“An introspective view on shame,” was how we described ‘Wave’ from Annie Schultz‘s It Bends Until It Breaks, released via Trailing Twelve Records back in 2023. A song which paired Catholic guilt with a more ecstatic aspect of religious imagery to rise through darkness towards something almost triumphant. Now Schultz is back with ‘MIS’, a similarly evocative track that picks through self-destructive tendencies in something like a lament, swapping guitar for organ to further amplify the sorrowful atmosphere of the Minneapolis-based songwriter’s work. “With ‘MIS,’ I wanted to move away from the guitar-based formula I’m used to,” as Schultz explains. “I filled the song out with Casio organ patches, layered harmonies, and a double bass arrangement, which I later realized was a subconscious influence from songs like ‘Oh Well, OK’ by Elliott Smith.”

‘MIS’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records and available from the usual places.

Bleary – bug

If Bleary‘s new single ‘bug’ seems to carry a notable sense of depth, then it is with good reason. Featuring on the Nashville group’s full-length Little Brain, coming this May via yk records, the track is part of a larger body of work that was first developed prior to the pandemic. Callan Dwan, Peter Mercer, Taro Yamazaki and Luke Fedorko pushed these songs further in their home studio during lockdowns, before taking them to Joshua Ditty and Mike Purcell to record them in their final, sumptuous form. As ‘bug’ attests, this long gestation period bears real fruit. The Bleary sound packs an emotional punch with its combination of soaring energy and considerable heft. A wall of sound in the truest sense, yet one which boosts the listener up so that they might see further over its height.

Exam Season – Dreaming of a Dog

Ringwood indie pop band Exam Season formed in 2016 and, despite releasing a series of singles and EPs, have never put out a full-length record. That is, until now. The four-piece, Ed Watson (guitar/vocals), Jack Laurilla (guitar), Louis Kneale (bass) and Toby Matthews (drums), have unveiled their first new song in over five years, and with it the promise of a debut record sometime in 2026. You will have to be patient for news on the record, but single ‘Dreaming of a Dog’ should tide you over just fine. It’s a love song, though not exactly a saccharine one. Instead the narrator addresses his significant other and their lives together with all the imperfections left in. “We’re two shards of glass, with a key piece missing,” as he puts it in the final line, “We both feel like dying and that’s what keeps us living.”

The Foot & Leg Clinic – Where did all the fruit go?

Glasgow-based self-described ‘wonk-rockers’ The Foot & Leg Clinic (FKA The Wife Guys of Reddit) are gearing up to release new album Sit Down for Rock and Roll via Bingo Records next month, and the album promises to be something of an inflection point for the band. After a difficult few years of illness, bereavement and general unpleasantness, the quartet (Niamh R MacPhail, Arion Xenos, Angus Fernie and Elise Atkinson) saw the opportunity to re-examine their methods of working and lean into the constraints brought about by change. “We were kind of forced to work at a slower pace, but probably for the better of the final product,” MacPhail explains. And Xenos agrees: “It still feels eclectic, but it’s a little bit more focused. We definitely thought about this as an album project when working on it, as opposed to other things before.” Any fans worried something might be lost in the process need not worry, because lead single ‘Where did all the fruit go?’ finds the band as idiosyncratic as ever. Although the song perhaps represents a newfound sincerity for The Foot & Leg Clinic, some earnest attempt to communicate fighting through the chaotic energy to make itself heard.

GREBE – Insurance

A melting pot of slowcore, shoegaze, alternative and indie rock influences, GREBE‘s 2025 debut EP If You Squint It’s All Soup established the dynamism and versatility of the Atlanta outfit, and now a year later they are ready to let loose full-length Hell Diver to build upon these beginnings and capitalise on the momentum. Coming in April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge, the album sees Kade Whitlark (vocals, rhythm guitar) Logan Neely (guitar) and William Gunnin (drums) match attention to detail with raw energy, practising a tried and tested quiet-loud dynamic to achieve songs of considerable size and cathartic potential. Take ingle ‘Insurance’, a track which simmers with promise before sparking to life periodically, a sound which matches the radical conflagration that’s suggested in the lyrics.

