February 06, 2026

Ratboys – Singin' to an Empty Chair | Album Review

February 06, 2026/ Caro Alt

Snowed in. Roads iced over. Trying on New Year’s resolutions and dropping New Year’s resolutions. What else is there to do at this time of year but think about last year? Openly celebrate what went right and privately obsess over what went wrong. Why did that one thing happen? How can you make sure it never happens again? Why did they say that to you? What should you have said back? Why didn’t they talk to you after that? Why didn’t they listen to you? Why didn’t you try harder to make them stay?

Julia Steiner, frontwoman of Ratboys, got the title for the band’s latest album, Singin' to an Empty Chair, from a therapy tool called The Empty Chair Technique. The premise of the exercise is simple on paper: you imagine that someone you want to have a difficult conversation with is sitting right across from you, and you have that complicated conversation. Alone. But this is obviously easier said than done. Actually mustering up the courage to verbalize the words you have kept buried for so long, to even say them by yourself, is intimidating. Gathering the courage to admit wrong, to share a secret, to ask for better, to try again, is an impossible feeling. Ratboys know this well.

Singin' to an Empty Chair is the sixth album from the Chicago indie stars and their first release on New West Records. This album also marks their second collaboration with Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, who also produced 2023’s The Window. Steiner described their last album as a “dedicated and intentional process,” the product of a meticulous couple years of writing and rehearsing before recording anything officially. Singin' to an Empty Chair offers a different perspective. Bassist Sean Neumann describes this record as a quilt – a collection of songs written in different places and recorded in different spaces. This patchwork approach is pieced together by songs describing half-conversations and one-sided admittances, all sewn together with their signature mind-bending guitar and twangy lilt.

Where were you while we were getting high? Wanna go for a ride? On “Open Up,” Steiner adds to the canon of great rock music questions when she asks, “What’s it gonna take to open up tonight?” She asks this over the confident strum of a guitar, but as the song builds, Steiner’s bright voice is interjected by sparks of the rest of the band, a moment of fuzz here, a kick drum there, before building into a folksy jam. The whole band is firing on all cylinders, and the only place to go from here is the stars.

Ratboys’ greatest sleight of hand is their cosmic bend, and they are very precise with how they blend it into their twang. On their last album, Ratboys took listeners to the brink of the world on “Black Earth, WI.” On Singin' to an Empty Chair, Ratboys avoid their own beaten path but find a new supersonic twist on “Light Night Mountains All That.” The song starts by sweeping you off your feet, sending you into a vortex of Dave Sagan’s swirling guitar and the uncanny rhythm of Marcus Nuccio’s drumming. At first, Steiner’s voice steadies the spinning, repeating an increasingly frustrated accusation that “you didn’t care.” Her voice, while always clear and measured, builds and builds until it’s blistering because “you didn’t care / you didn’t care / you didn’t / care!” This irritation seems to blow a hole in the vortex, turning Sagan’s guitar into something more intergalactic.

The music video released alongside this single matches its extraterrestrial spin. Styled like a found-footage horror film, some kind of haunting evil forces invade while the band plays their song. The ghouls flicker in and out of the video, almost like they’re interfering with the signal, until they’re playing the song too. This cataclysmic feeling Ratboys spin is one of their most exciting tricks—a soundtrack for the final frontier.

Just because we’re singing to an empty chair here and embracing conversations we hesitate to have does not mean that every imagined conversation has to be upsetting or frustrating. It’s hard to admit how much you love someone, too. In “Penny in the Lake,” serene optimism is conveyed through berry pies, Ringo Starr, and the breathless crow of a rooster. “Strange Love” is an earnest confession that conjures slightly sweaty palms, and “Anywhere” evokes a vulnerable, but freeing feeling, like admittance with avoidant eye contact.

The title of the album appears in “Just Want You to Know the Truth,” the album’s 8-minute bittersweet barnstormer. Across a mournful pedal steel, Steiner weaves snapshots of a past she can’t return to: construction sites, lasagna on Christmas Eve, and Antiques Roadshow. The emotional core of the album is buried somewhere in the sawdust of this song, between Steiner’s aching lyrics and Sagan’s biting guitar. The resonance of the Empty Chair Technique is laid bare as Steiner grimly sings “A couple some odd years ago / You said, ‘Sweetie take your time’ / So now I’m singin’ to an empty chair / Bleedin’ out every line.” It’s a punishing admonishment about forgiveness and time, combined with a cathartic release of finally saying something, even if it's alone.

The album closes with two opposed songs. The penultimate track, “Burn it Down,” while starting syrupy, turns incendiary as the band unleashes a fury they have tamped down for five albums. Steiner gives in to the doom built up by the song’s ferocious sound, just for a moment, saying, “It’s always been this way / It’s never gonna change.” But this anger washes away. The album ends on “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Woods” offering a bookend to the breezy sound that it began with. It’s a swaying, reassuring song, something that is supposed to play softly from a speaker on your patio while you’re talking to an empty lawn chair.

On “Just Want You to Know the Truth,” Steiner sings, “Well, it’s not what you did / it’s what you didn’t do / I just want you to know the truth.” It was here, as I was caught in my thoughts about 2025 and my weirdest, lowest points, that I understood the Empty Chair Technique. It’s not just about addressing the truth, but verbalizing what you need to get to the truth. Since then, I’ve been thinking about who I want to talk to in the empty chair next to me. The blue one next to the couch I’m writing this on. What truth do I need to be made real? What about you? Who is in your empty chair? What do you want to tell them?

Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.

January 28, 2026

Cover Collector – January Blues

January 28, 2026/ The Swim Team

I don’t know about you guys, but I love a good album 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 2025, 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 nerds can fixate on just as much as the songs that sit beneath the cover. As such, I’m excited to introduce Cover Collector: a monthly installation where the Swim Team will discuss some of our favorite albums based on album color. For January, we’re leaning into wintery blues.

Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South

I think about the lanky blue demon on the cover of this album all the time. I wonder how he got in the middle of those Alabama pines, if he’s drinking bootlegged rye or bourbon out of that bottle, and what he’s thinking about alone in those woods. I wonder if he likes being mean, if he listens to The Band, and if he’s scared of his daddy. How long has he been sitting on that stump?

The Dirty South is Drive By Truckers’ fifth album (I am forgoing the hyphen in the spelling of their band name here because former member Jason Isbell swears it wasn’t there when he was playing in it, and he is all over this album) and the conceptual sequel to Decoration Day. Like Decoration Day and most of their discography, the band uses the album to dissect the wrongness of the people in the South. However, what makes me like The Dirty South the most out of their Southern investigations is the consideration of familial myth and unstoppable tragedy as something crucial to understanding the region. It makes for a layered and haunting work. In an old website post, Patterson Hood said that “Tornadoes, Danko / Manuel and Carl Perkins' Cadillac all sound especially fine.” Unfortunately, he is wrong. Those songs do all sound fine, but what sounds best are “Where the Devil Don't Stay,” “The Day John Henry Died,” and “Puttin' People on the Moon.”

– Caro Alt

Grateful Dead – Dick’s Picks 15: Raceway Park, Englishtown NJ, 9/3/77

A band like the Grateful Dead has such a seemingly high barrier to entry. For the uninitiated, you’ve seen the iconography your whole life—the dancing bears (they’re actually “marching” bears), the skull with the lightning bolt in it, the skull with the rose crown. You’ve seen the images of hippies twirling. Maybe the most you know of them is your high school friend’s older brother who reeked of patchouli. Of course, all these things are reductive. But it’s what sticks.

To actually get into the music of the Grateful Dead, where would one even start? Over a 30-year career, they played over 2,400 live shows, almost all of which were recorded and exist online in some way. 13 studio albums, multiple off-shoot bands and side projects. It’s like eating an elephant, and the method for tackling both is the same: one bite at a time.

Deadheads have argued for decades—and we like to argue about everything—which is the best show to give someone to introduce them to the Grateful Dead? Cornell ’77? Kind of a perfect one. Veneta ’72? Really great, but long and spacey. Buffalo ’89? A classic, but misses some of the “lore” of the 60’s and 70’s. In my time, I’ve put multiple people “on the bus,” as they say. While it’s maybe not the absolute best, and it doesn’t cover all necessary ground, I keep coming back to Englishtown ’77.

1977 was a banner year for the Grateful Dead. Maybe THE banner year. If you ask 100 Deadheads their favorite year, I would wager over half would say ’77. Everything was just kind of connecting for them. They had fully gotten back up to speed after their hiatus year in 1975, and Jerry Garcia was at one of his many peaks. Mickey Hart, the band’s second percussionist, had returned after resigning in disgrace when his father stole a bunch of money from the group. Mickey, with other drummer Bill Kreutzmann, had locked into a sort of dancey disco vibe, apropos of the late-70s. The crown jewel of 1977 is the month of May, boasting a dozen or so all-time great shows. But this one took place in September.

Raceway Park was a massive space, and this concert would become one of the largest crowds the Dead ever played to. Estimates range from 125k to 175k people, with the most conservative figures still over 100k. Two people died, and two babies were born. There are a hundred great stories about this show (like it had been over two years since they played “Truckin’,” so apparently they had to go backstage and relearn it together in the middle of the show?), but I don’t want to hog this piece. Suffice it to say, 09/03/1977 contains multiple all-time performances of some of the Dead’s most classic songs: Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo, Looks Like Rain, Peggy-O, The Music Never Stopped, Eyes of the World.

Everybody take a step back!

– Caleb Doyle

Jay-Z – The Blueprint

The Blueprint is Jay-Z at his rap beef apex; he’s sitting on a throne of dominance in New York. The rollout for Jay’s sixth studio album contained some of the most memorable moments in the Y2K era for hip-hop. There was the infamous 2001 Summer Jam concert, where Jay-Z displayed a photo of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy wearing a ballet outfit, a moment that still lives in infamy to this day in rap beef history. The dichotomy of embarrassing an opponent dressed like Michael Jackson, then bringing out the real Michael Jackson at the same concert, needs to be studied by our top historians. It’s a stroke of hater genius by Jay-Z. “Takeover” was the equivalent of a figure-four leglock aimed at not only Mobb Deep but also another rap icon, Nas, which resulted in my favorite hip-hop tussle of all time.

