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| Joe Bisirri, Dylan Sevey, Ron Gallo |
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Ron Gallo
Young Lady, You're Scaring Me 3:40
Put the Kids to Bed 2:54
from Heavy Meta 2017
Ron Gallo spent close to a decade exploring the boundaries of his blues, country, and roots rock influences with his band Toy Soldiers, but when he jumped ship to go solo, he left all of that behind. At least that's the very strong impression given by Gallo's second solo album, 2017's Heavy Meta. Gallo's first solo effort, 2014's Ronny, was a step away from Toy Soldiers' sound into a brighter and poppier direction, but with Heavy Meta, he's done an about-face into raw, wiry, guitar-based rock & roll. Backed by bassist Joe Bisirri and drummer Dylan Sevey, Heavy Meta is a gritty, energetic exercise in punk-informed 21st century garage rock, with Gallo's buzzy, rough and ready guitar figures and high-attitude vocals front and center in the mix at all times...
Overlake
Unnamed November 3:58
You Don't Know Everything 6:52
from Fall 2017
Shoegaze is alive and well and living in Jersey City, New Jersey, where it has adopted the name Overlake. On the group's second full-length album, 2017's Fall, Overlake have taken the usual tropes of classic shoegaze -- the big, billowy guitar figures, the murmur-y vocals, the thick undertow of bass, and the languid but crashing rhythms -- and transformed them into something that sounds fresh, engaging, and honestly exciting. With a band like this, good tunes usually make all the difference, and Fall shows that Overlake has them to spare... Fall is big music with an intimate heart, and Overlake will give you the contemplative ride you've been looking for with this splendid album.
Salad Boys
Psych Slasher 2:50
Scenic Route to Nowhere 3:37
from This Is Glue 2018
The Salad Boys' 2015 debut album Metalmania was a fine update on classic jangle pop, full of ringing guitars, hooky melodies, and a mix of uptempo and more relaxed tunes. They don't deviate much from their winning formula on This Is Glue, the 2018 follow-up. Unlike the previous album, which was a more collaborative effort, this time the band's songwriter Joe Sampson took control. With drummer James Sullivan in tow, he recorded the album in various locales around his hometown of Christchurch and gets a much less polished sound than on Metalmania. This approach fixed one of the main problems that album had, which was how sleek and shiny it was. Jangle pop can easily come off as too polite if there isn't some grit under the chiming guitars, and This Is Glue has just enough scruff and lo-fi appeal to avoid this pitfall...
Steve Mason
No Clue 3:10
About the Light 4:26
Walking Away from Love 3:40
from About the Light 2019
Following 2016's excellent Meet the Humans, former Beta Band mastermind Steve Mason takes a more organic and collaborative approach on his fourth solo album, About the Light. While his later catalog has increasingly revealed his acumen as a more straightforward pop songwriter, the Fife native's reputation as a wily studio maverick who builds glorious tracks out of odd bits and bobs has stuck with him since his early days. Having proven many times over that his signature approach yields fruit, Mason decided to take a leap into the unknown, employing his live band to write, rehearse, and record together as a team. Produced by Stephen Street (Morrissey, Blur, the Cranberries), About the Light combines the strong melodicism and thoughtful songwriting of its predecessor with the cumulative energy and spontaneity of group effort, making for a distinctive and deeply engaging entry in Mason's canon...
Of Montreal
Get God's Attention By Being An Atheist 3:50
Don't Let Me Die In America 3:35
Deliberate Self-harm Ha Ha 4:20
from Ur Fun 2020
... 2018's White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood took direct inspiration from the extended remixes of pop hits that were prevalent in the 1980s, and two years later, Ur Fun narrows in on catchier, singles-minded fare. A set that doesn't break for ballads, it was, as has become typical for Barnes, inspired by his personal life, which settled into a steady relationship following divorce... an album otherwise entirely performed and recorded by Barnes in his Athens, Georgia home studio. That doesn't mean that lyrics will be starry-eyed, however; the loquacious lyricist still draws on politics, society, and reflection as well as relationships for Ur Fun... Taken together, infectious rhythms, smart lyrics, and effervescent chorus hooks that deliver throughout Ur Fun make it more than a mere amusement.
El Michels Affair
Enfant feat. The Shacks 3:39
Kill The Lights 2:18
from Adult Themes 2020
...Dusty soul and funk are still felt, but it's as if the idioms have been filtered through the more elegant work of scholarly European and British composers of film and library music -- François de Roubaix, Piero Piccioni, and Alan Hawkshaw, for starters -- with a dash or two of prime David Axelrod and The Italian Job-era Quincy Jones. Some sly trap-styled drums excepted, this is another time warp for the theater of the mind, and it's neatly tied together with recurring salient elements that prevent it from slipping into mere background fare.
Duster
Copernicus Crater 4:49
Chocolate And Mint 4:52
from Duster 2019
...The band resisted any urges to clean up their sound, and instead Duster is their grittiest, most defiantly lo-fi recording. Conjuring magic out of the scraping noise, staticky silence, buried vocals, and muffled drums, they tell stories of isolation, melancholy, and bummer times without resorting to raising their voices or jacking up the tempos...
