Keep – Almost Static | Album Review

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Honeysuckle Sound

Recently, I’ve made a resolution to get out of my apartment and go see more movies. It's been a drought so far this year, with my second-to-last entry being A Minecraft Movie, during which an eight-year-old screamed “CHICKEN JOCKEY” directly into my left ear. Beyond that, last week’s viewing of The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow left much to be desired in terms of storytelling, character development, and overall positivity in a moviegoing experience. The only bright spot has been watching the latest season of Black Mirror with my roommate, which certainly isn’t providing the “magic” that Nicole Kidman touts at AMC. These episodes, which may as well be movies with how long some of them are, feel beyond dystopian, more akin to a pale imitation of reality, which is even more terrifying. 

This dread has begun to infiltrate my listening habits; whenever I end up breaking out my speakers, I've been bumping a lot of heavier, more anguish-filled music across all genres. That new Deafheaven record may be quite charming in its execution, but certainly not in its subject matter. This must've been part of the reason why I felt a gravitation towards Keep when I heard their newest record, Almost Static, was coming out soon, why I didn’t hesitate to give it a listen, and more importantly, how I remembered the band’s ease towards cultivating a dark atmospheric texture from the moment you press play.

Photo by Frankie Ruggiero

The Virginia-based group has become a vital player in this current wave of heavier, distorted guitar-centric music, commonly falling under the now all-encompassing moniker of shoegaze. Their sound feels quite adjacent to contemporaries such as Gleemer, Downward, and the now shoegaze-synonymous heavyweight julie, along with some of the more crushing grunge aspects that have evolved in the wake of this renaissance, akin to work from bands like Soul Blind, Bleed, and a new favorite of mine, Present. My history with Keep dates back to 2023, when they released their full-length record, Happy In Here. Tracks such as “Dasani Daydream” and “Start to Wonder” immediately stood out to me through their simultaneous senses of excitement and dread, thanks to the ghastly guitar tones and textures, but also due to the spine-tingling album cover depicting a spiky lime-green toothbrush in the interior of someone’s mouth from the perspective of a uvula. Maybe that’s what people with the cilantro gene feel whenever they put the coriander plant in their mouth. Regardless, I never have a great time looking at the record’s cover, and maybe that’s the point. In comparison, the miniatures that make up the cover of Almost Static feel like they came straight out of the opening scene of Inland Empire, thanks to the cataclysmic destruction depicted by the miniature plastic and metallic structures.

To get this out of the way, calling Almost Static strictly a shoegaze album would be doing the record a disservice. Most, if not all, of the songs on this album can be attributed to certain strains of alternative rock, but they don't feel particularly indebted to genre heavyweights like my bloody valentine or Slowdive. That’s not to say you won’t get those beautiful yet dismal walls of sound. In fact, you get them right off the bat with opener “Fun Facts,” a track with lyrics bringing together some of the darker aspects of the quartet’s songwriting style, sitting in between hazy guitars and otherworldly keyboards. The following “Smile Down (Into Nothing)” amplifies the unease even further, with almost unintelligible vocals serving as the chorus. For the Glare heads reading this right now, this is the exact song I will point you to, as the guitar tones feel quite reminiscent of their work on Sunset Funeral.

Part of the decision to sideline the vocals is due to the nature of shoegaze music as a genre, but for Keep in particular, there’s the added responsibility of drums for vocalist Nick Yetka. There's a unique opportunity to let your vocals blend into the swirl of noise while you focus on the drums. Plus, that frees up all the other instruments to take on that added creative expression. You can hear the effects of this freedom in all the sonic elements at play in the album’s second single and closer, “Hurt a Fly,” which sees the band run across the finish line with washed-out vocals melding perfectly with heavier guitars once again. You can almost see the band members looking at their pedalboards while you listen to this song, as well as Yetka zeroing in on his drums while letting his voice run wild. 