Besides the juicy rivalry bits, on The Blueprint, Jay-Z curated a specific soulful vibe with innovative production from a young and hungry Kanye West, who mixed in his classic soul chops, resulting in hits like “Izzo (H.O.V.A.), “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love),” and “Never Change.” Eminem is featured on “Renegade,” a feature that I still think back to almost twenty-five years later. Something about two hip-hop heavyweights trying to out-bar each other gets me going. This song is like a Tyson-Holyfield spectacle. The Blueprint is an all-time classic that solidified Jay-Z's place in another stratosphere of superstardom.

– David Williams

Superheaven – Jar

Two years ago, my girlfriend gifted me a tape player and Jar on cassette for our first Christmas together. For me, the title of this album might as well be “Now That’s What I Call Post-Post-Post-Hardcore!” With every listen, I feel like I hear a new influence or notice a new similarity to another song. Some albums break the mold, but this one was cast so perfectly in its own that it makes the entire genre shine brighter. So, it’s not surprising that when Jar was released in April of 2013, it actually charted. On the radio. In the context of other notable releases, Title Fight’s Floral Green came out just six months prior (in a city just 10 minutes away from Superheaven’s hometown of Wilkes-Barre, PA), Citizen’s Youth released two months later, and The Hotelier’s Home, Like Noplace is There followed in late 2014. My favorite track is “Hole In the Ground,” which somehow simultaneously reminds me of Mineral and makes me appreciate Daughtry just a bit more. Final fun fact: the album cover was originally red! It changed when the group changed their name from “Daylight” to “Superheaven.”

– Braden Allmond

Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me

The first four Motion City Soundtrack albums are sacred artifacts – well, to me at least. MCS has always been a band that felt like my own; a rejection of my sheltered upbringing that existed outside the influence of friends and family. I discovered various early hits of theirs in high school, mainly through my Say Anything Pandora station, and there has always been this secret sauce drawing me back to those early days of their career, from I Am the Movie to My Dinosaur Life. As they all feel like children to me, it’s impossible to pick a favorite, but if I had to pick the black sheep of the family, it’s their third creation, Even If It Kills Me.

It lacks the notable singles like “Everything Is Alright” and “My Favorite Accident,” you probably won’t find it collecting great accolades among top albums of all time, and it might not be considered a “no-skip” album (a term I have my own qualms with, but can’t fit into 300 words). No, Even If It Kills Me isn’t flashy and, as a whole, it’s actually a downright bummer of an album both in lyrical and musical content, but there’s a tender and often lighthearted sincerity to this particular entry in the band’s catalog that holds a special place in my heart. Songs like “Fell In Love Without You” and “Calling All Cops” offer more than enough fun and familiarity, while others, namely “Point of Extinction” and bonus track “The Worst Part…” exist purely as a reliable gut punch when I’m feeling the need for one.

Blue? Oh yes, Even If It Kills Me fits the descriptor in more ways than just its painfully 2000s album cover.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Knocked Loose – A Different Shade Of Blue

It’s been fascinating to watch A Different Shade Of Blue age since its release in 2019. In the scope of Knocked Loose’s songwriting structure, this is when the Oldham County group elevated their meat-and-potatoes approach to hardcore music and turned it into something downright scary. Every ring out and downtuned guitar passage sounds like it came straight out of hell, thanks to Isaac Hale’s obsession with creating the most unnerving guitar tones known to man and Will Putney’s complimentary production style. On the lyrical front, Bryan Garris screams of hiding someone in the walls and having a bone to pick with death, working together with video game voiceovers to further exemplify the horrifying atmosphere that Knocked Loose have wanted to build this entire time. This type of world-building would be further refined in their next record, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (a masterclass of 2020s heavy music associated with the color green, not blue), but A Different Shade Of Blue brought the group to the limelight for a lot of music listeners, myself included. My first proper hardcore show was their gig at Webster Hall, where I got spinkicked in the face within half an hour of getting inside. Good times.

– Samuel Leon

Ratboys – The Window

Ratboys are probably one of indie rock’s most perpetually underrated bands. Since self-releasing their self-titled EP as a duo in 2011, the band has expanded and solidified over five albums, tightening the screws each time and leaving a flawless batch of tunes in their wake. The group was sitting at the intersection of alt-country and indie rock before Pinegrove or Alex G, much less any of the bands currently chasing that sound down today. It should come as no surprise then that the Chicago band feel like such a singular and authentic voice—they’ve only ever known how to be themselves. Nowhere is that more clear than The Window, a record packed with vivacious rev-up songs, life-affirming melodies, and soul-searching epics that gradually melt into each ventricle of your heart upon repeated listen. I’d say that The Window is Ratboys’ most realized work yet, but based on the few singles released from Singin’ to an Empty Chair, it seems we might have an even better contender arriving in a matter of days. Ratboys are a rare band of consistency; a group that somehow manages to just keep getting better as they unlock new and exciting compartments of their own sound. While The Window stands as the most recent articulation of that exploration, it will be exciting to see how they continue to crank out these stirring indie rock songs with craftsman-like precision.

– Taylor Grimes

Portishead – Dummy

Nobody captured the ‘90s sense of “cool” quite like vocalist Beth Gibbons on Portishead’s Dummy. This seminal trip-hop album features her voice, breathy and sweet, over reverb-y minor chords and shifty cymbals. Like the midnight blue of the album cover, Dummy is so nighttime-coded it simply doesn’t make sense to listen to it while the sun’s out. Gibbons’ lines are flirty and at the same time deadly serious. Some speculate you shouldn’t look the blue Medusa in the eye, but I recommend turning up the bass volume.

– Katie Hayes

If we’re talking solid-color album art, there’s one band that stands above the rest, and that’s Weezer. Across fifteen studio albums, more than a third of their discography is made up of self-titled albums that fans simply refer to by their color. Each features the band members lined up staring down the barrel of the camera against a solid-colored background. In this recurring section, we’ll address the elephant in the room that is Weezer’s discography.

Weezer (1994), also known as “The Blue Album,” is simply an all-timer. Maybe I’m biased as someone who identifies with Rivers Cuomo’s nerdy tendencies and staggering unconfidence. Despite those leanings, these songs fucking rock and make for one of the best records of the 90s and alternative music as a whole. Ending the whole thing on a wandering, meditative, soul-affirming 8-minute song is just the cherry on top.

End Cuomo Corner

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End Cuomo Corner |

Dire Straits – Love Over Gold

Love Over Gold is one of the best records that I’ve ever found in a bargain bin. Before picking this up a month or so back, I only really knew Dire Straits through their radio hits, so I wasn’t at all prepared for Love over Gold’s 14-minute-long opener “Telegraph Road.” A heartland rock track from a British band that’s as long as a prog song, you just can’t beat it. Front to back, this record is full of great moments, especially in the latter half of the title track, where you get some very cool lead interplay between vibraphones, marimbas, and a nylon string guitar.

This has quickly become the album that I reach for when I’m not exactly sure what I want to listen to; it’s interesting without being heady, perfect for late-night listens while you stare at the ceiling. I know I’m late to the party here, but man, Mark Knopfler can really play. Beyond its own merits, I have an affinity for this record because it got me obsessed with Knopfler, which led to me watching a movie he scored called Local Hero. The movie had been on my watchlist for a while, but I’d been holding off because its premise made me fear it might be trite and predictable; the Knopfler connection was enough to push me over the edge to actually watch it. It turned out that I was totally wrong, hell of a movie. Thanks, Love over Gold.

– Josh Ejnes

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

Sometimes I forget that Nine Inch Nails is one of my favorite bands. The last release of theirs I was really obsessed with was 2013’s Hesitation Marks, and I’m not enough of a cinephile to follow all of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’s soundtrack work. Plus, the last time I saw them was admittedly a bit underwhelming, considering the first time I saw them at Lollapalooza 2013 is still, to this day, the best live performance I’ve ever witnessed. That show had arrived after eight long years of build-up, when I heard the band for the very first time. With Teeth had just come out, their first album since 1999’s The Fragile, and their finest hour in my opinion. The album was blaring from my dad’s home office when I walked in there to ask him a likely asinine question, as I often did. I heard Trent screaming “DON’T YOU FUCKING KNOW WHO YOU ARE” over this chaotic electronic music, unlike anything I’d heard before. After that, I became a pre-teen NIN devotee, studying every CD my dad had in his collection, including the remix albums like Fixed and Further Down The Spiral, and of course, With Teeth.

In some ways, I think Teeth is the perfect NIN album. It’s a career-encapsulating collection of songs that range from aggressive radio singles like “The Hand That Feeds” and “Only,” to classic goth ballads like “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” and “Right Where It Belongs,” plus fan favorite deep cuts like “Getting Smaller” and “Sunspots.” The band’s next album, 2007’s Year Zero, with more fantastic blue artwork, would inspire me to write a 14-chapter fan fiction for my fifth-grade creative writing assignment. Trent and his rotating cast of bandmates have been a longtime influence of mine, even if their records aren’t as prevalent in my rotation as they once were. With Teeth will always be a cornerstone in my musical evolution that hasn’t lost a beat in the last 20 years.

– Logan Archer Mounts

12 Rods – If We Stayed Alive

12 Rods—a Minneapolis group sometimes remembered for earning one of Pitchfork’s very first “10s,” but maybe more commonly referred to as “the greatest band that nobody remembers.” After calling it quits in 2004, 12 Rods made a surprise comeback in 2023 with seven previously unreleased tracks and just one remaining member—frontman Ryan Olcott.

