“Existing in the strange space between loss and whatever comes next, searching for clues as to exactly what happened, not to mention where the future might lead.” So we wrote of Adeline Hotel‘s 2024 album Whodunnit, a raw picture of codependency and its slow disintegration which offered some of Dan Knishowy’s starkest writing to date. Now Adeline Hotel is preparing to release new full-length Watch the Sunflowers via Ruination Record Co., and it seems the future led to something altogether richer. Because, as new single ‘Dreaming’ suggests, the album is a reaction to the threadbare arrangements of its predecessor, as though, having endured the aftermath of loss, the colour has come back into Knishkowy’s world.

Alexei Shishkin – Magpie

Every single Alexei Shishkin has revealed from new album Good Times has stretched its subject matter in new, apparently unrelated directions, be that computer games (‘Disco Elysium‘), football tactics (‘Tiki Taka 2006‘) or poetry (‘Ode to Carl Dennis’). With the record out now via Rue Defense, Shishkin has returned with final single ‘Magpie’, a track which not only widens the topics covered during the full-length but could be read as a kind of metacommentary on this pick and mix style. Because, like the titular corvid, Good Times sees Shishkin collect all manner of shiny objects as and when they take his fancy. So what better a spirit animal for the album than a magpie? “I was actually going to name the album Magpie, but by the time we got around the finalizing it, Peach Pit had *just* released an album called Magpie, so I obviously couldn’t bite that.”

Altai – Brawl

Back in May we introduced New South Wales duo Altai, that’s multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, with single ‘Like You Need It’. “Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn,” we wrote, “the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons.” With an EP set for release in October via Broken Palace, Altai have new returned with new track ‘Brawl’. It’s a song which explores masculinity and its associated pressures, charged with a sense of urgency as though in attempt to will someone away from the ruinous expectations loaded onto men within the patriarchal system. Collins’s vocals harness this energy, sounding at once stark and compassionate in their willingness to name those destructive forces so directly. Fans of acts like The Weather Station will find much to admire.

Cormorant Tree Oh – The Wrong Kind

Recording under the moniker Cormorant Tree Oh, Dublin-based multi-disciplinary artist and songwriter Mary Keane has established herself as one of Ireland‘s premier practioners of experimental folk, winning much praise for 2024 record Moonish (out via Trapped Animal Records) and sharing the stage with the likes of Lankum. Taken from that album, latest single ‘The Wrong Kind’ is another addition to her catalogue, a song presenting isolation in all of its eeriness and beauty, blurring the line between loneliness and romance with an atmosphere as beguilling as it is austere. The song comes complete with a video made in collaboration with artist Zoe Greenway (formerly of M(h)aol), taking cues from 1948 classic Portrait Of Jennie in its visual style. The video marks a conscious embrace of centring the artistic vision above all else, timed just as Keane has decided, in a move we ourselves also made several years ago, to leave Spotify. “I decided to leave Spotify because Spotify’s CEO David Ek is investing in AI war drones, they pay artists feck all and they are now pushing creepy AI music,” as she succinctly describes. Amen.

Moonish is out now via Trapped Animal Records and available from Bandcamp.

Frog – SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV

“Even for a band who have made a name for their idiosyncratic style, this might just be their most singular release yet.” So we wrote of THE COUNT, Frog‘s brand new full-length coming later this month via Audio Antihero, when introducing the record a couple of weeks ago. “A concept album which sees lead Daniel Bateman assume the persona of the titular count,” we continued, “a figure straight out of some Warren Zevon song, full of shady history, personal mythology and perhaps even a supernatural edge.” After single ‘BITTEN BY MY LOVE VAR. XI’ (a song “strange, unpredictable and oddly heartbreaking), Frog have now returned with ‘SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV’. Moving from hushed to hysterical and back again, the track showcases the full plasticity of Bateman’s voice within less than 150 seconds, as well as his ability to present desire and yearning in such a singular manner.

Me and the guys walked over with buckets of fries
Boarding the Spanish armada, that’s what I thought when I saw ya

Lawn – Pressure

Built around co-lead singers/songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes, New Orleans band Lawn have excelled with an idiosyncratic combination of jangly pop and taut post-punk across three full-length albums, defying genre conventions to show that fun and edge need not be mutually exclusive. Coming later this month via Exploding in Sound, new full-length God Made The Highway finds Lawn perfect this style. While previous single ‘Davie’ showed off the bright side of the release, latest single ‘Pressure’ falls on the wiry end of the spectrum. A track which coils like a tightening spring as De Magalhaes mulls over perceived judgement on his life choices from elsewhere, building and building in seething tension as things threaten to spill over into chaos. Whether the feelings are justified or just the product of personal insecurities is left up in the air, but it doesn’t really matter, there’s catharsis in the chorus all the same.

Watch the video directed by Daniel Lynch / Company Businesses Inc below:

God Made The Highway will be released on the 19th September via Exploding in Sound Records and you can pre-order it now.

múm – Kill the Light

We’ve covered a couple of tracks from Icelandic mainstays múm in recent months, previewing their forthcoming new album History of Silence. First ‘Mild at Heart’, what we called “a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground,” then ‘Only Songbirds Have a Sweet Tooth’ which “embod[ies the colour and playfulness of the record as a whole,” as we described, “all manner of glitches and pops play[ing] across the background melody, offering a bittersweet tone which the dual vocals only further in their searching, reflecting style.” With release imminent via Morr Music, múm have shared new single, ‘Kill the Light’, and the song is no less striking. One lighthearted and playful yet evocative too, typical of the sense of nature running through the record. As ever, múm craft with a gentle hand yet evoke things far larger and grander than everyday existence.

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from the múm Bandcamp page.

New Balance – Lemon Slice

Originating back in 2017, New Balance was conceived as the solo project of Jeremy Leasure, a space in which to experiment and improvise with help from a rotating band of collaborators. One which appeared to offer a swan song back in 2022 with second album More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, as Leasure came to feel the style had reached its apex and thus run its course. However, rather than putting New Balance to rest, Leasure instead evolved the project into something different, the line-up now solidified as a full band with the permanent addition of Jacob Maag, Emily Monnig, Dawson Timpany and Andy Campbell. A full-length is planned for 2026 with Anxiety Blanket Records to fully establish this new era, but for now double single Lemon Slice / Pocket Change gives an indication of what to expect. ‘Lemon Slice’ is perhaps the best introduction, its easygoing sound masking lyrics that focus on everyday disasters, what Leasure refers to in the chorus as “these little devastations.”

Lemon Slice / Pocket Change is out now via Anxiety Blanket Records.

Sweet Nobody – Revenge

Hailing from Long Beach, California, Sweet Revenge are an indie pop quartet whose work embraces the twin joys of melody and noise, utilising both pop and garage rock aesthetics to write songs for the meek and modest among us. Out via Repeating Cloud, latest single ‘Revenge’ shows both the fun and bite of this style, using sunny momentum as a source of energy to confront the phonies and their convoluted ways of living. “It’s hard to feel like you’re the only one searching for the genuine among the accusing masses,” as the band explain. “The hardest thing to face in conflict is knowing that someone is lying and not knowing who it is. This song is for those without an angle. It’s for those who love the straightforward.”

