October 23, 2026

Pretty Cool For A Bunch Of Mimes: The Swim Army Reviews KISS

October 23, 2026/ The Swim Team

My sprawling music taste is how I got into writing like this in the first place, but one band I still find myself constantly having to defend is KISS. I don’t support everything they’ve done, and I cannot stand behind every choice of notorious bandleaders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, but I will say that even 50+ years on, they are still unfairly dismissed.

If you want to quickly realize just how important KISS is, look no further than the tributes Ace Frehley garnered when he passed away. Every rock guitarist made a point to recognize him, more so than even Eddie Van Halen, whose band’s first record wouldn’t even come out until five years into KISS’ career. Finding an entry point for KISS can be hard if you only know their worst qualities, so I did my best to rally the Swim Team, ask for their favorite bands, and see if I could find a connection to the Hottest Band in the Land. Much like with KISS… results may vary.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Your Name: aly

Your Favorite Band: Animal Collective

Logan’s KISS Pick: “My Way”

Logan’s Notes: The only thing I know about Animal Collective is their use of keyboards, so here’s the most keyboard-heavy song KISS ever put out, for better or for worse.

Your Review: I’ve written in these very pages about how much I detest the shit clowns in Kiss (stylized as “KISS,” if you’re on Medicare), and you have the audacity to make me listen to their fourth album post-makeup-removal? You’re telling me they spent the late ‘80s making Simple Minds-ass, Wang Chung-ass swill? “My Way” shares too much with lowest-common-denominator radio run-off to be despicable, and that is its true offense.

The fact that career-low-point Kiss isn’t even a total trainwreck is sublime failure. How dare you make me listen to this just because “aNiMaL CoLLeCtiVe hAs kEyBoArDs.” Gonna strap Gene and Paul in the Punishment Chairs and make them listen to “Floridada” until they beg to be euthanized.

Your Name: Josh

Your Favorite Band: The Replacements

Logan’s KISS Pick: “Tomorrow”

Logan’s Notes: It’s well-known that The Replacements’ expertly sloppy “Black Diamond” cover from Let It Be is a highlight of their catalog. Too obvious to pick the original, so here’s a single from KISS’ underrated power pop masterpiece, Unmasked.

Your Review: I can’t tell if I like this. I think I kind of do? Half of the times I listened to it, I immediately zoned out and then woke up at the end, but when I really forced myself to focus, it wasn’t half bad. It’s kind of an empty-calories thing: externally, there’s a ton going on that’s really in my wheelhouse, but something’s missing at the song’s core, and because of that, it struggled to hold my attention. To make great power pop, I think an artist needs to convincingly portray themselves as pure at heart, and that’s a mighty tall order for Paul Stanley. I can’t deny he writes a killer hook; he’s just better when he’s grimy, like on “Strutter.” Now that’s a great song.

Your Name: Britta

Your Favorite Band: Pile

Logan’s KISS Pick: “Mr. Blackwell”

Logan’s Notes: Gene Simmons does not get enough shine for his bass playing, probably because he’s being criticized for most of the right reasons about everything else. But for fans of bass-driven post-punk bands like Pile, “Mr. Blackwell” from KISS’ prog foray (Music From) The Elder is a classic Demon track.

Your Review: It was really, really brave of Logan to assign me “Mr. Blackwell,” considering that the opening bass notes actually just sound like farts with reverb. (And they sound like that for the entire song, by the way.) In no universe do the satisfying bass lines of Pile’s music in songs like “Firewood” and “Grunt Like a Pig” deserve to be paired with KISS. What the heck is happening in the latter half of the song? Clicks, muffled vocals, and ghastly sound effects arise like a bloated ghoul (Gene, is that you?) only to cease as suddenly as they appeared. I was relieved when it was over, which is the sole thing that I appreciated about this track: it has an end.

Your Name: Braden

Your Favorite Band: The Brave Little Abacus

Logan’s KISS Pick: “No No No”

Logan’s Notes: The shreddiness, complexity, and energy of emo bands like The Brave Little Abacus seem far away from KISS’ hair metal days, but “No No No” from 1987’s Crazy Nights is a comparable feat of speed and frenzy.

Your Review: You could train 100 LLMs, make agents bicker until their GPUs need a smoke break, and they’d still never come up with “Actually, if you like Brave Little Abacus, you’d like this.” This is the type of recommendation—reach, comparison, whatever—that only a human could make; no, that only Logan could make. And the fucked up thing is he’s so right. The lyrics are… crazy, but the energy is incredible, and the shredding melted my face. Two comparably energetic sections are the opening of BLA’s “A Highway Got Paved Over My Future” and the beginning and end of “Bug Infested Floorboards.” If you put those sounds next to each other, it’s not much of a stretch at all.

It’s notable that this album is from the unmasked portion of KISS’s career, and BLA’s first album is “Masked Dancers.” What’s more remarkable, actually, is the rock ballad “Reason to Live,” with a pointed message that you can’t live your life for someone else, almost exactly the same as BLA’s “Can’t Run Away.” I think what I’m saying is that Logan made me realize that KISS might actually be emo?

Your Name: Taylor

Your Favorite Band: The Wonder Years, Sufjan Stevens, Yo La Tengo (take ya pick)

Logan’s KISS Pick: “Dark Light”

Logan’s Notes: Despite their loud guitars and big choruses, not much pop-punk to be found in the world of KISS, nor is there any orchestra or folk. They were always a bit too flashy to be alt-rock, but Ace Frehley’s “Dark Light” incorporates a bit of each rock subgenre of the day, which may align with Taylor’s picks.

Your Review: This feels like a safe space to admit that I am not only a KISS enjoyer, but that I had TWO posters of the band up on my wall through most of my young adulthood. That said, my knowledge and fandom of the band’s recorded music is basically limited to the 70s, aside from “Lick It Up,” so this is my first time hearing “Dark Light.” I’ll start with the positives: the guitar riff is punchy and sick, the solo fuckin’ rocks, and the chorus is kinda fun, but this does sound like theater kid Halloween music. RIP to Ace, but I don’t think his vocals are doing it for me here.

Your Name: Ciara

Your Favorite Band: Coheed and Cambria

Logan’s KISS Pick: “I”

Logan’s Notes: I didn’t go into this article intending to recommend a ton of tracks from the infamous (Music From) The Elder, but the anthemic rallying cries of Coheed songs ring true in the album’s closing moments of “I.” And it’s certainly better than Coheed’s “Love Gun” cover.

Your Review: The most KISS I've ever ingested was probably playing the “Hotter Than Hell” bonus level in Tony Hawk’s Underground as a child, which featured the band’s smash hit “Rock And Roll All Nite” on an endless loop. That was the most of the band I ever wished to be subjected to, but we all love Logan here at Swim Into The Sound, and I love a writing exercise. I also had a feeling the next biggest Coheed fan to me in our little family wouldn't steer me wrong.

Coheed fans know that big, anthemic 80s rock isn't a far stone's throw from the band, as their discography shows. “I” by KISS hits with a simple structure and powerful rhythm section that's easy to lose yourself in, but it eventually unfolds into the ethereal final moments of the album Music From “The Elder.” I was admittedly delighted to see the last lyrics on the track referencing “Rock And Roll All Nite,” which begs comparison to Coheed singer Claudio Sanchez's love for callbacks and referential lyrics. Strings swell and brass blares as characters dialogue with one another to close out the track, which would also feel right at home on most Coheed albums. A fun track, though I can't say this converted me to a KISS fan, sorry Logan. Happy birthday, bud! <3

Your Name: Caro

Your Favorite Band: Drive-By Truckers

Logan’s KISS Pick: “Mistake”

Logan’s Notes: Recently unearthed as an outtake on the Dressed to Kill box set, “Mistake” is an odd country ballad that sounds nothing like the down-and-dirty sound of the landmark album it was recorded for.

Your Review: I feel like I can’t shittalk this because it feels anti-DBT to shittalk KISS. The Truckers are believers in rock and roll, and who am I to say that some rock song from the hallowed 1970s sucks? Luckily, I only feel like I can’t shittalk and don’t actually care about if I do it or not.

This song is so close to rocking, but Stanley et. al. just can’t commit. I can’t even tell if they had fun making this or if the whole time they were like, ‘what are we doing…we can’t make dusty country sounds…’ If anything, I feel like this song predicted MTV 90s alt-pop, like the Lemonheads or Julianna Hatfield, rather than anything truly country-rock adjacent.

August 28, 2026

Cover Collector – August Browns

August 28, 2026/ The Swim Team

I don’t know about you guys, but I love a good album art collage. One of the first things I do every Friday is head over to tapmusic.net and render a 4x4 chart of the albums I listened to most over the past week. At the end of each month, I do the same thing with a 5x5 that recaps my previous 30 days of listening. By the time December rolls around, I look forward to recapping the last twelve months with a gigantic 10x10 grid in an unwieldy encapsulation of the 100 albums that defined my year.

Is it a little self-aggrandizing? Sure, but it’s also a fun way to see a quick snapshot of what my last week, month, or year has sounded like. At its best, this practice has led to fun conversations and solid recommendations going back and forth with friends as we bond over specific albums. Sometimes it’s that shared love over a deep pull from years gone by, other times it’s just noticing trends with a recent fave that seems like an unshakable presence week in and week out. At the very least, I suppose it’s satisfying to see a bunch of records that I feel an affinity toward lined up and embodying a specific stretch of my life.

At some point near the tail end of last year, I conceived of a more communal way to bring this love of album collage to life. Because, sure, getting a live readout of your listening history is cool, but this is also about album art, an essential part of the experience and something us music nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to welcome you to the seventh edition of Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team discusses some of our favorite albums based on album color. For August, we’re writing about beautiful browns.

Ministry – ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ

Ministry’s fifth studio album, alternatively titled Psalm 69 so you don’t have to decode or pronounce the original Crowleyan scribe, is the last in the band’s foundational trilogy of industrial metalworks and miraculously granted them mainstream success. Following 1988’s The Land Of Rape And Honey and 1989’s The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste (aka the heaviest album of all time), Al Jourgensen continued to push the envelope for rock and electronic music with this 1992 release that spawned timeless genre anthems like “N.W.O.” and “Just One Fix.” The record landed just four days before the band spent the rest of the Summer on the second-ever Lollapalooza tour, where they utterly crumbled stages across America, highlighting many of the unrelenting and aurally taxing compositions they had just unleashed upon the public. Its crown jewel, “Jesus Built My Hotrod,” has always been my favorite Ministry song, from the intro featuring Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers to the real-hotrod-speed thrashing throughout. Ministry’s return for 1996’s Filth Pig was long-awaited after the mania of Psalm 69, and while I love it for its specific harshness, it was a clear departure point from the classic records that preceded it. Psalm 69 is necessary listening from the nineties, a time when even the most extreme music on the planet could end up on a major label.