There’s also a sense of Keep’s signature sorrow coming from the track “New Jewelry,” with drummer and vocalist Nick Yetka screaming, “Cause if you see me, you should let me go” in the chorus, like the protagonist who realizes they have become more of the villain than the hero. Think something like [spoilers] Leonardo DiCaprio during the final act of Shutter Island. How do you take apart everything you think you know and reconstruct it in a clean and sensible manner? Can you tell I just watched Shutter Island a few days ago? For the first time, too! 

Some of the more exciting moments on the record are when the band ventures out of the traditional confines of the shoegaze moniker. The track “Sodawater” kicks off with a sonic departure from the gloomy aspects that envelop the majority of the first side of the record. The guitars feel more whimsical than despondent, evoking the jangle-pop tones of groups like Wishy or Alvvays. The simple yet anthemic chorus of “I’m all right / I don’t mind” brings a rare feeling of relaxation to the record, making the song a personal highlight. “Bermuda” features eerie guitars that, to my ears, feel more indebted to the work of post-rock outfit HEALTH rather than a shoegaze band. Meanwhile, the vocals are light, reminiscent of something from a mid-2010s Turnover track. It's a fascinating mix of inspirations and sounds that make for one of the more unique tracks on this record. 

The title track, “Almost Static,” feels like the darker, moodier, and more decipherable sibling of Nothing’s “Blue Line Baby.” Most of the song features a toned-down guitar passage with simpler drums, allowing for more clarity in Yetka’s voice. Even with things dialed back, the production choices make these instruments sound like they could fill up a warehouse, at least until they all come crashing down in the final leg of the track. The same could be said for “No Pulse,” which amps up the depth of the guitars with a groovy riff and drum pattern. 

As the album nears its end and the final chords ring out from “Hurt A Fly,” there’s a sense of a journey completed, like the protagonist has reached where they’ve been trying to get all this time. The cinematic aspects of Almost Static stand out from a growing alternative rock landscape as a project that's greater than the sum of its parts. The band’s decisiveness towards cultivating that overall journey from the darkest parts to the light is a brilliant reminder of the power of a complete project and the care that goes into it. Don’t let that shoegaze moniker on the album fool you: Keep is beyond that simple classification.

Samuel Leon (they/he) is a Brooklyn-based performance photographer, playwright, and semi-retired performer. Sam writes plays about music but not musicals. Sam doesn’t like using the internet, but they will if they have to. If you are even remotely close to Brooklyn and want Sam to make you look cool on camera, hit them up on @sleonpics.

Home Is Where – Hunting Season | Album Review

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Wax Bodega

Until recently, Home Is Where’s bio across streaming services read simply, “our band could be yr neighborhood.” It was a fun play on a classic Minutemen line that gave an entire book on indie rock its title, but together with the band’s name, it always resonated more as a mission statement. This is hardly a surprise: both myself and all four members of the group are from Florida, and I cannot think of a rock band that has rendered the Southeastern United States with such pinpoint accuracy. Whenever I’m listening to the whaler, I can practically feel the August humidity pasting my shirt to my back while I mow my mother’s lawn at 9 am. The line “Grass scabs over cracks in your driveway” from “Sewn Together from the Membrane of the Great Sea Cucumber” could have been written while staring at my old carport torn up by tree roots. 

That detail is just one example of lead singer and songwriter Bea MacDonald’s keen eye for the grotesque sutures holding 21st-century southern life together. Animal carcasses, the living dead, and brutally functional man-made structures dominate the imagery of the band’s first two records; part body horror and part post-apocalypse in their depictions of her home state. She’s acutely aware of the sins and contradictions foundational to certain subsets of the cultural landscape of America, but there’s an effort to understand in MacDonald’s writing that many would-be critics stop short of. Even as a trans woman alienated from her home by its government, there’s a warmth at war with the ugliness on display in her songs. That conflict is the beating heart of Hunting Season, guiding Home Is Where through their most winding, sensitive, and tangibly southern set of songs yet. Well, that and 13 different Elvis Presley impersonators’ lives flashing before their eyes as they die in the same massive car wreck. 

