Riverby – Baseless | Single Review

Content Warning: This article discusses themes of sexual assault.

Are you tired of being nice? Don’t you just want to go ape shit? This proposition first spoken into existence on Yahoo Answers in 2018 and since immortalized by Princess Daisy in this image macro is the spiritual foundation for “Baseless,” the ferocious new single from Riverby.

The group’s 2020 release, Smart Mouth, is a whip-smart, hook-laden stunner of an LP that saw lead singer August Greenberg collecting themselves in the wake of romantic tragedy. The band used literary tales like The Giving Tree and The Telltale Heart as springboards to navigate the world of heartbreak. The album reads like a post-mortem on a failed relationship where the longing, regret, and self-reflection were propelled forward by exhilarating punk rock instrumentals. 

This is all true tenfold on “Baseless,” which seeks closure, not through reconciliation, but revenge. The song begins with a snappy mid-00’s alt-rock guitar line and bouncy drumming. Before the listener even has enough time to fully orient themselves within the track, the band immediately sets the song ablaze with lyrics that capture flashes of physical violence and sexual abuse. Within 30 seconds, we’re swept into a killer chorus as Greenberg snarls over a hard-charging riff, “Baseless, baseless, not that kinda guy / Keep on praying to Jesus, you can take it up with God.”

Throughout their debut, the band’s greatest tool was always Greenberg’s one-of-a-kind voice which is both breathtaking and acrobatic, equally capable of a delicate croon or a ravenous growl depending on what the track needed. Here, the lyrics dial-up this aggressive side of the band’s spectrum far past anything we’ve we’ve seen in the past. The second verse sees the group firing off acidic lines that still manage to drive the narrative forward. 

Remember when you said that I was fucking crazy
Like what did I expect on a Saturday night?
You’re begging on your knees, and you’re calling me baby
You’re fucking lucky I let you walk out alive

This resolves on a taunt of “you couldn’t even get me in my sleeeeeep” before throwing to another chorus to great effect. It’s a barn-burning middle finger towards someone who’s done the worst possible thing to you and left you for dead. Most importantly, it’s not coming from a place of hurt but from someone who now knows they’re stronger than they ever were before. This, combined with lyrics like “I wanna be an asshole, I wanna get even, I wanna hear you scream,” feel like a powerful reclamation in the face of a society that too often dismisses survivors.

“Baseless” is about airing things out. This is the musical equivalent of saying ‘fuck being the better person,’ if only for two minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Being nice is great and all, but even the sweetest person in the world can only bottle that shit in for so long before it explodes. This song is that explosion. It’s a volcanic eruption spurred by seeing the face of the person who wronged you. It’s every late-night thought you wish you had said in the heat of the moment. It’s a wall of emotional shrapnel heading directly towards someone who deserves it most. It’s the perfect song to channel all your spite, rage, and hurt into, especially if you’re the one who’s in the right. 

“Baseless” is a contemptuous and angry song. It’s days, months, and maybe even years worth of bottled-up feelings pouring out at once with everything aimed squarely at the person who forced you to feel this way in the first place. Most importantly, “Baseless” represents the desire for this person to feel even a shred of the same pain that they caused you. After all, aren’t you tired of being nice? 

Editor’s Note: Shortly after the publication of this article, I had a long conversation with a friend about this song, its topic, and how I addressed the theme of sexual assault within the review. It ended up being a much-needed discussion where I learned how language can inadvertently perpetuate harm. As horrific as these acts of violence are, my main takeaway was that sometimes just calling them out for what they are is an essential step in dismantling them. 

I edited this piece to ensure the severity of sexual assault is called out explicitly for what it is and not brushed over. I also wanted to make sure my writing considers stories of survivors and abuse so that those experiences can be portrayed and talked about in an accurate way to show the full extent of the damage they cause.

