A special, earlier-in-the-week Pressing Concerns looks at new albums from Supernowhere, Allegra Krieger, and Poorly Drawn House, and the latest EP from Cashmere Washington. In other news, expect the Rosy Overdrive February playlist post to go up about a week from now.
Release date: March 2nd Record label: Topshelf Genre: Indie rock, math rock, dreamy jangly rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Basement Window
One of the more promising under-the-radar developments of 2021 was Topshelf Records’ signing of Supernowhere and re-releasing their 2018 debut record Gestalt last August. The trio flipped from the Northeast to the Northwest in between their first record and its follow-up, relocating to Seattle from Burlington, Vermont, but you’d be hard-pressed to nail the songs on Skinless Takes a Flight to anywhere geographically. Because apparently the material for this record was born out of outtakes from Gestalt, it’s no surprise that Skinless Takes a Flight isn’t a huge departure, but it’s equally apparent that these songs have grown in the interstitial time. They’re are a little more refined, a little less noisy—the shimmery, ornamental playing of guitarist/vocalist Kurt Henry has always been important to Supernowhere’s sound, but it’s even more apparent here, feeling as central as bassist/usual lead singer Meredith Davey’s vocals.
Of course, Henry’s guitar isn’t the only element at work in spinning the webs of Skinless Takes a Flight—Davey’s bass and Matthew Anderson’s drumming are essential elements in constructing Supernowhere’s circular, tangled version of indie rock (the first two songs are called “Circles” and “Dirty Tangle”, by the way). Lead single “Basement Window” features a passionate vocal from Davey that would be equally at home on an emo-tinged rock or indie folk song, a melodic 80s post-punk bassline, and a recurring jangle-rock guitar arpeggio. It’s a very specific amalgamation of sounds that Supernowhere makes sound as natural as a three-chord garage rock stomp. Davey is an inviting frontperson, and Skinless Takes a Flight congeals into pure accessibility at times (like the Henry-sung dream pop of “The Hand”), but the record is an occasionally incidental pop record, if anything—like a wild animal wandering through a forest, equally likely to advance through brush and bramble as to walk along the main path. (Bandcamp link)
Allegra Krieger – Precious Thing
Release date: March 4th Record label: Northern Spy Genre: Indie folk Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Wake Me If I’m Asleep
Precious Thing opens with nearly two minutes of instrumental before the opening lines float in with Krieger remarking, “The ambulance’s siren mixes with the violin / There’s a body on a bed rolling down the street”. The world in which Precious Thing resides is already firmly established. The New York-based Allegra Krieger crossed the country to record the record, her third full-length, in the Bay Area with Luke Temple of Here We Go Magic, and the touches of Temple and a stable of other multi-instrumentalists are felt all over Precious Thing. The contributions of Rob Taylor are particularly notable—upright bass and strings accompany Krieger’s delicately-played, loping acoustic guitar and piano on every track. A folk record recorded in California with “respectable” instrumental flourishes runs the risk of being a pastiche affair, but Krieger the songwriter seems to have very little interest in that.
In Precious Thing, the past is relevant to Krieger, but mostly in regards to how it shapes the present, like how childhood communion experiences figure into “I Drank Wine” (“Thought they were bottles of blood, thought they were cleanin’ me up…Now I gotta get there myself”). The pedal steel and synth accents of “Just for the Night” put it into “cosmic country” territory even as Krieger grounds it on the subway, looking out the window. The title track features a different kind of passive observation, with Krieger taking the long view of something leaving her life (“I’m not giving up on you, I’m only giving time the chance to unravel into the past”). The closing track, “Walking”, takes on a simple folk ramble that’s perhaps Precious Thing’s most traditional moment musically, even as Krieger’s words turn romantic wanderlust on its head: “Now I go walking, just to do something / I don’t expect wonder or magic or rain”. The routine in “Walking”, captured this way, is forever, but so is everything that led up to it and, soon, whatever comes next. That’s a way to deal with eternity. (Bandcamp link)
Cashmere Washington – Almost Country for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them
Release date: February 25th Record label: Self-released Genre: Lo-fi indie rock Formats: Digital Pull track: Charlie Brown
I already touched on this one when I premiered the song “Rosy” (no relation) last week, but Almost Country for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them is worth taking a look at as a whole. The second in Cashmere Washington’s debut trio of EPs continues Thomas Dunn’s blend of indie rock with “beat-making and lo-fi production”—to give you an idea of where they’re coming from, the project is named after a song from jazz/math rock group Sharks Keep Moving, and Dunn has seemed to cite J. Dilla in promoting this EP more than any other influence. Almost Country for Old Men… feels more relaxed and confident than last year’s The Shape of Things to Come, not reaching as far into the emo tinge that appropriately colored that EP’s formative recollection. Instead, the new EP casts a wide net, appropriate for someone like Dunn’s dexterity.
The sleek piano-and-beats combo “Life Is” opens up Almost Country for Old Men… in more ways that just the obvious, and the other piano-centric song on the record, “Anywhere”, is a straight-up ballad. On the other end of the spectrum, “Charlie Brown” beefs up a slacker-rock body with a melodic bass groove, and “Rosy” flirts with pop punk. Sometimes the shift comes within the same song—most of “I Want You” features Dunn spilling out the lyrics in an earnest way that’s the most clear callback to The Shape of Things to Come, before ramping up to a deliberate Doug Martsch/J. Mascis guitar fireworks display in its last minute. All six of these tracks are highlights. I spoke of Cashmere Washington’s “promise” and “potential” when talking about The Shape of Things to Come; it’s being realized before our very ears. (Bandcamp link)
Poorly Drawn House – Home Doesn’t Have Four Walls
Release date: February 23rd Record label: Candlepin Genre: Post-rock, slowcore Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Night Hawks
Poorly Drawn House are like an amalgamation of all your favorite haunted 90s bands. The South Carolina trio clearly have spent time with with the layered, fuzzy side of slowcore, although they aren’t committed to the monotone vibe as strongly as your Bedheads and your Dusters. There are wide open spaces calling to mind the last two Talk Talk albums, as well as everyone’s favorite Talk Talk tribute band, Bark Psychosis. And while for the most part singer/guitarist Anthony Gansauer’s vocals are quietly whispered and the band not far behind, they do have a couple post-rock side of post-hardcore (or maybe post-hardcore side of post-rock) moments like Slint or Unwound. After writing these notes, Poorly Drawn House confirmed all of these bands as influences in a Post-Trash feature, so don’t take my word for it!
Album opener “The Walls As Witness” starts with a single chord that hangs in the air for a bit before repeating, builds to something of an indie rock crescendo, and then bows out with cricket noises. “Night Hawks” takes a different path, barreling strongly right out of the gate only to wander around in a daze for the last half of the song. Horns and a clarinet pop up regularly throughout Home Doesn’t Have Four Walls, most prominently filling in the space in between the moments when the trio lock together, but also adding to the noise when they do. There’s a rhythm to Home Doesn’t Have Four Walls that’s only really interrupted by the screaming at the end of “Thereupon the Grass”, the one moment where they’re more Rodan than Slint. Even then, though, the vocals are mixed lower than the instruments, sounding like they’re coming from another room. It’s okay, kids, sometimes the walls just make that noise. No need to worry. (Bandcamp link)
This week’s Pressing Concerns highlights new albums from Big Nothing, tat songs, and Fjord Mustang, and an upcoming EP from Downward. If you’re looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Big Nothing – Dog Hours
Release date: February 18th Record label: Lame-O Genre: 90s alt-rock, punk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: A Lot of Finding Out
Dog Hours is only Big Nothing’s second record together, but the members of the Philadelphia four-piece have put their time in with various Philly 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”—the biggest comparison that keeps floating in my mind is late-period Replacements and early Paul Westerberg solo material, but they’ve also got Boston bands like The Lemonheads and Buffalo Tom rolling through their sound as well. There’s a weariness coloring Dog Hours, especially (but not entirely) in the songs sung by guitarist Matt Quinn, one of the band’s two lead vocalists.
Big Nothing might have dialed back the punk energy a bit, but they haven’t left out the hooks in doing so. Dog Hours is a strong guitar pop record—just listen to lead single “A Lot of Finding Out”, which is two minutes of basically all chorus, or the jangly Gin Blossoms earnestness of “Don’t Tell Me”. These are fairly unadorned, timeless-sounding songs—when bassist/vocalist Liz Parsons sings about driving around late at night listening to The Glow Pt. 2, it’s one of the few moments that places Dog Hours…well, not exactly in the present, but at least a few years after their main sonic touchstones. That line is from ruefully mid-tempo “Still Sorta Healing”; Parsons also leads on the acoustic toe-tapper “Accents”, arguably the record’s most upbeat moment. Dog Hours ends with “What I Wanna Say”, one of Big Nothing’s more alt-country numbers—both in terms of the lightly swinging shuffle of the music and in Quinn’s lyrics, which make messiness and uncertainty sound simple and breezy. (Bandcamp link)
tat songs – Don’t Look Back
Release date: February 22nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, post-punk Formats: Digital Pull track: Knocked Down
Tom Sadler has apparently been making music in some form since 1993, but the Chicago-based artist been especially busy since 2017, when he ended a “decade long hiatus to pursue academia” and returned to recording. The Bandcamp page for his tat songs project features albums ranging from harsh electronic to ambient to experimental folk, but Don’t Look Back is a pretty straightforward indie rock record. The album’s eight songs are a familiar but welcome blend of Pavement/Silver Jews-style grounded vocals, simple guitar pop melodies reminiscent of the Flying Nun roster, and the repetition (in both the rhythms and vocals) of post-punk.
The choppy lead guitar intro and Sadler’s stoic delivery make opening track “Fond Memories” the most overtly post-punk track on Don’t Look Back, but, tellingly, it’s not a world away from the mellow guitar pop that follows with “Knocked Down”, “Something Something”, and “Sadie 1942”. This is a fertile groove for tat songs, with most of Don’t Look Back hovering between an opaque exterior and brief bursts of emotion that coincide with the songs’ most melodic moments. The revved-up “Dishonor” is something of a late-record surprise in its Dinosaur Jr. fuzzy alt-rock getup—although Sadler does sound a little more like J. Mascis in the vocals here, the song mostly just helps emphasize that Sadler has been employing a Mascis-esque country-punk delivery the whole time. Sadler is a sharp songwriter—there’s plenty worth returning to in Don’t Look Back’s unassuming thirty minutes.
Downward – The Brass Tax
Release date: February 25th Record label: New Morality Zine Genre: Shoegaze, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: The Brass Tax
This is the third week of 2022 that Pressing Concerns has selected something from New Morality Zine to cover—they’re having an excellent beginning of the year, no? The latest EP from Downward sounds more like Prize Horse’s heavy 90s alt-rock than Jon the Movie’s lo-fi prog-punk, but The Brass Tax doesn’t restrain itself to the former sound. The Oklahoma band don’t come off as fervent devotees to downcast post-grunge—on The Brass Tax, at least, Downward feel like probers. Opening track “Glasshouse” is a big old slab of moody, glacial space rock, sure, and a great version of it, but they don’t really go down this avenue again for the rest of the EP.
It’s The Brass Tax’s second track, single “Real Green Dollars”, that’s probably the most emblematic of the whole thing. Downward shift fully into “atmospheric” mode on that one, layering acoustic guitar, electronics, and what sounds like some kind of horn atop their power trio setup. The EP’s final two tracks delve even further into subtle territory—the drum-machine, synths, and vocal effects of “Line” make it the starkest moment on The Brass Tax, but it’s the slow-building melodies and slow-burn instrumental of the closing title track that stand as the greatest synthesis of everything Downward explores on the EP. Downward aren’t exactly following the linear A to B “loud rock band slows down and mellows out” trajectory—the doomy “Ugly Bug” actually pushes them into even heavier territory—but they are spreading out with The Brass Tax. (Bandcamp link)
Fjord Mustang – Solitaire
Release date: February 22nd Record label: Self-released/Twin Fang Genre: Indie rock, folk rock, dream pop Formats: Digital Pull track: Five Years
While Toronto’s Fjord Mustang may take inspiration from modern groups that encompass both indie rock and folk rock, the sound on their debut record skews more toward the “indie rock” end of that spectrum. Vocalist Vick Egan’s emotive vocal style isn’t unlike that of Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, but the songs of Solitaire frequently take on a dreamy, jangly sheen that’s more reminiscent of older bands on 4AD’s roster. Fjord Mustang (hell of a name, that) is a new group, younger than the pandemic—at the time of Solitaire’s recording, they didn’t have a full-time drummer, with Ian Romano (brother of Daniel) remotely laying down what you hear on the recording.
Now a four-piece, with Cameron Macdonald joining Solitaire’s core trio of Egan, Devon Pelley, and Nate Smofsky, Fjord Mustang have a solid and confident first step forward on their hands. The slow-burning dream pop of mid-tempo opening track “Five Years” is just the right amount of intriguing, before sliding into the pure airy indie pop of “Health Class Field Trip”. Just when Solitaire starts to lull you, there’s the surprisingly dramatic alt-rock “Thread the Needle” jutting out of the center of the record, chased with the sparse acoustic “Lakes Inn”—you get the full Fjord Mustang range in six and a half minutes with those. The record doesn’t drop off in its second half, either, thanks to the bittersweet hooky indie rock of “Fortune” and the five-minute stretch of “Ribbons” which gives “Thread the Needle” a run for its money. Not every album in this style grabs me, but the charms of Solitaire are undeniable. (Bandcamp link)
Thomas Dunn has been making music that’s spanned several genres and monikers for a few years now around the Michigan cities of Midland (where they grew up) and Ypsilanti (where they went to school). Recently, however, Dunn has settled on a name—Cashmere Washington—and a clear style—lo-fi indie rock that incorporates hip-hop and jazz influences, among others. Dunn also decided that Cashmere Washington would be introduced to the world via a trio of EPs.