Pick up your pen
Accusations fly again
It’s all pretend
Even your friends
You ride the high
Kill anyone who asks you why
You try to cry
But you’re dead inside

Spirited Followers – Awakened

Cardiff‘s Spirited Followers have steadily built an audience in recent times, practising a singular blend of experimental folk and post-rock which reaches around the globe for influence. The resulting sound invokes the act’s title in its impassioned, enveloping style. With members hailing from Cyprus, India and Wales, Ireland, and England, the diversity of inspiration is perhaps unsurprising, though the work of Spirited Followers pushes beyond those backgrounds too. You’ll hear elements of Appalachian mountain music in the stark guitar, as well as a Greek flavour among several others. Now the band have released their debut single ‘Awakened’ via Roccoco Sŵn, and the track is the ideal calling card. One typical of the project’s sense of detail and scale, ebbing and flowing across its length yet, led by Avaneesh Bavadekar’s striking vocals, always building towards something higher, drawing the audience into its evocative, mesmerised state.

Wide Orbit – He’s A Wizard

Described by label 22Twenty as “a Midwest cough drop for the sore soul,” Chicago’s Wide Orbit are a DIY band in the best sense. A group of college-town buds recording in their cramped room with equal parts heart and playfulness. Suitably titled debut album Introducing… Wide Orbit has just been released, a calling card for the project and its emotive, mischievous spirit, as highlighted by single ‘He’s a Wizard’. The country-inflected indie rock number pairs irreverent energy with almost deadpan vocals, telling the tale of a teenage rogue and their attempts to get the better of their parents (“In May or April of 2006 / my mom bought me a brand new pair of kicks,” as one verse goes. “And I ran every which way even far away from them / And they’d come get me in the Honda Odyssey”). But by the back half of the track, the droll humour ramps up into something different, embracing the sing-a-long energy of a barroom jam.

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Which isn’t to say the album is one tone. With its anxious meditation on the dog-eat-dog nature of contemporary culture, latest single ‘Universal’ twitches and simmers across its two-minute run time, sometimes almost hesitant, sometimes barrelling forward with unchecked momentum. “This one is all about climbing up onto your neighbor’s back to succeed,” as the band explain. “Most aspects of life are not a zero-sum game, but when they are, it feels ethically wrong to win.” The sound captures this unease within its changing pace, where needling unease is swept up into a fervour of movement and weight as though imploring all caught within its radius to join the frantic climb.

Tell me is it better to feel
The winners they are such a big deal
Is it all original sin
Anyone can scratch and they win

Half-truth is only universal
Half-truth is quick to stigmatize

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Later this spring Chicago‘s Babe Report will release their debut full-length album Did You Get Better via Exploding In Sound, the long awaited follow up to their rambunctious 2021 EP The Future of Teeth. But if the band took their time between releases, they waste none within the songs themselves. The ten tracks clock in at less than half an hour in total and all are charged with the same frantic momentum which made aforementioned EP such a fun experience. Or perhaps even more momentum, as opener and lead single ‘Turtle of Reaper’ attests. A searing indictment of clickbait culture which burns white hot, the chorus invokes the hysteria of the Millennium Bug as guitars and drums combine into a frenzy of their own.

Cosmo Sheldrake – More Than A Mountain

London-born, Stroud-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Cosmo Sheldrake always pushes the boundaries of what music can do and be. His previous album Wild Wet World offered undersea soundscapes which incorporated everything from “plaintive whale song to clicking parrotfish and snapping shrimp.” Latest record Eye To The Ear is even more ambitious, a twenty-one song album which combines traditional and electronic instrumentation and also, to quote the album notes, “both human and more-than-human voices” to address both the dire situation faced by the natural world as well as the radical possibilities which might cease or reverse its destruction. Single ‘More Than A Mountain’ is as good a place to dive in as any, offering an understated, brooding tone as it meditates on the scene before us.

Got the beast but left the burden,
It’s the step before the fall,
It’s the pause before the question,
It’s the window or the wall

Little Wings – Ha Ha Blues

Back in February we introduced High On The Glade, the forthcoming album from Little Wings on Perpetual Doom with single ‘Bubbles Go Pop’. A song “every bit as idiosyncratic and inventive as you’d hope,” we wrote, which told “the story of a wild party in a zany vaudevillian procession befitting of a Pynchon novel.” Second single ‘Ha Ha Blues’ might have a more languid rhythm but the writing is no less inventive. Beneath the  rhythm’s apparent warmth stirs a darker, melancholic edge. “Field thinks of this as being his most Irish record, full of heartbreak and violence,” the album notes describe, and ‘Ha Ha Blues’ hints at this side of the record despite its sunny disposition.

Ha ha blues what can I do you for?
What did you choose before a door in your distance
My what news mining persistence
How many wishes once the floor falls through?

Max Blansjaar – Burning In Our Name

After single ‘Anna Madonna’, a song which “acknowledges the hurtful nature of the world and the resulting temptation to react with anger or bitterness” but “becomes the antithesis to such moods,” Max Blansjaar has shared ‘Burning In Our Name’ to further introduce upcoming album False Comforts on Beanie Tapes. It’s another blurring of the line between wry humour and earnest emotion as Blansjaar negotiates the experience of perpetual difficulty that is existing in this world of ours. “Caught up in a maze of hedonists and lies / Putting all our faith in devils in disguise,” as he sings in the chorus. “Just trying to escape when everything’s on fire / And burning in our name.”

nudista – Somebody Else

‘Somebody Else’ is the latest single from London duo nudista (Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman), ahead of their sophomore EP Nothing Makes Sense Until It Does on Sad Club Records. As with previous singles ‘Different Eyes’ and ‘Waiting Line’, it’s a song full of emotive introspection and a desire to live a truer, better connected life. “’Somebody Else’ is about coming to the realisation of having been living a life not trusting your own voice and path,” Cabello explains. “It explores the idea of not knowing fully who you are, about going on a self-exploration journey to find the voice within you and to tune into your own instinct.” It might unfurl with a gentle grace, all soft acoustic guitar and subtle percussion, but it’s message of self-determination is a powerful one. As Cabello puts it at the end of the chorus: “I guess I’ve just been living for somebody else.”

Nothing Makes Sense Until It Does will be released via Sad Club Records and you can pre-order it now from the nudista Bandcamp page.

Shit Present – Acting Tough

“Start again and you’ll be fine / Aren’t you sick of looking for answers all the time?” So ask Exeter outfit Shit Present on the title track of their forthcoming EP, Acting Tough on the ever-reliable Specialist Subject Records. The song introduces the band’s signature blend of pop punk energy, emo sincerity and raw punk rock attitude, making for a sound at once empathetic and cathartic. A useful blend considering the track’s intentions. An attempt to disarm the defence mechanisms of insecurity, and banish the nagging weight of pessimism through sheer momentum and shout-along release.

