Abel – Dizzy Spell | Album Review

Candlepin Records + Julia’s War

Hailing from Columbus, OH, up-and-coming punk band Abel make what they describe as “loud guitar music for quiet people.” True to their word, their new record, Dizzy Spell, delivers songs that are always noisy and sincere, never slick. The music video for the album’s lead single is full of dirt biking and fireworks after dark, creating a vibe that is both small-town America and post-apocalyptic science fiction alike. The video is a good metonym for the energy of Dizzy Spell as a whole; it can be explosive like a Roman candle or quietly eerie, like the sensation of standing alone in a field at nightfall.

The group’s new record strikes upon the central challenge of being a shoegaze band in a growing enclave of similar sounds. Carving out a space in the crowded thicket of the shoegaze scene is intimidating, and Abel has their work cut out for them. At the outset of the record, “Dust II” sounds like My Bloody Valentine mixed with razor wire; I jotted down “swerving car vibes” in my notes on my first listen.

But Abel’s sound is fully displayed on “Rut,” with sound waves gushing and flushing. It is uptempo, with a surprising summery shimmer and one hell of a guitar solo. While slightly reminiscent of other contemporary shoegaze bands (e.g., Wednesday and Hotline TNT), Abel distinguishes themselves with fiercely honest lyrics and a gritty lo-fi sound. The jangles reach discordant new depths on “Hexed,” yet there are no false notes; the previously present tightness relaxes, and the chorusing voices sound almost fugue-like. There is a sweet nostalgia to many of the songs; “Occupied” gave me a sudden flashback to watching bands playing in basement shows put on my college radio station, with dizzy forays into guitar fuzz.

“We All Go To Heaven” features a crunchy riff, delicious! In a moment, it becomes suddenly spare, but still fuzzy. The lyrics are scarcely audible over the glare, but they carry words of quiet despair. And here, we begin to see a sharper, sadder edge to the album. With a feature from fellow Columbus band Villagerrr on “Placebo,” the band sings about the agony of home: “My sister can’t call me anymore / She hates that I live so far away / But I can’t live if I don’t stay away.”

The feelings of frustrated youthfulness culminate in the album’s apocalyptic closer, “Wanna,” parsing the pain of living and dying with an almost adolescent intensity. This song, and the record as a whole, hits upon a surprisingly tender final note; “I’ll walk across the country / to make you feel loved again.” It requires a certain moral courage to confront the fear of death and a boldness to be honest about it. Abel, with gutsy musical drive mixed with Midwestern sincerity, shows both and closes the album perfectly.

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Elizabeth is a writer from Northern Nevada.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flight b741 | Album Review

p(doom) records

Ben Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and King Gizzard,” and I just think that’s beautiful.

Perpetually booked and busy, Aussie psych-rock royalty King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are back with their 26th record, Flight b741. After a run of über-conceptual albums revolving around everything from pure-synth analog experimentation (The Silver Cord) to death metal climate criticism (PetroDragonic Apocalypse), their first LP of 2024 sees the sextet kick back and try not to take things so seriously. Leaning into a ‘friends round the campfire’ approach, the songs on Flight b741 were merely loose ideas before the group went into the studio. In true Gizz fashion, the jams came naturally, with Stu Mackenzie saying, “The best takes were always the ones where we were winging it pretty significantly.” Once they got to the lyrics, all six members chimed in with their ideas, each riffing off what their bandmates contributed. To put the cherry on top of the whole ‘casual jam with friends’ vibe they created, the group decided that each member would sing the lines they wrote, creating a perpetual passing of the mic that exists across the whole record. Every single song on Flight b741 has all six members on vocals, a role previously only credited to Mackenzie (and occasionally a few others) on past releases. 