If you’re confused on that last bit, don’t worry: Home Is Where have never been ones to let an outlandish concept interfere with their visceral emotional punch. “artificial grass” is the only track to name-drop the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll outright, but the focus is still on the pretender to the throne’s identity crisis and his dying revelation that “every king is a thief.” It’s also the only moment on the record where MacDonald’s scream is front and center, relying more than ever on her natural drawl to wring the emotion from these songs. For the majority of the record, guitarist Tilley Komorny trades emo tapping and fiery post-hardcore riffs for delicate pedal steel and fleet-fingered acoustic strumming. Even the electric tracks like lead single “migration patterns” have more in common with The Band or alt-country darlings Wednesday than they do with the band’s emo peers. This is by no means a betrayal of their scene: if anything, Hunting Season is the most themselves Home Is Where have ever been. 

Photo by Texas Smith

The album offsets all these new sounds with a slew of recurring motifs from throughout the band’s catalog. Opening track “reptile house” echoes the whaler in both its folk-heavy sound and gruesome imagery, with fatal car crashes and suburban decay standing in sharp relief to the natural order. MacDonald literally self-immolates in a haunting refrain before once again bemoaning Western civilization’s unwillingness to let things die. “The end of the world is taking forever” from “daytona 500” has been simplified to the passive, “Oh! The end goes on and on and on,” as the band plays her out. It’s not the cheeriest start, but MacDonald spends the record’s thirteen songs scanning the most hostile backroads and small towns for signs of happiness, however hard their surroundings try to snuff that joy out. 

Throughout Hunting Season, MacDonald identifies with drifters wandering through scenes of an American dream melted like plastic in the sun. “milk & diesel” features a philosophical exchange on memory and meaninglessness between two of history’s most infamous traitors, Pat Garrett and Judas himself, while “mechanical bull” sees MacDonald share her own take on meeting the devil at a crossroads. Tales of cowboys and outlaws have long brought comfort or at least a sense of self to those in exile, and that holds true even a quarter of the way through the 21st century. Many across the country, including MacDonald and Komorny, have been forced to either live a lie or leave the states where they were born and raised thanks to increasingly aggressive anti-trans legislation. When the former sings, “No matter where you go, you’re still on the run” on “the wolf man,” it’s enough to make someone whose own migration was more intentional feel a sting of homesickness. 

Only someone who truly loves Florida could describe the state in all its strange glory. Everything from discarded McDonald’s bags, fire & brimstone billboards, and a gorilla advertising a Harley Davidson sale litter the medians of the album’s highway. It seems absurd or alien on paper, but each one of these sights reminds me of the biannual 8-hour drives down I-75 my family would make to Tampa for holidays. MacDonald describes these scenes with the same detached mix of wonder and bewilderment as a ten-year-old child viewing them from a backseat window, but also the fondness of an adult who’s lived around them, left, and come back. “stand-up special” captures these bittersweet memories like mosquitoes in sap, with Bea’s voice backed up by Shannon Taylor of awakebutstillinbed as they get stuck within their own warped scenes of Americana. The band glides through the song’s folksy bounce, halting only to devastate at the end with the revelation, “I’ve been exploding my whole life!” 

If anything keeps the record’s spirits high, though, it’s Home Is Where’s unified efforts as a band to make the most impassioned and close-to-home music of their lives. Both “stand-up special” and its sister track right before, “black metal mormon,” are such breezes to listen to that it’s hard for my face not to break into a soft smile while listening. The embrace of songs structured around a strong chorus leads to some of the sweetest melodies the band has offered yet. “shenandoah” is a gorgeous torch song and the most direct nod yet to the band’s longtime muse Bob Dylan, harmonica and all. Even a song as layered in its heartbreak as “milk & diesel” gives Komorny the space to rip a solo worthy of Neil Young himself. The most furious jam comes on “roll tide,” a steady, slow burn more than half the length of the band’s first album. It begins slow and sparse, gradually building into a wall of dissonant guitars, rolling drums, and wordless shouts before unraveling into vocal samples by the very end. 

