Album Reviews

a boy named fox – Áine

June 16, 2024

Scotland’s a boy named fox recently released Áine, a four-song concept EP about the metaphorical relationship between a crow and a fox. Reminiscent of acts like The World is a Beautiful Place, Radical Face, and Anathallo, you can expect twinkly, guitar-driven songs with an emphasis on emo, folk, and lo-fi songwriting. The mystique surrounding Áine already feels like the beginning of something legendary – intended to be released anonymously, these songs feel intensely personal and curiously specific. Here’s a bit more background from a boy named fox (henceforth referred to solely as “fox”) about what inspired this collection of songs: “This is a concept EP that is hopefully going to be part one of three, that tells the allegorical story of a fox and a crow in a desolate landscape inspired by the Scottish Highlands and British Columbia. Particularly, it draws on a mix of Gaelic and Indigenous American myth, and[...]

Bromsen – Brothers in Mind

June 9, 2024

Bromsen is a Berlin-based duo composed of two brothers, Richard and Karlo Bromsen. These bros have been performing music together since the mid aughts – like a phoenix, their love for music reignited and rose from the ashes of their previous endeavors. Brothers in Mind is the result of their passions, an impressive, synth-soaked offering that embodies the icy synth pop you’re probably expecting from a couple of German synth enthusiasts. With mechanical arpeggiations, fiery guitar theatrics, and genre-appropriate baritone vocals, Bromsen has conjured the spirit of the 1980s through the lens of 2024-era songwriting. Falling somewhere in place between 80s synth pop (think Men Without Hats or Naked Eyes) and 00s era acts like The Knife or The Faint, there’s plenty to enjoy here… As long as you like synths, that is. “One By One” is a perfect introduction to Brothers in Mind – a robotic synth flagellates as it crescendos into[...]

Scott Clay – Jade

May 29, 2024

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Scott Clay is on his sixth (!) LP. Jade is a collection of eleven “complex but uncomplicated” songs that offer a thorough exploration of the genre of Americana and all its intricacies. Driven mainly by acoustic guitar, these songs meander, float, and occasionally sizzle with flourishes of whistling organ; electric guitar crunch; pianos; harps; and anything else you can probably think of. Atop it all sits Clay’s down-home voice, baritone, twangy, and powerful in its delivery. The album kicks off with one of its best offerings, the slow stomp of “One For The Road.” A dirge-like tempo is offset by the sheer longing that can be heard in every chord strum – every swirling organ texture, mandolin pluck, and crunchy guitar chord feels completely intentional here. Scott’s soulful vocals paint a beautiful picture of a simpler, slower-paced life somewhere idyllic: Out here today driving again All the others speed[...]

wellthen – The demo EP

May 24, 2024

“Just a couple of Chicago dudes in their 40’s playing indie rock tunes while the world falls apart” Evidently, Chicago’s wellthen have been around the block a few times. Speaking to all the fellow musicians out there, being in a band is tough and thankless. As you grow older, interests change, children are born, spouses are married, and all of a sudden, you find half your band gone. Such is the case for this duo, who are making lemons out of lemonade and forging forward into new territory as a powerful two-piece. The two musicians, Aurelio Damiani and Christian Fields, have been playing together for two decades, and they’ve channeled their energies into a new, five-song EP, simply titled The demo EP. It’s informed strongly by 90s greats like REM, Pavement, and the Promise Ring – think jangly guitars, neurotic and shuffling drumbeats, and lots of oh-oh-oh melodies to sing[...]

YUS – Hyperspiritual

May 6, 2024

YUS is the project of Belgium-born, Los Angeles-based Youceff Yunque Kabal. His latest offering is his fourth, the seven-song Hyperspiritual, a unique blend of synthesizer, driving beats, and auto-tuned vocals that are rooted in a unique source of inspiration. With such a conceptual origin, sometimes it’s better to let the artist themselves explain where they’re coming from – here’s a bit about Hyperspiritual from YUS: “The idea stemmed from a Facebook post from Darragh Nolan, who releases music as Sacred Animals, in which he evoked his belief that music comes from spirit, and returns us to spirit, our original, true form… The cover art is a thought form that represents “sympathy and love for all.” The design and album serves as a counterpart to YUS’s second album, Talisman.” Hyperspiritual kicks off with the archetypal “Kettle Beat,” a borderline industrial grind that simmers with menacing intensity. Pounding synth layers build atop one another[...]