— Logan Archer Mounts

Hel Toro – Gimmick

If you’re surprised I’m not writing about Pile, don’t worry, I sort of still am. Hel Toro is Rick Maguire’s early-aughts project, released just before Pile. It’s noisy rock and roll, lyrically cutting, with pentatonic glimmers throughout that hint at the distinct style already present in Rick’s writing. Released in 2007, Gimmick is the band’s second album, coming four years after their debut, Tabula Rasa. Ragey and brash, I consider Gimmick the perfect soundtrack to watch the zenith of late summer slowly wilt and sag towards the ochre-tinged earth. The opening track “Holes Up” grabs the listener by the collar and yanks them in, screaming lyrics straight to their face: “I don’t wanna watch you draw it out, cause I’m not that good of an artist!” Brown paper album artwork and a splatter of scribbled handwriting across the front perfectly relay the grimily textural undercurrents of this sophomore release.

– Britta Joseph

billy woods – Aethiopes

Since its April 2022 release, billy woods’ Aethiopes has been a cold comfort to my summers, especially my Augusts. I can’t pinpoint why, exactly. Maybe the timbral palette of Preservation’s beats provides the right soundtrack to the month’s sense memories: the brassy, aberrant synths of “No Hard Feelings” pierce the ear like a noon sun hits the eye, the pinging rides and dusty acoustic strings of “The Doldrums” sizzle like heat haze above pavement. Or maybe the seamless, live-mix style transitions throughout the LP mimic how days blend together in the thick fog of a late-summer malaise.

But in revisiting the record this August for Cover Collector, another possibility stands out as I run back woods’ verse on “Christine,” in particular. Here, the producer’s sparse, eerie production also lends fitting support to the MC’s lyrical vignettes, which connect a series of haunted narratives around and in cars as weird, liminal spaces. What I find to be a more fitting image than the 1957 Plymouth Fury nodded to in the track title, though, emerges with the vocal reuse of The Wailers’ “Mr. Brown.” In the source track, a Lee Perry plate that was passed over as the instrumental for “Duppy Conqueror,” Bob Marley recounts a folktale where a ghost driving a three-wheeled coffin rides around Jamaica in search of a ‘Mr. Brown,’ unnerving folks from Mandeville to Sligoville. woods repeats the borrowed line thrice, like an incantation: but is this a curse or protection charm? I can hear it both ways, and that emotional ambivalence reads like an echo of the close-cropped Rembrandt painting that serves as the album cover.

– J. P. Cupps

Bill Callahan – What a Night!

Outside of Yo La Tengo, Bill Callahan might be the ideal model for a career in indie rock. The dude has been making music for almost four decades, documenting phases of his life through his plainspoken baritone voice and poetic lyrics, first as Smog and then under his own name. What a Night! is a 90-minute live album that sees an artist at the peak of his powers. The lineup features just Callahan on guitar and vocals, with his compatriot Jim White on drums. Together, these two craft entire worlds, whether it’s the 11-minute odyssey of “Riding for the Feeling,” the swaggering, chunky groove of “Cowboy,” or the rendition of “Coyotes” that spills out to nine minutes. It’s like witchcraft the way these two are able to conjure massive swells of emotion from such simple ingredients. It’s modest and cosmic, but just feels like a staggering achievement to take in. The setlist is a no-miss greatest hits that shows exactly why Callahan has been able to cultivate such a long and illustrious career. He’s a craftsman, and this record is like a finely furnished piece of upholstery – an oak armchair you can sink into that doesn’t creak or shift an iota. A sturdy entity that justifies its own existence in the most self-evident way.

– Taylor Grimes

Oso Oso – basking in the glow

As per a Billboard interview with Oso Oso’s founder and frontman, Jade Lilitri, the thesis of basking in the glow is, “taking in the good things, just accepting what comes with life.” Operating in an unabashed laissez-faire manner has always been the Long Island unit’s cut– all while effortlessly creating the kind of music that many bands spend their entire careers chasing. basking in the glow, released two years after the acclaimed sophomore LP, the yunahon mixtape, had immense shoes to fill. Lilitri, obviously undeterred by this, managed to level up with his 2019 release, which was also the project’s first on legendary label Triple Crown Records.

At a time when emo as a genre had entered a definitive lull, basking in the glow proved that some bands in this scene were not condemned to the lightning-in-a-bottle effect of their first or second LP releases. While Oso Oso’s music toes the line between emo, pop-punk, and indie, it blends seamlessly to create infectious hooks where every song could legitimately be a single. basking in the glow is undoubtedly a love record at its core, with what could be interpreted as religious undertones woven throughout. This is probably most evident on “a morning song,” where Lilitri flippantly admits, “living on my knees, praying blessings crashed into me.”

Whether it’s basking in the glow of faith, a thriving relationship, or the incandescent bulbs of a busted H&R Block marquee, Oso Oso confirms there is meaning to be found in whatever life throws at you.

– Brandon Cortez

Dikembe – Chicago Bowls

If you don’t already know, Chicago Bowls is an emo-DIY classic. In 2011, Dikembe made their debut with a digital-only EP, featuring song titles spoofing player names from the ‘95-’96 Chicago Bulls, one of the strongest NBA Finals teams in the history of the league. The track names are “Scottie Spliffen,” “Luc Bongley,” “Michael Jordank,” and “Tony Kukush.” Making your song titles portmanteaus of weed and sports celebrities is a strong choice, but one perfectly suited for such a strong EP. It opens and closes with a conversation from the coming-of-age sitcom Freaks and Geeks in which Jason Segel’s character is showing off his ornate drum set to the show’s main character, Lindsay Weir. He ends by imploring her to “find her [own] big, gigantic drum kit.” I’m writing this about a decade and a half removed from the EP’s release, and I feel like the world is much more complicated now. The fact that two primary components of the album look backward suggests Dikembe knows that feeling too.

About a year after the EP, the band released their first full-length album, Broad Shoulders. To give you an idea of what they were up against in 2012, here are a few other albums that came out that year: Floral Green by Title Fight, Sports by Modern Baseball, American Radass by Dads, Colourmeinkindness by Basement, Just Married by Glocca Morra, Colors by Sports, and Grow Up, Dude by You Blew It! In a year of heavy hitters, Dikembe not only holds their own but stands out as a band that was ahead of the curve, putting together an all-star lineup of tracks that epitomize the genre in under ten minutes.

– Braden Allmond

Janet Jackson – janet.

In 1993, there was a case to be made that Janet Jackson would be the most talented Jackson from then on. This wouldn’t even have been a hot take at the time. Janet’s big brother Michael was entering a turbulent point in his career. The King of Pop was being dethroned as his personal life was brought under a fiery, scorching-hot microscope, combined with the public perception that his 1991 album Dangerous didn’t live up to the standard of his previous work. (Let me go on record that I personally love Dangerous – the New Jack Swing first half of that record still hits like Mike Tyson in his prime.) But you have to give credit where credit is due; little sis Janet proved to the entire world she’s a bona fide star, and the music she made on janet. is the exact reason why. If you said Janet is the most talented Jackson, you wouldn’t even have sounded like an ESPN talking head blowhard just saying things for clickbait.

The early nineties were the time when Janet leaped out of the ginormous shadow left by her big brother. The music on janet. is a career-defining blend of neo-soul mixed with a touch of new jack swing, and just the right amount of house music. This was groundbreaking, superbly done, and incredibly horny. From the provocative album cover, steamy lyrics, and sensual music videos, Janet was taking the reins of her sexuality and entering adulthood. Looking past the horniness of it all, the album had mega hits: “That’s the Way Love Goes” was a chart-topping banger; “Any Time, Any Place” was an instant classic that hip-hop artists have sampled out the wazoo; “Because of Love” will have your body doing moves you didn’t even know you were capable of. This record not only set her apart from her own blood, but established Janet as the mood board for future generations of R&B artists.

– David Williams

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum

Omnium Gatherum is an odd bird. It's the kind of album that opens with a 20-minute sprawling environmentalist jam session before moving into… synth-pop? hip-hop? thrash metal? krautrock? bossa nova? Yeah, it's a lot to fit into one album, which is part of why this ends up being Gizz's longest album to date. Not designed as a cohesive album, it’s meant to be heard as a collection of ideas that didn't fit anywhere else. Omnium Gatherum challenges and excites by constantly taking turns that feel exciting and novel without ever slipping into being disorienting or off-putting.

As is common for King Gizzard, the lyrics are about environmentalism, though there are some detours into less dour fare, such as in the Beastie Boys-inspired “Sadie Sorceress,” where multi-instrumentalist and singer Ambrose Kenny-Smith dons his alter ego, The Shrimpomaniac, and raps about an elderly witch. Or the easy-going “Persistence,” where frontman Stu Mackenzie uses the language of cars and motorsports to coyly talk about sex. Of course, it wouldn't be a true King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard record without at least one song about some horror with a thirst for blood, and we get that in “Predator X,” a thrash metal ripper that pays homage to Meshuggah as we see the band fully leaning into palm-muted chugging guitars in complex time signatures.

Ultimately, Omnium Gatherum comes across as a sampler platter that any newcomer to Gizz's work can approach, giving them a smorgasbord of options as they decide what flavor of Gizz they want more of. The fact that it’s also the source of many of the band’s most popular tracks is just proof of the power of Gizz.

– Noëlle Midnight

Farewell Continental – ¡Hey, Hey Pioneers!

There’s nothing quite like the surprise and elation when you find out one of your favorite bands has a side project you knew nothing about. Whether you’re a fan of alternative side projects such as The Postal Service (Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie), The Prize Fighter Inferno (Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria), or City and Colour (Dallas Green of Alexisonfire), learning about your favorite artists’ expanded universes always felt like a reward in the fledgling days of the internet. My love for Motion City Soundtrack is deep and well-documented at this point, but I spend significantly less time singing the praises of singer Justin Courtney Pierre’s short-lived second band, Farewell Continental.