Despite a 20-year gap between records, If We Stayed Alive picks up seamlessly where Olcott and the former band left off. In true 12 Rods fashion, the album blends dreamy, dizzying textures with cryptic yet personal lyricism. While heavier moments of 12 Rods’ discography made use of synthesizers and occasional distortion, If We Stayed Alive opts for electric guitar with a timeless wash of reverb. The record’s haunting opening promptly transitions into a handful of more optimistic tracks, then just as quickly pivots to a cool, understated groove. Olcott’s nuance shines even in the final 20 seconds of the record when the listener is granted the slightest hint of a harmonic and emotional resolution after floating through the sonic ether.

While the cover is a lively electric blue, If We Stayed Alive evokes the deep blue of a downtown on a foggy night. This record is ideal for the dreampop fan who yearns for the 90s, and is the perfect gateway into the bittersweet world of 12 Rods.

– Annie Watson

Oklou – choke enough

I, admittedly, don’t know much about Oklou. I know that she is from France, is a classically trained musician (a pianist and cellist), and recently became a mother during the creation of choke enough. The ripples of motherhood flow throughout the album, especially in the blurry, domestic scene displayed on the cover; a group of kids hanging out in the living room, slightly out of focus, their attention drawn to something happening just outside the window. Oklou herself poses for a selfie in the foreground of the scene, perfectly depicting the conflict that is prevalent throughout the record: what does it mean to be Oklou now in such a strange era of accelerated surveillance technology, one where she not only has a new life to care for but has instant access to the beauty and (horror) of the world in a scrollable feed?

That dichotomy is explored beautifully through a gentle record that remains alluringly at arm’s length, despite its intimacy. Much of the music here resembles the transient experience of passing by a club at night and hearing the 808s pump through the walls; you can feel the party, but you're not exactly a part of it. You need that distance sometimes, that oddly comforting sense of proximity that allows the freedom to pause and make sense of it all without getting completely wrapped up in it. Oklou gives us a misty, ephemeral work, pushing towards the emotion found in trance and club music, yet constantly pulling back before the exuberant drop. But all rivers flow back to the self. Let the blue waters flow over you. You never know what can be floating underneath.

– Nickolas Sackett

The Weepies – Hideaway

I hadn’t been driving for long. Freshly sixteen, I’d revel in my newfound mobility with jaunts just about anywhere. That particular day in 2008, I was on the move, hoping to stock my CD shelves with goods from CD Warehouse, a nook in my neighborhood’s strip center. Part of me felt shame determining a purchase based on album art, but the other part of me fell in love with the delicately drawn beluga whale on the cover of The Weepies’ Hideaway. I grabbed the plastic square and slapped it onto the counter. In the container of my car, the songs felt like lullabies, gently melancholy like the stars and the sea on the cover.

This album has never quite let me out of its orbit. The opening track, “Can’t Go Back Now,” is one of my playlist mainstays. The folky duo’s silky harmonies sail over soft, sparkling guitars and keys: “If you ever turn around, you’ll see me.” It’s an ode to a deep blue road that I still find myself driving, almost twenty years later.

– Katie Hayes

Lorde – Melodrama

I was first introduced to Lorde in 2013 when my college roommate played “Royals” for me through the tinny speaker of her iPhone 4. We would play the album on loop as the semesters flew by, cementing Lorde as one of the defining artists of my undergrad career. Fast-forward to 2017, and I’m heading into my second year of graduate school. This time, Lorde had freshly released her sophomore album, Melodrama, and my best friend and I loved to listen to “Liability” as we agonized over papers, research, and recital prep. The album artwork is one of my favorites: a moody, intimate painting of Lorde by Sam McKinniss. His treatment of light through the use of rich blue tones and contrasting coral accents is mesmerizing. The portrait is timeless, capturing both elegance and raw vulnerability through angular brushstrokes and saturated hues. I’ll always love it. Nostalgia lives on in every track, reminding me of evenings spent blasting this album with the windows down, breathing in the salted Gulf air, and screaming about the “fuckin’ melodrama” until our voices were nearly as raspy as Lorde’s.

– Britta Joseph

The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You

The Avalanches entered the cultural zeitgeist with their 2000 album, Since I Left You, and re-entered it again with their long-awaited 2016 follow-up, Wildflower. Both albums are beloved for good reason, but to me, nothing compares to the magnum opus that is We Will Always Love You. In some ways, this is a concept record, following the love story between Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, the director of the Voyager Golden Record project, whose goal was to cement the existence of human life into the universe by placing two golden records upon the Voyager spacecrafts in 1977. Her face is on the cover, and the thesis of her project serves as a throughline of the album’s heart and soul.

There is no record that feels as all-encompassing or celebratory of the human experience and what it means to love each other. Throughout the album’s runtime, The Avalanches combine their signature plunderphonics and sample-based production with interpolations and features from musicians whose work spans countless genres and decades. From Johnny Marr and Blood Orange to Vashti Bunyan and Karen O, the album centers around the idea that everyone can come together and celebrate our shared humanity through music. The record’s hour-long runtime never feels bloated or weighted down by any of its inclusions; in fact, it’s an album that feels wrong to listen to unless it’s as a complete work. Despite the fact that each track can stand as its own composition, when listened to as a full album, every song continues to build on the last. It’s all one musical idea extrapolated on by many different voices and perspectives.

Each time I think back on the tracks I love the most, like “Interstellar Love” with Leon Bridges, “Gold Sky” with Kurt Vile, or “Running Red Lights” with Rivers Cuomo and Pink Siifu, I remember the cathartic rush and emotion I feel throughout the journey, capped off by the closing track. The final song “Weightless” contains the Arecibo Message from 1974, a Morse code which was broadcast at the speed of light into the universe to beg the question of extraterrestrial existence. Though we may not have any concrete way to know who heard the Voyager Golden Record or the Arecibo Message, we know that music connects us to each other, no matter where in the world we are.

– Helen Howard

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.

Joni Mitchell - Blue
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
The Killers - Hot Fuss
Explosions in the Sky - How Strange, Innocence
Nirvana - Nevermind
Turnstile - Never Enough
Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky
First Day Back - Forward
Drunk Uncle - Look Up
Geese - Getting Killed
Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Carpool - My Life in Subtitles
Combat - Stay Golden
Judge - Bringin’ It Down
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell
Fall Out Boy - Take This To Your Grave
Oldsoul - Education on Earth
Death Cab For Cutie - Thank You For Today
Adventures - Supersonic Home
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour

December 27, 2023

Swim Into The Sound's 10 Favorite Albums of 2023

December 27, 2023/ Taylor Grimes

2023 was a year of long-simmering change for me and, I imagine, many other people. This year, I moved across the country, turned 30, moved again, fell deeper in love, made noticeable strides in my physical and mental health, met a ton of new friends, and listened to a ton of new music. Now that I find myself at the tail end of the year, I can genuinely say that I changed and re-shaped my life more than I ever thought possible in a 365-day window. Not only that, but I find myself excited for whatever comes next.

I’m a creature of habit, so this is all very frightening to be so unmoored yet so fulfilled. Ultimately, habits are just coping mechanisms: little things we do to make our lives easier or simpler or faster. So, while it’s been a little scary to feel disconnected from so many routines I’ve built up over the course of three decades, sometimes what you really need is to wipe the slate clean and build something new from scratch. While I still consider myself a creature of habit, I’m also a creature of tradition, which is far more fun.

This has long been my favorite time of the year, a season full of traditions big and small. Of celebrations inside and out there. Of gifts and gestures both for strangers and the ones you love. As a big, dumb music nerd, one of my favorite long-standing traditions is the concept of “list season.”

Sure, I’ve complained about it in previous years, but there’s something so fun and celebratory about reaching the end of the year and seeing everyone share Topsters and notes app lists and last.fm charts and little blurbs about albums they liked this year. Even though these things are often numbered or ordered in some way, I find it to be a meaningful practice that’s less about competition and more about community.

This is the season when we all look back, reflect, and elevate the art that connected with us most throughout the year, all in hopes that it might connect with someone else. “Here are the things that I loved. What did you love?” It’s an exchange in the best way possible because everyone involved wins. We get to bond over this mutual appreciation for art, you can turn people onto your favorite releases, discover new music yourself, and support artists, all in the same month-long celebration.

I’ve already written about my favorite songs of the year, a list that also exists in both condensed and chronological playlist forms. Additionally, our staff shared their favorite albums of the year in an expansive round-up that also touches on the growth the blog has seen this year. Swim Into The Sound has never had a year as consistently great as 2023, and if you’re reading this, you’re to thank for that. Thanks for caring, thanks for exploring, and thanks for supporting in any way you can.

You probably don’t need me to tell you, but 2023 was also a year of mass instability. It’s a frustrating, helpless, and scary time to be alive, but in the best moments, everything feels worth it. Being here with all of you, at the same time as all of this art, even just for a little while, is an absolute blessing. What follows are ten of my favorite albums of the year, I hope you find something to love in them the way I have.

10 | Slow Pulp – Yard

In many ways, Yard is Slow Pulp’s actual debut album. After a string of awesome EPs and one-off singles, 2020’s Moveys was tragically kneecapped by the pandemic. While some (like myself) still found the time to love that record, it couldn’t have released at a worse time for a young band on the brink of a promising ascent. That’s why it felt so good to see Yard roll out to exponential praise and hype, earning the band the kind of accolades, tours, and acknowledgments they deserved all along. Beginning with a string of absolutely knockout singles (hard-charging “Cramps,” the semi-charmed singalong “Doubt,” and the scintillating summer anthem “Slugs”) one by one, the band introduced themselves to the masses and gave people a reason to care about what they were building towards. The whole collection of songs is just as phenomenal: 30 minutes of ultra-catchy indie rock perfection, where each cut stands alone as a triumphant declaration. Yard is proof that perseverance pays off.

