Long Beard | Heartbreaking Bravery

October 31, 2019

The Best Records of Q3 (2019)

22 excellent records were released between June and August. While no posts went up on this site about those records in that time, there’s a remedy: a compilation of all of those titles. Basement punk demos, intimate folk epics, adventurous rap odysseys, and quite a few spaces between those triangular points comprise this particular field. Due to time constraints, these will be presented without any additional context but don’t let that aspect of this post distract from some truly incredible releases. Dive in below.

October 7, 2019

The Best Music Videos of Q3 (2019)

While there were virtually no Heartbreaking Bravery posts that went live over the course of the year’s third quarter, work was still being done. Meticulously tracking releases as they flooded in proved to be more challenging, as the parameters for submissions kept widening. Music videos proved to have an especially fruitful run over that course (give or take a few days from the end of June to the end of September), with 23 of them hitting hard enough to secure a featured place within this playlist. A quartet of acts found a way to double up their placement through various means, from expanding astonishing direction and cinematography (Florist) to gifting no-brainer Song of the Year candidates a dedicated clip (clipping. and Rosie Tucker). All in all, there’s a lot to study over the course of these 23 clips, each supplying a varying degree of rewards.

Click play below and get lost in their magic.

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1. Kill Birds – Worthy Girl
2. Kill Birds – Volcano
3. Young Guv – Patterns Prevail
4. Lola Marsh – Echoes
5. Lina Tullgren – Bad At Parties
6. Black Beach – Shampoo
7. Long Beard – Getting By
8. Rosie Tucker – Habit
9. Rosie Tucker – Ambrosia
10. Mikal Cronin – Show Me
11. Oiseaux-Tempête – He Is Afraid and so Am I
12. Jon Comyn – Chapel of Chimes
13. Advance Base – Rabbits
14. Sasami – Take Care
15. clipping. – Nothing Is Safe
16. clipping. – Blood of the Fang
17. Pom Pom Squad – Heavy Heavy
18. Hovvdy – Cathedral
19. Gabríel Ólafs – Staircase of Sonata
20. Ali Barter – January
21. Great Grandpa – Digger
22. Florist – Time Is A Dark Feeling
23. Florist – M

April 10, 2016

Watch This: Vol. 120

After several recaps, best-of features, and weeks of waiting, Watch This returns to its standard weekly installments. A large handful of memorable videos have managed to accrue during the course of the past week. Kississippi, The Cave Singers, The Belvederes, Lomelda, The Districts, Foxing, Cherry, The Zolas (x2), Choir Vandals, Fraternal Twin, Bayonne, Sun Club (x2), Jitters, 4th Curtis, Tomber Lever, Otis the Destroyer, Sounds Del Mar, Holy Wave, Shearwater, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Audacity, and The Greeting Committee all had individual efforts that merited multiple looks. Ultimately, this week belonged to the quieter sessions but still found a way to produce one of the most memorably raucous turn-ins of 2016 (so far, at least). There’s a lot to appreciate in the five videos below so, as always, straighten up, lean in, crank the volume, focus, and Watch This.

1. Mothers (NPR)

Last year, Mothers had me on the verge of tears with the unveiling of the devastatingly gorgeous “Too Small For Eyes“. I’d seen them a few months prior to that release but the restrictions CMJ presents essentially ensured that I wouldn’t be adequately prepared for the band’s astounding debut full-length, When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired. NPR recently hosted the band for an exquisite Tiny Desk session that does an intensely moving record justice.

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2. Sunflower Bean – Easier Said (World Cafe)

One of the more intriguing bands to watch develop and fine-tune over the past few years has been Sunflower Bean, whose insane work ethic has begun to translate to widespread success (and no shortage of burgeoning acclaim). While it may be easy to become fixated on the band’s backstory, in the face of their music — a lovely blend of powerpop and psych-pop — it simply doesn’t matter. The band’s recent World Cafe session sees them on steady, assured footing, ready to meet whatever may come their way.