Hell Diver will be released on the 17th April via Indecent Artistry and Rope Bridge.

Hockitay – over/over

Born in Guatemala and now based in Montreal, Hockitay won serious attention with the EP slo mach back in 2025, the release straddling bedroom pop, slowcore, R&B and electronic styles to explore a present moment marked by exhaustion and alienation. Out via Future Gods, latest single ‘over/over’ builds upon these foundations to conjure another very contemporary sound. One where loneliness and restlessness overlap, that curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming. The lyrics dig further into this online world, probing at questions of performance and authenticity (“I haven’t had an opinion / Since high school,” Hockitay sings on one verse. “I wear the jersey / But I’ve never seen them play”), and the result plays like an urgent plea from an otherwise numb persona.

‘over/over’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

The Montvales – Carolina

Touring in the wake of their successful 2024 album Born Strangers, Knoxville folk duo The Montvales (songwriters Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson) found their journey coincidentally align with the path of a solar eclipse, every stop filled with people gathered for the once-in-a-lifetime event. But that was not the only notable event unfolding at that time—genocide was taking place in Gaza, student protests were being violently quelled in the US, war dragged on in Europe and the cost of living kept on climbing. New album Path of Totality emerged from this period, a picture of an America seized by a variety of spectacles, and haunted by the possibility of a second term Trump. Ahead of release new month via Free Dirt Records, The Montvales have shared single ‘Carolina’, and the single is indicative of the compassionate, unapologetically political brand of songwriting which marks the record. “Written in the wake of Hurricane Helene, ‘Carolina’ explores the creeping feeling that late-stage capitalism has left us with very few places that still feel safe,” Buice explains. “A testament to the folks who forge ahead in beauty.”

Path of Totality will be released on the 20th March via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Nic Panken – Dear Companion

You might know Nic Panken as the lead of Brooklyn folk outfit Spirit Family Reunion, though he has also recorded solo under his own name in recent years, putting out a variety of singles. This spring sees the release of Near Divine or Merely Rhyme, Panken’s debut full-length which makes good on the promise of the initial releases. He enlisted an enviable ensemble of guests to bring the songs to life, with Mat Davidson (Big Thief, Twain), Ken Woodward (Buck Meek, Sam Evian), Austin Vaughn (Cassandra Jenkins, Cass McCombs) and David Christian (Karen O, Curtis Harding) all appearing, alongside others, and the result is every bit as rich as such a line-up suggests. Take the earthy warmth of lead single ‘Dear Companion’, the arrangement wrapping around Panken’s reflective, wistful vocals and elevating the cryptic lyricism into something stirring. “What began as an afterthought became a central part of this record,” Panken explains. “After working through the first batch of songs I brought in, more material was needed, and on a whim I shared an early sketch of an idea with my co-producer Jared Samuel. He grabbed a pair of scissors, directing me to cut out each line, shuffle them all up and piece together something new. In the end we added just a few lines to weave it together, and found a wonderfully mysterious place for it all to land.”

No Spinoza – Airport

The recording project of York-based musician, poet and artist Thomas Pearson, No Spinoza has made a name with an inventive, often conceptual style of music which is more than happy to jump between genres. After Maxim, an album of nursery rhymes recorded together with Drew Worthley, No Spinoza is now preparing to release brand new full-length Jupiter’s Great Hurricane, and lead single ‘Airport’ shows the record is no less ambitious or thought-provoking. “Before leaving for the airport I asked Saint Anthony: how then should I live my life?” Pearson sings in the opening lines over a brooding post-punk/art-rock sound. “He replied: Have no confidence in your own righteousness, your virtue.” The track takes off from this point, continuing its philosophical musings while transporting the listener high above a stark desert landscape via a combination of taut drums, shimmering synths and jazz-adjacent playfulness.

Jupiter’s Great Hurricane will be released soon.