9 | Horse Rider – Real Melody

There are a ton of bands I could compare Horse Rider to: waveform, Alex G, Soccer Mommy, hell, even fellow horse band Horse Jumper of Love. While I make all those comparisons positively, at the end of the day, they do a disservice to just how awesome, original, and downright catchy Horse Rider’s music is. Sure, hints and suggestions of those bands can be heard wafting through the group’s style of slicked-back slacker rock, but throw a dart at any song off Real Melody, and you’re guaranteed to hear a would-be radio rock hit in a more just alternate dimension. The opener, “Goldeen,” sparkles to life while adding an essential contribution to the longstanding tradition of Pokémo. A couple of tracks later, the band presents “Hollow,” where they rock back and forth on the song’s title as lead singer Lamberth Carsey sings, “When you’re hollow,” and repeats it until the phrase burrows itself into your brain. The whole record is full of short, simplistic turns of phrase swaddled in immaculate melodies and killer riffs, making for an intoxicating blend of emo, nu-gaze, slowcore, and 90s worship. Bonus points for having what’s probably the single coolest album cover of the year.

8 | Superviolet – Infinite Spring

Infinite Spring is a cosmic reset of epic proportions. For one thing, it’s Steve Ciolek’s first album following the dissolution of his previous band, The Sidekicks, but within the music too, we hear tales of people who are either coping with or actively embracing change. The record begins with angels falling to Earth and ends with a sort of cataclysmic leveling. The jaw-dropping closing track starts with acoustic fingerpicking but gradually builds to pounding drums, a soaring guitar solo, a big sing-along group chant, and wordless autotuned vocalizations. Everything that happens in between those points is just life. Long-distance relationships, fake people, real emotions, and what it feels like to lose someone forever. It’s heartbreaking, catchy, and all incredibly written. Even with a new band and a new name, Steve Ciolek excels in portraying these slice-of-life stories about people who have always been there and will always be there, shining through like a spring day that never ends.

7 | saturdays at your place – always cloudy

Some people are militant about what can go on an album of the year list. Common sense would dictate that “album of the year” means shorter-form releases like EPs and splits are excluded, but is that how anyone listens to music? Do you separate your love for a 20-minute collection of music and hold it differently than you would a 40-minute collection of music? Can you not enjoy one more than the other for entirely different reasons? Enough leading questions. always cloudy may be an EP on paper, but it contains the arc, heft, and impact of any other “full-length” collection of songs released this year, and it does so in just 19 minutes.

The EP kicks off with “future,” a time-traveling introduction that quickly builds into an explosive little dance instrumental. From there, “fetch” gallops directly into “tarot cards,” the band’s biggest hit and one of my favorite songs of the year. The back half of the EP continues to explore different moods and tempos within the band’s style, all mounting to “eat me alive,” the leave-it-all-on-the-floor closer that feels like the band wringing out every last ounce of energy they have into their performance. It leaves you breathless, almost as if you’re watching the band from the pit, covered in sweat and beer under the multi-colored lights. As an EP that was dropped in January, I feel lucky to have spent all year with these songs, and November’s split with Shoplifter and Summerbruise was just the cherry on top. If this is what the future of emo looks like, we’re in safe hands.

6 | Bully – Lucky for You

Another artist with a pandemic redemption story, Bully’s 2020 release, SUGAREGG, was yet another case of an excellent record that was unfairly swallowed up by the time suck of global catastrophe. That album was a fun, refreshing pump-up full of brash pop-punk, but this year’s Lucky For You takes everything to the next level. Alicia Bognanno has been honing her brand of Nashville-born punk rock for a decade, and on her fourth LP, she manages to reach the absolute pinnacle. Lucky For You is a whirlwind of life, loss, and love. As I’ve talked about before, the whole thing has strong last-day-of-school energy, springing to action with a brash and carefree energy. That’s a relief since the album deals with some pretty heavy topics. Primarily inspired by the loss of Bognanno’s beloved dog Mezzi, the album centers around the idea of companionship and navigating a world where change is often thrust upon you.

From the scream-along singles like “Days Move Slow” and “Hard to Love” to the Soccer Mommy-assisted “Lose You,” these songs are a reminder that sometimes the best way to roll with the punches is my leaning into them with a stiff upper lip and breezy optimism. Kill ‘em with a smile, right? Alternatively, the closing one-two punch of “Ms. America” and “All This Noise” lay the spectrum out in full, touching on women’s rights, climate change, and our media’s endless cycle of disaster. The world is a harsh, unfair place with systems in place designed specifically to grind us down and keep us there, but with Bognanno shouting in my ear, I feel like we might actually have a fighting chance.

5 | Ratboys – The Window

2023 was the year of the rat. Okay, technically it wasn’t, but it definitely was the year of the Ratboys. The Chicago rockers have been kicking up dust and serving up twang for over a decade, coming to perfect a style of music that has only recently seemed to gain traction with a wider audience. This boon is primarily due to the TikTok-fueled popularity of bands like Pinegrove and Slaughter Beach Dog, combined with the coolness of heavier/artsier counterparts like Wednesday and Squirrel Flower. All the while, Ratboys have been painting their own distinct corner of this landscape with broad, vibrant strokes. On The Window, Ratboys come together for the first time as a four-piece to explore every possible speed, style, and variation of their Chigagoan spin on wagon wheel rock. First, the band loosens up their limbs and makes some noise, then proceeds to vault from joyous exclamations (“It’s Alive!”) to heartfelt declarations of love (“The Window” and “I Want You”), all performed and sequenced to flow like a stream. It’s so beautiful and natural you don’t even question it. These explorations are tethered by crystal clear production courtesy of Chris Walla. The Window is a capital-R record, an LP meant to be held, listened to attentively, and taken in deeply. Ratboys are masters of their domain, and we’re lucky to reside within it.

4 | Phony – Heater

Is it on the nose to name your 21-minute pop-punk record “Heater”? It’s bold at the very least, but thankfully, Neil Berthier has the songs to back it up. I talk about it much more extensively in my review, but the sheer velocity of this record can’t be understated. It’s non-stop forward momentum cut in half by one solitary interlude. The LP rockets forward with the kind of self-assured coolness found on Bleed American or Nothing Feels Good, evoking a sort of emo/pop-punk hybrid that feels anything but derivative. Perhaps it’s Berthier’s voice, which can hit a throat-shredding bark or recoil into a sheepish emo whine, depending on what the song calls for. Maybe it’s the instrumentals which spring forward and shoot by like flashes from another life. Blink at any point during your listen, and you might miss one of the incredible riffs or Neil’s disaffected (but astute) observations. With each song hovering around the two-minute mark, it’s easy to find yourself on the album’s extraordinary Weezer-esque closing track thinking, “It’s over already?” The brilliance of Heater comes not just from the brevity, but from how much Berthier is able to pack into these tracks. There’s not a wasted word, strum, or beat in these songs, and the result is a chemically perfect pop-punk record.

3 | Hotline TNT – Cartwheel

The sophomore album from Hotline TNT has a lot going for it: a string of excellent EPs and records preceding it, an iconic, memeable album cover, a Wednesday co-sign, and the backing of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Perhaps most importantly, this album has songs. Here’s the recipe for the ideal Cartwheel listening experience: First, make sure you have half an hour to yourself, then start the album from the top, and play it LOUD as you can possibly stomach. From its first moments, Cartwheel casts a shoegaze spell on the listener with jangly guitar strums that evoke the 90s dreaminess of Lush and the playful innovation of TAGABOW in equal measure. The band settles into a series of songs that morph and change from one to the next, but all fit together seamlessly. In a way, I’ve found it hard to write anything articulate or insightful about Cartwheel beyond just some variation of “it rocks” over and over again. It is truly an album that is best experienced, loud, live, and in one shot. There’s been much to do over the state of shoegaze in 2023, and as a fan of the genre, even I’ll admit a lot of these modern bands sound like AI-generated heaviness created by the most swaggless posers of all time, but Hotline TNT are the real deal, and the proof is right here.

2 | Wednesday – Rat Saw God

If you were to ask me to imagine an album at the intersection of country music and shoegaze, Rat Saw God is how I hope it would sound. The fifth album from Wednesday is a near-perfect melding of these two genres that actually have more in common than one might initially think. Turns out that the dejected heaviness of shoegaze and the forlorn nature of country make for great bedfellows.

Back in 2021, Twin Plagues knocked me on my ass, simultaneously comforting me and telling me to toughen up at a time when I desperately needed both of those things. The record captivated me and beckoned me deeper into Wednesday’s universe of southern fried shoegaze. Through this journey, I discovered MJ Lenderman, Drop of Sun Studios, Alex Farrar, and the band’s impressive scene of peers/touring partners. So, with a couple years of hardcore nerding out under my belt, it’s safe to say that Rat Saw God was my most anticipated record of the year, and it almost unilaterally lived up to the hype.

The seeds of Rat were first planted in 2022 with “Bull Believer,” the album’s titanic 8-minute lead single, which should only be described with words like “scorching,” “seismic,” and “apocalyptic.” Already a classic within the band’s catalog, “Bull Believer” has become a staple closer of the band’s live sets and is the type of song only Wednesday could make. It was smart to let fans sit with that 8-minute behemoth for a few months because once 2023 started, the Wednesday train was approaching full speed.

One by one, the band dropped one fantastic single after another, all leading up to the album’s April release date. “Chosen to Deserve” brought the poppy singalong side of the band’s sound to life while the lyrics painted a picture of a semi-reformed dirtbag southern girl, an under-represented audience in music, to say the least. “Bath County” packs biblical imagery, a drug overdose, a trip to Dollywood, and a Drive-By Truckers namedrop in between a bit of clever sloganeering as bandleader Karly Hartzman bemoans, “Every daughter of God has a little bad luck sometimes.” The singles continued with “Quarry” and “TV in the Gas Pump,” each paired with inventive music videos that further fleshed out the visual side of Wednesday’s homespun world.

This all happened alongside handmade merch, a worldwide tour, monthly video dairies, contributions to compilations, and a 30-minute documentary by the band’s friend, Zach Romeo. Suffice it to say there was no shortage of Wednesday-related entertainment to keep fans satisfied, and I was here for all of it. Not only was Rat Saw God a knockout album from a band I already adored, but it was finally netting this band the kind of support and adoration they’d long deserved.

