by: Benji Haywood, Chris Coplan, Dan Goldin, Delia Rainey, Devon Chodzin, Dominic Acito, Eric Foreman, Gianluigi Marsibilio, Jack Meyer, Jean-Michel Lacombe, Kris Handel, Matt Watton, Matty McPherson, Myles Tiessen, Scott Yohe, and Will Floyd
The year is half way over, or if you’re an optimist, the year is half way over. There’s been a lot of great music so far... there usually is. Times are still tough and music is still very much what collectively keeps us going, so we prattle on. Post-Trash remains committed to the discovery of new artists, bands, and albums. Interesting music continues to be made even as pressing plants are jammed, clubs are over booked, and DIY infrastructure has become increasingly difficult to maintain. Thankfully, you can’t stop artists from being artists.
So we present our “Mid-Year Report," a comprehensive guide to our favorite releases of the first half of this year, without any pre-determined length or insignificant rankings. If we’re into it, we're including it (unless we plumb forgot it or just haven’t spent enough time with it… which happens, in which case our sincerest of apologies). It's impossible to listen to everything released and everyone has different tastes, but we’re here to recommend these particular records. Your next favorite band/artist could be out there, it's just a matter of listening to something new. Journey down this rabbit hole with us. We're not saying these are the best albums, but rather our favorites as picked up by the editors. Discover something new. Buy some records. Support the music you love. Thank you for reading Post-Trash. - DG
J A N U A R Y :
Tan Cressida / Warner Records
Apple Music | Spotify
While the contents of SICK! aren’t exactly sunny, it does feels as though the clouds are finally parting above Earl Sweatshirt. The mercurial rapper’s fifth album features a clarity that’s never been seen in his music, and while the subject matter remains terse, the delivery is shinning, with his words picking up apart beats and not the other way around. He’s still very much doing his thing, lacing psychedelic beats and chopping them up at his whim, but Earl isn’t buried and the vocals aren’t warped, this is straight forward in terms of the album’s mix, as if he wants you to hang on each word. SICK! revolves around circumstances of tragedy amid the pandemic and seclusion, but in turn it’s pushed him to create his most immediate of records, each rhyme carefully focused and his wit razor sharp throughout. - DG
Strategy of Tension Music
Bandcamp | Spotify
Recurring Dream is not a Sunwatchers stand-in; a fact made noticeable only ten seconds into the album when Jeff Tobias takes to the microphone to inform us, “By the time they learned who the real fascists were, it was already too late.” It’s a bit of a surprise to hear Tobias take to the microphone. Not just because he’s more hushed than his saxophone implies. He takes the quiet implications of what Sunwatchers have tried to set forth and does so LOUDLY, with a level of swaggering discontent and wry wit nonetheless. Tobias may be modest in his range, yet across Recurring Dream’s ten tracks, he paints vivid portraits of “money poisoning” and consumer malaise run amok; opine a vision of “what happened in Venezuela,” and most importantly, our impending doom at the hands of the white male gaze. The vignette stories are easy to latch onto and find yourself caught up in. It’s not just because they feel like they are literally staring into the abyss, but that they look at class and power in a way Sunwatchers were limited. - Matty McPherson
Upset The Rhythm
Fuse is the full-length debut from Nicfit, a Japanese punk band that has been together for over a decade. That’s right—a debut LP after over ten years of playing together. Aside from the odd demo, compilation, and a split EP with M.A.Z.E., Nicfit has remained relatively quiet. Fuse proves the band’s lengthy origin story wasn’t from creative apathy or a lack of dedication, but rather the devilish dormancy— a group dedicated to ascendancy no matter the continuance. Nicfit crashes the gates with an ascending guitar riff and a sonic barrage of feedback on opener “Unleashed.” There is little getting in the way of lead singer Hiromi’s vicious delivery, aiding the primal tactility. In fact, the entire LP is fitted with raw production that gels nicely with the no wave bones of the album. Nicfit has an old-school approach to punk. That’s certainly not a pejorative; the straightforward songcraft is both catchy and edgy. Most tracks feature earworm riffs but are so damn distorted that the end product is nothing less than classic rip-shit punk. All said and done, It feels like the most hardcore post-punk you will ever hear. - Myles Tiessen || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Mock Records
Traps PS is unrelenting. Unrelenting in their longevity – they’ve been on my radar since 2010 when they were playing guerilla shows in downtown LA. Unrelenting in their output – Prim Dicer marks their fourth LP since 2013 (their first on Mock Records), to accompany as many EPs. Unrelenting in their music – their brand of funky anarchic dance-punk is immediately recognizable by its dogged, driving rhythms and spastic eruptions of vocals and guitar. Gang of Four, the Minutemen, and 80’s no wave are obvious touchstones, and Traps PS deserve to be counted as peers to Oh Sees and predecessors of recent faves Spread Joy and Viagra Boys (sans saxophone). A lesser band might have indulged themselves and stretched out some of these hypnotizing grooves into five+ minute jams but Traps PS exhibits a self-imposed restraint – the longest track (“The Cast”) is just 3:11. The effect is disorienting: as one frenetic song ends another immediate begins, leaving little space to digest. This directness means each track is brimming with a sense of urgency and excitement. Traps PS have mastered a kind of infectious dissonance. The jagged song structures and cutting guitars repel you while the eminently danceable rhythms draw you in. - Matt Watton || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
FURTHER LISTENING:
ARTSICK “Fingers Crossed” | AXE RASH “Contemporary Ass” | BORIS “W” | CAT POWER “Covers” | CHE NOIR “Food For Thought” | DAVID BOWIE “Toy” | DEAF CLUB “Productive Disruption” | GREEN/BLUE “Offering” | POM POKO “This Is Our House” | THA GOD FAHIM & YOUR OLD DROOG “Tha Wolf On Wall St. 2: The American Dream” | THANKS FOR COMING “Rachel Jr” | VOIDCEREMONY “At the Periphery of Human Realms”
F E B R U A R Y :
Mexican Summer
Bandcamp | Spotify
Cate Le Bon writes with her body and her movements convey punch-drunk unknowable truths, not just through her voice that evokes longing. On Crab Day, where dada was a path to understanding, her sound’s freewheeling spider guitar music puzzled and kick danced its way into existence. Reward’s invocations of lost wisdom may have only had a quarter of that kind of freewheeling sense, often ebbing in stilted, bittersweet fashion; it still created a newfound sidestep with its lovelorn horns and spaced synth. Pompeii errs rather close to the latter across its nine songs, twiddling with a few horns here to be extra soppy and refining the synthesizers for extra woozy. The tracks invoke languid motions of a terminal present. In the case of one like “Harbour” or the title track, it leisurely saunters and fills the space. Every crevice of these nine tracks dare to become your new obsession if this sound clicks. Naturally though, that’s not the whole story; my ears were tuning to a novum. Pompeii happens to feature a reverb-saturated guitar easy to become enamored with. It’s an element that her last two releases have evaded. Yet every song it is featured on, whether as a trusted rhythm element or shock show-stealer, feels like an epiphany. - Matty McPherson
Shady / Interscope Records
Apple Music | Spotify
Street rap superstars Westside Gunn, Benny the Butcher, and Conway the Machine have developed a sound intersecting the cold, grimy realities of their respective Buffalo upbringings and the silk laced high art symbolic of elite society. This juxtaposition is occasionally jarring but almost always well executed. However, swinging between surreal luxury and menacing threats may leave little room for an inward look at how this quest for better can chip away at one’s psyche. While he has always been the most introspective of the three, on his new record, God Don’t Make Mistakes, Conway the Machine weaves his iron clad bars within tracks exploring the depths of his trauma and insecurity on the way to the top. - Eric Foreman
Fat Possum Records
Philadelphia’s Empath make that good shoegaze, the kind that feels free of shape but never directionless. Their new album, Visitor, released back in February is packed with rhythms that stick like glue while everything else blurs together. It’s a well crafted mix of aggressive distortion, homespun fuzz, and warm yet punchy hooks. Visitor marks a shift for the band however, moving away from much of their usual patchwork chaos into something decidedly more “pop”. It’s a thorough cleaning of what came before, but it’s still weird enough to charm day one listeners and those just getting familiar. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Castle Face Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The ever shifting sounds of EXEK are in full splendor on their latest record, Advertise Here, an enthralling record with a magnetic grip. Blending together krautrock, dream pop, post-punk, psych, and maybe even a touch of tranquil funk, the entire record locks in with a singular vision, though the Melbourne based band take many diversions in the creation of that vision. These songs are sparse but so rich in texture and atmosphere that you feel instantly pulled into their world, one where nothing appears quite as it seems, as the band warble between synth punk, dub, and colorful stabs of noise to create the picture at large. Advertise Here works both as an album to zone out to and one to listen to in great depth, led by the hypnotic slink of “Unreasonable Warmth” and the eerie drift of “Sen Yen for 30 Min of Violin”. - DG