JCP put together ¡Hey, Hey Pioneers! in between the release of Motion City Soundtrack’s fourth and fifth albums, and his desire to create something different really shines across this oddball one-off. Back-to-back tracks “The Greatest of All Time (How You Feelin’ Now?)” and “Dagger, Dagger: Terror, Terror” are my go-to pulls from this album and succinctly showcase everything I love about the unfortunately standalone LP. You still get JCP’s unmistakable vocals and inherent knack for pop rock, but the addition of Kari Gray’s vocals, grittier textures, and experimental melodies creates this seductively unique quality that I love to revisit every now and again, particularly as we shift into the “-ber months.”

– Ciara Rhiannon

Jackson Browne – For Everyman

Taking this one literally and writing about a Brown(e) album. Widely speaking, Jackson Browne is an underrated figure in the 70s music lexicon, and one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time. Though he started by writing hit songs for others, he quickly carved himself a niche in the Laurel Canyon folk rock scene. Browne wrote the Eagles’ “Take It Easy” and Nico’s “These Days,” among others, both of which appear on his second album For Everyman.

Browne had barely graduated high school in the late 1960s when he joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, left to live and make music in Greenwich Village, and then returned to Laurel Canyon, all in the span of a few years. His youth never impeded his acumen as a songwriter, and For Everyman is perhaps his songwriter-iest. His self-titled debut album contains one of his biggest hits, and his fifth album, Running On Empty, is his most famous, but For Everyman contains his most breathtaking lyrics.

Many successful musicians get to write their own lore—to the victor go the spoils, etc. Some of it may be true, some of it may be artificially enhanced. The way Jackson Browne always tells it, he wrote “These Days” when he was 15 years old. I refuse to be skeptical of that, because it actually greatly enhances my appreciation of the song to think a 15-year-old boy wrote the lyrics “don’t confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them.”

He may not have had the flash of Don Henley, or the mystique of Nico, but Jackson Browne’s For Everyman proves he could always write any of them under the table.

– Caleb Doyle

Ms. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Brown is the worn surface of a classroom desk; brown is back-to-school autumn; brown is the backdrop for a student who sits down and realizes how much they still have yet to learn. Thematically, it’s where The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill begins: the iconic album art shows Ms. Lauryn Hill’s face etched into a wooden desk, and the first track is a teacher’s roll call. What follows is a generational run of songs making melodic and emotional sense of life’s headiest lessons.

Miseducation weaves a cohesive, but far from tidy, narrative about a young woman baring her soul to lovers, navigating fame, choosing motherhood, and reconciling her roots. If any of the above sounds trite, it’s only because of the countless imitators Hill herself spawned with the release of this fundamental work. Set to timeless grooves, inimitable rap/vocal interchanges, and impossibly catchy choruses, Ms. Lauryn Hill’s songs remain the blueprint for the everywoman-philosopher journey.

Hit play on this revered record and school is in session.

– Katie Hayes

R.A.P Ferreira – bob's son: R.A.P. Ferreira in the garden level cafe of the scallops hotel

It’s impossible to talk about Bob’s Son without specifying who the whole album was written about in the first place. The “Bob” in question is Bob Kaufman, a significant Black poet commonly associated with the Beat Generation (and, depending on who you ask, the person who came up with the name) as well as a style of art known as Afro-Surrealism. His poetry, like a lot of his Beat peers, was heavily informed by the jazz that coated the streets of the United States in the 20th century- so much so that he practiced the jazz concept of spontaneous composition for his own work, often scribbling poems on napkins and the margins of the day’s paper and leaving them there for others to discover.

R.A.P Ferreira, formerly known as Milo and occasionally as scallops hotel, continues the tradition of Afro-Surrealism in his own music. Although he started in the nerdcore subgenre early on, Ferreira has reinvented himself artistically. Long gone are the references to niche internet communities, video games, and the feeling of being an outsider in hobbies that are predominantly white. Bob’s Son, like the man who inspired it, is instead full of knotted flows and rhymes packed with references to jazz, poetry, and the Black experience. The last song is the most direct nod to Bob one could do– it’s not a song at all, but rather a reading of one of Kaufman’s most famous poems of all time, the “Abomunist Manifesto,” a surreal, tongue-in-cheek series of declarations of a fictional belief system that mocks both capitalist and communist philosophy.

If the admiration for Bob Kaufman doesn’t come through enough on the album, perhaps the whole reveal of the album back in 2021 will. To roll out the release, Ferreira created a virtual reality cafe (which, unfortunately, the web link has died) that is not far off from the old-school spots that Kaufman frequented in his day, shouting poetry from atop tables and scribbling spontaneous poems on whatever he had at hand. Bob’s Son plays softly in its entirety from the speakers of a boombox in the cafe. It’s a wonderful love letter not only to the man himself, but also to the affirmation in his poem “Dolorous Echo” that was true all along:

“When I die / I won’t stay / Dead.”

– Nick Sackett

Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow

Sequels are difficult to pull off, regardless of what medium you’re talking about, but landing a great follow-up to a perfect album is absolutely a rarity in the music industry. Sequels always seem to be plagued by personnel shake-ups, unsuccessful risks, and downright bad luck, but fortunately Coheed and Cambria were still able to make something special with the sequel to their third album, No World For Tomorrow. “Sequel to the third album” sounds like a weird way to say their fourth album, but in the sci-fi opera world of Coheed, believe me, it makes sense. Despite the name consistently being shortened, No World For Tomorrow thematically and musically serves as the second volume of the band’s Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV series, making for a connected pair of records.

No World For Tomorrow follows much of Coheed’s typical formula – the foreboding and melancholic intro track, the genre-hopping singles, the epic ending suite – yet feels like such a special beast even amongst their first four iconic albums. Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters filled in on drums after the original (and now current) Coheed drummer, Josh Eppard, was booted from the band, making for a unique lineup. The band really leaned into their 80s rock influences in tracks like “The Hound (of Blood and Rank)” and “The End Complete V: On The Brink” as well. Conceptually, No World For Tomorrow depicts the literal end of the world and, given the personnel changes and the band’s overall approach to the songs, that ethereal, foreign atmosphere continues to earn its place in Coheed’s discography.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Linkin Park – Meteora

Linkin Park’s Meteora is the most #BionicleCore album ever. What is #BionicleCore? It’s anything I was listening to during my peak “playing with Bionicles years,” duh. This also includes bands like P.O.D., Hoobastank, and Incubus. Now that I've given you a frame of reference for what ten-year-old me was up to when Meteora came out, let’s dig in. This was a big album for me. I’m pretty sure this is the first time in my life I was ever waiting on bated breath for a new band’s second album. I had no idea what a “sophomore slump” was, and evidently neither did Linkin Park, because Meteora fucking whips. I mean, c’mon, “Faint,” “Somewhere I Belong,” “Breaking The Habit,” and “Numb” are on this thing. Most bands would kill to have four songs like that in their entire career, let alone a single record. I don’t play with Bionicles anymore, which admittedly sucks, and I still love this album, but I’ll never be able to love it the way that little boy did.

RIP Chester

– Connor Fitzpatrick

Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

Look, I’m gonna have to level with ya: I’ve written about It Did Bring Me Down before. The first (and so far only) solo album from Pat Graham was my favorite record of 2023, but I’ll take any excuse to extol its virtues, even if just for its brownish-yellow truck-adorned album cover. This LP came out at an absolutely pivotal time in my life, and my love affair with it started simply enough. One listen through, and a song like “Damn Shame” immediately leaps out with a melody so timeless that I often find myself humming it absentmindedly. There are fast, fun tracks like “Brand New Face” and the goofy automotive love song “My Truck,” which butt up against absolute gut-wrenchers like “Trader” and “Small.” Just masterful sequencing, incredibly funny and earnest songwriting, and the whole thing ends with a song-length ode to folk musician Greg Mendez.

I still listen to this album a few times a month; it’s guaranteed to put me in a good mood and take me back to that important point in my life when I made a massive leap for someone I love. To have that bottled up in 27 minutes of music is nothing short of a miracle, and if you give this album a chance, I hope you find even a fraction of the spark that it's given me.

– Taylor Grimes

Honorable Mentions

Hey, we can’t write about every album with this color, so here’s a list of some more that we feel like we should mention.

Autopsy - Shitfun
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You
Primus - Brown Album
Shift - Spacesuit
Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On the Edge Of Town
Weedeater - God Luck And Good Speed
Downhaul - How to Begin
Pedro The Lion - Control
Soccer Mommy - Clean
Remember Sports - The Refrigerator
Joyce Manor - I Used To Go To This Bar
Wilco - Being There
Alex G - Trick
Sluice - Companion
Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats
Ethel Cain - Peacher’s Daughter
Van Morrison - Moondance
Oso Oso - The Yunahon Mixtape
Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
Led Zeppelin - Zeppelin III
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young - Deja Vu

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July 31, 2026

Cover Collector – July Rainbows

July 31, 2026/ The Swim Team

At some point near the tail end of last year, I conceived of a more communal way to bring this love of album collage to life. Because, sure, getting a live readout of your listening history is cool, but this is also about album art, an essential part of the experience and something us music nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to welcome you to the sixth edition of Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team discusses some of our favorite albums based on album color. For July, we’re writing about ravishing rainbows.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

I’ve had the greatness of Radiohead explained to me by several dozen white dudes in my 32 years. And I, too, am a white dude, so I know many others have gotten it worse. On first dates and in comment sections, Radiohead has become perhaps the foremost band whose legacy requires defending and proselytizing.

I’m not going to do that to you. Mostly because I don’t believe in it. I completely missed Radiohead until I was like 30. At first because I was a tweenager more heavily invested in what Taio Cruz and The Beatles were doing, but then I avoided them precisely because of the “Front Row of Every Anthropology 201 Class” guy who feels the need to preach about OK Computer’s influence.

Earlier this year, Pitchfork made a completely unforced error in creating a March Madness-style bracket of every album they’ve granted Album of the Year to since 1996. The Pitchfork of 2026 is written by people who are relatively more diverse than 30 years ago, and they cover a much wider array of music more forgivingly than ever. But the reader base and the nature of online commenters have not evolved quite as much. Hilariously, the final 2 albums in the bracket—one that featured Outkast’s Aquemini, Beyoncé’s Renaissance, and Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters—were Radiohead’s Kid A and Radiohead’s OK Computer. It wasn’t Pitchfork’s fault. The RadioBros move like amoebas.

