Summer of WTF '22 Salvo dos
SPOTLIGHT RELEASES:
Pat here. Local music! Red Ledger has an album out! It’s called Comfortably Stagnant ) It’s some emo/pop-punk stuff, and they’re great live! 2, 4, 6, and 8 are big standouts for me
Pock & Rop
by Pat & Alec. Playlist Here!
Eliza & the Delusionals – Now and Then (5/20) (Singles – Give You Everything, Save Me, You)
WOW! I can’t get enough of this new album. It’s a lot like the new Hatchie album, Australian acts with dream pop textures with top-notch pop songwriting that are still danceable and dare I say even Britpop-influenced? This album has a bit of a 2000s pop-rock flare to it with songs like “You” taking me back to some Avril Lavigne and Michelle Branch, and it also has an alternative sound that fans of The 1975 (like myself) would get into. My favorites are “Give You Everything,” “Nothing Yet,” “Bed Song,” and “Now and Then,” but I recommend any song on it. I just don’t want it to end every time I listen to it. 12 songs, 40 minutes, about as typical of a pop-rock album length as you can get.
Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever (6/24) (Singles – Bones, Shotgun)
Classic Soccer Mommy stuff on their new album, their third. Great mid-tempo indie pop rock songs with a really sweet voice and washed out instrumental arrangements. “Bones” is easily my favorite song on here
Laddio Bolocko – ‘97-’99 (5/20) (Singles – Nurser, The Man Who Never Was)
So this is a compilation of three releases from the ‘90s, but it was in my adds so it counts as new if you play it? The first seven tracks take up about an hour and ten minutes and it’s this band’s first album from 1997, and it’s like if avant-garde/free jazz was made by rock musicians (I think technically the definition of post-rock is non-rock music being played by rock instruments). Tracks 1, 3, and 4 are SICK (the opener is my favorite), and then the two-part song goes on way too long. Tracks 8-12 are an EP from 1999 that I think is just very weak. It’s just very tame and narrow. Tracks 13-17 are the second album from 1998, and it’s really good. It’s once again on the tamer side, but it stays as interesting and engaging as the first album (the sax solo on “The Going Gone”????), and 13, 14, and 16 are my highlights there. The email says “RIYL: Can, This Heat, The Residents, The Psychic Paramount, The Mars Volta, improvisation,” which sums it up better than I could.022.
Σtella & Redinho – Up and Away (6/17) (Singles – Up and Away, Charmed)
You saw her name right. It’s Stella with a sigma. Some chilled out indie pop with some funk and even kind of Arabic music influences at times. If you’re a fan of something like Khruangbin you might like this.
Black Midi - Eat Men Eat | Single (6/15/22)
Another single from Black Midi, off their upcoming album Hellfire. Great songwriting and really dramatic and awesome performances. The songs are dramatic and incredibly paced, they’re so exciting to listen to while still covering Black Midi’s strange and tense type of math-punk very well. Especially “Eat Men Eat” (the track) feels like a crazy story, almost like a film score. “Welcome to Hell” does too when it hits its climaxes. Check this out if you like Black Midi’s stuff so far, this new album seems to be a logical continuation of their sound.
The Mars Volta - Blacklight Shine | Single (6/21/22)
The first single from The Mars Volta in a decade! Very different from what I’ve heard of theirs so far(Deloused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute), but really really great nonetheless. Less overtly challenging, and less aggressive, but insanely insanely catchy. I can never listen to it just once. Cedric’s vocal lines are hooky and fun, his lyrics as strange as ever, and his melodies easily steal the show for me. But the rest of the song is full of great bells and whistles to hear. Looking forward to what could come next from The Mars Volta.
Metal and Punk
Mutilated – Determined to Rot (5/13) (Single – Smashed by a Slab of Concrete)
Ohio death metal once again going fucking crazy, joining the ranks of beloved modern bands like 200 Stab Wounds and Sanguisugabogg. Real heavy brutal slam stuff. The single and “Eroded Brain” are big standouts for me. Only 27 minutes!
Cave In – Heavy Pendulum (5/20) (Singles – New Reality, Blinded by a Blaze)
I’ve plugged their 1999 debut before, but this Methuen metal band continues to be killer. This alt-rock/metal album reaches prog and sludge metal too, with an awesome and GIANT closer. My three favorite tracks are the ones that reach the 7-minute mark. This is a long album at 70 minutes but it doesn’t even feel like it.