We missed the roll out on King Hannah’s new record, I’m Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me, but upon its arrival, the album had immediately caught our attention. There’s a great deal of 90’s influence at the core of the Liverpool duo’s music, drawing well deserved comparisons to both PJ Harvey and Portishead, thanks in part to it’s blunt lyrics but more so Hannah Merrick’s smokey vocals and the sonic landscape they choose to slink through. The album lurks in the shadows musically, but the vocals are clear and present, focused and determined. Piercing feedback is met with complex drum patterns, with stunning tone and songs that patiently work themselves into a frenzy. The duo balance acoustic tension with harrowing realism and breathy vocals (occasionally reminiscent of Goat Girl’s Clottie Cream) that seem to recall experiences of youth and the mental health struggles that comes with it. - DG
I’m Into Life Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Enter Open Head, a wildly experimental band from Kingston, NY, whose debut album is the flagship release for emerging Los Angeles-via-Upstate New York label I’m Into Life Records. Joy, and Other Sufferings is a confounding, exhilarating, empowering, and breathlessly batshit experience. Based on this collection of tunes, Open Head are one of the most exciting guitar bands to come around in years, the stateside answer to Canada’s Blessed or the UK’s Black Midi. Joy, and Other Sufferings is a statement album, a line in the sand, a challenge to all other modern guitar bands. As a band who liberally borrows from weirdo-90s-rock, Open Head is fortunate that three of the bands they remind me of are no longer active and are showing little sign of resurrecting: U.S. Maple, Sonic Youth, and Fugazi. Specifically, Open Head play the kind of challenging chaotic no-wave noise music championed on Sister/Daydream-era SY albums, Long Hair in Three Stages/Talker-era Maple, and pick-your-fav Fugazi (feels like In on the Kill Taker to me, but there’s no wrong answer). - Benji Heywood
Box Records / EIS
Bandcamp | Spotify
We finally get Leeds’ best noise rock band Thank’s debut album, Thoughtless Cruelty. This is a record that is meant to be played as loud as possible, an album that is filled with clever lyrics, a clear nihilistic view of the world, and pounding instrumentals. Thoughtless Cruelty is described as “a stark observation of human cruelty filtered through the band’s grim fascinations including long term nuclear warnings” something that becomes obvious when listening to vocalist Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe. It’s 32 minutes of an interesting take on noise rock with a sense of humor. Thank has proven themselves, despite what they say, to be a good band from Leeds, even a great one. Thoughtless Cruelty is a great example of how a genre like noise rock still has a long way to go. It’s a clever exploration of feelings that we all feel, regardless of if we're aware of them or not. The nihilism, while a central theme of the record, doesn’t make this all that depressing. It’s an album that demands your attention, demands that you listen to it loudly, but most importantly demands that you listen to it thoughtfully. - Scott Yohe
Post-industrial cities create disorienting realities. Old buildings scrape against upcoming gentrification and natural landscapes. There’s a question in the air in these places: are renewal and harmony possible? It makes sense that Baltimore band Tomato Flower explore new blossoming worlds in Gold Arc, their debut six-song EP. The record blends accessible poppier songs alongside weirder ones. Tomato Flower’s sound combines a lot of what contemporary experimental rock bands have been doing over the past decade – a cluster of psychedelia, math rock, and a jazz-inspired smoothness. Gold Arc is a fun first impression for a new band; keys, guitar, or crooning surprise us like discoveries growing in a glass dome. Tomato Flower’s imagining of people living together in gardens and cities seems enticing: an escapist jaunt from our current broken earth of climate change, viral disease chaos, and individualistic capitalism. - Delia Rainey
Wrong Speed Records
The Web of Lies is a duo comprised of Neil Robinson (Buffet Lunch) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep). With their debut album, Nude With Demon, the pair have created a brilliant record of hard pressed psych, vast droning repetition, and vocals that are often loosely doubled. There’s a dense and sour quality to it, with one foot in noise rock and another in jangle pop, the mix of which is both radiantly hypnotic and sludgy. Having introduced themselves to the world with lead single “Receiver” (and instantly selling out all the label’s copies of the vinyl), we were hooked from the sheer power, primal distortion, and relative breeze of the vocals. It’s a masterful opening statement to a record that retains a similar dynamic throughout, but with plenty of turns and bruises. Songs get slower and heavier. Songs get more agitated and raw. There’s noise, there’s krautrock, and everything they do works with their hazy bad-trip formula. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Further Listening:
BAMBARA “Love On My Mind” | BIG K.R.I.T. “Digital Roses Don’t Die” | BIG THIEF “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You” | CURTIS GODINO PRESENTS THE MIDNIGHT WISHERS “Curtis Godino presents The Midnight Wishers” | ERIN RAE “Lighten Up” | NICHOLAS CRAVEN “Craven N 3” | NYXY NYX, SANDCASTLE, & SUN ORGAN “Made For This Life” | SASAMI “Squeeze” | THA GOD FAHIM & DUS “One Thousand and One Nights” | WHY BOTHER? “Lovers and Addicts”
M A R C H :
Double Double Whammy
Less than a year after the release of the spectacular Nastavi, Calliope, Babehoven return with Sunk, a new EP (or maybe LP… depending how you look at it) via their new home at Double Double Whammy Records. Now based in the Hudson Valley, Maya Bon and Ryan Albert’s latest sounds almost like a companion to much of their last EP, with the melodies and Bon’s guitar strums slowed to a crawl. It’s atmospheric and gorgeous like the best of Mazzy Star’s records, but there’s a real strength in Bon’s voice, as she’s able to pull and stretch sentiment with her unwavering vocals. If you’ve seen the band live, then you already know, but as Bon sings with increased intensity, it’s all passion and amazement. The emotion is so deep it’s leveling, tearing a whole inside and pouring out with a slow-drip of heart shattering insight. Everything evolves in its own time, and the band continue to write immaculately crafted songs, like the stuttering acoustic depth of “Creature” and the long stretched melodic swoon of “Fugazi”. In a sub-genre littered with “buzzy” artists, Babehoven consistently stand-out. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Griselda Records / Empire
Apple Music | Spotify
Tana Talk 3, released back in 2018, was the catalyst for Benny The Butcher’s rise to mainstream stardom. In the year’s since he’s become the commercial center of Griselda’s core (with Westside Gunn being the mastermind and Conway The Machine being the street poet). He’s paved a lane of coke rap and hard nosed hood tales while pairing together with other rappers and producers who have Top 40 crossover appeal, but for every “pop rap” leaning track The Butcher has released, he’s given us tenfold in gritty street raps, which is exactly what Tana Talk 4 offers. Teaming once again with Daringer and The Alchemist, Benny raps “this one is for the family,” and it feels that way, a back to basics record that finds him lacing majestically hard beats with equally hard stories of cocaine dreams and the violence that results from life in the game. Tana Talk 4 is able to straddle the line between the mainstream and the underground, an intersection that keeps Benny The Butcher is conversation both among those out chasing trends and hip-hop diehards alike. Where Conway’s latest brilliantly shows the man behind the mask, Benny The Butcher is keeping up all appearances, playing the part from start to finish. - DG
Warp Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Warp Records have reached into the Broadcast archives for three new vinyl releases, pulling together rare and hard to find tour CDs, EPs, and the band’s renowned BBC sessions. Microtronics - Volumes 1 & 2, Mother Is The Milky Way, and the BBC’s Maida Vale Sessions have all been remastered for vinyl, and re-released into the world the first week of March. The loss of Trish Keenan remains tragic over a decade later but her music with Broadcast proves timeless and these releases are a welcome addition to their oeuvre, masterful touches that display the different sides of the band’s recorded and live depth. Maida Vale Sessions captures the band at different points in time, all of which highlight their strength as a live band with equally dazzling results as their studio recordings. The dreamy tension and swelling buzz of lounge synths and jazzy rhythms are in fine form as they form new worlds, ringing with saturated density but breezy resolve and nimble freedom. While so much archive material is for completists only, this is an essential addition to the band’s all too short catalog, proving why their influence looms so large. - DG
Skeletal Lightning
Bandcamp | Spotify
Brooklyn’s Maneka have always taken an experimental approach to punk where nothing is off limits. The solo project of Devin McKnight has an expansive pallet, known to incorporate touches of shoegaze, psych, jazz, post-hardcore, and hip-hop into the mix as it suits the unpredictable trajectory of each record. Dark Matters, the second full length from McKnight and co. (including frequent collaborator Jordyn Blakely) takes as many risks as his debut, but there’s a refined sense to it, a relaxed atmosphere, even in the face of personal and societal turmoil. The songs manage something special, simultaneously sounding more experimental in structure and yet more “pop” as a cohesive whole. It’s less jarring and more focused, both lyrically pointed and adventurous but part of a reflective piece that shifts naturally with highlights like “Runaway” and “Maintain” leaving instant impressions of the record’s duality. - DG
Mistletone Records / EIS
Bandcamp | Spotify
