Pressing Concerns: Pacing, ‘Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen’

Release date: October 13thRecord label: Totally RealGenre: Anti-folk, bedroom pop, singer-songwriter, indie folkFormats: CD, cassette, digital There are a number of different ways to pander directly to the person who runs Rosy Overdrive, but one of the most unique ways I’ve encountered would have to be making a three-song EP called Snake Facts where everyContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Pacing, ‘Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen’”

Pressing Concerns: Upper Wilds, ‘Jupiter’

Release date: July 21stRecord label: Thrill JockeyGenre: Fuzz rock, space rock, noise popFormats: Vinyl, digital Upper Wilds continue to storm through our Solar System loudly and grandly with their fourth album. Jupiter is the Brooklyn trio’s third entry that started with 2018’s Mars, a science fiction concept album inspired by imagined future attempts to colonizeContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Upper Wilds, ‘Jupiter’”

Pressing Concerns: Washer, ‘Improved Means to Deteriorated Ends’

Release date: April 28thRecord label: Exploding in SoundGenre: Garage rock, post-punk, punkFormats: Vinyl, digitalPull Track: King Insignificant I’ve never talked about Washer on Rosy Overdrive before, but then, the Brooklyn/Philadelphia-based duo of Kieran McShane and Mike Quigley had been pretty quiet for the duration of this blog’s existence up until quite recently. A few yearsContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Washer, ‘Improved Means to Deteriorated Ends’”

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

Release date: March 9thRecord label: Self-releasedGenre: Lo-fi indie rock, folk punk, electro-folk, experimental rockFormats: Digital When Emperor X released The Lakes of Zones B and C (one of my favorite albums of 2022) last year, it was Chad Matheny’s first full-length record in about half a decade. Those who follow Matheny and Emperor X closely,Continue reading “Pressing Concerns: Emperor X, ‘Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor’”

Pressing Concerns: Mister Goblin, ‘Bunny’

Release date: April 22ndRecord label: Exploding in SoundGenre: Post-hardcore, alt-rock, indie folkFormats: Vinyl, digital This was supposed to be alt-country week on Pressing Concerns (and we’ll still get to it), but I cannot ignore Bunny any longer. The third Mister Goblin full-length record comes a little more than a year after 2021’s Four People inContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Mister Goblin, ‘Bunny’”

‘Couples in Trouble’ by Robbie Fulks at 20

Calling Couples in Trouble a “left-turn” in the career of Robbie Fulks would be accurate, but not particularly useful, as his entire discography is comprised of left-turns. One can make a few connections—the irreverently reverent country of 1996’s Country Love Songs got a sequel in the following year’s South Mouth, and the sparse, traditional bluegrass-folkContinue reading “‘Couples in Trouble’ by Robbie Fulks at 20”

Pressing Concerns: St. Lenox, ‘Ten Songs of Worship and Praise for Our Tumultuous Times’

Release date: June 11thRecord label: Don Giovanni/AnywayGenre: Indie popFormats: Vinyl, digitalPull track: Kroger Twilight Despite catering to a portion of American culture that is more prone than others to vent about “political correctness” and “cancel culture”, the contemporary Christian music industry certainly has very strict rules about what can be marketed as “Christian music” andContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: St. Lenox, ‘Ten Songs of Worship and Praise for Our Tumultuous Times’”

Pressing Concerns: Guided by Voices, ‘Earth Man Blues’

Release date: April 30thRecord label: GBV, Inc.Genre: Power pop, post-punkFormats: Vinyl, CD, digitalPull track: How Can a Plumb Be Perfected? When Guided by Voices announced a new album made up of “rejected songs” at the beginning of this year, I thought it was destined to go down as a minor release in their heady catalog,Continue reading “Pressing Concerns: Guided by Voices, ‘Earth Man Blues’”

Pressing Concerns: Eleventh Dream Day, ‘Since Grazed’

Release date: April 2nd (digital), August 7th (physical)Record label: Comedy Minus OneGenre: Indie goddamn rockFormats: Vinyl, digitalPull track: Since Grazed Eleventh Dream Day have carried on. They spawned from the 1980s indie underground in the surprisingly fertile musical hotbed of Louisville, Kentucky. They survived the nineties and its alt-rock major label gold rush, coming awayContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Eleventh Dream Day, ‘Since Grazed’”

Pressing Concerns: Writhing Squares, ‘Chart for the Solution’

Release date: March 26thRecord label: Trouble in MindGenre: Space rock, psychedelic prog rockFormats: Vinyl, CD, digitalPull track: Geisterwaltz If phrases like “space rock odyssey”, “modern prog rock double LP”, and “psychedelic saxophone” pique your interest, then this Pressing Concerns is for you. Chart for the Solution earns all these descriptors, and more, over its 71-minuteContinue reading “Pressing Concerns: Writhing Squares, ‘Chart for the Solution’”