The first of these EPs—last September’s The Shape of Things to Come—was one of my favorite releases of 2021. Dunn’s sharp songwriting and guitar playing cemented Cashmere Washington as an up-and-coming-project to watch in my mind.
The second EP is called (amazingly) Almost Country for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them, and I’m happy to be premiering the song “Rosy” ahead of its release. In the context of Almost Country for Old Men…, “Rosy” is the big-finish final track, the EP’s biggest jolt of unbridled catharsis, and a key moment in the Cashmere Washington journey thus far. Although Dunn helms the track in Cashmere Washington’s increasingly familiar style, those sharp intro power chords the closest the project has veered into straight-up pop-punk.
“I wanted to make sad songs that people could dance to or enjoy life while blasting in their car,” Dunn acknowledges before going into some of the darker inspirations for “Rosy”. Dunn lost a friend to suicide in 2018, and the song “was my way of capturing the energy they carried around while they were alive while writing about the circumstances leading up to their decision.”
It is also, autobiographically for Dunn, about being laid-up recovering from a car crash and, in such a state, becoming moved by the romantic simplicity at the end of Adam Sandler’s The Wedding Singer. So, yes, “Rosy” is about trying to capturing some heavy emotions—love, grief, growing older, you know. Dunn gives us a couple lyrical glimpses into the driving forces beyond everything roiling around in “Rosy” (the lines “Backwards hat on / Pastor’s kids they / Backslid so hard” say volumes in little), but the song is mostly a vibe-driven cypher.
In addition to the song’s premiere, today also sees the release of its music video, in which Dunn plays a “bored Midwestern detective”, and it comes a few days after a mini-documentary about the recording of AlmostCountry for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them featuring Dunn and Casia SK-1 of Fish People Birds Records.
Almost Country for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them releases on February 25th.
Oh, hello there. How are you today? Sorry to hear that. Perhaps these albums can take your mind off of that. Today, Pressing Concerns looks at new records from Zinskē, Jon the Movie, Stomatopod, and Red Pants.
Release date: February 14th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: TV Guide to the Spirit World
Philadelphia’s something of an indie rock epicenter these days—thanks in part to the massive success of festival-ready bands like The War on Drugs and Japanese Breakfast, but, frankly, more due to the continued efforts of bands that will never be as big as those two. Bands like Zinskē. Not to suggest this four-piece group is unpolished; in their own way, they’re just as sleek and put-together. In terms of fellow Philly bands, they remind me the most of the controlled, austere post-punk of Dark Blue, although Zinskē skew more 90s than 80s. Everything’s tight and in its right place on Murder Mart, theirdebut full-length record. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Lipczynski’s vocals mark the record above anything else—low, dry, and stoic, they’re the perfect match for both the band’s sharp dullness and lyrics that have too many shadows dancing underneath them to be truly “opaque” as they might seem at first.
Lipczynski stays at his personal sea level often enough in Murder Mart to shift his vocal Overton Window—when he raises his voice just a little bit in “Ortolan Sung”, it comes off as basically howling. “Ortolan Sung” also has a lightly dire lead guitar intro courtesy of Kevin O’Halloran—just one of Zinskē’s soft touches throughout Murder Mart. Emily Cahill’s prominent and frequently melodic basslines, another weapon, rear up in “Keno” and “Honeycreeper” among others, the former a woozy dance and the latter pure uneasy tension. The bass also helps Murder Mart’s closing track drift off lazily—a song, by the way, that’s called “TV Guide to the Spirit World”, which flips through cultural detritus in a manner worthy of the record’s car-crash-level of eye-catching album cover. 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. This is what “fun music” means, to me. (Bandcamp link)
Jon the Movie – A Glimpse That Made Sense
Release date: January 5th Record label: New Morality Zine/Cauldron of Burgers Genre: Lo-fi indie rock/punk Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Soul Tied to a Stranger
Long Island, New York’s Jon Gusman is a musician and visual artist who’s been playing in bands (notably the vocalist for hardcore group Rule Them All) for a while now—recently, he’s stepped out on his own as Jon the Movie, a project that debuted at the beginning of the year with A Glimpse That Made Sense. Jon the Movie falls nicely into the category of “dude with hardcore background making more melodic alt-rock”—Gusman cites Fugazi, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Guided by Voices, and I’ll be damned if the first five songs on A Glimpse That Made Sense don’t sound like the exact center of that triangle. The record kicks off with the hard-hitting “Coffin Position”, a pretty solidly MacKaye-esque punk anthem with Jimmy Chamberlain-style attention-grabbing drums, and then veers into the subtler melodic fuzz-pop of “I Can’t Help”.
“Soul Tied to a Stranger”, which sounds like it was recorded on a fucking walkie talkie, is also A Glimpse That Made Sense’s catchiest moment, and, needless to say, its most Robert Pollard-like one as well. 90s indie/alternative rock isn’t the only place from which Gusman is pulling, however—just as strongly, prog rock is built into these songs as well. This is most obvious in closing track “Quest for Materiality”, a ten-minute scorcher that’s explicitly inspired by Gusman’s love for Dream Theater as a teenager among other things, but I also hear it in “Miracles Until the End”—in the way that Gusman takes a core that, like “Coffin Position”, falls somewhere on the Dischord spectrum, and blows it up to grandiose proportions. It’s an inspiring synthesis. (Bandcamp link)
Stomatopod – Competing with Hindsight
Release date: January 29th Record label: Pirate Alley Genre: Punk rock, alt-rock, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Like the Breeze
Like A Glimpse That Made Sense, Competing with Hindsight is a six-song, 25 minute “short album” that is at least partially 90s indie rock-inspired. That’s about where the similarities end, however—where Jon the Movie covers their Fugazi and Guided by Voices impressions in a layer of fuzz, Stomatopod hew towards a Steve Albini-at-Electrical Audio-recorded clear presentation. Not that the Chicago trio (vocalist/guitarist John Huston, vocalist/bassist Sharon Maloy, drummer Elliot Dicks) don’t get noisy, but Competing with Hindsight’s resting state is one of three musicians presenting their ideas pretty much unadorned, like the similarly-minded Silkworm (I heard of Stomatopod recently due to them playing a show with Tim Midyett’s current band, Mint Mile).
Stomatopod (the name means mantis shrimp, by the way) are fairly explicitly pulling from about every decade in rock music history. Pretty much all of Competing with Hindsight’s songs have that dark undercurrent that marks so many prominent grunge groups (as well as the genre’s forefathers, Wipers), 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. It’s such a consistent record that I have a hard time singling out tracks: the first three songs all bash out post-post-punk bliss that’s up there with the best moments of bands like Hot Snakes and The Men, and then they “get weird” (one song is a little more jittery than the rest, and then one song’s a little slower) before bringing it all back for a closing track that nails the best parts of their sound all over again. (Bandcamp link)
Red Pants – When We Were Dancing
Release date: February 18th Record label: Paisley Shirt Genre: Shoegaze, lo-fi indie rock, noise pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Lost Momentum
Madison, Wisconsin’s Red Pants is the project of songwriter, guitarist, singer, and cassette label owner Jason Lambeth plus drummer/vocalist Elsa Nekola—together, they make rock music that sounds both like the product of your local neighborhood indie garage band and yet eternally just out of reach. When We Were Dancing is a brief record, around 23 minutes long, and it doesn’t waste any time establishing its core elements: Lambeth and Nekola’s vocal harmonies, and an overall dreamy atmosphere that reminds me of Galaxie 500, Bedhead, or Yo La Tengo, particularly in the slow-building, rise-and-fall songs like “In the Passing Time” and “Humming”.
In addition to those rocky slowcore-indebted tracks, When We Were Dancing also features upbeat, noisy pop (the “bah-bahs” in “All Your Pink Stars”, the lo-fi punk of “Another Haircut”), loud basement shoegaze (the towering “Broken Movies” and the driving “Glue”), and shimmering ballads (that would be “Here I Am”). Lambeth and Nekola’s distant vocals often sound like they’re going to be swallowed up by the reverby, almost-droning music surrounding them, but as far away as they can sound, one can always make them out. It feels like a winter pop album. (Bandcamp link)
More new music? Yes. This Pressing Concerns covers new albums from OMBIIGIZI and No Monster Club, the debut EP from Tomato Flower, and the recent Darto compilation. Rosy Overdrive’s January 2022 playlist also went up this week, so things are pretty busy ’round here.
Release date: February 10th Record label: Arts & Crafts Genre: Indie rock, “Moccasin-gaze” Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Ookwemin
OMBIIGIZI is a collaboration between Adam Sturgeon of Status / Non Status and Daniel Monkman of Zoon, two Anishnabee artists who already sound in tune to one another on their debut record as a duo, Sewn Back Together. The album covers a lot of ground, from psychedelia to post-rock to dream pop and shoegaze. They cite some relatively off-the-beaten-path indie rock groups like The Sea and Cake and Eric’s Trip offshoot Elevator as inspiration, both of which I hear in the refreshing noise Sturgeon and Monkman make together. As sonically interesting as Sewn Back Together is, the record still feels lyrics-forward (or, at least, message-forward); some of the songs repeat a line or two hypnotically to drive things home, and some of the record’s wordier tracks necessitate (and are granted) breaks in the clouds.
Sewn Back Together opens with two songs that cover each of these aforementioned tactics—opening track “Ookwemin” is a meditative, dreamy entrance into the record, reminding me of “Find a Home” from the most recent Status / Non Status record, hovering on a few words and images in a tribute to Monkman’s late father, before the straightforward “Residential Military” lets its evocative lyrics ride up front. What follows are a few tracks that either fall into the vein of the record’s opening track (such as “Yaweh”) or its second one (like “Spirit in Me”), but with some left turns, like the vocal effects in “The Once Child” and in the closing of exhale “Zaagitoon”.
Sewn Back Together’s penultimate track, “Birch Bark Paper Trails”, is one of the most fascinating songs on the album. The climax of the record, it revisits the clear-eyed loud rock of “Residential Military” with more urgency, building up its tension with stop-starting guitar blasts. Veering between sinewy, almost-mathy rock and dreamier interludes, the song ends with a lengthy spoken word passage by Sturgeon that makes explicit and hammers home the familial bonds that show up in several of the record’s songs (“Ookwemin”, “Ogiin”, and “Spirit in Me”, most prominently). The words of “Birch Bark Paper Trails” find Sturgeon searching the Internet, registries, and archives for details on the past, the past of family, forefathers, his past—it is not the song from which the title Sewn Back Together is taken, but it’s perhaps the clearest instance of what OMBIIGIZI mean by it on the record. (Bandcamp link)
No Monster Club – Deadbeat Effervescent
Release date: February 11th Record label: Emotional Response/Popical Island Genre: Pop rock, twee, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Save the Circus
Pulling a few indie rock subgenres together probably tells you less about what Dublin’s No Monster Club sound like than simply mentioning that they’re led by somebody who calls himself Sir Bobby Jukebox. I could say that their latest record, Deadbeat Effervescent, is “fully committed to taking the listener on a big, colorful pop-rock journey” or something, or just point out that its lead single is called “Save the Circus” and lives up to its title. Or that the song that succeeds it, “Black & White”, confidently deploys steel drums and chugging power chords in equal measure—and it’s just the first song of several to prominently utilize that arresting choice in percussion.
No Monster Club ends up reminding me more than anything of unsung indie pop hero Nick Thornburn of Islands and The Unicorns, alike both in their devotion to lighthearted and fun posturing (something underrepresented in modern indie rock, to be sure) and in the way that their influences remind me that any music they make is technically “island music” (Vancouver Island for Thorburn, Ireland for No Monster Club). Deadbeat Effervescent is a record with plenty of bells and whistles—aside from the aforementioned steel drums, we also get the bugle that introduces (of course) “A Bugle Call”, the brass marching of “The Trundling Path”, and the kiddie music tones and literal whistle on “Spaceman’s Gold”.
None of these choices end up excessive, though—or maybe they are excessive, in a good way. Whichever it is, there’s plenty going on beneath the surface sheen of these songs—“Save the Circus” is one dagger of a pop song from pretty much every angle, and the skittering surf-pop tune that follows the intro of “A Bugle Call” is another. Mr. Jukebox and company can’t resist combining effectively all of their tricks at the end of Deadbeat Effervescent; album closer “Walk the Plank” trots out a call-and-response hook, a steady, restrained power pop guitar line, siren synths, and several Stephin Merritt-worthy instrumental pop flourishes. All that, and it’s still genuinely surprising to me that it’s six minutes long. There must be some kind of Bermuda Triangle time warp going on there. (Bandcamp link)
Darto – Tolting
Release date: February 4th Record label: Slow Thrive Genre: Noise rock, post-punk Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Bottom Floor
The Snoqualmie Valley, Washington-originating duo of Darto have been making music together under that name since 2009—and the half-siblings who comprise the band, Candace Harter and Nicholas Merz, have played together for even longer than that. Their Pacific Northwest origins, frequently noisy and insular music, and the monotone male/female vocal interplay between Harter and Mertz all make Unwound comparisons fairly obvious. Darto dive a little further than that, though, as evidenced by the career-spanning cassette Tolting. The compilation’s sixteen songs come from various singles and non-album tracks spanning across the first decade of Darto’s existence (2009-2019).