Anyway, whoa, okay…I’m supposed to be writing about In Rainbows. When I get the urge to listen to Radiohead, when I want something spacey and atmospheric and maybe groovy, I will put on In Rainbows. My second choice is The Bends. If those two are not available (why would they not be available?), I simply do not listen to Radiohead. Y’all ruined any chance of me enjoying Kid A and OK Computer. I think In Rainbows is an example of what I like most about Radiohead: big, layered compositions, every type of guitar sound imaginable, and Thom Yorke caterwauling over it all, singing about god-knows-what. (“Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” is the best Radiohead song, let’s fight).

The first time I heard about In Rainbows was in 2007 when it came out. My mom got me a subscription to Entertainment Weekly (not one of the cooler magazines), and they were talking about Radiohead choosing to self-release this on their website with a pay-what-you-want model. I thought it was cool then, and it’s still cool now. This model, along with their music, has served as a real eye-opener to modern musicians about what is possible.

Much like every conversation about Radiohead, this piece wasn’t really about the music, now was it?

– Caleb Doyle

Circa Survive – Blue Sky Noise

I am a devotee of the surreal, and few bands capture that quality as well as Circa Survive do. Their distinct brand of indie prog and Anthony’s siren-like vocals create a lush, strange atmosphere, and the art gracing their album covers is equally captivating. There aren’t many better pairings than the work of celebrated painter Esao Andrews and the music of Circa Survive. Esao’s work is instantly recognizable - elegant figures, vivid colors, and otherworldly beings adorn bizarre landscapes. While he is probably most famous for his work on the covers of Juturna and On Letting Go, the cover of Blue Sky Noise is my favorite of Esao’s. It shows a young boy making direct eye contact with the viewer, hand moving to cover a wounded arm. His head is haloed by the gaping maw of a winged eldritch creature – not deer, not angel, but something in between. The sacred meets the profane here, surrounded by hills that encroach at impossible angles. It is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and most chilling paintings I’ve ever seen, and I love it with my entire being.

Every song on Blue Sky Noise captures that same paradox of allure and terror. “Get Out,” one of the album’s best-known tracks, parallels striking melodic passages against urgent vocals that rise to a shriek. “Imaginary Enemy” is a feverish and frantic defense of self, with textures that ebb from thin to dense in a matter of seconds. The band is impeccably in the pocket, wound almost too tight, and Anthony is at his vocal ultimate. The palpable tension throughout Blue Sky Noise rages and mellows with desperate intensity - causing me to feel as though I, the listener, am the wounded child saint, pursued by a creature that already has its claws in my back.

– Britta Joseph

Torche – Harmonicraft

Remember Volcom hardcore? Perhaps Scion metal? No, you’re only familiar with Google AI Olympics ad corporate shill punk? Okay, look, I understand the anarchist argument that any sponsorship for your music is “selling out” or somehow compromising the “punk” ethos. But just picture the late 2000s and early 2010s when companies who, in some cases, had no business getting involved with bands like High On Fire or the Melvins, were actually doing cool and creative things for them.

Volcom was at least a skateboarding company and already rooted in underground culture, so when Florida sludge-pop pioneers Torche released their third full-length Harmonicraft through Volcom Entertainment in 2012, that didn’t seem like a mismatched partnership. There was even a limited-edition skate deck bundle for the hardcore fans. I was only hardcore enough at the time to get the vinyl version that came with a rainbow lollipop slipmat, but that did me just fine for a number of years. Harmonicraft is an excellent starting point if you’ve missed out on Torche all these years, featuring their catchiest songs yet but not turning down the heaviness whatsoever. Much like its rainbow-detailed album art, the band seamlessly melds headbanging and harmonies better than almost anyone.

– Logan Archer Mounts

mauve – About the Weather

Pine trees, a raincloud, an orange, a purple crab. It’s always nice when an album legitimately sounds like its cover, and I have always loved how much mauve’s one and only release, About the Weather, sounds like the bright, trinket-y illustrations that adorn their cover.

mauve was a late addition to the 5th wave sound. They popped up on Twitter radars in 2022 with their barnstormer, “20,000 Degrees,” and released their debut in the summer of 2023, a spectacular high for the crashing wave of the emo era. I think about the switch-up on “Drive/Threw” all the time still, a deceptive, jangly track that blows the album open for “Oh My God!” and the gloomier “Two.” Their Origami Angel influence (another band I almost picked for the rainbow cover – shout out The Brightest Days mixtape) comes through the clearest on the final song, “Sun,” but is honestly closest to the older emo waves of yore (like late second wave). mauve was a cool little blip on the emo radar that I still miss, but at least I have this cover. My favorite illustration is the pink lobster.

– Caro Alt

Cheem – Power Move: Victory Lap

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Connecticut nu-pop quintet, Cheem. Their undeniable sense of self, their approach to genre blending, and their impressive instrumentation all make them a standout act in the big ‘26, and their latest release, Victory Lap, is no exception. Typically, I can take or leave deluxe albums. Too often, the extra tracks feel tacked on for a separate release and probably should’ve stayed on the cutting room floor. However, when lead singer Sam Nazaretian sent me the original Power Move ahead of its release in November, something felt missing. I only realized this once I received the deluxe version, and those bonus tracks helped round the whole thing out and make it feel like a complete album.

Cheem continues to improve and excel with each release, and Power Move: Victory Lap adds that extra oomph to send the original album into the stratosphere. “Future Tense” opens the album perfectly with commanding instrumentation and slow, steady rhythms that pull the listener straight in. “Rhyme/Reason” is yet another classic hip-hop-inspired Cheem hit to really show you what the band is about, while my personal favorite on the album, “Mistake,” feels like it was pulled straight out of the Persona 3 soundtrack and encapsulates so much of what I love about Cheem. Power Move: Victory Lap has quickly joined its predecessor, Guilty Pleasure, as one of my favorite albums of all time, and I don’t see a world where the next Cheem release doesn’t achieve the same status.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Jamie xx – In Colour

Back in the early 2010s, I was obsessed with The xx. We all were. The group’s self-titled debut dropped when I was halfway through high school, and songs like “Infinity” and “Stars” captured a steamy moodiness I’d never heard in music before. Coexist was a more mellowed-out follow-up that I utilized as “study music” on a regular basis – a little less exciting, but reliable and still recognizable as that thing I was first drawn to. When Jamie xx released In Colour in 2015, I wasn’t sure how I felt at first. Sure, there were a couple of features from Romy and Oliver Sim that gave off whiffs of The xx, but it felt like a much more instrumental and electronic project than the bedroom-whisper indie I was used to. Fortunately, 2015 also marked the beginning of my obsession with Young Thug, and his feature here, where he passionately delivers the line “Imma ride in that pussy like a stroller,” was emphatic enough to keep me coming back. These days, I view In Colour as a very good electronic album. The opener, “Gosh,” does a great job pulling you into this kaleidoscopic world, and after a handful of listens, it quickly becomes clear that each track takes its own hyper-distinct approach, whether that’s due to the handful of features or a choice in the instrumental like the killer steel drum in “Obvs.” It’s a fun record to throw on in a group setting with its own distinct little pockets of vibes and, when it comes to rainbow album covers, it simply doesn’t get better, or more satisfying, than this.

– Taylor Grimes

Pet Shop Boys – Introspective

Pet Shop Boys remain very high on my concert bucket list, especially after the sting of their New Order co-headline tour being rescheduled twice over due to the pandemic. Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant crafted some of the greatest keyboard music of the 1980s, starting with their breakout single “West End Girls,” and are still steadily releasing music today. 1988’s Introspective feels like the full-circle evolution of the group’s sound: theatrical and grandiose dance anthems that would get even more blown out on later records like 1993’s Very.

This six-track LP wastes not a moment of synthpop bliss, each number carefully crafted from beginning to end like the opener “Left To My Own Devices” or the moody “Domino Dancing.” Pet Shop Boys’ unbeatable streak of cover tunes begins on this album with their surprising but successful take on the country classic “Always On My Mind,” and in 2009 they used “Domino Dancing” as the dancefloor plan for a version of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” which to me remains the best version of the millennial pop opus. Introspective brings its title theme to full-body movement music, cementing Pet Shop Boys as undisputed progenitors of their genre.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Coheed and Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow

If we’re all honest with ourselves, I think there’s always at least one album in our favorite band’s discography that sticks out like a sore thumb. Sure, we like to think we love all of our children equally, but when pressed, we have to hit ‘em with the “I don’t care for [X album].” I’m as die-hard a Coheed fan as they come, but have always had a complicated relationship with their fifth studio album, Year of the Black Rainbow. It’s not just that the release had notable shake-ups surrounding it – the booting of their original drummer, Josh Eppard, and subsequent replacement with Chris Pennie of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails’ eccentric producing influence, and lead singer Claudio Sanchez’s ongoing desire to evolve the band’s sound and musical approach – and the final product was heavily affected.

The resulting album is, to this day, the most oddball release the band has ever done. While I have never completely gelled with the album as a whole, it does contain a couple of my favorite tracks of theirs, and songs like “Guns of Summer” really swing for the fences and show off Pennie’s truly staggering drumming chops. When it comes to Coheed’s discography, there are no releases that I dislike; it always comes down to which albums I love the least, and the reality is that I think Year of the Black Rainbow will always sit toward the bottom of the pack for me. Either way, I think it’s always good practice to revisit those black sheep albums in your favorite band’s discography every once in a while to remind yourself why you love them, not in spite of those albums, but to appreciate how they deepen and expand the band’s catalog.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Forests – That’s Not Very Mid-Century Modern of You

Forests is an emo band. That’s what their Bandcamp description was in 2016 when they released their debut album, Sun Eat Moon Grave Party. Despite being based in Singapore, they’ve cultivated a strong fanbase in the US with the perfect blend of melodic/abrasive vocals, mathy riffs, and all-too-relatable lyrics about memories that would be better off forgotten. Something Forests does particularly well is blending in references and influences, most obviously on “Trauma Dumpling,” uniting both Title Fight’s “Numb, But I Still Feel It” and Linkin Park’s “Numb.” This half-joking, self-referential humor isn’t anything new, but Forests pulls it off more effectively than any other group I know.

