Ben Seretan – Allora | Album Review

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Tiny Engines

I’ve gotten really into meditation this year. It’s become one of those habits that has gone beyond performative. Instead, meditation has become a practice that makes me feel better and supports my neverending human endeavor to grow in warmth, beauty, and happiness.

Ben Seretan’s Allora has also been instrumental in my spiritual development. Through its lens of a ripping, anthemic indie rock album, I find myself selfishly excited to meditate on its drone. Every song basks in the overdriven tube warmth of a guitar amp. Plucked strings and shredding leads guide listeners to Seretan’s gospel about resilience and love. A congregation of bassist Nico Hedley and drummer Dan Knishkowy backs Seretan to form a kind of garage band trinity. 

At over eight minutes, album opener “New Air” introduces his thesis as Seretan repeats, “We breathe new air for the first time.” The single is grounded by a driving bassline and groove that ascends into an explosive solo, awash in crashing cymbals and tremolo picking. Given the track’s length and droning structure, the song begs listeners to give in, let go, and enjoy the moment. In that trance, though, there is respite and rebirth, as Seretan and co. offer dynamics that allow for breathing room, processing, and gratitude. Long songs are always a risk, especially as first tracks, but despite that inherent challenge, Seretan sets the bar high right out of the gate.

If “New Air” is a meditation on rebirth, “Bend” is a sobering reflection on the compounding nature of one’s past. The lyrics-cum-poetry are memories:

flowers on the road
bending toward the sun
I will follow slowly
you were almost free
I could hear you singing
for the last time.

These flashes of imagery push Seretan to the edge with an emotional weight that is exhumed through his climatically delivered refrain: “Bending with the weight of it / what I want could fill the world up / I will bend, not break.” Similarly to how Dan “Soupy” Campbell of The Wonder Years encouraged a younger me to push through depression and apathy with the war cry “I’m not sad anymore,” Seretan encourages me now to be flexible in the face of adversity, tragedy, and grief. 

“Free” is the eight-minute tails to the head of “New Air.” Mostly instrumental and darker in tone, the track is plain and clear in a desire for liberation: “Were it that I was free / ah, free.” Although Allora is not without conflict, “Free” is the most obvious and direct. There is love and resilience and joy, but some shackles still remain. Even then, though, Seretan remains grateful on the closer, “Every Morning Is A,” where he sings, “Every morning is a / glory hallelujah.” The final song is simply those lyrics and Seretan’s now familiar guitar noodling over an organ pad. Reverbed up to heaven, you’d swear you were in a church yourself.

A skeptic myself, I had some unwelcome flashbacks to being in church in elementary and high school. In spite of the emotions that accompanied those memories, Ben Seretan’s Allora left me peaceful, hopeful, and surprisingly grateful to carry my weight because it is mine, and I will not break under it.

Brooklyn native Joe Wasserman moonlights as an English teacher when he’s not playing bass in the LVP. Find more of his writing on Substack.

Otis Shanty – Nobody’s Party | Single Review

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Relief Map Records

“We’re here!”

I felt the old Land Cruiser lurch to a stop as my friend yanked the parking brake, which was more of a gesture of faith than a safety measure. The slow, heavy car slipped out of gear at least once a month, parking brake or not. I sighed and carefully opened the door, easing myself into the cool summer evening. I could hear laughter and loud music pouring through the golden windows of the house we’d trundled through miles of scrubby pines to reach. “There’s a party on Friday,” my friend had told me. “You should come. We’ll take the tank.” 

The driveway seemed a hundred feet long, though my friend was already nearly to the house, battered Docs kicking gravel ahead of them. I scurried to catch up, breathlessly fumbling for my earbuds in my jacket pocket. Shoving one into my ear, I pressed play on the latest single from a band I had recently discovered. Warmth flowed through the earbud like honey melting into hot tea. We were almost to the door.