Flight b741 is the musical equivalent of laughing with your friends, taking turns adding to the joke to make the group crack up even harder. Sometimes that laughter is literal (multiple lines in “Rats In The Sky” made me LOL IRL, but I’ll get to that later), and other times, it’s unexpectedly deep and introspective, or musically astounding. Every aspect of the album—from the various levels of crispiness on the vocals and guitars to the Gizz-ified renditions of nearly every subgenre of ‘70s rock to the persistent mentions of planes and flying and animals—is riffed and expanded upon to the point where you wonder if this is all actually intentional. You wonder if this album not having a concept is the concept. Or is it just impossible for King Gizz to come together and not end up with a narrative for any group of songs they create? In their “Making Of” mini-doc that dropped on YouTube a few weeks ago, we see the band working through song structure, huddling around vocal mics, and seemingly making it up as they went along. But we also see them all in matching jumpsuits, in a room painted sky blue with white sound absorber clouds scattered across the walls, singing about flying in the sky and exploring its expanses. Is the journey they’re continually singing about the journey of creating this album?

While we may never know the truth behind Flight b741’s genesis, it’s clear King Gizzard had a vision for the sound they were going for with this record: good old-fashioned rock and roll. The sextet tackles some of the most iconic niches of ‘70s rock, keeping the record varied and engaging from song to song. Album opener “Mirage City” kicks off with a screech of intensity before veering into a pared-back, twangy Allman Brothers Americana jam. “Antarctica,” the grooved-out surf rock song about a tundra, features one of the most unexpectedly deep-fried vocal moments in the Gizz discography (Stu’s euphoric, warbled “Put it on ice” belt that comes at the end of the track) that left my brain bouncing off the walls of my skull. 

The group even takes surf rock one step further on the title track, “Flight b741,” using vibey, Jimmy Buffet-meets-Beach-Boys-meets-Beatles textures and an unconventional song structure to have their own personal “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” moment. There’s also the most unserious, Zappa-esque doo-wap blues on tracks like “Rats In the Sky” and “Le Risque,” with the latter being the most straightforwardly bluesy. Featuring drummer Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh on vocals for the first time ever, “Le Risque” was the first single to kick off this new era for the band. The song’s airplane hangar-set music video shows the group in the same jumpsuits we see throughout their mini-doc, with Ambrose Kenny-Smith serving up his usual deranged realness and intense commitment to the bit, straight from the cockpit of a jet. 

King Gizz thrash out on “Field Of Vision,” arguably the ‘hardest’ song on the album, with a similar pulsing intensity as Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” the biker rock track to end all biker rock tracks. The dueling guitars in the solo break have some of the crunchiest tones and most explosive harmonies, with Mackenzie and Joey Walker using every ounce of power their feeble solid state amps had in them. Amby’s harmonica adds that bit of hick flair you’d expect in any kind of biker rock, taking the intensity of the guitars to another level. I really am obsessed with the riffs on this one, especially at the breakdown right before the end; it’s even more moving slowed down, and flexes some ‘90s shoegaze tones. It’s one of my favorite parts of the album because it sneaks up on you emotionally, offering a chance to breathe before being propelled into the song’s wall-punch-inducing final stretch. 

On the 8-minute closer “Daily Blues” (uncharacteristically the longest song on this album), there’s enough space for a back-and-forth between a racing 4x4 and its half-time counterpart. It’s not necessarily changing the meter, but changing the entire feel of the song between these two sections, basically all depending on what Cavs was doing behind the kit. “Daily Blues” is the Summer of Love track: using the chorus to talk about empathy in terms of who is or isn’t “getting fucked up daily” (by life) while also using the verses to say some pretty existential things about religion (“Faith only binds ideology” and “Is it fair to be born into belief?” specifically). This mix of fun and depth is a sneaky presence across the record, at times hiding behind the blown-out guitars, screeching harmonica, and gritty keys.

