Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano | Album Review

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Jagjaguwar

Every 17 years, the cicadas descend on eastern North America. More accurately, the “periodical” brood emerges in these intervals to join its cousins who appear annually. Both varieties belong to an order known as Hemiptera, or “true bugs,” that includes several of nature's more reviled creations like bed bugs and aphids. Cicadas are notable for the carcasses they shed among the trees and their distinct mating call, which lands somewhere between a chain-smoking cricket and a bullfrog sucking in a helium balloon. Safe to say, most see them as a nuisance. 

Gia Margaret sees them a little differently, undergirding the meditative third track on her new album with their calls. It’s the one titled—you guessed it—“Cicadas,” and it was the first song she wrote for Romantic Piano, the one that prompted her to write an almost entirely instrumental album of piano compositions. After toiling away in the Chicago underground, working odd jobs and playing open mics, Margaret broke out in 2018 with There’s Always Glimmer, which cast the steady thrum of slowcore forbearers like The American Analog Set atop skittering electronics. While touring Glimmer, she was diagnosed with laryngitis and put on strict vocal rest; The droning synthesizer loops she played out loud in her apartment to ease her anxiety were coaxed into songs, which became 2020’s mostly instrumental Mia Gargaret. She’d intended to go back to songwriter fare for her third, but faced with a mass solitude event–and her second bout with major isolation in as many years–words failed. She returned to the piano, the instrument she’d grown up playing and mostly abandoned for guitar after dropping out of music school. 

Romantic Piano plays like a walk through sun-dappled woods. At times this is actualized literally, as when the sound of twigs crunching underfoot surfaces to bookend “Ways of Seeing.” Often, however, it’s figurative, like on the searching “Juno,” where synths punctuate Margaret’s questioning piano phrasings. The way her compositions unfurl, swelling and shrinking as if by instinct, gives them a sense of childlike wonder. It’s almost psychedelic, in the same way a mushroom trip returns you to a state of innocence while rendering you aware of that regression, the melancholy of knowing that the endless possibility of your youth can be attained in adulthood, but only fleetingly. As Frank Ocean once put it: “We’ll never be those kids again.”

This is reified by Margaret’s on-record rediscovery of the instrument of her childhood. There’s a clear joy in her playing across Piano, in the way her older self can find new means of expression where a younger self once felt lost. It’s a full-circle moment: nostalgic, romantic in a classical sense, overwhelmed with the sheer beauty of existence. It’s what the poets used to call “sublime,” giving oneself over to the majesty of nature and being awed, contented. It’s a kind of transcendence, an ability to be open to the universe, like looking up at the stars and recalling that you’re simply one tiny speck.

Perhaps buoyed by this newfound openness, Margaret has also crafted her loosest record to date. Most of the songs are built off of ostinatos and layered with synthesizers and field recordings, keeping everything playful and light. She cites Erik Satie and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou as influences, both of whom played and composed with some disregard for the rigidities of rhythm and meter. Whereas she’s often preferred to work mostly solo, Margaret invited collaboration: WHY?’s Yoni Wolf receives several co-mixing credits, and David Bazan contributes bass and drum programming (even earning a feature credit on “La langue de l’amitié”). There are wry compositional jokes littered throughout, such as the inclusion of a guitar-driven piece plaintively titled “Guitar Piece.” Or the thirty-second interlude of glissandos “Sitting at the Piano”—you’d be forgiven for expecting it to launch into a crackling old Frank Sinatra ballad. 

But Romantic Piano’s centerpiece is the resplendent “2017,” which ties together motifs from across the album and Margaret’s whole discography. It’s a shimmering sound collage, awash in backmasked synth tones and replete with the sounds of children playing. Where most of the other pieces feel improvisational, this one sounds meticulously labored over, but still organic; and when a pulsing four-on-the-floor beat emerges at the halfway point, it sounds unlike anything else she’s ever made. It feels like the beginning and ending of a lifetime. As “2017” comes to a close, a voice intones, “I get it… that the joy is in getting real.” We’re left with the sounds of children’s laughter, a reminder to remain open to that youthful innocence for as long as we’re lucky to be alive.

Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. You can find him on Twitter or occasionally rambling on Substack.