The album art for That’s Not Very Mid-Century Modern of You is a good metaphor for the ground the band has covered in ten years. Much like the cover of their debut, there are still mountains, stars, and a UFO, but now with much more detail. Their name on the album isn’t just one color, but a rainbow of creatures. They’re like they were ten years ago, but with more experience, more influences, and more control. I usually say that the best emo bands break up, but I hope Forests is making music like this for decades to come.

– Braden Allmond

Adrianne Lenker – songs/instrumentals

The two most common questions I get when people find out I play guitar are either “Can you play Wonderwall?“ or “Do you have a favorite guitar player?” My answer to both hasn’t changed in the last few years: No, I do not know how to play Wonderwall, and I am not interested in learning how, and Adrianne Lenker is my favorite guitarist living today. Generally speaking, I tend to drift toward her solo output more than her work with Big Thief, not only to take in the wonderful ways she navigates across the fretboard, but to hear the often devastating stories she blends with her beautiful playing. songs/instrumentals, like much of the art that was created during the 2020 COVID lockdowns, evokes a very lonely time and place that most of us have probably subconsciously put away to find some sort of reason to keep going. But Adrianne, with a resilience I could only hope to achieve at some point in my life, carved out a remote space in the mountains for herself and her regular collaborator Philip Weinrobe to process the crushing feeling of what she dubbed “heartsickness” from not only the despair the pandemic had wrought, but also the dissolution of a romantic relationship and the death of a grandparent.

Both songs and sister album instrumentals are the result of a month of processing that heartsickness in the woods of Massachusetts. Lenker decided to take a more personal approach to this group of songs, making them feel strikingly intimate (especially so during a time when we were all communicating through screens and webcams). The detail in the tracks across the album is painterly in just how visual they are. “Circle of pine and red oak / Circle of moss and fire smoke / Fan on the ceiling like a wheel spoke / Push the clutch and I pull the choke,” she sings in one of my favorite sequences during “anything.” I’m there with her and her lover, passing the time in the woods, simmering slightly in the summer heat of a hot bedroom, driving down an empty street trying to time the mechanism of a manual vehicle with another. Floating in time, in memory, in whatever the day brings when you’re so deeply in love with someone.

Instrumentals, as you may have guessed, consist solely of Lenker’s guitar playing and the ambient sounds surrounding the cabin where the album was recorded. It’s two pieces, “music for indigo” and “mostly chimes,” clock in at just about 37 minutes. “mostly chimes” starts with some quiet guitar improvisation and ends with about 11 minutes of nothing but wind, chimes, and birdsong. The intimacy of Lenker’s songs is beautifully reflected through the intimacy of just being- a reminder that despite it all, the simple fact of existence is an act of love itself.

– Nickolas Sackett

Honorable Mentions

Hey, we can’t write about every album with this color, so here’s a list of some more that we feel like we should mention.

Anthony Green - So Long, Avalon
Discus - To Relate To
Karmanjakah - Diamond morning
Pool Kids - Pool Kids
Pretty Bitter - Pleaser
Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Hey, Ily! - Hey, I Loathe You!
Longfriend Timefriend - Here’s to Not Feeling Worse
Microwave - Stovall
Cotton Jones - Paranoid Cocoon
Every Time I Die - From Parts Unknown

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June 24, 2026

Swim Team Summer Bev Check 2026

June 24, 2026/ The Swim Team

Beverages are one of life’s simple pleasures. No matter how down bad you are, you can always get a 99¢ Arizona from the store around the corner. No matter how much you wanna bail on the gig tonight, there’s always a sugar-free Red Bull to pick you up and help you power through. There’s champagne to celebrate, whisky to make you woozy, and Gatorade to help you recover from it all. The right drink can make a long shift at work a little less shitty or be the cherry on top of an already perfect day.

We here at Swim are big fans of hydration in all its forms. I personally keep my 32-oz Nalgene filled and within arm’s reach, basically 80–90% of the time. I keep multiple flavors of seltzer on-deck and in my fridge at all times, and I have needlessly strong opinions on the best flavors of Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar. I’m lucky that most of The Swim Team share similarly strong beliefs and passions about the world of snack and bev, because we gotta talk about something in between complaining about Spotify and trading indie music recommendations back and forth.

To that end, the illustrious Swim Team has come together to whip up a summer bev check, aka a list of a dozen or so different drink recipes for you to try this season. We’ve paired each drink with a song that you can listen to as you sip for the optimal summer experience. You can find all the songs in this playlist right here. Happy listening and happy sipping, I hope you have a beautiful summer.

Cigarillo

I have to shout out my buddy Tim from Pop Music Fever Dream for coming up with the name of this delicious bev. The humble Diet Coke is one of our most versatile beverages, to the point of transcending its status as a beverage—I believe this is why it’s been nicknamed the “fridge cigarette.” Add a bit of grenadine for some sweetness, dirty it up with the tequila of your choice, and you’ve got yourself a cigarillo, my friend.

Ingredients

Ice
1 oz tequilla
Diet Coke (approximately 1 mini-can’s worth)
A splash of grenadine
A maraschino cherry, if ya nasty

For best results, pair with “Bartender” by Lana Del Rey (or more likely, the entirety of Norman Fucking Rockwell!)

– Grace Robins-Somerville

In Shirley’s Eyes

I stopped drinking a couple of years ago, and a Shirley Temple has become my drink I look forward to after a hot day in the sun. There is nothing better to sip while enjoying a hazy sunset with friends than this delightful syrupy concoction.

Ingredients

Ice
Ginger ale
Grenadine
As many cherries as you damn well please

For best results, pair with “Out of Step” by Minor Threat.

– Lillian Weber

The Uncle Tupelo

I’ve never been a smoker, but cigarettes legally do not count after four beers… Three if you’re petite. There’s something about bar-hopping in the summertime–feeling the stick of the air as you wade through a cloud of someone’s cigarette smoke on your way into your favorite dive. In four short beers, you’ll have a cloud of your own. A moment best shared with no more than two loved ones.

Ingredients

1 whiff of someone smoking a cigarette on the patio as you enter the bar
3–4 “Uncle” beers (Beers you see your uncle drink in the garage on Thanksgiving. Depending on your region, this could be Stag, Hamm’s, Old Style, or Lone Star. If necessary, PBR will do)
1 Camel Blue (it has to be Camel Blue)

For best results, pair with “Chickamauga” by Uncle Tupelo.

– Caleb Doyle

Aunt Caroline’s Famous Down Home Old Fashioned Style Switchel

Well, gather ‘round y'all, and let Aunt Caroline pour you a nice tall glass of my world-famous switchel. Now, back before all you youngins drank lemonade, this is how us old timers would quench our thirst after bringing in the harvest on a sweltering summer day. I know I’m telling you to drink a beverage that contains a not-insignificant amount of vinegar and molasses, but I swear to god, it's delicious. Your great-aunt Caroline even made this for General Sherman and his men on their way down to Atlanta.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
4 teaspoons sweetener (Aunt Caroline only uses genuine black strap molasses, but you city folk can use honey, maple syrup, or sugar)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger or 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a jar or glass and refrigerate for at least two hours, or overnight if possible. Strain if using fresh ginger. Serve over ice.

For best results, pair with “John Brown’s Body” by Pete Seeger.

– Caroline Liaupsin

The Dirty Palmer

I’ve been known to fuck up some mini golf, but I’m not a golfer. If anything, I’m anti-golf; it’s a rich guy sport that monopolizes land, hoards water, and acts as a conduit for the worst people in the world to conduct shady backdoor business deals. All that said, I still have mad respect for Arnold Palmer. He has an impressive list of career accolades, but perhaps his greatest achievement is his signature beverage, a blend of lemonade and iced tea. You can buy it at any convenience store in this great country for 99¢, and that’s beautiful. If you throw a little booze in there, you have a beautiful concoction that pairs with any sunny summer activity, whether you’re day drinking by the pool, lazing in a hammock, or heading out for a night out on the town.

Ingredients

Ice
1–2 shots of Tito’s Vodka
Half a bottle of JOE TEA Half Lemonade Half Lemon Tea
A splash of plain seltzer (preferably Polar Original)
A slice of lime
A sativa joint (optional)

For best results, pair with “Dozen Roses” by Thomas Dollbaum.

– Taylor Grimes

2009 Four Loko

This summer, if you want to know the feeling of high-voltage electricity pulsating through your entire body, there’s only one solution… the FDA-banned version of Four Loko from 2009. It’s a drink so powerful that in just one night of consuming this toxic beverage, you could experience the highest of highs, like levitating in the middle of a crowded street, but it could also lead to you being helped on a gurney headed to your nearest CPR machine. The only hindrance you might incur is the time travel part, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m sure with the correct equipment, that won’t be a problem for you.

Ingredients

1981 DeLorean DMC
Flux Capacitor
Liquid Nitrate
CPR Machine

For best results, pair with “Sikamikanico” by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

– David Williams

The Nancy

The Little Apple – Manhattan, Kansas – is situated at the edge of the Flint Hills, has one of the top agricultural universities in the country, and provides (almost) all of the fixin’s of the big city with all of the charm of a small town. The best part of this little city is easily Aggieville, a short drag of college bars, where you can find the “Nancy” offered year-round at Rock-A Belly Deli, Taco Lucha, and So Long Saloon. Always available, always refreshing, and—most importantly—always cheap.

Ingredients

20 oz plastic diner cup
50% cheap light beer (Old Milwaukee is traditional)
50% canned pineapple juice

Variations include: Pirate Nancy (add 1 oz rum), Dirty Nancy (1 oz vodka), Whiskey Tango Nancy (1 oz whiskey), Fancy Nancy (1 oz Crown), or, if you dare, a Long Island Nancy.

For best results, pair with “Hey Jealousy” by The Gin Blossoms or this cover by The Ergs.

– Braden Allmond

The (Extra) Dirty Beertini

Much like the average yacht rock tune, a Beertini can be appropriately enjoyed at both your local dive bar or any country club wedding reception. This Midwestern concoction is what it feels like to indulge in simplicity. You can adjust the brine to your liking, but I prefer mine extra dirty. The adventurous yacht-rocker might even try subbing olive juice out for pickle juice. No matter your preference, there’s a beer-brine combination out there for everyone, so go experiment and then kick back this summer with your very own Beertini.

