Having recovered from the health problems, and what Lioncub describes as the “?”, Everyone Is Dirty are now back doing what they do best. Today we have the pleasure of unveiling their latest song, ‘hit-girl’. Described as a “groovy ditty”, it’s perhaps the most upbeat track Everyone Is Dirty have ever made. A rhythmic bass line winds behind perky percussion and Lioncub’s soaring violin.

Lyrically the song is fun and silly but carries an important message. “I wrote the lyrics about speaking truth to power and taking action to find freedom from sexual harassment and assault,” explains Lioncub, “and as a direct response to the arrogance, show of power and bullying of predators.” The song captures a sense assurance and insouciance in the face of violence, as though a struggle viewed in hindsight is a struggle halfway conquered. “Don’t you worry,” Lioncub insists, and it’s hard not to listen—a voice seizing the initiative, finally telling the just version of events to those who need to hear it. “Despite feeling furious, enraged, ashamed, and scared,” Lioncub continues, “I wanted to create an upbeat sunny feeling pop tune to celebrate the calm cool confidence of taking our power, and to inspire hope.”

If you don’t want to take our word for it, then take a look at the lyrics, which capture feelings of invincibility.

You know you wanna ride across the desert
on a sabre-toothed tiger
with the wind in your hair

Head the the Everyone Is Dirty Bandcamp to explore their back catalogue.

Band photo and single cover by Ginger Fierstein

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The release opens with ‘Stupid’, a song shot through with a pervasive bass line which heralds the slightly off-kilter guitars, the whole track packing a creepy, Krill-esque edge, feeling somewhat volatile, as if it could explode in your face at any moment. ‘Joke/Rope’ is a song which, although poles apart in terms of sound, brings to mind a line from talons’ Work Stories which we reviewed a few weeks back. “When I stopped laughing and tried to grow up” Tolan sang, “I just saw the stupid and the sad, and I got cold and lost inside my head.” Here you get the sense that Hong has come to a similar realisation and is clinging to humour, no matter how black, because she’s afraid of what might leak into the vacuum should she stop.

“All I can see
Is the joke or the rope
That cruel, cruel joke
And that sweet, tight rope”

‘Kramer/Dreams’ sees reverb rumbling like some some far-off storm threatening to come your wayapproach, a fear made good two thirds of the way through, while ‘What It Is’ is a snarling maelstrom of vocals and guitars which sucks you in and spits you out, though only once its all done chewing. From this emerges closer ‘Pig’, a monolithic monster of a track which brings to mind Sondra Sun-Odeon‘s heaviest work. With ever-building intensity, the song lurches forwards in great seismic steps, leaving Hong to shout her vocals in the background, as if screaming at the feet of some great mechanical being.

Blood Harvest is out on cassette via Tiny Engines. You can also get it as a download via the Haybaby Bandcamp page.

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‘Veins’, the first single from Camp Howard, is a fuzzed-out guitar song with a twist, the grungey stomp of the instrumentation laced with falsetto vocals to give a dreamy lilt. Imagine Fleet Foxes turned up in 90s Seattle with a truck full of gear and slightly impressionable minds, intent on a 60s revival. The result is a song with its eyes on the sky but its feet on the floor, the ethereal, almost devout vocals ghosting above the crashing tide of drums and guitar.

“Always the same, way down
easy to blame others
but it’s your own, train south
because your’e alone now”

Camp Howard is to be released on the 11th March on a trio of local labels: Crystal Pistol Records, Citrus City Records and Bad Grrrl Records. There’s a release show on that evening at Strange Matter. You can find all the details here.

Photo by Farrah Fox, album cover by Henry Archer

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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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Dawn and Armando are now married and play together in a band called The Tallest Tree. You can hear their first single, ‘Tree’ right now.

youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qbjWpXgty8

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They got in touch back in the summer and, for whatever reason, we never got around to posting about them. Luckily, I stumbled upon them again, this time their new single ‘Way I Sound’. The song is a blend of emo and grunge that sounds like a collaboration between Cursive, Cap’n Jazz and Nirvana, the hints of raucous swagger at odds with the dark and weird lyrics. Listen below:

<a href=“http://bummerband.bandcamp.com/track/wayisound” data-mce-href=“http://bummerband.bandcamp.com/track/wayisound”>wayisound by Bummer</a>

What is slightly confusing is that the single we were sent in the summer doesn’t seem to be available anymore. ‘Low’ was a different animal, much more atmospheric and developed that ‘Way I Sound’, complete with a video starring Allison Scagliotti.

You can download ‘Way I Sound’ from their Bandcamp page. The EP is due out in early April on Toblerone Sunrise Records, so I guess time will tell whether ‘Low’ makes it on. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, check out Bummer’s session with Daytrotter.

If you are unfamiliar with Young Jesus, they released a superb EP back in 2012. We wrote a little bit about it here, and you can download it on a pay-what-you-can basis here.

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