song | Heartbreaking Bravery

May 18, 2018

Tosser – Swimming (Song Premiere)

Late last year, Washington DC project Tosser made some serious waves in the DIY punk community with a scintillating self-titled EP. Roughly half a year later, the project’s seeking to capitalize on that momentum with Lures, which looks to be another incendiary burst of basement pop. “Swimming”, an instantly galvanizing first look at Lures, has more than enough power to ensnare some expanding attention and is premiering below.

Tilting into shoegaze pop territory, “Swimming” still retains the pop bite that helped make Tosser so memorable. The vocals operate like world-weary sighs, contemplating some dispiriting truths as the narrative grapples with various subsets of the ennui of young adulthood. Some sublime guitar work and a driving rhythm section protect “Swimming” from tipping into sheer misery, offsetting the whole affair in a way that actually elicits some excitement. It’s a pyrotechnic showcase of Tosser’s control over craft and delivers as much immediacy as it does memorability, which is a key distinction.

A bed of landmines, “Swimming” constantly leans into the dirt, ensuring as many explosive moments as possible. Even in all of its urgency, the project finds a way to project some beauty, valuing the damage with the knowledge it’s part of what makes life worth living. There’s some tension, there’s a lot of release, but most of all there’s a great song that should manage to put people on notice. Tosser’s not here to mess around and Lures has a lead-off track to make that title seem apt.

Listen to “Swimming” below and pre-order Lures here.

May 8, 2018

sewingneedle – two three four (Song Premiere)

Photograph by Vanessa Valadez

Last week, sewingneedle unveiled the enigmatic music video for their excellent “feel good music” and today they’re following up that clip with the album opener of their forthcoming user error, “two three four”. The song exists in the same bleary vein as “feel good music”, finding ways to relentlessly attack from an extremely specific angle, as dark as it is energized, falling neatly in line with some of the finest acts on Exploding In Sound’s roster (Two Inch Astronaut, Kal Marks, Pile, etc).

“two three four” goes a long way in setting the tone for the band’s formidable user error, dropping the listener into a world of shadowy corners that give cover to lurking demons. The clean guitar tones add some enhancement to an already abrasive sensibility, allowing the moments of blistering distortion to gain even more magnitude. Half-open questions are cried out in nervous anticipation, directed at next to no one, the music surging underneath with the insistent counting tethering the entire affair back to the dreck of life’s monotony.

All of it congeals into a formidable piece of post-punk, elevated by its own commitment to noise. Intentionally ugly and undeniably compelling, “two three four” serves as a heavy reminder of the predetermined regulations we’re expected to navigate through our existence. It’s a song that has a lot on its mind and aptly conveys those thoughts using minimalist tactics in a clever twist, suggesting that operating outside of the lines can lead to memorably great results.

When the track races towards its finish, one thing does become abundantly clear among the songs frustrated uncertainty: sewingneedle are done existing in the background. This is a band that’s ready to make a statement by creating their own moment of reckoning. user error is that reckoning and “two three four” only hints at its astounding depths. While the record will arrive soon to address the curious in full, “two three four” is good company to keep. Leave it on repeat and let it play.

Listen to “two three four” below and pre-order user error here.

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September 8, 2017

Sauna Accident – Mary Jane (Song Premiere)

A week or so into September and there’s already been a handful of exhilarating releases, several of them standing firmly as Album of the Year contenders. It can be easy to be swept up in the glitzy press blitzes assembled for those records and it can be even easier to overlook new music from bands with little to no name recognition while it’s happening. Fortunately, there are still a small handful of people out there who care more about the acts that are breaking than the ones being gifted massive roll-out packages.

One of the smaller bands in question is the duo Sauna Accident, who excel in crafting a sort of hyper-specific, intriguingly woozy brand of post-punk. Lo-fi and unapologetic, the project — which consists of Sophie Ballman and Daniel Hughes — has only released two songs prior to now. Thankfully, “Mary Jane” has arrived to push that song count a tick higher. Arriving in advance of their forthcoming EP, Run to the Log that’s Rotten, which is due out next Friday.

“Mary Jane” takes all of the most promising elements of the project’s opening tracks and watches them coalesce into something greater. Tenacious, foreboding, and a little insidious, “Mary Jane” makes each one of its three minutes and 22 seconds count. It’s a hard-hitting piece of minimalist post-punk that seemingly celebrates its own murkiness. Dark and decisive, the song paints a very promising picture of Sauna Accident’s future.