Pinch Points’ second full length, Process, is a record that only gets more profound with each listen. There’s two sides to the coin throughout the album. On one hand there’s the sarcastic approach and aggression pitted against gendered violence, sociopolitical issues, police brutality, and the dangers of continuous damage to our environment, the band raise issues that are local to their home but undeniably global. On the other, there’s the equally forceful but radiant positivity that sets the band apart, with songs that offer self-help reminders and personal mental health check-ins. The Melbourne based quartet make some of the absolute tightest post-punk anywhere in the world and they do it all void of any posturing. They do it to share messages of both personal and sociopolitical concerns, all the while tearing through an incredibly clean twin guitar attack that rips from one jagged riff to the next. Process is an important record, an album that could topple with concerns and anxieties if the band weren’t taking aim and decimating them one by one. - DG
Swami Records
PLOSIVS is a modern day So-Cal alt-rock supergroup, helmed by the twin guitars of John Reis (Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From the Crypt, Hot Snakes) and Rob Crow (Thingy, Pinback, and many, many others). This pairing of prolific San Diego powerhouses sets expectations high, and their self-titled debut does not disappoint. The album is a carnival of awesome punk riffs and surprisingly catchy hooks. The opener “Hit The Breaks” tells you everything you need to know about PLOSIVS. A driving guitar melody and infectious energy overlay with Crow’s signature vocal stylings – a perfect mission statement for an album that at no point hits the brakes. They hone and build on this formula on tracks like “Broken Eyes” and “Rose Waterfall,” where off-kilter rhythms meld with fuzzy-chime guitars. - Matt Watton || LISTEN: Spotify
36 Chambers / MNRK Records
There’s no doubt that RZA stays busy. The Wu-Tang founder and hip-hop legend has been full blown “Hollywood,” making movies, TV shows, and music for decades. Film scores aside, it’s been fourteen years since his last solo album, Digi Snacks, was released. That’s a long time without RZA’s particular lyrical flair and unique delivery, one that can be an acquired taste for some, but essential to any diehard Wu-Tang fan. There’s nothing quite like it, as he takes an approach entirely unique to himself. Saturday Afternoon Kung-Fu Theater is entirely produced by DJ Scratch, which definitely seems like an odd move given that RZA is one of hip-hop’s all time great producers, but if we’re being totally honest, RZA is a long way away from his days producing Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever. DJ Scratch is still well in touch with what made those early records the timeless classics they are, and his production allows RZA the chance to focus on his lyricism and delivery over dusty soul loops and sharp snares. His signature flow is in fine form as his spits mythology and lessons in expansive vocabulary, assaulting the six vocal tracks with verbose wisdom. There are no guests and no attempts for commercial appeal, this one is for the hip-hop heads. - DG || LISTEN: Spotify
Epitaph Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
On Diaspora Problems, Soul Glo's first LP for Epitaph Records following a string of increasingly daring EPs over the last several years, the Philadelphia hardcore punk band is taking its largest swing to date. At once manic, deeply affecting and celebratory, this is Soul Glo at the height of their powers. Yes, Soul Glo's music is political. A band composed primarily of people of color, with lyrics that speak angrily, thoughtfully of the Black experience, operating within a largely homogenous punk and hardcore community, in a country that systematically does everything it can to violently uphold that homogeny, will inherently create political art. But to only speak of Diaspora Problems' achievements in those terms is reductive of its staggering emotional resonance and poetic plainspokenness. - Jean-Michel Lacombe
Joyful Noise Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify
“Supergroups” are clumsy, often built on washed up musicians coming together looking to cash in. Springtime ain’t no damn “supergroup,” at least not in that sense. The trio of musicians - Jim White (Dirty Three, Nina Nastasia), Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm, The Drones), and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) - have played in countless projects between them, each earning a legendary status that ranges from avant-garde to folk, free jazz to noise rock. As they demonstrated on last year’s self-titled debut, they are able to explore with ease, playing to each other’s strengths as musicians who instinctively hear and expand on ideas. They return with the sprawling Night Raver EP, a set of three songs, two of which stretch past the fifteen minute mark. This may be treated as an interstitial release, but it’s among the best music we’ve heard all year. The entire record is radiant with depth, as each member adds their own sonic touchstones, free in composition but glued together with a clear sense of purpose and resolve. It’s astounding and worth every last second as they dive deep into societal concerns over an ever evolving landscape of twisted and beautiful accompaniment. - DG
Feel It / Tough Love Records
Seattle’s Star Party released their full length debut, Meadow Flower, via Feel It Records and Tough Love Records, a perfect introduction to the duo’s sugary noise. Carolyn Brennan and Ian Corrigan (Gen Pop, Vexx) are making a saccharine sweet racket, expanding on their great demo EP, combining sun-spotted shoegaze, raw distortion, and upbeat jangle to create a fully realized debut that ranks among the best we’ve heard so far this year. Mixed and mastered by Sweeping Promises’ Caufield Schnug, the record definitely occupies a similar a sonic space as their label-mates, with lo-fi hiss and crackle the perfect accompaniment to their thick wall of sound. It’s a unique ability to make songs that rip this hard feel this catchy and accessible. The songs are rapid fire blasts of feedback riddled psych-pop. Despite the hurried tempos, they feel like classic jangle pop at its core, reminiscent of a grittier version of the band’s noted influences, The Shop Assistants and Black Tambourine in the sing-song melodys. It’s big on sunshine from the lyrics to the hyper bounce of the melody and twee charm, all running headfirst into noise pop splendor. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Nature Sounds
Bandcamp | Spotify
We’ve been singing the praises of Tha God Fahim since we were first introduced to the Dump Gawd, a title he’s truly earned with his prolific output, forever “dumping,” and seemingly living in the studio. The “100 tape legend” floods the streets with records, and yet, there’s never a drop off in quality. If anything, he’s only getting better over the past seven years or so. His latest album (at least when this was written), Six Ring Champ, feels like a masterpiece in the making, a concise 31 minutes, with Fahim ultra focused, his effortless rhyme scheme suggesting he could do this all day. There’s a simplicity to his lyrics, but bar after bar Tha God Fahim drops sly wisdom, encouragement, introspection, and stream of conscious glory (“I'm so Lebron, but never switch teams, I'm pristine / It's the hoarder of supreme wealth, my face in magazines / The man that do for self, don't try to doubt my self-esteem”). I recently compared his lyrical style to that of a sage, with legendary wisdom offered almost subconsciously, and he’s at his best throughout Six Ring Champ, an album that feels hungry, kicking that enlightened rap over laid back, tripped out, soul beats from Nicholas Craven, Camoflauge Monk, Thrasherwulf, and Tha God Fahim himself. I can’t stop listening to this record and to be honest, I don’t really want to stop listening. - DG
Captured Tracks
Bandcamp | Spotify
Widowspeak have never released an album less than “pretty damn good,” but 2020’s Plum stood among their best work yet, and their latest effort, The Jacket, proves to be another high-water mark for the duo. With acoustic guitars that echo and fade like passing clouds, the whole record feels adrift in the fog, colors being painted in patchwork. Widowspeak’s signature twang is there, but rather than leading the compositions, it’s an accent upon the layers of sustained warble, the perfect accompaniment to Molly Hamilton’s always perfectly dreamy vocals. Songs like “Everything Is Simple” are heavy on noir twang and dreamy brilliance, from the grit of the guitars and piano to the density of the bass, it feels both blissful and knotted, an aural reflection of the refrain, “everything is simple until it’s not” - DG
Nature Sounds
Bandcamp | Spotify
It could be said that Brooklyn’s Your Old Droog releases too much music, and it’s not entirely off the mark. While the quality remains fairly consistent from project to project, it forces us to move on, leaving the records that came before in the back catalog all too soon. For example, Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition was released in December of 2020, a stone cold modern day hip-hop classic, examining Droog’s life as a rapper of Eastern European decent. It’s a personal album with flawless production and exception features, an album that should be essential. In the year and a half since, Droog’s released four more albums, in addition to the three records together with Tha God Fahim, burying an album less than two years old beneath seven releases. Some folks just stay on the grind I suppose, and YOD Wave, his first solo album of 2022 (he’s since released Yod Stewart), produced entirely by Nicholas Craven, could make the argument for the never ending flood of Droog’s music. Opening with the lines “I’ve been away too long” (maybe two months after his previous release), he quickly starts to weave his punch line raps over Craven’s soul samples and it becomes hard to argue with the guy. There are gems constantly scattered across his lyrics, ranging from personal motivation to braggadocios stunting. - DG
Further Listening:
AEVITERNE “The Ailing Facade” | ALLEGRA KRIEGER “Precious Thing” | CAPPADONNA “Slow Motion” | FLY ANAKIN “Frank” | GUIDED BY VOICES “Crystal Nuns Cathedral” | HELVETIA “Dishes Are Never Done But Good Luck” | HIPPYFUCKERS “Pink Eye Demo“ | JUNE GLOOM “All The Rest” | KRISTINE LESCHPER “The Opening, or Closing of a Door” | MO DOTTI “Guided Imagery” | PATTI “The Toothpick 3” | PINK SIIFU “GUMBO’! DELUXE’!!” | SCIENCE MAN “Nines Mecca” | TROPICAL FUCK STORM + KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD “Satanic Slumber Party” | WAH TOGETHER “Let’s Wah Together”
A P R I L :
Duophonic Super 45s
Bandcamp | Spotify