Ingredients

Your favorite light beer
A splash of olive brine
Garnish with olives or a pickle spear

For best results, pair with “What a Fool Believes” by The Doobie Brothers, or your yacht rock artist of choice.

– Annie Watson

Change of Address

I am the lightest of lightweights and therefore appreciate a satisfying mocktail. The unusual and intriguingly delicious Change of Address is my favorite mocktail of all time; both simple and impressive. It’s a great twist on plain cola with a solid balance of sweet, spice, and umami. This specific recipe is by Eric Nelson, sourced from the wonderful cookbook Good Drinks by Julia Bainbridge.

Ingredients

0.75 oz fresh lemon juice
0.75 oz maple syrup
1 tsp soy sauce
3 oz Coca-Cola (or any cola really – I like the Vintage Cola Olipop)
Freshly grated cinnamon, for garnish

Combine the lemon juice, maple syrup, and soy sauce in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice, seal the shaker, and shake for about 3 seconds to combine. Add the Coca-Cola, then double-strain into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice. To serve, grate cinnamon over the top.

For best results, pair with “What Is Left To Say (ft. The Lemon Twigs)” by Thundercat and a really good cheeseburger.

– Britta Joseph

Sun Tea

The one constant in my childhood was a huge glass jar on the porch, filled with Lipton tea bags and tap water, brewing in the afternoon sun. Sun tea (or porch tea, as my mom called it) is a Southern staple– easy to make and hits harder than a freight train on a hot summer day.

Ingredients

1–2 quart glass container with a tight lid (no plastic, I’ve seen it melt, I swear)
4–6 Lipton tea bags (you could probably use better tea here, but it’s rough out here)
Water
Ice
Sugar, honey, or a simple syrup, if you need a lil sweetness in your life

For best results, let it steep for 3–5 hours, but no longer to avoid any bacteria growth. And refrigerate immediately!

Pair it with some John Fahey, Bill Callahan, or whatever artist makes you feel like you and the sun are taking a well-deserved break together after a long, sunny day.

– Nickolas Sackett

Emerald Effervescence

Despite my affinity for the alcoholic libation, I’m tapping in to help round out the n/a squad for my summer refresher. I recently started working at a coffee shop again, and nothing is keeping me functional during my humid industry shifts like the matcha tonic. Matcha has had quite the uptick in popularity in recent years and, while mainly accompanying one’s milk of choice or dusting whatever the hot confectionery craze currently is, there’s something about the light, bubbly, sharp combination of matcha and tonic that I cannot get enough of whenever I’m looking to cool down while I caffeinate.

Ingredients:

3g matcha + 2 oz boiling water
20–30 g syrup of your choice
Lemonade (optional)
Tonic of choice (Fever-Tree or craft preferred)
Crushed or nugget ice

Add your syrup to your vessel of choice – I’ve been using the homemade grenadine we have at my coffee shop, and it’s next level. Fill your chosen vessel with ice and tonic (maybe a little lemonade if you’re looking to add even more depth), while making sure to give enough room for your matcha on top. Whisk your matcha and water together until light and frothy with the traditional bamboo whisk, automatic frother, or whatever gets the job done, then top off the concoction. Appreciate the layers you’ve created, take a couple pictures for posterity, and give the beverage a gentle, purposeful stir to incorporate the layers.

Best enjoyed with “Quench (ft. pulses.)” by Cheem or any unapologetically fun and snappy song that makes you feel like a kid on a hot summer day again.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Mai Tai

Here is the grand imposter of the cocktail world. A drink so simple, so perfect, that the trash tiki forces that be can’t help but add a whole host of fuck-it-up ingredients. If it’s blue, it ain’t a Mai Tai. If there’s pineapple juice, it ain’t a Mai Tai. If there’s grenadine, then pack it up and go home. Basically, it’s a rum margarita with orgeat, an almondish syrup that elevates this drink to the sublime. The initial concept behind tiki was to create a vacation experience for the post-war patrons of the 50s who couldn’t afford to fly to Fiji. For your purposes, ditch the queasy Polynesian exoticism and make this drink when you need a little escape.

Ingredients

2 oz rum (I prefer a funky & strong Jamaican rum like Smith & Cross)
½ oz orange curacao
¾ oz freshly-squeezed lime juice
¼ oz orgeat (I will allow you to sub amaretto if you can’t find it)
½ oz simple syrup

Shake with cubed ice, strain, and pour over crushed ice; garnish with mint.

For best results, pair with “Miami - Live at Café Carlyle” by Hamilton Leithauser (covering Randy Newman)

– Joshua Sullivan

Something Similar

A cocktail as prickly as the song it’s based on, Something Similar seeks to take the familiar tastes of the New York Sour and distort them until there’s something both unexpected and surprisingly familiar, much like the music of The Mercury Tree, who take the trappings of math rock, post-metal and progressive metal, mix them with microtonality, and spit them out as something a little weird, but undeniably delightful. The color of the Empress gin and red wine float reflect the colors of the album art for Self Similar, the record “Dreamwalking” is taken from.

Ingredients

2 oz Empress gin
1 oz lemon juice
½ oz prickly pear syrup
½ oz tamarind syrup
Shake with ice
Pour over a rock
Float dry red wine

For best results, pair with “Dreamwalking” by The Mercury Tree.

– Noëlle and Yael Midnight

The Breakfast Red Bull

Have a Red Bull for breakfast. Certainly you won’t regret drinking an entire Red Bull for breakfast.

Ingredients

1 can of Red Bull (any size, any flavor)
Crippling debt
Planet Fitness Guest Pass

For best results, pair with “Fucking Hostile” by Pantera.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Aperol Spritz

Hey guys, I am pretty drunk in London right now and forgot about the deadline for this. Typing on my phone. So my drink is an Aperol Spritz. Ever heard of it? I have had three today, and they rock.

Ingredients

ONE BIG GLASS
Ice
Fill half of that ice glass with Aperol. On the back of the Aperol bottle it tells you the recipe. That’s wrong, and I am right.
Bad prosecco. It has to be bad. Fill like ¼ of the rest of the glass.
Club soda. Fill the rest of the glass. I actually like Topo Chico the most here #hack.

Listen to “Rock Music” by Charli xcx, the Queen of Aperol. Also, while I am on my soapbox, the drink of 2028 will be the Sarti Spritz. It’s coming to America, I promise. It’s hot pink. Okay, love you, bye.

– Caro Alt

May 28, 2026

Cover Collector – May Purples

May 28, 2026/ The Swim Team

At some point near the tail end of last year, I conceived of a more communal way to bring this love of album collage to life. Because, sure, getting a live readout of your listening history is cool, but this is also about album art, an essential part of the experience and something us music nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to welcome you to the fifth edition of Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team discusses some of our favorite albums based on album color. For May, we’re writing about posh purples.

Temple of the Dog – Temple of the Dog

If, like me, you are a Second Generation Grunge Fan, an album like Temple of the Dog seems impossible the first time you hear it. All the members of Pearl Jam *before* Pearl Jam had formed? Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell on lead vocals and an Eddie Vedder cameo *before* any of those guys had really worked with Eddie before? It seems insane, and it is. Temple of the Dog existed for about 18 months, recorded one album, played fewer than a dozen live shows, and launched its members into 90’s Music Royalty.

Tragically, the band was formed as a tribute to Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone and roommate of Cornell, who died of a heroin overdose in March of 1990. Grieving and directionless, bassist Jeff Ament described the band as “a really good thing at the time” for him and guitarist Stone Gossard, which put them in a “band situation where we could play and make music.”

Cornell had written the first two tracks, “Say Hello 2 Heaven” and “Reach Down,” before Wood passed, and lyrically those songs became ever more prescient in the aftermath. The music is jammier, heavier, and more melodic than the music the guys of Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden were making at the time, but the darker vibe of the music served as a perfect platform for Cornell’s otherworldly rock vocals.

The centerpiece and most notable track from the album, “Hunger Strike,” features the first lead vocal performance of Eddie Vedder, who had flown in to Seattle to audition for the new iteration of Mother Love Bone. Vedder sang the lead in his now-trademark low register, perfectly fitting the space that Cornell was aiming to fill. In Cornell’s words, “He sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be, and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively.”

Temple of the Dog remains a colossal work of art in the scope of 90’s Grunge music, a testament to the healing power of creating art in times of pain, and a remarkable jumping-off point for the most influential titans of the era.

When my high school/college friend Colby Dorf passed away in 2024, Temple of the Dog was a huge comfort to me. I listened to “Say Hello 2 Heaven” and “Hunger Strike” on repeat for a week, and I played them both as loudly as local statutes would allow. I suggest, even if you aren’t in pain, that you do the same. Your neighbors deserve to hear Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder trading melodies over huge guitars.

– Caleb Doyle

Method of Doubt – Total Soul Ignition

2025 saw a lot of stellar releases in the underground music community, and one EP in particular was a major standout to me: Method of Doubt’s Total Soul Ignition was my favorite hardcore release of the year. The purple-tinted cover, depicting a figure mid-two-step wearing a shirt that has the title emblazoned across it, feels classic and timeless. Even the elongated serif font the band chose to display their name is reminiscent of the font commonly used by hardcore titans Earth Crisis.

This EP spans four furious tracks, featuring guitars with just a hint of grit, snappy drumming, and urgent vocals that pack a punch without losing clarity. In a world that feels saturated with fuzz, excess reverb, and heavy compression, all of this caught my attention immediately. It’s a refreshingly crisp listen. The lyrics are a sharp stand against apathy, stating, “There’s got to be a different way, and I will live it out / Still in search of the quiet life / Still in search of the righteous life.” On the second track, the band follows this declaration with a snarling question directed at those in power: “Have you ever stopped to think, for once in your life, that you might not be right?” Method of Doubt offers up eight minutes of scintillating hardcore and doesn’t waste a single second.