Indigo De Souza – All of This Will End | Album Review

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Saddle Creek

I’ll start this with a little bit of context- I was not planning on being single for the last year of my 20s, having a four-and-a-half-year relationship end with a whimper in the dirty parking lot of my favorite Thai restaurant. Further context: I had never been on a dating app before this year, even during my undergrad when they started to pop up and capture the dating zeitgeist. I’ve heard horror stories, of course- strange sex in public parks (not sure how that’s even possible?), reserving a table for two only to awkwardly leave the restaurant or dine alone in silence. I also vaguely remember one of my college classmates telling me they got mugged and that the person they matched with didn’t even exist? But regardless of these objectively unpleasant experiences, I decided, against my better judgment, to download a couple of dating apps and sell myself in the name of love.  

Dating is no simple task, and dating on the eve of your 30s is even more difficult. Dating on the eve of your 30s in the age of Tinder and Bumble is a fool’s errand, the ultimate task of God’s Romantic Jester. Tech-Bros have ushered romance into the Gig Era, offering potential partners in a shiny mobile app that is somewhat similar to a mobile gacha game- with microtransactions to boot. Here I sit on my couch, cracked iPhone in-hand, swiping left or right on people based on very little information that I read less than 5 seconds ago. And to make matters even more absurd, people are doing the exact same thing to me when I pop up on their screens! But I’ve found beautiful things in strange circumstances, so on and on I swipe into the wee small hours of the early morning. 

After a week or so of swiping, matching, texting, ghosting (ghoster and ghostee), boosting, and more, the acrid stench of doubt starts to materialize across my subconscious. And how couldn’t it? I’m just a dude, being exposed to more people than my great-grandpa met in his entire lifetime within the span of an hour- and I hadn’t even gone on an actual date yet. I start to take note of others’ profiles, making small tweaks to mine so that the almighty first impression lands smoothly. At some point, it starts to feel like the Terms of Service was a job application in disguise- except the end goal is intimacy and not employment. My sense of self begins to intertwine with my Dating App Self, the unattainable farce of perfection always tantalizingly just beyond my fingertips. Is showcasing my authentic self possible in such a small space that has been programmed by Silicon Valley to be consumed in passing?

The struggle of living an authentic, loving life is explored by singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza throughout her discography, and her latest, All of This Will End, is no exception. However, it’s hard to ignore the feeling that the angle of the struggle has shifted from her previous offerings into a more grounded state of acceptance. The painting that graces the cover of All of This Will End features the same mother-daughter characters (beautifully painted by Indigo’s own mother) that have become a sort of trademark for Souza’s work. Here, they find themselves at the scene of car trouble, the mother holding her phone towards the heavens and the daughter sitting up against the busted vehicle with an air of resignation. Not an ideal situation by any means- but the painting breathes acceptance of it all, from the characters themselves to the warm colors of the desert that they have become temporarily entrapped in. They are Here, and This is Happening.

Of course, being a person is a messy affair, filled with moments of excruciating pain and biblical euphoria. We like to paint those transitory moments of joy as characteristic of who we are as a person; small moments stretched so far that they lose their ephemerality and become another reason to swipe left. But Indigo de Souza knows that these moments, while important, are not the sole ingredient in the creation of ourselves. Her pen emulates a razor, eviscerating the everyday with jarring transparency and letting the undercurrent flow free, no matter how ugly it may seem. “Parking Lot” deals heavily with agoraphobia brought upon by anxiety, turning a grocery store into an overstimulating but necessary evil since she’s “gotta eat somehow.” “Always” is a cacophonous question to Indigo’s father, wondering how much his words were worth in the loud silence of his absence. “Losing” is a heart-wrenching piece that wrestles with the ups-and-downs of mental health amid interpersonal relationships in perpetual flux. 

What makes Indigo’s lyrical prowess all the more lovely is her exceptional ability to write grungy, poppy gems that smoothly float across genres in a way that could only be described as “natural.” Perhaps even more impressive is how deftly she respcts the audience’s time. Glancing over All of This Will End’s A-side reveals a series of tracks that begrudgingly go past the two-minute mark (title track “All of This Will End” clocks in at 2:59, but I respect the hustle), yet none of these songs feel like half-baked ideas or throwaway tracks designed to pad the Spotify stats. In fact, I would say I wouldn’t even mind if some of these tracks were longer. Heavy-hitting “Wasting Your Time” has a gorgeous, breezy chorus that is the perfect response to the thick chords of the verses- but we are only graced with it once before the song’s end (perhaps, its rarity makes it all the more beautiful). “Parking Lot” ends with the poignant observation: “Maybe I’ll just always be a little bit sad,” before coming to a sudden end. But really- what else does Indigo need to say? You can almost feel the shrug of acceptance as she sings it: She is Here, and This is Happening.

