Half Awake | Heartbreaking Bravery

December 15, 2016

The Streams, Music Videos, and Full Streams of December’s First Half

As the year-end list slate of material approaches, this publication (and many others) have a tendency to get backed up. Being run by a single person puts Heartbreaking Bravery at a greater disadvantage in those terms. Other mitigating life factors have proven to be fairly significant in terms of time allotment. However, no matter how many things there wind up being to balance, keeping up with the latest releases never gets neglected. While there are a handful of tracks, music videos, and full streams that will be receiving (likely brief) individual features, there are many others that have recently emerged which deserve celebration. Those can all be accessed below, split into each respective category. Enjoy.

Streams

Rosebug, MainLand, Them Are Us Too, Doubting Thomas Cruise Control, Exam Season, Mrs. Magician, Ben Grigg, Hand Habits, Baked, Little Scream, Antonio Williams and Kerry McCoy, John Wesley Coleman, Heat, Nevāda Nevada, Active Bird Community, Rick Rude, The Feelies, Sam Skinner, Infinity Crush, Fog Lake, Low, Sister Helen, Ali Burress, Oliver Wilde, Holy Now, clipping. (ft. SICKNESS), Moon Duo, Joan of Arc, Serengeti + Sicker Man, Palberta, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Tino Drima, The Bushwick Hotel, DYVE, Six Organs of Admittance, orchid mantis, Peter Silberman, Meatbodies, Tim Cohen, Broken Chairs, Sonya Kitchell, The Sadies (ft. Kurt Vile), Owl Paws, The Modern Savage, Career Suicide, Thelma, Because, Loose Buttons, Del Paxton, Sinai Vessel, Saw Black, Thula Borah, Kohli Calhoun, and Gone Is Gone.

Music Videos

Fern Mayo, Los Bengala, Shame, The Big Moon, Strand of Oaks, Matthew Squires, The Molochs, Mozes and the Firstborn, Square Peg Round Hole, The Lonely Biscuits, The Adventures of the Silver Spaceman, C Duncan, Dakota, Girl Ray, OhBoy!, Holy Fuck, SPORTS, The Wave Pictures, Serengeti + Sicker Man, New Fries, Winter, Ab-Soul, Boogarins, Heat, Lucidalabrador, Real Numbers, Rainbrother, Dizzyride, Joseph King and the Mad Crush, Auditorium, Joyce Manor, Hollow Everdaze, Greg Gaffin, Tesla Boy, Trentemøller, Emily Reo, Monogold, Dark Tea, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Ravi Shavi, Pleistocene, Katie Gately, Anti Pony, Watsky, Aquaserge, and Preoccupations.

Full Streams

Stove, Slanted, Kissing Party, Alejandro Bento, Rebel Kind, The Velvet Ants, Nike, AD.UL.T, Tim Carr, Andrew Younker, Lucy and the Rats, CARE, Miss Chain & The Broken Heels, The Obsessives, Night Flowers, Baby Acid, Ocean Music, Year of Suns, BRUCH, Ian Wayne, and the second incredible Post-Trash compilation, aptly titled Post-Trash: Volume Two.

May 27, 2015

Radioactivity – I Know (Stream)

Occasionally there are days when the floodgates open and all that you’ve managed to miss over the past few weeks swarms its way into the surging current. Today was one of those days. More than 30 great items materialized, spread across all of the usual formats (although the vast majority were single stream entries). Full streams found life via great records from Crosss (LO), Pinecones (Sings For You Now), Porcelain Raft (Half Awake), Hex Dispensers (III), and Flesh World (The Wild Animals In My Life). Music videos had a strong year sustained with a fascinating crop of new clips that ranged from tongue-in-cheek (Mikal Cronin’s “Say“) to the epic sprawl found in Yak’s “Smile/Distortion“. The list of stunners in between included the following: Django Django’s “Shake and Tremble“, Elacampane’s “Out of Control“, Swiftumz’s “Take The Gray“, Toby Goodshank’s “Baby I Feel Like I Just Got Cut In Half“, Blue Smiley’s “Warn“, and Karen Meat & The Computer’s “Pizza & Beer“.