Rosetta West – Labyrinth

May 2, 2024

Illinois blues-psych band Rosetta West originated in the 1990s and has spent the last three(!) decades building up a respectable fanbase around the world. With a bevy of independent releases under their belt, they’ve returned with Labyrinth, a fourteen(!) song magnum opus that blends elements of rock, blues, and psychedelia into the type of band you’d find playing in a sweaty dive bar at 2am. Certainly informed by the decade in which they formed, Rosetta West has unmistakably channeled their thirty years of experience into Labyrinth, sludging and slamming through these songs with a simmering fury and a touch of nirvana (pun partially intended). Album opener, “Red Rose Mary Bones,” is a perfect introduction to the album – its muddy bass backbone twisting and turning underneath lava-lamp guitar lines. Lyrics like “resurrecting my blood, images twisting through my mind, and in a blurry vision I can see every hidden side” embody the music[...]

Surtsey – Nothing Doing

April 27, 2024

Surtsey is a quartet from the US Midwest that’s been kicking around since the late aughts. They’ve just released their latest EP, the five-song Nothing Doing – recorded in St. Louis MO, their songwriting was strongly informed by their attendance at the School of Song, specifically under the instruction of Buck Meek (of both Big Thief and solo fame). The result is an interesting and beautiful collection of songs, rooted in country and folk sounds but with indie rock experimentation, thoughtful lyrical cadences, and sweet melodies peppered throughout. Opening song, “Stick” is a confident declaration of where Surtsey is as a songwriting unit. Right away, they hit you with the phrase “Buffalo nickel,” settling the scene with distinctly Midwestern imagery and honing in the vibes with a sense of vague, history-inspired nostalgia. They double down with a sighing steel guitar lead, woven seamlessly into the song like a ghostly presence.[...]

The Ballroom Thieves – Sundust

April 25, 2024

Maine-based duo The Ballroom Thieves are fresh off the release of their latest LP, the stunning and aptly-named Sundust. Composed of Callie Peters and Martin Earley, the two have crafted a deeply personal album full of gentle folk with a specialization in dazzling harmonies that circle around a central theme – “What if we were all just a little more tender?” In a world that is often unforgiving, cold, and ugly, Sundust stands as a bastion of human kindness – a heartwarming batch of ten songs that dares to look at the potential beauty buried deep inside of us all. To create Sundust, Martin Earley and Callie Peters, the two masterminds behind The Ballroom Thieves, holed up in their home studio somewhere in the boondocks of Maine. They challenged themselves with a conscientious decision to record outside of a typical studio – the result is an incredibly intimate collection of sounds,[...]

Red’s Motel – Chapters End

April 17, 2024

Red’s Motel has spent the better part of the last year brewing up their debut album, Chapters End. The band, led by the enigmatic Red Hawes, is a three-piece indie/alternative rock act based in Maryland who have been making plenty of waves in their local scene, including some stints at Ram’s Head and Merriweather Post Pavilion. Their hard work and grinding has paid off; Chapters End is a stunning offering of riff-driven alternative rock with an emphasis on interesting compositions, nimble fingerwork, and endearing melody. The album opens with the epic and cinematic instrumental “The Curse I Bear.” Here, the band flexes some post-rock muscle, pairing ethereal guitar work, moaning swells, and chunky blasts of distortion to set the mood for the entire album. It acts as a wonderful crescendo, slowly building into something more and more epic before blending seamlessly into song two, “Amber Ashes.” On “Ashes”, the band truly[...]

Davis Gestiehr – I’m Always Lying… Make Me Famous

April 14, 2024

Twenty-three year old Davis Gestiehr is spring-loaded with youthful energy, evident on his latest release, I’m Always Lying… Make Me Famous (IALMMF). The four song EP finds the wunderkind exploring various sounds reminiscent of Arctic Monkeys, The Replacements, and The Black Keys. IALMMF blasts into your eardrums with the one-two punch of opener “CCTV.” Here we start hearing the hallmarks of Gestiehr’s sound – a jittery bass riff pounds out a jaunty rhythm while guitars chime out in frenzied unison. Drums sounded like they were recorded in the tiniest room possible hammer out a neurotic-but-apt beat here, complimenting the song’s ultra tight feel. Lyrical motifs also start to form here, as Gesteihr sings: “I used to think I was hot shit, got a degree so I could fuck around. My arteries are carotid, there’s only one way to get famous now – I want to be on CCTV” Whether Gestiehr[...]

