melodies. Like most Options records, Swimming Feeling is a subtle one, but it reveals its distinguishing personality traits over time. (Read more)

62. Expert Timing – Stargazing

Release date: September 23^rd
Record label: Count Your Lucky Stars
Genre: Power pop, emo, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Orlando, Florida’s Expert Timing make a version of self-described “bubble-grunge power pop” that’s emotional but catchy in a way that reminds me of 90s indie punk bands like Superchunk and Heatmiser. Stargazing is the group’s second album and first as a four-piece, and the group take advantage of the extra pair of hands to rocket through eleven sharp pop songs. Expert Timing remains led by the husband and wife duo of Jeff and Katrina Snyder, both of whom trade off on lead vocals and provide their share of highlights on Stargazing. (Read more)

61. Sarah Shook & the Disarmers – Nightroamer

Release date: February 18^th
Record label: Abeyance/Thirty Tigers
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers broke through in 2018 with the excellent Years, and after some label troubles and pandemic-related delays, Nightroamer picks up where the group left off four years ago. A lot of Nightroamer finds the North Carolina-based band allowing Shook’s songwriting to stretch out just a little more than in the past, but there’s no mistaking the record for anything less than the work of more-than-capable country rockers. It’s not exactly an uplifting record, but Nightroamer can be a comfort both in soundtracking darker moments (“It Doesn’t Change Anything”, “Stranger”) and in delivering genuine surprises (“I Got This”).

60. Joan Kelsey – Standing Out on the Grass

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Indie folk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Seattle singer-songwriter Joan Kelsey’s newest album is an extraordinarily accessible and listenable indie folk record, carried heavily by their comforting, melodic vocals over top of humble-sounding but deftly constructed instrumentals. Standing Out on the Grass is openly a record about grief, written in the aftermath of Kelsey losing a loved one to suicide, the signs of which are present throughout the album—songs like opening track “Alone” are as pleasant of a listen as they are heavy lyrically and emotionally. Kelsey is the unambiguous center of the album, their voice always being complimented by the various instrumental flourishes rather than being drowned out. (Read more)

59. Young Guv – GUV III

Release date: March 11^th
Record label: Run for Cover
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

I greatly enjoyed GUV I and GUV II, the twin 2019 releases from Young Guv, the power pop project of former Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook. I’m happy to report that GUV III is solid as well (as is its follow-up, GUV IV, which also could’ve made this list). Even for a record made by someone as clearly inspired by pop music as Cook, GUV III is wildly packed with could’ve-been hit singles. Every time I listen to GUV III, a different song sticks out—sometimes it’s the soaring chorus of “Only Wanna See U Tonight”, the melodic guitar washing-over of “Lo Lo Lonely”, or the zippy “Same Old Fool”.

58. Vundabar – Devil for the Fire

Release date: April 15^th
Record label: Gawk
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

I never think of Vundabar as one of my favorite bands or anything, but the Boston band deserve commendation for their recent string of solid post-punk-revival-indebted records delivered like clockwork every other year. The follow-up to 2020’s Either Light (which made my year-end list) finds Brandon Hagen, Zack Abramo, and Drew McDonald probing some surprisingly dark and atmospheric territory, but there’s plenty of classic Vundabar nervy pop music on Devil for the Fire, too. The opening duo of “Aphasia” and “Ringing Bell” starts the record off on a subtle note, but by the time “The Gloam” and “Nosferatu” roll around midway through the record, Vundabar are letting “loose” in the coiled way they do.

57. Superchunk – Wild Loneliness

Release date: February 25^th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Power pop, indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Wild Loneliness is, unsurprisingly, a good Superchunk album (I don’t think they make any other kind). Its mid-tempo, Portastatic-y surface make it a bit less immediate than 2018’s What a Time to Be Alive, but I think this one will have even more long-term staying power. Its ten tracks take me back to Here’s to Shutting Up and (especially) Come Pick Me Up, and Mac McCaughan’s lyrics keep just enough of the political-mindedness of What a Time to Be Alive, but here they’re tempered with a distance and from-a-remove analysis that fits well with the rest of the record’s pensive atmosphere.

56. The Tisburys – Exile on Main Street

Release date: September 16^th
Record label: Sacks of Phones
Genre: Power pop
Formats: CD, digital

The third record from Philadelphia’s The Tisburys is an expansive album with a host of discernible influences that remains fresh-sounding. Containing shades of power pop, jangle pop, 90s radio-pop-rock, the heartland rock that seems to populate their home city, and Bruce Springsteen, Exile on Main Street (yes, they really called it that) provides an exciting backdrop for singer-songwriter Tyler Asay’s compelling lyrics. It’s an incredibly consistent record, with some of the less-showy, more-likely-to-be-overlooked songs popping out on repeat listens against the bigger, saxophone-aided “hits”. (Read more)

55. 40 Watt Sun – Perfect Light

Release date: January 21^th
Record label: Cappio/Svart
Genre: Slowcore
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I was partially drawn to 40 Watt Sun’s Perfect Light because the album artwork and group name reminded me of Mark Eitzel’s 60 Watt Silver Lining, and, well—the record doesn’t disappoint on this front. Patrick Walker, the mind behind 40 Watt Sun, apparently has a doom metal past, but Perfect Light is all gorgeously ornate, heartbreaking slowcore. Most of the record’s eight songs stretch beyond eight minutes long, with Walker’s strong but vulnerable vocals finding and holding on to striking melodies over top of ebbing and flowing piano and guitar.

54. Guided by Voices – Tremblers and Goggles by Rank

Release date: July 1^st
Record label: GBV, Inc.
Genre: 90s indie rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Tremblers and Goggles by Rank is the fourteenth Guided by Voices album since Robert Pollard re-revived the name in 2016, and it’s the third in a row to point in the direction of more focused, longer, and denser songs. Tremblers only has ten tracks (a GBV first), meaning several of them stretch into levels rarely seen on their records. The album contains plenty of proggy buildups and detours (closing track “Who Wants to Go Hunting?” is a six-minute iceberg), although as the opening two tracks show, Robert Pollard and crew can still be quite catchy in this mode.

53. The High Water Marks – Proclaimer of Things

Release date: February 4^th
Record label: Minty Fresh
Genre: Power pop, shoegaze, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Proclaimer of Things came out less than a year and a half after late 2020’s Ecstasy Rhymes, but if The High Water Marks are trying to make up the thirteen year gap between that record and the one before it, then that’s fine with me. The Oslo and Kentucky band’s latest record is a spirited noise pop album, burying melodies in the lightly psychedelic fuzz of tracks like “We Are Going to Kentucky” and the title track. The High Water Marks’ two bandleaders, Hilarie Sidney and Per Ole Bratset, take turns delivering highlights in songs like “Jenny” and “The Best Day”. These original Elephant Six folks are still at it, and still have a lot left in them.

52. Russel the Leaf – My Street

Release date: January 22^nd
Record label: Records from Russ
Genre: Power pop, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Even though My Street commits towards more of a “rock band” sound, Russel the Leaf’s first of two 2022 records contains plenty of the Brian Wilson-esque studio pop that marked last year’s Then You’re Gunna Wanna. Album opener “Listen to Me” and the violin-aided “Little Italy, Again” are both piano-led baroque pop as clear-eyed as ever, although Russel the Leaf’s Evan Marré also pulls out bouncy acoustic, almost folk-pop songs like the exquisite title track or the incredibly catchy “Catch the Spell”. The ironic grin of highlight “Oh, No” is the best example of Marré’s lyrical gift of creating catchy nosedive scenarios. (Read more)

51. Tin-Ear – Cadastral Maps

Release date: September 9^th
Record label: Home Late/Gentle Reminder
Genre: Noise pop, indie punk, emo, twee
Formats: Cassette, digital

One of the more intriguing under-the-radar bands that Rosy Overdrive discovered this year, Tin-Ear is from Prince Edward Island (which is a very cool fact in its own right), and their debut record Cadastral Maps is a roaring, fuzzy emo record that could at various spots be called “math rock” and “twee”, not to mention the fact that it contains a nine-minute song at the end of the record. Tin-Ear’s pop songs are odd and unbalanced but still catchy—”Tin Life” gallops in a runaway manner, and “Fling Straw Man” opens up Cadastral Maps by sticking gems in its start-stop structure.

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

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 (100-76)

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

2021 was a successful debut year for Rosy Overdrive, and this year was even better. I wrote about 206 albums and EPs (so far, I’m not done yet) this year in Pressing Concerns, and again highlighted over 24 hours of individual songs in the monthly playlists. Considering just how many records I thought were worth writing about, there will be some good albums left off of this list; I’ll include some honorable mentions at the end, and browsing the archive will reveal even more worthwhile releases.

Here is a playlist featuring all of the records from this list that are available on streaming services: on Spotify, on Tidal. As with last year, separate lists for EPs and compilations/reissues will go up over the next month. To read about more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thank you for reading, and, to anyone who has shared Rosy Overdrive with others or even just makes it a regular part of their music life–I’m truly grateful.

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

100. Golden Boots – Liquid Ranch

Release date: April 28^th
Record label: Pass Without Trace
Genre: Alt-country, lo-fi indie rock, psych-country
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Golden Boots’ core duo of Ryan Eggleston and Dimitri Manos cite both 70s country and 90s lo-fi indie weird pop (Pavement, yes, but also eyebrow-raising names like Bingo Trappers, Strapping Fieldhands, and Tall Dwarfs) as wells from which they draw their sound. Liquid Ranch is apparently the Tucson band’s seventeenth record, and while it’s the first Golden Boots album I’ve heard, I feel like I understand where they’re coming from just based on its contents. Liquid Ranch is a very accessible record at its core, but it isn’t without its share of odd, scenic-route detours as well. It has hooky alt-country tracks (“Lookout”, “Sedona”) as well as more cosmic moments like “Skylight” and “Chemical Burn”. (Read mor e)

99. Ace of Spit – Ace of Spit

Release date: July 29^th
Record label: Sophomore Lounge
Genre: Garage rock, garage punk, surf rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

St. Louis’ Ace of Spit are runaway-train garage rockers who embrace a proto-punk wildness and maximum amp-cranked distortion on their self-titled debut record. The songs on Ace of Spit are fuzz-drenched, surf-rock-flavored lasers, shooting off hits like the scorching “Message for Ira Meg”, the creeping Cramps-esque opener “Apollo Bay”, and the barreling-forward power pop tune “Lonedell Wildflower” in quick succession—at least, until they uncork the eleven-minute journey of closing track “Kaw-Tikvah”.

98. Martha – Please Don’t Take Me Back

Release date: October 28^th
Record label: Dirtnap/Specialist Subject
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, indie punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

The fourth record from Durham, England’s power-pop-punk four-piece Martha is probably my second favorite album of theirs, behind 2016’s unbeatable Blisters in the Pit of My Heart. The band lets everyone know that they don’t intend to mellow out as they enter their second decade together with opening track “Beat, Perpetual”, one of their strongest tracks yet bar none, and they match the energy with highlights like “Hope Gets Harder” and “F L A G // B U R N E R” (with features some excellent chorus harmonies). The second half of Please Don’t Take Me Back remains sharp even as it lets the songs stretch out a bit more—the driving “I Didn’t Come Here to Surrender” in particular is a success.