I expect to be blown away by at least one musical choice every time I listen to a new King Gizz song, and the songs across Flight b741 are no exception. There’s no doubt this album is fun to listen to in the good old-fashioned musical sense, but I wasn’t expecting the lyrics to take me out the way they have. I was only halfway through the opener before I realized I was missing out if I wasn’t reading the liner notes along with every song (something I recommend, nay, demand, everyone does with this album at least once). Every lyric is intricate, creative, and deliberate, bouncing off the next in perfect cohesion. It makes you forget that they were puzzle-pieced together by all six band members in real-time. From the play on idioms ‘casting pearls before swine,’ and ‘when pigs fly’ on “Hog Calling Contest” to the various POVs taken across the record (birds, pigs, a drunk pilot), what King Gizz lacked in preparation, they made up for in pure wit. 

The lyrics throughout Flight b741 are either so deep and intense they have the potential to shift your entire worldview or so unserious you wonder if this was all one big joke to them. Between posing a question like “What would it mean to be a beam traveling like lightning?” on opener “Mirage City,” to coherently cramming in every word of “The splatter of the engine and the creaking of the skeleton, composing a requiem / I’m frightened” on a verse of “Flight b741,” you’d think Gizz were contemplating the meaning of life every time they picked up their instruments. But then, in the same song, you’ll hear a line like “How are we floating here? This makes no sense; I wanna go home.” The switch sometimes even happens in the same line, like “Corneal conditions got me scrutinizing / I’m feelin’ like a horse on Ket” on “Field of Vision.” Who would put two things like that in the same lyric? It’s so preposterous that it works. 

One of the silliest songs on the record, which also happens to be my favorite, is the penultimate track, “Rats in the Sky.” Before listening to it, the title reminded me of how my dad calls every seagull he sees ‘rats with wings.’ In my head, I thought, “Ha ha, what if they wrote a song about seagulls?” but a few moments after pressing play, I thought, “Wait, did they write a song about seagulls?” and then a few seconds later I thought, “Did they write this song from the point of view of a seagull?” And yeah, after listening a few hundred times, I think they did. The tempo alone gives me that same pseudo-anxiety the seagulls in Finding Nemo gave me when I was four years old. Everything is staccato to the max, making it impossible not to bop your head and snap along. The whole song feels like going on a tangent and continually having to be reminded of what you were talking about, signaled by the hook in the chorus acting as the track’s anchor. It also just has some of the funniest lyrics I’ve ever heard:

• “My crumb kingdom / And doesn’t Planet Earth look good from this perch?” 

• “Am I a pet, or is this man trying to kill me?” 

• “Eat, fly, survive”

• “The garbage man knows we’re a symbiotic duo” 

• “Bread crusts are my banquet / Puddles are my wine,” 

Like, THEIR MINDS!!! NO ONE IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO COMMIT TO A BIT LIKE THEY DO. And for those reasons, this is the best song on the album to me. End tangent.

On the whole, Flight b741 continues to back up my opinion that King Gizzard is one of the most impressive bands of the last 15 years. They’ve been able to chameleon between genres, techniques, and concepts while producing at a high quality AND quantity (again, this is their 26th album), all while simply enjoying the moment and going full-force into whatever’s inspiring them at any given time. Flight b741 cements the fact that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is more or less a well-oiled machine at this point, and there’s not much that could stop their creative juices from flowing in any direction they please. Not knowing which path they’ll take for album 27 is all part of the fun.

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Cassidy is a music writer and cultural researcher currently based in Brooklyn. She loves many things, including but not limited to rabbit holes, Caroline Polachek, blueberry pancakes, her cat Seamus, and adding to her record collection. She is on Twitter @cassidynicolee_, and you can check out more of her writing on Medium. 

Ogbert the Nerd – What You Want | Album Review

Self-released

Last summer, I got my first tattoo in my kitchen, stick n’ poked by my boss’s boyfriend. It was a whirlwind decision because, in two weeks, I’d be on a plane to Kansas for the first time since coming out as trans and I needed a sigil to ground me in my identity while surrounded by friends and family who still viewed me as that boy they knew. Across my bicep (a position chosen specifically for its visibility) is Peppermint Patty saying, “I’m not Charlie Brown,” my go-to reply for when my mom would tell me, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” I wanted it to be the first thing she noticed when she picked me up from the airport. A defiant statement that I’m not the little boy she made promise would never change.