As I mentioned in the intro, I moved twice this year, and in a sort of cosmic coincidence, one of those moves brought me to North Carolina, a state I’d never once considered living in until this year. Back in 2018, I made a similar life-altering move to Detroit, and as funny as it sounds, the music of Sufjan Stevens was there, convincing me that was where I was meant to be. Now, a similar thing has happened to me with Wednesday. To find myself in this unfamiliar part of the country with my longstanding love for this artist as my sole touchpoint. It felt like something was always pulling me out there, and Wednesday’s music was just the tip of the iceberg.

Earlier this year, I was reading John Darnielle’s excellent Devil House, and at one point, he penned the phrase “Freeway detritus eternal,” which I couldn’t get out of my head. If I were to boil down the essence of Wednesday to three words, it might be those. On this record, we hear salt of the earth tales of people living life the best way they know how. The highways stretch on for miles and pass by burnt-out fast food restaurants, dilapidated roadside attractions, and commercial parking lots all the same. There’s no value judgment passed on these places or their inhabitants, merely an attempt to portray them in an accurate and empathetic light in order to share their stories with a wider audience. All you have to do is hit play on the album, inhale the stench of hot, rotten grass, grab another beer from the cooler, and kick back as the fuzzy riffs roll over you.

1 | Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

There are only about 27 minutes of music on the debut record from Talking Kind. That’s a grand total of 1,634 seconds, and I love every single one of them. I’ve spent the last four months absolutely absorbed in It Did Bring Me Down. I’ve sung along to the chorus of “Damn Shame” while making a hearty Sunday breakfast. I’ve ruminated on spaghetti and death while memorizing every detail of “Pretty Flowers.” I’ve shared a clandestine smoke with my girlfriend on her balcony while blasting “Trader,” only to rock out a moment later headbanging along to “My Truck.” These are just a few glimpses into the beautiful moments I’ve experienced with this album. These tracks have embedded themselves deep in my psyche, offering the perfect balance of funny witticisms, harsh realities, and impeccable memories. Let’s wind it back just a half step.

Talking Kind is the (mostly) solo project of Pat Graham. You might know him from his work in the fourth-wave underdogs Spraynard or Lame-O y'allternative band Big Nothing, but neither project is required homework for Talking Kind. The way I’ve been explaining this album to friends, colleagues, or really anyone who will listen is to imagine a cross between MJ Lenderman, Slaughter Beach Dog, and Barenaked Ladies. A friend of mine suggested I add The Weakerthans to that mix, but to me, that triad of artists offers the perfect indication of what kind of music you’re going to get with It Did Bring Me Down.

Just take the album’s opening track, where Graham utilizes a guest feature from Radiator Hospital and The Goodbye Party to explain the band's name. Or take “Never Bored,” a cautionary tale about what can happen when the dirtbag lifestyle catches up with you. There’s power-pop perfection on songs like “Brand New Face,” which is followed by one of the year's best love songs, then a crushingly sad lo-fi cover of a Radioactivity song. Elsewhere you have an unforgettable, star-making melody on “Damn Shame” and a track that name-checks fellow Philly musician Greg Mendez for a funny little closer to the year’s best album.

There’s no grand narrative, complicated lore, or months-long music-video-based rollout to keep track of with this record, just a collection of eleven stellar songs that all speak for themselves. It’s felt like literal magic to have been making memories to these songs for the last four months, and I can’t wait to see what other moments they go on to soundtrack in the future. It Did Bring Me Down is plainspoken, clever, empathetic, freewheeling, and kindhearted, all things I hope to be. What better thing to have as my humanistic North Star than my favorite album of the year?

December 06, 2023

Swim Into The Sound's 12 Favorite Songs of 2023

December 06, 2023/ Taylor Grimes

Our inevitable 2023 Album of the Year list is slow going, so as a writing exercise, I’m going to do some short little write-ups on a bunch of my favorite songs that came out this year. Believe it or not, in all my years running this blog, I’ve actually never done a roundup like this. I suppose I’ve always been daunted by other publications that can publish massive, genre-spanning 100-count lists of songs because they have an actual staff, but I am just one man. Instead, you get a hyper-biased recounting of my year through a dozen songs. I hope you love them as much as I do.

1 | Militarie Gun - “Do It Faster”

It’s hard to believe that “Do It Faster” has only been in my life for ten months. From the now-iconic “OOH OOH” to the rockin’ guitar riff and unforgettable chorus, everything about this song feels like it was created in a lab to appeal to me specifically. Aside from single-handedly revitalizing the word “stooge,” this song is a wonderful little encapsulation of where this style of hardcore sits in a post-GLOW ON world. “Do It Faster” is a poppy rock song with an instantly transferable energy tailor-made for windows-down scream-alongs, your dumbest thrashy dance moves, and the strongest finger-point you have.

2 | Talking Kind - “Damn Shame”

“It’s such a damn shame I wasn’t / damn shame I wasn’t listenin’.” Not only is that one of the best choruses of the year, it’s also what you will be saying to yourself in a few years time if you sleep on this Talking Kind record. The solo outing of Pat Graham (of Spaynard and Big Nothing), it’s easy to see why “Damn Shame” was the lead single for his new project. It only takes a couple of listens before you find yourself effortlessly singing along to these words. Only Graham can make regret sound so catchy.

3 | Bully - “Days Move Slow”

It’s been said before, but “Days Move Slow” sounds like it should be scoring the opening scene of a movie. In my head, I see Clockstoppers or Max Keeble's Big Move, the type of early 2000s kids comedy movie that could have only been made in the lead-up to the Iraq War. I see bleach blonde hair spiked to the heavens and a table full of breakfast food before our hero says something like, “Sorry Mom, I gotta jet, can’t miss the last day of school!” before grabbing his skateboard and running off to catch the bus. This song invigorates me in a way that very few ever have, and I’m more than content to live in that three-decade-old Nickelodeon-approved timewarp for two minutes and forty seconds with Alicia Bognanno as my guide.

4 | Wednesday - “Quarry”

As a certified Wednesday freak, picking my favorite song off Rat Saw God proved to be a challenge. The obvious choice might be the titanic eight-minute “Bull Believer” or the lap-steel-led “Formula One.” There’s also the ultra-singable “Bath County” or the all-too-relatable “Chosen to Deserve,” and while I adore all those songs, “Quarry” eventually revealed itself to me as the song off the Asheville denizens fifth full-length LP. This track really has it all: depressed small-town imagery and hyper-specific personal details, plus it all builds to a joyous, swaying shoegaze riff. “Quarry” also has a vehicle-filled music video that, much like everything else in the Wednesday Universe, showcases the band’s penchant for cute, creative, and endearing art. Wednesday forever.

5 | Greg Mendez - “Maria”

In less than two minutes, Greg Mendez managed to convert practically everyone from a curious listener into a ravenous fan. The second single to Mendez’s excellent self-titled record, “Maria,” offers a harrowing tale of drug use and self-destruction, but wraps it in a melody that somehow feels timeless, as if it’s always been here. The instrumental is modest, just a guitar and drums, allowing Mendez’s voice to take center stage, presenting him as the heir to both Elliot Smith and Alex G’s throne. A cautionary tale turned into an immaculate bit of songwriting and artistry.

6 | Ratboys - “It’s Alive!”

Channeling equal parts Rocky Mountain hiker and evil scientist, “It’s Alive!” is one of the most joyous songs of the year, a track that never fails to fill me up to the brim with optimism, hope, and light. Like the first warm day of spring, listening to the emphatic “It’s Alive!” is like stepping outside, feeling the sun's rays across your skin, looking up to a clear blue sky, and filling your lungs with a big puff of crisp air. In a way, this song channels a similar sense of naturalistic wonder as Ratboys’ own 2021 megahit, “Go Outside,” but swaps that song’s post-COVID anxiety with boundless optimism and happiness. A powerful feeling to have at the click of a button.

7 | Superviolet - “Overrater”

While I was late to the party with The Sidekicks, I was right on time for Steve Ciolek’s new project, Superviolet. As the lead single, “Overrater” had a lot on its shoulders: introduce the new band to mourning Sidekicks fans, get people geared up for the full record, and maybe even convert a few new fans in the process. As living proof of the third one, I can point to “Overrater” as the precise entry point for my fandom. The song begins with a pace-setting electronic beat but soon explodes to life in a fun-loving blast that feels like the music equivalent of breaking into a full sprint. Even as bullies surround us and insults fly, persistence prevails, allowing the listener to stride out the door with a fresh outlook and indomitable spirit.

8 | saturdays at your place - “tarot cards”

At the beginning of the year, I had no idea who saturdays at your place were. Despite living in Detroit for a couple of years and digging deep into the emo scene, I was unaware of the talent amassing across the state in Kalamazoo. saturdays materialized over the course of the pandemic, emerging with a nine-song record in 2021 and segued that release into a No Sleep signing as well as an impressively realized EP, which they dropped at the top of the year. Having since amassed over 2.5M plays on Spotify, “tarot cards” is an undeniable emo song, boasting a god-tier riff, cathartic group chant, and tried-and-true lyrics of being awkward at a party. No wonder why this track has been subject to TikTok trends and dumb memes alike; it has the sauce to become a generational Midwest Emo song like “Two Beers,” “Death Cup,” or “Cinco De Mayo Shit Show.” Before I get too ahead of myself with hyperbole, I’ll slow down and look forward to screaming along to “tarot cards” for many more concerts to come.

9 | Slow Pulp - “Cramps”

Yet another record that was hard to pick any one song from, the sophomore outing from Slow Pulp is chock-full of throwback indie rock that shines and shimmers like the light bouncing off a lake. While Yard was preceded by four absolutely immaculate singles, “Cramps” was the first out the gate and set an immediate high bar that signaled a level-up from 2020’s Moveys. Beginning with a powerful burst of drums, the band quickly locks into a shoegazy sway as lead vocalist Emily Massey sets the scene with snarling lyrics about wanting it all. The whole thing rockets forward for a sensible three minutes, complete with crunchy guitars, spry drumming, and a nifty little drop-out at the end to ease us down from the high-energy state.