97. Will Sheff – Nothing Special

Release date: October 7^th
Record label: ATO
Genre: Folk rock, indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Like a lot of Okkervil River fans, I’ve struggled a bit with their post-2000s output. This is the attitude with which I went into frontman Will Sheff’s debut solo album (which, considering the last couple of Okkervil River albums have been effectively Sheff solo efforts, wasn’t a distinction that really mattered to me). Nothing Special has really grown on me since its release, however—these songs feel full and welcoming, with tracks like “The Spiral Season” and “Like the Last Time” climbing to the heights of Sheff’s biggest successes, and its several ballads are given plenty of room to breathe musically.

96. Dot Dash – Madman in the Rain

Release date: November 5^th
Record label: The Beautiful Music
Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: CD, digital

Dot Dash hail from Washington, D.C., and over the past decade or so they’ve been reliably putting out records with a familiar-sounding but welcome and distinct spin on mid-1980s college rock. On their seventh record, Madman in the Rain, the group prove that they know their way around a jangly power pop hook, and the album as a whole contains a lot of melodic and upfront bass work that nails a particular subset of 1980s new wave and post-punk. Although Dot Dash are a guitar pop band first and foremost, there’s some post-punk preoccupation with death and mortality throughout Madman in the Rain—and the trio don’t dampen their pop hooks when tackling these subjects. (Read more)

95. Ylayali – Separation

Release date: September 2^nd
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, slowcore
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Separation is Philadelphia singer-songwriter Francis Lyons’ fourth record under the Ylayali name since 2019, and it sounds like the work of somebody who’s developed a distinct sound—dreamy without being “dream pop”, “slowcore” that is only at times slow, “bedroom pop” with a host of other contributions from fellow musicians. Separation evokes the more humble side of 90s indie rock, with bands like Duster and Sparklehorse seeming to be touchstones. Separation moves through ambient pop, fuzz rock, and bass-driven indie pop, and the back half of the record features a few lengthy instrumentals that are meant to (and do) evoke the feel of dreaming. (Read more)

94. Non Plus Temps – Desire Choir

Release date: November 4^th
Record label: Post Present Medium
Genre: Post-punk, dub, experimental rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Non Plus Temps is a new Oakland, California duo made up of Andy Human (of Andy Human and the Reptoids) and music writer Sam Lefebvre, and with Desire Choir, they’ve made a potent record of kinetic, dub-influenced post-punk. It’s a solidly hypnotic record, featuring no shortage of captivating basslines, dub-like instrumental injections, and monotone vocals throughout its eleven tracks. Desire Choir features a host of guest instrumentalists and even vocalists beyond the founding duo (like Amber Sermeno, whose talk-singing anchors the groove of opening highlight “Continuous Hinge”, among other tracks).

93. Maneka – Dark Matters

Release date: March 11^th
Record label: Skeletal Lightning
Genre: Experimental rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Dark Matters is either the second or third album from Maneka, the project of Brooklyn-based Devin McKnight (depending on how one views 2017’s Is You Is), and it’s certainly the most ambitious record I’ve heard yet from him. The album cycles through jazz interludes, lo-fi, slowcore-influenced indie rock, experimental pop, and guitar-rock workouts in a clean half-hour, resulting in several peaks throughout Dark Matter: the chaotic multi-part single “Winner’s Circle”, the mid-tempo middle of “The Glow Up”, and the propulsive closing track “Bluest Star”.

92. Long Neck – Soft Animal

Release date: June 21^st
Record label: Plastic Miracles/Specialist Subject
Genre: Indie folk, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

The appropriately-titled Soft Animal is the fourth Long Neck album, and it finds Lily Mastrodimos backing away from the rockier elements of 2018’s Will This Do? and 2020’s World’s Strongest Dog to lean on acoustic and folkier material. This side of Long Neck has always been present in their records, and Soft Animal shows that Mastrodimos is no less effective when being a big quieter. Even with its short 23 minutes and stripped-down sound, Soft Animal covers ground from beautiful fingerpicked folk (“Ants”) to piano balladry (“The Headwaters”) to lo-fi synthpop (“558”) to slow-burn, full-band indie rock (the title track).

91. Russel the Leaf – You Blocked the Light for Me

Release date: April 24^th
Record label: Records from Russ
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, baroque pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Russel the Leaf’s Evan Marré trades in sparkling, Beach Boys-inspired pop songs, but despite the musical sunshine, his lyrics can range from bittersweet to downright sad. His second record of 2022, You Blocked the Light for Me, is, as its title suggests, a downer record even by Marré’s standards. It’s still a pop album, to be sure, but it seems like writing about fractured relationships knocked something loose musically as well—it’s a bit more off-the-cuff and frayed than the last couple of Russel the Leaf albums. Marré jumps from the pin-drop acoustic sound of “Flock Up to My Window” to the overly busy noise pop of “New Love”, and I’m not sure how he makes a pop song as pretty as “When I Take Out Both of My Eyes” sound like seething underneath (it probably starts with the title).

90. Chronophage – Chronophage

Release date: June 3^rd
Record label: Post Present Medium/Bruit Direct Disques
Genre: Post-punk, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The third record from Austin’s Chronophage is a collaboratively-driven pop album that lets its charms sneak up on you. Chronophage has a looseness to it reflecting the band’s DIY punk background, and several of its songs hit immediately, like the breezy college rock single “Summer to Fall” and retro pop-rockers “Burst the Shell” and “Old City Back Again”. The other side of the band is found in the more intricate, multi-layered compositions like sleepy opener “Love Torn in a Dream”, charming ballad “Spirit Armor”, and sprinting post-punk closing track “Fear Agony”—but it all hangs together seamlessly.

89. Dear Nora – Human Futures

Release date: October 28^th
Record label: Orindal
Genre: Indie folk, experimental folk, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Human Futures is the fifth record under the Dear Nora name, and is also, notably, the first album of theirs made in a recording studio. Singer-songwriter Katy Davidson still takes the lead and contributes all lyrics and vocal melodies, but increased contributions from the rest of the band result in an accessible but varied experimental pop record that veers between Dear Nora’s recognizable indie folk and some stranger moments. Tracks as disparate as the bright, minimalist synthpop “Sedona” and the gorgeous rambling folk song “Shadows” both feature excellent melodies and self-harmonies from Davidson, as they pull together a record that covers a lot of ground sonically and geographically. (Read more)

88. Stomatopod – Competing with Hindsight

Release date: January 29^th
Record label: Pirate Alley
Genre: Punk rock, alt-rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Chicago trio Stomatopod fall under the umbrella of “Steve Albini-at-Electrical Audio-recorded 90s-inspired indie rock”, but the trio pull from just about every decade in rock music history throughout Competing with Hindsight. All six of the record’s songs have a grunge-y/Wipers dark undercurrent, John Huston’s clean everyman vocals are very 90s Matador indie rock, and the ever-present earnest guitar rave-ups that characterize the record catch the spirit of garage and hard rock, even if they’re not quite as sloppy as the former nor showy as the latter. Competing with Hindsight is consistent to the point where it’s hard to point to specific songs to highlight—it’s all just one great jam. (Read more)

87. Status/Non-Status – Surely Travel

Release date: September 23^rd
Record label: You’ve Changed
Genre: Alt-rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Adam Sturgeon has had a busy past year and half. 2021 saw his band Status/Non-Status release the 1, 2, 3, 4, 500 Years EP, and he put out two full-length albums this year: Sewn Back Together, a collaboration with Daniel Monkman of Zoon as OMBIIGIZI that almost made this list as well, and Surely Travel. The Ontario-based Anishinaabe alt-rocker leads his band through ten inspired songs that range from dreamy and folky (the sleepy “Bineshiinh”, the lightly psychedelic “Mashkiki Sunset”) to swaggering and grunge-y (the band-on-the-road tale of “Mainly Crows”, the stomping opener “Blown Tire”), and the closing title track is a transcendent Canadian rock experience.

86. Dan Friel – Factoryland

Release date: August 19^th
Record label: Thrill Jockey
Genre: Noise pop, experimental pop, electronic
Formats: Cassette, digital

It seems like most musicians earmark their more pop material for their “rock band”, and save the really “out there” stuff for their instrumental, synth-based side projects. Not exactly the case with Dan Friel—he makes loud, catchy pop music with Upper Wilds, sure, but his latest solo record, Factoryland, features plenty of moments that rise to Friel’s high shrill pop music standard, all while staying firmly in the world of electronica. Songs like “Phantom Factory”, “Rust Clouds”, and “The Welder” are all melodic beasts with distinct personalities, to say nothing of the seven-minute, collapsing-in-on-itself “Trash Dunes”.

85. Booter – 10/10

Release date: September 9^th
Record label: Midwest Debris
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Booter (a Canadian band name if I ever heard one) make rough-around-the-edges, poppy indie rock—one might actually miss how barebones the sound is on their debut record, 10/10, because these thirteen tracks are all sturdy songs led by singer-songwriter Alannah Walker’s full and confident vocals. 10/10 can do automatic, hooky rockers like “In Control” and “Time Warp”, but Booter also offer up some variety, like the bass-led “Know Completely”, or “Seventeen”, in which guitarist Brendon Yarish takes the lead and duets with Walker in the chorus.

84. Snow Coats – If It Wasn’t Me, I Would’ve Called It Funny

Release date: September 9^th
Record label: Alcopop!
Genre: Indie pop, pop rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Snow Coats’ sophomore record, If It Wasn’t Me, I Would’ve Called It Funny, nails a very specific indie guitar pop sound very well—a little bit emo, a little bit jangly, and a hundred percent catchy. Singer/lyricist Anouk van der Kemp’s vocals match the band’s sparkling energy on infectious pop highlights like “Dinosaur” and “For a Moment”, even as, if one really listens to the words of If It Wasn’t Me, I Would’ve Called It Funny, you really start to pick up on the end-of-relationship sadness that permeates the record.

83. Ex-Gold – We Are Good

Release date: March 5^th
Record label: Pig Man
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock, garage punk
Formats: Digital

Ex-Gold hail from Knoxville, Tennessee, and they’re a fierce southern garage punk band on their second release and first-full length record, the accurately-titled We Are Good. The record’s eleven songs are all brief but hefty jolts of post-punk energy—the guitars (provided by Chris Rusk) roar and slice with equal measure, the rhythm section (bassist Kelsey Baby and drummer Sam Stratton) doesn’t stop punching, and the vocals (provided by everybody in the band) are delightfully wild in a basement new wave-y way.

82. Joe Kenkel – Naturale

Release date: January 13^th
Record label: Earth Libraries
Genre: Folk rock, alt-country
Formats: CD, digital

Rosy Overdrive is a noted fan of Nashville supergroup Styrofoam Winos, and the latest solo record from the trio’s Joe Kenkel is a record that holds up well against his band’s work. Kenkel’s songs are some of the lighter and spacier moments on the most recent Styrofoam Winos record, and Naturale inhabits a similar territory. Kenkel’s acoustic guitar and humble vocals are in a familiar dreamy country/folk style throughout Naturale, but there’s also a drum machine and synths hanging out in the background that reveals of another side of the singer-songwriter, that of an 80s sophisti-pop aficionado.