Ogbert the Nerd, New Jersey’s only emo band, have finally followed up their masterpiece of a debut, I Don’t Hate You, a record full of songs assuaging others, with a record that is a defiant statement of autonomy. The group’s sophomore album, What You Want, is the sound of accepting that failing others’ expectations is okay if it’s in the pursuit of self-actualization. From “drag around my body just to show that I cared” to “they’re gonna cut my head off for the antlers” and “I knew your life’s a candy apple filled with razor blades, but I’d bite if offered every time,” frontperson Madison James sings with a sense of resignation that the only way to get love is to take your lumps… But the horror of conditional love is that you’re always coming up short. 

That feeling is what makes the chorus of “Purple Roses” hit so hard. When James screams, “I’m the patterns on the hallway floors repeating, but I’m always short a tile,” it acts as a reminder that the person you truly are will keep pulling you away from achieving the status others set out for you. I could never be the All-American my parents dreamed of when the girl I’ve always been cowered in the darkest parts of my brain. What finally tipped me over the edge was realizing I was killing myself by living a lie, as James sings on the last line, “‘cause if I killed myself like I wanted to, it’s how you’d remember me.” When I finally came out to my parents, it was because I didn’t want to die without them knowing I wasn’t just a failure of their expectations.

Underneath all these lyrics of conditional love are instrumentals that evoke the feeling of throwing a tantrum with hopes to be seen, even if it means being hated. “Brunson Lied” rushes to collapse into the fretboard-scrambling riffs of “Bike Cops.” The acoustic break on “Purple Roses” is a prelude to the sighing guitar of “Twelve Dollar Snickers.” What makes the centerpiece of the record, the instant classic “Just Like Always,” so fucking beautiful is that it marries the most nostalgic melody and gang vocals with the eggshell-thin illusions of what love means shattering. Since transitioning, anytime my parents tell me they love me or are proud of me, I feel skeptical of who they’re saying it to. Do they like what’s in front of them? Or just how they see me? When What You Want draws to a close on “Dragon Song,” it is with the realization that after all the effort put in to maintain conditional relationships, all of it will crumble. The song fades, and all that is left is yourself. 

There’s a famous clip from an Embrace show of Ian Mackaye calling out Thrasher for labeling the Revolution Summer bands as emo-core, saying it’s “the stupidest fucking thing,” describing these bands “as if hardcore wasn’t emotional to begin with.” That may have been an apt complaint for the first wave, but now in the fifth wave, we see emo as distinct from hardcore, punk, and indie rock for how the practitioners of the genre are aiming to create a state of emotional exultation in their audience. I didn’t listen to “Bike Cops” 30 times in a row earlier this year because I was wallowing over feeling unloved by my parents; I stuck it on repeat because the horns sighing in the background of the mix make me feel like I’m resigned to wasting time, but when James screams  “please gouge your fucking eyes / so you can see it the way I see it” I feel like I can make it. Each time I’ve heard the song live it is a cathartic surge of joy for being alive. 

Ogbert the Nerd can’t make it better, no emo band can, but What You Want can be a guiding star, a reminder to be what you want.

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on twitter @Lilymweber.

talker – I’m Telling You the Truth | Album Review

Self-released

A pretty common aspect of the human condition is trying your damnedest to avoid broadcasting your “baggage” to those around you. We are essentially walking amalgamations of our past traumas, our pain, our experiences, our influences, and letting those imperfect parts of us show can be awkward at best and debilitating at worst. It’s easy to spend years pushing these feelings down because dealing with them feels like too much. On top of that, many of us have an intense aversion to confrontation, causing us to bottle up those feelings and avoid them at all costs. When you spend your whole life bottling things up, letting others in and allowing them to see what you perceive as flaws is the last thing you want to happen. 

