Erased | Heartbreaking Bravery

October 13, 2015

Watch This: Vol. 97

Continuing on with this Watch This spree, we go back three weeks and dive into the most memorable live clips to appear in that given time. While there were several strong videos that came from artists like Kristen, Albert Hammond Jr., The Good Life, Low, Liza Anne, Calexico (ft. Neko Case), The Folk, On an On, Jurassic Shark, Jounce, Gardens & Villa, and Fredo Viola. Those clips’ collective strengths are indicative of the considerable worth of the featured videos of this particular series installment, which boasts an emphasis on abbreviated sets from the included artists and two arresting performances from a pair of site favorites. So, as always, sit back, adjust the volume, focus up, and Watch This.

1. Menace Beach (3voor12)

Ratworld was one of 2015’s earliest highlights and Menace Beach have wasted no time in following it up with the outstanding Super Transporterreum EP. 3voor12 recently captured the band delivering a fiery set in the Netherlands, conjuring up all kinds of winsome noise. An endearing interview and a trio of invigorating performances are contained in this surprisingly explosive clip.

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2. Meat Wave – Erased (Audiotree)

Another Watch This, another clip from Meat Wave‘s Audiotree session. This time around, the trio sinks their teeth into the ferocious– almost feral– “Erased“. Chaotic, wild-eyed, and terrifyingly precise, “Erased” sees Meat Wave continuing to excel with blistering force in the live department. Jagged, vicious, and unapologetic in its searing intensity, it more than earns its place among this week’s featured videos.

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3. Peter Wolf Crier (The Current)

For whatever reason, Peter Wolf Crier have always been a band that’s quietly excelled, accumulating a devoted fan base through an unusual consistency. While they still haven’t racked up stratospheric numbers, they’v never released anything less than stellar. The Current recently brought them in for a two song session and the band responded in kind, gifting the studio one of their stronger sessions in recent memory.

4. Kurt Vile (WFUV)

Is anyone out there making music that sounds more effortlessly breezy than Kurt Vile? At this point, it’s sincerely doubtful. Vile’s attained a sort of easygoing, freewheeling charm that infuses his current work so naturally that it’s nearly impossible to find a line separating himself from his art. That dynamic’s retained in full and deeply embedded into this three-song performance hosted by WFUV. It’s a perfect soundtrack for an early fall day.

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5. Torres – The Harshest Light (3voor12)

Candlelit rooms are perfect backdrops for quieter music and generally tend to heighten their intimacy. Torres, a name that may have been featured throughout this year on this series more than any other, operates almost exclusively in an incredibly intimate mode. Even knowing all of that, it’s hard not to be knocked breathless by this clip, 3voor12’s second of the week, which features a solo acoustic performance that’s intercut with footage of a nameless man navigating a graveyard, rendering it one of the year’s most surprisingly powerful live clips.

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August 7, 2015

Meat Wave – Cosmic Zoo (Stream)

While the vast majority of the week’s best songs found a home in the preceding posts, one of them deserved its own headline: Meat Wave’s “Cosmic Zoo”. For years now, Meat Wave have been a staple of my own personal listening habits. I was thrilled when they were the band that became the driving force behind Heartbreaking Bravery’s first showcase and their self-titled remains the only tape I’ve managed to wear thin (you can only listen to “Panopticon” so many times before it starts warping). Before diving too much further, though, a quick detour to cover the best full streams of the week-so-far seems warranted. Between inspired records from Lithuania, Sharkmuffin, and Wimps, it’s been a good week (not to mention just about everything streaming over at NPR’s First Listen). Now that we’ve got that out of the way, back to “Cosmic Zoo”.

Following the releases of “Erased“, “Sham King“, “NRA“, and “Delusion Moon“, “Cosmic Zoo” becomes the fifth preview of the band’s upcoming sophomore effort Delusion Moon (which comes on the heels of this year’s outstanding Brother EP). Appropriately, the song’s the fifth on Delusion Moon and has a lot of sway over Delusion Moon‘s building momentum. In the context of the record, it rockets that momentum to stratospheric heights. As a standalone single, it immediately conjures up a startling amount of energy and- over the course of a blistering three minutes- focuses that energy into a series of repeated blows, each hitting their mark with a startling ferocity. Whether it’s the riff that cuts everything to ribbons approximately 1/3rd of the way into the song (one of my favorite moments of music this year), the staccato outro, or the increasingly intense rhythm work of Joe Gac and Ryan Wizniak, it’s an unavoidable show of force.