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3. Kal Marks – Mankind (Allston Pudding)

Kal Marks is a name that’s appeared on this site multiple times over and the band keeps providing reasons to keep that name in heavy rotation on these pages. Case in point: an intense, scorched-earth single song performance for Allston Pudding. The band holds absolutely nothing back in this run through “Mankind”, which finds the trio elevating their no-holds-barred take on a blend of vicious basement grunge and snarling post-punk. It’s a thing to behold.

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4. Long Beard – Moths (VHS Sessions)

VHS Sessions has been crafting excellent live performance videos throughout 2016 but their current crown jewel came in the form of this humble run through “Moths” from Long Beard, who continue to set an exceedingly high bar for themselves and their peers. The trio constantly tap into an ineffable magic that renders songs that sound simple on paper transcendent in practice. This performance may very well be the most definitive example of their most intangible — and compelling — aspect.

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5. Daughter (KEXP)

One of the most unexpected shows I managed to luck my way into last year was Daughter‘s secret set at Baby’s All Right. I’d admired the band previously but was completely enraptured with their live set, even to a point where I was incapacitated by severe chills during a breathtaking run through “Doing The Right Thing”. While it’s impossible for what the band achieves onstage to translate to a filmed studio session, this KEXP run is as close as anyone’s likely to get for the foreseeable future.

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April 6, 2016

Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter, Vol. I

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Each of the seven volumes that comprise this Watch This package contain 25 clips apiece. Due to the sheer volume of live videos that have come out during January, February, and March all of the packages will have the same introductory paragraph. Regular Watch This segments will resume on Sunday.]

It’s been a tremendous first quarter for live videos. While Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly series celebrating the very best of the live video format, hasn’t been in operation for roughly three full months, the information required to keep this thing humming (i.e., checking through hundreds of subscriptions and sources for outstanding new material) has been collected at regular intervals. If they were full sessions, single song performances, studio-shot, DIY captures, transcendent songs, or transcendent visual presentations, they were compiled into a massive list. 175 videos wound up making extraordinarily strong impressions, those videos will all be presented here, in the Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter extended package, one 25-clip presentation at a time.

Watch the first collection of those videos below.

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1. Charly Bliss (Audiotree)
2. Julien Baker (NPR)
3. Happyness (KEXP)
4. Car Seat Headrest (NPR)
5. PWR BTTM (KEXP)
6. Kal Marks – Coffee (Allston Pudding)
7. Fern Mayo (BreakThruRadio)
8. Wolf Alice (NPR)
9. Coke Weed (WKNC)
10. Frankie Cosmos – Outside With the Cuties (Pitchfork)
11. All Dogs – Sunday Morning (Little Elephant)
12. Eskimeaux (BreakThruRadio)
13. Sóley (KEXP)
14. Ty Segall & The Muggers – Candy Sam (Conan)
15. Pinegrove – Need 2 (Little Elephant)
16. Beach House – Irene (Pitchfork)
17. Petal – Sooner (WXPN)
18. Ratboys – Collected (DZ Records)
19. together PANGEA – Blue Mirror (Consequence of Sound)
20. VANT – Parking Lot + Do You Know Me (3voor12)
21. Long Beard (BreakThruRadio)
22. Courtney Barnett – Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party (Colbert)
23. Michael Rault – Nothing Means Nothing (Out of Town Films)
24. Sleater-Kinney – Modern Girl (Austin City Limits)
25. Bo Ningen (KEXP)

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April 1, 2016

March 2016: The Music Videos

PWR BTTM I

While January and February certainly had their fair share of great music videos, March saw an influx of truly great clips find their way out into the world. From Johanna Warren‘s extraordinary “Great Lake” (which I was fortunate enough to premiere over at Consequence of Sound) to a new, patently excellent, video from PUP, the format’s found its stride. Apart from the music videos, there was an outstanding Vaadat Charigim mini-documentary chronicling their first US tour.