81. Noah Roth – Breakfast of Champions

Release date: September 16^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country, indie folk
Formats: Digital

Breakfast of Champions was recorded in several locations over three years, but it still retains a cohesive feeling due to Noah Roth’s consistent writing and presence. It’s a subtle alt-country- and folk-tinged indie rock record that reminds me of Slaughter Beach, Dog (whose Jake Ewald guests on the record), albeit with something of a studio experimentalist streak. Breakfast of Champions’ tracks take too many sonic turns to fall into the “easy listening” side of folk rock even as they remain pop songs, resulting in a compelling listen of a record that’s nevertheless unafraid to be challenging. (Read more)

80. The Bug Club – Green Dreams in F#

Release date: October 14^th
Record label: Bingo
Genre: Pop rock, twee, indie pop, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The Bug Club’s Green Dream in F# is a fizzy, excitable pop rock album from front to back, burning through fourteen sharp, electric indie punk-pop tracks in barely a half hour. The Welsh band certainly know how to rock, as early hits like the unstoppable “Only in Love”, the careening “Little Coy Space Boy”, and the triumphant “Love Is a Painting” show, but Green Dream in F# hits just as hard with its mid-tempo numbers—the payoff to “Going Down” more than justifies its four minutes, and the airiness of “Love Letters from Jupiter” is perhaps the most successful of the record’s handful of space songs.

79. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway – Crooked Tree

Release date: April 1^st
Record label: Nonesuch
Genre: Bluegrass, folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Molly Tuttle is an acclaimed and seemingly busy banjoist who’s played with the likes of Old Crow Medicine Show, Billy Strings, and Béla Fleck, but her third solo record (and first with backing band Golden Highway) demonstrates Tuttle’s skill as a singer and songwriter as well. Crooked Tree is a fervent bluegrass record, with Tuttle and Golden Highway confidently believing in the power of banjo, fiddle, and acoustic guitar to carry everything from “Dooley’s Farm” (a, uh, modern take on the moonshining outlaw tune) to the dark shadow at the heart of “The River Knows” to the inarguable parable of the title track.

78. The Mountain Goats – Bleed Out

Release date: August 19^th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Folk rock, alt-rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

The best Mountain Goats studio album in at least a decade, Bleed Out finds John Darnielle and his band wandering out of the rewarding but occasionally frustrating “lost in the recording studio” sound of their last couple of albums and into a poppy alt-rock sound that…well, has never really been their “thing” either. Producer Alicia Bognanno guides them into this terrain effortlessly, however—it sounds like an extension of the band’s 2000s 4AD Records output, but fuller-sounding, kind of finally delivering on the promise of a two-guitar, four-piece Mountain Goats.

77. CLASS – Epoca de Los Vaqueros

Release date: October 28^th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Garage rock, power pop, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Epoca de Los Vaqueros is eight tracks and twenty minutes’ worth of exhilarating garage-y punk rock that show off the full range of CLASS, a wide expanse that contains nervy, Devo-core egg punk, rough-and-tumble, glam-inspired power pop, and sneering, dangerously-loitering 70s punk rock. “Box My Own Shadow” and “Left in the Sink” barrel forward with their hooks, “The Way It Goes” rides pent-up rage to a robotic chorus, and the whole thing ends on a note of despair and nihilism with “Unlocking Heaven’s Gate”, their own “Final Solution”. (Read more)

76. Sloan – Steady

Release date: October 21^st
Record label: Yep Roc/Murderecords
Genre: Power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Steady, Sloan’s thirteenth album together, is unsurprisingly quite good—but even considering their track record, the new LP sounds particularly energized and consistent. First track “Magical Thinking” is as catchy as any of their other openers, but it surges forward in a darker, not-as-familiar way. The record still nevertheless offers up plenty of their lightly-psychedelic guitar pop, power chord-infused glam-ish stompers, and baroque moments. Steady feels like a great place for Sloan to be at this stage in their career.

Click here for:

Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)

New Playlist: November 2022

Welcome to the November edition of Pressing Concerns! This is the last post on Rosy Overdrive before year-end list time begins–yes, you’ll see some of the bands here again soon. Also present here are a few more selections from my 1997 deep dive, which should continue into next month as well.

Kevin Dorff is the only one with multiple tracks on the playlist this time around.

Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal, BNDCMPR (missing a couple songs). Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

“The Wind Blew All Around Me”, The Bevis Frond
From North Circular (1997, Woronzow/Flydaddy/Fire)

Even by The Bevis Frond’s heady standards, North Circular is a massive one. Over two hours of maximalist British guitar-hero psychedelic power pop—what are you waiting for? For me, it was worth wading into ten-to-twelve minute jam territory to find the hidden pop gems, of which “The Wind Blew All Around Me” is probably the best. Nick Saloman’s vocals remain forceful but can pull off tender here, and although the song does kick into gear, this is The Bevis Frond in “ballad” territory.

“Same Dweller, Different Cave”, The John-Pauls
From Bon Mots (2022, Aagoo)

Bon Mots is a tour de force of an indie rock record, jumping from refined to freewheeling, retaining an economical sound while having three guitarists, two vocalists, and a keyboard player. Phillip John-Paul is the “looser” of The John-Pauls’ two singers—his palpable enthusiasm is easily enough to match the gleeful running-around of “Same Dweller, Different Cave”’s instrumental. Read more about Bon Mots here.

“Only in Love”, The Bug Club
From Green Dream in F# (2022, Bingo)

The Bug Club’s Green Dream in F# is a fizzy, excitable pop rock album from front to back, and “Only in Love” kicks the record off with little preamble and plenty of hooks. Vocalists Sam and Tilly triumphantly sing over a barreling instrumental, chanting the title line just the right amount of times over the sub-two minute track. The Welsh band also offer up an excellent bass groove (provided by Tilly) on that track, which pops on repeat listening.

“Gay Space Cadets”, Lande Hekt
From House Without a View (2022, Get Better/Prize Sunflower)

I’ve enjoyed songs by Lande Hekt before (such as “Lola”, which appeared on last month’s Typical Girls compilation), but “Gay Space Cadets” is the one that’s really gotten my attention. The instrumental is breezy, jangly indie pop that is enjoyable in its own right but primarily serves to accent Hekt’s ace songwriting (the mega-chorus is unstoppable, but she also offers up “I know that the trees change color when the seasons change / I’m not that fucking stupid, I know that my jokes get old” in the verses).

“Sinking”, Rhinestone Pickup Truck
From Adore Me (2022, PNKSLM)

The latest EP from Tristen Colby’s Rhinestone Pickup Truck project was released by PNKSLM Recordings and mixed by Jake Orall of JEFF the Brotherhood—and yes, it does sound like an incredibly catchy mix of Weezer-esque loud power pop and garage rock, good guess. Adore Me’s opening track, “Sinking”, is basically two minutes of just hooks, and the strongest one of them (That’d be “A sinking feeling washes over me”) is a classic entry into the “making the downcast seem triumphant” part of the power pop genre.

“DABDA”, Kevin Dorff
From Silent Reply (2022)

Kevin Dorff’s Silent Reply is a meditation on death and how the people left behind view those who’ve passed; every track is about a friend or acquaintance of Dorff’s who died between 2010 and 2015. The record opens, appropriately enough, with a song called “DABDA”, a multi-part tribute to a friend that soars when it reaches the specifics of its remembrances (“We drove like maniacs, like the park was our personal racetrack / And we were Dale Fucking Earnhardts”) and dives into the grief—as Dorff puts it, “a swimming pool of shit”—elsewhere. Read more about Silent Reply here.

“Sleep Like a Baby”, Dumb
From Pray 4 Tomorrow (2022, Mint)

Pray 4 Tomorrow, the latest album from Vancouver’s Dumb, is a record jam-packed with eighteen songs of garage-y, droll post-punk that excels at nailing a very specific sound. Single “Sleep Like a Baby” is Dumb at their most accessible, adding a toe-tapping drumbeat to the verses before crash-landing into the chorus hook. And since it’s done in a minute and a half, they’ve got time for a trumpet outro as well.

“Entrance Theme”, Jobber
From Hell in a Cell (2022, Exploding in Sound)

Jobber offer up nothing but incredibly strong grunge-y fuzz rock tunes throughout Hell in a Cell, their excellent debut EP. Even considering that, it’s surprising just how much “Entrance Theme” veers into straight power pop—Rentals-esque keyboards and handclaps are lobbed at the listener, even as it doesn’t lose any of the rest of the EP’s bite. Read more about Hell in a Cell here.

“Black Box (Meigs Street)”, Nana Grizol
From Dancing Dogs (2022, Cruisin)

Coming out two days before Christmas, Dancing Dogs is effectively an alternate version of Nana Grizol’s 2010 sophomore record, Ruth. It was recorded earlier than the sessions that eventually comprised Ruth, and judging from the “Meigs Street” take of “Black Box”, Theo Hilton and company were playing looser and rougher here—although the core of this song is fully-formed already. The biggest difference between the two recordings to me is the instrumental refrain, which transforms from being led by a careening melodica here to a more refined, traditionally-Elephant Six-sounding horn chorus in the final version.

“In Space”, Connections
From Cool Change (2023, Trouble in Mind)

I’m quite excited to see that Columbus, Ohio’s Connections are back—it’s been a while by their standards! The six-piece band produced excellent lo-fi power pop records at a brisk clip in the mid-2010s, but they’ve been dormant since their 2018 Trouble in Mind debut, the underrated Foreign Affairs. So, merely hearing that they have a new album coming out in 2023 is good news. But the record’s lead single is also very good, even considering the consistent quality of Connections—the five-minute “In Space” is familiar but probing new ground, really kicking things into overdrive with that busy, captivating chorus.

“I’d Bet My Land and Titles”, The Paranoid Style featuring Patterson Hood
From For Executive Meeting (2022, Bar None)

I’d held off on checking out The Paranoid Style for a while now—I’m very glad that I finally got around to them, because their latest record, For Executive Meeting, is very much up my alley. Elizabeth Nelson is a singular songwriter and a conversational, compelling vocalist—these songs remind me of the likes of John K. Samson, Christine Fellows, and Franklin Bruno, but with a country garage rock sheen (aided in part by Rosy Overdrive favorite William Matheny on keyboards). “I’d Bet My Land and Titles” is a rambling roots rock song featuring vocals from none other than the great Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers (Key lyric for this one: “No one ever calls from Vegas just to wonder how you’re doing”).

“Her Clock Tower”, Ribbon Stage
From Hit with the Most (2022, Perennial)

Hit with the Most is the aptly-titled debut record from New York’s Ribbon Stage—it’s a punchy, brief, and fun noisy indie pop album, and the driving “Her Clock Tower” is one of the clearest highlights to my ears. Despite running under two minutes, the song still takes its time to build itself up dramatically for about thirty seconds before delving into its understated but decidedly catchy pop rock center.