Side-B of All of This Will End continues to showcase Indigo’s songwriting talents as the pace cools down a bit and the songs grow a little longer in length, the lyrics a little more surreal. The music also starts to branch out even further, flirting with dance music on “Smog” and “The Water,” followed by a small affair with alt-country on closers “Not My Body” and “Younger and Dumber.” Indigo continues to dig deep into herself lyrically, reckoning with the past, the present, and the future. “The Water” finds herself in the river of time as she fondly expresses her love for the water that lets her relive the memories of her younger self. Closing track, “Younger and Dumber,” is a beautiful ballad of accepting the naivety of youth while questioning the uncertainty of the future- and exploding into a declaration of a love so strong that it seems to exert its own force. Admiringly, Indigo extracts gratitude from all of her experiences, side-stepping the human tendency to sift through our experiences for any opportunity to blame whatever we feel has wronged us. A well-spring of hope bubbles up from within her, turning the crushing weight of existence into a force of creation rather than destruction. 

-

I’m sitting outside a cafe, sipping a black coffee with a CBD joint (a hippy-speedball, but for people with an anxiety disorder). I let my mind wander as I exhale a thick cloud of smoke, thoughts coming and going with the traffic of the busy street by my side. I aimlessly swipe away on Bumble, the app sending me “encouraging” automated messages while simultaneously reminding me to use the Superswipes that I got with my (sigh) premium subscription. Fifteen minutes zip by, my joint burned to a roach, my leftover coffee a cold puddle of mud at the bottom of the paper cup. I put my phone down and look around at the life happening around me. It's a beautiful, sunny spring day, freshly washed after a long week of rain. Suddenly, my phone lights up with a notification from Bumble- instead of the scheduled automated message, it’s telling me I’ve got a match. I am Here, and This is Happening. 

Nickolas is an artist based in Southern California. Described by a beloved elementary teacher as an “absolute pleasure to have in class,” his work wrestles with the conflict between privacy and self-expression in the digital age. You can find him shitposting on Twitter @DjQuicknut and on Instagram @sopranos_on_dvd_.

Atmosphere – So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously | Album Review

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Rhymesayers

Long before “emo rap” was trending on SoundCloud and blaring from fentanyl dealers’ iPhones, there was Atmosphere. The Minneapolis hip-hop duo comprised of lyricist/rapper Sean “Slug” Daley and producer Anthony “Ant” Davis have been celebrated for their emotionally vulnerable albums like 2002’s God Loves Ugly and 2008’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. In those years, it was called “backpack rap” — indie rappers with a turned-up nose at the mainstream, money-and-women music on the radio. These were the guys focused on introspection and self-reflection, big ideas and small bank accounts. Many of the artists from the Definitive Jux and Rhymesayers label rosters spearheaded the subgenre, like the lexiconically encyclopedic Aesop Rock and the politically charged Brother Ali.

Atmosphere wrote a lot about heartbreak and angst, notably on classic tracks like “Fuck You Lucy” or “Trying To Find A Balance.” Slug’s mission to pull at heartstrings and brain stems can come off as forward-thinking or totally corny, depending on how much weight you’re willing to give his mantras. Take, for example, “Bigger Pictures,” the second single from their latest album, the galaxy-brained mouthful So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. On that song, Slug takes us chronologically through his life at the ages of 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, and 51, which he’ll turn this September. In his younger years, he was “just the first son to carry the burden. I was barely a person” and “an extension of environment and reinforced messages.” As an adult, “learning how to deconstruct my puzzle” and “following my design, trying to find a little solace in how the stars aligned.” I could see how someone may find those excerpts trying too hard to be meaningful or “fake deep.” Especially in the song’s final moments, where he repeats “on and on and on and on” until his voice breaks and strains. Maybe a bit melodramatic for the half-centenarian, but I personally love how much feeling he throws into the entire piece.