My mind flashed back to the drive over. “What do I talk about?” I had asked my friend as we rumbled and bumped down narrow country roads. Their eyes darted over to me, then back to the road. 

“Music, probably.” They slowed to avoid a pothole but hit it anyway, adding, “Maybe that new band you’ve been into? Otis Shanty?” 

My head hit the roof as we plowed through another pothole. I hesitated. “Okay.” 

~

Boston indie rockers Otis Shanty make music that is sweet and hazy, laced with melodies that cling to your mind like smoke to your clothes. The group has two EPs and an album already under their belt, and with the forthcoming release of their sophomore album, Up On The Hill, through Relief Map Records, the future is bright for the four-piece. According to the band, while their new album has “a connection to the Early Birds EP, there is also an expansion both sonically and lyrically.” Today, we’re treated to a fresh taste of the album with “Nobody’s Party,” following up the group’s previous single “Why Do I Care?” which dropped on July 16th. 

Tackling the uncomfortable subject of social dynamics, “Nobody’s Party” perfectly conveys the confusing and overwhelming feelings that so often accompany going out. Parties and gatherings become a balancing act - am I talking too much? Was that cringe? Am I being friendly enough? The band thoughtfully commented on the concept of connection at parties:

“I don’t think that the notion of a party in the U.S. makes room for authentic connection around core values, which is what I often crave. Parties are so often a physical manifestation of the desire for social capital: we dress up, drink, and shmooze to feel a part of something. But sometimes, the anticipation, awkwardness, hangover, and embarrassment aren’t worth it. I don’t want to trade authenticity for social capital, but at the same time, I don’t always pursue my genuine thoughts and desires out of fear of being misunderstood. Ultimately, it’s a struggle with confidence that is hard to break out of.”

For myself, I generally feel drowned out in social settings, often taking the backseat as a listener rather than vying for the spotlight. I tend to worry about how I am perceived in these settings, not from a desire for others’ approval but rather from the fear that I will present myself inauthentically. Small talk is painful, sure, but who among us is willing to open up about their hopes, dreams, and fears to a stranger in their living room? (Especially when you’re struggling to be heard over whoever is blasting Pop Goes Punk through a tinny Bluetooth speaker.)

“Nobody’s Party” earnestly captures this paradox of feeling - sweet guitars wrap the listener in a warm embrace, an oddly comforting contrast against the raw lyricism. The mix on this song is beautifully done - the bass drives the nostalgic chords while the guitars and vocals float above it like mist. The drums are delicately balanced above the entire thing like a copper mobile, dancing with light. The song hits heavy from the very beginning - in the opening lyrics, vocalist Sadye Bobbette describes the inner turmoil of going through the motions at yet another party: 

Same old crowd here
Spinning the same old conversation
Sometimes I choke on a sentence
Oh, seconds away from losing my tongue on the floor
Seconds away from losing my mind 

Putting on a smiling facade while forcing down the lump in your throat is an act of emotional bravado that seems impossible to maintain. But is the comfort offered with honesty worth the pain of vulnerability? At the peak of the song, Sadye repeats my favorite line over and over as she is echoed by her own voice. “Anything will fly with the roof detached, anything will fly with the roof detached.” Distant shimmering gang vocals press the chorus to a cathartic high, and tears sting my eyes as the band crashes around me like a wave. “I don’t do what is best / When it’s hidden in plain sight / So I stay one more minute / For the last time of tonight.”

~

I slipped through the kitchen door to the back porch. “Man, it was loud in there,” I mumbled to myself, hands once again searching for the security of my single earbud. I leaned against the rough wooden siding of the house and watched as the stars emerged above me, pin-pricks against the velvet of the infinite void beyond. My friend’s laugh erupted from the kitchen like a firework, bigger than all the rest, though it did not demand attention. I often wished I were more like them: more confident, more easy-going, more ready to laugh.