The track was also the most impenetrable on the record to me. Not due to its length or a lack of hooks - the humming of the titular phrase was one of the first things from the record to get properly lodged in my brain - but maybe because of just how much I’ve heard those words. I spent my middle and high school years in Alabama, and I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times I heard “roll tide!” spoken, spat out, or screamed by devout college football fans during that time. It was meant as a rallying cry, but I could only register it as an ominous sign of domination. That perspective made this penultimate track read more as a dirge, and to be quite honest, for as good as the song is, it bummed me out. It wasn’t until several listens in that the verses began to reshape it for me.

I saw how the wind blew through
The trees and the leaves and the fruit
Were not moved

Well, it dawns on me, it’s late enough
To call it morning; all we need
Is the light

These images paint a picture of perseverance and, if you dare, hope. In southern vernacular, ‘roll tide’ has outgrown its place as a sports team’s trademarked battle cry: it’s used to mean everything from “have a good day” to “keep carrying on.” So much so that during a recent visit with family, my partner, who grew up on the West Coast, was completely lost hearing it for the first time. I’m choosing to believe MacDonald has appropriated it further as a call of queer resilience in the places where it’s needed most and people understand it the least. If nothing else, this band got me to join in a chant of “roll tide” for the first time in my life, and that’s a miracle in and of itself. 

For all the death, destruction, and bitter memories within, Hunting Season is not a record that wallows in defeat. Home Is Where identify resistance and community as the only ways forward, so we may as well all be from the same neighborhood. They kicked us out of the old one. To quote the coda that the band finally etched into wax in the final moments of the record: “Home Is Where forever.”

Wes Cochran is a Portland-based writer, worker, and listener. You can find them @wacochran on Instagram, via their email electricalmess@gmail.com, or navelgazing their way up and down South Portland.

Maria Somerville – Luster | Album Review

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4AD

It’s not often that I find myself spellbound. I expect so much of myself and my life that I’m constantly moving, churning away, always attempting to get my boulder to the hilltop. Even when I’m motionless, my mind is picking up where my body left off, working a double on the factory line of anxiety and self-consciousness, never letting tranquility in.

As a music fan, this is akin to a viral infection that plagues me, keeping me from taking a beat to absorb new material. If I'm not giving up on songs mere seconds in, then I’m forcing myself to get through entire records while not being in the proper frame of mind. I’m penalizing the music for not meeting me where I am when it should be the other way around. I need to accept the work for what it is.

This is where the new Maria Somerville album, Luster, comes in. A thirty-eight-minute sound bath of bliss, Luster is an astounding achievement from the Irish musician. On her debut for 4AD, Somerville challenges the listener to embrace presence through her meditations on nature, personhood, and longing. In her lyrics, she mentions swimming in caves, walking through fields, and even long-forgotten mythical heroes in a way that suggests her music is attempting to reach beyond the veil for something that can’t be seen or might be lost in time. On the standout track, “Garden,” Somerville grapples with her longing for someone or something but is seemingly never able to speak it into existence. 

Sonically, Somerville’s songs fall on the dream side of dream pop. Many of the tracks are enveloped in an electric haze that is befitting of her native Connemara along the western coast of Ireland. What’s most impressive is that she manages to avoid the monotonous one-noteness that often befalls dream pop acts. Each song contains a distinct element that allows it to slip into your mind long after you’ve stopped listening. On “Garden,” undulating drums pulse behind Somerville’s shrouded vocals, whereas tracks like “Stonefly” and “Violet” find her embracing elements of pop and shoegaze. 

All of this connects with what Somerville is trying to say on Luster. There’s a longing to make sense of time. Can we truly let go of the past, or are we doomed to be trapped in a prison of memory? On “Projections,” she tries to make sense of a lost relationship and what could have been done differently, all while knowing that what’s done is done. Other tracks like “Corrib,” “Halo,” and “Spring” find Somerville sifting through her personal sands of time as she grapples with whether or not she can or even wants to let go of her past pains. 