The Same Sky – What’s Left

Based in Montreal and founded by Joseph Simon, The Same Sky is an indie rock outfit which takes elements of shoegaze and post-punk to create what they have labelled ‘outsider pop’. With full-length Haunting in the Mountains coming this April via Casa Joven, The Same Sky have shared new single ‘What’s Left’ to introduce this style. A track where dreamy textures meet an almost mechanical sense of forward motion, and the growing momentum is punctuated by intermittent squalls of noise. Thematically, the single borrows imagery from Greek myth, namely The Odyssey, to explore the experience of a break-up, and the result sits between the real and the fantastical. A voyage forward into the unknown which seems to be both emerging and sailing towards tragedy.

Wendy Eisenberg – Old Myth Dying

Last month we previewed Wendy Eisenberg‘s self-titled album, forthcoming this spring with Joyful Noise Recordings, noting the significance of an experienced, endlessly inventive artist deciding to put their own name as the title of the release, “as though for the first time willing or able to put forward a halfway static vision of themselves within the maelstrom of change.” Indeed, Eisenberg has said the album emerged from a period of self-confrontation, something they liken to “a personal exorcism,” and the result promises to be their most personal and daring record to date. Following the golden classic folk sound of ‘Will You Dare‘ and the Lynch-inspired ‘Meaning Business‘, Eisenberg has now shared new track, ‘Old Myth Dying’. “I wrote ‘Old Myth Dying’ in early 2024 during an insane fever,” they explain. “Although I knew I should have been trying to sleep it off, I wanted to see if I could do this polyrhythmic thing in my right hand and sing over it. Historically, practicing has allowed me to forget that I have a body that feels pain—I disappear into the action, in pursuit of becoming beauty. This time, my lyrics came out straightforward and wary, blunter than usual. They revealed a different pain I was feeling, the pain of actually knowing what you can and can’t control, and what inherited myths have been lies designed to control you all along.”

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I attempted to take the mundane and make it abstract. When you put something familiar in an unfamiliar place, you see it differently. To get there, I explored more mythological and otherworldly ideas and sounds than ever before—while trying to retain the core intimacy of songwriting that I’ve always strived for. I hope what we made is a perfect balance.

If ‘Chasing the Feeling’ “errs towards the optimistic side of things,” as we wrote, “or at least finds itself unable to shake the lingering possibility there might exist a better way to live,” then new single ‘Drifting’ learns to lean into the flow of life in order to arrive at such a destination. An ode to every tired soul and person without direction which offers comfort not through the promise of agency but rather the unforeseen benefits of letting oneself relax into the drift.

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The Cherries are Speaking, last year’s album by Dan Knishkowy’s Adeline Hotel, represented “another step in Knishkowy’s exploratory path,” as we described. “One with no set end or direction, but one pressing on with larger goals in mind. A part of a greater body of work which comes into view one record at a time, edging closer to whatever the full picture might be.” This October will provide the next stage of this journey as Adeline Hotel is releasing new full-length, Hot Fruit, again via Ruination Record Co. A record, as per Andy Cush’s album notes, “characterized by that push-pull interplay between composition and improvisation,” with Winston Cook-Wilson and Scree’s Ryan El-Solh, Carmen Rothwell and Jason Burger all lending their talents. The title track captures the blend of craft and spontaneity perfectly.

Beti Masenqo – much of anything

Beti Masenqo is a songwriter out of California who has recently unveiled debut single, ‘much of anything’. A track which introduces her style of delicate, often reflective folk which ties together melancholy and joy with a wistful thread. Here specifically on the subject of love, where tenderness doubles as a kind of tenuousness. A spell to submit to or break. “Fell asleep in Mexico, fever in the night / I know this must be obvious but your were on my mind,” Masenqo sings in the opening lines. “Felt compelled to tell you that, just to prove I tried / your fingerprints were on my chest, my soul was left behind. I know you will be gone / can’t think this will be much of anything.”

Cereus Bright – Chasing the Feeling

Cereus Bright, the recording project of Knoxville freak-folk songwriter Tyler Anthony, has been operating for the best part of a decade, though the sound has undergone a constant evolution in the interim. Having recently signed with Nettwerk, Anthony has been sharing a run of singles to show off the latest face of Cereus Bright. A style which follows the reflective tone of 2021’s Give Me Time with a newfound focus on the future, looking forwards and confronting all the mystery, uncertainty and potential therein. Latest track ‘Chasing the Feeling’ errs towards the optimistic side of things, or at least finds itself unable to shake the lingering possibility there might exist a better way to live. “’Chasing the Feeling’ charts the kinds of longings we all have,” as Anthony explains. “It’s nostalgic… it felt important to make it more subtle and melancholy. For me, that’s what the core of this feeling really is—a quiet desire to return to something better than today.” Watch the video shot by Ross Bustin and edited by Corey Campbell below:

‘Chasing the Feeling’ is out now via Nettwerk and available from Bandcamp.