– Britta Joseph

Olivia Rodrigo – SOUR

Summer 2021 felt like it was covered by an ecstatic purple haze. A cloud had descended, and every breath brought pain and exaltation into your lungs in equal measure. Everyone felt it. Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album, SOUR, was just that fucking good. I’m not speaking hyperbolically when I describe Rodrigo’s music as ecstatic. What makes her songs so good is that while, yes, they hurt, each song feels so fucking good. She’s not content for “drivers license” to just wallow in the agony of romantic euphoria being upended that she describes on the verses and choruses; she knows the song needs that chanting bridge declaring how much she still feels love for him during the small moments of sitting at red lights to make it hurt so damn good. Sure, she can be childish, like who doesn’t know Billy Joel? But who hasn’t felt a little childish in a breakup? They broke your heart. Why should you be charitable? That’s the other thing about Rodrigo’s music and why adults respect her songwriting so much: she reminds us we’re all a little childish.

– Lillian Weber

Prince – Purple Rain

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about Purple Rain. Not only is this one of my favorite albums of all time, but it’s also easily the greatest soundtrack ever created. The film of the same title vaulted Prince from household name to international icon, a status he has held ever since. Prince’s star is a celestial one. Take, for instance, the vicious guitar solo on the ending of “Let’s Go Crazy,” or the monumental, career-defining ballad “Purple Rain.” The songs are transcendent, full stop. On Purple Rain, Prince kept climbing sky-high plateaus until he reached the very top of the mountain, something that only a select few artists ever reached.

My personal favorites, “I Would Die 4 U” and “Baby I’m Star,” bleed into one another back-to-back; the songs are jovial, glistening, and sound like a party I would never want to leave. Even the B-sides on the deluxe album that never made it to the official release, in the words of Martin Scorsese, are “pure cinema.” Tracks like “17 Days,” “Velvet Kitty Kat,” and “The Dance Electric” would be most pop artists’ best songs if we were being honest.

Since May is purple month over on Swim Into The Sound, it’s only right to write about “The Purple One.” No one, and I mean no one, has owned a color more than Prince. His Royal Badness has been the “Grand Poobah” growing strong for over forty years, steamrolling every other purple object in his path from lilacs to eggplants to Grimace. So, if the elevator tries to bring you down, put on Purple Rain. Game blouses.

– David Williams

A Day to Remember – Homesick

A Day to Remember’s tenure in the pop-punk and metalcore scene goes largely unappreciated for the run that they’re on. A band, formed in 2003, that’s kept the same lineup (for the most part) while still kicking 23 years later can garner respect from even the snobbiest of scene gatekeepers. While their more recent albums leave little to write home about, the Florida-based group’s early run is one for the history books. When discussing the best pop-punk units of all time, I firmly believe that ADTR remains strongly in contention, particularly with Homesick.

Homesick showcases ADTR’s patented seamless blend of infectious pop-punk choruses with crushing metalcore breakdowns at a time when the two genres were just beginning to converge. The band members find themselves at a thematic crossroads as well, as Homesick details their begrudging commitment to leave Ocala behind for a life on the road. The group’s range is on full display here, and it shines even in the sequencing of tracks where the circle-pit invoking “Mr. Highway's Thinking About The End” sits confidently before the arena-ready anthem “Have Faith In Me.” Ultimately, the record stands not only as an ode to the lives they left behind in Florida, but a vindictive lament to those who said they would never make it.

– Brandon Cortez

The Reptilian – Full Health

In the grand scheme of things, an old adage holds true. I do not remember it word for word, but it’s something to the effect of: Proximity can breed fondness. I think. Either way, because my formative years were in the thick of DIY activity in the 2010s, it is with utter fondness that I remember records that fell out of the general looping zeitgeist. Whether they deserve it or not is to be argued elsewhere; my real point here is one of recollection. Full Health is a record hewn from a time when post-hardcore was about a raised brew in-hand, waved and spilled to mathy, noodley punk packed out in a small room where every word shouted was known, and falling down felt only half as good as getting back up. The Reptilian’s positing of up-and-down thrashy emo felt like it was at the center of all things, and Full Health certainly had its own center of gravity, existing as an eternal marker for the scene at the time, perfectly held and suspended in that indescribable feeling. As the band captures it on the album closer, “Aerosmith Kids,” when they sing:

Now I'm living for myself / Varsity blues can't bring me down and stop me in my tracks / Don't bring me down / My best friends write the best riffs / Don't bring me down. / We'll stay to the end.

– Elias Amini

Cave In – Jupiter

Part space rock, part post-hardcore, part metalcore, and all parts uniquely brilliant, Cave In’s second album, Jupiter, is a shining satellite that kicked off the new millennium in a way no other band could. It was originally released on the legendary heavy label Hydra Head with a number of different colored cover variations, but one of the initial two, and the one used for the 25th anniversary edition via Relapse Records last year, was the purple-tinted crater close-up that allows its entry into this list. Cave In remains a limitless band even through their latest album, 2022’s Heavy Pendulum, with Jupiter being a defining moment of their expansive artistic reach. Coming off the already ambitious Until Your Heart Stops just a couple of years earlier, Cave In dialed back the chaos and focused on more accessible (but just as proficient) metal music, straying from their original hardcore roots but laying the foundation for a new take on the nebulous post-hardcore genre. It’s an essential transmission sequence from top to bottom, but “Big Riff” is a standout moment of the band’s entire catalog, a piece of media more important than the moon landing broadcast. Jupiter widened the lens of what a band in a hardcore space could be capable of, and it still sounds cosmically enchanting today.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Say Anything – In Defense of the Genre

I have a love/hate relationship with the band Say Anything and their vocalist, Max Bemis. I’ve been listening to their music for over two decades, with my fandom reaching its peak during my teen years. The irreverent humor, inflammatory verbiage, and erratic song-writing, while feeling right at home in the ears of my teenage self, have somewhat soured and left me with complicated feelings towards the band and the man behind it in the years since.

All that to say, I feel as though Say Anything’s third studio album, In Defense of the Genre, is the perfect capsule of everything the band has ever had to offer, both the good and the bad. In Defense holds many of my favorite Say Anything songs, from the R&B-inspired bops “Baby Girl, I’m A Blur” and “No Soul” to the musically chaotic “That Is Why” and the album’s grandiose title track. One of the album’s most glaring issues is its length. At a bloated 27 tracks (despite its 23 features from the era’s most iconic emo singers), it doesn’t always stick the landing, and the cringeworthy tracks like “Died A Jew” just leave me feeling puzzled and intensely rolling my eyes twenty years later. I don’t even feel comfortable dropping the title of one of my favorite tracks on the album in this space (yeah, that one).

There’s a part of me that will always love Say Anything, always feel perplexed and challenged by Max Bemis as both a person and a songwriter, and come to the defense of the band’s second, third, and fourth LPs. I ultimately feel as though there's beauty in that kind of relationship. Clinging to the music we used to love and the people we used to be in our adolescence, both to the ends of comfort and of protecting a piece of ourselves we can no longer fully relate to, but identify with all the same. In Defense of the Genre, shortcomings and blemishes and all, will forever be a chapter of my life I will inevitably and intermittently again forever.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Future – DS2

I don’t care if it’s not majority purple, this counts. Come on, that’s literally purple drink. Check out that crisp purple logo in the top right. Did you know that the CD version of this album is made from a reflective, holographic-type material and features a 9-panel foldout? Really adds to the overall effect. There’s also a face hidden in the blue swirl that I didn’t know about until researching this right now, almost eleven years later (squint and you’ll start to see an eye right by the bottom corner of the logo). There was also a rumored textbook cover that bears the same image, but there’s also a 13-minute YouTube video where a guy attempts to track it down and calls it “lost media”, so maybe that was just a meme all along. Cover aside, holy shit does this DS2 still hit hard as fuck over a decade later. “Stick Talk”? Come on. That beat on “I Serve the Base”? Unforgettable. “Blood on the Money”? Cold as ice. “Thought It Was a Drought”? Get the fuck outta here. I had the absolute best summer in 2015 riding around and listening to this record, and it’s genuinely surprising how consistent and fulfilling it remains this many years later. Peak Future.

– Taylor Grimes

Hum – Inlet

It's a great feeling to know that your legends can still dunk. After years of wear and tear on the body, you'd expect a decline in hops because, as we say in the game, “Father Time comes for us all.” So when you see your OGs get up for one final slam that turns out to be an all-time posterization, you're forced to rethink everything you ever thought about life and existence. Well, that's what Hum did with 2020's Inlet. They emerged from a twenty-two-year hiatus with their best album. By the time Inlet was released, Hum-indebted heavy shoegaze and spacerock had really started to pick up steam, and this felt like a direct response as if to say, “I see what you kids are doing, but don't forget why you ever attempted this sound in the first place.” This is Hum and their tightest and most titanic. Their riffs have never been more pummeling, and Bryan St. Pere's drums have never been so thunderous. A perfect exclamation point to a career-long highlight reel.

– Connor Fitzpatrick

My Chemical Romance – I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

In Julio Torres’ new special, Color Theories, he declares that purple is the color of mystery and intrigue. I bring this up because I think this is the only My Chem album that actually embraced that feeling, and it’s the only one with a kinda purple cover. My Chem had to end up in this series for me somewhere, so it’s here. When I think of I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, I think about how it’s kind of bad. It’s an absolutely sloppy album, too wordy, too vampiric (not like their later albums), the fan lore is a bit obnoxious, and it gets a bit into Metallica in a way that sucks. But I love it.

Bullets has a real mythology around it. Gerard Way was in agonizing pain during the recording sessions. Mikey Way begged Geoff Rickly to listen to the songs at a house party, and Rickly essentially rolled his eyes. Ray Toro didn’t know the difference between lead guitar and rhythm guitar, so he rolled all of it into one. They almost poisoned themselves with spray paint fumes for a music video. Frank Iero got hold of a demo and couldn’t stop listening. The band stopped playing “Drowning Lessons” because they thought it was cursed. The CD declares that Gerard will suck your blood if you duplicate it. It’s messy and gross, and they eventually figured out how to do everything better on the next album, but that’s why it’s good. It’s a desperate project by desperate people. It’s their greatest trick. That’s why Houdini is on the cover.

– Caro Alt

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

There are a handful of albums from each decade that now elicit pure, unadulterated nostalgia. For the late 2000s, MGMT’s debut album Oracular Spectacular fits the bill to a T. Work on the album initially began while the duo were still freshmen in college, before they signed to a label. Released in 2007, Oracular Spectacular remains instantly recognizable, with a sound that can immediately flood the listener with memories of a place, a feeling, or a very specific moment from 15-plus years ago.

