Their debut EP Infinity Mirror, out now via Future Gods, introduces such ideals by conjuring a vivid environment of its own. The lead single and title track evokes “a world nocturnal and neon-lit,” as we put it, “balancing lush textures and soaring energy to create something both reflective and forward-facing.” A song which considers conditions not as some exercise in nostalgia or longing but motivation to press ahead to pastures new. The rest of the EP follows in this spirit, from the affirming soar of opener ‘Falling’ to ‘Softly’ and its hazy ebb and flow. The latter, written during a period of intense depression and suicidal ideation, finds a comforting vividness punctuated by towering crescendos, as though Bandoquillo is building a sound capable of consoling those in pain and lifting them from the depths of their feelings.

Closer ‘Fix Yourself’ is a striking follow-up and closer. A harsh, caustic track of barrelling momentum, forgoing some of the richness of the previous songs in favour of cathartic release. If its predecessors are about finding safe spaces for healing and progression, then ‘Fix Yourself’ is about the actual act of moving forward. Even if that means razing the things you have been attached to in the past. An act of defiant disowning of all the things which might have once dragged you down in order to live life anew.

Infinity Mirror is out now via Future Gods and available from  the St. Kio Bandcamp page.

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This year sees Nectar return with a series of new singles, and the first, ‘Blister’, takes this idea and finds new ground. With its upbeat pop punk momentum, the track delves into dark and unsettling themes, exploring how pain and pleasure are intertwined, and how the marks and scars (or blisters) suffered in the process of doing something you love take on a peculiar kind of meaning.

The song was written in the aftermath of a serious injury to lead Kamila Glowacki, when a skateboarding accident left her with fractures in both arms and the fear that she might never be able to play guitar again. “The new version of my arm felt very grotesque as it was healing,” Glowacki explains. “Long scars, dark and exaggerated hair growth, swelling, bruising, and metal plates that keep the bones in place.”

‘Blister’ picks up within this strange space, where the curious pride of a skating wound clashes with the fact that it hinders other passions and outlets. “The brick wall pattern [of the artwork] is an obstacle and interruption to overcome,” Glowacki says, and the single represents an engagement with such barriers. Because Glowacki did heal, and the time in recovery allowed her to find a new level of focus and intention in even the smallest of things.

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Despite ostensibly being a break-up record, Float is an album keyed into the sadness of the mundane, the end of the relationship serving not as the monolithic centrepiece but rather a light that brings out the melancholy that exists all around. From the opening lines of ‘What If’, which asks “What if it was all different?” while promising not to go back, the record exists in the space between the troubled past and imagined futures that never came to be. The space is a familiar one because it marks our contemporary age. Ours is the time where the promises of our childhood collapse along with those of our politicians and technocrats, the sense of loss surrounding something that never existed haunts the personal, political and cultural spheres, pushing a low-level grief into every waking moment.

Which all sounds abstract and grand, though in reality becomes manifest in the most intimate matters. Just as the anxiety of ‘Night Owl’ butts up against the hope of ‘Market’, the crises of confidence and identity Calicoco explores born of the discrepancy between dreams and nightmares—where nothing is quite as good as you would like, and always threatening to get exponentially worse. Perhaps this too explains the tidal rhythm of the record, the way the guitars crash like breakers at one moment (‘Stay For a While’) and suck in low and slow the next (‘South’).

‘Rob’s Song’ is reminiscent of Act Of, the dual vocals and minimalist instrumentation lending a complete intimacy, while ‘Anchor Park’ is altogether richer, advancing from unsure beginnings into a spiky energy that fills the air with an ominous ambience. “When I was writing ‘Anchor Park’, I was trying to confront some of my early shame, fears, and anxieties that have followed me into adulthood, some of which touch upon sexuality and gender,” Caliolo explains. “I had this vision of going back to the park as an adult to acknowledge some of these things. It was honestly so cathartic to play an alter-ego and face those demons head on.”

Indeed, Float as a whole could be viewed as such a head-on confrontation, be it related to distinct moments in Caliolo’s history or the more diffuse emotions that permeate the present. The later is addressed in ‘Who Knows’, a track pitched halfway between pop punk and pop ballad, and closer ‘Oh My Love’ too, a lo-fi folk song of aching longing, playing like the late afternoon winter sun—honeyed and warm but stretching ever thinner, all the more beautiful for its fleeting shine.