It’s such a shame to have to see you acting tough
Did somebody make you feel like you aren’t good enough

Tara Jane O’Neil – Glass Island

Written during what she calls “the skirmishes and shuffle of the seven years since her self-titled album,” The Cool Cloud of Okayness is the forthcoming new album from California multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Tara Jane O’Neil. Fittingly for a record preoccupied with life’s changeable nature, it was recorded at O’Neil’s home studio, which is built on the ashes of her previous home destroyed by the Thomas wildfire that devastated southern California in 2017. These themes of destruction and new growth, life’s cyclical rhythms and cruel repetitions snake throughout the record, nurturing green shoots of hope in the charred earth of loss and grief. Latest single ‘Glass Island’ explores these patterns with all the delicate beauty the title suggests. “Another day,” O’Neil sings, “ring around the moon and back again,
dig in again.”

The song comes complete with a video by Harry Dodge:

The Cool Cloud of Okayness is out on the 26th April via Orindal Records and you can pre-order it now.

tilt – all and nothing

tilt is the project of Brooklyn-based trio Isabel Crespo Pardo (vocals), Kalia Vandever (trombone, vocals) and Carmen Quill (acoustic bass, vocals), who draw on their considerable solo credentials to make formally inventive, jazz-inflected art pop. Next month, tilt will release their debut album something we once knew on Dear Life Records, a record which takes us by the hand and leads us into a world of improvisation and idiosyncratic style. Lead single ‘all and nothing’ feels like a doorway into this landscape, a calm song that breathes in an organic rhythm behind its careful composition. A delicate but confident vocal duet rises and falls on the mournful draught of Vandever’s trombone, tracing elegant and unexpected patterns on the backdrop of negative space. The result is both bright and somehow pensive, like the shapes thrown by golden afternoon sunlight as it slants through a window.

Work Wife – Control

“A warm and introspective song of trying to find yourself in the vast bustle of the city amidst its noise and countless strangers […] ending in a thumping singalong finale.” That’s how we described ‘Strangers’, the first single from Work Wife‘s EP Waste Management. With the EP now out via Born Losers Records, latest single ‘Control’ highlights a different side to the release, swapping out the intimate clarity of the opener in favour of something dreamy and enveloping. Despite clocking in at barely two minutes, the track possesses a real sense of scale, washing over the listener with layered richness. When Meredith Lampe’s vocals eventually emerge, it feels as though you have passed into the centre of something to find the intimate truth within.

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Back in July we wrote about  Fort Worth, TX songwriter Cameron Smith, describing how single ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ drew on “the loaded depths of the southern gothic genre” to evoke “the heartsick wanderer which can be traced back through Molina and van Zandt, where the long night is illuminated only by the blood moon and low fuel light on the dash.” Recorded as part of a Café Solo Songwriters Live session, latest single ‘Shadows of the Moonlight’ follows a similar spirit. This time it takes inspiration from the story of Smith’s great-grandfather Sam Smith who served in WWI and worked as a cowboy before being killed while working as a lineman for the Texas Louisiana Power Company. “I’m not a cowboy but Sam was,” as Smith explains. “It’s a campfire song; a reflection on the mental, spiritual and physical distances a person can travel between night and day.”

You can grab the track now from the Cameron Smith Bandcamp page.

h. pruz – I Keep Changing

The third single from their forthcoming record No Glory, ‘I Keep Changing’ is the perfect introduction to the music of h. pruz, aka Queens-based songwriter Hannah Pruzinsky. It’s a rich and direct track that wanders further toward rock than previous h. pruz songs, giving weight to the very real emotional power that has always underpinned their music. Like much of the record, the song focuses on a pivotal moment, conjuring almost physical dimensions to inner turmoil and subsequent growth. “The song emerged a few weeks following a pretty life-altering break-up, Pruzinsky describes to Stereogum. “I’m trying to capture the feeling of the moment when you can feel something inside you giving way to a newer form, and how ugly yet unstoppable and freeing that ultimately felt.”

No Glory comes out on 29^th March via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. and is available to pre-order via the h. pruz Bandcamp page.

Habibi – On The Road

Brooklyn’s Habibi return later this spring with Dreamachine, their first new record in four years. Released via Kill Rock Stars, the album promises to be something of an evolution for the garage rock five-piece, drawing on everything from post punk and lo-fi experimentalism to vintage disco and the Middle Eastern psych influences that have always made Habibi stand out. And it’s not a case of style over substance either, the band utilizing these disparate elements to explore themes both physical and spiritual. “There’s always a desire for transcendence in our music,” says lead Rahill Jamalifard, “a desire to go beyond our limitations. Whether it’s spiritual or physical or emotional, it feels like this album really embodies that search for something more.” Check out lead single ‘On The Road’ for an early taste, a beguiling and deadpan track with infectious percussion and stabs of wiry guitar.

On the road again, on the road again
Driving north towards the great star of Bethlehem

Dreamachine will be released on 31st May via Kill Rock Stars and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

Hailaker – Gist

A collaboration between songwriters Ed Tullett (Lowsimmer) and Jemima Coulter, Hailaker put out two records pre-pandemic, with both their self-titled debut and follow-up Holding proving testaments to the bond between the artists. However, several years of isolation and social distancing, not to mention other creative endeavours in the interim, left the pair wondering whether the spark had extinguished. It was only when Coulter suggested they park any songwriting ambitions and instead just enjoy one another’s company again did the connection rekindle, and the resulting songs are as ambitious and inventive as anything Hailaker has released to date. Take new single ‘Gist’ with its newfound pop sensibilities, sounding like a new dawn fitting for the circumstances, and one suggestive of a bright future for the project once again.

‘Gist’ is out now via Believe.

Jackie West – Snow Amplified

Back in December, we described how Jackie West‘s ‘Tiny Flowers ii’ drew the audience in with a decidedly ambiguous tone, with a specific line from the song “complicat[ing] the second listen and every one thereafter, its gravity subverting the track’s structure and perspective from what the sound might originally suggest.” West has now announced her debut full-length, appropriately titled Close To The Mystery, to be released this May via Ruination Record Co., made in the hope of edging closer to the truth at the heart of any relationship. But with its oscillation between stark fingerpicked hush and chaotic, weighty momentum, new single ‘Snow Amplified’ suggests such mysteries might resist easy explanation, and instead only draw the audience deeper into the rich ambiguity of Jackie West’s work.

Kierst – Southern Star

“A reflection on longing and self-worth which owes as much to Grouper and Mazzy Star as it does contemporary bedroom pop, the intimate vocals and pressing rhythm lifted by an ethereal soundscape, resulting in a mood which transcends the immediate pain for heartbreak.” That’s how we described ‘Phone Call from Kierst‘s Thud EP on Sad Club Records. Following on from the success of the release, which among other things saw a track placed on Disney+ series Extraordinary, Kierst has returned with a brand new single, ‘Southern Star’. Just as emotive as anything on the previous record, the new single offers the kind of lush dreaminess only possible with patience and attention. “I wrote this a long time ago when I was really heartbroken, there’s no other way to put it,” Kierst explains. “But years have gone by and the song has gone through countless versions and been transformed by people I hold dear—and in that way, it means so much more to me now than ever before.”