For many, I can imagine that deciphering meaning in these lyrics would be a frustrating task, as Somerville writes in a way that can come across as withholding, details left out, moments distilled into sapphic fragments. But I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s this constant demand to decode and establish meaning that makes today’s existence so fraught with exhaustion. We spend every waking minute attempting to determine meaning as we hamster wheel ourselves into the grave. Ferris Bueller was right, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Connor lives in the Bay Area, where he teaches English at a community college. Free Palestine.

Charmer – Downpour | Album Review

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Counter Intuitive Records

Although native to Marquette’s isolated and jagged shores, Charmer is not defined by their surroundings. The group’s third full-length, Downpour, is their first in five years and features the unit ditching their quintessential Midwest noodling for gain-drenched riffage. While they have mostly retired their habitual twinkles, the “woe-is-me” slant of their writing remains in the best way possible.

The Midwest collective has unleashed a slew of releases across their near-decade-long run, but the last extensive bout we’ve heard from them was the blighted sophomore LP, Ivy. Released in April of 2020, the band had no idea the precipice that society was teetering on. The release was largely successful, featuring some of the best emo of the 20s, however, the inability to capitalize on its potential with a tour suddenly brought the group’s headway to a halt. Forced to put their momentous plans on hold due to the worldwide pandemic, Charmer had little say in watching their hard work wither. 

In a dimly poetic way, Ivy suffers from the very fate it was built on. The jinxed album plays like the inability to let things go—gripping to every last part of youth-imbued relationships because an existence without them appears too damn bleak. While Ivy is about the grueling skirmish with the refusal to let old flames burn out, Downpour is a record about shouldering the weight of new obstacles while old ones never truly settle.

Charmer’s introduction to the release capitalizes on that very idea, as track one, “Linger,” is upfront with the idea that old wounds seldom heal without scars. It begins with a modestly catchy melody that's trailed by a euphoric blanket of reverb and feedback. The true commencement of the album comes 30 seconds into the song when the group swings into view. Amidst the completely necessary berating of the snare and kick drum combo, vocalist/guitarist David Daignault beckons, “I’ll leave this bloody mess buried in the winter, I’ll let this linger.” As blistering of an opening as any, the emotional weight of Downpour lingers from side A to B.

The band’s sharp pivot from sometimes awkward and quirky sitcom-inspired Midwest emo to punchy, anthemic punk is on full display throughout the work. Gems like “Arrowhead,” “Blue Jay,” and “Medicine” make for a savage combo to start the album. While the aforementioned tracks play similarly, each offers unique catchiness and replayability. In the avian-themed cut, “Blue Jay,” we hear Daignault plead, “Swallowed by the south beach, can you hear my heartbeat slowly? Northern downpour missed me.” In the inspiring chorus, the lyrics divulge a vital moment in time, which is repeatedly dwelt on, drop by drop. “Blue Jay” tips the listener off on Downpour’s climatic theatrics – the LP is less about the weather and more about how sharply our forecast on life turns dark.

As nightmarish and unrelenting as a downpour might feel, oftentimes we curse the ground we roam in a feeble attempt to fathom the things we cannot control. Downpour is not only a commentary on the trials and tribulations of silently bearing adult responsibilities, but also a reflection on how we unconsciously project our frustrations onto our surroundings. Charmer does not blame their misfortune on the rugged cliffs of Marquette; instead, they took the opportunity to submerge themselves in Lake Superior and be born anew. Because this record feels like a debut to the members, it comes with the head-rushing excitement of something fresh.

Despite the forceful shift in sound, Charmer leans on their twinkle-emo roots in some capacity throughout the album. Latter half highlight, “Watercolor,” is a standout in this sense, with whiny, nostalgia-infected lyrics declaring a yearning for the naive past, “Remember when we were young? Do you miss being 21?” The combination of sounds is fondly reminiscent of the 2010-era Run For Cover roster that spearheaded the new wave movement of youth, music, and culture. 