There’s dissociation lurking around every corner on Astrel K’s debut album Flickering i. The solo project of Ulrika Spacek’s Rhys Edwards follows a period where the musician relocated to Stockholm and worked to record at night in an empty practice space. The results are pulled from the dazzling outer reaches of cosmic psych pop, with each song pulling you into its own disorienting bliss. The record is beautifully composed, with layered synths, warm strings, and the perfect fuzz captured in production. Released via Stereolab’s own Duophonic Super 45s, the similarities between Astrel K’s songwriting and that of Stereolab’s are apparent, but there’s a unique sense of soul to be found under the punchy drums and sweeping melodies of Astrel K. From early singles like the slinky “Is It It Or Is It I?” and the warped swoon of “You Could If You Can” to the detached and bubbling “Clicktivism” and spaced out voyage of “Forwardmomentum,” Astrel K keep us floating captivated in their own lush stratosphere, free of this world, and into the next. By the time we’ve reached the title track, dissociation has fully set in, as Edwards cements it with “are you here? because I’m not.” - DG
Self Released
After a pair of singles last year, Chicago’s Babe Report return with their debut EP, The Future of Teeth. The band, led by former FCKR JR members Ben Grigg (Geronimo!, Whelpwisher) and Emily Bernstein, have expanded their line-up to include Peter Reale (Yeesh) on drums and Mech on bass. The sound of their record is full of thick fuzz and syrupy melodies, burly distortion paired with pop simplicity, creating what was once considered to be “FM gold”. With influences that range from Kleenex to Yo La Tengo and Lightning Bolt, there’s a lot of different ideas swirling around, but where those bands dive between punk detachment, abrasive chaos, and a meditative sense of the serene, Babe Report opt for something accessible and immediate, with songs that feel fully formed the moment the feedback starts to ring. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Backwoodz Studioz
Bandcamp | Spotify
The legend of billy woods is a story still in progress, one that’s hit underground high point after continuous high point. As the MC has established his own lane for gritty rap, freely associative lyrics, and lacing adventurous production with the greatest of ease, at some point in time, the mainstream has drifted closer, and woods’ duo Armand Hammer (together with ELUCID) have become outsiders within the mainstream, gaining widespread popularity while sticking to their guns. The duo has been busy but it’s been three years since woods has released his last solo records, which brings us to Aethiopes, an album that feels like an immediate classic. Together with Preservation on production, they take hip-hop to another level, matching beats and bars in the least likely of circumstances. From the twinkling jazz of “Asylum” and the dissonant bells and skittering drums of “Wharves,” woods rides whatever he’s given, offering shape-shifting introspection that only comes with multiple listens. There’s plenty to decode and confound, it’s an album that comes as much from the heart as it does the brain. There are a lot of MCs out there, but there’s only one billy woods. - DG
Born Yesterday Records
The members of Caution have uprooted from Maryland and DC to the Midwest and the South, with the duo split between Minneapolis and Birmingham, but other than a new place on the map, the band are still making the same endearing noise pop that you fell in love with on their self-titled EP. Their latest album, Arcola, maps the very distance between the members, with Arcola, IL being the half-way point between their respective towns. Released via Born Yesterday, the album is a testament to the separation the band felt working so far apart, but the pair sound deeply connected and in synch throughout. Caution expand on the both the hooks and the haze of their sound, drawing deeper into raw distortion and minimalist pop than ever before while writing soaring choruses and jangly earworms. Cash Langdon and Nora Button are well versed in the Jesus and Mary Chain catalog, but they’ve found a way to make their sinewy mix of dissonance and sweetness their own, with elements of shoegaze, dream pop, and art rock electronics all lending itself into their syrupy bleak pop. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Silver Age
Apple Music | Spotify
If nothing else, Czarface are undeniably prolific. The trio of Inspectah Deck (Wu-Tang), Esoteric, and producer 7L have released eight albums in past nine years, including album length collaborations with MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah, keeping the golden days of “boom bap” hip-hop alive and well for near a decade. If you’ve heard one Czarface album then you know what to expect, and Czarmaggedon! is surging with hard hitting MCing, an avalanche of comic book references, and lyrical swagger teetering off the charts. It’s not “conscious” rap by any means, but Czarface is still making hip-hop for the thoughtful set, with punchlines and boasts worthy of fine art. 7L and his Czar-Keys cohorts keep the beats knocking with block bangers and summer fried soul, the backdrop for Deck and Esoteric to floss and swerve their rhymes with veteran status. It’s rap music about rapping, the culture, cinema, and the flier shit in life, brought to life over beats that never miss. - DG
Hand In Hive
Bandcamp | Spotify
Six years after their first singles (with subsequent singles and an EP since), London’s Dama Scout have arrived fully formed with their long awaited full length, Gen Wo Lai (Come With Me). Released via Hand In Hive, the album was worth the wait, an ominous and disorienting record of damaged art rock, noise pop, and dreamy experimental psych. The trio, led by Eva Liu, have made something so visceral and cerebral that it’s easy to get lost in the fog, wandering through thick clouds toward a mysterious glow in the distance. The band lurch into collapsing grooves and surrealist melodies, slinking between a calming serenity and outbursts of abrasive noise as they explore feelings of displacement and cultural alienation. With profound structures and a penchant for unpredictability, Dama Scout make music that’s wildly beautiful and sonically adventurous, finding that middle ground between memorable songwriting and expanding boundaries. - DG
Numero Group
Bandcamp | Spotify
There were those who thought it might be a cruel April Fool’s joke, but rest assured, Duster surprise released a new album, Together, and we’ve been floored listening to it ever since. Following the band’s self-titled comeback album from 2019, the trio’s latest builds on their legendary “slowcore” with a dark, dissonant, and ominous glow over the proceedings. From the slow-dripped atmospheric sludge of album opener “New Directions” to songs like “Teeth” and the muscular fuzz of “Making Room,” the album explores a wide array of tonality, the static crackling with an understated tenacity as the band ease into tempos ranging from a crawl to damn near lively. While the band drift further away from the cosmic aura of their early material, they continue to reward those with a patient ear and a love for rich texture. Together (which was mastered by Stuck’s Greg Obis) is an aural treat of bent melodicism and fragile sentiment. - DG
Self Released
Erik Nervous has made some of the absolute best punk records of the past few years (specifically, Bugs!! and Erik Nervous and the Beta Blockers), a sunspot amid depravity. The past decade or so has built Northeast Indiana’s basement punk scene to that of legendary status (albeit not necessarily welcomed by those involved), and Nervous is among the “egg punk” genre’s finest, releasing constantly jerky records with light-speed tempos and blistering riffs. At times they start and stop with focused precision and intensity and at others they go for a more mutant jangle. Nervous’ latest, Halfass EP, was surprise released on April Fool’s Day, a record initially planned for last year… but things happen. It’s worth the wait as Nervous blasts out one impeccably tight ripper after another, the entire thing pushed into the red but with plenty of clarity. The riffs endlessly wind around the stampeding drums, as Nervous writes delightfully strange and irreverent punk hits, both joyous and cathartic. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp
Slumberland Records
New York duo Jeanines made a big impression with their self-titled 2019 debut album, a brilliant indie-pop record that constantly stunned with minor melodic shifts and tightly composed jangle. Much like Alvvays and generations of fuzzy pop bands before them, the song’s are instantly memorable, leaving an impression with from the saccharine verses to the earworm hooks. The band have release their sophomore album, Don’t Wait For A Sign, via Slumberland Records, taking the formula of their already great debut and improving it in every way. The production is more radiant, the arrangements are top-notch, and the vocals are full of warmth. Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith lean into the sunshine amid the chaos, even as the tone turns a bit darker, the pop shimmer is undeniably bright. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Flower Sounds / Feeding Tube Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The Lentils’ latest album blasts out a beginning with busted horns, humming chugging bass and a trickle of a guitar chord, asking: “What good is memory? And why do words have no taste?” Luke Csehak, writer, singer, instrumentalist, and producer of the album Budget Alchemy and the band The Lentils, seems to be having a crisis on the usefulness of language. His fondness for words and his troubles with them are articulated clearly and strangely throughout the album, proving his point. It’s the repeated thought of collaged sounds and clinging melodies (memories) that hold these words together in this dizzying and special collection – an experimental album that immediately feels colorful in anti-seriousness, yet deeply moving with soulful layers. Budget Alchemy presents catchy, messy yet totally in-control music, like a demo that’s crystal clear. There’s lo-fi guitar scritches along deep bass blankets, there’s whistling saxophone breaks, some faraway bells and shakers – opposites attract, avant garde and pop song. - Delia Rainey
Domino Recording Co.