Float is out now via Dadstache Records and you can grab it from the Calicoco Bandcamp page.

Album art photography by Lily Goldstein

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Opener ‘Blinds’ is a song about mouldy lemons and powercuts and learning to be alone, the perfect introduction to how Nectar blend introspective writing with bouncy pop punk. The song is simultaneously fun and affecting, Glowacki’s lyrics diary-like observations that sometimes allude to a sense of worry and isolation is sidelong glances, and sometimes tackle those feelings head-on with a sense of clear-eyed purpose.

“The hours last so long because I know you are not home
Trying to learn the difference of being lonely and alone”

But, like almost every track on Knocking at the Door, the whole thing clocks in at less than two minutes, and is breathless and buoyant despite its serious subject matter. And therein lies the power of what Nectar do. Things never slip into the moody or self-absorbed because all of the emotion and anxiety is presented with such energy. These songs feel like both a much-needed acknowledgement that negative feelings exist and a blast of confidence that assures you that everything can be overcome. As Christine Pallon puts it in the album’s blurb, Knocking at the Door  “[explores] sadness through short songs and fast riffs, each track a new anthem for learning to grow and conquer loneliness.”

‘Ursa Minor’ expresses that woozy rush of contentment exclusive to summer nights (“lyrics”), while, as the title suggests, ‘Smile’ is about willfully accepting change (“Smile and walk away cos it’s okay,” Glowacki sings). The sometimes stifling nature of routine is the theme on ‘Days’, a track that tackles the trials of the familiar, especially in that cold and dark stretch between the end of summer and the beginning of spring. But again the track has a glimmer of hope, this time in the fact that there is solidarity in this feeling, or as Glowacki puts it “I’m not the only one, to watch the days come and days go.”

‘Slouch’ is another standout, beginning with the hushed, almost confessional line “I can’t stop crying, even in the most public place,” before erupting into that same cavalcade of catharsis that comes with an intense crying fit. The song distills the Nectar ethos into a hundred seconds, that weird paradox of embracing helplessness in order to feel stronger and grow.

“How on earth can you be so naturally happy?” Glowacki asks on ‘Happy’, which kind of triumphantly embraces the state of never feeling triumphant, while ‘Somewhere’ switches focus to someone else, a track infused with the hope that a person can find a way to be okay (“I want to know if you can find somewhere / a place to go where you can feel better”). By far the album’s longest song, finale ‘Birthday’ is a relative slow burner, a big full-bodied rocker that sits in the aftermath of a relationship, infused with a subdued wistfulness but also a sense of strength and acceptance, the feeling that perhaps things will work out for the better.

“And you’re not quite sure how to pronounce my name,
and I’m not quite sure who’s fault it is to blame”

On Knocking at the Door, Nectar show that personal and introspective songs need not be slumped and mumbling, that springy guitars and catchy melodies are sometimes just the tools to capture how it feels to traverse the weird experience of trying to find a place in the world, of overcoming difficult patches and easing that loneliness that creeps up on us all from time to time.

You can get Knocking at the Door via Infinity Cat Records from the Nectar Bandcamp page.

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The band’s second album, Internet Connection came to life slowly, starting out as a split single back in 2016 when the pair were themselves split between northern and southern California. In the intervening time, Kiebach graduated college and moved back south, and they set to re-recording the songs with added maturity and post-college perspective, and the album was gradually born. As suggested above, the record toes the line between emotional connection and energetic release, the cathartic tempo matched by an earnest simplicity that seems sensitive to the difficulties of young adult life. Though the tenderness could sometimes be described as twee, the writing is clever and intelligent enough to avoid any accusations mawkishness, and tracks such as ‘Internet Animal Celebrity’ push through into a fully surreal territory (“I wish I was an internet animal celebrity” being the only, oft-repeated line in the song).