KMRU – Along A Wall

The first release from KMRU‘s own label OFNOT, new album Dissolution Grip emerged from a period of study at Berlin’s Universität der Künste, where, under the tutelage of Jasmine Guffond, he used field recordings in a novel manner. Rather than including these recordings directly, he used their waveforms as a guide for his own compositions, essentially tracing over the real-world sounds and recreating them as digital soundscapes. Take single ‘Along A Wall’, a bonus track on the digital release, where the wind of Nairobi is recreated in all of its fickle movement with nothing but electronic tones.

Kramies – Days Of (acoustic version)

Back in 2022 we wrote about the self-titled album by Kramies, describing it as “what feels like the culmination of a career to date. Where everything is consolidated and offered in its most fully realised form. Life in all its surreal wonder and visceral reality. Kramies, told as truthfully as possible, whatever form that truth takes.” Having teamed up with VanGerrett Records and with a new album coming next year, Kramies has unveiled the functionally titled EP, The Original Undecorated Takes from the Kramies LP. Four songs from the album as they appeared when acoustic demos. Lead single and opener ‘Days Of’ highlights the difference from the original, the stark depth swapped for a more intimate sound, though one retaining all of the emotional power.

Pretty Bitter – What I Want!

Self-described “psychedelic synth pop gumball machine” Pretty Bitter is Emelia Bleker and Miri Tyler, along with multi-instrumentalist Zack Be, drummer Jason Hayes and guitarist Chris Smit. Together the outfit craft a sound which lives up to their label, where inventive pop sensibilities are blended with driving indie rock energy and some of the sardonic lyricism and delivery familiar to riot grrrl and post-punk. Latest single ‘What I Want!’ utilises this sound to take on eating disorders and the process of recovery. A combination of gallows humour and rising catharsis which eviscerates those responsible for the outside pressures behind such an experience.

If you’re lonely
Try being someone else

If you’re shrinking
At least they love you while you hate yourself

Could you tell I was not well?

Sinai Vessel – Tangled

Aside from some outtakes and demos, ‘Tangled’ is the first release from Caleb Cordes’s Sinai Vessel since 2020’s stellar full-length Ground Aswim, and introduces the next step in the project’s evolution. The Asheville-based songwriter has long won acclaim for his distinctively emotive and searching style, though Cordes truly stands out for the way in which he layers in other emotions too. This is on full display on ‘Tangled’, where a gentle warmth belies the thread of paranoia running beneath the surface. “We are at the mercy of a tangled web of wires / Snaring one another / strung up by our words,” Cordes sings, voice barely breaking a murmur. “Intent is one among a set of signs / if misaligned, you’ll misinterpret.” Once this dimension of the track clicks, you’ll never quite hear it in the same manner, the hushed style no longer sounding intimate so much as lonely, walled off from others and no longer trusting words as a reliable means to bridge the divide.

There’s no poison like
Believing an enemy’s in sight
When there’s no threat at all

Soft Covers – The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit

In October, Naarm/Melbourne-based indie pop band Soft Covers will release their debut album Soft Serve on Little Lunch Records and Hidden Bay Records. Previous EP Permanent Part Time set out a jangly DIY aesthetic, and the new record sees the trio go bigger in every regard—instrumentally, thematically, and in terms of ambition—without sacrificing the authenticity that made the original songs so great. Lead single ‘The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit’ is a great introduction for those unfamiliar, taking the nostalgic fondness of retro jangle pop and injecting a certain momentum, not to mention a playful lyricism that blurs the line between wistful and witty.

