If ‘Alligator’ seemed to embrace certain dualities and contradiction, then the full album takes things to a whole new level. The themes and narratives often explore binaries, the characters surrounded or alone, looking for home or running away from one, and the sound itself is happy to pair haunting atmosphere and cutting emotion with s sense of humour most zany and wry.  Magali’s background as a visual artist has long pushed the project towards multimedia innovation, and Cacchione has also worked beyond the ordinary confines of music, collaborating with those behind fiction podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale and The Space Within. So it’s perhaps no surprise Make Strange Friends has loftier ambitions than most folk records. “On Make Strange Friends, Caged Animals have crafted a multifaceted album that is both a time capsule from a weird era and a tender love letter to the next chapter,” the label describe: 

The album harks to lo-fi treasures like The Basement Tapes and Mellow Gold, marrying rough-hewn, folky impressionism with a lush, post-modern palette, including guest appearances from Jeff Tobias, Frankie Sunswept, and Steven Lambke. The result flickers with the blacklight anxiety of Nebraska, the sepia color of Deserter’s Songs, and the comic surrealism of Beckett’s Waiting For Godot.

The resulting album is every bit as varied as that sounds. The protagonist (or more specifically, antihero) of opener ‘Rattle the Quiet’ is suitably stupefied, dropped into a too-bright morning tender and unprepared to face the consequences of the previous nights. But then ‘Radio Down’ soon follows with a satisfying sense of salvation, moving from the throes of addiction to a new life on the other side. The songs are changeable even within the own runtime, and often embrace what might seem competing moods simultaneously. Take ‘Balloon Heaven’ as a case in point, a single of taut bass and ambiguous imagery which conveys its moody atmosphere without sacrificing colour and groove. At once searching, almost desperate, yet still buoyed by its own momentum to have fun along the way.

Make Strange Friends is out now via You’ve Changed Records and available from the Caged Animal Bandcamp page.

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With the album set for release at the end of the month, Penny & the Pits are back with brand new single, ‘Headcrusher’. The label describe the record as an “adventurous punk-rock album that processes feminist joy, rage and revenge,” and ‘Headcrusher’ certainly lives up to the description. A short, sharp track full of bite and momentum, letting up only for the brief lulls which punctuate intermittently, as though Stevens is taking a breath before diving back in. What results is something unapologetically in your face, a style fitting for the themes which underpin it. “This song is about trying to blame yourself for someone else’s bad behaviour,” Stevens explains. “But then it’s also about refusing to do that anymore and just sending them out to die at sea.”

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Lead single ‘Happenstance’ captured these conflicting themes in a slice of bold indie pop, focusing on paradoxical emotions of craving attention and validation while also feeling an urge to become invisible, to disappear. Alex Free’s video portrayed such feelings with a suitably vivid and abstract style, evoking both the alienation of growing up and the embrace of the whatever person you end up becoming.

New single ‘Soccer Mommy’ continues this nuanced picture. A big brash indie rock song, the single again delivers an emotional punch in a driving sugar-rush of cathartic energy, acknowledging the difficult aspects of finding yourself while leaning into the empowering force of momentum. “This song is about a time in my life that I used to be very upset and embarrassed about, but now I’m like, wow, I feel so much better after writing this song,” Shalom explains. “It’s called ‘Soccer Mommy’ because I got my driver’s license in late 2019 and spent my first year on the road listening to Color Theory and thinking about my 20-year-old self who didn’t deserve the things that happened to her. I love Soccer Mommy. I’m terrified of driving, but I always felt brave listening to ‘Circle The Drain’ on 287 south.”

and I’m not sure when it changed but I’m bored of being ashamed
I danced myself clean and I own a denim jacket now
my plants are still alive but the jade I got around you has long died
some things just suck
they aren’t always lessons either

Watch the video directed by Daniella Hoerle below featuring New Brunswick band Valentine’s Day:

Sublimation is out on the 10th March via Saddle Creek and you can pre-order it now.

Photo by Aaron DuRall

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RIYL: Labradford, Yowler, moments of late-night reflective melancholy

Favourite Tracks:

You can buy Sleepwalker now from the Long Beard Bandcamp page, and on cassette or vinyl from Team Love Records.

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