Tolting opens with the dark, pounding “Bottom Floor”. It’s noise rock at its screechy best—only to be counterbalanced one track later by the minimalist psychedelia of “Fundamental and Slyme”. The mood effectively set, Tolting then begins its substantial survey of the music of Darto. A few of the tape’s tracks jump out immediately as highlights: the all-too-brief Harter-led noise pop of “World’s Worth”, the whispery slowcore of “Bay Area Man”, the slinking indie rock of “Pontius Pilot”, and a wall-of-sound epic in “Rite” that’s hidden towards the end. Repeated listening starts to reveal the merit of some of the “odder” tracks—like the way “Aging” marries a friendly synthpunk instrumental to one of Merz’s more unhinged deliveries, or the odd calm at the center of the droning “Apostate”. Tolting is a maze to get lost in. (Bandcamp link)
Tomato Flower – Gold Arc
Release date: February 11th Record label: Ramp Local Genre: Indie pop, psych pop, avant pop Formats: Digital Pull track: Red Machine
The psychedelic pop rock of Tomato Flower covers a lot of ground on their debut EP Gold Arc—one minute it’s lighter than air, moments later they’re pulling together something layered and busy. I probably could’ve guessed they’re from Baltimore. The group (a trio at the time of recording, now already a four-piece band) comes off a little more grounded in rock than more electronica-based groups from their base city, but more synth-friendly than most of their other forebearers—namely the more polished side of Elephant Six, and clear-eyed, harmony-heavy 2000s indie rock.
Gold Arc opens with about as friendly an entry point as one could hope for in the delicate, melody-driven “Red Machine”, and the stop-start “World to Come” isn’t far behind it in that department. The sub-90-second “Stone” is the other track that captures this side of Tomato Flower, further streamlining their take on indie rock down to swirling, spidery guitar work. They do this very well, and these songs are probably the EP’s clear highlights, but the songs that push a bit—the surprisingly amped-up psych-rock blast of “Truth Lounge” and the odyssey of closing track “Shying”, which turns Gold Arc’s core sound on its head—are what help the EP feel longer than its brief 13 minutes. (Bandcamp link)
Rosy Overdrive’s January overview is going up a week into February, but that’s pretty par for the course, and one can’t rush perfection. Or playlists. There are fewer songs on this one, mostly because two of them push ten minutes, and the December/January playlists are always a little weird, but there’s no dip in quality here.
Artsick is the only band with more than one track on the playlist this time around (they’ve got two), but there are three different Silkworm-related songs on here spread across three separate projects.
You can hear the entire thing on Spotify here, and I’ve also added other options for the first time, in light of recent events: BNDCMPR, and Tidal. Neither of these are perfect, as they are each missing a couple of songs (noted in their respective descriptions), but it’s a start. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one.
“You Gave Me the Key”, Julie Doiron From I Thought of You (2021, You’ve Changed)
There are only so many hours in the day. I know a lot of people love Julie Doiron’s music, and I expect I would/will like it when I get around to listening to more of it. I Thought of You is a good album, so I suppose I’m already on my way. “You Gave Me the Key” kicks it off, and it’s a great song. It’s under the three minute mark and somehow feels even shorter, like Doiron distilled the country-rock side of her music to its barest parts but without losing anything. I hear some Daniel Romano (who plays several instruments on the record and is her You’ve Changed labelmate) in the music, and Doiron’s lyrics here could work just as well on a sparse folk tune as this one’s bouncy retro feel. How Canadian of them.
“When Can I See You Again?”, Kids on a Crime Spree From Fall in Love Not in Line (2022, Slumberland)
Bay Area noise pop trio Kids on a Crime Spree open their debut LP with a bang with the chiming march of “Karl Kardel Building”, and then kick it into high gear with the runaway train of “When Can I See You Again?” Like the best moments of Fall in Love Not in Line, the brisk song balances the delicate lead vocals of songwriter Mario Hernandez with the rest of the group’s tuneful squall. Read more about Fall in Love Not in Line here.
“Hangover Game”, MJ Lenderman From Boat Songs (2022, Dear Life)
Another couple of months, another step forward for Jake Lenderman. Last year brought the glorious lo-fi country mess of Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, and then the rounding-into-shape Knockin’ EP not much long after. The lead single from Lenderman’s next record, April’s Boat Songs, follows the line. “Hangover Game” feels as fleshed-out as any of Knockin’s five songs, but even slicker and harder-rocking. The instrumental that roars in the lyrical breaks and the surprising ascending-chord thing going on in the refrain feels like Lenderman taking a page from his other band, Wednesday, but the core is vintage MJ Lenderman. “Hangover Game” is about (what else) the alleged Michael Jordan Flu Game, which I’m surprised it took Lenderman this long to tackle in song form. Yeah, I like drinking too. Read more about Boat Songs here.
“Getting Warmer”, Party’z From Party’z (2022)
An offshoot of the ace Chicago emo band Kittyhawk, the debut EP from Party’z is, somewhat surprisingly, an electric record of amp-cranked, fuzzy power pop. Opening track “Getting Warmer” kicks Party’z off with the sound of a guitar plugging in and subsequently sprays the listener with feedback, before a soaring instrumental marked by heavy reverb, Delia Hornik’s melodic keyboard, and Mark Jaeschke’s earnest vocals takes shape. Read more about Party’z here.
“Five Hearts Breaking”, Alejandro Escovedo From Gravity (1992, Watermelon)
Gravity is such a great debut album, isn’t it? Of course, Alejandro Escovedo had been making music for quite some time before he began his solo career, so I’m sure that helped. “Paradise” is on a playlist I made a few years ago that I might get to on this website eventually, but upon revisiting it for the first time in awhile, “Five Hearts Breaking” is the one that really stuck out to me. It’s as sharp a tune as any Escovedo has written, and one of the ones that reminds you of how singular a talent he is. It’s a good example of why his music been called “punk” and “country” over his career, even though this particular song sounds like neither.
“I Feel Fine”, Reptaliens From Multiverse (2022, Captured Tracks)
For their third record, Portland, Oregon’s Reptaliens upped the guitar intake of their casually futuristic lounge-pop, as the steady downstroked electric guitar and shuffling drumbeat that confidently announce album opener “I Feel Fine” exemplify. It’s a dose of six-string clarity, with singer Bambi Browning’s sung-spoken melody grounding the song as much as does the music. Read more about Multiverse here.
“The Brain”, Silkworm From Italian Platinum (2002, Touch and Go)
“The Brain” is one of those subtle masterpiece Silkworm songs. It’s not as immediately attention-grabbing as, say, “I Hope U Don’t Survive” from the same record, but the more one listens to it, the greater it sounds. Tim Midyett’s songs in particular are likely to fall into this camp. Midyett is a vocal fan of Jamaican music, and I can hear its influence especially in “The Brain”’s choppy main guitar part. Aided in large part by Matt Kadane’s keyboard, this is one of Silkworm’s more “new wavey” moments. But mostly, it’s just another great Silkworm song. Read more about Silkworm here.
“Milk Crates”, Pigeon Pit From Feather River Canyon Blues (2022, Reach-Around)
“Milk Crates” and, indeed, Feather River Canyon Blues as a whole, takes me back. It’s an album made in the spirit of early Against Me! and the Mountain Goats, and reminds me of getting rocked by the actually good folk punk groups like Defiance Ohio and Nana Grizol (although Nana Grizol is still around and still good). Pigeon Pit’s Lomes Oleander leads, with the exception of an endearing false start, a nonstop, extremely potent survival singalong anthem that’s already more than won me over by the time she gets to the ending refrain that gives the song its name. “No fucked up world to drown out,” indeed.
“She’s Evil”, Guv’ner From The Hunt (1996, Merge)
Guv’ner were 90s indie players. They were a New York band with connections to Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore (without sounding particularly like either) and released a couple records on Merge before dissolving completely. One of the singers was named Pumpkin Wentzel, and she had a line of maternity clothes sometime after the band’s demise. None of this really has anything to do with “She’s Evil”, an instantly-great indie pop song that still deserves to be heard in 2022, even if it takes the pushing of people like me who spend their free time searching stuff like this out. Listen to that chorus harmony!
“Freon Dumb”, Zinskē From Murder Mart (2022)
The upcoming debut record from Philadelphia’s Zinskē takes the infinitely familiar (to me) tools of 90s indie rock and builds something thorny and intricate out of them. The latest single from Murder Mart, “Freon Dumb”, is a pretty good example—it starts with some tough, catchy downstroked power chords and rolls out some restrained but sharp alt-rock underneath of lead singer Chris Lipczynski’s dark sung-spoken vocals. Read more about Murder Mart here.
“The Spaces in Between”, 40 Watt Sun From Perfect Light (2022, Cappio/Svart)
Yes, I put this ten-minute song right in the middle of this playlist. You’re not going to avoid it that easily. Trust me, you want to hear this one. 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; “The Spaces in Between” isn’t even the longest one. It just might be the best one, though—Walker’s vocals are strong but vulnerable, the piano and guitar quiet but insistent.
“Oh, No”, Russel the Leaf From My Street (2022, Records from Russ)
“Something’s been wrong with my mind for a long, long time,” Russel the Leaf’s Evan Marré announces loudly at the beginning of “Oh, No”, a highlight from January’s My Street. Marré doesn’t let up from there: what follows is a go-for-broke starry-eyed power pop song about how everything is going wrong (“Haven’t you seen me today—I’m the mess of the week”, goes another memorable line) that’s both catchy and cathartic. Read more about My Street here.
“Ain’t That Easy”, D’Angelo From Black Messiah (2014, RCA)
From what I recall, I think D’Angelo’s Black Messiah got a little bit a critical acclaim. Something about slowly becoming one of the most longed-for and vainly-anticipated records of the century so far and then meeting or even surpassing those expectations. Maybe. Truthfully, “Ain’t That Easy” is just here because I like that one guitar part. Okay, it’s not just that, even though that would be on-brand for me. There’s also the matter of Pino Pallandino’s bass playing, which I obviously can’t ignore, and D’Angelo and Questlove’s weird mix of percussion, which I can ignore even less.
“Stress Bomb”, Artsick From Fingers Crossed (2022, Slumberland)
A rising figure in twee and indie pop/punk, Christina Riley’s latest project Artsick has melody and energy in no short supply. Fingers Crossed is a sharp record that nicely positions itself along the likes of Tiger Trap, Boyracer (of which Riley is also a member), and plenty of groups on their home of Slumberland Records. “Stress Bomb” threads sweetness (like the way Riley delivers the hook-bomb of the title) and darkness (like the droll way Riley requests “just shoot me” as the stress takes hold) with the best of them. Read more about Fingers Crossed here.
“Apology Accepted”, Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio From Inland Empires (2001, Moneyshot/12XU)
Joel R.L. Phelps’ mostly-covers release Inland Empires is one of his more difficult records, but it does contain something of a reprieve in his version of the Go-Betweens’ “Apology Accepted”. It’s probably the most upbeat that Phelps and his aptly-named backing band, The Downer Trio, ever sounded—acoustic guitar strums and what sounds like a light accordion backing warmly shade Phelps’ vocals, which are never going to sound joyful but can compromise with “wistful”. Read more about Joel R.L. Phelps here.
“Brushstrokes”, Maxwell Stern & Gordon M. Phillips From You Are With Me (2021, Alchemy Hours)
I missed Maxwell Stern and Gordon M. Phillips’ collaborative You Are with Me EP when it came out in November, and when I did become aware of it, I was too preoccupied with Phillips’ one-off single “The Hotel” to give it proper attention, but it’s worth circling back to now. Like “The Hotel”, it pulls Phillips away from the cinematic post-rocky emo of his band Downhaul to folk/country/”Americana”; the storytelling in “Brushstrokes” confirms this as a natural fit. One of the two Phillips-penned and sung songs on the EP (I need to check out Stern/his band Signals Midwest, his material is good here too), “Brushstrokes” features Phillips taking a backseat to the gold-toothed man with whom he shares a brief but song-worthy conversation. Like “The Hotel”, it’s a puzzle, but a less dire one—it seems unlikely the events in the song have changed the trajectory of anything one way or the other.
“Version of You”, Heart Shaped From No Contact (2022, Poison Moon/Unique Technique)
The latest release from Poison Moon Records is a single from the Belfast-based group Heart Shaped, led by Texas native Kendall Bousquet. I wrote about that label’s last offering, K. Campbell’s sharp power pop “Breaking Glass” single, a few month ago, and while Bousquet’s writing is no less catchy, it deals in different sonic terrain. Although copious reverb and Bousquet’s airy vocals mark “Version of You” as “dream pop”, Heart Shaped sound wide awake and in control throughout. Bouqsuet’s backing band gives the song a spirited reading, and the prominent melodic lead guitar truly makes the track.
“Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (Radio Edit), Jeff Tobias From Recurring Dream (2022, Strategy of Tension)
Multi-instrumentalist Jeff Tobias has played in bands like Sunwatchers and Modern Nature; his debut “pop” album as a solo artist both takes advantage of and streamlines his various talents. Recurring Dream’s closing track, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”, is a great example; it builds to a chirping synthpop climax, but spends plenty of time gliding along a simple, mid-tempo propulsive groove that it feels like it could go on forever. Read more about Recurring Dream here.
“Memory Tone”, Anton Barbeau From Manbird (2020, Gare du Nord)
Anyone who follows Rosy Overdrive because of its namesake likely recognizes the name of Anton Barbeau thanks to his work with the late Scott Miller. If you (like me) haven’t been keeping fully abreast of Barbeau’s recent output, you should be pleased to learn that he’s been both prolific (he’s released three records since 2020) and ambitious—which brings us to Manbird. A double-album concept album inspired by Barbeau’s many “homes” of California, Berlin, and Oxford, Manbird stretches Barbeau’s shape-shifting power pop to impressive limits. My favorite track from it, “Memory Tone”, is a subtle but fascinating blend of classic guitar pop, glam, and piano rock, even getting a little Prince in the bridge.