Tamra – Omens, Silos

Based between Boise and Los Angeles, Tamra is a band, as per the press release, “animated by the idea that, though there’s nothing to do, there’s still something to say.” Their debut EP Light Reading emerges from the dead expanses of the American landscape and lead single ‘Omens, Silos’ introduces this aesthetic with a staccato, opaque poetry. It melds early 00s college favourites with Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison and a turbulent undercurrent of Midwest emo. The result, with its distorted guitar and vocals that rise and fall on sonic updrafts, is oddly captivating, both gloomy and not, full of inelegant beauty like a deserted stripmall under a bruised and stormy sky.

Light Reading will be released later this year.

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Adeem wrote an excellent piece which shone a light on the whole change, highlighting just how much weight the metamorphosis carries for him. It’s clear from the first listen to the new album that something major has taken place, the writing and delivery imbued with a sense of sincerity beyond anything on his music to date. The opening track ‘Good Evening’ serves as the introduction to this new/real Adeem, although it feels like a two-way thing, like he is as eager to meet you as you are him. As we described in the previous post:

“[Good Evening is] forged from that peculiar kind of earnestness which makes you feel comfortable, the sense that someone is willing to listen… ‘This is me,’ Adeem is saying. ‘Now who are you?'”

‘Impossible’ is a song about the beauty and strength that can be found in fragility, sounding like a cross between Small Houses and Great American Desert, while ‘Cincinnati’ channels Gregory Alan Isakov in its sad tale of Midwestern life, a world where things don’t work out as expected, as if tipping towards some larger tragedy. ‘Quiet Songs’ is a creeping heartbreaker not loud in terms of instrumentation but deafening in its words, the lyrics standing stark against an echoing silence. In much the same way as Noah Gundersen, Adeem the Artist manages to sound at once tender and enraged, seized by the words coming from his throat as if in frenzy. The song charts the progression of a person who knows they are different, starting from their birth into a conservative family where guns came before any clear sense of identity, and following them through school (“everybody knew I was a dark kind of kid”) and the rest of life. In an effort to regain (and then communicate) a sense of self, they turn to anger (“I was older when I learned that you gotta yell / and summon some hell /if you want to be heard”) before tragedy lets the façade drop enough for their true, earnest self to poke through.

“And I got scared when you were dying
it changed the melody for me
between the stones we threw to keep ourselves from crying
and the soft moments composed of unsung harmonies

I didn’t think that things would be perfect
I just thought you would listen
I just thought you would hear”

‘Good Ship Jesus’ has a mean country twang, the talk of devils and saviours foreshadowing the references to racism and discrimination by authorities which form the final verse, while ‘Waiting’ is altogether warmer and more hopeful, a bona fide love song tracing the possibilities for development and betterment within a relationship and opening up the possibility of fate or true love or some similar phenomenon. ‘Asphalt’ is a Dylan-esque folk song about falling head over heels, ‘We Learnt To Cry’ a slow, cathartic number in which suffering is the binding force of a relationship, and ‘Sidewalk’ is a frenetic folk song which borders on performance poetry or rap, the words streaming out as if from a man given three minutes to clear his heart or mind or both. From this, ‘We Belong Here’ emerges with a gentle intimacy, the couple here linked not be some grand understanding of life or love but rather a common confusion, a willingness not only to face strange, unknowable questions together but to accept this company as enough.

“We belong here inside the mystery of facing one another
here inside this endless, burning collage of color
here inside the searching, and the hurting, and the wonder.

We belong”

‘Midway Motel’ is an electrified Americana number carved out of small town nostalgia, where time passes like a desert wind or else a lightning flash, childhood dreams lost to the fierce grip of obligations and expectations, and the closing track, ‘Goodbye’, is equal parts compassionate and fierce. Part love song, part demand for answers, the song finds Adeem seized by love and fear and that all-too-human dissatisfaction, the inability to accept that life amounts to no more than growing and working and shrinking slowly towards your grave.

“Life can be hard
when you aren’t quite sure who you are
or where you’re going.

Sitting alone in my car,
I felt my heart explode into an epitaph.