Growing up in an intensely religious environment, suppressing my queer identity, dealing with the aftermath of my parent’s divorce since the day I was born, and constantly feeling like people could see my emotional wounds led to me avoiding that trauma for years. As I’ve entered adulthood, the outside problems of the world have compounded with these preexisting traumas. As a result, even the slightest confrontations or personal revelations can feel like too much of an undertaking to deal with, even on my best days. As another Pride Month passes us by, it feels like there’s no better time to examine the topics of identity and confront the more challenging aspects of ourselves. 

I’m Telling You the Truth, the debut album by Los Angeles-based indie rock artist talker (aka Celeste Taucher), appropriately confronts these themes in 11 raw, heartfelt tracks that tackle a multitude of tough concepts along a singular cohesive journey of self-acceptance. The catalyst to this is finally having those difficult conversations, not only with yourself but those closest to you. Every track on this album acts as its own unique excavation of the self, each time in a different way, but one is no more important than the other. talker has spent years suppressing her sexuality due to her religious background, she’s facing the challenges of being in your late twenties as part of a generation that was set up to fail from the start, as well as trying to balance her relationships with others and the relationship to her genuine self. Every single theme visited on I’m Telling You the Truth couldn't be more relatable to my journey, and in that regard, it is a record that feels like deep confessions of a close friend wrapped in brutal, glittery indie rock bops.

One of the most impressive aspects of this album is how the musical approach and formatting mirrors the thematic approach of the overarching concepts. Each song, both musically and lyrically, feels like it could be a part of a different album, but at the same time, they relate so well to each other across every minute of the release. I’ve often felt that many of the records I have consumed lately tend to overstay their welcome, especially when coming from more of a pop-oriented approach. In refreshing contrast, I’m Telling You the Truth sits comfortably at a 38-minute runtime, and the versatility of the record ensures not a second of it is wasted. 

The album’s opening track, “In Memory of My Feelings,” teases with a thin texture and soft vocals, introducing a warm country twang from Taucher before erupting into a true album opener of dynamic rock-adjacent proportions. Fierce punk flavor attacks in the following track, “TWENTYSOMETHING,” baring the teeth of the album’s base emotions and making sure the listener is matching talker’s headspace before we’re even two tracks in. 

The textures and myriad influences of the record are what really shine for me and continue to impress on repeat listens. “Everything is Something (I Never Saw Coming)” boasts clear influences from Talking Heads, but when rendered in talker’s style, hits more like one of Imogen Heap’s lighter tracks – a very easy pull for me. Similar musical themes come back later in “Return to Sender,” and talker truly excels in tethering each song together in a familiar way while offering something different each time a new sequence is introduced. The indie rock roots are all there and feel very reminiscent of popular rock tracks from the late Aughts while showing real growth, elevating the affair above simple influences and reverence. Light vocal effects, layered guitar textures, and soaring melodies create earworm after earworm that makes it hard to pick just one favorite. 

That being said, it’s hard to ignore the raw power working behind the track “Drag Your Feet,” co-written by Reade Wolcott of LA ska band We Are The Union, whose unmistakable influence can be heard throughout the song. The simple structure, emotional hooks, and tenacious guitarwork all fuse together to create a nostalgic and refreshing summer track that will keep you going until October. Even the following cut, “Say My Name,” could fit squarely on a female-fronted rock record of twenty years ago but feels so at home, bringing some much-needed softness and light to the current indie rock climate. Easy drum beats and twinkly guitar textures make it feel like you could close your eyes and be transported to your childhood bed, yapping to your friend about nothing in particular on your translucent, neon landline, tying up your parent’s internet for hours. This specific atmosphere created by the music smartly contrasts the uncertainty and troubled emotions of the lyrics, effectively cementing these feelings of inner conflict. 