The previous few Atmosphere albums were released in 2019, 2020, and 2021. With things feeling fairly back to normal now, May 2023 could seem a little late for a group to release music reflecting on the mental toil of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lead single and album opener “Okay” references it directly: “I need to believe in the simulation that we’re living in, spent the whole stimulus check on some stimulants.”  But with how taxed so many of us were during that time, and likely still are now, it’s not unwarranted. And after listening to this album as much as I have in preparation for this review, I think it may have actually landed at the perfect time.

So Many Other Realities… runs through 20 songs in just over an hour, but it feels like a breezy and cohesive listen. A handful of tracks are under two minutes, like the off-kilter “Sterling,” which seems to be about Slug discovering his love of music as an escape from real life. “When the preachers and pastors speak about the rapture, I think about eating the Stratocasters.” There’s also “After Tears,” featuring Atmosphere’s labelmate and previous tour support Sa-Roc. She leads the track without any Slug vocals at all, rapping poignantly about the end of a bad relationship. Even giving a nod to the group in the closing lyrics, “So maybe I need space so I can face that which I fear, that me without you might be a vast improvement in my atmosphere. So choose your fate.”

A handful of other features are also contributors close to the Atmosphere family. Shepard Albertson delivers the chorus on “Eventide,” a general lamenting track that fits right into the Atmosphere catalog. Albertson was previously featured on “Crimson Skies” by Felt, the collaboration between Atmosphere and California rapper Murs. “Talk Talk” is a wild dance-inspired cut, potentially giving props to the ‘80s synthpop-turned-‘90s post-rock band Talk Talk. The bulk of the track is carried by Bat Flower, aka fellow Minneapolis musician Dan Monick. Monick played drums for Lifter Puller, the band Craig Finn and Tad Kubler were in together before The Hold Steady, and the namesake of “Lifter Puller” from Atmosphere’s 2003 album Seven’s Travels. Lastly, British neo-soul singer Murkage Dave provides the emotional hook on “Still Life,” one of the post-pandemic anthems on the album. Slug raps, “Poison in the well, airborne contagions, government surveillance, and home invasions. We’ve been predicting Armageddon ever since the beginning.” To no fault of Atmosphere’s, I’m a bit burnt out on the topic of “still life” in music, but due to the nature of the theme here, I think it’s pulled off very well by Atmosphere and Murkage Dave alike. This is the first time the two have crossed paths, with hopefully chances to do it again moving forward.

Ant’s production throughout the LP also shines with a mix of traditional-sounding, jazz- and soul-sampled instrumentals to totally off-the-wall electronic-driven beats that remind me of some of Paul White’s music on Danny Brown’s recent albums. “In My Head” is a highlight, with the relatively sparse production underneath echoing synths and unconventional piano stabs. It complements Slug’s distorted vocals perfectly, and his lyrics about anxiety and paranoia. Or the 6-minute penultimate track “Sculpting With Fire,” led by a baseline nearly reminiscent of the underground theme from Super Mario Bros. There are plenty of odd, space-age sound effects riddled throughout while Slug composes the final, core farewell. “When I go, I hope I go from supernatural causes. But man, I'm exhausted, it's all about how you handle your losses and whether or not you recognize that you're toxic. You're a product of putting the prophecy below the profit.” The track’s last lyric gives some context to the album title: “Let's bring it back to the original topic. It's a graham cracker, marshmallow, and some chocolate.” Those would be the ingredients to s’mores, and with a word attached to each letter, you get So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. In an interview with British rap magazine UKHH, Slug says, “I named it that because I wanted to see people try and say it,” but doesn’t specifically mention why “s’mores” was his snackronym of choice.

The very end of the album is the “Okay” reprise, which I could have done with or without. I think “Sculpting With Fire” is such a strong finish to the world Atmosphere created, but reprising the opener does cleanse the palette a bit and drives home the idea of perseverance even through unpredictability. With that said, the subpar moments on So Many Other Realities are microscopic compared to how exceptional the great bulk of it is. Even closing out on another track’s coda doesn’t tarnish the hour.

Atmosphere is one of the most prolific hip-hop artists working these days (not including multi-dozen mixtape rappers), averaging about an album every two years since 1997. For any band, no matter how great, it’s pretty rare that every single release is gonna be a knockout at that rate. While I haven’t loved or listened to every single album since When Life Gives You Lemons, it’s a true accomplishment that they’re able to put out a record this captivating with this much going on in it so late in their career. And if I’ve observed Atmosphere for long enough, I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long for the next one. At least not in this reality.

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

Hater's Delight – April 2023

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April is a useless month for useless people. You’ve got Easter (I guess), taxes, and a holiday for stoners, all of which combine with some of the year’s most temperamental weather to make for an absolutely miserable stretch of 30 days. At least spring will be here soon, and we can all be unhappy in slightly warmer weather. 

If you’re just now joining us for the first time, Hater’s Delight is a monthly micro-review column brought to you by our team of Swim Into The Sound writers and a guest or two. This is a space where we can vent about the things online and in music that have gotten under our skin this past month. Each writer gets a paragraph to bitch about their chosen topic, then once we expel the Haterade from our systems, we all go back to loving music and enjoying art. Speaking of which, if you’re more in the mood for some positivity, here’s a playlist of all this month’s new releases that I enjoyed (or at least found notable) to help you keep up on everything that’s happened in April. 

Without further ado, let’s get all our complaints about April out before we flip the calendars over. 

BOYGENIUS

Each of these artists makes decent-to-middling pop-rock on their own time (Dacus decent, Baker between, Bridgers middling); that they must also fill my social media feed as a unit is frankly a waste of both my time as a viewer and your time as a poster. With such a massive profile (and a guaranteed sold-out arena tour arranged by their "not-so" major record label with ex-indie cred), the discourse is superfluous. "The Record" was never going to be a "flop." The stans (their parents?) will sell the vinyl out, sell the t-shirt out, sell the shows out, etc., regardless of lyrical fumbles, repetitive themes, poorly sequenced tracks, or cloyingly sweet marketing. There is no worthwhile angle regarding this fucking band. You can listen to it, but I wanna fucking talk about something else. (People who talked about it well: Miranda Reinert, as always, and SITS’ own Grace Robins-Somerville.)

SUB-HATE:
To the writer who dissed “Girls” by The Dare last month: I hope you never feel the loving touch of a woman. Song rocks – officially signed and endorsed by a lesbian.

Mikey Montoni – @dumpsterbassist 


Trippin’ On The Name Of A Metal Fest

Let me preface this by saying that I love the Texas band Power Trip just like any other hesher. Riley Gale (RIP) was undeniably one of the most iconic frontmen of his era. The remaining members of Power Trip have been fairly quiet since Riley’s passing, other than the exciting new band Fugitive featuring guitarist Blake Ibanez. But the band has had quite a bit of coverage in the first weeks of April. They announced the physical release of their Live In Seattle album, to many fans’ underwhelm, and simply tweeted out “no” in response to the Power Trip festival announcement featuring AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, and Tool. Many Power Trip band diehards came to the band’s defense, but let’s take this seriously for a moment. The likely realities of the situation are: 1) the people who put this thing together have never heard of Power Trip, the band. 2) Other than being a common idiom where they got their name, “Power Trip” has been used in heavy music for decades before the band you know the most. Cleveland metal outfit Chimaira released a song called “Power Trip” in 2004, stoner rock luminaries Monster Magnet had their Powertrip album in 1998, and there was even an ‘80s band in Power Trip’s exact subgenre (“crossover,” combining elements of hardcore punk and thrash metal) called Powertrip featuring members of underground LA punk bands Angry Samoans and Würm. So, to the hardcore kids that not only wouldn’t go to the Power Trip festival anyway, but likely couldn’t afford it either, there’s nothing to trip about here. 

SUB-HATE:
Hardcore bands, let’s retire the tradition of one-word band names. It was easier in the ‘80s and ‘90s when you just banked on someone else not having your name idea. Now you can very easily do a Google or Discogs search. California band Fury is the 28th known artist with that name, for fuck’s sake. Find something that stands out. 

Logan Archer Mounts – @VERTICALCOFFIN


People on Music Twitter Pretending to Hate Music Twitter Discourse

Like everyone else who contributes to this column and everyone who reads it (yes, that includes you), I spend a lot of time (definitely too much time) talking about music on Twitter. There’s this pattern– especially in online forums that are simultaneously fragmented and insular –of everyone getting thrown into a tizzy over a bad-faith comment, a bad-faith reading of a good-faith comment, a divisive issue, an actually-not-that-divisive issue, a hot take, a cold take, a lukewarm take, etc; talking it to death, and then complaining about the people who are talking it to death. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve read enough insipid online music drama to turn my brain into a slushie, but don’t pretend to hate the discourse while you eat it up like the little piggy that you are. Or, in between two stupid discourse cycles, complain about how Twitter is “boring now,” barely betraying your need for more ragebait. Either admit to yourself that part of you likes getting mad online (again, why do you think this column exists?) or take a walk outside without your phone for a few minutes (ever the multitude-container, I did BOTH of these things just today and I feel FUCKING GREAT). 

Bottom Line: Don’t go to the circus for news and get mad when you hear it from clowns. You love this shit. 

Grace Robins-Somerville – @grace_roso


The Big Re-Do

If you were to ask me what my favorite Drive-By Truckers song is, I’m sure I’d have different answers depending on my mood or the season, but usually, I say “Puttin’ People on The Moon” from their opus, The Dirty South. Hood’s raspy voice and strong storytelling portray a character driven to crime by a hostile political hellscape. The song felt powerful in 2004 but feels even more necessary 20 years later. Now, Drive-By Truckers are reissuing a “director’s cut” of The Dirty South, with additional songs left off the record and some new recordings. This brings me to my issue—they have re-recorded the vocals of “Puttin’ People on The Moon,” and they’ve made it worse.

Don’t get me wrong, every artist has the right to do whatever they want with their work, but DBT are calling this version of “Puttin’ People on The Moon” definitive? Hood’s vocal take 20 years ago is nasally and raspy, yet full of desperation, anger, and anxiety. He is fully embodying the character he is portraying. Though Hood’s voice is still strong two decades later, there is no improvement found on this reworked version. If anything, the confident and cleaner vocal take (still raspy, less nasally) softens the blow of the song’s message. All this is to say I don’t think I can justify the $46 for the director’s cut of one of my favorite albums. I’m reminded of the 1990s George Lucas Star Wars edits or Donnie Darkos’ director’s cut. You’ve maybe added some deleted scenes, but you’ve touched up the practical effects with CGI, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Russ Finn – @RussFinn


Closing songs as singles 

You want to know what I do whenever I start a new book? First, I find a nice, quiet place where I can read undisturbed. Then I sit down, crack the book open, and read the very last chapter. Just kidding, I don’t do that because I’m not a fucking psychopath. Why, then, are some bands so insistent on releasing the final song from their album as a single? It happened a few times this month, including one of my all-time favorite bands (who will remain unnamed), and the song wasn’t even that good! I mean, theoretically, shouldn’t the last song be a sort of big, anthemic closer that sends off the whole release? A summation of every track that came before it? Your big final number? Why would you want to drop that song weeks before people can hear it as intended? Obviously, not every album is a sequential story that you can “spoil” the same way you would with a book, but I don’t understand the logic of releasing a song like that by itself. The artist likely spent months creating, recording, and sequencing these songs, so why give away your final curtain call before people have even had a chance to enjoy the whole thing? This is really only a problem for dorks like me who keep up with singles as bands release them, but even for a casual fan, there’s gotta be some sense of letdown if you get to the end of your favorite artist’s new album and your first reaction is “I’ve already heard this one.” Let’s plan out our singles a little better, people. 

Taylor Grimes – @GeorgeTaylorG


Expecting Anything Of A Band

Frank Ocean – Have you heard of this guy? He had a whole ice rink, and some other stuff happened during his performance at some festival in Indio, CA, a few weeks back. A lot of people got very upset that Frank Ocean’s whole Coachella performance was slapdash and “not what [they] paid for.” Bro, you paid for a weekend of debauchery under the guise of attending a music festival! Did you think everything was going to go exactly to plan? What happens when something else in your life goes a little haywire? Do you check the receipt and ask to speak to the manager? Even worse than that, I saw complaints that Frank didn’t play specific songs! *whiny suburban music nerd voice* “Oh man, can you believe he didn’t play (deep unreleased cut from the Nostalgia Ultra era that I found on Tumblr in 2012)??” YES. YES, I CAN. He probably doesn’t remember the lyrics to a song that he threw aside 11 years ago. This isn’t your show, and you are NOT the main character for every event you pay money to see! Every time you pay for a ticket to a show, you are rolling the dice that something could go poorly. The smoke alarm could get set off by a fog machine, your favorite artist could get food poisoning, you could get an imposter instead of MF DOOM. All of these things are possible, and you hope they don’t happen, but sometimes it does not meet your expectations. Doesn’t that make the story a little more fun to you? It is more interesting to say, “I was at the Snowing reunion show where John Galm got pissed and spiked his bass into the ground,” than, “Oh yeah, I saw Snowing one time. Pretty good band!” Buy the ticket, enjoy the ride.

Jay Papandreas  – @listenupnerds

Jesus Piece – ...So Unknown | Album Review

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Century Media Records

There’s a spotlight on hardcore these days that is undeniable. Even if you’re only passively following the genre, it’s hard to avoid the hype. What’s interesting about this broader attention is that, historically, heavier music has been a much more underground style and therefore hasn’t typically attracted as many open eyes and ears. Nowadays, mostly thanks to TikTok and other social media, people don’t have to try as hard to discover art that falls outside the usual commercial guidelines of what is consumable and proven to sell to the masses. The combination of the “Turnstile Effect” and social media algorithms means that people who never would’ve previously considered engaging with the scene now have a foot in the door. To top it all off, there’s a virtually endless stream of live footage exposing countless bands to new audiences, maybe even more than the albums those bands release. All of this feels considered, understood, and taken into account on Jesus Piece’s heavy and determined second LP …So Unknown.

From the second the record starts, there is no breathing room. “In Constraints” kicks things off with vocalist Aaron Heard roaring the opening lines by himself for a matter of seconds before the full band stampedes in behind him, and things don’t let up once from there. Track after track, we’re beaten, pummeled, battered, and bruised by crushing riffs, thunderous drums, harrowing growls, and screams spitting pissed-off anthems of exhaustion and fighting through malaise. In all honesty, the relentlessness of it all washed over me with little effect the first few times I sat with the album. It goes hard. It goes very hard, but it didn’t connect much deeper for me at first. However, I know myself well enough to know I can be a hard sell. I have a joke amongst my friends where I claim that I don’t like movies anymore due to how picky and over convention I am. I didn’t dislike this record by any means, but something felt a bit distant. It wasn’t until I threw the album on while working out that things began to click for me a bit more.

What is apparent on …So Unknown is that Jesus Piece have written a conscious and active album that speaks directly to the crowds they’re playing to and will be playing to in the future. These crowds will range from the TikTok kids who are there because they saw a wild video online and want to experience it for themselves to 30-somethings like me who’ve always had a foot in the scene. I’m not going to front and say I throwdown in the pit. I can’t lie and claim I have a history of doing so whatsoever. I’ve been going to heavy shows since I was 14, but even in my younger days, I always admired them at arm’s length. I like a rowdy audience and a good crowd surf as much as the next guy, but the inherent violence that comes with a proper pit isn’t something I’ve felt compelled to experience firsthand. I’m content as a present observer. These songs weren’t written for me. They’re first and foremost written for the band members to expel and push themselves to darker and heavier depths, but they’re also clearly written to pop the fuck off live. These songs were written to soundtrack bodies in motion.

“FTBS” may be the best example of this, with its driving pace and call to “fuck the bullshit” if you don’t like what you’re hearing. Or take a song like “Fear of Failure,” whose sinister opening riff moves effortlessly into the crushing, doom-paced breakdown of the ending. There’s not a complacent moment on the record. Jesus Piece see what’s in front of them and are attacking it head-on. Every song needs to hit, so every song hits. The only real instance of any kind of reprieve is found in “Silver Lining,” a track that finds Heard ruminating on the deep love he has for his child. Even so, it would still be the hardest track on a lesser band’s album. 

I truly feel that any song from …So Unknown could’ve been a single, and that feels by design. There are countless Finn McKenty-types who will wax poetic about how “the album” is dead and the algorithm is capital G God these days but as much as I hate to admit it, they have a point. As a musician myself, I understand the reality of releasing music in 2023. Singles are king, but albums still matter, and it’s comforting to see a band understand and appreciate this. …So Unknown offers a tight 28 minutes of hardcore, and while it can feel a bit one note at times, it really grew on me even in the short time I’ve spent with it, and I am glad I gave it the time and space to do so. Putting this record into the context of physical movement really amplified my experience and has made me eager to witness it the way it was intended - in a room surrounded by a few hundred people all climbing over each other and screaming, “FUCK THE BULLSHIT!”

Christian Perez is a member of the band Clot and is always trying his best to exist gently.