Lerryn - "As A Mother" | Album Review
Nightshift - "Homosapien" | Album Review
Rider/Horse - "Matted" | Album Review
Kingston, NY's own Rider/Horse’s "journey" started out as a "duo delivering stripped-down post-punk screeds," but across Matted, they are ever closer to a full band configuration. Can they maintain the "minimalist industrial clatter...as [their] sonic foundation," or have they blazed an entirely new trail forward? With joy and awareness, I declare, "Yes."
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Finom - "Not God"
Finom come off more composed and thoughtful than ever before. Their sonic moves may seem random to us, but there is a greater confidence and determination behind them. That is the real upside of change despite the confusion: you may not see the path but moving along has never felt more comfortable. Finom have discovered this through their dedication to one another.
Objections - "Optimistic Sizing" | Album Review
Objections has generated buzz around their debut, Optimistic Sizing. Part of that, if we're to believe the press release, is how the band engage genre. Specifically, that they free themselves from the "constraints" of their "Minutemen music-as-socialism blueprint" by each member overseeing "their own chunk of sonic landscape".
Grocer - "Bless Me" | Album Review
Mulva - "Bitter Form" | Album Review
Mulva have released their debut album, Bitter Form, in which they seem both newly-transformed and yet more familiar than ever. It's just as startling and compelling of a new experience as you’d ultimately desire. It's about accessibility to themselves and to one another, being free to find a way to pull back or push forward.
Split System - "Vol. 2" | Album Review
Australia's own Split System have presented their latest album, Vol. 2, as a kind of musical counteragent. By first questioning if our "demands of punk are a little too high... [or] a little too exacting," not to mention talk of primal itches that need scratching, they’ve positioned themselves as a hard-hitting salve for needless wanderlust.
Big Mess - "Heroic Captains of Industry" | Album Review
CLASS - "If You've Got Nothing" | Album Review
C.O.F.F.I.N - "Australia Stops" | Album Review
C.O.F.F.I.N haven't so much reinvented the approach of truly vital punk but shown the world another path forward. In a world where everything feels so direct all the time, it's nice to see something truly playful. Not in that it makes drunken slam dancing easier, but rather it says something about this tendency for balance.
Spiral Dub - "Spiral Dub" | Album Review
When the band go from making music to trying to make a grander statement -- as the two halves fully represent -- everything clicks into place. The record as this living entity shifts from mostly good to having depth and personality. The layers in that second half find them building on their influences with courageous abandon.
Powerplant- "Grass" | Album Review
Across their various efforts, including the awesome Stump Soup, Powerplant seem to shift sonically with an anxious and unknowable energy. That may be, as Grass demonstrates, because they feel time endlessly ticking away and the only way to make it matter is to embrace one’s whims in a battle against this ceaseless march toward obsolescence.
Pinch Points - "Mechanical Injury (Reissue)" | Album Review
Conway The Machine - "Won't He Do It" | Album Review
Es - "Fantasy" | Album Review
PACKS - "Crispy Crunchy Nothing" | Album Review
Crispy Crunchy Nothing is the latest album from PACKS, the nom de guitare of Toronto DIY rocker Madeline Link. The fourteen song, thirty minute LP is clearly indebted to the larger ‘90s alt/indie rock movement, but it celebrates that lineage with a renewed sense of passion, efficiency, and inventiveness.
Gee Tee - "Goodnight Neanderthal" | Album Review
Mulva - "Seer EP" | Album Review
Comprised of members of Kal Marks, Bethlehem Steel, Baglady, and Ex-Breathers, the Providence quartet is a unique configuration of hard-hitting super-indie rockers. What Mulva have done — expertly split the difference between ambient and sludge diffused through an indie rock filter — is wildly compelling.