“Pachomius”, Joan Kelsey
From Standing Out on the Grass (2022, Dear Life)

Standing Out on the Grass is as pleasant of a listen as its lyrics are heavy, with Joan Kelsey’s comforting, melodic vocals guiding the listener through a record explicitly about grief and loss. Kelsey’s lifting voice matches the gently flowing folk of album highlight “Pachomius”, with a wide-ranging lyric that touches on everything from the titular history figure to Kelsey breaking down outside a Trader Joe’s. Read more about Standing Out on the Grass here.

“You Said That Last Night”, The Apples in Stereo
From Tone Soul Evolution (1997, Sire/spinART/Elephant 6)

I’m not sure if Tone Soul Evolution is the best Apples in Stereo album, but (at least of the ones I’ve heard so far), it’s certainly the fizziest. The two-and-a-half-minute “You Said That Last Night” is the sound of the band still working within the relatively lo-fi confines of their Elephant Six origins, but pushing—there’s a lot going on in this brief track, and even though there’s a layer of fuzziness here, it’s not hard to hear the intricate, 60s-inspired pop song hidden underneath.

“Forever Far Out”, Dot Dash
From Madman in the Rain (2022, The Beautiful Music)

Washington, D.C.’s Dot Dash have been making an 80s college rock/post-punk/jangle pop triangulation over the course of a decade and seven records, and the opening track to Madman in the Rain is a massively successful example of their sound. “Forever Far Out” is triumphant guitar pop shot through with prominent, melodic bass, and singer/guitarist Terry Banks’ vocals are the song’s subtly emotional core. Read more about Madman in the Rain here.

“Air Guitar”, Sobs
From Air Guitar (2022, Topshelf)

The title track to Sobs’ Air Guitar is one of the most immediate, attention-grabbing pop rock songs I’ve heard all year. The three-piece band hails from Singapore, and their full-length debut is being released by Topshelf (who’ve done a commendable job getting East Asian indie rock to an overseas audience in recent years). Some of the other tracks on Air Guitar show off Sobs’ more underground influences, but “Air Guitar” is three minutes of pure radio-ready, perfectly executed pop bombast (the way the song veers from the last chorus into that guitar solo outro—that’s how you do it).

“Baader Meinhof”, Delivery
From Forever Giving Handshakes (2022, Feel It/Spoilsport/Anti Fade)

The debut record from Melbourne’s Delivery keeps things high-energy throughout, and early album highlight “Baader Meinhoff” is a prime example of the five-piece band’s big, live-in-studio sound in full force. Forever Giving Handshakes’ lead single, “Baader Meinhoff” shows off Delivery at their pop best, barreling out of the gate with a big hook and congealing into a garage-y power pop hit. Read more about Forever Giving Handshakes here.

“The King of Soft Knocks”, Soft Screams
From Dog Stays Dead (2022, Corrupted TV)

Connor Mac seems to have no interest in resting on their laurels. Fresh off May’s Diet Daydream LP, Mac’s Soft Screams project released two EPs in October: Star Number One and Dog Stays Dead. The latter hews closer to the lo-fi power pop Mac has put out under Soft Screams and as half of Galactic Static; opening track “The King of Soft Knocks” is a two-minute stomp that’s also a great wimp rock anthem (“[I] come from the school of letting go”, in addition to the titular moniker Mac bestows upon themself).

“Continuous Hinge”, Non Plus Temps
From Desire Choir (2022, Post Present Medium)

Oakland, California’s Non Plus Temps (the duo of Andy Human of Andy Human and the Reptoids and Sam Lefebvre) have made a potent debut record of dub-influenced post-punk with Desire Choir. Opening track “Continuous Hinge” brings in guest lead vocalist Amber Sermeno, whose talk-singing holds its ground nicely with the track’s hypnotic, bass-led instrumental.

“Ghetto Godot”, The Negro Problem
From Post Minstrel Syndrome (1997, Aerial Flipout)

I’ve finally gotten around to listening to Post Minstrel Syndrome in full (another band/album I learned about through the great Scott Miller), and this feels like an album that really could have a second life in 2022 (take note, I know some Suits read this blog). It’s an incredibly accessible pop record that ambitiously drives through a handful of genres—album highlight “Ghetto Godot” is refined piano pop rock, directed deftly to accent a hell of a lyric from Mark “Stew” Stewart.

“Up on a Hill”, Gabriel Bernini
From Up on a Hill (2022)

A little over a year after last October’s You Got Me (which snuck onto Rosy Overdrive’s 2021 Year-End list), Gabriel Bernini is already back with a formal follow-up in Up on a Hill. Although Up on a Hill (the record) is something of a departure from You Got Me, its title track and lead single contains the same off-the-cuff-but-smartly-written-sounding folk rock energy. Read more about Up on a Hill here.

“Laurel Heights”, The Laughing Chimes
From Zoo Avenue (2022, Slumberland)

The latest EP from Athens, Ohio duo The Laughing Chimes is a six-song wonderland of vintage jangle pop that evokes both Dunedin and Dayton. Evan and Quinn Seurkamp show a surprising amount of world-building in Zoo Avenue, from the titular street to giddy highlight “Laurel Heights” (which is “a place for you, for me, for everyone”, Evan declares in the chorus). Read more about Zoo Avenue here.

“How It Was Before”, EggS
From A Glitter Year (2022, Prefect/Howlin Banana/Safe in the Rain)

Alright—EggS’ A Glitter Year is another record that is very up Rosy Overdrive’s alley. A Game Theory comparison got me through the door, and I don’t really hear it, but the stuff it does actually remind me of (a louder Miracle Legion, Eleventh Dream Day with a saxophone) isn’t that far off. The Paris band apparently recently added multiple members of En Attendant Ana, and it definitely does sound like big-tent indie rock—but without losing the songs in the throng. “How It Was Before” is a particularly anthemic track off the record, with an excellent male/female dueling vocal structure.

“Grim Judy”, Fazed on a Pony
From It’ll All Work Out (2022, Trace/Untrace)

Rosy Overdrive is writing about under-the-radar New Zealand bands again, big surprise. Fazed on a Pony isn’t the typical Kiwi pop that gets covered here, though—Peter McCall presents a humble but uplifting folk rock sound on It’ll All Work Out that lands somewhere in between the sparer side of Wild Pink and the busier side of Friendship. Album highlight “Grim Judy”—alright, alright, I guess you can call its twinkling verses “jangle pop” if you really want to. But that chiming guitar part is unmistakably dressing up what’s actually gorgeous mid-tempo country rock at its core.

“Just Like That”, Kevin Dorff
From Silent Reply (2022)

The grunge-y, alt-rock-tinged “Just Like That” is just as impactful as some of the more ballad-like songs on Silent Reply, if not more so. The electric structure of the song (built around a simple but effective riff) causes Dorff’s unspooled lyrics to hit particularly hard, and Dorff deftly balances the “that’s just how it is” attitude of the titular sentiment with the song’s parting lines (“I wish that I had cared for you / I wish I could have caught you”). Read more about Silent Reply here.

“Sniveller”, The Tubs
From Dead Meat (2023, Trouble in Mind)

Another month, another great song from an ex-Joanna Gruesome band. The Tubs released their solid debut EP, Names, last year, and “Sniveller” is the first taste of the first full-length from Owen Williams and George Nicholls’ latest band, although Williams is also in Ex-Vöid. Former Joanna Gruesome vocalist Lan McArdle is in Ex-Vöid, not The Tubs, but she sings harmonies with Williams here in the chorus to “Sniveller”, in which the song goes from a prowling post-punk instrumental to a soaring pop anthem. Got all that?

“Mother Nature Is Son”, The Smashing Times
From Bloom (2022, Meritorio)

“Mother Nature Is Son” is something of the reward at the end of Bloom, the third album from Baltimore’s “psychedelic twee freakbeat” band The Smashing Times. Not that the rest of Bloom isn’t an accessible album, per se, but after pushing forward in terms of spaciness and patchy, sewn-together guitar pop, the group closes things out with a strong, three-and-a-half minute pure jangle pop single. When the song shifts to the refrain halfway through, and then filters it through that brief melodic guitar solo—there’s the payoff within the payoff.

“Norman 4”, The Sylvia Platters
(2022)

I highlighted a song from The Sylvia Platters’ latest EP, June’s Youth Without Virtue, in last month’s playlist—the British Columbia jangle pop band are already back with “Norman 4”, an excellent one-off (for now, at least) single. If the harmonies and the song’s wistful, eternal-youth feeling weren’t enough to give it away, the title of “Norman 4” spells it out: the members of this band are big Teenage Fanclub fans. The song lands decidedly on the punchier side of the TFC spectrum—it’s gorgeous, sure, but it’s got the right amount of fuzz in its guitar tone.

“Julie K”, T54
From Drone Attacks (Remastered and Expanded) (2022, Ally)

Christchurch, New Zealand’s Joe Sampson is best-known to me as a member of the Salad Boys (along with, at various points, Brian Feary and James Sullivan from Jim Nothing, and Ben Woods). Before that group, he led the loud shoegaze/noise pop trio T54, whose 2011 EP Drone Attacks has recently been given an expanded reissue from Ally Records. The live-in-studio recordings and demos are interesting, but the EP’s six original songs, remastered here, still thunder satisfyingly, and the cascading “Julie K” particularly nails an excellent pop rock hook among the fuzz.

“Tyler”, dimber
From Always Up to You (2022, Dead Broke)

I don’t know too much about dimber, a Los Angeles group that declares themselves to be “upbeat music for downbeat people”, promises “charged up rainbow sparkles”, and makes a fuzzy, revved-up, poppy version of trans punk rock on their debut record, Always Up to You. Plenty of the album’s dozen tracks do the job in terms of electrifying pop rock, not the least of which is “Tyler”. It’s anthemic, melodic punk at its core, featuring plenty of “oh-oh”s and triumphant guitar leads contrasting with the song’s lyrics (“I don’t think I ever wanna leave this house again / It’s far too sunny out”).

“Lay Low for the Letdown”, Beulah
From Handsome Western States (1997, Elephant Six)

I’ve loved Beulah’s two “big” albums, 1999’s When Your Heartstrings Break and 2001’s The Coast Is Never Clear, for quite a while, but I wasn’t sure what to expect going into their less-discussed 1997 debut record. Well: it rules, and in its own way it’s just as good as those two. Its lo-fi sound is a shock relative to the shiny indie pop they’d settle on later—album highlight “Lay Low for the Letdown” finds the midpoint between The Apples in Stereo and Superchunk, which I didn’t know I needed until I heard it.

“Splintered”, Gordon M. Phillips
(2022)

For the second time in as many years, Downhaul’s Gordon Phillips has released a one-off new song as the calendar winds down. While 2021’s “The Hotel” was reminiscent of the country-rock that Phillips has made with Signals Midwest’s Maxwell Stern, “Splintered” veers away both from that song and the sparse acoustic sound of his last solo album. Although Phillips’ unmistakable vocals anchor the song as well as ever, “Splintered” finds the singer-songwriter venturing into experimental territory—it has a kind of dark, bass-driven post-punk groove, and Phillips messes with his voice a bit. It’s not quite the cinematic emo-rock of Downhaul’s PROOF—it’s just another intriguing path for Phillips to venture down whenever he chooses.