10 | Caroline Polachek, Charli XCX, George Daniel - “Welcome To My Island (Remix)”

While you might be surprised to see a remix on this list, it only takes one listen to understand why I love this pumped-up, electrified version of a Caroline Polachek classic. Sure, I liked Desire a fair bit, but throw some spicy Charli XCX verses in the mix and put it all over a club-ready beat? I’m IN. I’ll also cop to having the biggest crush on Charli XCX, so hearing her spit one of the horniest verses of her entire career always gets my heart rate up just a little. Barring my personal affinity for curly-haired party girls, it’s also cute to hear Charli write these lines of wanting a “white dress, countryside, house, and kids” over an instrumental that her (now) fiancée has made. That’s true power couple shit, and I love it for both of them. Throw all of that on top of Caroline Polachek’s anthemic opener, and you have a recipe for success that will soundtrack car rides, gym visits, and amped-up pre-game playlists from now until the end of time.

11 | MJ Lenderman - “Rudolph”

Four drum hits and we’re off to the races. MJ Lenderman’s “Rudolph” kicks off like a celebratory firecracker with a swampy twang beat and the perfect amount of pedal steel. The first line goes on to confirm that, yes, this is indeed the Rudolph you’re thinking of. Lenderman bellows over his bandmates and his own fuzzed-out guitar, screaming of Lightning Mcqueen and making a self-referential call-back just a line or two later. Of course, there’s a sick guitar solo, and then they hit us with one more chorus because they’re professionals. They also give us that bouncy little four-note countdown one last time, and let me tell you, I can’t wait to break out my freakiest dance moves to that next time I see it live. “Rudolph” is a perfect between-album entry to the MJ Lenderman canon, ending up feeling like a victory lap for both Boat Songs and a celebration of his signing to Anti- Records. The only thing I love more than seeing dudes rock is seeing dudes win.

12 | Talking Kind - “Pretty Flowers”

First off, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, ‘another Talking Kind song on this list??’ To which I say YES, believe it, It Did Bring Me Down is that good. On the mid-album cut “Pretty Flowers,” the stakes are set immediately in plainspoken words: “I bought some pretty flowers / I was going to drive to your grave after work / Instead, I pulled over and cried and cried and cried.” Basically everything is on the table from the outset, all wrapped in a melody anyone could hum along to. The rest of the song grapples with mortality and loss as Pat Graham belts an MJ-like chorus of “I'm still working it out. Yeah, baaaaaby, I'm still just working it out.” A minute later, our hero still hasn’t found a compromise as Graham sings, “I don't think I'm ready / I don't think I care if I'm ever ready,” then interrupting his own rhyme as he sings “spaghetti” and holds the last note like a piece of putty. It’s an absurd, hilarious, and endearing little non-sequitur to end the verse on, which was, up to that point, a pretty forthright meditation on death. He hits us with one more chorus, allowing the listener to either laugh at his joke or croon along, making for a fun little musical choose-your-own-adventure. It’s a heartwarming moment packed into the exact middle of this 3-minute gem that makes me appreciate the craft of songwriting more than I ever have before.

Listen to a playlist of all these songs (plus some outtakes) above. Alternatively, if you want even more and would like to see all my favorite songs of the year in chronological order, check out this playlist.

October 31, 2023

The Best of Q3 2023

October 31, 2023/ Taylor Grimes

We’re in the final stretch of the year, and while other music blogs are already gearing up for their Album of the Year lists, we’re still hung up on the summer. Continuing our series of quarterly roundups, here are some of our favorite albums, EPs, and splits released from July to September.

Angel Du$t – BRAND NEW SOUL

I have a few questions for you, dear reader: do you like ROCK music? Do you like LIFTING heavy things? Do you like SHAKIN’ your little butt? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then BRAND NEW SOUL might be for you. The latest album from the ever-shifting Justice Tripp-led supergroup picks up right where YAK left off, which is to say, wildly inventive and ignoring every boundary of genre or expectations. Less of a “hardcore” group than ever before, Angel Du$t feels like a band whose artistic mission statement is to follow whatever sounds fun at that moment. Most of their music can still be defined as “Very Aggressive” but morphs from folk-punk to electro-bops to Chili Peppers worship at a moment’s notice. There are still a couple of ragers here like “Sippin’ Lysol,” but most of the music should be filed under jammers and slammers – an important distinction. The girls that get it get it.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Astra King – First Love

Midway through the year, the visionary PC Music announced that 2023 would be their last year releasing new music before shifting to archival projects. This was heartbreaking news for girlies, gays, and music fans all across the World Wide Web, yet we must rejoice, for Astra King is here with a definitive hyperpop contribution in the label’s eleventh hour. King is a relatively recent addition to the PC Music roster, a younger artist with less than a half dozen songs to her name; even still, the four tracks that make up First Love are so pristine that they somehow stack up to the decade-long legacy of the PC Music label. From the anthemic unfurling of “A Little Bit Closer” to the too-cute-for-its-own-good title track, every song fleshes out a different shade of reflective, chromium future pop. In many ways, First Love is the ideal EP: a lightweight fifteen-minute collection that finds an artist seemingly already zeroed in on her sound and going four for four, all with one of the coolest covers of the year to boot.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

awakebutstillinbed – chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger

awakebutstillinbed’s brand of throwback ‘90s emo has always been my jam ever since pressing play on their 2018 LP, what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you. The band’s latest record, chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger, picks up where the last left off, but already the sounds and songs are better. The drums hit hard and dry, snapping like twigs and booming like thunder as spindly guitars snake through adagio dirges such as “bloodline.” Shannon Taylor, whose ragged and reedy voice stands strong in a scene that’s rapidly embraced pop vocal sounds, really lets her vocals shriek, crack, and take center stage. Every chord feels knotted and dissonant, but every song is beautiful, and though most of these tracks are north of three minutes by a large margin, you won’t be snoozing at any point. This is what a perfect emo record sounds like in 2023.

Michaela Montoni - @dumpsterbassist

Broken Record – Nothing Moves Me

Denver-based Broken Record are self-described “stadium emo,” and you know what? That’s so goddamn true. Their very good second full-length, Nothing Moves Me, pulls from some of the greatest bands to ever make the jump from DIY house shows to playing for thousands. Think Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day Real Estate, and the best second-wave emo bands who also obsessively listen to The Cure. The album sounds amazing (produced and recorded by Broken Record’s Lauren Beecher and Gleemer’s Corey Coffman), the guitars are huge, the riffs are crushing, the drums are driving, and the hooks are singable—this band rocks.

Ben Sooy - @bensooy

Read our review of Nothing Moves Me here.

Chain Whip – Call of the Knife

Vancouver’s Chain Whip is a down-and-dirty punk band with viciously compressed production and the tightest 13-track LP I’ve heard in years. This shit is all the garage energy of Amyl and the Sniffers with none of the major-label Gucci-deal bravado. The production is homespun but clear: the drums pound, the guitars rip, and the vocals sound like an unhinged goblinesque Jello Biafra. Chain Whip aren’t just any modern punk band, either, with vague allusions to political messaging. Tracks like “The Flag Means You Suck” and “Class Decay” pull no punches against the totalitarian fist of Western “democracy.” Spin this or get fucked, it’s only 21 minutes.

Michaela Montoni - @dumpsterbassist

Coronary – The Future… Is Now

These days, the market for fast hardcore is pretty much gone– industrial and blackened beatdown have infected the mainstream like a disease, and slam-dancing has taken the masses by storm (see: endless mosh discourse, the new Knocked Loose). But the world has not stopped making punk rock music, and Coronary from Chicago are proof– thrash-punk crossover guys playing ridiculously fast. Their guitar playing is impeccable, the drums rumble and sputter like a chainsaw engine, and the lyrics cut straight to the heart of the political issues of our day. Does it reinvent the wheel? Yes and no– while sonically, it’s hard to say that anything happening here started in 2023, it’s so rare to find a band this hard-rocking with slick production, a huge sound, and good hearts. It’s rare, it’s great, I love it, and I want to hear more of it.

Michaela Montoni - @dumpsterbassist

Del Paxton – Auto Locator

For some people, emo is a seasonal genre. I’ll admit the crunch of a fall leaf hits extra hard when you’re listening to American Football or AGBPOL, but that could never be me. I spin this shit all year long; even still, there’s an undeniable fall air about Auto Locator, the first album from Del Paxton since 2017. The record opens with a freight train headed directly toward you and ends with a sizzling 7-minute send-off that still somehow leaves you wanting more. Aside from the palpable fall feeling, Auto Locator offers up bouncy rippers like “Up With A Twist” and “Chart Reader,” but also aren’t afraid to gnash their teeth and get a little aggressive on tracks like “100 Words For Snow.” The whole thing feels like an emo record from a different era in the best way possible.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Downward & Trauma Ray – Split

It’s fall, and Shoegaze Season is officially here. While there’s no shortage of dudes with bad hair and black jeans cranking out over-fuzzed riff slop and Whirr worship, these bands are not that. Coming off a pair of excellent 2022 EPs, Downward and Trauma Ray have combined forces for a four-song split that pummels the listener into submission with distorted guitars, floaty vocals, and forceful riffs—a perfect way to kick off the season where heavy music hits the hardest.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Equipment – Alt. Account

Equipment has been a band for almost a decade at this point. They’ve released fantastic EP after fantastic EP, including one earlier this year, and even though 2018’s Ruthless Sun is the band’s first LP, in many ways, Alt. Account is the band’s first album. During the album’s writing process, Equipment’s lead singer/guitarist, Nick Zander, was diagnosed with bipolar II; his first medication is seen on the cover of the record, and the insomnia it gave him led to the creation of the majority of this album. The result is a collection of emo-tinged indie rock that feels like a celebration of the fact that he’s now tamed the instability of his initial diagnosis. Songs are punctuated by clips of a 12-year-old Zander, who can be heard talking about LEGO stop-motion and the Sega Genesis, all snippets ripped directly from his 2008 YouTube channel. It’s a lot to take in, but luckily, Alt. Account is just as listenable without any background, a record packed with sublime riffs, singable choruses, and highly relatable sentiments. With a solidified lineup, an undeniable collection of bangers, and a tour-ready spread of merch, all self-released under their own label, Alt. Account is just the first step in Quippy World Domination.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Fiddlehead – Death is Nothing to Us

After hearing the sophomore record from Fiddlehead, I was a little worried that the band had run out of things to say. It’s not like Patrick Flynn has any shortage of thoughts to share, more so that Fiddlehead was initially started as a one-off supergroup collaboration that wasn’t meant to last beyond a single EP. Through a combination of luck, pre-existing fanbases, and stellar songwriting, Fiddlehead have now created three albums, and Death is Nothing to Us makes a strong case that this band was always meant to exist. There are kickass riffs, surprisingly sharp melodies, and enough group chants to make you lightheaded screaming along. As you would expect from the title, the band’s latest record is primarily concerned with death (as was the case on the last two albums as well), yet the band finds an infinite number of new ways to pontificate on and philosophize around this topic, wrapping everything in a catchy hardcore outpouring that lends some comfort to the living.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Gravess – i still feel it, crawling, under my skin.