Since there were so many clips — and since so many were so exceptional — they’ll be split into two categories below. At the very bottom of the page will be the honorable mentions category and above that will be a slew of videos that have positioned themselves to be early year-end contenders. Since “Great Lake” was already mentioned above, it won’t be below. Similarly, since Yours Are the Only Ears’ aching, gorgeous video for “Low” is the only non-YouTube entry, it will simply be listed in this paragraph (but rest assured, it’s more than worth your time). For the sake of convenience, 31 music videos are featured- one for each day in March.

Watch some of the finest clips of a young 2016 via the embed (with an accompanying tracklist tucked underneath) and explore the laundry list of exceptional titles in the honorable mentions category below the player. Enjoy.

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1. PWR BTTM – West Texas
2. Dilly Dally – Snakehead
3. Palehound – Molly
4. Foul Tip – Drifting
5. Greys – Blown Out
6. Big Ups – National Parks
7. PUP – If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will
8. The Crookes – The World Is Waiting
9. Mutual Benefit – Not for Nothing
10. Alex G – Mud
11. Free Cake For Every Creature – Talking Quietly of Anything With You
12. Lucy Dacus – I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore
13. El Perro Del Mar – In the Woods
14. Kevin Morby – Dorothy
15. Abi Reimold – Mask
16. Daughter – How
17. Eluvium – Life Through Bombardment Vol. 2
18. Bent Shapes – New Starts In Old Dominion
19. Nancy Pants – I’ve Got A Crush On You And Everybody Knows It
20. Outer Spaces – I Saw You
21. Eleanor Friedberger – Never Is A Long Time
22. PJ Harvey – The Community of Hope
23. Sunflower Bean – Easier Said
24. James Edge and the Mindstep – On A Red Horse
25. Furnsss – Slow Dark Water
26. The Lemons – Ice Cream Shop
27. Quilt – Roller
28. Marissa Nadler – All the Colors of the Dark
29. PAWS – No Grace
30. Savages – Adore
31. Hayden Calnin – Cut Love

Honorable Mentions

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March 27, 2016

Watch This: The Honorable Mentions of 2016’s First Quarter

It’s been quite some time since their was an installment of Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly (when on schedule) round-up of the finest work in the live video field. Coverage is generally split between individual performances and full sessions that are captured in places like basements and professional radio studios. Though there has yet to be a volume of Watch This in 2016, the information regarding the series was collected diligently while it remained quiet.

Due to the overwhelming bevvy of material that’s surfaced over the past three months, the below collection while simply be given via hyperlinks. There’s a lot of information to digest here and — due to the nature of press cycles when bands are on tour — several acts will be listed more than once. Like the recent round-ups, this will be literally impossible to watch in one sitting. The best way to view this material will be to simply bookmark this page and explore the content at random, all of which is definitely worthy of some investment.

More round-ups will follow focusing on the best of the best of the 2016 Watch This field of candidates. Until then, enjoy these examples of excellency in the live video format.

Deep Sea Diver, Lip Talk, Strange Attractor, Potty Mouth, Expert Alterations, Nathaniel Rateliff, Shearwater, Shade, Indian Askin, Mount Moriah, The Wild Reeds, Ty Segall & The Muggers, Kevin Morby, Margaret Glaspy, Seratones, Kakkmaddafakka, Dr. Dog, Valley Queen (x2), Bantam Lyons, Rob Sutherland, Cosmonaut, Alabama Shakes, Long Beard, I Am Oak, Albert Hammond Jr., Amber Arcades, Victoria Reed, Dilly Dally, Sunflower Bean (x2), Fauna Shade, SEGO, Lissie, Declan McKenna, Billie Marten, Adult
Mom

Matt Vasquez, Bird Courage, Nap Eyes, Fraternal Twin, Giant Peach, Lola Marsh, Minnoe, Civic, Kamasi Washington, John Rossiter, Bummed Out Still Glowing,
Little Hurricane, The Perennials, Timothy Bloom, Duncan Sheik, Dilly Dally, Oscar, Langhorne Slim, Rob Courtney, Hinds, Into It. Over It., Bombino, Frank Bell, Ancient Whales (x2), Ripper, Eerie Wanda, The Dazies, Vinyl Thief, Alright Panther (x2), Julia Holter, BRAEVES, Stone Cold Fox, Painted Zeros, The Hunna, Kate Davis, Molly Parden