The Liminanas
The Mirror feat. Kirk Lake 2:34
Russian Roulette 3:48
from I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2 (Rare Stuff 2015/2018) 2018
The core of the Liminanas is Lionel & Marie Limiñana . They are based in Cabestany, in Southern France. Liminanas released its second album of 2018. I’ve Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2 – 7″ and rare stuff 2015 / 2018. This double LP is filled with a diverse aray of awesome music. The songs are always leaning psychedelic with vintage organ sounds, lo-fi guitars, surfy vocal harmonies and multi-lingual lyrics. I’ve Got Trouble On MY Mind Vol. 2 is filled with upbeat organ and guitar with simple yet deeply moving rhythm. The music spans garage rock, psych, pop music, and dark euro psychwave all performed and written in a whimsical manner which is always interesting and often satisfying.
Elf Power
Sniper in the Balcony 3:21
Twitching in Time 3:27
from Twitching in Time 2017
With more than ten albums to their credit by the time of its release, Athens, Georgia lo-fi mavens Elf Power return after nearly four years between records with Twitching in Time... The set is catchy but anxious, a mercurial mix of sprightly indie pop, eerie post-punk, psychedelia, and melancholy chamber pop. Still, though lyrics are often concerned about with the state of affairs, a playful spirit endures. That's largely due to earworms like the jaunty "Sniper in the Balcony" whose peppiness betrays lyrics like "And as the bullet hits the person that you think is me/I cannot be found/I've traded places with the clone."...
Sacred Paws
Nothing 2:40
Everyday 3:08
from Strike a Match 2017
Rachel Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers formed Sacred Paws while they were playing together in the indie pop band Golden Grrrls, then kept going after that band split. Despite living in London and Glasgow, respectively, the thrill they felt playing together was enough to make the distance traveled to play and record worth every boring minute on a train or bus. That thrill comes through loud and clear on their first album, the Afro-pop-inspired Strike a Match... The bubbling rhythms, sharp-as-a-punch hooks, and ace guitar playing and drumming help push the record past nostalgia to a very happy place; the absolute joy in the singing and playing makes musical trainspotting feel like a crime; and the songs are bright enough to fill even the gloomiest bedsit with an overpowering warmth...
M. Ward
Arrivals Chorus 2:34
Return to Neptune 1:56
from What a Wonderful Industry 2018
Equal parts rock memoir and cautionary tale, M. Ward's ninth outing, What a Wonderful Industry, arrived out of the blue as a surprise release in June 2018. Forgoing his long-held roster position at Merge Records, the Portland-based songwriter issued the album himself, pairing his affinity for arcane American roots traditions with colorful stories from his two decades operating in various branches of the music industry... While his records often come across as a little loose and hairy, What a Wonderful Industry has a particularly homespun feel to it with an emphasis on springy acoustic 12-string riffs and rattling rhythms disguising what are in reality some of his craftiest songs to date...
Liz Brasher
Blood of the Lamb 3:02
Body of Mine 2:50
from Painted Image 2019
Singer/guitarist Liz Brasher first tried her hand at songwriting as a young adult after studying up on a variety of 20th century American masters, including Stephen Foster, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan. She found particular inspiration in the sounds of the Delta blues and Southern soul. On her full-length debut, Painted Image, those influences shine through an eclectic retro-soul. ..
Sore Eros
Backseat Bop 2:57
Mirror 8:34
from Sore Eros 2020
While the exploratory, psychedelic lo-fi of Sore Eros took root in the early 2000s as the D.I.Y. endeavor of frontman Robert Robinson, the project moved from CD-Rs to small labels and expanded its lineup by 2009's Second Chants... An unpredictable ride despite its consistent dreaminess, songs like catchy closer "Mirror," with its ghosts of Buddy Holly-style early rock, and the opener, "Backseat Bop," contain tempo changes among other structural diversions, and tracks vary in length from under three minutes to over ten. The album's shifting, dreamy disposition is matched by lyrics like first words "Open your eyes" and final ones "As you cut cards of tarot/I drop shards of mirror/It once filled me with terror/But now it's getting better." That song, "Mirror," ends appropriately with a minute-long instrumental resolution that finally delivers stillness.
Mr. Elevator
Waiting 3:17
Anywhere 3:55
from Goodbye Blue Sky 2020
After two albums of keyboard-driven psych rock that shone like the flash of a paisley scarf on an overcast day, Mr. Elevator's third album Goodbye, Blue Sky is a much gloomier listening experience dominated by washes of synths, Tomas Dolas' downcast vocals, and melodies that don't just pluck at the heartstrings, but give them a big twang instead. It's a big change from the group's previous work, but Dolas guides things with the same questing, inspired (and guitar-free) approach as before and the results are as thrilling as a record that sounds too sad to get out of bed can be... Mr. Elevator already had a couple of records that positioned them as a band to watch for fans of weird and wonderful psychedelic music, Goodbye, Blue Sky makes good on that promise while shifting gears in fascinating fashion.
Shopping
Trust in Us 2:55
Follow Me 3:07
Body Clock 2:21
from All or Nothing 2020
Shopping has such a clearly defined sound -- spiky melodies, spring-loaded basslines, rhythms that just won't quit -- that small changes make a big impact. While All or Nothing continues the move toward a more polished style that Rachel Aggs, Billy Easter, and Andrew Milk began with The Official Body, the two albums couldn't be more different... With this album, Shopping begins the 2020s with a much colder style, an interesting, if not always successful, choice for such a passionate band. Though All or Nothing's title mocks high-stakes ambition, the album is certainly cleaner and tighter-sounding than any of the trio's previous music. Taking inspiration from house and industrial music and Talking Heads, Shopping brings the precision of their playing to the fore on songs that, aptly enough, explore the impersonality of 21st century life...
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