‘Southern Star’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available from the usual places.

Luke De-Sciscio – Papa

Looking to capitalise on the creative breakthrough of recent full-length Heaven, an album which parked any sense of overworking in favour of “an intuitive flow which charges the songs with a sense of poetic authenticity,” prolific songwriter Luke De-Sciscio has already released new album, Papa. Described as “nine songs of delicate brevity,” the album takes stock of the ephemeral moments shared by a couple as they pass through the trials of young love towards parenthood, both as a way to preserve what has been and as a kind of ritual farewell. ‘Insights of a Heart’ is the perfect introduction to this tender, reflective collection, understated yet shot through by a frantic longing which belongs to the late night. ‘Blank Inside, Designed And Printed In The UK’ is no less keen in its observations, evoking the mysterious space between an end and a start with De-Scisco’s trademark reverence for human feeling.

Papa is out now and available from the Luke De-Sciscio Bandcamp page.

Mandy – High School Boyfriend

Best known as the lead singer of Chicago noise rockers Melkbelly, Miranda Winters has also quietly written her own music for over a decade. Despite some small releases over the years, she is now about to step into the limelight proper with the release of Lawn Girl, her debut “solo” full-length on Exploding in Sound Records, released under the moniker Mandy. With assistance from Linda Sherman (guitar), Lizz Smith (bass) and Wendy Zeldin (drums), Mandy make what Winters calls “dirty-bubblegum pop rock” that explores being a daughter, a mother and a woman in general. Lead single ‘High School Boyfriend’ is an exhilarating introduction, a crunchy rock song that packs anthemic noise and clear-eyed sincerity into its barely two minute runtime. Watch the video by  Liam Winters and Marty Schousboe below:

Lawn Girl will be released on 26th April via Exploding in Sound. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Pacing x Career Woman – Boyfriends

After the success of album 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, Pacing has teamed up with Melody Caudill, AKA Career Woman, for a new single on Lauren Records. ‘Boyfriends’ collides the trademark sensibilities of both artists, blending confessional emotion with quirky charm to offer something between wistful rumination and scream of frustration. But by the end of the joint chorus, the overring emotion is something affirming. “It feels very nostalgic to me,” McTigue explains, “like I can’t tell which parts are about being a kid and which parts are about being a grownup.”

We promised that we would live together in a tree
And watch the world end
But you got a boyfriend
I got a… really cool pen
But you got a boyfriend

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But then, as though in keeping with Shady Bug’s signature unpredictability, things began to change. Both Anderson and O’Neill left the band, and Rainey took a break to experiment with solo project hennen. As we described previously, the project “sees Rainey work through feelings of heartbreak, isolation and self-sabotage using an iPhone and her distinctive brand of twee-tinged garage rock.” Recording as hennen broke open a new seam of creativity and encouraged Rainey to write full band arrangements alone for the first time. She then took these to practice, where Ripple and new members Chris Chartrand (bass) and Jack Mideke (drums) transformed them into complex warrens of sound and texture, but always with Rainey’s vocals front and centre. In other words, made them into Shady Bug songs.

When they were ready, the band took the new songs to Alex Molini (of Pile) at his studio in Nashville. Molini not only acted as producer but also provided keyboard segments that add an extra layer of complexity to the compositions. Take opener ‘zero expectations’ with its wiry guitar and steady galloping percussion, whipping up into a squally noise before the introduction of Rainey’s vocals, which land somewhere between impish and indifferent. It soon becomes apparent that this delivery masks more complex feelings, feigned apathy as a shield against worries, a kind of Schrödinger’s cat approach to unavoidable anxieties, where if you don’t acknowledge them they don’t exist.

“‘Zero Expectations’ has been a motto I tell myself to help go into situations with an open mind even though I am actually very worried,” Rainey explains. “The song playfully explores some of my anxieties, including climate change, capitalism, and trying to be noticed in the music industry.”

“I had zero expectations, zero and some were bad
Get over that notion, cuz every oceans filled with plastic
trash out on the sidewalk, but nobody seems to mind
Staring at the advertisements, but they
just want your money buy buy buy”

Such worries thread throughout the album, no matter how much the mood changes. ‘frog baby’ is altogether more sedate, at least outside of the stomping chorus. But again it’s wracked by uncertainty, and the continuation of the quiet-loud dynamic of ‘popsicle’ twists taut with an anxious tension which outlasts both the sunny rhythm and soaring chorus. ‘favor’ turns this frustration into a kind post-punk snarl, Rainey’s vocals those of a person fast approaching the end of their rope. “Always doing somebody a favor favor after favor,” she sings, “Step out of my body step out I don’t even know her / People pleasing couldn’t please me / please me much not much forever.”

But there is catharsis in airing such feelings, and as such the songs of What’s the Use? come to answer the titular question. To externalise that which has grown stale within you, moult the accumulated weight to emerge anew. The image is captured directly on closing track ‘Lizard’. It’s a beast of a finale, the longest, loudest thing Shady Bug have made to date. Taking full use of the stacks and amps in Pile HQ, the track builds to a crushing crescendo full of crashing percussion and squealing guitar (what the band describe as a “a nuts fuzz loud wildin’ out section.”)—a moment of pure, visceral noise.

“’Lizard’ was written while I was still in my relationship but I knew I needed to leave so I could grow, aka shed my old layer of lizard skin,” says Rainey. “It was really hard to leave the relationship because I knew I would regret either decision and be sad. Tossing and turning, not knowing how to go on. The Lizard Year is a reflection of wanting that growth so bad but having many doubts.” The song is a fitting conclusion both to the record and this period of the Shady Bug project, and one which leaves you wondering just what form they might take next.

What’s the Use? is out now via Exploding in Sound Records. Grab a cassette tape or download via Bandcamp.

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Native to Texas and now based in Ojai, CA, Austin Leonard Jones has made a name braiding melancholy and wit into his country style. Described as “somewhere between a funeral and a costume party,” new album Dead Calm continues to develop this apparent juxtaposition. Though as lead single ‘Back in Black Lagoon’ shows, humour and sadness might not be such odd bedfellows. “I’m the sole survivor of the all-night show,” Jones sings, “it cost a thousand tears for every episode.” Check out the video starring Bill Wedden below:

Dead Calm is out on the 29th July via Perpetual Doom and you can pre-order it via Bandcamp.

bedbugz – bedbugz / golf jumper

Hailing from Canterbury, shoegaze outfit bedbugz is the latest addition to the roster of Tonetic Records, a new youth-led label run via the Arts Education Exchange. Their new self-titled single and b-side ‘golf jumper’ first came into being in demo form while the members were still at school, and periods spent in the studio alongside continued world-building developed them further, creating a sense of ambition and energy which mark the band (the songs even come complete with a text-based adventure game). With its upbeat rhythm and searching vocals, the title track is a bittersweet tale of young love, while the b-side sets out further into shoegaze territory, its pace slower but weightier, the feedback gathering slowly before breaking in a stormy finale.