For the full songs, things picked up considerably and produced a particularly fierce onslaught of new material. That being the case, they’ll simply be listed and linked. All of these deserve so much more than just those direct mentions but this time around, there are simply too many. If anything, that should serve as strong evidence of 2015’s continued kindness. To wit: Daddy Issue’s “The Bruise“, Dead Stars’ “Calm Punk“, C-Duncan’s “Garden“, Little Racer’s “Jack Knife“, Mammut’s “Blood Burst“, Kid Wave’s “Honey“, Wing Dam’s “House Boat“, The Good Life’s “Everybody“, PINS’ “Molly“, Girlpool’s “Cherry Picking“, Angelo De Augustine “If I Could Fly“, Two Inch Astronaut’s cover of Taylor Swift’s “Fifteen“, Zachary Cale’s “Sundowner“, Dog Party’s “Sapphires“, Ecstatic Visions’ “Astral Plane“, Oberhofer’s “Memory Remains“, Sorority Noise’s “Nolsey“, No Joy’s “Hollywood Teeth“, The Cairo Gang’s “Ice Fishing“, and EZTV’s “Trampoline“. There was also the return of Radioactivity that took the shape in the form of the fiery “I Know”.

One of the first posts to ever run on this site was a review of Radioactivity’s incredible self-titled debut, which was easily one of 2013’s best records. Radioactivity felt like a continuation of The Marked Men’s Fix My Brain, an indisputable genre classic from The Marked Men, the band that mostly comprises Radioactivity. Two years later, the band’s back in full swing and has “I Know” to lead their charge. Much like Fix My Brain and Radioactivity, “I Know” is a snarling burst of pop-inflected basement punk. Guitarist/vocalist Jeff Burke continues to operate at an exceedingly high peak, offering one infectious melody after another. By the time “I Know” careens towards its finish, it’s almost as if Radioactivity never took their foot off the pedal after their debut, creating something as memorably urgent and accessible as each members’ finest outings. With June 30 only just around the corner, we’ve got some time to brace for impact- and it’s a recommended strategy- because Silent Kill is coming at full force and it’s not slowing down for anybody.

Listen to “I Know” over at Billboard, who premiered the track, and pre-order Silent Kill from Dirtnap here.

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May 24, 2015

Institute – Cheerlessness (Stream)

A lot of great material was ushered forth over the past week and the lion’s share of the great items to find promotion or premiere were songs. Destroyer swung for the fences and connected emphatically with the massive “Dream Lover“, Bad Bad Hats balanced sweet with spiky in “Shame“, Porcelain Raft conjured up another alluringly atmospheric dreamscape with “Half Awake“, and Adult Mom hit a career peak with the reactionary, synth-laden “Survival“. Institute take the feature spot for this batch of songs thanks to a sprawling behemoth of a track entitled “Cheerlessness”.

Institute have been kicking away in Austin, TX for quite some time now and, thanks to their determined scrappiness, recently signed a deal with the vaunted Sacred Bones. They recently announced their first effort for the label, Catharsis, and provided a track along with the announcement. That song, “Cheerlessness”, is a relentless four-minute post-punk monster. Embracing all of the elements that make the genre so fascinating (tension, dynamic shifts, a bleak cynicism, sly subtlety, etc.) to create something that still manages to come across with a new, fully-formed identity is impressive. More impressive is the levels of conviction in display in “Cheerlessness”, from the instrumentation to the vocal delivery. Every punch the band throws hits its mark with enough brute force to leave a reverberating warning: we’re all in for one hell of a reckoning once Catharsis arrives.

Listen to “Cheerlessness” below and pre-order Catharsis from Sacred Bones here.