Is this the plan of a perfect God?
Breeding and depleting and then falling apart
well, all I hear is the sound of goodbye.
Don’t say goodbye”

The word ‘sincere’ is often taken as synonymous for affectionate or sentimental. While it might be true that, deep down, us humans are often feeble, dewy-eyed creatures pretending otherwise, true sincerity involves a whole lot more than confessing love. We also hide things like depression, discontentment and fear of death, decidedly un-saccharine facets of the human condition we’d rather forget, feelings which can eat us up and void whatever love we might be holding. With Kyle Adem is Dead, Adeem the Artist strives to be sincere in every sense, finding the bravery not just to declare his love for his wife but to voice his fears, his weaknesses, his exasperation with life as we live it. With everything on the table, no lingering mysteries or secrets withheld, there is nothing left to corrupt the good things. Because, after all, Kyle Adem is dead.

Kyle Adem is Dead is out on Friday. Keep an eye on the Adeem the Artist Bandcamp page to buy it, or snag it from iTunes.

Artwork by Hannah Bingham

The post Adeem the Artist – Kyle Adem is Dead appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“I’ve decided recently that what I want to do is be very sincere with my art. I always wanted to be vague and mysterious; I thought that the space was important. Now, I feel differently; I want to tell you my name, which I’ve since changed the spelling to Adeem, and you tell me your name. Then we’re friends, and we get coffee, or beer, or food together- like before when my hope was to patch together a family of strangers.

The truth is there is organically such a broad universe dividing us from one another and I just don’t think that it needs any added mystery. So hey, I’m Adeem”.

So far only one track has been unveiled from Kyle Adem is Dead, but it goes a long way in showing the direction Adeem has taken his sound. ‘Good Evening’ sees sparse guitars allowing Adeem’s voice to fill the track, expanding outwards so that it fills your chest too. His words are disarmingly sincere, not melodramatic or overly sentimental but instead forged from that peculiar kind of earnestness which makes you feel comfortable, the sense that someone is willing to listen. Even without the back-story, ‘Good Evening’ sounds like an introduction “This is me,” Adeem is saying. “Now who are you?”

“Good evening
you’re a fine looking group
and your faces make expressions
​that decide which songs I’m going to do”

In this dark inner observatory
it’s a fine night for sharing songs and stories
like this one time when I was still young
I mean- I’m still young now
but I was younger when this happened…
I sang a song that was quite similar to this one”

Kyle Adem is Dead is to be released on the 8th April, so expect a full review closer to that date.

The post Adeem the Artist announces new album, Kyle Adem is Dead appeared first on Various Small Flames.

There is something admirable about Kyle Adem. We mentioned last time that he left a career in buisness to pursue his creative ideals and that attitude is present on Syracuse. This is the record, these are the songs, listen to them. If they are hard to characterise then, frankly, that is none of his concern. Where he goes next will be very interesting to see.

Beautiful Dreamer, Adem’s latest EP, satisfies our curiosity. Unsurprisingly, he has taken a new direction, but what was less expected is the direction he has taken, His songwriting is now wrapped within the smooth production of the very best mainstream radio jams. This is apparent from the opening track ‘Goodbye July’, a pop song imbued with the positivity of new love, starting with handclaps and developing into a heartfelt romance worthy of any blockbuster.

“All the fireworks and it’s not even July
trading all our stars for fireflies
Goodnight

When the wind is cold, will you ease my shaking?
Only if you’ll keep my bones from breaking

and the sun will set on these tears we’ve shed
so we illuminate until it rises again”

‘Heaven’ is a romantically rhythmic country song, with lyrics telling the story of the ghost of a long-dead love, while ‘I Go On’ is slower, dramatic folk in the vein of Noah Gundersen. Closer ‘Good Morning, August’ see a return to the buoyant tempo, as if The Mountain Goats had penned a smash-hit pop-country song.

“Take me back into a dream
where everything is still the same but just a little different
it’s just me and your mother
and your father
and your father’s father but we’re under water
we are swiming in their favorite daughter

I am mercilessly bound-
it is my destiny to drown in you
there’s nothing I can do”

If further evidence was needed, Beautiful Dreamer confirms Adem’s eclectic songwriting abilities. Whether you prefer the earthy folk or melodramatic pop, Adem’s range is mightily impressive.

You can buy the album now from his Bandcamp page.

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