“Sleeping/Daydreaming”, Onsloow From S/T (2022, How Is Annie/Friend Club)
Onsloow are a Norwegian power pop/pop punk group, and their eight-song debut record feels like it doesn’t waste a moment. I could’ve gone with the chugging “A Good Day to Forget” or the honey/darkness mixture of “Overthinking” for this playlist, but opening track “Sleeping/Daydreaming” just grabbed me too strongly to ignore. It’s hard not to compare them to fellow countrymen Spielbergs, who similarly trade in big, earnest choruses, but Onsloow follow their own path. Lead singer Johanne Rimul sounds not unlike Neko Case (a commanding vocal presence to which I do not compare her lightly), and combined with some showy melodic synths, updates the New Pornographers for the not not emo-influenced indie rock era.
“How It Seems”, treesreach From Time and Time (2022)
Marion, Iowa’s treereach play an earnest, songwriting-first Middle-America style of indie/rock/folk, and their latest single is a triumph in that particular field. It’s a pastoral, lilting instrumental that nevertheless features a soaring chorus led by singer Dillon Rairdin’s spirited vocals that comes out of nowhere. I don’t know if I would’ve figured out that “How It Seems” is about quitting a job without Rairdin explicitly saying so, but maybe it reflects positively on his pop songwriting chops that he can pen lyrics this pointed and confessional-sounding without giving up too much in the body. Midwestern through and through, Rairdin tempers the bold proclamation in the chorus with the title line: “at least that’s how it seems”.
“Teenage Sequencer”, Pedro the Lion From Havasu (2022, Polyvinyl)
The list of singer-songwriters who I will allow to transport me back in time to middle school is very short indeed. If David Bazan wasn’t on it before Havasu, he’s probably somewhere near the top of it now. His latest record with Pedro the Lion sketches the titular Arizona military town in which he lived for a small but pivotal time in his youth. Like 2019’s Phoenix, Pedro stick to an austere rock band sound to call up the desert, but one of my favorite tracks from it is one of the songs that pushes against the setup the most. The cleverly-titled “Teenage Sequencer”, while still keeping its feet planted in rock music, takes the shape of a Headphones/David Bazan-solo era beat-driven track, which somehow elevates Bazan’s distant but tender lyrics recalling a junior high relationship. Everything marches forward, whether the narrator is ready or not.
“Restless”, Artsick From Fingers Crossed (2022, Slumberland)
The opening track of Fingers Crossed presents something of Artsick’s main contradictory driving force—musically, it’s a triumphant gallop, with a steady stomping drumbeat and a great melodic bass undergirding the track, while Christina Riley’s lyrics find herself ennui-gripped and grasping at various methods of dulling the titular emotion over the celebratory instrumental. You can tell Riley is a pop lifer by the way she spins it all together. Read more about Fingers Crossed here.
“Slide Away”, The Dream Syndicate From Out of the Grey (1986, Big Time/Fire)
Recently reissued by Fire Records, 1986’s Out of the Grey found The Dream Syndicate regrouping with an altered lineup and embracing the sharp, classic-rock-indebted side of their music that had always been there. Smack dab in the middle of the album, “Slide Away” is one of the best pure pop moments the band ever put together, all giddy chord changes and melodies everywhere. It could almost pass for a more muscular mid-period R.E.M. song. Read more about Out of the Grey here.
“Rhinelander”, Bottomless Pit From Blood Under the Bridge (2010, Comedy Minus One)
“Rhinelander” is the subtlest track on a record that’s pretty much all subtlety. The underappreciated Blood Under the Bridge is the quiet calm after the pure emotional release of Hammer of the Gods, and the record’s second track is a micro-version of the same in a way, coming after the seven-minute “Winterwind”. The song has no percussion, which allows all of its other elements to cut a little deeper: Tim Midyett’s almost-to-himself vocals, the plodding bass guitar, and a guitar solo that’s far from the Silkworm-verse’s showiest, but still one of its best. Read more about Bottomless Pit here.
“Mary Marionette”, Dwaal Troupe From Lucky Dog (2021)
Dwaal Troupe are a Chicago band that I believe has some personnel overlap with Lifeguard, a group that’s shown up on Rosy Overdrive before. The Lifeguard single I wrote about was a brief jolt of Unwound-esque post-hardcore; Dwaal Troupe’s latest, Lucky Dog, is a sprawling collection of tuneful but lo-fi 90s-style indie rock. “Mary Marionette” is one of my favorite tracks from it; it’s got an almost Flying Nun-ish light psychedelic tinge to it, which is certainly helped by the complete shift the song pulls off deftly in the (I guess?) bridge, but the chorus is as strong and straightforward as could be.
“The Other End of the Telescope”, Elvis Costello & The Attractions From All This Useless Beauty (1996, Warner)
Post-Imperial Bedroom Elvis Costello is, I think, no less spotty for me than the average music writer (although he’s been on a bit of a roll lately). Nevertheless, I still listen to these mid-period records because I’ll find something as good as “The Other End of the Telescope”, the opener to All This Useless Beauty. Why I really like this despite not being able to find anything memorable in 1998’s Painted from Memory I couldn’t quite say, although it being an Aimee Mann co-write probably has something to do with it. In fact, apparently Mann’s band ‘Til Tuesday recorded “The Other End of the Telescope” years before Costello did, which I didn’t know when I selected it for this playlist, but I still think this is the superior version. It wanders more, but it never drifts away from its core.
“Fiscal Weeks”, Heaven’s Cameras From Shutters Firing (2022, Repeating Cloud)
Heaven’s Cameras is the solo project of Lemon Pitch’s Alex Merrill, and the lead single from his record Shutters Firing wastes no time in establishing a distinct sound. “Fiscal Weeks” opens with a classically clear jangle-pop intro before Merrill’s droll vocals come in to counterbalance the guitar. As the somewhat-rudimentary instrumental goes on, it rarely deviates from its initial sound, and the prominent bass guitar plodding underneath it becomes more noticeable. It ends up sounding something like Kurt Wagner or Stephin Merritt fronting one of the bands from Captured Tracks’ 2020 Strum & Thrum compilation, dipping in and out of the picture as he remembers something else he needed to get off of his chest.
“Fall Town”, Brock Winthrop From Pity on a Hill (2016)
Massachusetts’ “puritan pop” project Brock Winthrop takes unlikely inspiration from the deep and obscure religious history of their surrounding New England, as some of their songs’ lyrics and artwork suggest. Instead of the gothic doom-folk or prog-metal one would expect to be wrought from such sources, Pity on a Hill is a quite accessible jangle-pop EP, although songs like “Fall Town” certainly have a dark side. The track marries a squiggly, spooky synth shadow to more traditionally-shimmering guitar arpeggios, and would be remarkably unique even without Winthrop’s oddly specific lyrical concerns.
“Don’t Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone”, CAN From Soundtracks (1970, Liberty/United Artists)
Like any good 90s indie rock fan, I’ve made a few halfhearted attempts to get into CAN over the years, because, like, you know, all your favorite bands are just stealing from them or whatever. This time I tried Soundtracks, which is seemingly well-regarded but never really spoken of as the pinnacle, and I’d recommend it for people in my position. It’s very digestible, and the one “out-there” track (“Mother Sky”) is a blast, but I’ll pull out “Don’t Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone”. Apparently the band’s first recording with vocalist Damo Suzuki, it’s a sub-four-minute track that manages to be both jammy and melodic (both in terms of Suzuki’s singing and in the band’s playing).
“All We Wanted Was a Gem That Wouldn’t Fade”, Zaq Baker From This Time It’s Personal (2022)
Zaq Baker’s latest album is titled This Time It’s Personal, and he’s not kidding around. It’s an intimate listen both musically (most of the record’s eight songs find Baker alone with his piano) and lyrically (the introspective turns and interpersonal relationship analyses certainly don’t feel like they’re holding anything back). Baker takes a few self-critical turns on This Time It’s Personal, and “All We Wanted Was a Gem That Wouldn’t Fade” doesn’t necessarily contradict those, but it’s my favorite song from the record in part because it doesn’t view that as a dead end. It’s harder to present subtleties when one performs in Baker’s chosen musical theatre-inspired style, but “All We Wanted Was a Gem That Wouldn’t Fade” does it.
“Note to Self (To Say Goodbye)”, Patrick Brayer From Cabbage and Kings: An Inland Shrimpire Anthology (2022, Shrimper)
Cabbage and Kings is Shrimper Records’ attempt to rectify the surprisingly small number of physical Patrick Brayer records that have come out over the Claremont singer-songwriter’s half-century music career. The album’s seven expansive songs are the sound of a folk singer with nothing to prove but plenty of places left to explore and probe. “Note to Self (To Say Goodbye)” takes over nine of those minutes to complete its stare, but Brayer doesn’t blink the entire way through. Read more about Cabbage and Kings: An Inland Shrimpire Anthology here.
Third Pressing Concerns of 2022! This time around, it features new albums from Russel the Leaf and Shoun Shoun, and new EPs from Clear Capsule and The Royal Arctic Institute. Half of these bands released something in 2021 that appeared in Pressing Concerns as well. Half of them didn’t. All four are good, though. I’m working on the January playlist, which will be a little late–probably next Monday.
Release date: January 22nd Record label: Records from Russ Genre: Power pop, indie pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Oh, No
Russel the Leaf’s Evan Marré declared his intention to release five records in 2021, and while that didn’t end up happening, he’s been prolific by most other metrics. My Street comes less than a year after last February’s Then You’re Gunna Wanna, which was one of my favorite records of last year, and a few of these songs were previewed a few months ago on the Re-Mix “My Street” EP. The fuzzier, almost pop-punk sound of the EP was distinct from Then You’re Gunna Wanna’s Brian Wilson-esque studio pop while still being distinctly Russ, and My Street splits the difference between the two. The EP’s four songs all sound more casual and slowed-down in their versions on My Street, but the album on the whole feels like it’s in “rock band” mode more often than Marré’s last full-length—even though, as usual, the music is played mostly by Marré with a couple of featured contributors (here it’s his brother Josh and Connor Armbruster) .
That doesn’t mean the Beach Boys influence is any less felt on this record, though—album opener “Listen to Me” and the violin-aided “Little Italy, Again” are both piano-led baroque pop as clear-eyed as ever, and closing track “I’ll Go Away” is an ambitiously-built and -layered final statement. My Street is just as likely to bust out a bouncy acoustic, almost folk-pop song like the exquisite title track or the incredibly catchy “Catch the Spell”. Two such songs comprise the record’s peak: the ironically grinning “Oh, No” and the subtler sincerity of “How Long Does It Usually Take to Care?” The former is a go-for-broke starry-eyed song about how everything is going wrong (“Haven’t you seen me today—I’m the mess of the week”); the latter takes place long after any of the chaos-induced adrenaline has dissipated, leaving oddly quiet self-reflection. “I want to take it a little bit easier, even though I won’t,” Marré allows in a small step. A few tracks later, he’s unloading in a song called “Run Right Over Me”. It’s no less deft. (Bandcamp link)
Clear Capsule – Gravity Licker
Release date: February 1st Record label: Mutation Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, psychedelia Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Grace Face
Clear Capsule like their rock music fuzzy and reverb-drenched. The Los Angeles five-piece band’s latest EP, Gravity Licker, starts from the reference point of landmark 90s shoegaze records (hell, Clear Capsule might not even know that albums don’t have to sound like that), but they’re not unwavering re-enactors. They fit very nicely into a newer wave of omnivorous, Swirlies-influenced loud-feedback rock groups that aren’t afraid to take a few detours—bands like The Spirit of the Beehive and Gaadge. Clear Capsule helpfully demonstrate their breadth within a few seconds of the opening track “Collin Hit Car”, which shifts from a lightly psychedelic intro into a stomping, wall-of-sound Smashing Pumpkins-esque rocker, and they then keep the good times rolling with the straightforward noise pop of “Surface Dweller”.
Not content to bash out a few more (quite worthy) Siamese Dream-era bangers, Gravity Licker then veers hard into the drum machine-driven slither of “Bacteria”, which is tempered by lead singer Bryce Pulaski’s voice appearing as central and melodic as ever. But the following “Familiar Becomes Foreign” dispatches with even that, leaving Clear Capsule with something that’s purely dreamy atmospheres and sounds closer to turn-of-the-century plunderphonics and trip-hop than anything that could’ve graced DGC Records. And then the heavy pop bliss returns with “Grace Face”…eventually. It sifts through plenty of noise to get there. Once it does, though…the second half of the track is probably my favorite spot on the record. Gravity Licker is a worthwhile trip. (Bandcamp link)
Shoun Shoun – Monsters & Heroes
Release date: January 28th Record label: Self-released Genre: Alt-rock, post-punk Formats: CD, digital Pull track: My Daughter
Monsters & Heroes is either a particularly dynamic garage rock record or a fairly economical art rock album, depending on your perspective. It’s the debut full-length from Bristol’s Shoun Shoun, and it’s rooted in meaty but austere alt-rock—bassist Ole Rudd and drummer Giuseppe La Rezze are both central to about all of Monsters & Heroes’ sound. Songs like “Stuck” are virtually nonstop rhythmic sprints, with everything else seeming incidental to the central loop—except for the vocals, that is. Monsters & Heroes, probably unsurprisingly for a record that’s got as sharp a rhythm section as it does, has a clear post-punk bent, but vocalist Annette Berlin is one of the biggest reasons why the album doesn’t fall into a sea of nameless British post-punk revival bands.