Super Furry Animals, Dogbreth, Tommy Emmanuel, All Dogs, Rupert Angeleyes, Korey Dane, Comfy, Jeanne Added, The Pines, Axel Flóvent, Naked Naps, Ezra Furman & The Boyfriends, Queen of Jeans, Darlene Shrugg, Sun Club (x2), Born Ruffians, Narc Twain, Pale Spectre, Canshaker Pi, No Parents, Idlewild, Woodpigeon, Rubblebucket, WEEED
Homme, Stumpf, J Fernandez, She-Devils, Emilie & Ogden, Fufanu, Most Selfless Cheerleader, Lael Naele, Pinegrove, Keenan O’Meara, Parquet Courts, Avantist, Low Culture

Chris Bathgate, Bombay, Julia Holter, Young Jesus, Heartless Bastards, Wussy, Futurebirds, Ben Folds, Bye Beneco, Posse, E.M.I.L., Battleme, Chill Moody, Mass Gothic, Escondido (x2) Feral Moan, Savages, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Help the Doctor, lowercase roses, Leyya, Hinds, M. Ward, LIGHTS, The Pony (x2), Armani White, Forth Wanderers, Oiseaux-Tempête (ft. G.W. Sok and Gareth Davis), Sonya Kitchell, Chris Bathgate, Emily Mure, Emily Wells, Torii, SWMRS, IAN, Dot.s, Chilly Gonzales, The Flips

Lanterns on the Lake, The Wombats, Rationale, Zula, Marc Scibilia, This Is The Kit, Looming, Bayonne, Crater, The Entrepreneurs, O, Sleep Storm, T. Hardy Morris, SkyBlew, John Coffey, Basia Bulat, Violent Femmes, Jeremy Messersmith, Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers, Trixie Whitley, Aubrie Sellers, The Bottle Rockets, Max Meser, Tall Heights, Chilly Gonzales & Kiaserr Quartet

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February 7, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Bella Mazzetti)

Jawbreaker Reunion III

Back in 2014, Jawbreaker Reunion‘s unbelievable Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club secured an impressive ranking on this site’s year-end list and landed “E.M.O.” (a song that can still manage to elicit chills after innumerable listens) in the songs list. In 2015, they secured a spot on the odds and ends list for their memorable split with PWR BTTM. This year, while still young, they’ve landed another potential year-end list contender with the extraordinary “Cosmos“, which is even more impressive considering they recently downsized to a trio following Tom Delaney’s departure. Bella Mazzetti, who has handled guitar, bass, and vocal duties for the band, is one of their driving creative forces. Last year I was fortunate enough to see Mazzetti play a few shows and take in a few shows as well. Below, she lays out the soundtrack of her 2015, month by month, pairing it with important life events. Read it below, listen along (bonus points if you can complete the seemingly impossible task of finding the stream for Flower Housewife’s “Hampton”), and then make your own soundtrack as 2016 pushes forward.

My 2015 Musical Calendar

Here is a list of songs, new and old, that defined my year.

January, “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus

The sound of dancing on a hardwood floor in Philadelphia. The sound of a flat tire on the way home.

February, “Know Yourself” by Drake

Sounds like releasing a split, celebrating Valentine’s Day, pretending to be happy about it. Getting pulled over in -10 degree weather to change a headlight and feeling an overwhelming sense of love for my bandmates.

March, “Puddle of Love” by The Bottom

Running away to basement shows in other towns. Meeting new people, making new friends, seeing old friends. Singing on stage with Eskimeaux and dancing my butt off to Crying.

April, “Broken Necks” by Eskimeaux

Crying in my carrel while listening to this song, breaking up, figuring out how to be my own person. Finishing and handing in a 90 page thesis, seeing Paul Baribeau with my best friends on that same day.

May, “sad cartoons” by No Friends

Celebrating my 22nd birthday by listening to this No Friends album and drinking in the sun. Being Taking Back Sunday for Punk Rock Prom and meeting someone new. Graduating from college. Fuck.