“Yuma, AZ”, Damien Jurado
From Waters Ave. S. (1997, Sub Pop)

I’ve finally gotten around to listening to Damien Jurado’s 1997 debut album, and I can confirm that he already sounded like Damien Jurado twenty-five years ago. Waters Ave. S. is, unsurprisingly, more barebones than some of his commercial-peak 2000s records—it reminds me of the first Richard Buckner album, which is an unhelpful pull, because if you know Richard Buckner you probably know Damien Jurado. Album highlight “Yuma, AZ” features horn and harmonium accents to its electric guitar skeleton.

“Spitfire Susie”, Starry Skies
From Small Wonders (2022)

“Spitfire Susie” was a real person, apparently; Susie Ross was the neighbor and friend of Starry Skies frontperson Warren McIntyre, and she passed away last year at 99 years old. “Spitefire Susie” the song, then, is the Glasgow indie pop band’s tribute to Ross; effectively a century-spanning biography condensed into a four-minute guitar pop tune that’s incredibly infectious and undeniably tender.

“Puppy Island”, Zero Percent APR
From Higher and Higher Forever (2022, Spared Flesh)

You know what, Zero Percent APR? Puppies do play on Puppy Island—you’re so right. “Puppy Island” is an album highlight hidden back in the second half of the appropriately-titled Higher and Higher Forever, a twenty-three song journey from the lo-fi psychedelic pop duo of Cody Dosier and Juli Keller. The song starts with a gentle, 60s-influenced guitar pop base before Zero Percent APR let it float off with synths and, yes, dog noises in the second half.

“Please Remember”, Subsonic Eye
From Melt the Wax (2022, Topshelf)

Rosy Overdrive has been a fan of Subsonic Eye for this blog’s entire existence—last year’s Nature of Things was one of the first albums covered in Pressing Concerns and made the end-of-year list. Needless to say, the news that they’ve signed to Topshelf Records is very welcome in this household. While the Singaporean band have a new record coming, the brief three-song Melt the Wax EP contains plenty to enjoy in the meantime, particularly opening track and highlight “Please Remember”, an electric but pensive piece of jangle pop.

“Danny Green”, The John-Pauls
From Bon Mots (2022, Aagoo)

Another Phillip John-Paul-led highlight from Bon Mots, the triumphant chugging sound of “Danny Green” effectively matches “Same Dweller, Different Cave” in its joyous 90s indie rock anthem striving. “Sometimes things in the garbage shine,” declares Phillip in the chorus, while sounding kind of like Calvin Johnson fronting a bar band. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of professional basketball can explain how that relates to the titular Danny Green, who currently plays for the Memphis Grizzlies. Read more about Bon Mots here.

“Thin As Flags”, Cindy
From Typical Girls Vol. 6 (2022, Emotional Response)

The latest entry in Emotional Response Records’ Typical Girls compilation series continues to highlight vital and perhaps under-appreciated women and female-fronted bands in the punk, post-punk, and indie pop landscapes. The latter is fully on display with “Thin As Flags”, a sleepy, molasses-slow compilation highlight that’s another pop gem from Cindy, the solo project of Karina Gill (also of Flowertown). Read more about Typical Girls Vol. 6 here.

“Minor Fame”, Big Big Bison
From Big Big Bison (2022)

Big Big Bison is the trio of Matt Schwerin, Ben Grigg, and Kelly Johnson, who used to play in a band called Geronimo!. Since then, Grigg has kept busy with Whelpwisher and Babe Report, and Johnson has the underrated Milked, and now they’re all together in a new band with a solid six-song EP to their name. Highlight “Minor Fame” sounds like a full-band version of the humble but loud and hooky alt-rock Grigg’s been putting out as Whelpwisher (see “Loud Wine Cult”, “Deaf to False Metal”).

“I’ve Got a Feeling”, Ivy
From Apartment Life (1997, Bar None)

Yes, Ivy is very good and Apartment Life (which seems to be their most beloved album) is full of dreamy but incredibly sturdy indie pop songs. The trio, which included a still-establishing-himself-as-a-generational-songwriter Adam Schlesinger, nail a particular sound of the 90s with “I’ve Got the Feeling”, in which guitars and a drum machine comfortably, smoothly provide a backdrop for lead singer Dominique Durand.

Pressing Concerns: Nightshift, Dot Dash, Husbands, Evening Glass

Welcome to the last Pressing Concerns of November! This time, we look at new albums from Nightshift, Dot Dash, and Husbands, and a new EP from Evening Glass. This will be the last Pressing Concerns before Rosy Overdrive year-end season begins, but I plan to mix in a few of these in with the end-of-year list posts as well.

I’ll link the new Rosy Overdrive Discord server here again. 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.

Nightshift – Made of the Earth

Release date: November 25^th
Record label: Trouble in Mind
Genre: Post-punk, experimental rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull track: Locked Out

In February of last year, Glasgow’s Nightshift released their second record and Trouble in Mind debut, Zoë. While that album clearly sounded put together by a group of musicians intimately familiar with no wave and the experimental end of post-punk music, it also had a minimalist indie pop accessibility to it. Made of the Earth is not the proper follow-up to Zoë; it features a collection of outtakes and unreleased tunes from the same era as their sophomore record. This cassette presents an alternate version of the band, not a completely different one, but the players—guitarist/vocalist/clarinet player Georgia Harris, keyboardist/vocalist Eothen Stearn, drummer/vocalist Chris White, bassist/vocalist Andrew Doig (also of Order of the Toad and Robert Sotelo), and since-departed guitarist David Campbell—feel a bit more tuned in to the weird and insular here.

Opening track “Hologram” reflects the minimalist, hypnotic post-punk of Zoë highlights like “Piece Together”, although its doggedly-repeated rhythm-based structure puts the song nearly into psychedelic territory—a side of Nightshift that is echoed one song later in the Stereolab drone-pop of “Flower”. The harmonies and strings in “Locked Out” make it one of the more outwardly beautiful songs on Made of the Earth, albeit in a downcast, un-flashy way. The other end of the spectrum is “Landlord”, in which the band decline to trade in any subtlety whatsoever, implore the listener to “know [their] rights and legislation”, and explicitly call for a rent strike (minimalist post-punk is, in fact, good for getting a clear message across, too!).

Made of the Earth surprises toward the end with the noisy “Stimuli”, whose instrumental threatens to eat itself alive in a surprisingly chaotic turn for Nightshift. Not as striking but still impressive is the pastoral, almost-Mekons-y violin post-punk of “The Painting You Live With”, in which the band close the record by amplifying the warmth in their sound. Made of the Earth is made from the same basic ingredients as Zoë, and is a good argument for, at least in Nightshift’s hands, the mutability and depths contained within them. (Bandcamp link)

Dot Dash – Madman in the Rain

Release date: November 5^th
Record label: The Beautiful Music
Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: CD, digital
Pull track: Forever Far Out

Dot Dash hail from Washington, D.C., and over the past decade or so they’ve been flying under the radar and reliably putting out records with a familiar-sounding but welcome and distinct spin on mid-1980s college rock. In short, they’re the kind of band I love to cover on Rosy Overdrive. On their seventh record, Madman in the Rain, the group (now a trio comprised of vocalist/guitarist Terry Banks, drummer Danny Ingram, and bassist Hunter Bennett) prove that they know their way around a jangly power pop hook, and the album as a whole contains a lot of melodic and upfront bass work that nails a particular subset of 1980s new wave and post-punk.

Although they may be more committed to straight guitar pop than Wire, Dot Dash earn their namesake with their evoking of the more accessible moments of that group, and also with Banks’ vocals, which feel subtly emotional in a Colin Newman-esque way. Madman in the Rain opens with a massive pop hit in “Forever Far Out”, and the Cars and Knack-referencing “Tense & Nervous” not long after rivals it with a roller-rink synth hook in the chorus. The 60s organs stabs of “Animal Stone” and the mid-tempo jangly title track reach into other eras of guitar pop to add some color to the record’s mid-section. Dot Dash sound energetic and excited to present their catchy melodies—this carries well over into the second half of Madman in the Rain, but there’s also an unmistakable theme of mortality hovering over the record’s flip side.

It peaks out a little bit in what feels like a power meditation in “Saints / Pharaohs” (“the lonely road narrows…paved with bones and marrow”) and it fully grips the final four songs, from the harsh realization that “Everything = Dust” (“A simple FYI would have sufficed,” mutters Banks) to the sleep-induced clarity of “Wokeupdreaming” (“I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m afraid of being dead”) to the cheerful sendoff of “Dead Gone”. The dozen songs on Madman in the Rain are all solid in their own right, but the way Dot Dash use them to touch on heavy, universal topics is, perhaps, the strongest demonstrator of their true devotion to this sound. To them, there’s nothing that can’t be tackled with jangly guitar pop. (Bandcamp link)

Husbands – A Diary Index

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Exit Zine
Genre: Slowcore, 90s indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull track: Subject

Husbands are a Boston slowcore group that have been quietly releasing records over the past half-decade or so—A Diary Index is their fourth full-length album, in addition to a few EPs and singles. On their latest record, Husbands is still led by guitarist/bassist/vocalist Aiden Page, who also runs Candlepin Records (Garb, Poorly Drawn House, MX LONELY), and also features musical contributions from longtime collaborator Patrick Kenny, multi-instrumentalist Bradford Krieger (who also engineered, mixed, and mastered the album), and two different keyboardists/synth players (Logan Kramer and Katie Rose Byrne). A Diary Index is the kind of sparse, electric slowcore that fits in well with the relatively recent wave of Duster devotees, but there are a few other touchstones to Husbands’ sound.

Page’s voice isn’t buried throughout A Diary Index, letting the vocal melodies hold as much sway over the songs as the atmosphere the music conjures up, and the band (which calls themselves “slowgaze”) veers between simple and uncomplicated to beautiful wall-of-sound in a way that reminds me of Bedhead. The record starts off humbly enough, with the straightforward “Believe in Yrself” and the gorgeous piano ballad “Subject”. Songs like “Hanging Halo” and “Punchline” find Husbands with their amps cranked up a bit, although Page’s vocals and shimmery, floating guitar leads remain prominently in the mix. A Diary Index wanders between these poles through twelve tacks, favoring two-to-three-minute dispatches that flow into each other rather than trying their hand at six-plus minute “slowcore epics”—they’re brief but captivating journal entries. (Bandcamp link)

Evening Glass – Steady Motion

Release date: October 7^th
Record label: Crazy Ha!
Genre: Jangle pop, folk rock
Formats: Digital
Pull track: Admiration, Envy, & Love

Steady Motion is the debut EP from Sonoma, California’s Evening Glass (and their second release total, following 2020’s “Lifelong Dream” single); like a good deal of new bands hailing from the Bay Area, the four-piece make themselves at home in the world of jangly, blissful guitar pop music. Evening Glass commit themselves to the quieter, subtler side of jangle pop throughout Steady Motion’s six tracks—lead singer and guitarist Zachary Carroll’s gentle vocals guide these songs through peaceful, pastoral instrumentals inspired both musically and lyrically by the vast, rolling ocean.