Bandcamp | Spotify
It's easy to think of records on a kind of binary, either being overly sad and contemplative or especially happy and less thoughtful. That structure makes things easy to accept and ensures songs are more readily digestible, especially if we see them as yet more direct pop tunes, but as Melody’s Echo Chamber demonstrates on this record, emotions are infinitely more complicated — and thus all the more interesting. It's quite possible to mourn what was and accept what is and hope for a greater future all in the span of a single note. It's more noble to accept a jumbled mess of emotions and ideas than it is to compartmentalize feelings. Life is messy, and by sharing that message through these perfectly constructed pop songs, Melody Prochet seems to have landed on a capital t Truth. - Chris Coplan
Since the dissolution of Two Inch Astronaut back in 2017, Sam Goblin has poured himself into Mister Goblin, a solo project that really hones in on his unique songwriting perspectives and sense of humor. He’s released an album or EP every year since 2018, primarily built on acoustic ballads that swoon and sweep with post-hardcore influenced chord progressions. With Bunny, the project expands to a trio, as Mister Goblin moves from Maryland to Indiana, and nothing is ever the same again. Together with Seth Engel (Options) and Aaron O’Neill (Cumbie), the trio reimagine Mister Goblin at it’s most dynamic. The song’s are heavier and more intricate, diving deeper into murky waters with a pop sensibility still afloat. The band format will definitely remind long time fans of Two Inch Astronaut, but throughout Bunny, Goblin and co. prove this is no retread, as they move through heart on sleeve alt-pop jams to combustible post-hardcore. At the center of every song though remains Sam Goblin’s sense of melody and his sharp observational lyrics, taking a different look at the world around us. - DG
Skin Graft / Box Records
With a pedigree that includes members of Arab on Radar, Doomsday Student, and All Leather, the past four years have seen Psychic Graveyard establish themselves in their own right. Their music is swarming and depraved, channeled through synths, electronics, and drums. They’re one of the best bands making noise rock in the States and now they’ve teamed up with one of the best to do it in the UK, none other than USA Nails for a new split 12”. The two bands are each in fine form with eleven new songs between them, bringing their very different but complementary styles together for something both viscerally aggressive and disarmingly disorienting. Psychic Graveyard’s side is crackling with a static menace and slurred intensity. It’s slow paced by their standards, dragging and writhing in its discomfort, creating sonic terror for a futuristic score to your nightmares. USA Nails on the other hand come out swinging with all the bent and bruised intensity that can be packed in limited run times. The chords are knotted together with rhythms, as the band drop in and out of riffs with jagged stop/start dynamics delivered in rapid succession. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
G.O.O.D. / Def Jam Recordings
Apple Music | Spotify
Clearing the elephant from the room, we do not condone Kanye West and his ignorant hate speech. It’s dangerous and disgusting. We considered removing this album from our feature, but we’re not going to hold it against Pusha T. We hope moving forward he chooses better collaborators. As someone that grew up and remains a die-hard fan of 90’s hip-hop, I consider the 2000s to belong to the Clipse, with their first two records cementing themselves as undeniable classics, flawless albums of “coke rap” at it’s most clever with Neptunes beats that range from near perfect to perfect. Since the end of the Clipse, Pusha T has become one of mainstream rap’s biggest stars. His solo material has often dipped into the pop realms, working with a whole new era of MCs, but despite all that, Pusha T has always remained 100% Pusha T, spitting his bars with an unwavering brilliance and the ability to describe selling coke in a million and one different ways. In that regard, It’s Almost Dry is no different, the coke is still being cooked, bagged, and flipped, and Pusha T is still finding inventive ways to tell his tales of connects and empires of snow. The big difference with this album though, is that Pharrell Williams has once again joined the circle to share production duties, a reunion that proves to hit just as hard as it did in the Clipse days. Pharrell makes beats designed for Pusha (as opposed to other producers who bring Pusha to the beat, and not the other way around), with gangster funk that bounces and grooves with the silk and poison of his delivery. Star Trak forever. Bring back Fam-Lay. - DG
Northern Spy Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Reconstructing memory is never simple, of course – it is difficult, if not impossible, to address experiences of our pasts without projecting some of the present moment onto those memories, using contemporary interpretive lenses to evaluate instances where we may have lacked those insights. For Renata Zeiguer, that’s an exciting problem to have, and an opportunity to make sonic magic. On Picnic in the Dark, Zeiguer does not hesitate to whisk her listener away to a lush, reverberant world of her own design. By blending contemporary indie pop’s structures with vintage drum machines, old Hollywood strings, and dalliances into bossa nova territory, Zeiguer becomes the architect of her own memories. Creative impulses that seem disparate in time and in place inhabit the same sonic space, resulting in an inimitable record that represents the idiosyncrasies of memory. - Devon Chodzin
Northern Spy Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Shilpa Ray is one of the best songwriters of our generation. There’s an observational wisdom to her words, a poetic sensibility that examines life, often at its ugliest. The strength of her voice is unmatched, setting tone and disdain in place, whether over dreamy pianos and synths or hard driving punk. Portrait of a Lady is an essential album, one that explores sexual abuse, horrific male behavior in the age of Trump, and coming out as a survivor on top. In the same way that Door Girl took a personal approach to paint a picture of New City’s lows, Portrait of Lady does so in regards to the shit women have to deal with and the nature of entitled scummy men. The scope of the songs is ever changing, a gift that Shilpa Ray possesses better than most, moving between ballads (“Heteronormative Horseshit Blues”), noise rock rippers (“Manic Pixie Dream Cunt”), and 80’s tinged post-punk (“Lawsuits & Suicide”). All the pieces fall into place, and the mix of harsh and surreal feels intentional, shaping life as we know it, for better or, more likely, for worse. - DG
Fat Possum Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Thirty years after their debut album, Spiritualized are still at it, and Jason Pierce aka J. Spaceman and co. sound as vital now as they did upon their first emergence. Whether you’ve been listening this whole time or a total newcomer to the band (I fall in the latter category), their latest album, Everything Was Beautiful, is a high note in the catalog, an album that blends the band’s knack for light touch “space rock,” gentle indie structures, and Iggy Pop influenced garage rock, all swirled together among the broken spirituality and ethos of Pierce. The album is loaded with sweeping gestures, from chorus’ of backing vocals and heavily arranged strings, to warm fuzz and gospel-tinged soul. It’s a reclamation of a lost past, a record that breathes with new life, and a veteran swagger, with every decision sounding more as an inevitable certainly than an option within each’s progressions. - DG
Winged Wheel is a new band with some familiar faces - Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Rider/Horse), Whitney Johnson (Matchess), Fred Thomas (Idle Ray, Tyvek), and Matthew Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo) - bringing a diverse musical sensibility to their latest project, creating something unique in the process. The result is No Island, the band’s debut album, a propulsive blend of krautrock, kosmische, and punk that feels both free and focused. They may have recorded it apart from one another but they’ve pulled everything together seamlessly. Thomas’ drums are hard and fast at the core of it all. The looping rhythms are kinetic, piecing together an unwavering energy while the guitars and bass are set free to explore, and they do. Rolin and Plump shred in the dreamiest sense of the word, with long drawn out washes of reverberating notes juxtaposing the tempo, and darting grooves to balance it all together. It’s perfectly hypnotic and intricately captivating. Johnson’s subdued vocals sit nestled into the mix like a spectre in the fog, adding a beauty and air of mystery to the ever evolving album. - DG
Further Listening:
ACTION BRONSON “Cocodrillo Turbo” | BAGLADY “Kevin Sputnik” | BATTLE AVE “I Saw The Egg” | BIG’N “Discipline Through Sound 25” | CORPSESSED “Succumb to Rot” | CRIME OF PASSING “Crime of Passing” | CRISIS MAN “Asleep In America” | DAN FRANCIA “You Never Know“ | DAVID NANCE “Wet Candles” | DEFCEE & BOATHOUSE “For All Debts Public and Private” | THE FLEX “Chewing Gum For The Ears” | GOLDEN APPLES “Golden Apples” | HELMS ALEE “Keep This Be The Way” | JULIE DOIRON AND DANY PLACARD “Julie & Dany” | LA NEVE “History Solved” | NO/MÁS “Consume/Deny/Repent” | OCEANATOR “Nothing’s Ever Fine” | PELICAN MOVEMENT “Fistful of Ivy” | PRIMUS “Conspiranoid” | SCRUNCHIES “Feral Coast” | SONNY FALLS “Stoned, Beethoven Blasting” | THA GOD FAHIM “Dump Gawd: Shot Clock King 3” | THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES “Duct Tape & Shivering Crows”
