We first came across ACAB Rocky through their split with Kneedlez (a release we featured on our Favourite Free Music of 2014 list), and now the Victoria trio are back with a release on Michigan’s Hacktivism Records.

Truce sounds like a real progression from their previous releases, with a lush mix of lo-fi shoegaze, indie pop and 90s emo creating tracks filled with riffs and vocal hooks. Opener ‘Matches’ plays like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart fed through a math-y filter, with the refrain “I don’t know what you’re up to or up against” proving maddeningly catchy. ‘Nursery’ slows things down, opening with some admirable guitar work and developing into a laid-back song that dips a toe into psychedelic waters, before ‘Stella’, my current favourite, returns to the pop/shoegaze sound of ‘Matches’. ‘Stella’ typifies everything that makes Truce a success, a summer evening of a track, relaxed and slow and gilded with fading light, sad in a nostalgic sort of way.

This trend is continued across ‘Jane’, fuzzed-out synths providing a more immediate atmosphere, and ‘Backwoods’, where the drums become a little more ramshackle and free, straying toward garage rock territory. This all changes for closing track ‘Don’, the most minimalist on the EP, the focus on guitar and vocals bringing to mind the title tracks from last year’s album Sara.

Truce sounds like the sort of EP you will want to play as darkness falls in the warmer months, just sad enough to satisfy that weird sort of comfortable melancholy that descends with the summer sun. You can grab it now via the Hacktivism Bandcamp page, including on a rather lovely purple cassette.

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ACAB Rocky / Kneedlez (split) – ACAB Rocky // Kneedlez

(RIYL: punk rock, lo fi, bedroom pop)

Ahava – Steal, Kill, Destroy EP

(RIYL: folk, acoustic, ambient, Julianna Barwick)

Alexia Avina – Kind Forest EP

(RIYL: dream pop, folk, intimate)

Ant’lrd – Biblioteca Nod Out

(RIYL: experimental, ambient, fuzz)

Arrange – Their Bodies in a Fog

(RIYL: bedroom pop, ambient, Orchid Tapes)

Art Contest – Math Major

(RIYL: math rock, punk, Cap’n Jazz, Dananananaykroyd, Abe Vigoda)

Astroskeleton – you are not alone

(RIYL: Nintendo, 8-bit, chiptune, power pop, Space Boyfriend)

Aunt Sis – 9 Tracks

(RIYL: indie, folktronica, Broken Social Scene)

Baby Mollusk – Baby Mollusk and the Big Babies

(RIYL: bedroom pop, indie rock, lo-fi)

Balacade – From Memory

(RIYL: indie pop, Cataldo, Grandaddy, Sparklehorse)

The Bank Trail / Lake Michigan – A Split EP

(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, ambient, covers)

Bellows – Blue Breath

(RIYL: bedroom pop, Small Wonder, Why?)

Blush Response – Dead Air

(RIYL: shoegaze, dream pop, indie rock, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart)

Bois – Blank (out) EP

(RIYL: dream pop, soul, Bon Iver, Praything)

Boosegumps – Leave Me Alone EP

(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, sad)

Born Standing Up – Born Standing Up

(RIYL: country, folk, The Wooden Sky, The Head and The Heart)

Boy Spit – Everyone Is Cool

(RIYL: lo-fi, garage rock, Quilt, Cloud Nothings)

Broke For Free – Petal

(RIYL: chillwave, glitch, trip hop, summertime)

Camping In Alaska – Bathe

(RIYL: punk, indie rock, post-hardcore, At the Drive In)

Captive Portal – Somethign Abbadat EP

(RIYL: electronic, experimental, collages of chopped up sounds)

Cellulist – Holocene

(RIYL: ambient, drone, experimental)

Chips Calipso – I Walked Outside and Felt the Sun 

(RIYL: dream pop, surfy vibes, pysch, Evangelicals)

Cold Foamers – All Cold Everything

(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, Built To Spill)

Contron – Before I Hated Things

(RIYL: lo-fi, acoustic, weird old-timey folk)

DAILON – Transitions

(RIYL: electronic, beats, “future soul”)

Dead Folk – It Won’t Take Long

(RIYL: grunge, shoegaze, the 90s)

Dear – Dear EP

(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, acoustic)

We have selected our favourite tracks and made a mix for your listening pleasure. Check out the player below and be sure to tune in tomorrow for the next installment.

Favourite Free Music of 2014 (A-D) from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2014 (A-D) appeared first on Various Small Flames.