Standout tracks are, of course, “Kids” and “Electric Feel,” which feel like decade-defining sounds of the late 2000’s, but the album still holds up beyond those nostalgia touchpoints. Some of the less synth-driven songs still sound great. A couple of my favorites are “Pieces of What” and “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters.” Turns out, if you want to encase 2007 in amber, it wouldn’t be yellow, but the purple-blue you see on the cover of Oracular Spectacular.

– Ryan Morrissey

Paw – Death to Traitors

This is grunge with a capital G, from the early ‘90s in Lawrence, Kansas. I’ve written before that this is proto divorced-dad rock, with lyrics like “Everyone is bored and boring / Not me, I am drunk and roaring.”

If the mainstream hadn’t had Nirvana, they would’ve had Paw. A&M picked them up on the strength of a demo recorded at Smart Sounds in 1992. With major label support, Paw released their debut album Dragline in 1993. Their sophomore release, Death to Traitors, came out two years later and treads similar territory, albeit with fewer off-genre intrusions. The record wasn’t significantly promoted due to internal difficulties at the label and never achieved major acclaim. This is surprising because every song in the hour-long album fucking rocks. Case in point, “Built Low” is a 6-minute cruiser, split perfectly into thirds with a 2-minute exposition, a 90-second breakdown, and a riff-filled instrumental outro. On first listen, you’d have no idea how long this song is. Like all really great bands, Paw broke up a few years later, with a smattering of reunion efforts afterward.

This album is just over 30 years old, released when the marketing machine was pre-internet, pre-iTunes, pre-Spotify, and pre-analytics. Compared to now, labels were basically throwing darts at a wall, drunk, with their eyes closed. Albums that sailed under the radar like this also tend to be preserved poorly. For example, the cover on Spotify, YouTube, and Discogs is a purple haze of storm clouds over a stampeding herd of horses. The image on Wikipedia is inexplicably red-hued and is not another version of the album, just a poorly digitized image. It’s hard to say how or why a band this talented falls through the cracks, but it’s a great example of why exploring and developing personal taste matters. It’s the only way to know for yourself what groups are being overlooked.

– Braden Allmond

Free Throw — Those Days Are Gone

If the emo genre were to have its own equivalent to a drinking song, one that nobody in the room could resist singing along to, it would undoubtedly be “Two Beers In.” Whether in a cramped basement or on the stereo between sets at a show, this beloved song instantly brings people together. But it’s far from the only recognizable track off of Free Throw’s debut LP, Those Days Are Gone. The entire record has become something of a modern classic amongst the scene, and it isn’t hard to see why.

Those Days Are Gone dives deep into the anger and grief-stricken reality of a love that didn’t last–a nearly universal pain. The contemplative intro to “Such Luck” quickly gives way to the guttural heart of the record, signaling to the listener that things are about to get uncomfortably honest.

Unlike earlier incarnations of emo that were steeped in figurative prose, Free Throw and their fourth wave counterparts tend to speak quite literally. Stories of heartbreak are sprinkled throughout the yelling and heaviness, and admissions of unhealthy coping mechanisms are sandwiched between twinkly guitar riffs. Nearly every song on the record makes space for both calmness and intensity, mimicking the whiplash one feels between anger and sadness. Those Days Are Gone feels like driving too fast, then slamming on the brakes, yelling at your phone, and staring into the distance. The final line of the record dwells on if things “could have stayed the same,” but deep down, we know that sometimes, it’s better to move on and begin healing.

– Annie Watson

Bladee – Gluee

For better or worse, I discovered Bladee through a Twitter meme- a video of a kid sleeping, and someone pours water on him- as he wakes up, they slap him across the face. Instead of screaming, what else could come out of this poor kid’s mouth but the undeniable intro to “Be Nice 2 Me.” I tracked the song down through the comments on the tweet, and thus began my journey into Drain Gang.

Gluee is Bladee’s debut mixtape, and, as a whole, one of the lesser-loved works by the world’s AutoTune Angel. And I can see why- much of what Bladee is doing on Gluee is much better executed in his later work as he becomes not only more confident in his rapping and singing but also in dialing in his AutoTune parameters. But it’s hard to deny just how unique Gluee sounds, not just in Bladee’s discography, but just in general. It is truly a marvel that this album exists. Here, we have a white boy from Sweden, taking in copious amounts of American rap and pop music via the internet, creating a sound that somehow captures the emotional undercurrent of it all, no matter how disparate the starting influences were. You can hear the braggadocio of Chief Keef, the rhythmic flows of Lil B, the digital haze of James Ferraro, the emotional vulnerability of the Beach Boys, often all in just one Bladee song- it really is incredible how he makes it sound so easy, so fresh.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine the current musical landscape without Bladee. What seemed to be just another internet curiosity turned out to be an artist who changed what music could sound like. Gluee, as amateurish as it can seem at times, planted the seeds for the whole Drain sound. Although Bladee’s influence can now be heard in more and more artists across the world, Gluee has a special, spectral vibe to it that isn’t quite like anything else. I can’t promise you’ll like it the first time, but I will promise that it will elicit a visceral reaction from you.

– Nickolas Sackett

The Buried Heart – Safe Harbor

One of the greatest gifts in this life, and one that I never try to take for granted, is how fortunate I am to call some of my favorite musicians my friends. Next year will mark a decade since my buddy Jack Wittich released his first EP under the project The Buried Heart. I am truly not exaggerating when I say Jack is one of the best musicians I know, and revisiting his first EP, Safe Harbor, only reminds me of how his passion for the game and his abilities as a creator have not faltered over the past decade.

The Buried Heart is a project that wears its influences on its sleeve; a cosmic amalgamation of emo, post-hardcore, Japanese video game music, and animated orchestration that has given this project such a unique feeling and scope. The five songs across Safe Harbor cover so much ground. While “Opia” has always been the standout track for me, “Veins,” “Dichotomy,” and “Flowers & Theft” can sling punches with the best of them in the hardcore scene and beyond. The heart of the EP, however, lies in the track “Garden,” a melancholic love letter to Jack’s younger brother, whom he lost far too young. Not only does this track cut deep as someone who has come to consider Jack a brother over the past several years, but its musicality is equal parts breathtaking and emotive on every listen.

Each time I’m treated to new Buried Heart music, whether it's the 2020 self-titled LP or various WIP demos, I’m thoroughly blown away by how much Jack has improved as a musician over the years and how obviously the magic was there from the start. If you’re lucky enough to be friends with some of your favorite artists, you know it's both a privilege and a gift to see their growth and to cherish these kinds of earlier works.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Glitterer – erer

While I think I’m still partial to the music and album art for Glitterer’s 2024 album Rationale, it’s hard to deny the striking design of erer. For this cover, the band embraced a prominent purple (hex code #992bd5 to be exact) stretched edge-to-edge that allows the red type band name and album title to pop out in a shocking contrast, smashed together, reading extra hypnotic and repetitive: “Glitterererer.” Below that, the album name is blown up to massive proportions, making it instantly recognizable from miles away. The band used this same color scheme to turn their name into a tricky little “face” logo and even gave them the namesake for their own “Purple Circle Records,” which they used to self-release this album. Beneath the cover, tracks like “Somebody” and “Stainless Steel” are instant career bests for Ned Russin & co. The tracks hit hard as fuck and sound great live, solidifying into a killer 25 minutes of punk music primed for shouting, sweating, and dancing along to.

– Taylor Grimes

Honorable Mentions

Hey, we can’t write about every album with this color, so here’s a list of some more that we feel like we should mention.

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
Ben Seretan, John Thayer - Sunbeam of No Illusion
Alex G - I Saw The TV Glow (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Dehd - Poetry
Paramore - After Laughter
Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer
Bam Bam - Free Fall from Space
Teethe - Magic of the Sale
Cory Hanson - Western Cum
Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath
Footballhead - Overthinking Everything
Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam
Chat Pile - Remove Your Skin Please
Buggin - Concrete Cowboys
Take Care - Southtowne Lanes
Shudder To Think - Pony Express Record
Boris - Heavy Rocks
Doomriders - Black Thunder
Paul Stanley - Paul Stanley
Fred - Fred
The Smiths - The Smiths
Edgar Froese - Aqua
Pallbearer - Sorrow And Extinction
Donovan - A Gift From A Flower To A Garden
Hot Mulligan - Why Would I Watch
Drug Church - Prude
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Cross My Heart - Cross My Heart
Fall Out Boy - MANIA

Collect some more Covers:

Blog

Ministry – ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ

Hel Toro – Gimmick

billy woods – Aethiopes

Bill Callahan – What a Night!

Oso Oso – basking in the glow

Dikembe – Chicago Bowls

Janet Jackson – janet.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum

Farewell Continental – ¡Hey, Hey Pioneers!

Jackson Browne – For Everyman

Ms. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

R.A.P Ferreira – bob's son: R.A.P. Ferreira in the garden level cafe of the scallops hotel

Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow

Linkin Park – Meteora

Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

Honorable Mentions

Collect some more Covers:

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Circa Survive – Blue Sky Noise

Torche – Harmonicraft

mauve – About the Weather

Cheem – Power Move: Victory Lap

Jamie xx – In Colour

Pet Shop Boys – Introspective

Coheed and Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow

Forests – That’s Not Very Mid-Century Modern of You

Adrianne Lenker – songs/instrumentals

Honorable Mentions

Collect some more Covers:

Cigarillo

In Shirley’s Eyes

The Uncle Tupelo

Aunt Caroline’s Famous Down Home Old Fashioned Style Switchel

The Dirty Palmer

2009 Four Loko

The Nancy

The (Extra) Dirty Beertini

Change of Address

Sun Tea

Emerald Effervescence

Mai Tai

Something Similar

The Breakfast Red Bull

Aperol Spritz

Temple of the Dog – Temple of the Dog

Method of Doubt – Total Soul Ignition

Olivia Rodrigo – SOUR

Prince – Purple Rain

A Day to Remember – Homesick

The Reptilian – Full Health

Cave In – Jupiter

Say Anything – In Defense of the Genre

Future – DS2

Hum – Inlet

My Chemical Romance – I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Paw – Death to Traitors

Free Throw — Those Days Are Gone

Bladee – Gluee

The Buried Heart – Safe Harbor

Glitterer – erer

Honorable Mentions

Collect some more Covers:

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