Easy Sleeper – D.T.F.S.

Having formed in DC and now based in LA, indie rock outfit Easy Sleeper have cut their teeth across various locals scenes on both coasts. Following on from previous single ‘Access Reply’, their latest release celebrates the value in creation and community. Titled ‘D.T.F.S.’, or Drive That Fucking Stake, the song is a searing reminder of how powerful the present moment can be, blocking out yesterday and tomorrow in favour of making something worthwhile today.

Every breath that you take
is another chance
to drive that fucking stake

Editrix – Hieroglyphics

As with all the work of Wendy Eisenberg, Editrix is a project which eschews binary thinking to transcend usual labels. To describe new album Editrix II: Editrix Goes To Hell as precise or chaotic would be misleading. Likewise accessible or challenging. It is all these things simultaneously, not only furthering the marvel at Eisenberg’s invention, but also pushing the burning questions of their work. Single ‘Hieroglyphics’ descends into the hell of the title, a depth not burning miles beneath our feet but centred square in our heads. “I don’t think all hells are other people,” Eisenberg explains. “Most of the hells I’ve experienced are the effects of solitary, circular thoughts, the kind that make a person attack themselves, while claiming they’re helping them gain a kind of clarity. This song is a dispatch from that place.”

Enumclaw – Jimmy Neutron

Ahead of debut album Save the Baby on Luminelle Recordings, Tacoma’s Enumclaw have unveiled brand new single, ‘Jimmy Neutron’. Drawing equally from the Pacific Northwest’s grunge history and the working class dreams of Britpop, the song introduces a band aiming for the stars, with lead Aramis Johnson pointing to Oasis’ rise from small-time to stadiums as an arc to emulate. The single’s combination of genuine heart and rock swagger suggests Enumclaw have all the elements required to achieve these ambitions, and its themes of self-sabotage hint at an awareness behind the bravado which will keep them grounded no matter how far into the stratosphere they might shoot. Check out the video directed by John C. Peterson below:

Save the Baby releases on 14th October via Luminelle Recordings. Pre-order a copy now from the Enumclaw Bandcamp page.

headboy – Toothrot

With equal parts riot grrrl ferocity and bedroom pop charm, London‘s headboy capture the worrying absurdity of our decidedly volatile times. Out via Blitz Cat Records, new single ‘Toothrot’ attacks the theme with classic nightmare imagery. Teeth falling into palms with no explanation, the world getting smaller and you shrinking too. Between the deadpan verses and frantic chorus, the song finds both horror and wry humour in the situation, where fear is ever-present but bewildered exasperation never far behind.

You’ve got toothrot
There’s nothing we can do about it
You keep your teeth clean
But it’s still all coming out

Jasmyn – Blank Paper

After fronting Toronto‘s Weaves for a number of albums and EPs, Jasmyn Burke has now gone it alone under her first name with debut solo record, In the Wild. Single ‘Blank Paper’ seizes the sense of freedom and possibility, turning away from self-doubt with a conviction present across much of the record. Uncertainty can be frightening, but it can also be an opportunity. With In the Wild, Jasmyn has decided to make it the latter, finding joy and meaning in music once again, and urging the listener to join her for the ride.

Open up your eyes
Look for what you want to see

Little Mazarn – Dew Nears Yay

Austin‘s Little Mazarn formed in local dive bar The Hole in the Wall, a club famous for hosting the likes of Nancy Griffith, Lucinda Williams and Townes Van Zandt. It’s tempting to say some of the ghosts which lingered there somehow attached themselves to the project, but the experimental folk style of new single ‘Dew Nears Yay’ (from LP Texas River Song on Dear Life Records) suggests the opposite transaction occurred. As though Lindsey Verrill and Jeff Johnston instead joined the spirits there, themselves now phantoms content to haunt the Texan land around them. Scouring for details, salvaging what they find.

Check out the video directed, shot, and edited by Jordan Moser below:

Texas River Song is out via Dear Life Records on the 19th August and you can pre-order it now.

Louien – No

After last year’s No Tomorrow, Norway folk rock outfit Louien have returned with single ‘No’ ahead of new EP, Figure Me Out, coming later this year on Jansen Records. Something of a sequel to the previous release, the EP continues the style and themes established there while shaking up the formula by co-writing with Preben Sælid Andersen. The single highlights the release’s balance between vulnerability and empowerment, confronting the issue of personal boundaries to show how honesty and openness might be painful but ultimately always more affirming. Check out the video filmed, directed and cut by Marthe Amanda Vannebo below:

Figure Me Out releases in September, bundled with No Tomorrow. Order it now from the Louien Bandcamp page.

Occupants – Serpent Shine

Having formed in Portsmouth over a shared appreciate of noisy punk and Father Ted, it is fitting London’s Occupants combine ferocious energy and whip-smart wit within their sound. Forthcoming EP Serpent Shine sees the trio direct this sound toward themes of narcissism, paranoia and grief, and the title track highlights their ability to repurpose cynicism into a purging force. Naked fury scorching all before it, eradicating anything bothersome and banal.

Boring protagonist,
Recycles used plot twists,
Repeats the same catch phrase,
Dripping with tired cliches

I was sent here to destroy you

The post Weekly Listening: June 2022 #2 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We decided to expand things slightly this year, giving ourselves a chance to write a little something about the albums we wanted to cover but never got the opportunity. Albums which meant something to us at various points through 2021. The list was still incomplete, of course, and we were left with a big list of great songs from great records we didn’t get a chance to mention.

So here are some songs we really enjoyed in 2021. We hope you enjoy them too.

Arooj Aftab – Mohabbat

A take on a piece by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Aftab’s multilayered masterpiece is suffused with the patience, sadness and meditative inner wandering of Sufi devotional poetry.

Anjimile – Stranger

As fragile as sandstone, tougher than rock, ‘Stranger’ packages a nuanced assessment of identity as a folk pop hit of which Sufjan would be proud.

Bea Troxel – Getting Where

An empowered anthem for the introverted, slowly circling towards a more truthful self.

Ben Seretan – Cicada Waves 1

Measured and patient piano embedded within an organic field recording, ‘Cicada Waves 1’ plays like a slow day passing in all its quiet details, all its hidden weight.

The Bird Calls – Ritual Crash

With satellites falling from the sky and the burning underworld breaking the surface, ‘Ritual Crash’ presented the most tender, intimate end of the world you were likely to hear in the year of our Lord 2021.

Bria – Buffalo Ballet

Travel to Abilene, TX with this take on John Cale’s “European version of the Old West,” from an EP of covers that both subverts and celebrates country music.

BRNDA – Perfect World

Stable job, accolades, friendly dogs and affirmation. “You’re in the perfect world and doing ok,” sings Leah Gage, voice flat and sardonic as the track eventually tips sideways and falls into an unhinged sax outro.