June, “Parking Lot Palms” by IJI

Sounds like playing the Northside showcase for Miscreant Records, driving all around the mid-Hudson valley. Breaking my tailbone while hiking.

July, “Be Your Own 3 AM” by Adult Mom

Being bed-ridden for the whole month and watching all of Glee. Being brought cupcakes and nursed back to health but still trying not to catch feelings.

August, “Better than Anything Else” by Paul Baribeau

Sounds like trying to record an album and playing shows in Brooklyn. Driving home from the city and listening to this song. Changing my mind.

September, “Hampton” by Flower Housewife

Sounds like a new band line up. Starting a new job, becoming friends with this artist and then joining their band. Driving through new towns.

October, “Keeping Up” by Arthur Russell

Spontaneity. Driving to the city to see the Double Double Whammy CMJ showcase. Booking Meredith Graves to talk about restorative justice at Bard. Making plans. Spending Halloween drunk in Asbury Park with my best friends. Screaming Females covering X.

November, “You Are What Eats You” by Palm

Saying “I love you.” Actually recording an album. Playing with All Dogs and Long Beard. Feeling good about making music with people I care about.

December, “Time, As a Symptom” by Joanna Newsom

Seeing Joanna Newsom play this in Philadelphia. Preparing for JBR’s first tour. Dr. Lady. The best dang New Year’s kiss in the world. Looking back at the year that brought good and profound change. Thanks for sharing it.

-Bella Mazzetti

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December 13, 2015

Alex G – Brite Boy (Music Video)

alexg

As explained in the last post, it’s been fairly difficult to get posts up over the past few months, so a bit of catching up is in order. A lot of outstanding music videos have been released in that time, so we’ll be focusing on some of the very finest in the featured slots and granting the others some of the recognition they deserve in the lists that run at the bottom of these posts. Alex G‘s “Brite Boy” finds itself in the featured spot here- and with good reason.

So often, artists go for the most direct, immediate, accessible route and find reasonable levels of success. The artists that opt to eschew that approach in favor of more understated work have a much steeper battle to fight. Alex G has always been one of the artists that belongs to that latter camp and that aspect of the artist’s aesthetic is brought to the forefront in the animated clip for “Brite Boy”. A continuously-evolving collage of surrealist cartoon imagery (while still making room for two concrete characters wrapped up in a tragic narrative), the Elliot Bech-directed clip enhances both the song’s sense of subdued melancholy and its damaged sense of hope, rendering it an inexplicably moving experience. A palpable sense of loss dominates the latter half of “Brite Boy” and, by the time the clip draws to a close, manages to cut astonishingly deep.

Watch “Brite Boy” below, pick up a copy of Beach Music here, and explore a list of some of the best music videos of the past few months underneath the embed.

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Twin Limb – Don’t Even Think
Monogold – Pink Lemonade
Winter – All The Things You Do
Patsy’s Rats – Burnin’ Honey
White Reaper – Make Me Wanna Die
Daughter – Numbers
Speedy Ortiz – My Dead Girl
Laika’s Orbit – No Matter What It Takes
Chastity Belt – Lydia
Psychic Love – Nancy
Calexico – Bullets & Rocks
The Staves – Make It Holy
Adult Dude – Bonehead
John Grant – Down Here
Palm – Ankles
Luke Top – On the Shore
Eleanor Friedberger – He Didn’t Mention His Mother
Stone Cold Fox – Contagion
Historian – Pulled Under
The Coathangers – Watch Your Back
Jaala – Salt Shaker
The Spook School – I Want To Kiss You
Angel Snow – I Need You
Julia Brown – Snow Day
The Libertines – You’re My Waterloo
Long Beard – Turkeys
The Gooch Palms – Tiny Insight
Roger Harvey – City Deer
Gun Outfit – In Orbit
Great Grandpa – Mostly Here

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September 28, 2015

Midnight Reruns – There’s An Animal Upstairs (Stream)

It’s been a long while since an individual song was featured on this site, a happenstance that’s left the floodgates open and the banks flooded. To that end, there’s a long list of those songs that will be included over the majority of the next few posts- all of those outpourings will, as always, will be accompanied by a featured song. This post’s headlined by a band that’s no stranger to this site but still relatively unknown to the listening world at large: Midnight Reruns.