Opener ‘Dog Body’ offers the first taste of the vulnerability Kiebach presents in his writing, pushing the uniquely naive purity of one’s relationship with their pet in a way that brings to mind Jon Raymond’s Wendy and Lucy. “I miss my dog,” he sings, in a way that has you believing every word. “Hope someone takes him on a walk / We’ll walk into the San Francisco fog.” ‘Everything’s Cool’ offers a picture just as innocent, the lyrics painting a friendship whose depth is left unsaid in the way of the strongest bonds, while ‘I Hit a Car’ switches to a kind of drifting loneliness, where isolation approaches like a far-off storm, though one too vast to outrun.

“The forth of July
Friends getting high
I’m alone my room
Red solo cups and cigarettes
I think that I’m kind of a mess
I guess that’s just what I’m going to do

If I can’t hang out with you”

‘Re: Nervousness’ pares things down, returning to simplicity in the hope of finding peace, while ‘Hospital Gown’ operates according to the same kind of ideal. Finding a loved one ill and confined to bed, the track focuses on the small details of the moment rather than the wider implications, allowing for a quietly devastating exploration of fear and grief where no grand answers are available, but small kindnesses carry the highest of value.

A similar relationship is found on ‘Everything’s Alright’, where outside forces (and some internal ones too) conspire to make life difficult, and platitudes are held as the last defence. “Your house is ninety-five degrees,” Kiebach sings, “I just get so anxious,” and there is nothing to say or do about it beside the most obvious attempts at comfort. “And when you’re feeling kind of down you’ll say / Everything’s alright.” ‘Skin Topography’ follows the anxiety further: the nausea and agoraphobic terror, the guilt and embarrassment, the desperate need to move on and the failed communication that makes it so difficult to do so.

“So take my hands and try to read skin topography
Fucked up over these palms
Tattoo these lines back into curves
Don’t care if it hurts
I’m done feeling like this

Can’t tell you what’s been going on
Can’t tell you anything
You think too much”

So, while the music of Talk, Tired Thanatoid might appear twee, below the surface lies something far deeper and more valuable. Indeed, the playful dimension is intrinsic to the exploration of things, allowing the band to touch upon themes such as loss and mental suffering with subtly and humanity. But also, it is the very thing we turn to when faced with such issues. Sometimes, no amount of big-scale advice or philosophising can help. Sometimes, it is the small acts of compassion and generosity that count.

Internet Connection is out now and you can get it digitally from the Talk, Tired Thanatoid Bandcamp or on cassette via Pacific Nature Records.

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Opener ‘how it feels’ dives right in, the guitars squealing and shredding in carefree triumph. But Jenna Marx’s vocals hold an uncertain edge and bring a depth to things, the emotional texture that puts Joyride! ahead of many bands who try to carve a similar niche. Half Moon Bay deals mainly in pensive reflections on relationships and how they alter with the passing of time. It’s punk pop without the brash sneering, the perfect centre of a Venn diagram between fun rock ‘n roll and reflective bedroom pop. “How it feels is like a steady build / or a subtle loss that you won’t notice ’til your sense of self is gone” Marx sings, “do you feel anything when you look at me after all these years?”

The vocals push through a squall of guitar and crashing percussion on ‘for good’, before the bounding 90 seconds that are ‘hold that thought’ which, in a just universe, would become a car stereo singalong hit.

Another of my favourites is ‘running on empty’, which opens with big crunchy guitars that wouldn’t be out of place on a Japandroids record and the great opening lines “Young and running on empty / you said that you thought I looked pretty with my makeup on / so I went home and I took it off”. The song goes on to talk about how some things remain, sometimes turning stale and sometimes not.

“And he said I don’t wanna grow up
because I don’t wanna grow apart
so we’re just gonna keep showing up
save face from another change of heart”

‘rumors’ comes tearing in from nowhere, before the frenetic energy of ‘bargain barn’ which feels like the breathless (and somehow slightly sad) escape after stealing a sweater, ending with the line “I don’t know why I’m so sentimental”. There are a couple more rockers before the album ends on a reflective note with ‘how to tell her’.  ‘girls who wanna realize themselves’ has a rich and fuzzy melody, while ‘boardwalk’ has a mid-tempo 90s alt-rock dynamic, complete with screeching guitar and pounding drums. The aforementioned closer has shades of the stripped-back, frankly honest indie rock of Family Video. It’s a fitting end to what’s a really great album and, after all the thoughts and doubts throughout, leaves the listener with a calm sense of wistful acceptance.