Listen to “Mary Jane” below and keep an eye on the duo’s bandcamp for further updates on Run to the Log that’s Rotten.

May 16, 2017

Empty Heads – Meat Mouth (Song Premiere)

The worlds of DIY punk, shoegaze, and bands reveling in lo-fi aesthetics have overlapped for years but the definitive examples of that intersection have, historically, been woefully under-covered. Empty Heads are looking to change that with their upcoming Normality EP, which boasts a collection of songs as fierce, ragged, and determined as “Meat Mouth”, which is premiering below.

Encapsulating a host of influences, from the obvious shoegaze forebears to psych-inflected basement punk contemporaries, “Meat Mouth” is a towering work. Managing to come across as both earnest and reserved simultaneously, “Meat Mouth” exists as something of a paradox, drawing listeners in for closer inspection. In its opening stretch, the song immediately (and successfully) sets out to bruise before its final stretch sees an inspired disintegration that veers incredible close to noise territory, getting significantly heavier before slinking into an eerie ambient work defined by swells of feedback and effects manipulation.

Between those two definitive markers, “Meat Mouth” is anchored by a familiar narrative, which at once expresses self-doubt, self-deprecation, and a buried desire for something resembling normalcy. From thinking sideways to the chemical makeup of the brain, “Meat Mouth” concerns itself with minutiae as much as the big picture, becoming an odd reflection of its own composition. It’s a remarkable work from a band worth hearing and a very strong lead-in to one of 2017’s most formidable EP’s to date.

Listen to “Meat Mouth” below and pre-order Normality from Debt Offensive here.

July 31, 2014

Terry Malts – Let You In (Stream)

Terry Malts’ 2012 record, Killing Time, was one of that year’s best. The trio’s follow-up effort Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere, while a solid outing, struggled to reach the peaks of its predecessor. It looks like the former Magic Bullets members’ new project has finally found its stride. Yesterday, the hardcore-indebted basement punk band released “Let You In”, the first look at their upcoming Insides 7″ (due out via Slumberland in September). “Let You In” is a typically short blast, clocking in at roughly 100 seconds- all made up of sneering post-punk, dressed in the band’s signature no-wave aesthetics. Bassist/vocalist Phil Benson’s drawl washes over the chaos unleashed beneath it; a supercharged rhythm section collides with what might be guitarist Corey Cunningham’s finest work for the band to date. Setting this apart from the rest of their catalog, though, is a newfound emphasis on pop stylings (there may be an omnichord subtly featured throughout the song), which wind up playing to the band’s strengths much better than expected. Like Cloud Nothings earlier this year, Terry Malts seem to have found an impossibly delicate balance where they’re occupying the rarest of areas; this is the band at their poppiest- and their most aggressive. By the time it’s all come to a close, it stands out as a hard-hitting jolt of adrenaline that feels as necessary as it feels alive.

Listen to “Let You In” below and pick up Insides as soon as it’s available.

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February 11, 2014

Brain F≠ – Sicks (Stream)

It’s been another one of those days. A day with a cavalcade of new and noteworthy music news descending at an impossible velocity. There was official live performance videos from Cloud Nothings (which came with an accompanying tour announcement), Fever the Ghost, and Those Darlins. Following that, official videos from Metronomy (which has the distinction of being directed by Michel Gondry), OFF!, Soak, Tacocat, and Quilt. Additionally, there was new music from Black Lips, The Coathangers, Creative Adult, Denney and the Jets, Ex-Cult, and Woods (which would’ve been the feature today but it’s difficult to shake the feeling that With Light and With Love is going to be picking up a lot of press in the days to come). All adding up to an overload of material before the day even hit its halfway point. In the midst of all that chaos, a song by Brain F≠ (pronounced Brain Flannel, apparently) called “Sicks” managed to stand out.

Brain F≠ sound sort of like Be Your Own PET and OFF! were thrown into a blender while riding an adrenaline high, attempting to beat each other to death. “Sicks” is a manic blast of charged-up punk-leaning hardcore that’s accessible enough to snag a lot of potential interest. That interest will undoubtedly be coming their way following today’s release of Empty Set (via a joint release between Grave Mistake and Sorry State Records), the full-length that “Sicks” is taken from. Importantly, the band seems to have already grasped one of the keys to an early success- and that lies in the fact that no matter how aggressive Brain F≠ gets, they always retain a sense of fun that’s often far too buried (and crucial) to music that operates on the fringes of hardcore. “Sicks” is a genuine moment of excitement from a band worth getting excited over. Hear “Sicks” below and go destroy something useless.

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