Berlin can drolly sing-speak with the best of them, sure—check out her motor-mouth delivery in “Much Sweeter”, for instance, let alone her muttering in “Stuck”—but that’s just one facet. Berlin has listened to a lot of Nico and Kim Gordon, and probably picks up an attitude from them as much as their specific styles. She offers up restraint in one of Monsters & Heroes’ least restrained songs, the 90s alt-rock opener “Did I Play Games”, and showiness in songs like the slow-burning “Sway with Me” and the tension feast of “Refresh & Replay”. Berlin can also fall in line with a sharp pop song, which Shoun Shoun surprisingly bring forward in the galloping “My Daughter”, hidden away in the second half of the record. Altogether, Berlin and the band offer more than enough to keep their debut intriguing throughout. (Bandcamp link)
The Royal Arctic Institute – From Catnap to Coma
Release date: February 4th Record label: Already Dead Tapes Genre: Jazz-rock, post-rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Fishing by Lantern
New York instrumental quintet The Royal Arctic Institute released the quite good Sodium Light EP in 2021, and they’ve already followed it up less than a year later with the equally-substantial From Catnap to Coma. Like their last EP, the new one lays out five tracks in over 20 minutes, and if their clear, guitar-lead-heavy version of cinematic jazz-rock intrigued you the last time around, From Catnap to Coma certainly doesn’t disappoint on that front either. Guitarists John Leon and Lynn Wright glide across the textures provided by keyboardist Carl Baggaley and the backdrop provided by rhythm section David Motamed and Lyle Hysen, ebbing and flowing to match the tides that a couple song titles conjure up.
There are differences between the two EPs, though. Sodium Light was the more upbeat, jauntier of the two, while Catnap, befitting of its name, is more languid and spends its time stretching out a little more. That’s not to say the songs are “simpler”—taking a visit to the busy second half of “Shore Leave on Pharagonesia” should disabuse one of that. The EP was recorded by James McNew of Yo La Tengo, and while I won’t lay too much credit for From Catnap to Coma at his feet, his own band is a reminder that subtlety takes its own skill to create in an interesting manner. The last two songs in particular drift off in a particularly unmoored fashion, with the last couples minutes of “Anosmia Suite” seeming to come from somewhere off in the distance. (Bandcamp link)
The second edition of Pressing Concerns of the new year highlights a large-scale reissue from The Dream Syndicate, new albums from Kids on a Crime Spree and Reptaliens, and the debut EP from Prize Horse. It’s a good year (musically, at least) already!
The Dream Syndicate – What Can I Say? No Regrets…Out of the Grey + Live, Demos, & Outtakes
Release date: January 14th Record label: Fire Genre: Alternative rock, psychedelic rock Formats: CD, digital Pull track: Slide Away
I’ve always respected The Dream Syndicate more than actively enjoyed them. I’m well aware of how important they are to several of my favorite bands, from Eleventh Dream Day to Silkworm to the one after which this website is named, sure. I’ve heard their consensus best record, The Days of Wine and Roses—the one that’s key to about a half-dozen subgenres of indie- and alt-rock—and I like it just fine, and their first “reunion” record, 2017’s How Did I Find Myself Here?is a very good album in its own right. As impressive as those two albums are, Out of the Grey is the Dream Syndicate record that’s hit me the hardest thus far, and is the closest to what I’ve imagined this band to be.
Originally released in 1986, Out of the Grey was the first Dream Syndicate record not to feature key members Kendra Smith and Karl Precoda, which is a big deal to some people from what I understand. I can certainly hear a difference between it and The Days of Wine and Roses—the latter album splits the difference between dreamy psychedelia and speedy desert rock and roll. Out of the Grey zeroes in on the latter, and instead of ping-ponging, finds a wide range within it to explore. The “rockers” no longer sound hurried and frantic; on the converse, The Dream Syndicate come off like a band with all the time in the world. Songs like the opening title track, “Boston”, and “Blood Money” all find the band hitting on something and just riding it for as long as they deem it necessary, which is generally the exact right amount.
The Dream Syndicate (at this point, the quartet of vocalist/guitarist Steve Wynn, guitarist Paul Cutler, bassist Mark Walton, and drummer Dennis Duck, all of which except Cutler are still in the band today) find time in Out of the Grey to put together some of the sharpest pop songs I’ve heard from the band; namely the giddy chord changes of “Slide Away” and the borderline-inappropriate bouncy sing-along melody of “Drinking Problem”. They still rocked, of course—even though you can actually dance to “Dancing Blind”, they see no need to minimize the blistering lead guitar in order to further this achievement. And the catharsis of closing track “Let It Rain” takes awhile to fully develop, but when it’s there, it’s unmistakable. One of the previously-released bonus tracks What Can I Say? No Regrets… offers up is a sharp, stomping version of “Cinnamon Girl”, which should be an “a-ha” moment if you hadn’t gotten there already.
On the heels of a long-overdue vinyl reissue of the original record last year, Fire Records has produced two discs’ worth of previously-unreleased bonus material to enhance the CD release of What Can I Say? No Regrets…. While I imagine someone who’s been a bigger fan of The Dream Syndicate would get more out of these extras, I found myself thoroughly enjoying the 1985 live set that comprises the second CD. The production and recording choices of Out of the Grey don’t bother me at all, but if your problem with the record is it’s not loud and jammy enough for you, head straight to the Live at Scorgies, NY section. The covers and demos of the third disc do little for me, true, but two different looks at one great collection of songs is more than enough for me to cosign What Can I Say? No Regrets…. (Bandcamp link)
Kids on a Crime Spree – Fall in Love Not in Line
Release date: January 21st Record label: Slumberland Genre: Noise pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull track: When Can I See You Again?
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. Fall in Love Not in Line’s 25 minutes are an eternity in comparison to the rest of the band’s releases, the most substantial of which was previously 2011’s We Love You So Bad EP. They did release a few singles in the intermittent time period, though, and it doesn’t take long for Fall in Love Not in Line to remind the listener of the power of a single song. The record’s first two tracks are fuzzy power pop excellence from singer-songwriter Mario Hernandez, the chiming “Karl Kardel Building” wringing a hell of a lot out of an instrumental riff and the brisk “When Can I See You Again?” balancing Hernandez’s delicate vocals and lyrics pleasingly with the tuneful squall of the band.
Kids on a Crime Spree could’ve stopped there and added another no-fat single to their discography, but they dig a bit deeper on the rest of Fall in Love Not in Line and uncover more to enhance their repertoire. This includes a few reverb-y pop songs that rival the openers in the anxious undertones of “All Things Fade” and bouncy stomp of “Goods Get Got”, and it also features a couple of sonic expansions. “Vital Points” dials the distortion down just enough to let its 60s-cool melody shine a little brighter, and if “Overtaken by the Soil” is at times, ah, overtaken by noisiness, it isn’t enough to overwhelm the handclaps and stop-start guitar riff that put the track over the top. Whatever form these songs take, they all benefit from Hernandez’s hooky writing, as well as the ability of Hernandez and bandmates Becky Barron and Bill Evans to wring melody out of noisy sonic terrain. (Bandcamp link)
Prize Horse – Welder
Release date: January 19th Record label: New Morality Zine Genre: The heavy shoegaze/grunge/emo/post-hardcore spectrum Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: 3 Tiles
Welder may be the debut release from Minneapolis’ Prize Horse, but the trio have been playing together for several years now. The six-song EP was produced by Corey Coffmon of nü-shoegazers Gleemer and released through New Morality Zine, a reliable source for punk and heavy rock music as of late—if you’re familiar with either of those touchstones, you can probably guess approximately what Welder sounds like. That doesn’t make at any less strong of a debut release, though. Guitarist/vocalist Jake Beitel, bassist Liv Johnson, and drummer Jon Brenner play a blown-out brand of alt-rock that suggests they’ve spent several hours with classic space rock opuses like Fantastic Planet and Downward Is Heavenward, and Beitel’s unshakable monotone vocals are very 1990s as well.
While Beitel is too high in the mix for Prize Horse to come off as a straight shoegaze band, Welder certainly sound like they’re playing with a firmly-fixed downcast expression. Songs like “Emeryth” and the title track do get loud, but only in the service of creating dark, chilly listening experiences. Beitel’s downtuned guitar rakes across both these and the more traditionally “rocking” songs like “Far” and “Musket”, and the rhythm section (particularly Johnson’s concrete-solid bass playing) anchors these tracks in a workmanlike way, not unlike the profession to which the EP’s title alludes. It’s all very no-frills, but through sheer commitment Welder is able to suck you in completely in spite of—or maybe perhaps because of?—that. (Bandcamp link)
Reptaliens – Multiverse
Release date: January 21st Record label: Captured Tracks Genre: Indie pop, psych pop, dream pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull track: I Feel Fine
Here we have a band that’s on the complete opposite end of the “space rock” spectrum from Prize Horse. Portland, Oregon’s Reptaliens have made a name for themselves over the past half-decade with their casually futuristic lounge-pop, and with their third record, they’ve put together a strong collection of songs by exploring deviations from this sound. Multiverse follows a reverse indie rock band trajectory, embracing guitars and reducing the synths in something of a insular turn by the band’s core duo of Cole and Bambi Browning. Reptaliens are good enough at churning out subtle, airy pop music with any toolset that Multiverse isn’t a jarring listen—still, the steady downstroked electric guitar and shuffling drumbeat that announce album opener “I Feel Fine” are, if nothing else, rather exciting.
Songs like “In Your Backyard” and “Take It” take the six-string clarity of “I Feel Fine” and crank up the reverb for some confident dream pop moments, and the latter even flirts with a feedback jam as it draws to a close. The distortion in “Do You Know Are Sleeping?” isn’t restricted to the last moment—it’s a formative part of the song. Bambi’s vocals don’t sound shaken by the music, retaining their half-to-herself sung-spoken melodies in all of Multiverse’s ten tracks. More than anything, it’s her voice that provides the throughline, performing much the same role in the brisk power pop of “Don’t Wait for Me” at the center of the record as in closing track “Jump”, which is effectively made out of another drum shuffle and some positively groovy guitar leads. It all hangs together, it feels natural, but most importantly it’s a fun listen. (Bandcamp link)
It’s late-stage January, so let’s get on with what music 2022’s had to offer so far already. The first Pressing Concerns of the new year hits on new records from Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers, Modern Nature), Artsick (Burnt Palms, Lunchbox, Boyracer), and Patrick Brayer, and the debut EP from Party’z (Kittyhawk).
Release date: January 7th Record label: Strategy of Tension Genre: Experimental pop, post-punk, synthpop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: We’re Here to Help
New York’s Jeff Tobias is a ringer of sorts—he’s played various instruments, most notably saxophone, for bands like Sunwatchers and Modern Nature—but his debut “pop” album as a solo artist is something new for him. 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 loosely settles into a synth-pop style across Recurring Dream, but that gives him a lot of room with which to work. Just in the first two songs, we get the blaring alarm sounds that twine with saxophones on the urgent chaos of “Our Very Recent Past” and the minimalist funk rhythms that help “We’re Here to Help” pull off something of a smooth swagger. Like all of Recurring Dream, these two songs are grounded by the steady presence of Tobias’ voice—it’s a subtle voice that sounds both fervent and intimate. The barely-there but certainly audible smirk in the titular line of “We’re Here to Help” (that is, help relieve the wealthy of the burden of their horded wealth) is why it works.
The nonprofit grifter and offshore tax cheat character studies in “We’re Here to Help” aren’t atypical here—Recurring Dream is a heady record with a lot on its mind, something of a synth-heavier version of the Personal Space record from last year, and the lyrics don’t always spell out their messages in the way that song’s does. But Tobias glides us confidently from scene to scene, pushing his voice in the soft rock lament of “Transparency” and throwing us into the thick of it with the dire opening of “Venezuela”. Even between Tobias’ bag of musical tricks and at-times intimidating lyrics, Recurring Dream commits fully to being a pop album—every song I’ve mentioned has something I’d consider a 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. Recurring Dream has all the tools to confuse and overwhelm, and it does when it wants to, but it’s just as likely to artfully smooth out its own creases and ripples. (Bandcamp link)
Artsick – Fingers Crossed
Release date: January 21st Record label: Slumberland Genre: Twee, indie punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Stress Bomb
Christina Riley played guitar and sang in Burnt Palms for most of last decade, and more recently has been playing with long-running indie pop punk group Boyracer, featuring heavily on last year’s Assuaged. Boyracer isn’t the only 90s twee/indie pop connection that can be traced to Riley’s latest band, Artsick: both members of Lunchbox are involved in Fingers Crossed as well (Donna McKean plays bass on the record, Tim Brown recorded it). Not surprisingly, the Oakland-based trio (Riley, McKean, and drummer Mario Hernandez of Kids on a Crime Spree) sound right at home on indie pop royalty Slumberland Records: Riley’s frequently droll vocals prominently anchor the sound of a band bashing out loose but confident pop music. Like Boyracer, Artsick are on the louder end of the twee spectrum: Fingers Crossed isn’t afraid to rock. They cite Tiger Trap as an influence, and I certainly hear it.
Artstick balance the pop and the rock well: the crunchy fuzz of “Despise” also pulls out enthusiastic handclaps, and if “Ghost of Myself” is a workout, it’s because they’ve sped up a jangly pop rocker just a bit more than your average K Records band would (and one doesn’t get any more pop-reverent than that song’s intro, no?). As a vocalist, Riley delivers: she holds her own in the noisier numbers, but when the clouds part a bit, she takes full advantage of the clarity. The triumphant gallop of opening track “Restless” contrasts with an ennui-gripped Riley grasping at various methods of dulling the titular emotion, and then in “Stress Bomb”, she just as memorably mutters “just shoot me” at the lobber of the title. Only 28 minutes long, Fingers Crossed is a brief yet not ephemeral first look at the latest chapter of Christina Riley’s pop music career. (Bandcamp link)
Patrick Brayer – Cabbage and Kings: An Inland Shrimpire Anthology
Release date: January 21st Record label: Shrimper Genre: Folk, country Formats: CD, digital Pull track: Note to Self (To Say Goodbye)
Patrick Brayer is something of a contradiction, or at the very least a curious case. Major folk players like Alison Krauss and Dave Alvin have covered his songs, but here he is releasing an album on Shrimper Records, primarily known as an underground lo-fi cassette label from the 90s. He’s a prolific songwriter, as evidenced by scores of digital releases on his Bandcamp page, but there’s only ever been a small handful of official, physical Patrick Brayer releases. His first record came out in 1979—over forty years ago. So, what to make of Cabbage and Kings? Well, the record does keep one foot planted firmly in the underground—if there’s any question as to how Brayer fits in with the Shrimper world, these songs reveal traces of Refrigerator’s quieter side and Simon Joyner, and there’s a desert-folk ramble a la Howe Gelb of Giant Sand that’s not too far off either.