M A Y :
Real Bad Man Records
Over the years Detroit’s Boldy James has continuously proven to be as cold as ice. The rapper writes vivid street stories of drugs and violence without so much as glorifying them as painting them in the shadows that they occur. His flow is mechanical, void of embellishment or stylistic shifts in cadence, instead letting his pen do the heavy lifting and his music is radiant as a result. Detail rich, James’ lyrics are like the gangster who never smiles, because ain’t shit funny. After three great records with The Alchemist behind the boards, Boldy has teamed up once again with Los Angeles’ Real Bad Man, a music/clothing design collective turned hip-hop production team. They last worked together on Real Bad Boldy, but they’ve reached new heights, or rather “slums,” in their production on Killing Nothing, providing the perfectly dense and macabre 90’s-centric beats that are perfect for Boldy James’ surgical lyricism. This isn’t the flashy and high profile release that working with Alchemist or Griselda often presents him, but Boldy hardly needs the fanfare when he’s this deep into the streets, observing all he sees around him, occasionally in disbelief, but as he reminds us “but you ain’t heard it from me.” - DG || LISTEN: Spotify
Relapse Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
It’s under unfortunate circumstances, but Cave In have rarely sounded better than they do on Heavy Pendulum, a return to form from a band that’s always kept things progressing. If they had called it a day after the release of Final Transmission, their album length eulogy to the band’s own Caleb Scofield, no one would have blamed them. Instead, nearly thirty years since their inception, the band return with their first record for metal juggernaut Relapse Records. With it comes the beginning of the next chapter. The quartet, now featuring frequent collaborator Nate Newton (Converge, Old Man Gloom) on bass, haven’t forgotten their past, but they once again sound motivated to crumble and reform it all into something new again. While their last record was built around grief and unfinished demos, it wasn’t particularly heavy. With Heavy Pendulum, Cave In return both heavier and more experimental, taking an almost prog rock approach to what made White Silence so effective over a decade earlier. The album is full of burly ripper and extended psych-tinged metal, built on buzzsaw riffs and brutal distortion, with an ease of aggression that welcomes you to the carnage that lies ahead. - DG
Wrong Speed Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The story has it that Ghosts, the title of Haress’ sophomore album, is more than just the name of the record, but a presence found while recording in an unused water mill. If ever the dead had to be conjured from the great beyond, Haress’ sound would be a pleasant one to re-acclimate to the world with. The band, led by Elizabeth Still and David Hand, make guitar based music as its most beautiful and serene, with droning meditations and long resonating ambience that blankets the minimal recordings. Joined by Thomas House (Sweet Williams), David Smyth (Mind Mountain), Chris Summerlin (Hey Colossus), and Nathan Bell (Lungfish), the band create such a lush and reflective landscape, as open as their British countryside surroundings, slowly evolving in a way that reminds me more of Cosmic Americana, minus the twang. Primarily instrumental, aside from House’s vocal contributions, there’s a warm folk sensibility with a swirling dose of tranquil psych. When the vocals do come into focus, House’s molasses pulled melodies are the perfect match. - DG
Self Released
The Helvetia archives appear to be an endless treasure trove of amazing home recordings. If you’ve ever listened to any of Jason Albertini’s records, this makes complete sense, and he’s proven once again that his scraps are better than most band’s finished works. Having already released the massive Gladness collection back in 2010, a set of non-album songs recorded from 2001-2006, he’s dipped back into the era with Gladness II, another twenty songs and two hours of music from the same timeframe (not to mention he released another two hours of home recordings back in March). You might think we’ve heard everything worth hearing at this point, and you’d be wrong, damn wrong. Gladness II is incredible late night listening, with the radiant glow and warble that feels so unique to Albertini’s songs. It’s captivating and fully realized, adrift from reality but rooted in real emotion, however buried or warped it may be. Turn this one up and zone out. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Anti Fade Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
The shift from punk music to art pop and dance music has become increasingly common. With the artists setting aside the aggression of guitars and drums in favor of synths and programmed beats, it allows new worlds of synthetic exploration, following impulses less travelled. While it can feel clunky and almost pandering to the “poptism” trend for many, there are others who embrace their own synth pop wave with utmost sincerity, which brings us to Modal Melodies. The duo, comprised of Violetta Del Conte-Race (Primo!) and Jake Robertson (Alien Nosejob, Ausmuteants), released their self-titled full length debut via Anti Fade Records, a triumph of slow dripped disco and mutated synth pop. It’s a gorgeous record, avoiding pastiche to slink along with their own unique vision. There’s syrupy slow disco beats and synths that sustain themselves into the ether, while the bass squiggles around.. It’s light and airy, but there’s a shadowy undercurrent, like the sound of disco as the 70’s faded into the 80’s, and new wave emerged from the ashes. - DG
By all accounts Otoboke Beaver have only become more unbound and free-wheeling since 2019’s ITEKOMA HITS, an album that sounds like a pop masterclass compared to much of Super Champon. The melodic guitar licks have been largely replaced by wiley noise passages, and track lengths have somehow been curtailed even further; most songs here are a full minute shorter than the majority of the songs on their debut, which averaged about two minutes. For concert-goers with early bedtimes, I have to imagine their live set is a dream. As other reviewers have noted the predominant theme of the band’s music is a simple ‘No’—no to capitalism crippling demands, no to patriarchy, and not to common decency. Their songs might be best understood as 2-minute adult tantrums. That remains truer than ever on Super Champon: they are not maternal, they will not dish out salads, they will not be called mojo, they want to be left alone, but they don’t want to die alone. While nothing radically new has been added to the band’s repertoire on Super Champon, they retain their position in an elite group of acts who can afford to risk repeating themselves thanks to their sheer originality. They’re also part of another burgeoning elite group of musician-humorists, whose lyrics and musical motifs derive much of their catchiness from expert comedic timing. - Will Floyd
RoachLeg Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Following two truly great EPs (that came together to create one truly great LP), Philadelphia’s Poison Ruïn have become one of the most in demand punk bands, combining old school hardcore, dungeon synths, and proto-metal. Their recordings are delightfully lo-fi, giving a damp basement aura to their medieval chaos and brute riffs. As they continue their ascent to becoming “your favorite band’s favorite band,” Poison Ruïn are back with a new EP, Not Today, Not Tomorrow. Released via NYC’s RoachLeg Records (Sørdïd, Xero, Tower 7), the three track effort is built upon everything that makes Poison Ruïn so great. There’s the gnarly metal riffs, the hard pounding drums that resonate with sheer density, and the psychedelic touches that make their death rock tendencies sound so damn epic. There are moments when Poison Ruïn almost feel like our generations answer to the Wipers, but the band shift around within their own sound enough that any comparison is fruitless. They are their own beast, and all the better for it. - DG
Mello Music Group
Detroit’s Quelle Chris has spent over a decade becoming your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper, but also their favorite producer, with a dexterity to his production that has always evolved. Nothing that he does ever sits stagnant, Quelle Chris is a hip-hop artist with a message, and he uses his albums as grand overarching statements, weaving concepts into full length records, always with a sharp sense of humor. Back in 2018 he raised the bar with Everything’s Fine, the ultra sarcastic collaborative album with Jean Grae, and Quelle Chris has been firing on all cylinders ever since, but his latest album, Deathfame is a definite highlight. With production that blends the “psychedelic” reaches of outsider hip-hop with casual 90’s boom-bap and jazzy beats, Quelle Chris jumps from one flow to another, warping his voice one minute and rapidly twisting bars the next, Deathfame explores the trials of recent years, from social unrest to mental health concerns, while addressing the importance of staying true to ones art, may the rest of “industry” be damned. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
XL Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify
What is really left to say about Radiohead and the side-projects that Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are capable of designing? The point is not only anchored in artistic bravery but in the ability to structure music around an imaginary that is always new and personal. It also happens with The Smile, thanks to the rhythmic consciousness of Tom Skinner. A Light for Attracting Attention is a record that lives an independent existence, and yet it carries with it a baggage that comes from a sound that touches on OK Computer, The Bends, and in some insights even Amnesiac and A Moon Shaped Pool. The baggage is comprehensive, complex, but not weighty, because Yorke and Greenwood's cross-media paths have offered an endless array of suggestions. The overall feeling of A Light for Attracting Attention is that of hearing a new, incredible, but recognizable and consistent album. The Smile has a sound collimating on the vast sonic experiences and knowledge of its members. They still manage to build an experience that for Radiohead fans is extremely religious, a structured suitcase of everything that Greenwood and Yorke have always emphasized. - Gianluigi Marsibilio
Goodbye Boozy Records
Bandcamp
After a slight delay, Spodee Boy’s Neon Lights EP has arrived, and it was well worth the wait. The Nashville band, led by Connor Cummins (Snooper, Safety Net, Body Cam), continue their descent in Western cow-punk twang, and they’ve never sounded better. With each new EP, the band lean further into their cowboy depravity to accent their already agitated post-punk, adding one reckless nature to another, channeling bands like The Gun Club and Dow Jones in equal measure. Everything gets mangled and reassembled, the band reimagining bar room brawl rock in its most punk temperament, with quick tempos, sweeping distortion, and enough fucking boogie to get any boots grooving. There’s plenty of attitude, from detached aggression to personal disdain as the band collide headfirst into feedback and harsh fills, their sense of urgency always leading the way. - DG
Feel It Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Last year Chicago art punk band Spread Joy released their self-titled debut, one of the best album’s of the year. It was full of unbridled energy and tightly wound post-punk riffs, led by the charismatic twists and turns of Briana Hernandez’s vocals. Released just over a year later, the band return with II, expanding on last year’s effort with another shot of rapidly driven punk songs that feel both recklessly free and razor sharp. They play fast and wonky, retaining complete control while it sounds like chaos as most songs dart to completion in less than two minutes. Spread Joy don’t often waste time with hooks, the band instead create memorable nuances, usually coming from Hernandez’s vocal inflections, which often color outside the lines in the best way. There’s a strong attention to detail as she flicks accents and exaggerates enunciation with amazing results, truly having the best of times and giving Spread Joy the ultimate flair. The entire album in a non-stop blast of blissful grooves and bizarrely wonderful melodic sensibilities. - DG
Self Released
Following last year’s Waste of Water album (and a subsequent Ovlov record), Steve Hartlett is sharing a new home-recorded solo album, 1/2. Released just in time for Bandcamp Friday, but still very much available on every other day, the record has a unique lo-fi charm to it, with walls of fuzzy guitars, and experimental programmed rhythms, all lending itself to warm shoegaze sound of the album. Hartlett builds between swarms of guitar distortion, bells, acoustic guitars, and clacking beats, peeling back at times, and enveloping at others. The album doesn’t feel overly fussy, and it’s another great glimpse into the naturally addictive songwriting that endears all of Hartlett’s music. It’s harsh yet beautiful, like settling into bliss by trudging through turmoil. Even at its most piercing, every wash of feedback is in favor of the melody, building texture to color the bedroom pop charm of the songs. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp
Open Palm Tapes
Bandcamp
For everyone that misses modern Chicago hardcore/punk legends C.H.E.W., it’s time to rejoice, Stress Positions have arrived. Jonathan Giralt, Benyamin Rudolph, and Russell Harrison are back at it with vocalist Stephanie Brooks leading the charge, and their new band has a veteran feel, swinging between blistering hardcore and the ever dynamic dip into the artier side of metal and psychedelic punk. Walang Hiya, their debut EP, is as surefooted as a debut gets, full of cathartic chaos and furious disdain. The music is brutal and relentless, with everyone swarming, circling their prey as they dive in and pick it up apart. Songs like “Lust For Pleasure” with its torrential drums and the album’s title track come out swinging, but there’s so much detail and nuance immediately found in the songwriting, creating tension and resolve, only to bludgeon it all into obscurity. This is not caveman hardcore, Stress Positions play with a sense of brilliance and a earthquaking dexterity. C.H.E.W. may be no more, but long live Stress Positions, perhaps your new favorite hardcore band. - DG
Wrong Speed Records
The Tweezers EP is a different type of release for Sweet Williams, a record that doesn’t feel fussed over, a loose vision of a past era of 45s. While many of Sweet Williams’ records have been built on the stark mood and perfectly captured tone of Thomas House’s sound, Tweezers opts for raw takes, a handful of songs that rely as much upon each other for support as they do the make-up of their individual pieces. Inspired by early 7” releases from bands like Silver Jews and Guided By Voices, House offers six songs, all under two minutes aside from the opener, with lo-fi dust covering the mix. The songs are slow and full off the warped blues and atmospheric noise punk that Sweet Williams does better than most, but these songs feel immediate, with the factor of the studio (of even much mastering) taken out of the equation, leaving just bare bones fuzz and walls of minimalist drift. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp
Toxic State / Static Shock Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
Celebrating ten years together, it would seem that New York City’s favorite hardcore band Warthog may never release a full length album, but with the impeccably high quality of each EP released, it doesn’t really matter. Their sixth EP (the third in a row to be self-titled) is another recklessly brilliant ripper, bleeding together hardcore with a bit of thrash metal in their own violent way. It’s everything that makes Warthog so essential: relentless riffs, brutal rhythms, shredding solos, and the harsh vocals of Christopher Hansell. With enough disgust to please fans of crust punk and death metal alike, this one goes full-blast, a disgusted rager that digs through dirt and sludge at top speed, annihilating our senses in the best of ways, one propulsive riff at a time. Warthog always leave us wanting more. - DG
FURTHER LISTENING:
ABRONIA “Map of Dawn” | BODY TYPE “Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing's Surprising” | COLA “Deep In View” | DEAF CLUB “Bad Songs Forever” | GENTLE HEAT “Sheer” | GROCER “Numbers Game” | HELVETIA “28 Songs and $3 Tears” | KENDRICK LAMAR “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” | METHOD MAN “Meth Lab Season 3: The Rehab“ | PARLOR WALLS “Belly Up” | PINK SIIFU & YUNGMORPHEUS “Bag Talk Deluxe” | ROSE MERCIE “Kieres Agua?“ | SWAB “Big City” | TURBO WORLD “My Challenger” | WEIRD NIGHTMARE “Weird Nightmare” | YOUR OLD DROOG “Yod Stewart”
J U N E :
“Out With The Bangs. In With The Twangs” reads one advertisement for the latest Angel Olsen album, Big Time. Country music enthusiasts will be thrilled to hear one of Indie music’s best songwriters bring her talents to the genre, while fans of Olsen’s music will be pleased to know that this album is not simply an Angel Olsen album dressed in western trappings. Big Time is a fitting title as this album feels larger in scale than her previous releases, with expansive instrumentation, horn sections and yes, even some slide guitar (that twang sound). Songs like the title track and “All The Good Times” would find themselves at home performed on Glen Campbell’s 1980’s variety hour TV show, but Olsen’s brutally honest lyrics would certainly be the distinction. - Dominic Acito
Stones Throw
Bandcamp | Spotify
Los Angeles trio Automatic return three years after their excellent debut album with Excess, a continuation of the band’s radiant electronic tinged post-punk. Their sound is minimal, with tightly wound rhythms bouncing between synthesized and human touches, like dance punk goes disco, but with a steely resolve. It’s well coiled, with every beat firmly in its place, but the band’s vocals give it a sense of character, a smooth sort of “coolness,” almost nonchalant, but well locked into their grooves. With tour plans that include runs with Tame Impala, Osees, Parquet Courts, and Idles, they are well engrained in “the industry,” but don’t hold it against them, this album is one hit after another. Excess is crisp and stark, with the bass grooves and drums snapped in, colored by additional programmed percussion, hypnotic pulses, and semi-sweet melodies that occasionally recall Slant 6 style punk with a cold ESG minimalist funk. - DG
Post Present Medium / Bruit Direct Disques
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Released late in 2020, Chronophage’s th’pig’kiss’d quickly became an underground favorite, a DIY basement punk album that mixed Sonic Youth destruction and Yo La Tengo jangle. In the two years since a lot has changed, both in the world and with the band. Their brand new self-titled album, out via Post Present Medium and Bruit Direct Disques, sounds downright refined. Gone is the ramshackle spirit and tape hiss, in their place however, the band’s songwriting shines radiantly, giving sight to the band’s more “pop” tendencies. With each and every listen however, it feels like the album the band has always been gearing up to make. The songs are great from end to end, loaded with their vibrant snare sound, strained and stubbed melodies, and the band’s penchant for hard spun indie chaos sitting side by side with big hooks, memorable twang, and jangle punk sweetness. - DG