The band’s sophomore full-length, following an extremely promising debut and a sophomore EP that expanded on that promise, was produced by Tommy Stinson and is due out in a few weeks on Dusty Medical (their first for the label). It’s a hard-charging burst of hook-heavy, punk-leaning rock n’ roll that sounds distinctly Midwest and the assault is led by the surging “There’s An Animal Upstairs”, which– nearly impossibly– also benefits from a genuine sense of breeziness.

Marked by the band’s characteristically formidable dual-guitar attack (something that’s earned them more than a few Thin Lizzy comparisons) and guitarist/vocalist Graham Hunt’s increasingly impressive lyrics, “There’s An Animal Upstairs” takes the already raised bar and kicks it up a few levels. Highlighting this ongoing evolution are the opening lines of a chorus section that floored me on first, second, and 40th listen: “I can feel my proteins burn/and I can feel my atoms/I can feel my stomach churn/and overflow with acid”- a section that hints at what the rest of the album has to offer.

Riding their usual crest of half-drunk Replacements heroics, the song also finds the Milwaukee quartet deepening their grasp on dynamics as well. Everything about “There’s An Animal Upstairs” clicks so well that it practically justifies the awed pre-release compliments its been picking up on its own power. There’s a certain sense of identity that accompanies the song, lending it a considerable amount of power and furthering its immediacy.

Every shift the song takes is maximized for its fullest impact, with each of those hairpin turns navigated with a precision that somehow compliments the songs giddy, shambolic aesthetic. It’s a song of conflicting components that continuously find surprising ways to reconcile and ensure that “There’s An Animal Upstairs” isn’t just great but genuinely memorable. An earworm with an incredible amount of substance, it’s also one of the best songs of the year and should prove more than a little helpful in ensuring Midnight Reruns their proper place on the map.

Listen to “There’s An Animal Upstairs” below, pre-order Force of Nurture from Dusty Medical here, and scan through a long list of some great recent songs beneath the embed.

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Joanna Newsom – Leaving the City
Helvetia – Crumbs Like Saucers
Saul Williams – Horn of the Clock-Bike
Gun Outfit – Dream All Over
Jono McCleery – This Idea of Us
Primitive Parts – Troubles
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Strelka
Seratones – Necromancer
Vision – Inneraction
Black Abba – Betting on Death
BREVE – Movement
Little Fevers – Make It Easy
Historian – Pulled Over
Ex-Breathers – Car
Expert Alterations – You Can’t Always Be Liked
Keeps – I Don’t Mind
Operator – Requirements
Lust For Youth – Better Looking Brother
Bethlehem Steel – 87s
NØMADS – Traumatophobia
Wavves – Pony
Frankie Cosmos – Sand
Prom Body – Ultimate Warrior
Billie Marten – Bird
Hazel English – Fix
Cheatahs – Signs to Lorelei
Black Honey – Corrine
Joseph Giant – On the Run
Swings – Tiles
Kinsey – Youth
Woozy – Gilding the Lily
Casket Girls – Sixteen Forever
Mal Blum – Robert Frost
Palmas – I Want To Know (Your Love)
Let’s Say We Did – Sometimes Every Second Is A Dream
Go Deep – Palms
Spencer Radcliffe – Mermaid
Evil Wizardry – Ajax Takes Both
Tracks – Moonlight
Skinny Girl Diet – Silver Spoons
Black Lips – Freedom Fries
Decorations – Girls
Alex Chilltown – Cwtch
SULK – Black Infinity (Upside Down)
Air Waves (ft. Jana Hunter) – Thunder
Microwave – Thinking of you,
Long Beard – Dream
Softspot – Abalone
Dan Friel – Life (Pt. I)
Oberhofer – Sun Halo
Club 8 – Love Dies