While force alone would have made “Cosmic Zoo” a must-listen, it’s also headier than it initially seems. Tying into a structure that guitarist/vocalist Chris Sutter designed, it’s part of an overarching narrative that touches on motion sickness and the lunar cycles. Adding a venomous bite to what feels, increasingly, like deeply personal lyrical territory, “Cosmic Zoo” takes on the feel of a meteor, hurtling towards earth, hell-bent on destruction. Like Delusion Moon itself, “Cosmic Zoo” is a snarling tour de force that demonstrates the overwhelming bulk of Meat Wave’s strongest qualities. Brash, unavoidable, and just about perfect, it’s the kind of adrenaline jolt that’s strong enough to keep any week humming along.

Listen to “Cosmic Zoo” below and pre-order Delusion Moon from SideOneDummy ahead of its September 18 release date here. Underneath the embed, revisit a large portion of their set from our showcase.

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June 23, 2015

2015: Halfway Home (Mixtape)

Only a little past its halfway point, 2015’s already been an absurdly strong year for music. Numerically staggering, it’s yielded a handful of classics across a variety of genres and a plethora of outstanding small releases. While this mix skews more towards the latter than, say, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, it’s still worth noting how kind this year’s release schedule has been across the board. To reflect on some of this year’s best offerings so far- and to celebrate this site’s 550th post- a mixtape’s been curated for your enjoyment. Nearly all of these songs and artists have been featured on the site previously, lending this particular mix a more retrospective feel than a few of the past entries in the mixtape series, but they’re all worth celebrating as much as possible. Ranging from folk and ambient flourishes to heavy 90’s influences to thoroughly modern post-punk to spritely basement pop, there’s an entry for just about every genre marker that receives regular coverage on the site.

So, without further ado, here’s a mixtape of some of 2015’s strongest highlights (at least so far, there are still quite a few promising items for the year’s latter half). The tracklist for 2015: Halfway Home can be found beneath the embed. Enjoy.

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1. Girlpool – Before The World Was Big
2. Waxahatchee – Under A Rock
3. Mean Creek – Forgotten Streets
4. Royal Headache – Hgih
5. Radioactivity – Pretty Girl
6. Diet Cig – Breathless
7. Washer – Joe
8. Courtney Barnett – Pedestrian At Best
9. Mikal Cronin – Made My Mind Up
10. Torres – Sprinter
11. Jason Isbell – 24 Frames (Live)
12. theweaselmartenfisher – Empty Bucket List
13. Pupppy – Puking (Merry Christmas!)
14. Christopher Paul Stelling – Dear Beast
15. Fraser A. Gorman – Shiny Gun
16. Young Jesus – Milo
17. Girls Names – Reticence
18. Institute – Cheerlessness
19. Happy Diving – So Bunted
20. Downies – Widow
21. Meat Wave – Erased
22. Connor La Mue – Stargazer
23. Bruising – Think About Death
24. Meredith Graves – Took The Ghost to the Movies
25. Yowler – The Offer

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May 1, 2015

Meat Wave – Erased (Stream, Live Video)

Since this site started, I’ve been fortunate enough to make some direct connections with bands I’ve had a genuine, long-standing love for. One of the acts that stands out most, especially in those respects, is the Chicago-based Meat Wave. Back in October, we were lucky enough to host Meat Wave as part of the first-ever Heartbreaking Bravery Presents and in the time that’s followed, the band’s (unsurprisingly) been generating quite a bit of noise. A sold-out show in Brooklyn with Perfect Pussy here, one of 2015’s best EP‘s there, headlining a VICE house party in London, dropping an endearingly scrappy slasher clip for a song… the band’s had a pretty good year. Now, with new material from a forthcoming record starting to surface, it’s only set to get better.

“Erased”, the band’s latest, is a glimpse at what the band’s got in store for the future. They’ve retained their Wipers-leaning bent but transformed it into something even more tenacious. Sounding more intensively focused and bold than ever, “Erased” gets taken up a few levels thanks to one of guitarist/vocalist’s Chris Sutter’s most snarling performances (and a characteristically powerhouse turn-in from the band’s rhythm section, made up of drummer Ryan Wizniak- who also played with Sutter in the excellent Truman & His Trophy– and bassist Joe Gac). Off-kilter and absolutely unhinged, “Erased” sounds downright feral while elevating all of the elements that have made Meat Wave one of the most formidable bands in the Midwest. It’s a tantalizing step forward for the band and it remains as powerful- and as deceptively catchy- as it was when the band used it to open their set back in October. Video of that performance can be found below the embedded stream. As for the album, keep an eye on this site for any further details- they’ll be posted as they’re received.

Listen to (and watch the live video of) “Erased” below.

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