Continuing the trend laid out by bands like Funeral Homes and Rosewilder, Gravess is yet another stellar shoegaze project out of Florida. While those other bands lean further into the dreamy side of the genre, Gravess aren’t afraid to throw in a few extra screams and breakdowns for good measure. You can practically see the mosh pit form when listening to the one-two punch of opening tracks, but the high point of this bite-sized EP comes in its final two songs, where the band deploys a hypnotic guitar lick and then proceeds to construct a brilliant cresting instrumental around it. Beginning in a suspended dream state, the band eventually unleashes a torrent of heavy music, sweeping the listener up in a beautiful cacophony.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Harrison Gordon – The Yuppies Are Winning

The one good thing TikTok ever did was show me Harrison Gordon. The million-viewed video speaks for itself, featuring POV footage from a “sweaty house show” and the bridge of “Kirby Down B,” which references Zelda, Dragon Ball Z, and, of course, Super Smash Bros. It’s a frenetic song whose energizing call to action, “OI OI OI,” has led me to describe the project as “Zoomer Jeff Rosenstock.” After I kept coming back for “Kirby Down B,” I gradually became obsessed with the rest of the album, which deals with post-gifted-kid syndrome, decaying childhood friendships, meds, and self-destructive tendencies. There are a couple of Worst Party Ever-style acoustic tracks that provide a brief respite from the seemingly bottomless supply of group chants, but what I love most about this record is how old it makes me feel. For the first time ever, it feels like I’m listening to the next generation of emo kids reflecting on their own nostalgia from a time when I was already an adult. The fact that I can still connect to it goes to show how wonderfully written these songs are. Here’s hoping I’ll soon be packed in that sweaty house show, screaming along to songs about Kirby.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Honey Creek – Self Preservation

When I first became musically conscious, I knew early on that I was drawn towards “rock music.” In my mind, this descriptor covered everything from AC/DC and Motorhead to Sum 41 and Nirvana. Eventually, I learned more about genres and subgenres, and I’d wager one of the first hyper-specific scenes I became obsessed with was easycore. This semi-fake genre was basically pop-punk that threw in a breakdown once in a while and often used high-pitched keyboard noises. Think A Day To Remember, Four Year Strong, and Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! Imagine my surprise then when Honey Creek started rolling out the singles for their awesome new EP, and it sounded exactly like some shit I would have been obsessed with in high school. The band has fresh-as-fuck all-white fits, cool music videos, catchy-as-hell choruses, and (thankfully) dig a little bit deeper than the typically-bro-leaning undertones that come with most easycore. It may just be 11 minutes, but there’s not a wasted moment or bit of energy on this EP, and while it may lean on some trappings of a very specific subgenre, Honey Creek do a fantastic job of making these sounds feel updated for 2023.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Josaleigh Pollett – In The Garden, By The Weeds

Salt Lake City DIY artist Josaleigh Pollett is a beautiful enigma to me. The closest artist I can truly compare them to is David Bazan, especially those Care and Blanco records, not just because they share some musical DNA with Pollett’s In The Garden, By The Weeds, but also because Pollett is a lyricist (a songwriter! a poet!!) on par with Bazan. The recording of In The Garden… was a partnership with producer Jordan Watko, and what they’ve made together is one of the greatest indie pop albums of all time. Pollett’s vocals will break your heart, Watko’s beats will have you dancing your ass off, but in like a moody and hopeful sort of way.

Ben Sooy - @bensooy

Read our review of In The Garden, By The Weeds here.

Mauve – About The Weather

The crazy thing about the internet is that I can show you my exact first impression of Mauve. Back in January, my brother and I were huddled up against a table in McMenamins White Eagle Saloon, nursing a couple of ciders. We were there mainly to catch the Tallest Emo Band™ Swiss Army Wife, but when Mauve took the stage and started tuning, I could already tell we were in for a treat. We secured a primo spot right up front and proceeded to take in a set of pure, unbridled Portland Emo. Once I found myself on the other side of the band’s invigorating performance, I was absolutely over the moon that my hometown felt like it had a legitimate emo scene for the first time ever. Released six months after that fateful concert, Mauve’s debut album is chock-full of tasty riffs, gnarly screams, and pit-opening tunes that show a glimpse into an alternate reality where the Pacific Northwest eclipsed the Midwest as the true ruler of the emo genre.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

MINDCLOT – Profit Over People

From the instant you press play, it’s apparent that MINDCLOT are not fucking around. Their weapons-grade d-beat hardcore doesn’t let up for the entire duration of their second album, blasting through politically charged ragers like it’s nothing. Vocalist Mike Mutersbaugh’s piercing shriek cuts the tastefully muddy mix like butter, and the driving rhythms will surely keep any show-goer in the most violent pit of their life. There are tastes of the moshcore revival here too towards the back end, with straight-ahead and danceable two-steppers like “Hypocrisy” rounding out the straight-ahead Discharge-worship on Side A. With a quick run-time and absolutely killer riffs front to back, particularly “Poison” and “Two Faces,” this release is sure to be a modern punk touchstone for ages to come. Up the punx, check out MINDCLOT if you know what’s good for you.

Michaela Montoni - @dumpsterbassist

Pacing – Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen

If you couldn’t tell from the album title, the second full-length album from Pacing is very funny, extremely clever, and painfully self-aware. There’s a Sidney Gish sensibility that runs through the whole thing, making it a joy to listen to, inspiring to read along with, and rewarding to revisit. In an early song, Katie McTigue ponders whether it’s weird to go for a walk, a concern that spirals into a commentary on her own laziness, paranoia, and climate change – all in two minutes! There are well-observed songs about home ownership, surface-level wellness culture, and obnoxious electronic communication, but, to me, the crux of this record can be found on “unReal / forReal,” which finds our hero questioning the intertwined reality and the surreality of the world around us. Things end with McTigue waking up and realizing that she “forgot to be scared,” which, given everything that’s happening, can feel like a blessing or at least a brief respite. While this all might sound heavy, the bubbly delivery and anti-folk instrumentation help keep things light and breezy, even as you contemplate societal decay and mourn the environment’s decline.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Ratboys – The Window

Twang is so hot right now. In fact, “twang” is so popular that Spotify has a playlist showcasing the best country-flavored indie rock we have to offer, including MJ Lenderman, Florry, and Hovvdy. Ratboys, however, have been making music at this intersection for twelve years now, and The Window sees them as masters of their domain. From the scintillating 8-minute lead single to the Frankenstein-esque “It’s Alive!” the Chicagoans spend 47 minutes and 45 seconds flexing their musical chops, with the four band members more in sync than ever before. There’s a suite of love songs in the album’s title track, “I Want You (Fall 2010),” and “Bad Reaction,” making a case for this being the most tender-hearted Ratboys record yet, but the band isn’t afraid to make some noise with snotty punk tracks and exuberant guitar solos. Just another day of being the world’s greatest indie rock band.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Read our review of The Window here.

Ringworm – Seeing Through Fire

Ringworm’s demo turns 32 years old in 2023, which is mindblowing to think about. They’ve consistently been one of the heaviest and most biting bands in metallic hardcore since then, and Seeing Through Fire is no deviation. The band continues to find new ways to make the most explosive sounding aggressive music out of the Midwest, with another crop of anthemic circle pit initiators like “No Solace, No Quarter, No Mercy” and “Thought Crimes.” Ringworm is keeping their Holy Terror scene alive with each new album, and they’ve outdone themselves once again.

