Ruth Garbus – Strash
Mauno – Vampire
Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe
Benjamin Shaw – Long Ago and Oh So Far Away
Erin Durant – Islands
Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker
Melissa Mary Ahern – Maria, Maria
Oscar Lush – Kind Living
Midwife – Angel
Young Elk – False Paradise
Wilder Maker – Love So Well
Big Joanie – Way Out
Secrecies – Life We Live
Beat Radio – Everyone I Know, Just Holding On
American Poetry Club – pro pic?
So Totally – sike
halfsour – Paper Window
Joyer – Here
Marbling – Wisdom Teeth
High Sunn – Grateful
Slow Pulp – New Media
Molly Drag – Out Like a Light
Van Houten – Moon
Birdspotter – Riverbed
Tender Perennial – Delivered
JR Samuels – In Brend 2
Elly Swope – Habits
Derek Piotr – The Sign
Fighting Kites – Kita Senju
Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)
Kali Malone – Sacrificial Code
Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir
Little Musket – Fever Blister
Gold Baby – 500/1
Tennis Club – Stay
Young Mammals – Lost in Lima
Abe Hollow – Paradise
bdrmm – Question Mark
Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post July 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Sticky sees halfsour continue doing what they do best, but with new determination and focus. From the grungey opening of ‘Television Professor’ to the taut simmer and cathartic release of ‘Slug’, Sticky draws on the last 30 years of indie rock to create something that sounds quite unlike any of its influences. Lead single ‘Blurred Camera Phone’ is a good intro, the big chunky guitars and instantly infectious chorus a vehicle for Wyner to sing defiantly about rejecting other people’s expectations.

Black and white blurred camera phone
pictures of my life as meant to go
or as I’ve been told

The album explores the unexceptional and everyday, “with moments of frustration, annoyance, and loss scattered throughout,” feelings exacerbated by their complex relationship with a rapidly gentrifying Boston. At times this is achieved with defiant shredding guitars (e.g. the swaggering ‘Cowboy’ and the stormy ‘Ditches’), and at others things are a little more reflective. ‘Paper Window’ is the closest thing Sticky has to a ballad, Wyner’s vocals uncharacteristically soft and earnest over subtle guitars and a systolic drumbeat. By the final quarter a golden and wistful guitar solo elevates things, adding a glimmering veneer to Wyner’s musings on watching someone change from a distance.

halfsour have shown across their back catalogue that they’re capable of shape-shifting with aplomb, but the impressive thing is how their experiments are wholly successful. There isn’t a single ounce of dead-weight across Sticky, each track driven with a sense of intent that whirrs like an internal dynamo. This holds true right up until finale ‘Milk Bath’, initial wiry riffs giving way to a joyous rush of a chorus, one final example of how halfsour can make gritty rock songs with just the right amount of pop thrown in.

Sticky is out now on Disposable America and Fire Talk Records. You can also get it from the halfsour Bandcamp page.

The post halfsour – Sticky appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Their latest EP, charm school, is the perfect example, a noise pop record that provides all the dynamism and rough edges of a live performance without losing too much clarity, each song feeling unique in the way it catches an ephemeral moment, allowing it to retain its motion long after time has moved on. Opener ‘Ten Year Tenure’ jumps into life with enthusiastic instrumentation, guitars and drums on the perpetual verge of losing control, Zoë’s vocals surfing this clamour with an easy confidence. ‘Vinyl Siding’ is equally rambunctious, the vocals this time edging toward classic punk with a dissatisfied insistence, while ‘Scenes from the Couch’ lulls for all of fifteen seconds before racing back with joyous zeal, the lyrics rotating around two or three lines with only slight variations so that a certain mantra-like quality adds to the momentum.

‘Day Dogs’ tells of post-summer blues through a prism of nostalgia and cathartic energy, before ‘Ice Cream Dinner’ provides the closest thing to a breather on the release, the half-paced instrumentation and crooned vocals eventually rising into a crash of percussion and yelled vocals. Closer ‘Black Dodge’ puts the pedal to the metal once more, the punk vocals coming off somewhere between threat and warning as the guitars swell and attempt to drown out the words.

charm school is out now on Disposable America and Too Far Gone Records, and as a digital download from the Halfsour Bandcamp page.

The post Halfsour – Charm School appeared first on Various Small Flames.