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September 10, 2015

Dilly Dally – Purple Rage (Stream)

It’s been a busy week on multiple levels. Accordingly, there’s been a small gap in coverage. Of course, the release schedule towards this time of year clicks into fifth gear and unleashes a cavalcade of new material upon an unsuspecting public. All three formats had multiple entries worth multiple listens and looks. Chief among them, as usual, was the individual song slate. Since covering all of the great songs to have come out over the past few days would be pointless from a pragmatic standpoint, they’ll be listed below- and it has been a strong few days for this particular category. A large handful of the songs contained in the list below the song in the headline would have been featured on any given day over the past handful of months. That, of course, also bolsters the strength of the song that can lay claim as this post’s focal point: Dilly Dally’s fierce “Purple Rage”.

Over the past year, Dilly Dally have established themselves as a serious force, becoming one of this site’s most celebrated acts in the process. After coming dangerously close to topping the year-end list for 7″ releases, the band immediately set about crafting a debut full-length to capitalize on a shockingly strong statement and lay waste to the notion that whatever magic they tapped into for those first two releases couldn’t be sustained. Just about everything the band’s released this year has earned serious praise here and “Purple Rage” arguably tops them all. From the coy title- a winking nod towards the Prince classic- to the total embrace of anger (an aspect that informs and drives a lot of the band’s music), “Purple Rage” has all the makings of a knockout blow. In its execution, it exceeds those elements and becomes a jaw-dropping showstopper that showcases the band at their most relentlessly bruising.

Even its mechanics are notable; anger’s an emotion that rises and guitarist/vocalist Katie Monks’ vocals mirror that rise at the song’s outset, growing (subtly) more impassioned as the song progresses. Once again, the lead guitar tones seem to cut through the mix with a vengeance, all at once occupying a space that feels vibrant, eerie, and menacing. The rhythm section’s practically required to be frighteningly propulsive considering the song’s subject matter and it elevates the song to a higher level by both adhering to and subverting those expectations throughout the song’s three minute run-time. Every element acts in perfect complement to the others, conjuring up a foreboding, and maybe even threatening, atmosphere. It’s the kind of song that pierces immediately and then gleefully rips open the wound it created. Manic, wild-eyed, resilient, and unforgiving, “Purple Rage” is another meticulously crafted and deeply felt examination of base human instinct, allowing it to reside comfortable in an already shockingly brilliant discography. Should the rest of Sore live up to its previews, the band may have a viable Album of the Year contender on their bloodied up hands.

Listen to “Purple Rage” below and pre-order Sore ahead of its release date here. Below the player, explore a long list of some of the week’s most notable songs.

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Saintseneca – River
Big Air – Vibe Patrol
Greys – Repulsion
Blessed Feathers – Wyoming/Dakota
Cold Sweats – Waste of A Day
Shunkan – The Pink Noise
Wildhoney – Laura
The Beverleys – Visions
Carroll – Green Acres
Season of Mist – Night Drive
Kisses – The Nile
Long Beard – Hates the Party
Language-Arts – Neighbor
Cuntz – Chinese Dream Boat
Sweet Talk – Witness
Shadow in the Tracks – Timeless
Braided Veins – A Means To An End
Little Fevers – Can’t Get Enough
Zola Jesus – Circles
Mansionair – Speak Easy
Fresh Snow (ft. Damian Abraham) – Don’t Fuck A Gift Horse in the Mouth
Beach Slang – Young Alive
Shmu – Pictionary
Youth Lagoon – Rotten Human
Hinds – Garden
Inheaven – Better Town
Chromatics – Shadow
Hiccup – Fuckup
Amy Bezunartea – Something To Show You
Roger Harvey – Lovers Can Be Monsters
Amanda X – Quilted
The Cribs – Wish I Knew You In the 90’s
Driftoff – Straphanger
The Mantles – Police My Love
Run Forever – Weight Under Me
The Diamond Center – Messenger of Wonder
Operator – I, Banana
Obnox – See Me
Chvrches – Clearest Blue

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Tag: Long Beard