Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

The post Favourite Songs of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opener ‘Easter’ sets the tone for the album, sounding slow and melancholy but also somehow not, hitting a reflective but hopeful note. The breathy and patient vocals deliver lyrics which seemingly detail a mutually dependent relationship, “You need me, you stole the skip in my step / I think I know when you smile at me, and I can’t feel my toes, even if I’m empty”. ‘October’ starts sad and simmers until it lights up bright-white, becoming a crashing, epic finale. The lyrics here hark back to nicer times:

“October
I remember when we met
the things you once had said to me
when our skin was cooled
and how we felt at ease”

The following track, ‘Felt’, feels like the morning after the storm, coming across as a mix of Typhoon’s expansive indie rock and Manchester Orchestra’s slower emotive moments. “Things will be alright, I tell you every night”, O’Neil sings, “I should open my eyes when you doubt me,
you’re probably right”. ‘Grow’ is soft and patient, open spaces between the lines filled with just the doleful bubble of guitar. The lyrics are dark and desperate, but the whole thing comes together (almost in spite of itself) into something stirring when the background vocals join O’Neil’s. The sound shifts into almost post-rock territory on ‘Paper’, building and building with thick emotion and a marching drum beat, eventually hitting a heavy crescendo, while ‘Eyes’ is one of the tracks that conjures thoughts of Hospice, especially the corporeal imagery of the lyrics in detailing the end of things.

“I saw smoke around the front yard of our house
you were right,
I don’t know what’s on my mind
but I feel fine”

‘Spider’ is another track that slowly unfurls, eventually a crash of drums and epic guitar, while ‘Keeping’ is based on a pulsing drumbeat, the vocals stalking around like the gloomy spectres of what could have been, emotions from another time. Penultimate track ‘December’ seems to describe an incredibly painful deterioration, a person trying to hold things together as they slowly fall apart. The track’s closing offers little consolation, grief replacing the clawing sensation of trying to hold on. Closer ‘Unfold’ ends on a typically anxious note, forgoing any resense of peace or closure.

“For the first time I feel a little older.
Am I acting the same as ever around you?
Behind your back I think I act the same.
But this ring still bites, and my friends all fight, and this will never change”

You can get Everything, All at Once now on CD or as a name-your-price download via the These Bashful Claws Bandcamp page.

The post These Bashful Claws – Everything, All At Once appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Daytime TV – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, 80N7)

Debaser – MOOD RING
(RIYL: mixtapes, lo-fi, weird)

Derek – Rookie of the Year
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi)

Devon Mello – Constance All Grown Up (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, bedroom pop)

Dicktations – Words Don’t Love You (REVIEW)
(RIYL: garage rock, Weezer, Black Lips)

Diners – It’s All True
(RIYL: indie pop, Telekinesis)

Diocese – S/T 
(RIYL: garage rock, Krill)

Eerie Summer – The Way I Don’t Understand Anything Anymore (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, shoegaze, jangle, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)

EP – Ashland (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi)

Fairweather Currents – Things Get Better (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, acoustic Nana Grizol)

Fanpage – L Y A (REVIEW)
(RIYL: noise pop, shoegaze, Jenny Hval)

Faux Discx – Where We Were (COMPILATION)
(RIYL: indie rock, post-punk, shoegaze)

Fazed on a Pony – Hunch
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie rock)

Field Medic – Light is Gone (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, lo-fi, J. Tillman)

Fog Lake – Victoria Park (REVIEW)
(RIYL: experimental, atmospheric pop, solitude)

Fox Academy – Elsie (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, summer nostalgia, golden oldies)

Fraternal Twin – s m a l l  w i n d  p o w e r (REVIEW)
(RIYL: gentle acoustics, natural glitches, intimate songwriting)

Free Cake For Every Creature – Moving Songs (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, post-collegiate blues [or, overcoming them])

Furnsss – New Moves (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, deadbeat disinterest, Abe Vigoda, Hallelujah The Hills)

Gay Angel – Floral (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, weird, early CFTPA)

Gleemer – No Goobyes (REVIEW) / Moving Away (REVIEW)
(RIYL: pop punk, grunge, Pains of Being Pure at Heart)

GoldFlakePaint – The Human Noise We Sat There Making https://goldflakepaint.bandcamp.com/album/the-human-noise-we-sat-there-making
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, compilations, all the cool stuff GFP write about)

Good, Good Blood – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, atmospheric folk)

The Grey Estates Vs Gold Flake Paint – The Pale Light Between (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, compilations, Gold Flake Paint, The Grey Estates)

Griffin Washburn – S/T
(RIYL: chill indie pop, psych, The Lagoonas)

GRNDMS – Capitol Mill (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, Frankie Cosmos)

We’ll be sharing a new section of the list every day this week, so be sure to check back for the complete collection. If you find something you like, or think we missed something life-changing, then why not let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or good old email.