But at the same time, Cabbage and Kings places Brayer among more well-known company. If Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash could make great records in the later years of their careers, well, so can he. Brayer sounds infinitely comfortable on Cabbage and Kings’ songs, which stretch out to hold everything Brayer has to give. “If you’ve had a life as rich as mine, I doubt it, but good for you,” he sings in “Empty Cage”, a tribute to Chris Darrow that, first-personal or not, is one of several songs that succeed in spanning a lifetime into a few minutes. “Note to Self (To Say Goodbye)” takes over nine of those minutes to complete its stare, but Brayer doesn’t blink the entire way through. These songs are incredibly captivating; it really does come off as the work of someone who’s spent decades mapping out a unique version of well-trodden songwriting hills. (Midheaven link)
Party’z – Party’z EP
Release date: January 14th Record label: Self-released Genre: Fuzz rock, noise pop Formats: Digital Pull track: Getting Warmer
One of my favorite compilations of last year was Mikey’s Favorite Songs by Kittyhawk, a collection of non-album material from the Chicago emo band. While Kittyhawk seems to be active again in some capacity, that hasn’t stopped a couple of its members from debuting as Party’z this month. It’s the project of Kittyhawk’s guitarist/vocalist Mark Jaeschke, with the band’s bassist Clare Teeling joining a lineup rounded out by keyboardist Delia Hornik and drummer Andy Hendricks. However, very little of the elder act’s Midwest emo sound is apparent in Party’z’s four-song debut EP, at least not on the surface. Jaeschke and the band have put together a record of amp-cranked, fuzzy power pop.
In the opening kick-off of “Getting Warmer” and (especially) the closing reverb-fest of “Follow the Sound”, Party’z flirt with being a straight-up end-of-the-2000s shitgaze band—they sound closer to Times New Viking than any of their “main” group’s fellow fourth-wave emo revivalists. Intentionally or otherwise, however, the Party’z EP argues for some common ground here: these are four earnest pop songs underneath the feedback. Hornik’s keyboard routinely pokes out, delivering hooky Rentals/Anniversary synths even as the guitar threatens to drown it out, and Jaeschke is as likely as not to use the distortion to emphasize the emotion in their vocals as to obscure them. Party’z already have plans for a follow-up full-length record, and what they’ve put down together so far suggests that one should keep an eye on the young band. (Bandcamp link)
If you chose to read this, you probably know who Silkworm were, but I’ll try to briefly go over it for anyone who doesn’t. Silkworm formed in the late 1980s in Missoula, featuring singer/guitarists Andrew Cohen and Joel Phelps and singer/bassist Tim Midyett, and then moved to Seattle and added Michael Dahlquist, the greatest drummer of all time. In the mid-90s Phelps left and started a solo career, the band continued on as a trio, and they ended up in Chicago. Silkworm ceased to exist in 2005 after Dahlquist’s death. Cohen and Midyett played in the band Bottomless Pit together in the aftermath of Silkworm’s demise, but that band is no longer active either. Midyett currently leads the band Mint Mile, while Cohen released a solo record in 2017 and was playing live shows up until the pandemic began. Phelps’ last record with his band, The Downer Trio, came out in 2013.
As the 2013 documentary Couldn’t You Wait: The Story of Silkworm emphasizes, this is a band with a small but fervent cult following. I’m not the first person to be inspired by their music enough to write 7,000-odd words about it, but I wanted to try to be comprehensive with my submission into this world. Silkworm doesn’t sound like anybody else. Spawning from Montana has something to do with that, sure, but it’s more than that. Cohen, Midyett, and Phelps are all extraordinary songwriters—and all three’s styles are fairly different from the others’. Even the “lesser” albums and EPs by them deserve looks. I’ve made a companion playlist to this piece that emphasizes this, pulling from almost every record included in this list (it’s ordered for flow, not to reflect the order of my list). If you aren’t familiar with Silkworm or any of their related groups, I hope you find something in here that speaks to you. If you are familiar with Silkworm—yes, I know Libertine is too low. You don’t have to yell at me about it.
Some notes to other people who also care deeply about Silkworm: This list does not include Silkworm’s early demo cassettes. I never liked the early Silkworm stuff I’ve heard enough to try too hard to track those down. It doesn’t include any of the bands that original drummer Ben Koostra ended up in, but I’m sure they’re perfectly fine. It doesn’t include the other bands by late-era keyboardist Matt Kadane, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that Bedhead and The New Year are quality groups. It doesn’t include any of the Sunn O))) albums that Tim Midyett played on, although there is a record in here with a different Sunn O))) connection. It doesn’t include the Silkworm live bootlegs that have shown up on Bandcamp in recent years, although I’m grateful those exist. It doesn’t include any of the one-off tracks from any of the members, eventhoughtherearemanygoodones.
36. Alison Chesley, Steve Albini, and Tim Midyett – Music from the Film Girl on the Third Floor (2020)
I’m betting a lot of you didn’t know this existed, and it’s probably up some of your alleys, so I’m happy to be including this for that purpose, at least. It’s not really up mine, though. It is notable for the novelty of hearing Tim Midyett make music with two great collaborators: Steve Albini (who engineered almost everything by Silkworm, but to my knowledge never played with them) and indie rock’s greatest cellist, Alison Chesley (aka Helen Money) of Verbow. If you like slow, mostly-instrumental, (literally) cinematic post-rock, then give Music from the Film Girl on the Third Floor a listen.
35. Dama/Libra – Claw (2014)
The most recent full-length record to feature any contributions from Joel Phelps, the Northern Spy-released Claw paired his vocals up with music from former Sunn O))) member, brother of Michael, and noted crow enthusiast G. Stuart Dalhquist. It is, like the previous record on this list, not really my bag—this is definitely the closest thing to a drone album here, sounding something like Sunn O))) songs shortened into “normal” track length and featuring admittedly great Phelps vocals. Plus it has “Been to the Water”, the record’s most tuneful song and a no-brainer entry into any Joel Phelps best-of collection.
34. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Consulate EP (2017)
Consulate was recorded at the same time as 2013’s Gala, but didn’t surface until a little over three years later, making it Joel Phelps’ most recent release. It’s a short one, featuring two alternate version of tracks from Gala and two EP exclusives. The two revisits strip the songs down to parts, turning the ripping “Blinding Light” and the rhythm-section showcase “Goldentown” into a mid-tempo acoustic shuffle and piano ballad, respectively. The two “new” songs are even sparser, Phelps rising barely above a whisper above delicate instrumentation in “On the Side” and “Roll on Columbia”. Hardly a major release, but any new Joel Phelps is welcome at this point.
33. Silkworm – You Are Dignified EP (2003)
My favorite thing about Silkworm’s You Are Dignified covers EP is how great of a selection these songs are. When I was at my peak obsession with this band, this EP helped me either discover or strengthen my admiration for Robbie Fulks, Bedhead, Nina Nastasia, and Shellac. Even the Pavement selection (“And Then…”) is a well-chosen obscurity, an early version of “The Hexx” that was relegated to Brighten the Corners B-side status. As for the acoustic, mandolin-heavy versions themselves, they’re fun (particularly Michael’s version of “Prayer to God” and Tim and Andy’s “Let’s Kill Saturday Night”), if admittedly fairly inessential for most.
32. Ein Heit – The Lightning and the Sun (1997)
Well, something has to be the lowest-ranked “rock” album on this list. Ein Heit was the band that originally united Joel Phelps, Tim Midyett, and Andy Cohen in Missoula before they formed Silkworm and decamped to Seattle. They’ve always seemed fond of the band, and it’s commendable that they got back with Ein Heit members John Kappes and Tom Kipp to make a permanent record of the group, even reuniting with Joel Phelps after he somewhat acrimoniously left Silkworm. The Lightning and the Sun isn’t without its charms—the Phelps-sung “Lonesome Heart” is killer, and when I’m in the right mood, the seven-minute “Without Warning” sounds profound to me—but these are largely songs from a handful of musicians who hadn’t reached their best form yet. It’s an incredibly unique-sounding record, though, I have to give it that.
31. Silkworm – Marco Collins Sessions EP (1995)
Like You Are Dignified, the Marco Collins Sessions EP found Silkworm in stripped-down mode, but they’re playing their own songs here, which helps it rank a little higher. Marco Collins is a longtime Seattle DJ whose Wikipedia page claims he was “instrumental” in breaking Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta”, among other songs, so he should be commended both for that and facilitating this four-song EP. Another feather in the Marco Collin Sessions EP’s cap is that the acoustic version of “Couldn’t You Wait?” is actually better than the album version—credit that to Tim Midyett’s vocal performance, especially at the song’s climax. The whole EP was reissued as a bonus with Comedy Minus One’s 2013 reissue of Libertine.
30. Tim Midgett – It Goes Like This EP (2002)
It Goes Like This was initially part of a CD subscription series from Three Lobed Recordings, and then made more widely available a few years later by Comedy Minus One. Three out of the EP’s six songs would eventually wind up on Silkworm albums, so might be tempting to call this a demo dump, but there’s also a cover of The Zombies’ “Time of the Season” into which Midyett clearly put a good deal of effort. My favorite song here is the windswept “As Long…”, one of the two unreleased-elsewhere originals, and among the eventual Silkworm tracks, it’s a treat to hear “Something Hyper” without the (cool) weird stuff they did with it on It’ll Be Cool, as well as Italian Platinum highlight “Young” sung by Midyett instead of Kelly Hogan as it is on that record.
29. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – The Downer Trio EP (1997)
The Downer Trio isn’t the only Joel R.L. Phelps release to hover somewhere between EP and full-length—it nears the 30-minute mark thanks to a couple of covers, an alternate version, and a brief instrumental. None of the three original tracks would be on my shortlist for favorite Phelps tune, but the twitchy, rhythm-section-heavy opener “Razorback” probably merits an honorable mention, and the gliding alt-country of “At El Paso” connects the dots between the first two Phelps LPs nicely. Among the covers, The Clash’s “The Guns of Brixton” becomes a haunting piano ballad, but it’s Phelps’ surprisingly intense take on “Emerald City” by Dramarama that’s the most successful.
28. Mint Mile – In Season & Ripe EP (2015)
Mint Mile, Tim Midyett’s first band without Andy Cohen (without him as a creative partner, at first, and later without him at all) introduced themselves to the world rather quietly, with a trio of four-song EPs. In Season & Ripe feels low-key even among the other two, relying heavily (for Midyett) on acoustic guitar and kind of drifting through its four tracks. The lazy strut of “Mountain Lion” opens the EP with Mint Mile’s first classic song, sounding like vintage Midyett but also distinct from Silkworm and Bottomless Pit. The rest of In Season & Ripe doesn’t quite deliver on “Mountain Lion”’s promise, but if “Modern Day” and “Wound” can feel a little dizzying sometimes, it’s a unique moment in Midyett’s music career.
27. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Gala (2013)
While Gala as a whole doesn’t reach the heights of Joel Phelps’ previous records, I am grateful that it exists at all; after a worsening battle with substance abuse resulted in nearly a decade without any new music from Phelps, the triumph that marks Gala’s strongest songs is completely earned. Phelps vows “I want to grace to put my bottle down” in opener “The Nashville Sound”, one of the greatest songs he’s ever written, and The Downer Trio sound as alive as ever on highlights “Blinding Light” and “Thank You and Goodnight”. While it looks increasingly likely with every passing year that Phelps’ sudden flurry of musical activity in the early 2010s was a blip on the radar rather than the beginning of a new era, the world is better for it to have happened.
26. Silkworm – Even a Blind Chicken Finds a Kernel of Corn Now and Then (1998)
Even a Blind Chicken Finds a Kernel of Corn Now and Then is a two-CD compilation that compiled some of Silkworm’s harder-to-find releases: their 1992 debut record, L’ajre, 1993’s His Absence Is a Blessing EP, and various non-album singles. I decided to include the compilation instead of breaking the LP and the EP out separately to highlight a couple non-album tunes: namely “Slipstream”, the first great song Silkworm made together, but “Violet” and “Around a Light” (originally released together) are strong, too. Of the two major releases here, L’ajre is definitely the weaker of the two (ranking probably ahead of Consulate, if you’re curious)—all of “Homoactivity” is awesome, and parts of several other songs are too, but it’s the sound of a band still yet to figure out how to restrain themselves enough to make great records. In my opinion, His Absence Is a Blessing is a little overrated—it’s not until In the West that they truly ascend, to me—but it does contain “Scruffy Tumor”, the First Great Silkworm Song (which is distinct from the first great song made by Silkworm, it should be noted). Rank it between Inland Empires and Tradition, if you must.
25. The Crust Brothers – Marquee Mark (1998)
The Crust Brothers are likely 90s indie rock’s greatest supergroup, slotting ahead of The Halo Benders and that time Johnny Marr was in Modest Mouse. The Brothers were the three members of Silkworm at the time (Midyett, Cohen, Dahlquist) and Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, and Marquee Mark captures one of the group’s few live performances. The Crust Brothers gleefully make Silkworm’s (and, I guess, Pavement’s) classic rock undertones explicit; almost all of these tracks are covers of songs that could be generally described as “classic rock”. It’s a really fun album, and maybe should be higher—Malkmus leads the band through a ripping version of “Feel a Whole Lot Better”, all of them sing together on “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, and Midyett’s scorching take on “Heard It Through the Grapevine” is the definitive version of the song (not that I’m biased or anything). Oh, and they get Malkmus to sing a Silkworm song—his “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” is charming.
24. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Inland Empires (2000)
There’s only one original song on Inland Empires, but it’s a doozy. “Now You Are Found (1962-1999)” is a beautiful, heartbreaking tribute to Joel Phelps’ sister, who’d died of a drug overdose in what was the very, very recent past at the time. It’s a bit of a tough listen, as incredible as it is—possibly why the song finds itself the centerpiece of a curious, seven-song, mostly-covers record that straddles the line between LP and EP instead of one of many originals on a “normal” album. Not that the other songs on Inland Empires are relief, exactly, but they’re emotional in different ways. Phelps gives Steve Earle’s “Someday” a slow, bittersweet reading that gazes into the past deliberately, and his version of Iris Dement’s “My Life”, coming right after “Now You Are Found” as it does, is silence-inducing. Inland Empires more than earns “Apology Accepted”, a Go-Betweens cover that’s probably the most upbeat the Downer Trio have ever sounded.
23. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Tradition EP (2004)
Tradition was originally a bonus CD that came with 2004’s Custom, and it’s more of a piece with that record than with anything else in Joel Phelps’ discography. Like Inland Empires, it’s mostly covers (three of them, plus two originals), but the Downer Trio announce from the opening notes of “What Are You Doing Here Cowboy?” that they’re not trying to recreate that album’s sparse, pin-drop intimacy. That song, as well as an intense, six-minute version of Joy Division’s “24 Hours” finds Phelps, William Herzog, and Robert Mercer with amps cranked up, and when they slow to a crawl in “Right Now”, it’s a full-band, bass-and-drums-led one. The one exception is a hushed take on Townes Van Zandt’s “Flying Shoes”, which I believe might be an Inland Empire outtake (they went with “Our Mother the Mountain” instead).
22. Bottomless Pit – Lottery 2005-2012 EP (2012)
The physical edition of Lottery 2005-2012 was a Japan-only two-CD compilation of everything Bottomless Pit had released up until that point, plus a couple of exclusive bonus tracks. That’s not the version I’m ranking here; this is for the digital version, which made the three previously-unreleased songs available to everybody else. This is a small release, sure, and maybe shouldn’t even count, but these three tracks are all very good to great and stack up against any of the “proper” Bottomless Pit records. Like the Developer bonus tracks, “State I’m In” and “The Colchis Eagles” show that Midyett and Cohen prune songs off their albums due to how well they “fit in” with the record’s mood, rather than the individual tracks’ quality. The “fast” version of “Winterwind”, the third and final song, is better than the album version, and is maybe Bottomless Pit’s greatest achievement as a single recording, but the “slow” version fits Blood Under the Bridge better, so off to Japan this one went.
21. Joel R.L. Phelps – Warm Springs Night (1995)
After Joel Phelps was either fired from or quit the band he co-led and helped found, he struck out on his own with a fiery, rickety record of shambling country/garage rock that doesn’t sound quite like any of the following albums, even as it set up the path the Downer Trio would follow. Even though it’s not billed as “Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio”, the other two members of the trio—William Herzog and Robert Mercer—play on Warm Springs Night, and the rockers sound like a rough version of what they’d make together. Phelps never tried to recreate the post-hardcore squall of Silkworm with The Downer Trio, and while he probably comes closest on Warm Springs Night—the loose anger of “Counsel”, the noise-punk “God Bless the Little Pigs”—there are plenty of subtle moments to mark the beginning of his second act. The western slowcore of the title track and “OK Reno” as well as more electric lonesome tracks like “The Graze and the Graves” and “All We Want” both ended up being fruitful paths for the singer-songwriter to follow.
20. Mint Mile – The Bliss Point EP (2016)
The Bliss Point saw the return of the electric guitar to prominence in Tim Midyett’s music, and thus Mint Mile sounds a bit more like his previous bands here—at least on the surface. Opener “City of Speed Traps” is maybe the most Silkworm-y Mint Mile song, keeping things surprisingly straightforward with a nice pop song chord progression and a chiming guitar riff. It’s a classic. As is “Park”, a song that doesn’t particularly sound like Silkworm. That song chimes as well; I’m not enough of a gearhead to be sure who or which of the various stringed instruments on The Bliss Point is responsible for it, but it’s a fun touch all over the appropriately-titled EP. The extended, drum-less instrumental intro and oddly groovy choruses of “Park” make it stand out like a sore thumb, but it works. The two other tracks are more slippery, although “Bellflower” in particular is an intriguing combination of the “new” Mint Mile sound and that of In Season & Ripe’s.
19. Mint Mile – Heartroller EP (2018)
The final entry in Mint Mile’s introductory trio of EPs is the most consistent one, and it also has what’s probably the band’s best song so far in “Disappearing Music”. Especially in its first three songs, Heartroller settles on a rolling country-rock sound that it feels like Midyett and crew had been working towards since the beginning of Mint Mile. By this point, Mint Mile had solidified into a set lineup (Midyett, drummer Jeff Panall, guitarist Justin Brown, bassist Matthew Barnhart), and it definitely shows. “Fight It All the Way” stretches to seven minutes, but every second of it is full of drive and determination, and the balladry of “Golden to the Point of Being Common” rises and falls appropriately. The drum machines and keyboards that mark closer “Disappearing Music” make it the EP’s black sheep, but the song’s hypnotic march would be out of place anywhere, I suspect, and it’s too damn good to leave off of anything. Apparently the song took fifteen years for Midyett to finish, and needed Mint Miler collaborator Howard Draper to help complete it. They nailed it.
18. Silkworm – Blueblood (1998)
Other than L’ajre, which doesn’t really count, Blueblood is the lowest proper Silkworm album on here. It’s always had an air of “last by default” to it (the Couldn’t You Wait documentary skips over it entirely, for instance), and I’m not really here to challenge that perception of Blueblood. Maybe it was fatigue from releasing three records in as many years, or maybe it was a necessary transition before Silkworm entered their most fertile period in the early 2000s, but it’s a noticeable step down from the records that came both before and after it. But even a below-average Silkworm album is still a very above average normal album. Blueblood gifts us with “I Must Prepare (Tablecloth Tint)”, a low-key Midyett number that’s the record’s one true short-lister, and several other Silkworm classics—among them, Cohen’s absurd opening track “Eff”, and Midyett’s two-song closing punch of “Pearly Gates” and “Clean’d Me Out”. And my complaints—“Redeye” feels like a lesser version of “The Lure of Beauty” from Firewater, “Empty Elevator Shaft” feels like a dry run for better Michael Dahlquist lead vocal songs, and I can never remember how “Tonight We’re Meat” and “Ritz Dance” go—are relatively minor in the end, and I still like all of those songs. Besides, this way I can be pleasantly surprised by the “Tonight We’re Meat” riff every time I hear it.
17. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – 3 (1998)
There are some words that keep coming up when I talk about Joel R.L. Phelps’ music. Stark. Quiet. Intense. Insular. “Difficult”. Listening to “The Way Down” once probably illustrates what I’m getting at better than any of my words could. Phelps sings accompanied only by the plucking of an upright bass, and occasional stabs of horns. Phelps’ voice is a whisper at first, until rising to a strained holler by the song’s end. And this is how he chose to start 1998’s 3. The rest of the record isn’t so difficult—unless you’re a typical Silkworm fan. That is to say, there’s very little alt-rock on 3; if it’s alt- anything, it’s country. And it’s very good at it, too—the steel guitar-driven “Rev. Robert Irving” is one of Phelps’ best songs, and “Always Glide” lilts in the same right ways. And there are plenty more long, lonesome ballads—“Hope’s Hit” and “Fifty” both scratch that itch, Phelps sounding no less passionate over music more subdued than over either Silkworm or most of The Downer Trio’s faire. Phelps’ next two proper records rocked more than 3, and I like them more than 3, but I wouldn’t change 3 from what it is, not at all.
16. Andrew Cohen and Light Coma – Unreality (2017)
Andrew Cohen was the last songwriting member of Silkworm to make a record on his own (although Midyett’s bands had made only EPs at this point). Cohen contemplated retiring from music after Bottomless Pit ended and he found the role of sideman in Mint Mile unfulfilling. Instead, he fell in with Light Coma, a Chicago band that’s released two records on their own and is led by Bottomless Pit bassist Brian Orchard. Unreality answers the question of whether an album made up of just Andy’s songs would work on its own with a resounding “yeah, duh”. It’s a classically-sequenced record, with a surprisingly shiny and inviting side one paired with a thornier, headier second side. “Your Biography” and “Repack” are just about the brightest Cohen has ever sounded, but there is a darkness to Unreality; in addition to the loss of Dahlquist, the death of acquaintance Jason Molina hangs over several songs here too, notably “Midwest DTs” and “Midwest Delirium” (the same song, but done both acoustic and electric).
15. Mint Mile – Ambertron (2020)
Around about here is where the rankings get very difficult. Ambertron has already risen a lot from where I would’ve put it at the time of its release; I suspect that a few years from now, it’ll be even higher on my personal list. Even though Tim Midyett always felt like the most prolific songwriter in Silkworm, it took the longest time for him to make a full-length record of entirely his own songs, but the hour-and-change Ambertron is more than worth the wait. Midyett seizes on the country-rock sound Mint Mile hit on with Heartroller and uses it to expand these songs. And just from a writing perspective, Ambertron feels like a high water mark moment for Midyett—the cores of “Shy”, “Riding On and Off Peak”, and “Giving Love” could’ve come from any point in his music career, but the details and the performances all sound only like Mint Mile. Kelly Hogan, who sang one of Silkworm’s best songs on Italian Platinum, returns to make “Sang” even more intriguing. All of the aforementioned songs (as well as the inviting opener “Tobacco Coffee Wintergreen”) could be the best one, but my favorite track from Ambertron I think has to be “Fallen Rock”. The loping, slow-trotting song unhurriedly unfolds its highway drama over seven minutes; it doesn’t sound like anything else on Ambertron, but it isAmbertron as much as any of the other songs are.
14. Silkworm – Libertine (1994)
Yes, yes. As I alluded to in the intro, I know Libertine is ranked too low. Sorry. I love it dearly; I just love a dozen of these albums more. Like I said, this is where it gets difficult. It’s a lot of people’s number one favorite Silkworm record, and I can see why—it’s still got the noisy post-punk sound of In the West, but it cleans it up and polishes it just enough for the classic rock-indebted sound of their future to slightly peek through. I will also say that Libertine, the last album to feature contributions from Joel Phelps, is also his strongest moment as a member of Silkworm: the central trio of “Yen + Janet Together”, “Oh How We Laughed”, and “The Cigarette Lighters” showcase three different but equally compelling sides to his songwriting, and is the defining aspect of Libertine. Or maybe it’s Midyett’s “Couldn’t You Wait”, which—even though I admitted I prefer the Marco Collins version, is breathtaking and captivating in any context. Or maybe it’s “Grotto of Miracles”—it isn’t as straightforward as, say, “Into the Woods” or “Dust My Broom”, yet it established Andy Cohen as a singular musical force in every way: lyricist, vocalist, guitarist, composer.
13. Bottomless Pit – Hammer of the Gods (2007)
There was no question of whether Silkworm would continue to exist after Michael Dahlquist’s death in 2005 (it wouldn’t), but there was almost as little question as to whether or not Tim Midyett and Andy Cohen would continue to make music together (they would). Thus begat Bottomless Pit, a band that was as strong and powerful as Silkworm in its own way. Joined by Seam’s Chris Manfrin on drums and .22 and Light Coma’s Brian Orchard on bass (Midyett moved to baritone guitar, which he’d been playing more often than not in Silkworm anyway), Hammer of the Gods isn’t the only post-Silkworm album colored by Dahlquist’s death, but it’s probably the one most defined by it. Nearly every song seems either directly or indirectly about it, from Midyett’s fairly straightforward eulogy “Human Out of Me” and swelling opener “The Cardinal Movements” to Cohen’s dark, brooding songs like “Dead Man’s Blues” and “Greenery”. Hammer of the Gods is smooth and refined in a way that Silkworm never were—I wouldn’t have guessed Cohen could ever lead a song as delicate as “Dogtag”, for instance.
12. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Customs (2004)
For a while it seemed like Customs was going to be the final statement of Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio, and while thankfully that didn’t turn out be the case, it would’ve been a strong note on which to go out. In some ways, it’s the most streamlined Downer Trio record—it continues the roaring alt-rock that Blackbird hit upon, but sharpens down that record’s vast expanses to knife-edge power chords in the opening one-two of “From Up Here” and “Be First!”. It’s the best opening to a Phelps record—the former featuring the strongest use of steel drums in indie rock, and the latter “merely” being possibly the fieriest thing the band ever put to tape. Although the big Joel Phelps ballads eventually show up on Customs, particularly in the second half, there’s also a middle ground—songs like “What the Sgt. Said” and “Kelly Grand Forks”, mid-tempo power chord chuggers that strike a balance between Phelps’ hushed subtlety and the unbridled release of the record’s first two songs. My only real complaint with the record is sequencing: too many loud songs in front and quiet songs in the back, causing the four track after “Shame” too blend together a bit too much, even though they’re all strong on their own (especially the hulking “The Lie for the Day”).