Canary Room – Lake Effect

Bittersweet folk captured in its best setting, supported by warm lo-fi textures and an ambient embrace of birdsong.

Carson McHone – Hawks Don’t Share

The lid peeled off artistic collaboration, showing the tug of war tension underneath, as well as the lingering regret that results.

Daniel Davies – Spies

On streets as dark and foreboding as this, the question isn’t whether you are paranoid, but whether you are paranoid enough.

Doran – Old Moon

A new song cut from ancient cloth, like a small scrap torn from the drape of the heavens and earth and old moon itself.

Dusted – Not Offering

“I have given up. I’ve given enough,” Brian Borcherdt sings on this tender lesson in regret and letting go. “I was so sure. So it goes, I am not anymore.”

Etran de L’Aïr – Toubouk Ine Chihoussay

A suitably joyous number from Agadez’s premier wedding band, drawing you into its infectious momentum.

Fog Lake – jitterbug

A typically aching and overcast pop song from the master of them.

Frances Chang – eros the love creator dividing chaos

Cosmic spoken word which finds universes within interiors, a daydream transportation away from these sorry lands.

Fust – The Last Days

A song for hard times made warm by the fundamental fondness gained only through shared suffering.

JOHN – A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) / Job’s Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)

Some latent thing awoken by our way of living, rising in the name of revenge.

Heka – (a) wall

Anger simmered down to a velvety caramel, coating the tongue on a slow walk through nocturnal alleys.

Hilary Woods – I

One of Hilary Wood’s wordless hymns, to be sung in dark chapels deep underground.

illuminati hotties – Pool Hopping

Working on the logic that slowing down might equal admitting truths or figuring things out, ‘Pool Hopping’ grabs you by the hand and runs.

Indigo De Souza – Pretty Pictures

“I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world,” Indigo De Souza explains, capturing the bummed-out brightness better than we ever could.

Johanna Samuels – Sonny

With its long shadows and golden light, it’s not clear whether the sun is dawning or setting on ‘Sonny’, but it heralds a new day nonetheless.

JOHN (TIMESTWO) – Return to Capital / Šibensko Powerhouse

The reek of ozone as thunderheads slowly gather / The unleashing of the storm. “I see an opening in the sky, high, wide.”

Keith Secola – Intaglio

Just one of the portals on Keith Secola’s latest record. Looking to the heavens, rooted to the ground, tied to everything in between.

Lael Neale – Blue Vein

“Guardian angel / Gather my losses / Keep them all safe / ‘Til I come to my cross”

Le Ren – Dyan

As warm as a mother’s hand, with all the clarity of an empty room.

Lewsberg – The Corner

Perfectly minimal, just guitar, percussion, and incense-scented violin. All backed up by monologue-like vocals that ring with pure patience.

Loretta’s Museum – The Rodney Ave Garage Sale

Instrumental folk and the ambient sounds of a garage sale combine to evoke one of those perfect glittery springtime days when the sky is blue and the leaves are green and the sun isn’t yet too hot to bear.

Lucie, Too – スーパームーン Super moon

A slice of big, radio-ready indie pop from a Japanese duo that seem destined to blow up.

Mal Devisa – Deja playing guitar

With slow guitar and lilting rhythm, a track which isolates the tenderness and patience within loneliness, yearning for connection with plainspoken charm

Marie/Lepanto – Gramps and Grandma

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster on reliably emotive form with the picture of familial love and heartbreak, and Jason Isbell shows up to shred some guitar for good measure.

Maxine Funke – Quiet Shore

A quiet meditation on the mundane aspects of a traumatic moment (a tea tray, a snatched umbrella, a slammed door) that illustrates the potency of memory and how a whisper is often louder than a shout.

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Has an anxiety attack ever felt so cathartic?

Midwife – God is a Cop

“Am I heartless, or am I soft?” The pressing question at the heart of a track suspended between earnest confession and violent conflagration.

Myriam Gendron – Poor Girl Blues

Gendron combines a traditional Québecois folk song with an old blues one to distil their shared meaning, a lament for the lost, lonely and displaced.

Ovlov – Baby Shea

A 97 second eulogy to Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium played at breakneck pace.

Quivers – Gutters of Love

Ageless Aussie pop that’s a little bit 80s, a little bit 2010s, and a whole lot of joyous reassurance that heartbreak passes and things will be just fine.

Reiko and Tori Kudo – The Deep Valley of Shadow

A soft soliloquy on isolation grows quietly unsettling as warped strings whisper at the edges like anxious thoughts.

Sand Duney – Shadow Outside

Ramshackle country-tinged psych pop built on layered backing tracks thats equal parts meditative and energetic.

Space Mountain – Night Sky

A slacker jam.

Spread Joy – Kanst Du

Just one no wave pop nugget from a record that’s full of them, like pulling a weird sweet and sour German candy from a bag of pick ‘n mix.

Talons’ – Vampire

Talons’ tackle the experience of living through the pandemic in typically raw fashion, centring on an anxiety dream of being maskless in ALDI “between the meat, the fake meat and the gluten-free.”

Tiny Deserts – Wild Mt. Thyme

This beautifully unfussy and intimate take on an old Scots/Irish folk song captures that uniquely summertime feeling where the slow sunny evenings feel at once sorrowful and jubilant.

Trace Mountains – Eyes on the Road

The sound of a late-night self-reckoning while flying down the highway

TV Priest – Lifesize

A slurred and snarling assault on the patriarchal “strongmen” of politics and culture.

Typhoon – We’re In It

A band known for orchestral maximalism hone things to a razor edge in this emotional gut-punch on isolation, drifting friendship and, ultimately, persisting.

Valley Palace – Patch

Sky-blue guitar pop washed in hazy nostalgia that will have you dreaming of summer.

Weakened Friends – Quitter

A very nineties marriage of confession and catharsis, confronting fears over life’s direction by attaching heart to sleeve and blazing on ahead.

World Record Winner – Pockets of Nature

An honest-to-goodness ode to the joy of rooting around in the dirt and leaf litter away from worries and cares.

Wormy – Hungry Ghost (feat. Samia)

A whirlwind tour through the banal and heartbreaking details of life, gathering enough momentum to convince yourself everything might just be alright.

Yellow Ostrich – Timothy

“What’s a man? I’m just as soft as I can be” sings Alex Schaaf on this rumination on connection and the fallacies of masculinity.

If you enjoyed anything on this list, you may also be interested in our list of albums we missed in 2021. And of course, there were lots of amazing songs that we did write about in the last year, so have a look back through our Reviews and Previews sections to find more.

The post Songs We Missed in 2021 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Here is a list of songs from 2020 that we liked but didn’t get around to writing about.

If you find something you like, follow the link in the embed to support the artists and labels on Bandcamp. And of course, there is a whole year’s worth of pieces on releases we did manage to write about, so have an explore through our reviews, previews and interviews from 2020.