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‘Gauze’ is a great start, chugging along before blossoming into the chorus, “Do you remember how we used to be / cologne in the bathroom where we used to read”, eventually gathering enough momentum to unloose itself in the finale, a cathartic end in which Coffman is joined by backing vocals. ‘Heater’ feels more jangle pop, although there is still plenty of racing electric guitars to give that spiky edge. The vocals sound sadly romantic rather than just plain sad, revealing thoughts on a difference of expectation and unrequited advances (“I feel so useless when I’m around you / you collect it all up but I’m barely another friend”). ‘Fall Out’ has this big clanging guitar in the background and a marching drumbeat, giving things a dark and vaguely defiant air, like the slow and steady progress through some desolate wasteland, which I guess is a pretty apt metaphor for many an adolescence. The track’s tangible, pounding mass is juxtaposed by the soft and dreamy vocals which seem resigned to something, the steely realisation that comes after shame and disappointment.

‘Lily’ is dark and brooding, its big guitars elevating a sense of internal turmoil rather than some trite epic tendency, while acoustic guitars dominate on ‘Cool Back’, a reserved and melancholy interlude in the loud indie rock. The slow and sweet opening to ‘Champ’ belies its subject matter, which feels sore and raw, like an open wound (“You were right all that time / to feel like nothing you said made any difference”), while ‘Trade Up’ is another slice of shoegazy indie pop. ‘Dragging’ is tense and meditative shoegaze (“I spend a lot of time thinking of the way I let my parents down”), before closer ‘Long Hair’ epitomises the rawness of the album as a whole:

“It was like you said I stayed up for months
Will this damn headache open up for once?
Like I loved you in the first place”

Moving Away seems to be set in the calm between storms, a long hot summer before the next period of a young and troubled life. A moment of reflection that offers some people perspective, a clean slate, and drives others insane with anguish and regret. It conjures a feeling like driving around deserted streets at 3am because anything is better than trying to fall asleep listening to the whir inside your head. Like previous Gleemer releases, Moving Away is very human and intimate and simultaneously elemental, some of the crashing instrumentation suggesting that these feelings and changes go far beyond the individuals involved, characters doomed to universal worries and failings, trapped in the same destructive and self-repeating cycles.

You can get Moving Away as a name-your-price download via the Gleemer Bandcamp page, or on cassette via 80N7.

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January was a bit of a scrappy month in terms of regular posts, but we still managed to cover some excellent artists. Why not catch up with any you missed with this tailor-made mixtape? Click the artist names in the tracklist to be whisked off to the review.

Tracklist:

1. Jesus in the 70s – Siskiyou
2. 2 Broke 2 Old – Gorgeous Bully
3. Another Way To Go – Adeline Hotel
4. Scene Sick – Diet Cig
5. Dog Burial Theme – Dicktations
6. Up the Academy – Mike Pace and the Child Actors
7. Con/ A Sewer/A Cat – Amateur Love
8. The End is a Vicious Thing – Puzzlecuts
9. Manic Pixie Dream Girl – Furnsss
10. Party Girls – Gleemer
11. Soft Reputation – Unlikely Friends
12. Passing Through – Harley Alexander
13. Coward’s Luck – Hip Hatchet
14. Memphis – The Wandering Lake
15. How a Resurrection Really Feels – The Hold Steady
16. Fire in My Eyes – Yours Are The Only Ears
17. Traffic is Okay – Sitcom
18. Gold & Rose – Dear Sister

Also make sure you check out our mammoth collection of our Favourite ‘Free’ Music of 2014. Finally, if you enjoy long, rambling pieces that try and draw connections between my favourite music and my favourite books, check out this piece on The Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday (Craig Finn said he enjoyed it, so it carries his stamp of approval).

January 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post January 2015 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Gleemer released a really good album last year. It was called Holyland USA and it made our Favourite Free Music List. If you were a fan then you are in for a treat. The band are back with a new EP, No Goodbyes. As the line of blurb I pasted above suggests, the songs are about a party, or more specifically the end of a party and the unhappy people it leaves behind. The EP sees the Colorado duo reign in their shoegazey atmospherics a little, opting for a more precise brand of grungey indie rock.

No Goodbyes is dark and unsettling, the ghosts of crippling anxiety and alcoholic dads rippling near the surface of everything. The aftermath of this party is not merely a hangover and a vague sense of regret, not some silly tears because Johnny wouldn’t stop looking at Cindy’s legs in that skirt. No, this party ends with dad under the tires of your pickup, with your uncle melting in a puddle of gasoline.

You can get No Goodbyes on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Gleemer Bandcamp page. Alternatively you can pre-order the EP on cassette via our good friends over at 80N7. Co-released with Gold Flake Tapes, the cassette will also feature Gleemer’s 2013 release, A Brother on the Carpet and a Brother at the Beach, as an exclusive, first-time-on-tape B-side. Order now to get the tape at the start of March.

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