Heartbreaking Bravery

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Tag: Princess Reason

August 6, 2015

Pleasure Leftists – Protection (Stream, Live Video)

Pleasure Leftists XX

At just past midweek, the content that’s been publicly issued over the past few days has struck the right notes far more often than it’s fallen flat. All three major categories (full stream, single stream, and music video) will be covered via recap. Two single streams and one music video will offer up the headlines, with this post’s feature falling solely to Pleasure Leftists‘ current career highlight, “Protection”. Back in June of last year, the band performed a scorching version of the song (video included below) in Toronto as part of a memorable opening set, eliciting both applause and chills.

Ever since that performance, “Protection” has been my favorite Pleasure Leftists song and the reference point I’d frequently cite to justify my excitement over the band’s forthcoming record. As the new songs have ushered in, that excitement’s only managed to swell to intimidating proportions. Anything less than spectacular would feel like a letdown but- thankfully- the preview material’s only reinforced the opinion that The Woods of Heaven would be a serious year-end contender.

Now that “Protection” has found an official release, those chills that the band first inspired more than a year ago have resurfaced with a vengeance. Everything that made “Protection” such an unforgettable punch the first time around has been sharpened, groomed into something clear-eyed and dangerous. While the band certainly takes cues from the industrial contrasts that inspired the best post-punk in the genre’s formative years, they’ve also managed to imprint a distinctly modern bite on a familiar formula. Cold, wounded, euphoric, relentless, resilient, and inspired, “Protection” is the sound of a once-great band surpassing their perceived potential and reaching something otherworldly.

Listen to “Protection” below and pre-order The Woods of Heaven ahead of its late August release from Deranged here. Beneath the embed, watch the band performing the song live in Toronto last year and explore some of the week’s best songs beneath the video.

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Yung – Blue Uniforms
Grubs – Windwaker
Wolf Eyes – Enemy Ladder
Split Screens – Black Pines
Hypocrite In A Hippy Crypt – Better Days
Potty Mouth – Cherry Picking
Kinsey – Wide Awake
Blacklisters – I Knock Myself Out
Lou Barlow – Moving
Princess Reason – Drag + Blur
Spencer Radcliffe – Mia
Long Beard – Porch
Steve Lewis – Off This Rock
The Ukiah Drag – Criminal Authority
Ex-Cult – Stick The Knife In
Beach Slang – Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas
Swimm – Belly
Boytoy – Postal
Low – What Part Of Me
Piles – Olivia
Tijuana Panthers – Set Forth
Heat Dust – Seeking A Paraxis
Chain of Flowers – Crisis
Something Anorak – I Don’t Want To Work It Out
The Most Serene Republic – Ontario Morning
Widowspeak – Dead Love (So Still)
Fake Problems – Holy Attitude
Fine Print – Tell Me
Briana Marela – Take Care of Me
TRAAMS – Succulent Thunder Anthem
Sales – Big Sis
Fresh Snow – Proper Burial
Shelf Life – Sinking Just Right

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July 23, 2015

Princess Reason – Your Divorce (Stream)

princessreason

Today will be dedicated to two posts: the first (the one you’re reading now), will cover a large handful of yesterday’s notable releases while the ensuing entry will bring everything up to speed. While there wasn’t an intimidating excess of new material on Wednesday, like there has been in the past, it still managed to unearth some very strong pieces. Ms. John Soda had their tantalizingly light new single “Hero Whales“, Camper Van Beethoven’s willfully ridiculous Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! song “Long Way To Go“, Doubting Thomas Cruise Control offered another compelling new look at their forthcoming record via “Soft Focus“, Blake Schwarzenbach provided a glimpse at his upcoming solo material with the quietly pulsating “Sanity Is Waiting“, and Donovan Wolfington maintained both their searing aggression and surprisingly light pop touch via “Solo Cup“.

For music videos, there was the menacing grit of Memory Pills’ “Beauty of the City“, Matthew E. White’s moving “Vision (No Skin Version)“, Jenny Hval’s dream-laden “Sabbath“, and Gem Club’s strangely harrowing “Braid“. The full streams wound up with incredibly strong representation from an individual release: Antarctigo Vespucci’s s debut full-length effort, the incredibly strong Leavin’ La Vida Loca. Today’s featured item circles back to the single song streams and strings together lackadaisical basement pop with punk attitude as well as anything else to have found release this year.

With the light drawl that hearkens back to the slacker pop of the 90’s there’s an obvious Pavement comparison to be made here, especially with the off-the-cuff lyrical delivery fully ingrained in Princess Reason‘s DNA but those comparisons can only stretch so far; Princess Reason deserve to be judged on their own merit, not be held to the gold standard of a genre iconoclast. “Your Divorce” is a smartly-crafted burst of outsider pop, making room for some entirely unexpected moments that elevate the song from being good to being genuinely memorable. It’s a rambling, ramshackle number that headlines a forthcoming 7″ with the kind of confidence and finesse that suggest this band’s in the midst of something that should secure them quite a bit of attention going forward. An unlikely, biting summer anthem for the romantically down-and-out “Your Divorce” may have a lot of roots in the past but it still manages to come across as a breath of fresh air.

Listen to “Your Divorce” below and pre-order the 7″ from Nebraskan Coast here.

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