The Toads play a unique brand of jangly post-punk, matching politicized lyrics and social commentary with songs that scrape and groove, twisting themselves in knots amid breezy structures. In The Wilderness is due out June 9th via Anti Fade / Upset The Rhythm Records, a collection of thought provoking and intellectually driven punk.
Hold the phone! In celebration of Rotary Club’s upcoming California trip, the band are sharing a music video for “American Tower,” a raw live clip that features plenty of landline action. The band, adorned in matching jumpsuits, tear into the song accompanied by telephone towers, pay phones, handsets, and delightfully curly phone cords.
“The Recipe” expands upon their brand of dance-floor chaos with funky bass and psychedelic-tinged punk guitar lines, darting between a no wave attack and post-punk disco. Gut Health remain in astounding form, as they open the song with a relative simplicity and end it tangled in abrasive knots, the entire structure threatening to collapse.
While Wristwatch expanded into a quartet live, the band remains a duo in the studio, with programmed drums that sound damn near human. After sharing album opener “Rules” last month, the band offer another glimpse into the record with “Fix,” a psychedelic punk ripper, full of corrosive leads and harsh frayed melodies.
Jen Bender's songwriting touches on personal anxieties and questions of over-extending oneself, handled with lovely sentiment and a deft hand. Cusp are unafraid to bring disjointed noise and anger into play, but also show off a softer edge through moments of beautiful keyboard melodies and Bender's vocals that can creep towards higher ranges
Greg Electric are set to release their second record, It’s Been… (as in It’s Been… Greg Electric), serving as both their new album and their purported final release. Due out June 23rd via BLIGHT. Records (Sun Organ, Ruah, Tadzio), we’re sad to see them go but thrilled there’s another album before the sun sets.
Big Clown’s catalog is about to expand with the release of their second album, Beatdown, due out June 30th via Swimming Faith Records (Science Man, Ismatic Guru). The songs are built on fuzzy sludge and propulsive rhythms, finding the less often explored middle ground between bands like Melt-Banana, The Blood Brothers, and Torche.
As Dom Trimboli found himself sitting on a batch of songs that could only be Wireheads, the members found themselves pulled back in, coming together to create their exceptional new record, Potentially Venus. Due out June 23rd via Tenth Court, the band sound unnervingly alive, the time away resulting in a deeper bond.
“$5 Cover,” the record’s third single, isn’t the Fugazi tribute you might be hoping for, but rather a loving homage to band’s own musical community forged around the DIY space East Williamsburg Econolodge. The song is pulsing with dirgy bass and punchy vocal melodies, seething in the shadows one moment but vibrant and hooky the next.
Last Friday saw the triumphant return of Leeds based trio Beige Palace, the band joining together with London’ Cassels for a new split 7”. Out via Human Worth and God Unknown Records, “Waterloo Sublet” breaks a four year absence for Beige Palace, their first new music since the gloriously unnerving Leg LP.
With his debut album Embarrassingly Hard due out April 20th via Tallahassee’s RIP Records, we meet Vincent Reese aka “Vicious Vinnie,” a project that’s as much sketch show as it is punk band. Drawing influences from Beastie Boys, Le Tigre, and Viagra Boys, there’s a sordid comedic sense to his stoned brand of anything goes charm.
Can’t Make Any Promises is Radiator Hospital’s first new record in four years. Their fifth album for Salinas Records (Quaker Wedding, Freezing Cold, Vacation) comes exactly twenty years to the day of the label’s first release, and if that ain’t reason to celebrate, the music is. Recorded in their Philly practice space, they’ve never sounded better.
Following a string of singles and EPs, Philadelphia’s Ruah are set to release Ruwa, the project’s brooding full length debut. “Synthesized Skies” is the record’s second single (following “Guidance”), a song that slinks and crawls along a creaky bed of analog carnage, grinding bass, and atmosphere so thick it threatens to strangle it all.
While the project’s last full length, Remember The Future? Vol. 2 & 1, was full of futuristic sheen, there’s something special about their upcoming “mixtape” BUBBLE, due out April 14th via Marthouse Records (Gut Health, Bench Press, Heir Traffic). Recorded solo by Dougal Shaw, the record leans on programmed drums and heavy synths.
The New Country Sounds of Ryan Wong really says it all with the title. Best known for Cool Ghouls and Supreme Joy, Wong has carved a niche in the world of garage psych, flipping between twang and fuzz. With his second solo effort, he’s embraced that twang and filtered out most everything else, opting for earnest DIY country tunes.
Chicago’s Ovef Ow have been making synth heavy art punk for the better part of the last ten years, pulling influences that seem to range from B-52s and Devo to The Raincoats and Sleater-Kinney. Agitations is met with upbeat party anthems, paired together to create a swarm of new wave jangle and rough but friendly post-punk.