I had the same Otis Shanty song on a loop - “Nobody’s Party.” I figured it made sense for the evening, and I was fixated on it anyway. I closed my eyes as the song swirled around me, purple and orange phosphenes dancing briefly against my eyelids as I hummed along. “I don’t do what is best / When it’s hidden in plain sight / So I stay one more minute / For the last time, for the last time.” My throat was thick with tears as I heard the door open, but I didn’t open my eyes to look over. There was no need.

My friend settled against the house beside me, lighting a wilted cigarette. We stood under the heavy swath of night for a few moments before I heard them clear their throat. I braced myself for the question I thought was coming.

“What are you afraid of?”

My eyes blinked open as I looked at my friend in surprise. They were staring at me intently, the cigarette glowing like a lighthouse as I covertly wiped my eyes. Taking a shaky breath, I put my earbuds in my pocket and answered.

Across the yard, the Land Cruiser slipped out of gear.

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @brittajoes.

Oso Oso – life till bones | Album Review

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Yunahon Entertainment LLC

Oso Oso maestro Jade Liliti has spent the better part of a decade establishing himself as the purveyor of emo’s sunniest, most indelible hooks. The Hotelier’s Christian Holden–a longtime friend and tourmate–once compared him to Winnie the Pooh, so it’s a little jarring when his fifth record under the Oso Oso moniker begins with the bleak admission, “I love you but life is a gun.” That first song, “many ways,” is the kind of intro that Lilitri has never quite attempted before; it’s plaintive and embryonic, crackling with auxiliary piano and swells of feedback, segueing neatly into the jaunty “the country club.” A quick spoiler: the gun never goes off, but by the time lead single “all of my love” rolls around, it’s in possession of a woman named Annie, and she’s pointing it directly at him. I wouldn’t blame you if you were too busy grinning ear to ear at the Rembrandts-style handclaps to notice that the lyrics are actually about falling OUT of love; the ebullient chorus soothed Lilitri’s dog, too.

life till bones was never going to be a particularly cheery affair. Looming over the album’s ten tracks is the death of Tavish Maloney, Lilitri’s blood cousin, musical collaborator, and closest friend. He passed shortly after working with Lilitri on the tracking of sore thumb, which was subsequently released largely untouched, a monument to their lifelong friendship, frozen in amber. The songs on that record were freewheeling and often silly, soaked through with LSD and lined with weird experimental flourishes; brilliant but scattershot. With a few more years in the rearview, life till bones hones in on the aftermath.

The cavernous absence is most starkly addressed on the bloodletting “seesaw,” where Lilitri ruminates on the reality of losing a loved one. It’s a difficult listen, almost like a confessional we should not be privy to. The final refrain, wherein Lilitri cleverly splices the title in two, lays bare the aimlessness of moving forward: “The seesaw I saw balance in me / Now that balance is gone, I don’t know what I see.” A couple songs earlier, the more upbeat “stoke” takes a slightly more resolute path, striving to “try to find a way / to keep all that at bay.” Lilitri may be coughing up smoke but the flame is “stoked” and, given his predilection for stoner-patois, I’m inclined to read it as a double entendre; the fire isn’t merely alive, it’s excited. Our memories of the deceased can be painful but also inspiring, even invigorating; reminders of how to live as they lived and keep their best qualities alive with us.

So, where do we go from here? What do we do when forced to carry on after losing everything we hold dear? Lilitri would seem to argue that we pour love out into the universe, unyieldingly. To return to that radiant “all of my love” chorus, the relationship in that song dissolves because he “can’t give you all of [his] love,” the implication being that anything less than that would be a waste. In the Oso Oso vernacular, love has always been the ultimate force, the “one sick plan” to save Lilitri from his own demise. But life till bones is the most clearly he’s articulated the corollary: there is no half measure. Anything short of total, life-altering, starry-eyed devotion simply won’t do. On the shout-along “other people’s stories,” he mourns failed romance and refuses to settle until he can find something comparable: “I can’t fall in love if it’s not with you / Cause other people’s stories got me feeling bored.” When that true, transcendent love is attained, it’s almost a benevolent funhouse mirror that lets Lilitri see his best self in the eyes of another. Or, said another way on the buoyant “skippy,” “I like when I’m with you I make the good choice instead.”  