Editrix, the Western MA based trio absolutely decimate from start to finish, showing a rare dexterity, capable of damn near anything. It’s not always heavy, but it’s always captivating. They pull from a wild assortment of aggressive and artistic sources, weaving them flawlessly together, with a touch of improvisation that only makes their wonderfully complex songs all the more stunning. Their new album, Editrix II: Editrix Goes To Hell, is one of those brilliant records that only Editrix could pull off. While some folks compare it to nu-metal and hardcore, to me this is noise rock at it’s best, full of sludge, warped atonal riffs, stuttering rhythms that shift so casually, and of course Wendy Eisenberg’s always thought provoking lyrics. There’s a raw open sensibility to the world around and within, and then they just obliterate from there. Between guitar shredded bliss that rages between one jaw-dropping riff and solo to the next, Steve Cameron and Josh Daniel, dig into the crust of the compositions, erupting as tempos slide and clamor, collapsing beats in perfect time. - DG
Backwoodz Studioz
Bandcamp | Spotify
Armand Hammer have been making some of the most resonant and forward thinking hip-hop of the past decade, and unsurprisingly, the same can be said for ELUCID and billy woods’ solo albums. woods gave us the quintessential Aethiopes earlier this year, and ELUCID has followed suit with another cosmic hip-hip classic, I Told Bessie, a cerebral rap masterpiece of experimentation and a futuristic tribute to the past. It’s a surrealist dedication to his grandmother, Bessie, the matriarch of the family, who shared both wisdom and support for ELUCID as he was getting his footing in rap. He’s a long way from the early days, and stands among the greats, painting swirling pictures of the city in psychedelic grime, the dirt and free association becoming hard to separate. Like woods, ELUCID’s lyrics provide endless analyzation, with each carefully worded bar delivered with thought and abrasion, rooted in the struggle of the city but spiritually in another realm. With production from The Lasso, Alchemist, Messiah Musik, Child Actor, Sebb Bash, and more, ELUCID wanders through abstract beats and warped grooves with brilliantly blunt rhymes, adding yet another wondrous addition to his already stellar thought-provoking catalog. - DG
Chunklet Industries
The past few years haven’t treated many of us all too well, but it’s been a great time for getting to know Rhode Island’s Germ House, the solo punk project of Justin Hubbard. After releasing his debut album back in 2014 via Trouble In Mind, Germ House released a few EPs, singles, and splits over the next half decade before the release of 2020’s terrifically lo-fi Spoiled Legacy was released via Girlsville Records. Hubbard has stayed relatively busy since, having released an instantly sold out single on Chunklet Industries (Lifeguard, The Apples In Stereo, Man… Or Astro-Man?), where he’s returned with a new self-titled EP, five songs of pure gold fuzz punk. The project has never sounded better, as Hubbard’s punch power-pop and scuzz remain blown out but the details have been refined. The melodies are more psychedelic, the crunch a bit harsher, and layers more radiant than ever. Songs like “Stacking Mistakes” and “Gum Up The Works” interweave lo-fi garage aesthetics with a jangly density, the entire thing coated in good times fuzz. - DG || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Self Released
Circles is the fifth full length from Brendan Kuntz’s project Grass Jaw, diverting a little from the angst filled and darker tone of the previous records, previously filled with tight post-punk-ish nuggets of doubt and reflections on parenthood. Kuntz adds new flourishes with contributions of horns from Egor Remmor and Kevin Scott to his compositional arsenal and the arrangements are tighter, showing a great amount of learning and progress over time. He’s repeatedly shown himself as an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and that continues here with some massive drum fills and cycling guitar progressions laying the ground for the ruminations on the passage of time and finding new ways to break out of routine. Kuntz’s slightly nasal powered vocals express the tiredness and often times yearning for something else on this collection of songs quite majestically. - Kris Handel || LISTEN: Bandcamp | Spotify
Run For Cover
Bandcamp | Spotify
About halfway through Horse Jumper of Love’s new album, during the relatively up-tempo “Sitting on the Porch,” the Boston trio slips into the refrain, drums and guitars unified in a steady 3/4 build, all pointed toward a smoldering finish. That is until a few drawn out, dislocating guitar bends arrive in its place, breaking up not just the buildup, but the propulsive chug gluing the rest of the song together. Like the air getting sucked out of a balloon you were blowing up to burst, it’s satisfying in a way—just not the way you were expecting. These sorts of quasi anti-climaxes, littered across Horse Jumper’s third album, Natural Part, suggest a band negotiating brighter production and tighter songwriting with a more unpredictable and, at times, challenging sound. Waste permeates the language of the album - trash covering room floors, skunks scavenging through garbage, half-eaten food, split ends of hair inside a plastic bag. An almost embarrassing accumulation of life seems to weigh the music down as frontman Dimitri Giannopoulos groans “does it make sense, does it matter” under slowcore percussion and hazy scrapes of guitar. This conflict between the lightness of letting go and the hard-won significance of sitting with disorder till it has something meaningful to say lingers at the corners of many of the songs’ impressionistic sketches. - Jack Meyer
Matador Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
You don’t have to buy into any of the narratives around Horsegirl and their meteoric rise to know that Versions of Modern Performance is one of the year’s best albums, you simply have to listen to it. The idea of a “guitar rock” savior is ridiculous (especially if you’re a regular Post-Trash reader) as rock music hardly needs saving, but if the mainstream is catching up with what the underground already knows, then we’re thrilled to see Horsegirl lead the way, a deserving band that writes songs well developed beyond their years. The Chicago trio have a deep understanding of their vision, a rich tapestry of post-punk, shoegaze, and “college rock” influences, peeled, stripped, and collapsed only to be reshaped and repurposed as it suits their songs and the very complete landscape of their debut album. The record is impeccably structured, with one great song washing into the next, as noise freakouts and segues bridge everything together. The band write what feel like pop songs, with little to no reliance on hooks, a fact that’s hard to believe on first listen, but becomes increasingly apparent. Horsegirl rarely rely on repetition, instead focusing emphasis on mesmerizing harmonies and melodies so thick they only need one pass to be memorable. - DG
Quiet Year Records
Bandcamp | Spotify
We’ve been waiting six long years for Nine of Swords to release a new record, and lo and behold, it was worth the wait. The Philadelphia based hardcore band have shared Beyond The Swords via Richmond’s Quiet Year Records, their first since the underground classic You Will Never Die. The band’s welcome return shows that the quartet haven’t missed a step, with the intensity and aggression as blistering and corrosive as ever. The band grind and trash, with harsh distortion and TJ Stevenson’s feverishly blasted drum fills. It’s a cathartic way to spend your listening time, as the album is said to come from a place of optimism, so go ahead and release your toxins and reset. Rachel Gordon’s vocals toe the line between blood curdling and “a good talking to” as she screams with pointed hostility and stern importance. We can often be our own worst demons, but Nine of Swords are here to forcefully remind us there’s help for us all. - DG
Pet Fox are a Boston based trio, combining powerhouse musicians from Ovlov and Grass is Green (amongst many others), that take a cerebral and surprisingly intense approach on fractured post-punk and pop that truly blossoms over time. A Face in Your Life is the third full length from the group and on this record the music continues to smolder with shockingly complex songwriting and a wonderfully flexible approach. There are tinges of early-mid 90's Dischord Records influences here but there’s a little more apparent vulnerability and some interesting textural and jazzy moments that spring up unexpectedly. The connection that has formed between Theo Hartlett, Morgan Luzzi, and Jesse Weiss is extremely evident as the record flows in a remarkably smooth manner due to the interplay between the three. A Face In Your Life is thrilling and continues to grow in manner of refinement and technique. - Kris Handel
FURTHER LISTENING:
ADRIAN BELEW “Elevator” | BAD HISTORY MONTH “Recycling Myself” | BERATOR “Elysian Inferno” | CLASS “Class” | CONWAY THE MACHINE & BIG GHOST LTD “What Has Been Blessed Cannot Be Cursed” | DIMPLES’ “Soul Chateau” | ERICA DAWN LYLE & VICE COOLER “LAND TRUST: Benefit For North East Farmers Of Color” | FLASHER “Love Is Yours” | GIRLSPERM “The Muse Ascends” | GREEN/BLUE “Paper Thin” | HURRY UP “Dismal Nitch” | KAMIKAZE NURSE “Stimuloso” | TOMB MOLD “Aperture of Body” | VINTAGE CROP “Kibitzer” | WIRE “Not About To DIe”