The same can be said for single “Rose Thorns,” which snuck its way onto this album but blends in seamlessly. Steered by crashing cymbals and overdriven guitar pedals, the band’s rather grotesque and murky tilt lyrically spells out the slow but sure process of getting over someone: “Rose thorns weave through my eyes, dull bloodshot blue skies.” The track was initially released as a one-off in October of 2023 when all we’d seen from the band was a much gloomier and spacey EP in Seney Stretch from earlier that year. This track, in hindsight, was a smoke signal from the group that they were not nearly done. Again, Charmer consistently refers to their surroundings in the context of their conflicts: “Falling in the lake, count the state signs to stay awake.” It’s in this case where Daignault largely looks to his hometown for solace amid an agonizing affair with relinquishing connection.

 Seemingly condemned to the isolating town of Marquette in the upper reaches of Michigan, maybe Charmer is defined by their surroundings. Perhaps they are shaped by the weather, much like the rest of us. Against our delusions that suggest we have power over our atmosphere or how it can affect our lives, those factors influence our every step, for better or worse. Like Charmer, we should strive to reinvent ourselves; to evolve and seek inspiration even in isolation. When the group swings, they seldom miss – and if another world-shifting event were to roll in tomorrow, there is little doubt that Charmer would rally, pulling inspiration from their lives and the seclusion of their town. 

Brandon Cortez is a sometimes-writer/musician and a frequent emo-enjoyer nestled in the West Texas city of El Paso with his fiancée and two cats. In a futile effort to escape EP’s blistering heat, you can find him perpetually adjusting his fantasy football lineups and smothering his shortcomings in homemade Americanos. Find him on Twitter @numetalrev.

Afloat – Special | Single Premiere

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Head Above Water Collective

At this point, the word “emo” is not super helpful as a descriptor for what a band actually sounds like. When you hear that a band is an “emo band,” you start to ask yourself, are we talking early post-hardcore emo? Noodly twinkle stuff? Sad power pop? In our current era, the answer usually ends up being a mix of all of the above, maybe even with some skramz or butt rock influences thrown in for good measure. As someone who is a big fan of the genre and its many permutations, I’m pretty happy about this; I love seeing how new bands take this wide set of emo ingredients and mix them up to create something totally their own. 

One group whose take on the genre I particularly enjoy is New Jersey’s Afloat. I was introduced to the band about a year ago through their EP Where I Stand, a great collection of songs with a post-hardcore edge and melodies that are pure pop. I’ve been waiting somewhat impatiently for new music from the group, and I’m happy to report that they’re back with the new track “Special,” which serves as one half of a split they’re putting out with Dummy Pass on May 23rd. This split is being released by Head Above Water Collective, a group started by Afloat’s Gabby Relos back in 2022 to provide performance opportunities for Jersey bands after a venue many had been playing at shut down unexpectedly. Now established in the live show world, Relos and bandmate Josh Rubeo are expanding the collective’s mission to include recording and demo distribution, hoping to put on for a scene that is sometimes overshadowed by their neighbors in Philly. This split will serve as the collective’s first official release of original music. 

“Special” finds Afloat picking up right where they left off on Where I Stand; it’s a great-sounding song with killer bass lines, strong vocal harmonies, and cutting guitars that pull you in like a lasso. Because Relos has such a strong voice, Afloat is able to do some really cool things with the instrumentals and arrangements on the track without having to worry about her getting overpowered; it’s a song that rewards multiple listens, and I kept finding new things I liked about it each time I put it on.

Though the split doesn’t officially drop until May 23rd, we here at Swim Into The Sound are very excited to provide you with an early chance to listen to “Special.” Listen to the track below, and don’t forget to check out the full split with Dummy Pass when it drops on Friday.  

Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. He has a blog about cassette tapes called Tape Study that you can find here, and he also makes music under the name Cutaway Car.