11. Bottomless Pit – Congress EP (2008)
Congress is four songs and nineteen minutes of Bottomless Pit coalescing into a fine-tuned band. If they’d held these tracks back and made a full album, they might’ve capitalized on the moderate buzz Hammer of the Gods had gotten and maybe Bottomless Pit could’ve rivaled the popularity of Cohen and Midyett’s previous band. But like Silkworm, they did things their own way, for the better—Congress isn’t a compendium to either Hammer or 2010’s Blood Under the Bridge. It’s its own thing. Midyett’s two songs, “Red Pen” and “Pitch”, are both long, propulsive, rhythm-emphasizing tracks that aren’t as leisurely as “Winterwind”, nor as urgent as “The Cardinal Movements”. The transfixing “Red Pen” sounds like something off of Shade Perennial that’s been unwound and spread out a bit. Cohen’s two songs are shorter and are closer to, if still removed from, the heart of Hammer of the Gods. In particular, the two-minute-thirty “Fish Eyes” (which was once covered by Waxahatchee; it’s worth digging for that) feels a lot more “bittersweet” than “hopelessly despairing”. The way Cohen sings the title (“Fish uh-eyes”) is equal parts brilliant and silly.
10. Joel R.L. Phelps and the Downer Trio – Blackbird (1999)
After the quiet alt-country of 3 just one year previously, one might’ve thought Joel Phelps was going to fade (or grow, depending on your perspective) into an acoustic, lonesome folk singer-songwriter. Then he and the Downer Trio made Blackbird, the strongest record Phelps ever released after he left Silkworm. The electricity that marked a good deal of Warm Springs Night was back, as opening rocker “Then Slowly Turn” announced triumphantly, but he, William Herzog, and Robert Mercer sound more focused here, tighter as a trio than ever before. Like Customs, it starts with a hell of a one-two punch, with “I’ve Got a Live One” coming off as “Be First!” if it were too anxious to fully commit to its anger. Unlike the following record, however, the most powerful moments on Blackbird aren’t necessarily its loudest ones: third track “Unless You’re Tired of Living” rocks but in a sprawling, delirious fashion, and the centerpiece of the album, a six-minute cover of the Comsat Angels’ “Lost Continent”, is a masterpiece of restraint. Phelps has always been able to wring out unthinkable emotion from relative simplicity (think “Pilot” and especially “Dremate” from In the West) and Blackbird features his two best songs in this fashion: the cavernous “Invited” and the closing “Landslide”.
9. Bottomless Pit – Blood Under the Bridge (2010)
Blood Under the Bridge, the most underappreciated and misunderstood Bottomless Pit album, doesn’t really rock. Other than the rare instrumental “Dixon” and the steam-blow-off closing track “38 Souls”, it’s a deliberate and slow-paced record that doesn’t go out of its way to grab your attention. It’s an inward turn—if it’s not exactly “acceptance” to Hammer of the Gods’ “grief”, it’s at least more considering of the possibility. Like Congress, Blood Under the Bridge opens with a seven-minute Tim Midyett song, but the steady, gorgeous plod of “Winterwind” feels less like a complete journey than an excerpt of something even larger. And that’s one of Midyett’s louder numbers on the record—we also get the floating, percussionless “Rhinelander” and the last-thoughts-before-falling-asleep “Q.E.D.”. Then again, there’s also the upbeat, new wavey “Late”, which features probably the best usage of “fuckers” anywhere on this list. Blood Under the Bridge is the strongest “Midyett” album of Bottomless Pit’s three, although “Summerwind” feels like a major work in the oeuvre of Andy Cohen (even if it’s more of the “impenetrable obelisk” and less of the “great American novel” variety).
8. Silkworm – It’ll Be Cool (2004)
A Pitchfork writer once claimed that toward the end of their career, Silkworm “made few missteps but brought fewer surprises”. While the first part is accurate, to the second, I would submit that the author must not have really listened to It’ll Be Cool, a deeply weird and surprising album that ended up being an unexpected yet fittingly odd final statement. The opening six-and-a-half minute “Don’t Look Back” is basically krautrock Silkworm, and looked toward Bottomless Pit more than anything else in their discography. And that’s one of the more “normal” ones. “Penalty Box” is almost a typical Andy Cohen rocker, except for the squeaky riff (I believe it’s a sped-up guitar) sprinkled liberally throughout, and even without the slowed-down vocal effect harmonizing with Tim Midyett throughout “Something Hyper”, that song would still be one of the most unique tracks Silkworm ever recorded. And that’s not even getting into “Xian Undertaker”, which turns Midyett’s mandolin flirtations and new-ish member Matt Kadane’s ringing piano into a rousing, barroom singalong that certainly doesn’t sound like anything else on It’ll Be Cool (and, other than maybe “Bourbon Beard”, anything else by Silkworm). The underappreciated “The Operative” is one of Silkworm’s sweetest and most straightforward moments, and (along with instrumental “His Mark Replies”) it’s an incredible note on which to end Silkworm’s final album.
7. Silkworm – In the West (1994)
I’ve made it clear that I like a lot of earlier Silkworm recordings, but in earnest, there wasn’t much among them to suggest that they were just around the corner from making a record like In the West, the peak of the band’s four-piece years. If it were all they’d managed to accomplish together, they’d still be a fascinating case. Silkworm was still a “noise rock” band at this point, but beginning to show why that label could never accurately hold them. First track “Garden City Blues”, their best album opener, sets up several tenets of Silkworm perfectly: delicate and subtle despite its most notable feature being Dahlquist’s pounding drums, unbridled guitars that nevertheless can and do hold back when necessary, and a generally unpredictable but smooth structure. Andy Cohen steals the show on In the West between “Into the Woods” and “Dust My Broom”, which both showcase Silkworm at full might, but all three songwriters take a step forward on the record. Between the album opener and “Punch Drunk Five” (which benefited greatly from Comedy Minus One’s recent remastered reissue of the record), Tim Midyett is more than holding his own, and all three Joel Phelps songs on the album are absolute scorchers (I’ve always been fond of the post-punk closer “Pilot”, which seems to get the least love of the three).
6. Silkworm – Developer (1997)
A lot of what I said about Blood Under the Bridge also applies to the equally-underappreciated Developer, but on a larger scale. 1996’s Firewater was not a breakout, but Silkworm were as popular as they’d ever be, and instead of capitalizing, they made an aggressively un-commercial follow-up to it. Tim Midyett in particular seemed to be chasing something on Developer—between the glacial, Dahlquist-showcase opener “Give Me Some Skin”, the murmuring “The City Glows”, and the watch-glancing “Waiting on a Train”, this is the closest Silkworm ever came to being a slowcore band. But they didn’t even commit to that fully: Andy Cohen’s first three songs—the joyous “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like”, the pummeling title track, and the anxious fever dream of “Ice Station Zebra”—all rock in decidedly different ways, but they all rock. Despite all this, Developer is a deeply rewarding album that all hangs together incredibly—they left some good songs off of this record, namely “Ogilvie”, but I wouldn’t change Developer a bit. The last few tracks in particular took me ages to fully come around to, but “Sheep Wait for Wolf” and “Goodnight Mr. Maugham” contain some of Cohen’s best and most interesting writing, even if it was the stretch from “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” to “Ice Station Zebra” that led me back to Developer enough times to actually see it.
5. Silkworm – Firewater (1996)
Firewater is the big one. The mid-90s double album that fans of their era of indie rock are most likely to remember. The Matador debut. The concept record. The one where Andy Cohen goes absolutely wild on every single one of his songs. Cohen’s lyrics and images are the most immediate memory stickers on Firewater—“the crowd’s a rapacious beast”, “Friday night is sacred, it’s not time to be wasted”, his friend Jean-Luc on the subway, and nearly every word of “Nerves”. It’s a fascinating surface, but there’s so much more going on below just a few one-liners—such is the nature of a 60-minute album where every song is worthwhile, and most are superb. It’s reputation as an “alcohol album” is earned—there’s “Drunk”, for one, and “Severance Pay” and “Slow Hands” are explicit about it as well—but that’s not the entire picture. Several of these songs are about the rough circumstances behind Joel Phelps’ departure from the band; Midyett has said as much about “Swings” (“Now I know that I made a big mistake on you”) and “Caricature of a Joke” (guess to whom the title refers). But Firewater can’t be boiled down to that either; there’s just too much here. There’s the “he’s still going?” endless guitar solo in “Killing My Ass”, the equally-absurd one in the otherwise-acoustic tour tale “Miracle Mile”, Cohen’s most-divorced-man-ever character in “Don’t Make Plans This Friday”. Not only were Silkworm going to be fine after the departure of Phelps, but they were going to get better. And better.
4. Silkworm – Chokes! EP (2006)
Michael Dahlquist, Douglas Meis, and John Glick were killed in Skokie, Illinois, in 2005 while driving from their workplace together to get lunch. One of the least important results of this senseless loss of life was that the greatest band in the world would immediately cease to exist. The instrumentals that would become the four original songs on Chokes! had been recorded weeks before Dahlquist’s death—after an understandable amount of time had passed, Cohen, Midyett, and Kadane finished the tracks and added two previously-recorded covers. Since Touch and Go had dropped Silkworm (presumably to sign fifty more dance-punk bands), 12XU issued it initially. If the band had gotten to finish Chokes!, it could’ve been their best album—the four songs are just that good. The thundering call-and-response of “Internat’l Harbor of Grace” is a massive achievement for Midyett, only slightly overshadowing his triumphant and, in these circumstances, quite moving “Bar Ice”. This time around, Andy Cohen gets to be the subtler one—neither “Low Blow” nor “Lily White & Cherry Red” qualifies as an “anthem”, but both of them are sharp reminders of everything this band did well. I almost don’t need the two extra covers—not that I would get rid of them, no. Especially not “Spanish Harlem Incident”, a live-recorded Crust Brothers version of the Bob Dylan song sung by Dahlquist that closes the record.
3. Bottomless Pit – Shade Perennial (2013)
Bottomless Pit couldn’t have made Firewater, but Silkworm couldn’t have made Shade Perennial. Like the death of Silkworm, the probably permanent “indefinite hiatus” of Bottomless Pit makes me sad, but it’s a different kind of sadness. Silkworm’s end was cruel and random, but Bottomless Pit bowed out after reaching the group’s logical endpoint; that is, Shade Perennial. To try to expound on earlier Pit analysis—Hammer of the Gods was raw grief, Blood Under the Bridge was the uneasy acceptance that the passing of time brings, and Shade Perennial is…ascension? Otherworldliness? Bottomless Pit were already a tight band, but here everything sounds nearly completely as one. It’s a 30 minute out-of-body experience. Opening track “Fleece” is a mountain with thunderclouds surrounding it, every note and moment perfectly arranged in a seemingly-impossible manner. “Incurable Feeling” is much the same way except that, improbably, you can also dance to it. The storm parts to reveal the clung-to happiness of “Bare Feet”, strengthens again in the deluge of “Sacred Trench”. The intentness of “Full of Life” gives way to perhaps the record’s most grounded song, Cohen’s nevertheless towering “Horse Trading”, and the whole thing ends improbably (again!) with a six-minute sprint called “Felt a Little Left” that starts in the most incredible way possible and strongly resists ending.
2. Silkworm – Italian Platinum (2002)
Italian Platinum is Silkworm’s best collection of songs. It’s a lost greatest hits record from a 1970s classic rock band that should’ve treated AOR as its personal playground. Or maybe it’s from an adventurous 1980s post-punk band that would inspire a legion of British music-mag-hyped imitators decades later. Or a 90s alt-rock group that united the underground and the mainstream and provided a respite from Red Hot Chili Peppers on modern rock radio. Every song’s got its own world here: Andy Cohen both opens and closes the record with monster riffs and maximum absurdity (“A Cockfight of Feelings” is probably Silkworm’s best song title, if not best album closer), and lands an emotional bullseye right in the middle of it with “LR72”, a song that wasn’t written about Michael Dahlquist but is now inseparable from his death to me. In between, Tim Midyett weaves in and out of brilliant pop songs, from the cloudy new wave of “The Brain” to the cheery stop-start of “Is She a Sign” to the propulsive post-punk of “The Third”. Midyett and Cohen firing off perfect songs too boring for you? Well, here’s Kelly Hogan singing Midyett’s stunning ballad “Young” (holy shit, wow, Kelly Hogan!). And there’s Midyett and Dalhlquist dueting on “Bourbon Beard”, a stunningly sad singalong that’s the latter’s peak as a vocalist. And did I mention that this album is Matt Kadane’s crowning achievement with Silkworm? Probably not, because there’s just too much else going on in Italian Platinum.
1. Silkworm – Lifestyle (2000)
When people joke about how they only listen to the same five artists, albums, playlists, or what-have-you, I never feel more alienated. Anyone who reads Rosy Overdrive knows that I much, much prefer to (in some way need to) keep finding new-to-me music. This means I don’t look back too much, at least not in the way most people do. I don’t have big, insurmountable Favorites of much of anything. I talk about Guided by Voices more than any other band, but a lot of that is because they always have something new. That being said, Lifestyle is my favorite album from any band, from any year, ever. The story behind it is laughably simple: Silkworm stopped trying to “make it” as a touring band, all its members got permanent day jobs, and they put together an album of music that they wanted to make for themselves. It’s perfect. Lifestyle has half a dozen pop songs that, I think, require no particular fondness for “indie rock” to immediately love—so, of course, the record starts with “Contempt”, the album’s weirdest song. “Slave Wages” and “Treat the New Guy Right” veer to the other end of the spectrum—the third and fourth best songs on Lifestyle, they’d be the two best songs in the discography of nearly any other band. The sub-two-minute “Raging Bull” is a mini-epic that absolutely goes on a journey, and the gleeful “YR Web” happily stays right where it is to no less great an effect. Lifestyle doesn’t run out of steam, either—the frantic “Dead Air” is my favorite song Tim Midyett ever wrote, which means it is one of the greatest songs ever, and the acoustic closing track “The Bones” comes just shy of eclipsing it. Lifestyle deserves more than just a long paragraph (somebody wrote an extremely long piece on it I deliberately avoided rereading before doing this), and I’m sure I will want to come back to it eventually despite all this writing I’ve just done about Silkworm. I could write the length of this post over just on “Plain” and still feel the same way, I’m sure. I can’t say that about any other band or album.
Rosy Overdrive 