While life till bones might not be the most sonically ambitious Oso Oso album, it is certainly the most focused, almost iterative in its Frankenstein-style synthesis of Lilitri’s work to date. He nicks the snare-driven stomping groove from “dig” and speeds it up for “stoke”; he tactfully deploys sore thumb’s piano flourishes; he’s back singing of Annies and disasters around the bend; he upcycles an old demo into a beachy reverie. Often, when a songwriter’s repeated tics are visible enough to be articulated, it means they are spinning their wheels, but this is moreso the work of a master craftsman, a generational tunesmith confident enough to mine his own back catalog for inspiration. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this laser-focus is in service of some of the sharpest pop he’s ever penned, 29 straight minutes of minivan window-primed radio rock. Two of the songs were released in advance as singles, but for my money, there are easily five more that would have fit the bill.

The album takes its title from a line in the closer: “Look at all the people, looking at their phones / With how much time left? Life till bones.” It’s a pretty head-on confrontation of mortality, hidden at the end of a B-Side largely devoted to fawning love songs, and it’s indicative of what Lilitri does best. His phrases breeze by perfectly clipped, and the fleeting melancholy registers like an in-joke, a passing thought to be acknowledged but not dwelled on. Then—much like life, one might say–the album is over almost too soon. One day, we will all be reduced to bones. But it’s a funny thing about skeletons; when all the living flesh decays, they always look a bit like they’re smiling.

Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. He posts mediocre jokes on Twitter and can be found occasionally rambling on his blog Tributary.

Wishy – Triple Seven | Album Review

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Winspear

If one believes in numerology, a set of three sevens in a row is said to signify luck and spirituality. Also known as angel numbers, these repeating digits represent intuition and divine protection going all the way back to the turn of the century. Wishy seems to be a true believer of this phenomenon as they clench their significance wholeheartedly by naming their debut record Triple Seven. 

A lot of times, life is about timing. Whether you’re trying to achieve a goal, pursue a relationship, or revive a friendship, sometimes all each instance requires is the perfect moment. This proves true for singer-songwriters and guitarists Nina Pitchkites and Kevin Krauter, who attended the same high school in Indiana yet didn’t rekindle their friendship until later in life. The two initally sought to start a band together, but it wasn't their time yet. Krauter was in the synth-induced indie rock band Hoops, while Pitchkites was making feathery electro-pop under the name Push Pop. It wasn’t until Pitchkites moved from Philadelphia back to Indiana that this dream of uniting under the same name became a reality. 

Last year, Wishy came together officially, forming a Voltron-like quintet by bringing in drummer Connor Host, guitarist Dimitri Morris, and bassist Mitch Collins. With a lineup solidified, the band released two EPs in 2023, and while both excelled at mixing sugary indie pop with college rock jangle, it felt like the band members were still exploring what sound worked best for them as they developed their chemistry. Through each guitar riff and snare hit, they got closer to the music they envisioned creating. Now comes their debut full-length, and it's safe to say the band found themselves executing a well-thought-out alternative rock experience, delivered with the confidence of Larry Bird shooting jump shots in his backyard. 

As the band explored their sound, what emerged from those EP sessions was a nostalgic turn to the past, influenced by bands that both Krauter and Pitchkites cite admiration for like The Sundays and My Bloody Valentine. For those tapped into the scene, various 90s styles from shoegaze and slacker rock to dream pop and “nu grunge” is a lane that’s been carved out by what feels like a trillion other bands right now, but Wishy are students of their craft, and this is more than just emulation. These five musicians have meticulously studied the songs of yesteryear and noticed that melodies are the secret sauce. Whether sung by Krauter or Pitchkites, each song boasts a hook specifically designed to give the listener earwormy jams to sing along to. 