The debut LP from talker operates gorgeously as a raw look at the complexities of growing up and growing into yourself. It’s a friend to confide in when you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about your problems, not even yourself. Albums like this don’t come around every day, and I’m glad we have an “album of the summer” contender that doesn’t feel disingenuous or cramming minutes into a record while having nothing of value to say. While others choose to forego substance for vibes, I’m Telling You the Truth is doing just the opposite – speaking from a place of awkwardness, a place of fear, a place of feeling like everything is too much – and always having something genuine to say. The truth can be a hard pill to swallow. Even harder to present to those around you. I’m glad talker is here to make the truth feel less terrifying and show us how liberating it can be to finally open up.

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Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.

Soft No – Soft No | EP Review

Abandon Everything Records

Something is in the water in the City of Brotherly Love that makes everyone want to spend half their paycheck on pedals and play the electric guitar at a tinnitus-inducing volume. The great Philadelphian shoegaze bands of yester-decade like Nothing, Sunny Day in Glasgow, and Blue Smiley have paved the way for a new generation of noisy rock groups like TAGABOW, Knifeplay, Full Body 2, just to name a few. With the release of their self-titled EP, Soft No are planting their seeds in the fertile soil of the city’s scene.

As it becomes increasingly difficult for bands to afford rent on a DIY paycheck in NYC, Boston, and other relatively HCOL cities, Philly's combo of local talent and affordability has allowed its burgeoning scene to draw national attention. But even with all of this momentum behind the genre, newcomers like Soft No are entering a crowded lane, as these sonic templates are extremely popular in both local scenes and across the internet on platforms like Tik-Tok. Events such as Philly’s recent Slide Away Festival are laying the groundwork for people to recognize and celebrate sonic diversity within the genre, but it’s still a challenge to stand out.

This context informed my headspace as I went into Soft No’s debut EP: do I really need more Philly shoegaze in my life, and how will they differentiate themselves as this space borders on oversaturation? After several listens, my answer is two-fold. For one, they’re exploring a darker, riffier sound that harkens back to 90s alt classics. Their press material mentions Smashing Pumpkins and Hum, but I also hear some of the melodic abrasiveness of Hole. Unlike other bands that lean into a sort of generic hazy heaviness, these guitar parts WILL get stuck in your head.

The other differentiator is experience. Each of Soft No’s five band members have spent years in the scene, as has contributor and producer/engineer Mark Watter, whose eye-popping CV includes the latest records from Philly legends Alex G and Hop Along. The result of their combined musical tenure is a collection of tracks that sounds dynamic and polished. In many ways, this release doesn’t sound DIY, and it certainly doesn’t sound like a band figuring out their sound for the first time.

Album opener “Keeping Tabs” kicks things off with one of the best songs in the collection. It’s probably the most straightforward shoegaze song of the bunch, but it’s a damn good cut with beautiful, piercing vocals and textured guitars. The 90s alt-rock and hardcore influences are most obvious on the lead single “Take Your Word,” which has the stickiest chorus of the bunch and the most legitimate alt-radio potential. And when I talk about the guitar parts getting wedged in your brain, I’m talking about the riff on “Melting Timelines” - my personal favorite Soft No track.

All five songs wear the hallmark shoegaze distortion, but in contrast to an MBV or bands of that ilk, the vocals are relatively clear and articulate. The drums don’t buckle under the weight of the mix; instead, they’re a driving force for this project that gives the whole thing a sense of momentum. By the time I reached the end of the last track, I felt like I was still flying forward. There are a lot of excellent debut EPs that still leave me wondering if they can keep this up for a full-length project; Soft No’s propulsive energy suggests they might just be getting warmed up.

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Parker White is a tech salesperson moonlighting as a music writer. When not attending local shows in Atlanta or digging for new tunes, he’s hosting movie nights, hiking/running, or hanging out with his beloved cat, Reba McEntire. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @parkerdoubleyoo, and you can read other stuff he’s written over on his Substack.