“I’m still mad that we all wound up here
with the same distorted view
I was hoping that one of us would’ve made it out
but we’re still wading through
a waist-deep water, cannon fodder
I know that I’m my mother’s daughter”

You can get Half Moon Bay on vinyl from Salinas Records, cassette from Stupid Bag Records, or as a name-your-price download from the Joyride! Bandcamp page.

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As the name suggests, Adult Teen deals in the ways that many 20- and 30-somethings are often not as “grown up” as is expected of them, particularly in regards to love and relationships. But as you might imagine from a guitar and drum machine-wielding whirlwind, these are not soft and tender songs pining for that special someone. Label Father/Daughter Records (who are releasing the vinyl issue of the album) describe the Lisa Prank sound as “dominated by bruised romanticism, introspective longing, and a palpable sense of desire, building a sound heavily influenced by 90s pop punk and the decade’s lighthearted culture”. A VHS-grained nostalgia for the Nineties is pretty prominent, from the stylistic nods to Blink 182 et al. to the teen movie blend of sincere and heartfelt worries and simple good fun. There’s even a track named ‘I Want to Believe’ for chrissakes.

The album wastes no time in getting right to the pop punk goodness, opener ‘Starting Again’ a sub-three minute blast which sees Edwards struggling to forget a former beau, even if they were something of a jerk.

“you say you’re not still drinking
you just started again
I swear I don’t still miss you
I just started again”

‘Luv is Dumb’ rushes through its 1:30 run-time at breakneck speed, the tale of having all your thoughts reduced to a crush, while ‘Jumper’ has some electronic beats (from Edward’s trusty Roland MC-505 drum machine) behind restrained guitars, which eventually blossom to become warm and rich. Lyrically the song is a good illustration of the themes of the whole album, as Edwards sings “don’t wanna be in love cause it’s never enough / and I don’t wanna fall for you cause we’ll only make each other blue”. The rest of the songs exist in this same plane of self-examining melodrama, a life that’s begun to imitate all those 90s teen movies – all break-ups and make-ups and epiphanies of the ‘what-was-I-thinking?’ variety. ‘Baby Let Me Write Yr Lines’ is a hectic bounce-along track about growing to realise that you partner isn’t quite as special as you’d first thought, while ‘Drive Anywhere’ (which featured on Jon’s Toon Tunes effort for The Grey Estates) is about that confusion and loss of direction after a relationship breaks down.

“lights flashing
signs passing
I could drive anywhere
but there’s nowhere that
I really wanna go”

Closer ‘I Want to Believe’ sounds warm and happy and hopeful, as Edwards sings lines that hold a belief that this time things will be different, that the complications of past relationships won’t appear in the next one. It’s not clear if this hope should be applauded or doubted – is having faith in things working out a virtue or simple naivete? Edwards is well aware of this bind herself, as she sings:

“and maybe I’m too optimistic
I never learn much from the past”

On Adult Teen, Lisa Prank deal with all the pitfalls of being a young person in the only way they know how. It’s an album that puts equal faith in the energy of pop punk and the connective power of sharing real feelings, Edwards swerving mumbling melancholy for something bright and brief and blazingly her own.

Adult Teen is out on cassette tape and vinyl from Father Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. All orders of the record come with limited edition sticker sheet (below!), designed by Faye Orlove, who also created the album artwork.

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‘Goodness Pt. 1’ is the song from the album trailer, a relatively restrained and full of vivid, nostalgic writing which conjures a world full of both bright sparks and wide, flat darkness. That said, there’s a sense of wonder and hope that seems to represent the titular goodness, though how this will evolve across the album itself remains to be seen.

“When the sun rested on olive shoulders
and the wind kissed the back of your neck,
I would lay and absorb in the silence,
in your language I haven’t learned yet.
In the tune of the national anthem
sing the words while the corrugate bursts,
while our burning desires crackling.
We exist in the unified verse.”

‘Piano Player’, the lead single from the record proper, sees the tempo increase somewhat, though the sense of joy remains (abetted by the lovely video). Again the lyrics are incredibly detailed, packed full of strong images and well-written thoughts so that the song becomes a pop punk poem, though there are sing-along segments too.