CANDY – Heaven Is Here (6/24) (Singles – Human Condition Above Human Opinion, Transcend to Wet)
Hardcore band Candy is back with their second album! This one takes from noise and industrial music a bit more. “Price of Utopia” and “Transcend to Wet” would be Machine Girl songs or something. The last track is a full-blown noise freakout, but the hardcore roots still don’t leave the whole album, and I’m really impressed by it. Check it!
Anklebiter – Demo 2022 EP (6/1)
A brand new New England straight-edge hardcore band. I’ve seen them twice now, and they’re already huge in the scene and draw some insane crowds. Also like, the second hardcore band in MA next to Wisdom & War with a female vocalist, so I gotta shout that out. They also have members of Broken Vow, Pummel, and Lilac Queen, so they’re a great combination of things that make a great hardcore band in MA
Knoll – Metempiric (6/24) (Singles – Clepsydra, Felled Plume, Gild of Blotted Lucre)
WOW! This is a super harsh death metal-infused grindcore album. It’s like the deathgrind of Full of Hell with harsh high-pitched vocals that are slightly black metal influenced, with some dissonant death metal riffs that remind me of bands like Gorguts or Portal. It’s really harsh and heavy and crushing, and I think you should check this out. All the singles, “Of Troth to Atom,” and “Whelm” are my standout tracks.
Gospel - The Loser | Album (5/13/22)
If you really like post-hardcore, you’ve finally got a great new album to enjoy! Their first in 17 years, this is Gospel’s second album overall. And while I personally was not waiting for them to drop new material(I hadn’t heard of them until this album’s release), I’m sure everyone who was is very satisfied. This is an exciting post-hardcore album in the style of earlier Mars Volta(around Deloused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute), albeit with more prominent keys and a prog edge. And a little more screaming than singing. It’s everything I’d want from a prog-inspired post–hardcore album: Exciting and fast while not losing any technicality or adventurous ideas. The songs are great, the performances are awesome, don’t miss out on this album.
Russian Circles - Conduit | Single (6/16/22)
New one from Chicago post-metal trio Russian Circles! I’ve been on a bit of a kick with metal music lately, especially with Neurosis. And this is, albeit very different, a similar sounding group. This new single doesn’t build quite as much as some of their stuff on Blood Year, but it’s a really great sounding track. The track is generally more straight to the point than what I’ve heard of these guys before, jumping right into the heavy riffs from the get go. And that’s also aided by the lack of build up that they normally do. But the shifting textures over the grinding guitars is awesome either way, super excited for their new album coming out later in the summer. Check this.
Primitive Man – Insurmountable (5/13)
WOW! You can always count on Primitive Man for some ridiculously heavy doom/sludge metal. This new album is only 38 minutes, with three mammoth metal tracks and a dark ambient second track. I mean, the black metal and noise sections in “Cage Intimacy” alone can solidify how tight and creative this band is. Saw them live this month and it was the loudest show I’ve ever been to. Check out their two albums before this as well!
Behemoth – The Satanist (2014)
Oh hells OUI. This was a good introduction to metal stuff for me. Really extravagant, well-composed blackened death metal, and even if it’s some genres you’ve never checked out before, it’s some really impressive stuff that isn’t as harsh or crushingly heavy as you’d think. And like yeah the lyrics are stereotypical heavy metal Satanic lyrics, but it’s just a show. The title track and “O Father O Satan O Sun” are my two favorites (check out the guitar riff in the former!). They’re going to have a new album in September, so keep an eye out.
Harry Pussy – Harry Pussy (1993
This is a batshit insane 20-minute noise rock/punk rock album from the great Harry Pussy, a band only active in the ‘90s. It is incredibly lo-fi and amateur-ish, which is a giant amount of the fun of this album. It’s like a mix of the drugged-out adventures of Royal Trux on their 1990 album Twin Infinitives and the late-1970s New York “no wave” scene with artists like Lydia Lunch. Songs like “Pussy Control” and “I Fought the Police” specifically are just noise onslaughts, and the closer, “Showroom Dummies,” is apparently a loose Kraftwerk cover. It’s a lot of fun especially if you’re into outsider music, and I totally recommend it. (Also, if you’re going to look this up on Spotify, it’s tracks 17-25 on the “What Was Music?” compilation) (Also also, check the Dreamcrusher/Alice Glass cover of “Youth Problem”)