Opening track “Stomping Through the Cosmos” is not exactly a “stomp” per se, but the upbeat instrumental features prominent guitar leads and is one of the more outwardly propulsive tracks on Steady Motion. Evening Glass hone their languidity with the transfixing, rippling “On the Ocean” one song later, as well as with the dreamy ballad “Row Back” (which Carroll and Chris Miller nevertheless shade with some animated guitar play). “Admiration, Envy, & Love” has a mid-tempo, sticky guitar hook that, combined with Carroll’s sung-spoken words that strive to tackle universality in humanity in the form of a brief pop song, feels especially Flying Nun-esque. It’s true to say that a six-song jangle pop EP isn’t going to change the world, but what this particular one can do is make one take in and observe the world as it already is that much more keenly. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The John-Pauls, Staffers, Smirk, Elk City

Welcome to a special Monday Pressing Concerns! It appears that I haven’t bothered with an intro to these posts for a bit, so here’s some housekeeping: recent Rosy Overdrive highlights include Rosy Overdrive Label Watch, in which I choose favorite 2022 releases from a dozen of my favorite labels.

Oh, and there is now a Rosy Overdrive Discord channel: here is a link to join if you’re on Discord. It’s pretty simple at the moment–like your favorite DIY venue, we’ve gotta get a few more people in the door before things really get going. And I have created a Mastodon account for Rosy Overdrive: find it at https://mastodon.world/@rosyoverdrive if you’re on there. I may have never linked my Instagram in any of these posts, either, so: I’m @RosyOverdrive there too.

Anyway: today, Pressing Concerns looks at new albums from The John-Pauls, Staffers, Smirk, and Elk City. This is the only post for this week–Americans, enjoy your Thanksgiving, and we’ll be back soon after. If you’re looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

The John-Pauls – Bon Mots

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: Aagoo
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull track: Same Dweller, Different Cave

The John-Pauls are a five-piece, three-guitar, two-vocalist group from Texas who make a particularly welcoming version of the vintage 1990s-inspired indie rock that you, as a Rosy Overdrive reader, probably like. It feels wrong to call Bon Mots, the band’s second album, “stripped down”, given that it’s made with three guitar players and a keyboardist (Mikila John-Paul, also one of the band’s two lead singers). Nevertheless, the record has a straightforward, no-frills sound that can be very rewarding when one has the songs and energy to back it up—and with Bon Mots, The John-Pauls absolutely do. As I never miss a opportunity to compare a band to Silkworm, Bon Mots feels like the Italian Platinum era of the band, where they would dial up any of their favorite sub-genres of indie rock on any given track and nail it perfectly.

Bon Mots bounces back and forth in terms of formality, but stays steady in terms of pop hooks. Mikila gives a regal air to the easing-in of the opening title track, the timeless-sounding “Didn’t I”, and the gently shimmering “O.O.O.”; Phillip John-Paul, meanwhile, sings loose enough to match the gleeful running-around of “Same Dweller, Different Cave” and the triumphant chugging sound of “Danny Green” (which kind of sounds like Calvin Johnson fronting a bar band). The second half of Bon Mots messes with this formula a bit, but in a welcome way—Phillip and Mikila duet in the sweet, refreshing “Kindness”, and penultimate track “No Names” balloons itself up to seven minutes merely by expanding the frame of a typical John-Pauls song. The instrumental second half of “No Names” gives way to the brief “Forgetness” in a way that feels exactly right—there’s precious little on Bon Mots that feels unearned or superfluous in any way. (Aagoo link) (Bandcamp link)

Staffers – Asleep at the Wheel

Release date: October 14^th
Record label: Propane Exchange
Genre: Alt-country, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull track: Crop Rot

Although Ryan McKeever is currently based in Washington, D.C., the fourth record from his Staffers project is one of the more Nebraska-sounding albums I’ve heard this year. The Omaha-originating singer-songwriter enlists Cornhusker State musicians including Anna McClellan (piano, drums, vocals), Megan Siebe (vocals), and The David Nance Group’s Jim Schroeder (mixing) on Asleep at the Wheel (as well as a host of other musicians that give the record a full-band sound), and the album’s weary country-rock lands somewhere between Nance’s blown-out Midwestern garage rock and Simon Joyner’s more homespun folk. Group effort or no, it’s still very much McKeever’s record, with Asleep at the Wheel’s various moods (jangle pop, alt-country, folk rock) all anchored by McKeever’s dry vocals and deceptively deep lyrics.

McKeever’s writing on Asleep at the Wheel feels personal in a less-than-refined way, seeming to track his thought process through up and downs. The sweet guitar pop of “Love You More” ping-pongs between professing and longing, giving voice to some of McKeever’s interpersonal doubts, and “The Bar Is Closed” also features McKeever making an effort to spend time with someone who, he wonders, may not be as fully committed (“How do you put up with me? Is there somewhere that you’d rather be?”). McKeever pulls himself out of these spirals—find him reaching zen while listening to “classic radio” or getting distracted by a partner while trying to read a book—only to declare “Saturday’s ruined” a few songs later. “You’ve got scars, at least you’re alive,” sings McKeever multiple times on the record (in both “Bent Out of Shape” and “Day of the Triffids”), sounding like he’s reaching a different conclusion on what it means to him each time. Asleep at the Wheel is an album for wonderers and wanderers. (Bandcamp link)

Smirk – Material

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Garage punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull track: Souvenir

Nick Vicario began making music as Smirk in 2020—his first two releases under the name, last year’s aptly titled EP and LP, became sleeper hits in the world of garage rock, and this year’s Material feels like a worthy continuation of what Vicario started a year ago. The record zips through ten raging but hooky tracks in 24 minutes; although Vicario gets vocal, instrumental, and even lyrical help on a few songs, Material has a “one-man-band” feel, with Vicario taking fairly minimalist structures and utilitarian percussion and infusing them with a blown-out, all-in energy. There’s a dark streak to Material—this is a West Coast, L.A. garage rock record, sure, but “Material World’s Unfair” opens the album on a pummeling post-punk, even somewhat goth note, and Smirk continues toeing the line from there.

Vicario’s vocals frequently sit a bit low in the mix throughout Material, but he’s still able to evoke paranoia and unease against the instrumentals of tracks like the torrential sprint of “Symmetry” and the careening “Living in Hell”. The record’s poppier, more “accessible” moments are also some of the most interesting ones—“Souvenir” contains 80s new wave flourishes, melodic bass hooks, and a Vicario vocal that flirts with fully embracing melody, and the mid-tempo, sauntering “Hopeless” pulls out call-and-response vocals and some nice, smooth guitar leads. “Revenge” features guest vocals from Iphigenia Foie (whose aural sneering, landing pretty far away from Vicario’s vocal style, suits the song well) and some car-alarm synths. Material signs off with “At the Pantomime”, getting some more stabbing guitars and a galloping drumbeat in one last time under the buzzer and summing Smirk up so far quite well. (Bandcamp link)

Elk City – Above the Water

Release date: October 21^st
Record label: Magic Door
Genre: Folk rock, dream pop, jangle pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Digital
Pull track: That Someone

New York and New Jersey’s Elk City have slowly but surely amassed an impressive discography, having released a half-dozen records since their debut in 2000. October’s Above the Water finds the band continuing to hone their deep, layered sound, mixing swirling, psychedelic folk rock and dream pop into their guitar-driven art pop in a way that somewhat belies their lean 1990s indie rock roots (the band features Versus guitarist Richard Baluyut on bass, Luna guitarist Sean Eden, and Above the Water was released via Magic Door, the imprint co-founded by Guided by Voices drummer Kevin March).

Lead vocalist Renée LoBue has a confidence that isn’t diminished or hidden by the rich instrumentals around her; opening track “That Someone” is a driving pop-rock tune that combines LoBue’s urgent singing with handclaps, careening organ, and a thick low-end for a hypnotic effect. The jangly folk rock of “Apology Song” is perhaps more “easy listening” in the traditional sense, blistering guitar solo aside. With only seven songs, the tracks of Above the Water really have space to stretch out—even the most “minimalist” song on the record, the mostly-acoustic “A Family”, still features violin and electric guitar flourishes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in six-minute closing track “Floating Above the Water”, which begins as an almost ambient, languid electric guitar piece before crescendoing into a crashing, post-rock finish to end the record. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Joan Kelsey, Cheval de Frise, The Laughing Chimes, Convinced Friend

Joan Kelsey – Standing Out on the Grass

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Indie folk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull track: Pachomius

The latest release from the consistently solid Dear Life Records is a humble-sounding but strong entry to their discography. Standing Out on the Grass is Seattle singer-songwriter Joan Kelsey’s second release on the label, following 2020’s House of Mercy and a handful of self-released EPs and a full-length beforehand. Kelsey’s newest record is an extraordinarily accessible and listenable indie folk record, carried heavily by their comforting, melodic vocals and featuring a host of musical contributions from familiar faces to Rosy Overdrive readers (Evan Marré of Russel the Leaf, Ben Seretan, Michael Cormier O’Leary of Friendship).

Guest list aside, Kelsey is the unambiguous center of the album, with the instrumental flourishes coloring the edges of a stark collection of songs that reminds me of last year’s Dave Scanlon album. Standing Out on the Grass is openly a record about grief, written in the aftermath of Kelsey losing a loved one to suicide, the signs of which are present throughout the album. Opening track “Alone” is as pleasant of a listen (led by Kelsey’s finger-picked acoustic guitar and Connor Armbruster’s violin) as its lyrics are heavy: “I know you loved me / Even though you couldn’t say it,” sings Kelsey in the refrain, and then inverting the pronouns when they repeat the line later—and the line that gives the album its title is just as affecting.

Kelsey’s lifting voice matches the gently flowing folk of “Pachomius”, with a wide-ranging lyric that touches on everything from the titular historical figure to Kelsey breaking down outside a Trader Joe’s. Standing Out on the Grass stirs in its middle with “Hero”, in which Kelsey pushes their vocals to compliment a busy instrumental that actually features a distorted electric guitar-colored refrain. Kelsey and their collaborators color the songs of Standing Out on the Grass with just the amount of embellishments (like the clarinet in “Aiden” and the saxophone of “Survivor”) that the material deserves. (Bandcamp link)

Cheval de Frise – Cheval de Frise (2022 Reissue)

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: Computer Students
Genre: Math rock, post-rock, experimental rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull track: Connexion monstrueuse entre un objet et son image

Cheval de Frise rose from Bordeaux, France around the turn of the century; the duo released two full-lengths and an EP before disbanding quietly in the mid-2000s. The instrumental group, comprised of guitarist Thomas Bonvalet and drummer Vincent Beysselance, nevertheless left enough of a mark to be remembered by label Computer Students. CS has previously put together elaborate reissues of other less-than-remembered underground groups like Oxes and Big’n, and this year they have resurrected Cheval de Frise’s 2000 self-titled debut album and pressed it to vinyl for the first time.

Bonvalet plays an amplified classical guitar throughout Cheval de Frise; although the record fits the descriptor of “math rock” with its odd time signatures and exploratory guitar playing, this wrinkle in their setup assures that the album retains a unique sound. The songs on Cheval de Frise feel wobbly—six-minute opening track “Connexion monstrueuse entre un objet et son image” begins with the classical guitar sounding very much like a classical guitar before Bonvalet shifts into more “traditional” rock sounding music later in the song. Similarly, “Construction d’écorces d’arbres” starts off slowly and deliberately before entering into stop-and-start noise rock territory, and ending with a transcendent gallop.

