Bad Tiger – Obedience
“With… tender and confessional vocals, the track paints a vulnerable, open-hearted mood which longs for certainty within the painful fervour of love.” So we described ‘Enough‘, the previous single by San Francisco‘s Bad Tiger. Latest single ‘Obedience’ follows the same mood, but whereas its predecessor bloomed into something brighter, the track fails to break from its atmosphere of understated melancholy. A song somehow both intimate and spacious, as though tapping into the heart of relationship and finding the internal landscape windswept and barren.
All I wanted was a little more time
Before I thought it died
Paranoia, unable to decide
If what we’re holding is alive
‘Obedience’ is out now and available from the usual places.
Con Davison – Look At Me That Way
There’s long been a bittersweet quality to the music of Con Davison, with tracks like ‘Sofa Bed‘ and ‘Postcard‘ marked by the way they use languid pop warmth to explore personal difficulties. Latest single ‘Look At Me That Way’ is no different, its laidback brightness belying the loneliness at its heart. The track “is about my struggle to connect and understand my closest loved ones when life gets hard,” Davison explains. “It’s so easy to isolate and not make an effort when you’re going through some shit. It’s childish and I think LAMTW is my reminder to give it a go at trying to understand and empathize with people, and allow them to understand and empathize with me.”
Luce Rushton – Night Drive Through
Having risen to prominence under the moniker TV Room, Luce Rushton has now adopted her own name, and single ‘Night Drive Through’ serves as our first impression of what this change might mean. Released via Sad Club Records, the song offers a picture of early-relationship suspicion, as if unable to believe good things might happen, or perhaps anticipating their eventual end right from the beginning. “Being gay, I never thought I would ever find love and so when I did I was convinced at first it was someone playing a prank on me,” as Rushton explains. “Although a love song, I wanted this song to show how every event was clouded by fear.” Watch the video by Amy Ryder and edited by Olly Ryder below:
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‘Night Drive Through’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available via the Luce Rushton Bandcamp page.
Middle Priest – Fingernail
Back in July we wrote about Middle Priest, the songwriting project of Raleigh-born, LA-based Colson Dorafshar, describing single ‘Act Your Age’ as “a bright and emotionally charged sound that lands somewhere between the rich, country-inflected rock of the likes of The Wooden Sky and probing resonance of someone like Sinai Vessel.” With EP I thought that I was far away coming soon, Dorafshar has unveiled latest single ‘Fingernail’. Driven by another pressing momentum, the track embraces this style, though within the certainty of its rhythm lies a far more conflicted picture. As though the motion might not be that of impetus but rather the anxious thrashing of a directionless life.
I thought that I was far away is coming soon. Find Middle Priest on Spotify.
Nathan Graham – Somebody Else
With debut album Saint of Second Chances due in October on Pravda Records, Chicago‘s Nathan Graham has released a new single ‘Somebody Else’. It’s a showcase of his signature style, which combines the Blues of Chicago’s South Side with Nashville’s guitar-based Americana to form something both sincere in emotion and smooth in its delivery. Latest single ‘Somebody Else’ is the perfect place to start for the uninitiated, exuding an earnest, soulful confidence despite the uncertainty of its themes. “‘Somebody Else’ is not a relationship song,” as Graham explains. “Well, not in the traditional way. I wrote this to personify the relationship between a person and their art… It’s that pull to keep going and one day you will catch up with your dreams.”
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‘Somebody Else’ is out now and is available from the Nathan Graham Bandcamp page.
smol fish – Sweet Taste
A self-described “band of best friends” from Borloo/Perth, smol fish make indie pop that’s at once playful and wryly cutting. They’ve just released their sophomore EP, Crocodile Tears, what they call “a meditation on the themes of childhood nostalgia, showing up for your friends and the anxiety that surrounds both new and old love.” The opening track seems like as good a place as any to start, and ‘Sweet Taste’ delivers right up front. Many a song has taken on the bittersweet nature of life, but smol fish invert the classic view, not finding sadness within the everyday but rather homing in on the good. “Even sour has a sweet taste,” as the song’s refrain states, embracing sensitivity not as some flaw or vulnerability but rather the key to appreciating every day.
I think it’s beautiful the way
that hair turns grey
That nervous feet sway
That eyes full of dust still stare at the day
Still happy in the rain
Teenage Halloween – Getting Bitter
Following on from their self-titled debut, New Jersey punks Teenage Halloween are preparing to release their new full-length, Till You Return on Don Giovanni Records. The act have established themselves as key figures in the contemporary emo/pop punk scene, and latest single ‘Getting Bitter’ shows the new album promises to amp up the emotion and melodies. Bassist Tricia Marshall takes on vocal duties, channelling the love and angst of the Teenage Halloween sound into a picture of addiction in all of its tangled complications. Where a desire to help a loved one struggling with such issues is counterbalanced by an unavoidable frustration. “You grow somewhat resentful of this person who takes family and sobriety for granted,” as Marshall explains, “when in reality it’s not entirely their fault, so you’re left in an uncomfortable crossroad.” Watch the video by Preston Spurlock below:
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Till You Return is out on the 20th October via Don Giovanni Records and you can pre-order it now.
There Will Be Fireworks – Classic Movies
“Will this shadow ever leave me? / Does my heart again deceive me?” So asks Nicholas McManus near the beginning of ‘Classic Movies’, the lead single from Summer Moon, There Will Be Fireworks’ first album in a decade. The lines are distillation of the record’s mood. The sense of something starting again, or perhaps the voicing of something which never ceased. There Will Be Fireworks emerged within the noughties golden age of Scottish indie rock, more than holding their own with their characteristically atmospheric and impassioned sound, and the new album is both a continuation of this style and something of an evolution. A collection of songs subject to the elastic nature of time, where the weight of years is always matched by a kind of disbelief that barely a minute could have gone by.
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Summer Moon is out on the 3rd November and you can pre-order it now.
Quinn Tsan – Once I had a picture of us
Writing of single ‘Roses‘ back in April, we described how the music of Quinn Tsan has undergone something of a transformation, with the smoky barroom style of her previous work moving towards a more reserved, intimate sound. Latest track ‘Once I had a picture of us’ continues in this new vein, a reflective ode to a relationship fading in time if not the mind. But more than a slice of pure nostalgia, the song matches the wistful reminiscence with a resistant thread too, as though the rose-tinted images are not always welcome, but rather pictures which have slipped through the various defence mechanisms built up in self-protection.
‘Once I had a picture of us’ is out now and available from the usual places.
the world famous – Everyday Fear
The first single from the upcoming the world famous album, totally famous, on Lauren Records, ‘Hollywood Pawn’ “treat[ed] the Californian metropolis with a mixture of derision and delight, both ridiculing its oddities and excesses and riding the crest of its sunny, palm-lined feel-good factor.” The mood is typical for a record which moves through the hardships of modern living—be they emotional, financial or spiritual—with a kind of carefree propulsion. As though maybe refusing to stop will prevent the realities of life weighing you down too heavily. “Afraid, I’m afraid, every single day,” Will Harris exclaims in new single ‘Everyday Fear’, though armed with a pressing momentum he aims to shake off the feeling, or else move fast enough to lift its weight.