The post Music We Missed in 2020 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We caught up with the band to delve a little deeper into the record and what it means to them.

Hi Shady Bug, thanks for talking to us! How does it feel to have Lemon Lime out in the world?

We are so happy to have these songs out in the world to share!! It’s been really fun touring and hearing everyone’s reaction to the record.

Lemon Lime is an album of juxtapositions, from the guitar playing to the lyrics to the sweet and sharp imagery of the title. Would you agree with that? And if so, is it something you aimed for, or did these opposite but balancing elements come together naturally?

Definitely, there’s a lot of dynamic range on the record and we wanted a hyper contrasting sound with twists and turns and surprises. I love to write songs that may seem happy-go-lucky but then switch to something dark, in the music or lyrics. We also have two very different guitar styles – I’m more jangly and sweet while Tom is more sharp and sour. For some reason this works, not sure how but we just have fun with it!! The album title is on purpose to highlight our aesthetic, but it’s also from a lyric in ‘Make it Up’ about drinking sprite with your crush from a styrofoam cup.

There’s a similar theme in the lyrics too, sweet and sour ruminations on relationships and life in a Midwestern city. How did the songwriting process work? And what was your inspiration when writing these songs?

I write all the lyrics for these songs, usually on notes in my phone, about my life or things that happen to my friends. My process is never the same each time, sometimes it takes one day to write a song, and then other times a month. I’m definitely influenced by my surroundings in St. Louis. The city is falling apart in some places and lively and exciting in others. At the time I wrote this record, all my friends were broke and going out almost every night. I was writing about going to shows and having fun, against the feeling of heartbreak, anxiety, feeling lost with no direction in your life, and being surrounded by all these old brick buildings in south city St. Louis.

I really like how lots of the songs have a darker, unrestrained edge, both sonically and lyrically. Is that an attempt to confront the fact life in 2019 isn’t just all crushes and soda? And how important is it that bands acknowledge the troubling times we live in?

I’ve had a lot of anxiety about global warming and the political state. I think it’s really refreshing when bands write about what’s actually going on because we can all relate and it makes us feel less alone. Writing about my fears has helped me cope and not ignore these real issues in the world. Writing about my heartbreak has also helped me come to terms with my sadness and heal.

Hannah’s background is in classical guitar, while Tom is self-taught. How do these opposing styles come together? And at what point does a classically trained guitarist decide they want to form an indie rock band?

At first we didn’t really understand each other, I never knew what Tom was trying to play (still don’t!), but I think that’s kind of cool. We have our own guitar voices in each song that contrast but also flow together at unexpected times. It’s been fun working with people that can teach me new ways of approaching music and I can also teach them! Aaron our drummer is trained in jazz upright bass so he also has a whole different mindset about music.

I actually have been playing DIY shows since I was in high school with my folk band with my twin sister called Dubb Nubb. I was pretty familiar with the scene but just never thought I could play rock guitar. I was intimidated by the ‘boys club’ lol. Years after Dubb Nubb was well established in our area I started writing some solo songs and borrowed an electric guitar. I finally began to create riffs and use pedals. I actually didn’t even try to get a full band together but I told Aaron about my songs and he took the initiative to form a band with me. For Shady Bug I bought my first electric guitar and tube amp, and I started playing with a pick haha. I still play classical sometimes but have completely lost my chops, which is sad.

Lemon Lime is your first album on Exploding in Sound Records, which seems like such a perfect fit for your sound. How did that relationship come about? And what does it mean to have a label like EIS?

Well, we were huge EIS fans. All of us have been listening to bands from the label for a long time and were influenced by bands like Ovlov, Pile, and Speedy Ortiz. Post-Trash music blog reviewed our first album ‘tbh idk’ and premiered our first music video. When Dan Goldin expressed interest in putting our next record, we were SO excited, it was a dream come true!!

As for the label itself, we are so lucky to work with the best people that just care about releasing good music. The music industry sucks but EIS is definitely a special label, they are real.

Going back to the St. Louis/Midwest theme, do you feel there is something distinct about midwestern music, compared to that being made on the coasts?

People always say we sound like ‘midwest emo’ or ‘that St. Louis math rock’ lol! But I think the scene here is unique because it’s so small, we have a lot of crossover from the different genres and there’s lots of support. I feel like we have a certain soul and way of life in the midwest that you can’t find on the east or west coast. The people here are slower paced and more understanding, but it’s also easy to feel stuck here. The honest and raw art made in St. Louis reflects this midwestern angst, but formed in an intimate DIY community of just making music with friends in basements.

Finally, could you name four or five artists you are enjoying at the moment? They can be new, old, popular, obscure, whatever you find yourself turning to.

Hannah – Weyes Blood
Aaron – Miles Davis, Second Great Quintet
Tom – Patio
Chris – Team Dresch

Lemon Lime is out now via Exploding in Sound Records and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

Photo by Mabel Suen

The post Interview: Shady Bug appeared first on Various Small Flames.

MUNYA – Benjamin

“I don’t really understand how I make music,” says Josie Boivin, who records under the moniker MUNYA. “I feel like it’s coming from another world.” The sentiment feels apt for the Montreal-based songwriter, her vivid and crystalline style drawing from synth pop and psychedelica to form a languid, dream-laden sound. After three EPs in 2018, Boivin is back with the debut self-titled MUNYA full-length, and single ‘Benjamin’ sets the tone for the release.

With a natural elegance and bilingual lyrics, the track explores how prior experiences can get in the way of present events with an intuitive feel, past heartbreak undermining the possibility of new love. However, MUNYA takes this with a light spirit, acknowledging the ubiquity of such vulnerabilities and in doing so relinquishing the neuroses that can develop around them, clearing the way for new relationships.

Control Top – Chain Reaction

Philadelphia-based trio Control Top are set to release their record, Covert Contracts, next month on Get Better Records. “With a covert contract, the trick is that the agreement is only known by the person who makes it,” explains vocalist and bassist Ali Carter of the record’s title. “The other person is oblivious. Consent is impossible. A void of communication opens up a world of misunderstanding.” Hence Control Top’s scathing style of post-punk that looks to shine a light on the insidious systems that have a hold on society, all in the hope of rekindling some sense of autonomy with patriarchal capitalism, as made clear by single ‘Chain Reaction’.

Ricochet downward spiral
One more word and it goes viral
Light the wick, pull the trigger
What started small is getting bigger

I’m looking for an open door
But all I see is a broken mirror

la loye – to live underwater

Based in the Netherlands, la loye is an indie folk outfit built around the songwriting of Lieke Heusinkveld. With a hushed tone and restrained style, the sound belies the fact that there are six members in the band, though close listening reveals the depth and detail that constitutes their delicate soundscapes, as gauzy and intimate as a spider’s web and catching Heusinkveld’s warm, whispered vocals for all to see. Latest single ‘to live underwater’ is the perfect example, formed with craft and care, the subtle emotion emerging slowly but with great conviction.