Logan Archer Mounts - @VERTICALCOFFIN

Slow Pulp – Yard

This August, I spent a few weeks boxing up my childhood room as my parents prepared to sell the house where I spent the first twenty-something years of my life. As I was unearthing adolescent artifacts long since forgotten, I was spinning an advance of Slow Pulp’s Yard, which perfectly soundtracked this excavation. Since the beginning of the year, the album’s lead single, “Cramps,” had already become a mainstay on my playlists, and my excitement only mounted with “Slugs” and “Doubt,” each song eclipsing the last as my favorite thing the band has ever done. The album collects these knockout singles and pads them out with a few more mid-tempo tracks of transition and impermanence. Having relocated from Madison to Chicago in the time since their excellent 2020 record Moveys, Slow Pulp themselves have undergone a move as a collective, and Yard reflects that. There are multiple songs about moving away and making changes in your life, all of which made it feel stupidly on-brand to spin as I moved every earthly possession I have into boxes to be opened at a later date. There’s a slight lull in the middle, but the rockin’ “MUD,” woozy country-leaning “Broadview,” and the pensive “Fishes” make for a final three-song stretch that balances out the pep-heavy front half. All in all, Yard makes for one of the most exciting, youthful, and catchy indie rock records of the year.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Squirrel Flower – Tomorrow’s Fire

Smoldering. If I were to boil Tomorrow’s Fire down to one single descriptor, it would be that. After an album full of slow-burn stunners that were kneecapped by the pandemic, Ella Williams was anything but discouraged. Over the last couple of years, she segued some phenomenal covers and singles into the desolate, naturalistic heat death of Planet (i) and a haunting companion EP that leaned into her more minimalistic sensibilities. It’s understandable that after all of the false starts and fraught life events, Williams was ready to rock. Earlier this year, she dropped “Your Love,” a one-off single featuring a full-band recreation of a similarly named song from the Planet EP, signaling a new page for the project. Backed by a band comprised of MJ Lenderman, members of Bon Iver, and the War On Drugs, Williams had free reign to construct the most grand, sweeping, and holistic collection of songs ever released under the Squirrel Flower moniker. There are reflections on the spirit-crushing nature of capitalism, queer Springsteen-style love songs about escaping out past the edge of town, and unrequited skatepark hookups aplenty. The songs tend to crackle as monstrous shoegaze riffs but also know when to pull back into something slower for maximum impact.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Star99 – Bitch Unlimited

The debut LP from Bay Area four-piece Star99 has maybe the most perfectly-matched-to-the-music cover art of 2023. An I-Spy-esque jumble of kitsch and miscellany–stickers, teacups, a stray earring, model train tracks –crowd a floral surface (“an I-Spy-esque jumble of kitsch and miscellany” would also be an apt description of the ten songs as well). Peeking out from underneath the Dollar Store clutter is the album title: Bitch Unlimited. It all feels like it was ripped straight from Rookie Mag circa 2013 or the 8tracks account of the coolest girl at your high school (also circa 2013), an effect that only intensifies when you press play. This isn’t to suggest that Bitch Unlimited is in any way stale or derivative– it’s one of the freshest, most innovative rock records I’ve heard all year –but Star99 feels like the kind of band that I thought didn’t exist anymore. Their earnest-yet-irreverent blend of pop-punk, power pop, and garage rock hearkens back to bands that existed on the fringes of emo’s fourth wave. Bands like Chumped and Swearin’ that were bursting at the seams with snark, exuberance, and the stickiest of hooks. Bookended by slot machine sound effects and eschewing any polite, small-talking introduction, opener “Girl” barrels in with blistering snapshots of suburban angst and young heartbreak, culminating in frontwoman Saorise delivering a gleeful “guilty” verdict. From there, the hits don’t let up, with Saorise and Thomas switching off on lead vocals. From the Joyce Manor-reminiscent jaunts about self-sabotage (“Salt”) to poppy confessions about the less-glamorous aspects of living and working in DIY spaces (“South Second”) to meditations on codependent friendships (“Elastic”) to frenetic bouts of agoraphobia (“Vegas”), Bitch Unlimited is a 26-minute firecracker, its fuse lit by defiant spirit and white-hot hooks. During “Spit Take,” Saorise declares, “Life’s a bitch, and so am I!”; life may be a bitch, but bands like Star99 make it way more fun.

Grace Robins-Somerville - @grace_roso

Stephen O’Malley & Anthony Pateras – Sept duos pour guitar acoustique et piano préparé

That title translates to “seven duets for acoustic guitar and prepared piano,” in case it seemed like a mystery what you might be in for on this album. Stephen O’Malley is one half of Seattle’s drone legends Sunn O))), and he appears in collaboration on this album with Australian composer Anthony Pateras. It’s their second album together following 2018’s Rêve Noir, and it’s a perfect split between unsettling and comforting. The two compliment each other pristinely, O’Malley adding unsuspecting guitar strums over Pateras’ minimalist, avant-grade piano hits. Both musicians are incredibly prolific and are no strangers to experimental music, so their second team up here seemed like it would have been a knockout no matter what.

Logan Archer Mounts - @VERTICALCOFFIN

Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

Somewhere, there exists a Venn diagram containing MJ Lenderman, Slaughter Beach Dog, and the Barenaked Ladies. At the center of this diagram, you’ll find Talking Kind. Talking Kind is the project of Pat Graham, a Philly-based musician making catchy, power-poppy, singer-songwriter fare that’s as touching and true as it is goofy and fun-loving. The first song on It Did Bring Me Down utilizes features from Radiator Hospital and The Goodbye Party to deliver a title drop and mission statement for the project after Graham explains “I just say shit.” Over the album’s remaining 24 minutes, Graham busts out immaculate melodies (“Damn Shame”), makes adorable pasta-based improvisations (“Pretty Flowers”), and romanticizes truck life (“My Truck”). There’s some beautiful slide guitar on “Never Bored” and one of the best love songs of the entire year in “Trader.” The whole release wraps up on “World of Peace,” an ode to fellow Philly musician Greg Mendez that doubles as a thought experiment about how beautiful the world would be if everyone were literally Greg Mendez. That’s the world I want to live in.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Teenage Halloween – Till You Return

I know what you’re thinking, and no, this isn’t some Misfits-esque horror punk band; rather, Teenage Halloween describe themselves as “flaming queer power pop,” and if that doesn’t perk your ears up, then I don’t know what to tell ya. The group’s second album refines the recipe laid out in their previous work but blows the colors up to maximum saturation and packs the whole thing with catchy hooks and boisterous shouts. There are still deep questions to be grappled with here, like mental health and navigating the world as a queer person, but with those moments of realness also come euphoric successes and moments of love. The whole thing is speedy, shouty, and lively–a record that feels tailor-made for sweaty New Jersey basements packed wall to wall with people who share the same struggles as you. This album is the sound of being alive.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

Thank You, I’m Sorry – Growing in Strange Places

Thank You, I’m Sorry has had a few lives. The project initially began as Colleen Dow, alone, recording solitary acoustic songs about heartbreak, self-doubt, and isolation. Eventually, Dow was joined by a talented group of musicians who helped flesh out some of those initial songs and added a few new ones on 2020’s I’m Glad We’re Friends. Now, a little over three years later, we have Growing In Strange Places, a sprawling and impressively diverse collection of indie rock songs that shows a band working together to push far beyond any descriptor that’s ever been applied to them in the past. The emotions are still conveyed primarily through Dow’s infinitely charming vocals, but the instrumentals range from kaleidoscopic electronica and desolate slowcore to relatable dance-ready bops and even a hardcore rager for good measure. There’s also one of the best love songs of the year, and the whole thing wraps on a solo song that feels like a beautiful full-circle moment for the project. Song topics are just as relatable and confessional as before; the difference is now the artistic expectations have been dismantled entirely. The result is an album that feels like TY,IS achieving their true potential: a collection of tracks as vibrant, engaging, and ever-changing as the people behind the music.

Taylor Grimes - @GeorgeTaylorG

TORSION – DEMO 2023

I’d be remiss not to talk about hometown greats. No one knows anything about this band yet. Their debut 7” just came out a matter of days ago. It’s five songs, five minutes long (and change), and one track on Bandcamp. It’s fucking blistering. The guitars are gnarled and heavy, the d-beats fly on a thumpy cardboard drum kit, and the vocals are low and gravelly in that perfect early black/death metal way. This is fucking Pittsburgh hardcore, and I can’t wait to hear more riffs. If you’re in the area, stay tuned for one of their shows, and if you like Bomb Threat or Razorblade, you’re gonna fucking love this.

Michaela Montoni - @dumpsterbassist

Blog

Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South

Grateful Dead – Dick’s Picks 15: Raceway Park, Englishtown NJ, 9/3/77

Jay-Z – The Blueprint

Superheaven – Jar

Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me

Knocked Loose – A Different Shade Of Blue

Ratboys – The Window

Portishead – Dummy

End Cuomo Corner

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End Cuomo Corner | End Cuomo Corner |

Dire Straits – Love Over Gold

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

12 Rods – If We Stayed Alive

Oklou – choke enough

The Weepies – Hideaway

Lorde – Melodrama

The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You

Honorable Mentions

10 | Slow Pulp – Yard

9 | Horse Rider – Real Melody

8 | Superviolet – Infinite Spring

7 | saturdays at your place – always cloudy

6 | Bully – Lucky for You

5 | Ratboys – The Window

4 | Phony – Heater

3 | Hotline TNT – Cartwheel

2 | Wednesday – Rat Saw God

1 | Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

1 | Militarie Gun - “Do It Faster”

2 | Talking Kind - “Damn Shame”

3 | Bully - “Days Move Slow”

4 | Wednesday - “Quarry”

5 | Greg Mendez - “Maria”

6 | Ratboys - “It’s Alive!”

7 | Superviolet - “Overrater”

8 | saturdays at your place - “tarot cards”

9 | Slow Pulp - “Cramps”

10 | Caroline Polachek, Charli XCX, George Daniel - “Welcome To My Island (Remix)”

11 | MJ Lenderman - “Rudolph”

12 | Talking Kind - “Pretty Flowers”

Angel Du$t – BRAND NEW SOUL

Astra King – First Love

awakebutstillinbed – chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger

Broken Record – Nothing Moves Me

Chain Whip – Call of the Knife

Coronary – The Future… Is Now

Del Paxton – Auto Locator

Downward & Trauma Ray – Split

Equipment – Alt. Account

Fiddlehead – Death is Nothing to Us

Gravess – i still feel it, crawling, under my skin.

Harrison Gordon – The Yuppies Are Winning

Honey Creek – Self Preservation

Josaleigh Pollett – In The Garden, By The Weeds

Mauve – About The Weather

MINDCLOT – Profit Over People

Pacing – Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen

Ratboys – The Window

Ringworm – Seeing Through Fire

Slow Pulp – Yard

Squirrel Flower – Tomorrow’s Fire

Star99 – Bitch Unlimited

Stephen O’Malley & Anthony Pateras – Sept duos pour guitar acoustique et piano préparé

Talking Kind – It Did Bring Me Down

Teenage Halloween – Till You Return

Thank You, I’m Sorry – Growing in Strange Places

TORSION – DEMO 2023

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