Opening behemoth aside, the tracks on Cheval de Frise are surprisingly brief, frequently coming in bursts of around two minutes in length—and these songs are furthermore divided into subsections, moments even. Some of the most memorable moments on Cheval de Frise include (but are not limited to) a fleeting strut that arises in “Langue hastée” and the massive riff that briefly takes over “Lundi deux mars”—and there are a couple of seconds toward the end of “Incliné et chenu” where the music sounds like a gong being rung. All this is being created with relatively rudimentary instrumentation, as “Douche froide, harmonium”, one minute of classical guitar spiderwebbing, reminds us toward the end of the record. (Computer Students link)

The Laughing Chimes – Zoo Avenue

Release date: November 18^th
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Jangle pop, lo-fi power pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull track: Laurel Heights

I’m more familiar with southeastern Ohio than I’d like to be. It’s a land of Bob Evans restaurants, moderately-sized hills, and very little else. It doesn’t seem like a breeding ground for the next great jangle pop band—but Evan and Quinn Seurkamp seem blissfully unaware of this. The two teenage brothers play vintage-sounding jangle rock that recalls the best of classic Flying Nun Records and the mid-fi, wide-eyed sound of early Guided by Voices (which began a couple hours to their west). Evan is also in Patches, who released an excellent record that dealt in everything from bright power pop to dark post-punk earlier this year—with The Laughing Chimes, he and Quinn hone in squarely on the jangly side of their influences to great success on their latest EP’s six songs.

The Robert Pollard comparison is as much for their lyrics and subjects as for their sound and geography; the Seurkamp brothers build a sugary utopia on Zoo Avenue, from opening track “Ice Cream Skies” to the giddy “Laurel Heights” (“a place for you, for me, for everyone”) to the drive through the title track’s street. Evan’s vocals are pitch-perfect for this kind of music, melodic and enthusiastic while wavering a little bit in a melancholic, wistful way. The guitars on Zoo Avenue are always chiming; they soar in the first two, single-ready songs, and they shade the more pensive songs as well, like the slightly-more-psychedelic “Airplane Under Water” and the closing acoustic ballad “King with the Hawthorne Crown”. Next time I’m driving from Dayton to Point Pleasant, I’ll have to remember to put Zoo Avenue on—maybe it’ll unlock something. (Bandcamp link)

Convinced Friend – Convinced Friend

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Relief Map
Genre: Indie folk, alt-country
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull track: White Collar

The Rhode Island-based A.S. Wilson has been playing in bands for a decade at least, although Convinced Friend (produced by Bradford Krieger of Courtney and Brad) is his first solo album. Convinced Friend slots, in a big tent sense, under the “folk-country” umbrella due to Wilson’s occasional use of acoustic instruments and some hints of a southern twang in the Louisiana-born singer’s voice. Really, though, Wilson is a singer-songwriter above any kind of genre adherent, taking influences from artists like David Bazan who let the core of the song dictate its dressings, whether that’s stark or layered, dream pop or country rock.

Convinced Friend opens with the full-sounding, fuzzy folk rock of “White Collar”, the cascading guitars never overwhelming Wilson’s earnest lyrics that take stock and stare down the overwhelming nature of modern life. The rest of the record isn’t as much of a “rock” album as its opener would suggest, but there’s still plenty going on in Convinced Friend. Songs like “Sackcloth” and “Taken Apart” feature layered dream pop synths and R.E.M.-esque southern jangle pop guitars hidden in the mix, and album closer “All at Once” takes this sound to hypnotic levels. Elsewhere, Wilson embraces folk troubadour mode, like in the roaming alt-country of “Safeway” and the mostly-acoustic “Wander”. “Muttering God” is Convinced Friend’s other “rocker”, with steady bass-driven verses cresting in the chorus. Wilson holds together the various aspects of Convinced Friend’s sound nicely, creating a record that sounds of a piece. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Rosy Overdrive Label Watch 2022

Rosy Overdrive has long been vocal about its love of small, independent record labels. They’ve consistently been a key way to find good, varied, new-to-me music, and they remain a valuable, people-based resource for music discovery in an age where the “industry” is openly trying to steer us away from such things. I’ve been thinking about labels a lot recently, and I’ve decided to check in on a dozen of my favorite still-active labels and see what they’ve been up to this year as a way of acknowledging their import. I’ve chosen my favorite 2022 release from each of these labels, plus an “honorable mention” (which can be either my second favorite, something I thought didn’t get as much attention as it should’ve, or something I didn’t have time to review in Pressing Concerns but still merits a closer look).

This is not a “best record labels of 2022” list (although there would, of course, be some overlap with such a list). I chose these labels based on their output from the last half-decade or so; some of these imprints had a relatively lean year this year. Pulling selections from those ones was, in a way, more fun, as it put me onto some records I wouldn’t have listened to otherwise. With this in mind, I’d encourage anyone who’s unfamiliar with any of these record labels to check out their back catalogs beyond 2022.

To read about many more records, some released by these labels, as well as by many other great ones I didn’t have space for here, visit the site archive.

Lame-O

RO Pick: Mo Troper, MTV

The fifth record from Portland’s Mo Troper (hence the “V”) is the power pop songwriter’s first for Lame-O, and it picks up the off-the-cuff-thread left hanging by last year’s Dilettante. Frequently recorded with in-the-red fuzziness, MTV swings from spare and acoustic to noisy and chaotic but remains compelling throughout. (Read more)

Honorable Mention: Big Nothing, Dog Hours

The ten tracks of Dog Hours evoke a very specific period of beginning-of-the-90s “college rock”—bands like late-period Replacements/early Paul Westerberg solo material, The Lemonheads, and Buffalo Tom. There’s a weariness to Dog Hours, but it doesn’t sacrifice hooks or pop songwriting either—it makes messiness and uncertainty sound simple and breezy. (Read more)

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Dazy, OUTOFBODY / Dust Star, Open Up That Heart / U.S. Highball, A Parkhead Cross of the Mind)

Feel It

RO Pick: CLASS, Epoca de Los Vaqueros

The debut record from Tucson’s CLASS is an exhilarating eight tracks and twenty minutes’ worth of garage-y punk rock that contains moments of sneering 70s punk, glam-inspired power pop, and hooky 90s indie rock; Epoca de Los Vaqueros hits all the great hallmarks of a Feel It Records release with time to spare. (Read more)

Honorable Mention: Green/Blue, Paper Thin

Paper Thin is Green/Blue’s second record of 2022 (following January’s Offerings) and finds the Minneapolis quartet absolutely nailing a particular subset of modern post-punk music. It’s unabashedly guitar-forward in a garage rock way, but it also embraces a dark, reverb-heavy sound that gives it an unexpected but welcome weight. (Read more)

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Crime of Passing, Crime of Passing / Delivery, Forever Giving Handshakes / Freak Genes, Hologram / Private Lives, Private Lives / Romero, Turn It On / Smirk, Material / Spread Joy, II / Star Party, Meadow Flower / Why Bother?, Lacerated Nights)

Post Present Medium

RO Pick: Chronophage, Chronophage

The third record from Austin’s Chronophage is a collaboratively-driven pop album that lets its charms sneak up on you. Chronophage has a looseness to it reflecting the band’s DIY punk ground, while the intricacy of songs like “Spirit Armor” and “Love Torn in a Dream” are developed so seamlessly that they don’t feel incongruous with the more straightforward numbers.

Honorable Mention: Non Plus Temps, Desire Choir

Non Plus Temps is a new Oakland, California duo made up of Andy Human (of Andy Human and the Reptoids) and music writer Sam Lefebvre, and with Desire Choir, they’ve made a potent record of kinetic, dub-influenced post-punk. Hypnotic basslines dance through eleven songs featuring a variety of guest instrumentalists and even vocalists.

Dear Life

RO Pick: MJ Lenderman, Boat Songs

MJ Lenderman continues his recent golden run of releases with Boat Songs, a front-to-back classic album that shows off Lenderman’s songwriting talents nonstop. The lo-fi fuzzy Lenderman is still present in songs like “SUV” and “Dan Marino”, and they get along nicely with the country rock groove of “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat” and the tender “TLC Cage Match”. (Read more)

Honorable Mentions: Shane Parish, Liverpool and The World Without Parking Lots, You’ll Have to Take My Word for It

I’ve covered a huge amount of Dear Life releases this year, but I wanted to cheat here and give a little space to two albums I didn’t have time to get around to. Shane Parish converts sea shanties to instrumental, electric guitar-based post-rock in Liverpool, and Ethan T. Parcell’s The World Without Parking Lots presents ten strong tracks draped in humble ambient folk with You’ll Have to Take My Word for It.

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Courtney and Brad, A Square Is a Shape of Power / Joan Kelsey, Standing Out on the Grass / Little Mazarn, Texas River Song / Anne Malin, Summer Angel / Ylayali, Separation)

Comedy Minus One

RO Pick: The Rutabega, Leading Up To

Leading Up To is The Rutabega’s first record since 2016, and the South Bend, Indiana duo come back after six years in full force. Singer/guitarist Joshua Hensley’s songwriting and vocal delivery are open-hearted and delicate, and he and drummer Garth Mason fully flesh these songs out with winding, adventurous guitar playing and pounding percussion. (Read more)

Honorable Mention: Hurry Up, Dismal Nitch

Comedy Minus One only released two records this year, but thankfully they’re both worth highlighting. Hurry Up is a fierce Pacific Northwest punk trio featuring Westin Glass and Kathy Foster of The Thermals and Maggie Vail of Bangs—if bands like X, Dead Moon, and the early roster of Kill Rock Stars are your favorites, then Dismal Nitch is for you. (Read more)

Exploding in Sound

RO Pick: Mister Goblin, Bunny

Sam Goblin has already established himself as an ambitious and talented songwriter post-Two Inch Astronaut, and his third record as Mister Goblin has added another wrinkle: a full band (bassist Aaron O’Neill and Options’ Seth Engel on drums) that is capable of realizing and elevating his songs without homogenizing them or stunting their evolution, whether it’s blistering post-hardcore or delicate indie folk. (Read more)

Honorable Mention: Disco Doom, Mt. Surreal

The latest record by long-running Swiss duo Disco Doom is called Mt. Surreal, which is a good name for the album. Its eight songs climb and build to heady heights, but find time to explore plenty of weird, off-the-cuff sidebars along the way in a manner befitting their 90s indie rock influences.

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Jobber, Hell in a Cell / Kal Marks, My Name Is Hell / Pet Fox, A Face in Your Life)

Trouble in Mind

RO Pick: Partner Look, By the Book

Partner Look’s debut record, By the Book, is a nonstop pleasant listen. The Melbourne quartet (featuring sisters Ambrin and Anila Hasnain and their partners Dainis Lacey and Lachlan Denton) shuffle through a dozen sparking indie pop songs, led by both shimmering synths and breezy, jangly guitars.