Soft Mothers – Hysterical Love

April 12, 2024

San Antonio’s Soft Mothers (SM) were formed in 2016 by Luis Rocha. Since then, they’ve released a steady stream of alternative-rock flavored music full of angsty guitar energy, heavily inspired by mid/late ’90s and early 2000’s post-hardcore and grunge. Their latest offering is the quasi-full length release, Hysterical Love – an eight-song LP that has plenty in common with all of your favorite throwback acts with enough gritty, basement-show vigor to feel fresh. There’s lots to dive into here – you’ll hear hints of acts of various intensities, ranging all the way from At the Drive In through Citizen through Pedro the Lion. Hysterical Love opens with “Leave Me;” guitar chords ring out in a dirge-like pace, soaked in lovely shimmer effects. SM leans into this crawling tempo, allowing the song to breathe as it crescendos into a roiling bridge. Here, the drums pick up with jazzy snare hits and rolls around the[...]

Jovi Skyler – Call It A Day

April 5, 2024

Last time we checked in with Sydney’s Jovi Skyler, we were reviewing the ten-song LP Nothing To Do, full of Jovi’s unique blend of punk and psychedelic rock with a fun, raw approach. Having embodied the spirit of the ’90s with a DIY twist, we found his music to be charming underneath all the grit and wild, mind-bending antics and visuals. Jovi’s back with a brand new EP, the succinct, four-song Call It A Day, which finds the Sydneysider vegetarian punk-rocker singer-songwriter experimenting with more traditional song structures, sharper mixes, and a honed-in approach on straight up punk fervor. Jovi opens the EP with the four-chord onslaught of “Asshole.” A four-on-the-floor tom beat pummels your ear drums as a swarm-of-bees guitar jams a simple chord progression down your throat. Jovi seems to have foregone the psychedelic influence of his last offering in favor of candid songwriting simplicity. Reminiscent of early[...]

Stinkus – 23

March 29, 2024

Stinkus (aka Tyler Thompson) is gearing up to release their first true body of solo work, a magnum opus of hazy bedroom-pop-meets-slacker-rock called 23. Having previously had success with their other bands WILD and girlhouse (and some stints producing for other bands like Smallpools, The Mowgli’s, Timothy Edward Carpenter, and Jon Bryant), Stinkus is no stranger to songwriting. If you’re like me, you may have incorrectly assumed that 23 was a reference to Stinkus’ age. In actuality, Stinkus’ inspiration for this album came after a split with their fiancé of seven (7) years. And while Stinkus is surely tapped into the zeitgeist of warmly-produced-indie-folk-with-quirky-lyrics that fits in so well now in 2024, their songcraft dives so much deeper. There are plenty of metaphors referencing mental illness, drug abuse, and the like… But at its heart, especially musically, 23 is just Stinkus finally being Stinkus. And it rips. “I am” introduces the[...]

Summer Like The Season – Aggregator

March 19, 2024

We’re not sure if we could consider “outsider rock” a burgeoning genre, but it’s no longer reserved for left-field listening parties and music lovers looking for a challenge. Continuing in the footsteps of The Shaggs and Mort Garson (or maybe more like Marnie Stern and Liz Phair), Summer Like The Season (SLTS) is here with their latest album, Aggregator. Filled with flamboyant ideas that all fall somewhere between beautiful and bonkers, Aggregator is a modern-day enigma that will leave you feeling bewildered. It’s full of outsider rock ideas that are performed with an indie-pop mindset, replacing out-of-tune guitars and atonal howling with stunning melodies and genuinely novel ideas. Aggregator starts out innocently enough – ambient sound and gently plinking tubular bells greet your ears before dropping into an innocuous ’80s-inspired electronica texture. Here’s SLTS’s first trick – they blast into one of the most supremely catchy synth-pop choruses I’ve ever heard. Singer Summer[...]

SEER SEEKER – TO THE CORE

March 11, 2024

Virginia indie-hip-hop act SEER SEEKER is here with an electrifying blend of genres on their debut release, the eight-song TO THE CORE. Blending hardcore intensity with a hip-hop core (and more than a bit of glorious late ’90s/early ’00s nu-metal nostalgia), this batch of songs pairs dank guitar sludginess; emotive vocals; and filthy bass tones with shiny and intense electronic production. This is truly a genre-defying effort – whether you’re a fan of hip-hop or guitar-driven music, TO THE CORE would fit perfectly on a shelf next to your favorite Linkin Park, Orgy, and Papa Roach records. The opening few moments of TO THE CORE are laden with piano twinking and a fuzzy, vinyl record effect. Called “Starlight,” this song is reminiscent of the iconic intro of “In The End” by Linkin Park; it’s an apt beginning to an album full of emotional turmoil; epic twists and turns; and theatrical buildups. Soon,[...]