Spectator – Waves

The recording project of Megan Rooney and Jeffrey Albert from St. Louis, Spectator is a collaboration in the most fundamental sense. Both were writing songs before they met, though once together these ideas interacted and merged, leading to hybrid songs that were neither Rooney’s nor Albert’s—they were Spectator’s. Ahead of a new album Charlie, Baby on Nordic Records, Spectator have put out a brand new single, ‘Waves’. The song gives an insight into the evocative and richly emotional style of the duo, Albert’s vocals bringing to mind the compassionate grandeur of Frederick Squire and bringing to life a song that finds hope in even the darkest of places.

Charlie, Baby will be released on Nordic Records and you can pre-order it now.

The Exbats – 2027

A father/daughter duo from Bisbee, Arizona, The Exbats make a brand of frenetic punk that they describe as “more troublegum than bubblegum.” Earlier this year, they put out an album, E is 4 Exbats, on Burger Records which collected their favourites songs from previous tapes in a full-length release. Single ‘2027’ gives a good idea as to what to expect from the band, racing into life with feverish drums before Inez McLain’s vocals enter with a tangible attitude, confident and fierce and taking no shit from no one.

minihorse – Drink You Dry

After lending his talents to a variety of Michigan bands over the past few years, Ypsilanti’s Ben Collins started his own band, minihorse, with a debut EP released in 2016. Their forthcoming record, Living Room Art, will be the band’s debut full length, and guest stars a number of familiar faces including Fred Thomas, Kelly Moran and Anna Burch.

The latter appears on lead single, ‘Drink You Dry’, a thundering introduction to the minihorse sound that tempers into gentle lulls periodically. Collins’ vocals lend the whole thing a soaring quality, the heavy cloud of guitars not blotting out the lyrics but holding them aloft.

Tyler Burkhart – Waiting For You

Tyler Burkhart is a DIY artist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who operates in the classic bedroom pop territory of melancholic nostalgia. After releasing a full-length album back in 2018, Burkhart is back with a brand new single with Berlin label, Feel Flows Records. ‘Waiting For You’ is trademark Tyler Burkhart, with a intimate, almost vulnerable sound, his words emerging with such earnestness that they sound like secrets told in confidence.

‘Waiting For You’ is out now on Feel Flows Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Sharkmuffin – Serpentina

Consisting of Tarra Thiessen (guitar/vocals), Natalie Kirch (bass/vocals) and Jordyn Blakely (drums/vocals), Sharkmuffin makes a raucous brand of indie rock that straddles both the artistic and anthemic poles of the genre. After the success of the previous album, the trio are back with a brand new EP, Gamma Gardening, out via Exploding in Sound Records.

The release is a concept album centred on “a space dominatrix named Serpentina that takes a job as receptionist [and] has an affair with a genetic engineer scientist who she codes a designer baby with that can withstand crazy atmospheric pressure, breathe underwater and never age.” As ever which such schemes, things don’t go to plan, with “The Atomic Gardening Society” getting wind of the situation and stealing the baby, causing Serpentina to hang herself with a belt. So… just your average dystopian EP with a narrative arc that would be at home in Ancient Greece.

Trevor Stott – Halfway in the Night

Trevor Stott is a songwriter from St. George, Utah, who makes a stirring brand of country rock that blends existential concerns with cathartic energy. The title track of his debut album, ‘Halfway in the Night’ is a great place to start for those wishing to grow acquainted with Stott’s music, his gravelly vocals offering an organic emotion as the instrumentation pushes an insistent sense of motion. Stott’s voice is prone to stretching and almost breaking, the feeling so keen as to appear almost desperate, and the result is a sound that sweeps you up within its earnest course.

Walking Bicycles – Fat Cat

Chicago post-punk outfit Walking Bicycles have been on hiatus ever since releasing To Him That Wills The Way back in 2014, an album which told the story of guitarist Julius Moriarty’s three-year spell in prison. This year is going to change that, with the band’s fifth record, Chooch, coming this spring via Highwheel Records. If lead single ‘Fat Cat’ is anything to go by, the time away has done nothing to quell Walking Bicycles’ cynical and boisterous attitude, the break only providing more time to stew in the mess of inequality and greed that marks our time. Hence this song, a cutting and caustic middle finger to the men pulling the strings.

Downhaul – Wires / Enough

Richmond’s Downhaul craft a lyrical brand of emo that balances intelligent songwriting with the sincere, pensive style of the genre in a way that fans of The Hotelier no doubt appreciate. Their album Before You Fall Asleep is set for release on Refresh Records at the end of the month, and lead single ‘Wires / Enough’ does more than enough to whet the appetite. Taking the alienating process of growing up with an honest vulnerability, the song probes the psychic cost of becoming yourself in a society fraught with expectations and preconceptions.

Gold Connections – Like a Shadow

Gold Connections is the recording project of Will Marsh of Charlottesville, Virginia. Marsh was a school friend of Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, and the latter helped record and produce the self-titled debut Gold Connections EP which came out last year on Fat Possum Records. This was followed by the full-length album Popular Fiction on EggHunt Records, and this year sees Marsh unveil Like a Shadow, another EP on EggHunt that continues his guitar-driven, brooding sound that is very much of our time. “Like A Shadow,” Marsh explains, “and especially its single of the same name, is about the struggle to move forward into a world that seems both infinitely precarious and abundant.”

Well you know I see them waves rising
Don’t say I never said nothing
Just I’d rather be a dead man
Than love like a shadow

Like a Shadow is out via EggHunt Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Witching Waves – Eye 2 Eye

London’s Witching Waves have a reputation for ferocious energy and an uncompromising post-punk aesthetic, as displayed on 2016’s Crystal Cafe. The band are now back with a new record, Persistence, on Specialist Subject Records, and as the title suggests the album is committed to “continuing in spite of difficulty,” as displayed by its urgent and assertive sound.

Lead single ‘Eye 2 Eye’ shows off Witching Wave’s distinctively frenetic style, drummer Emma Wigham providing the lead vocals with backing from guitarist Mark Jasper, leading to a shout-a-long chorus that rises above the angular instrumentation. The album was recorded directly to tape without over-dubs, and the unprocessed energy is the band’s greatest strength—possessing a bite that cannot be reproduced by any amount of technical wizardry.

Black Belt Eagle Scout – Indians Never Die

We have been big fans Black Belt Eagle Scout, the project of Portland’s Katherine Paul, since we first heard their latest album, Mother of My Children, back in 2017. Since then, The Black Belt Eagle Scout stock has risen immeasurably, re-releasing the album on Saddle Creek last year. They recently released a video for ‘Indians Never Die’, a song we previously described as “about the strength and persistence of indigenous peoples, their power and will in the face of oppression and attempted annihilation, not just of themselves but of the entire planet.” Directed by queer Diné filmmaker Evan James Atwood, the video was shot on the ancestral lands of the Chinook, Chinnuk Wawa, and Tillamook tribes and provides a beautiful backdrop to a powerful song.

Mother of My Children is out now and you can get it from the Black Belt Eagle Scout Bandcamp page.

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