“A kid half my age, baby’s breath and meadow sage clutched in her hands like trophy game, just like the wild world was tame, was granted home and tender care into an awkward piece of ware three-quarters full or quarter-drained and both adversely sure how long they will sustain.”

All in all, The Hotelier look set to put out a well-written, intricate album that also comes with an instinctive, emotional side, balancing accessibility with depth. You can pre-order Goodness and the Goodness Pt. 1 7″ now from Tiny Engines. The band are set for a pretty extensive tour this spring/summer with the likes of Rozwell Kid, Told Slant, Bellows and Loone. Check out the dates on the posters below:

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‘Ha Ha, Then What’ is a desperate pop punk break-up song, with flailing drums and yelping vocals delivering lyrics steeped in defeated nihilism, “i’m not responsible for making you feel anything / we’re fucked and alone / i’m not happy or sad, i’m just not anything”. Follow-up ‘Loser’ springs out of a droning buzz and is another catchy, self-deprecating punk song,  a spiky anthem for the legions of lonely teens (“you call me a loser / laugh at my basement skin / i drink alone every night / and tell my friends i’m staying in again”). ‘Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer)’ is perhaps my favourite on the record, the slightly slower verses building into a big heavy chorus:

“on a telephone
pretty sure all my friends r ghosts
watched you walk through the wall
woulda tried to catch ya
didn’t wanna fall”

‘Trash’ is another pulsating indie rocker, before ‘Puke’ brings a change of pace, an acoustic love song that is still not without the general lack of self worth on the rest of the release “who would want to be with a guy like me / i’m skinny, i’m clumsy, i’m just so embarrassing”. The final track is the song’s sequel, ‘Puke, Part Two’, another slow song about a break-up which, at least lyrically, brings to mind Gleemer’s No Goodbyes.  It’s a fitting end to a release which charts the ups and downs of young, of saying “fuck it” to feeling sad before sinking into a sense of doom anyway.

You can get I Was Never a Boy Scout on cassette via Near Mint (most editions have sold out but as of now you can still get the white/grape edition below) or as a name-your-price download via the Dingus Bandcamp page.

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Fresh from putting out a split release with Jawbreaker Reunion earlier this year they are back with their debut full length, Ugly Cherries. A fair number of tracks have been unveiled in the previous weeks. ‘Dairy Queen‘ details plans for happiness/freedom/world domination to be set in motion once the narrator has finished their shower, while the title track confronts queerness head on with a clear-eyed defiance. The pick of the bunch is ‘West Texas’, where Hopkins and Bruce alternate verses to describe a variety of attempted escapes, all of which circle back to where they started – horribly, irrevocably in love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtquRuiGABc&feature=youtu.be

The latest track to be unveiled is ‘1994’, a throw back to the feel-good power-anthems of the early nineties. Once again however, the band mix this sense of fun with serious and personal lyrics, allowing for a song at once danceable and cryable:

“Haven’t seen your face since 1994
It feels like nothing
These days it pays to be so strange
And I’m like nothing”

Ugly Cherries is to be released on the 18th September. You can pre-order it now via Father/Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. The band are also heading out on tour for those of you in the US. See the full dates below (* indicates with Mitski, # are with Mitski and Palehound):

09/18 @ Silent Barn – Brooklyn, NY (Record release w/ Charly Bliss, Fern Mayo, Kississippi)
10/14 @ Aurora – Providence, RI (w/ S featuring Jenn Ghetto of Carissa’s Weird)
10/31 @ Shea Stadium – Brooklyn, NY (w/ Joanna Gruesome, Aye Nako, King of Cats)
11/10 @ PhilaMOCA – Philadelphia, PA *
11/11 @ DC9 – Washington, DC *
11/12 @ Southern Cafe – Charlottesville, VA #
11/13 @ Pinhook – Durham, NC #
11/14 @ Caledonia Lounge – Athens, GA #
11/16 @ The High Watt – Nashville, TN #
11/17 @ Bishop Bar – Bloomington, IN #
11/18 @ The Frequency – Madison, WI #
11/19 @ 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN #
11/20 @ Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL #
11/21 @ Rumba Cafe – Columbus, OH #
11/23 @ Smiling Buddha – Toronto, ON #
11/24 @ Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QC #
11/25 @ BSP Lounge – Kingston, NY #

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