Honorable Mention: CB Radio Gorgeous, Tour Tape ’22

Recorded so that the band could have some music to sell on, yes, a tour, Tour Tape ’22 is an intriguing look at an up-and-coming Chicago punk band and a solid record in its own right. Featuring members of bands like C.C.T.V. and Negative Scanner, CB Radio Gorgeous rip through seven catchy, punchy garage punk tunes in a way that reflects the quartet’s experience.

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Nightshift, Made of the Earth)

Don Giovanni

RO Pick: Ex-Vöid, Bigger Than Before

Bigger Than Before is the full-length reunion of Joanna Gruesome singer-songwriters Alanna McArdle and Owen Williams, and they’ve created a big, hooky, indie pop record that’s got just a bit of an edge to it. It’s power pop at its wistful best, with McArdle and Williams’ harmonies being shot through with just enough noisiness to punch the songs up a tad.

Honorable Mention: Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires, Old-Time Folks

Old-Time Folks and Bigger Than Before are essentially 1A and 1B; it’s rare for a label to put out two records of this caliber in the same year. Lee Bains has been using his fiery southern punk rock to make grand statements effectively since he started The Glory Fires, and Old-Time Folks is no exception. It rocks as hard as Youth Detention and Dereconstructed at points, but also gives songs like “Rednecks” ample room to breathe.

Sophomore Lounge

RO Pick: Ace of Spit, Ace of Spit

St. Louis’ Ace of Spit are runaway-train garage rockers who embrace a proto-punk wildness and maximum amp-cranked distortion on their self-titled debut record. The songs on Ace of Spit are fuzz-drenched, surf-rock-flavored lasers, and all of them do their dirty work economically except for the eleven-minute journey of closing track “Kaw-Tikvah”.

Honorable Mention: Dan Melchior, CB Odyssey

“It’s a curse, but it could be worse / We could be in the back of a hearse,” sings Dan Melchior in the chorus of the lo-fi country tune “A Translucent Sultana”. This is the tightrope the British-born, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter walks on CB Odyssey, a record that occasionally indulges in contempt at the mundane world but attempts to contextualize it rather than be consumed by it.

Slumberland

RO Pick: Kids on a Crime Spree, Fall in Love Not in Line

Honorable Mention: Papercuts, Past Life Regression

Choosing two from Slumberland was the hardest one of these to do, as their releases have been uniformly, consistently sublime this year. In the end, I will go with Past Life Regression, the eighth record from Jason Quever’s Papercuts, which seems to have flown under the radar a bit. It’s a layered, lightly psychedelic and folky dream pop album that’s busy without sounding cluttered. (Read more)

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Artsick, Fingers Crossed / Jeanines, Don’t Wait for a Sign / The Laughing Chimes, Zoo Avenue / Peel Dream Magazine, Pad / The Reds, Pinks & Purples, They Only Wanted Your Soul)

12XU

RO Pick: Winged Wheel, No Island

No Island is truly a four-part collaborative record, pieced together remotely by a group of long-time indie rockers in drummer Fred Thomas, guitarist/bassist Cory Plump, guitarist Matthew Rolin, and vocalist Whitney Johnson. The album’s eight songs are hazy, dense, captivating indie-jam-rock–Thomas’ insistent drumming draws you in early on and, while Winged Wheel slow things down a bit later, it’s never by too much or for too long.

Honorable Mention: Lewsberg, In Your Hands

Originally released digitally in late 2021, 12XU put out Dutch indie rock band Lewsberg’s third album on vinyl in April. In Your Hands finds what had been a quartet reduced to a three-piece, and the 23-minute “mini-album” shifts the band’s sound toward minimalist, Velvets-esque indie guitar pop that still contains shades of the 90s underground rock influences that had previously animated the band.

Mt.St.Mtn.

RO Pick: The Intelligence, Lil’ Peril

With their eleventh album, The Intelligence continue to occupy a unique position within the frequently limiting world of garage punk. Lil’ Peril’s nine songs flirt with synths and electronics, hit as hard as anything in the rhythm section, and play with minimalism and open space in a way that reflects Intelligence leader Lars Finberg’s dub influences. (Read more)

Honorable Mention: Massage, Oh Boy

A reissue, but too good to pass up highlighting here. Originally released in 2018, the debut record from Los Angeles five-piece group Massage is a collection of songs that could pass as lost college rock singles shot through with a “rainy day” dreamy feeling. Oh Boy is a classic jangle pop album, hopping from slow and wistful to peppy and upbeat but always offering up gripping melodies. (Read more)

(Also reviewed on Rosy Overdrive: Flowertown, Half Yesterday / R.E. Seraphin, Swingshift / Tony Jay, Hey There Flower)

Pressing Concerns: Delivery, The Sonora Pine, The Rutabega, Garb

Delivery – Forever Giving Handshakes

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Feel It/Spoilsport/Anti Fade
Genre: Garage rock, garage punk
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull track: Baader Meinhof

The latest export from the fertile Australian garage punk scene, Melbourne’s Delivery are a five-piece group that, prior to Forever Giving Handshakes, only had a couple of singles to their name. Despite being a relatively new band, their debut full-length record sounds sharp and well-honed with a live-in-studio feel, reflective of the heavy gigging the quintet have done over the past year and a half. The range of Forever Giving Handshakes is also notable—a garage rock record where every song isn’t the same two-minute screed, it contains synths without it falling cleanly under “synthpunk” and offers up power pop and post-punk moments without either tipping the scales. Adding to the variety on the record, all the band’s members sing—even drummer Daniel Devlin is credited with backing vocals.

The first three songs on Forever Giving Handshakes sketch out the full spectrum of Delivery—the record opens on a surprisingly deft note with the tension-building group chant of “Picture This”, lets loose into a vintage garage rock ripper in “Poor-to-Middling Moneymaking”, and brings out a big synth-hook-featuring power pop single in “Baader Meinhof”. Delivery keep the energy high throughout—there’s no slouching throughout the midsection of Forever Giving Handshakes, which hops through the bass-led, spoke-sung stomp of “No Homes”, the spaghetti-punk strut of “The Complex”, and the giant-sounding “Lifetimer”. Nor does the back end of the record peter out, featuring a couple stretching-out moments in “Born Second” and closing track “Best Western”. Brevity is typically the name of the game when it comes to this kind of music—Delivery absolutely did not have to turn in a forty-minute record with little-to-no fat on it for their debut record to be a success, but that’s what Forever Giving Handshakes is. (Bandcamp link)

The Sonora Pine – II (2022 Remaster)

Release date: November 11^th
Record label: Husky Pants/Touch & Go
Genre: Slowcore, 90s indie rock, post-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull track: Long Ago Boy

The Sonora Pine rose from the ashes of Louisville post-rock group Rodan after their 1995 dissolution, formed from half of that band’s final lineup (bassist/vocalist Tara Jane O’Neil and drummer Kevin Coultas) with the addition of violinist Samara Lubelski and guitarist Sean Meadows. As hinted at by that lineup, The Sonora Pine veered hard away from the occasionally scorching post-hardcore side of Rodan and instead probed the empty spaces in between—something that became even more true on their second and final record, made after the departure of Meadows. Originally put out by Quarterstick, the especially spooky sub-label of Touch & Go Records, Ryley Walker’s Husky Pants Records and Touch & Go have remastered and re-pressed II twenty-five years after its 1997 release.

O’Neil handles all guitar duties on II, and while she had already amassed a notable discography between Rodan and The Sonora Pine’s self-titled debut, her playing on this record goes a long way towards cementing her place as the indie rock elder she is today. The songs on II stretch themselves out confidently, rising and falling while O’Neil’s guitar and Lubelski’s violin twist around each other. Songs like “Weak Kneed” and “Baby Come Home” are incredibly restrained, forcing the listener to train their full attention on the two string instruments’ interplay, O’Neil’s vocals fading in and out in the former and disappearing entirely in the latter.

Not everything on II is that stark, but it’s still by and large music in which to get completely lost. The two most rousing moments on II are the opening and closing tracks; the multipart “Eek” features prominent drum work from Coultas, while the eight-minute finale of “Linda Jo” finds O’Neil and Lubelski building an aural ladder to pull the listener out of II’s foggy valley interior before floating off at the end. (Bandcamp link)

The Rutabega – Leading Up To

Release date: October 28^th
Record label: Comedy Minus One
Genre: 90s indie rock, power pop, emo-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull track: Fences

The Rutabega is a South Bend, Indiana indie rock duo featuring the talents of singer-songwriter/guitarist Joshua Hensley and drummer Garth Mason. Hensley began self-releasing music as The Rutabega twenty years ago; Leading Up To is the second Rutabega record on Comedy Minus One (Silkworm, Eleventh Dream Day, Hurry Up) and first record under the name since 2016. Hensley’s songwriting and vocal delivery are open-hearted and delicate, and he and Mason blow these cores up with winding, adventurous guitar playing and pounding percussion. Leading Up To is an album made by the kind of band whose frontman who would record a Fountains of Wayne tribute EP and also be associated with the Steve Albini-originating PRF scene.

Leading Up To opens with a pair of sharp guitar pop tunes in the soaring “Plague” and the head-shaking “Fences”—both of them would be the “single track” on most records of this ilk, but the chorus of “Angles” a few tracks later arguably outshines both of them. One doesn’t have to wait too long in the record before The Rutabega show their headier side, however—the five-minute tension-building “Unsilent” really taps into something primal, and even that doesn’t prepare one for the ten-minute “Gone”, which repeats the title line over an oceanic instrumental in a transcendent way. The first five songs on Leading Up To are so strong that the last few tracks risk getting outshone, but there are surprises there, too—the dark groove, handclaps, and Hensley falsetto of “Barely” make it the weirdest song on the record, for one. There’s more than enough on Leading Up To to make it a substantial record all the way through. (Bandcamp link)

Garb – Stiff As a Feather

Release date: September 9^th
Record label: Candlepin
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Digital
Pull track: Shatter / Photoshop

Cathedral City, California’s Garb are a quartet that, like several other bands on their label home of Candlepin Records, probe the dusty and downcast corners of 90s indie rock. I wrote about the Poorly Drawn House record from Candlepin earlier this year; Garb’s sophomore record is less like that band’s haunted post-rock and more of an amalgamation of Duster-esque spacey slowcore, Grandaddy bummer pop, and sprawling, Modest Mouse-esque rural Western indie rock. Stiff As a Feather sees Garb transitioning from the solo project of M. Carrick O’Dowd to a collaborative, full-band sound with the ability to pull off the lengthy instrumental passages and soundscapes that shade the album.

Stiff As a Feather traffics in grounded but frayed indie rock, as evidenced by early tracks like the distant-yet-also-up-close-sounding “Comatose (Nothing Matters When I’m with You)” and the subtle but melodic instrumental of “Rotting in the Garden”. The straightforward, pop-Doug Martsch opening of “Shatter / Photoshop” is somewhat jarring coming after those songs, but it too drifts off eventually. The rest of the record travels through both lengthy indie rock journeys (“Tooth + Nail”, the final couple of tracks), and more straightforward slowcore-adjacent 90s indie rock tunes (“Birds”, “Mallard”). Garb come off engaged and focused throughout Stiff As a Feather, sounding as weary and beaten-down as the music requires, but never lethargic. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable: