PONY – Velveteen | Album Review

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Take This To Heart Records

There are some experiences of the “CD Era” that just haven’t been replicated by the vinyl boom. Like the feeling of digging through a $1 CD bin at a record or thrift store and discovering the coolest fucking thing you’ve ever heard. Sure, there are $1 vinyl bins too, but it’s pretty rare you’ll find an alternative gem like Frente’s Marvin The Album or Radish’s Restraining Bolt amongst the Pat Boone and Mitch Miller. Maybe that was how you discovered Come On Feel The Lemonheads, and you hearing “Into Your Arms” immediately reminded you of your longtime crush. Maybe you make them a mix CD and use it as the opening track, followed by “Hey Jealousy” and “One Headlight.” Maybe I’m revealing too much about myself. It’s that sense of being in on some musical secret you want to share with someone special, the feeling of complete effervescence, and the feeling of falling in love for the very first time. That’s what it’s like listening to Velveteen, the sophomore album by Canadian rock trio PONY.

I’ve been following the Toronto band since their 2017 EP Do You, a succinct selection of emotional alt-rock made instantly personable by singer-songwriter Sam Bielanski. After a smattering of singles, including a cover of Robbie Hart’s proto-fourth-wave classic “Somebody Kill Me Please,” the band’s debut album TV Baby landed in 2021. This release was a clear step up, a more fully realized project anchored by catchy singles like “Chokecherry” and “Couch.” The album also cemented PONY’s core lineup of Bielanski and now-partner Matty Morand, who plays bass for the group and has previous credits with Self Defense Family and Lychi. While I enjoyed TV Baby enough, I was patiently anticipating a follow-up that would pack even more of a sticky-sweet punch. Velveteen is far more than I could have asked for, absolutely skyrocketing the band to guitar-pop perfection.

I think of albums like Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along, or Mood Ring by Kississippi in the same context as Velveteen. All three are standout voices of emo and indie rock that built off the formula from their previous album and found the uppermost echelon it could reach. This isn’t to say that I think Frances Quinlan, Zoe Allaire Reynolds, or Sam Bielanski “sold out” or purposefully delivered a more accessible project, but there’s a notable increase of energy and yearning on all three of these albums that eclipses their predecessors. On Velveteen, that energy is introduced without any reservations on album opener “Très Jolie,” its guitar intro is unavoidably attention-grabbing before Bielanski begins the first verse. “Do you ever picture us together? Standing beneath the glitter in the sky.” Then, the beautifully simple chorus: “I wanna kiss you. I wanna make you mine. I wanna lie to you and say that I am fine.” It’s a statement of intent not open to interpretation, the first of ten top-notch pop-rockers.

Those blissful and sugary hooks don’t let up anytime soon. “Peach” follows suit with a Mandy Moore-meets-Green Day attitude. “Picturing the salt of the beach, ‘cause I don’t want to drown in the taste of this peach.” My personal favorite on the album is “Sick,” a song that should be the biggest hit of the Summer in every major market. It’s another sensational power pop anthem that delivers guitar power and bubblegum pop equally. The electronic tinges in the production remind me of recent releases from Crushed and Hatchie, both artists who have been riding the line of ‘90s-influenced alt and pop perfectly. If a remake of 10 Things I Hate About You is in the works, this song should be a shoo-in for the credits, with PONY playing Letters To Cleo.

In Velveteen’s 35 minutes, not one of the ten songs fails to get stuck in your head for at least a little while. Like the bright landscape of “Sucker Punch” or the dreamy fuzz of “Haunted House.” If I had unearthed this record from a shop’s clearance bin, “Who’s Calling” would have been the centerpiece for my heartfelt mix CD roster; a song that channels the desire of calling your love interest but being too scared to say something. With lyrics like “Are you home all alone thinking about me? Wondering why the phone keeps ringing?” and “Can you tell that it’s me by the way that I breathe?” So far, it’s now 2023’s second great Canadian indie rock song that I’ve reviewed about reminiscing on phone calls after “Telephone” by Andy Shauf.

It’s almost overwhelming how great every track here is, making it extremely difficult to say anything other than “a perfect pop song” about each of them. When the second side of an album is just as strong as the first, filled with sharp cuts like “Did It Again” and “Sunny Rose,” it’s simply a testament to Bielanski and Morand’s compositional chops. Morand leads a project of his own called Pretty Matty, whose 2019 self-titled album (and recently released Heavenly Sweetheart) could fit right in rotation with Velveteen. It’s clear that their shared musical loves contribute to their strong personal chemistry.

“French Class” is the one notable moment of deviation, but it doesn’t feel out of place at all. The mostly electronic-led track is a longing ballad, describing someone who “will never be mine, my heart breaks with every breath they take.” The music video is a composite of various lo-fi footage, enhancing the affection of its narrator from afar.

I still purchase physical media whenever I can, but there’s one crucial element of music streaming that echoes CD collecting in a big way. Everyone who’s had a car with a CD player has experienced leaving the same disc inside of it for days, maybe even weeks, without changing it. Letting it go from the last track of an album right back to the first, an endless loop of excitement and obsession as you drive around. Thankfully, most digital streaming platforms have an “album repeat” button that has the same effect, and Velveteen is the poster child for the feature. From the final moments of “Haircut,” it seems required to start the whole album over and listen again. Considering you could fit two full runs of the LP on one CD if you wanted to, and with how addictive every song is, it makes cycling through Velveteen multiple times a no-brainer.

PONY has consistently released difficult-to-deny pop bangers since their inception, but it’s with Velveteen that they reached a monolithic height in the form of a second album. It’s impossible to listen to this thing without having a smile on my face every time, embarrassingly bobbing my head and sliding across my worksite floor throughout the entire runtime. For anyone as in love with ‘90s alternative as I am, you absolutely cannot miss this one. It’s appropriately nostalgic while still undeniably current, wearing its influences on its sleeve while not being fully reliant on them. Velveteen is an album destined to begin again, poised for North American superstardom, and a perfect soundtrack for heart eyes and butterfly stomachs.

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.

Beach Fossils – Bunny | Album Double Review

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Bayonet Records

Sometimes a writer wants to review an album. Sometimes two writers want to review an album. Here at Swim Into The Sound, we’re innovators and trailblazers. That’s why we invented The Double Review, where two people share their thoughts on the same album. It’s two reviews for the price of one. Will the writers agree? Will they conflict? Will it devolve into a bloody brawl? Read on to find out.

Elizabeth’s Review

Discovering Beach Fossils as a teenager was one of the great fortunes of my young life. They were (and continue to be) one of those bands that felt like a wish come true, making songs that seemed to be the very manifestation of yearning, numinous adolescent feelings coalesced into sonic form. Their music was too composed and polished to be surf rock, too mellow to be post-punk, and the label “dream pop” felt too reductive. Beach Fossils was a band that felt fresh and exciting, but was never exhausting to listen to. In high school I told a friend that if I had to attach a song as the soundtrack to this period of my life, it would be “Daydream,” off their debut record.

Five years since their last release, I am in a new era of life, but it seems like Beach Fossils haven’t changed at all. In their new album, Bunny, they stay true to their atmospheric roots with bright, dreamy melodies and lyrics that gush with longing. The sunshine instrumentation of the band shows little variance from their previous work, spangled with bright guitar lines and cocooned in their familiar resonance. There are even a few instances of the band exploring entirely new sounds, like “Run To The Moon,” which throws a rare pedal steel-sounding tone into the warm mix of sounds. 

Hesitant experimentation aside, Beach Fossils delivers a serviceable addition to their repertoire. Warmly psychedelic atmospheres were dappled across almost every song. “Dare Me” recalls the dreamy textures of their earlier releases, laced with distortion out of a shoegaze track that would have sounded perfectly at home on their 2011 EP What a Pleasure. “Tough Love” is another highlight, with a faster tempo that carries jangly, intricate guitars and the most beautiful vocals on the album.

The record swells with delicately composed songs that play like lemonade, sweetness with a sour undertone. Some of the lyrics feel a bit juvenile for a band so established; back in the day, the Beach Fossils angst used to be relatable; now, it just makes me feel old. (See, for example, “Welcome to California / fucked up when we were younger” and “Out on tour just finished this pack of cigarettes / and I don’t even smoke”). The same goes for songs about staying up all night making bad decisions. The ethos of the record feels dangerously close to mistaking cynicism with wisdom, like wearing sunglasses while watching a building burn.

Further on in the record, a few notes of humility, perhaps even maturity, emerge. Songs like “Anything is Anything” paint a portrait of a person engulfed in ennui, grasping for meaning amidst diminishing pleasure from parties, drugs, and girls. One song later on “Dare Me,” lead vocalist Dustin Payseur sings, “Sometimes all you’ve got is your friends / sometimes you can’t even count on them.” Is this maturity, or is it disillusionment? 

On the whole, Bunny glimmers with the familiar; the guitars twinkle, the melodies flow, the resonance remains the same. New listeners will surely be enthralled, while longtime fans will probably be satisfied. Yet something feels amiss at the heart of this production. Since the last Beach Fossils record, I’ve grown up. Why haven’t they?

Elizabeth is a neuroscience researcher in Chicago. She writes about many things—art, the internet, apocalyptic thought, genetically modified mice—and makes electronic music in her spare time. She is from Northern Nevada.

Mikey’s Review

My first two listens of Beach Fossils’ laid-back indie pop comeback record Bunny were exactly as intended– the first while frantically pecking at a keyboard writing up my final exams for my English degree, and the second at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as hell with the windows down in my roommate’s car. It struck me in those moments as a unique masterpiece in the realm of modern dream pop, hitting on all the jittery post-punk notes of the band’s Somersault sound while finding plenty of time to slow down and introduce us to Dustin Payseur’s inner Hope Sandoval. Sure, it ran a bit long, but I was drunk as hell, and the cool night breeze was rushing through my hair– I couldn’t have cared less. 

Single “Dare Me” boasts beautifully arranged guitar melodies and a traditionally danceable groove that evokes the band’s biggest hits (think “May 1st”), and album highlight “Anything is Anything” vividly recalls the rapturous atmosphere of The Smiths as its steady rock beat holds down dreamy, washed-out guitars. Payseur’s vocals are, for the large part, filled with the ennui listeners have come to know and love; delivered in a complete monotone, he clings to safe and functional melodies while the guitars and bass carry the weight of the harmony. Though he fails to enunciate any word that isn’t “cigarette,” Payseur conveys his tales of late city nights and drug-fueled romance serviceably. Fans will enjoy the earnest but sophomoric verse when they pull the lyric sheet out of their brand-spankin’-new vinyl sleeve (being oh so careful not to bend the edges!), but the freshmen on campus will pick up the vibes despite the mumbling. There’s no better balance to strike in the eyes of a 21-year-old drunken transsexual– I even jotted a reminder in my phone to tell the world that “this album fucking rules, and no one is allowed to say otherwise!!!!!!!”

However:

Upon further listening, the record’s actual sound began to grate on me more and more. The guitars, at times perfectly dialed in to chime-like yet driving light overdrive (“Don’t Fade Away”), hit as either too grating (the R.E.M.-inflected “Tough Love”) or too weak to carry the anthemic vibe (“Anything is Anything,” a song that would sound exactly like “How Soon Is Now?” if it just had more oomph to it). The drums are limp and lacking texture across the record, as the producer opted for a very safe corporate-indie sound that neither detracts from nor enhances the playing. The bass guitar burbles as any record indebted to ‘80s college rock should, but it feels cold and callous– whereas 2017 Beach Fossils filled their recordings with amateurish warmth and thickness, this effort feels overly clinical. The half-hour-and-change runtime feels like forever, and no new or different sounds come and go– the only thing that changes is the songwriting. Like driving down a suburban street, the record is maddening in this respect– though each song contains a unique interior, they’re all covered in the same coat of white paint.

For a band that has emphasized its sonic and aesthetic minimalism for some time, trimming the remaining fat feels unnecessary and uncanny– like looking into the face of a robot desperately trying to emulate a hipster, buying a pack of American Spirits to impress the woman behind him in line at Rite-Aid. 

THE COFFEE CORNER

Though I no longer live with my (ex-) roommate Nick, a Phish fanatic who told me he was playing Chivalry II “and [getting very] angry” in a Type O Negative t-shirt at the time of our phone call this week, he wanted to let readers know that the new Beach Fossils sounds like “Brian Eno for soccer moms.”

Mikey Montoni is a nonfiction writing student at the University of Pittsburgh, originally hailing from New York. When she's not writing, she's bruising herself attempting skateboard tricks, playing with her punk rock band, digging through bookstores for '70s pulp sci-fi paperbacks, and wandering Pittsburgh in search of good coffee.

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. 

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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.