The debut single, “Love On The Outside,” packs a wallop of a punch with a chorus that will be stuck in your head like Double Mint gum. Krauter belts out, “Are you down? / Are you free? / I’m talking ‘bout love on the outside.” The song itself is pulsatingly energetic and shows that Wishy has legitimate star potential by delivering an indie-pop banger right out of the gates. On the record's second single, Pitchkites brings her conversational delivery to the table in the dream pop song “Triple Seven,” with airy, pillowy vocals that ride the 90s revivalist wave. 

The sound of Triple Seven floats in and out from various 90s and 2000s staples, from touches of fuzzy shoegaze to bright power-pop and even a pinch of grunge. The band never stays in one lane too long before shifting to the next, making the experience of listening to the album more like flipping through radio stations in your bedroom as a kid, whisked away at the whim of whatever was playing across the airwaves. The addition of Collins and Morris makes this a four-person guitar band that is stacked high and full of growling guitars while turning up the fuzz another decibel or two. Wishy has officially entered into a space I like to call "Noise Ordinance Rock," which is a specific category set for bands that make music designed to be played at the highest octave possible. For example, think of albums in the vein of Soundgarden's Superunkown or Ovlov's TRU. If the police or a surly neighbor aren’t banging on your door to turn the volume down, then you aren’t listening to the album correctly. 

Being a 90s revivalist, there’s a fine line you have to walk between ripping off your heroes and paying homage to the music that inspired you. Wishy executes the latter with bullseye-like precision, and there’s no greater example than “Little While.” The song is a blend of shoegaze and dream pop that’s exciting and soothing, reminiscent of Souvlaki-era Slowdive. Pitchkites delivers another outstanding performance with passionate, velvety-soft vocals as she depicts the feeling of continuously missing someone she cares deeply about, singing, “I’m spread too thin, I can’t see you.” 

At the end of the album, “Spit” roars to life with a riff worthy of Golden Era Smashing Pumpkins. The song comes as a jubilant Monster Energy Drink-style jolt at the very end of the story that helps send Triple Seven off with a proper closer. It’s impossible not to get wrapped up in, and the instrumental comes packed with so much forward momentum that you might find yourself hanging on expectantly waiting for the next beat. It feels like Wishy has anywhere and everywhere to go from here. 

The band put all their chips on the table with this record, joining together for a jackpot in a genre that many don’t make it out of. In the cranked-up guitar pedal opener, “Sick Sweet,” Krauter sings, “Well it’s a sick sweet life, and I’m gambling it all tonight,” portraying a nothing-to-lose attitude as if he is just happy to play anywhere with his friends. The genesis of Wishy, whether it be luck or fate, doesn’t matter because luck is where skill meets opportunity, and there is no fate but what they made from themselves. 

David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Children Will Listen, or 20 Years of Sung Tongs

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Domino

Within five minutes, I was crying. In 2018, I found myself at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, ensconced in the energy of 1,000 people, all watching two guys, freshly in their 40s, play an album they had made 15 years earlier. Nearly every piece of writing about Sung Tongs, the fifth studio release from the band we now know as Animal Collective, expounds on its sense of childlike play, its wide-eyed naïvety wielded as a torch that guides Avey Tare and Panda Bear through the forest. It’s an undeniable piece of the record; the decision to revisit it in performance over a decade later was an attempt to simultaneously flatten and enliven its impish reputation.

For a band so succinctly defined by their apparent refusal to grow up, Sung Tongs stands as the pinnacle of a narrative that threatened to swallow a far more interesting group in the quicksand. It was one thing to hear someone a few years your senior singing, “You don’t have to go to college,” like a friend’s older sibling pushing against the world’s expectations, but it’s entirely another to hear it coming from someone old enough to be your dad. It turns out their belief hadn’t been shaken by the passage of time. Instead, it had settled in as wisdom. Sung Tongs was a funhouse mirror for uncertain youth rather than an ode to childhood, leaning into mystical, almost infantile wonder without losing grasp on what is real and set in front of you by the forces beyond us.

“Visiting Friends,” the album’s diffuse centerpiece, translates the aching gaps in memory into ambient beauty, long-chewed holes dotting every inch. Bubbling up from a dark cave, frustration and anxiety sink into the guitar strums, relentless and carried by inertia. It only becomes more difficult to remember drugged-out summer days, where time could lose its meaning for an afternoon or weekend. Friends shrink to specks of dust, caught in a weary web. Dappled joy eventually burns your forearms. The bog of Dave Portner’s processed vocals, words jutting out like humid grass, echo the yearning of a kid in an aging voice. “We were visiting mine,” he repeats, atmosphere humming and crackling, trying to recall feelings of freedom, taking it to heart after all these years. It stands to reason that Wolfgang Voigt’s verdant psych-ambient was cited as a key influence, recalling a sense of wandering beneath trees of recollection and wilfully getting lost.

Sung Tongs wasn’t the first Animal Collective release I heard — it was probably the third or fourth after the seismic legacy-defining Merriweather Post Pavilion and the gorgeous, shrieking meltdown Feels — but it’s the album I’ve sung along to the most. For a long time, it was the only album I could mimic and harmonize with, alone in the car with a CD player. It was my companion on heavy-lidded commutes, occasionally hungover, knitting together a world that would enliven and encourage. Howls, chants, screams, whispers, and words collage into an indistinguishable stream, a confluence of color merging into the same great whooping river. It was instinct to become a tributary. Without diminishing the splattering influences of minimalism, campfire songs, freak folk, and even the Grateful Dead, Sung Tongs is an album centered on voices. Beyond the referential surface (titles such as “The Softest Voice” and “Mouth Wooed Her”), all it took to convince me was the transcendent melange of “Winters Love.” Four songs into the record, Portner and Lennox “pulled that boy out of a box” and made her sing. That boy wasn’t actually a boy, but the same voice emerged. 

Two howling kids from Baltimore probably weren’t the best vocal instructors, unless you were attempting to evoke strange cooing calls heard deep in the woods. Fortunately, solitude eliminated any shame or inhibition; the cracks and squeaks melted in with Avey and Panda, whether I knew how the melody started, ended, or connected between. Beyond any enjoyment of the music itself, running through another playback became an opportunity to continually discover the joy of using my vocal cords and relitigate my relationship with the sounds coming out. “Leaf House” starts with gasps and Noah Lennox’s ululation at its most elastic and ends with meows. From root to soaring branches, their voices invite the creation of a choral jungle, a three-minute warm-up before the show, and you wouldn’t dare to be left out.

An old video features all four (eventual) members of the band with obscured faces, either masked or gazing downwards, seated in a rapturous circle and howling. The desire to obfuscate everything other than the sounds they made is at its clearest. Even a decade later, unmasked and performing the album in full, “Winters Love” became an audience sing-along, filling in the gaps and layers of harmonies unattainable by a mere duo. Who needs multi-tracking when you have a thousand-strong choir at your beck and call? The entire crowd had inscribed each bark and every moan on their hearts and needed no conducting. Rapture became reality in the raising of our voices.

Three years after Sung Tongs, Animal Collective sang of believing in magic and dying on “Peacebone.” If their fatal flaw was faith in the supernatural, present or past, then we’ve all been resurrected. Flailing through first (or second) adolescence is an exercise in discovery, feeling the world around you, and making all kinds of sounds. You have to go beyond the shroud to make your way forward. Death wasn’t permanent, but the magic was.

Aly Eleanor lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she writes, records, sends emails, and more for Ear Coffee, a DIY podcast and media “entity” that she co-founded. Her writing can be found online, underground, at home with her rats, or @purityolympics.