Chris Farren – Death Don’t Wait (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | Album Review

Best known as the frontman of Florida indie rock band Fake Problems, one half of pop-punk duo Antarctigo Vespucci, and the powerhouse behind two irreverent, high-energy solo albums, Chris Farren has always had a flair for the dramatic. His work as a songwriter and performer is never *just* about the music (though said music is certainly strong enough to speak for itself if needed). From his contributions to the Craig of the Creek soundtrack (with the show’s composer Jeff Rosenstock, Farren’s longtime best friend and collaborator), to his use of elaborate projected visuals in his live shows, and, let’s just say spirited self-portraits, the non-audio companion pieces have always been as essential to the “Chris Farren Experience” as the music itself. Even without these visual elements, Farren has always been a very illustrative musician, creating vivid scenes that make his songs often feel like short films. It’s easy– often lazy –music writer shorthand to call a song or an album or even a particular musician’s songwriting style “cinematic.” If by “cinematic” one means ‘yeah, I could see this song being used in a movie,’ then the term becomes almost meaningless. But listening to  Death Don’t Wait, I feel confident in this word’s necessity and specificity because Chris Farren has soundtracked the greatest crime drama that never existed. 

Inspired primarily by Bond films and Marvin Gaye’s soundtrack to Trouble Man, Chris Farren has tried his hand at filmmaking– he’s just skipped over the part where an actual film is made. Though Death Don’t Wait does not exist in its full, feature-length, audiovisual form– no script, no actors, no footage –it’s not that far off to imagine it. 

As the album’s title track and only non-instrumental opens with sparkling strings and delicately tapping hi-hat cymbals, you can imagine the opening credits rolling in– “…and featuring the music of Chris Farren” unfolding across a background of rainy city streets at twilight. This track sees guest vocalist and frequent Farren collaborator Laura Stevenson going full Nancy Sinatra, purring over a ‘60s Spectoresque girl group progression with a voice as sweet and slow as honey. Tonally, this opener is a microcosm of the soundtrack as a whole– though it’s evocative of a bygone era, none of it feels outdated or stale. 

While listening to Farren’s soundtrack, I found myself watching the events of the story unfold, beat by beat. Even just looking at the tracklist, the song titles read as a sort of storyboard that maps out the rise and fall of a movie plot. Just the other day I affectionately described the Mission Impossible-esque “Red Wire Blue Wire” as “music to commit a heist to.” “Helicopter Shuffle” kicks off with a fat bassline, which gives our unnamed and unseen heroes a head start on their run from the cops before the drums start rumbling in. “Car Chase!” sounds like, well, exactly what the title would suggest. The moody guitars and suspenseful, rattling snare give “Chris Farren Noir” a “Riders On The Storm” vibe. This lonesome cowboy moment is further proof of Chris Farren’s versatility– he can be both a character actor AND a leading man. 

Farren’s multi-genre influences are apparent throughout the soundtrack. The fantastically titled “Attacked By Dogs” sees a crashing cacophony of horns and drums giving way to what almost sounds like a ska track towards the end, and that ska influence comes through the plucky, dissolving guitars on “Cash Is Heavy” as well. Evoking the ambience of a smoke-filled nightclub, “Here’s Your Disguise” bravely poses the question, “what if The Stranglers tried to make a lyricless bossa nova song?” (Answer: it would fucking slap). In “Night Walk (Harmonic Suite),” three haunting piano notes are repeated ominously over a slow-burning drone, building up a creeping sense of fear before the mournful, dirge-like horns come in. 

The film reaches its climax with “Hot Pursuit,” which kicks off with fluttering surf-rock guitars, a mad-dashing drum beat, and a fierce, doom-portending horn section. This is the turning point, the final showdown, the grand finale. But after our heroes make their great escape, as the slow, forlorn strings and piano notes of  “Cold Pursuit” fade in, we get the sense that it was a pyrrhic victory. This could all be just an assumption, though. With no film to accompany this soundtrack, Farren lets the listener choose their own adventure. Though it might be tempting, on a surface level, to assume that his intention is to parody, Farren’s admiration for his musical and film influences is apparent throughout. The genre tropes he employs are familiar touchstones that give Death Don’t Wait an arc that feels full despite what is deliberately missing. The white page, the darkened screen– these absences that Farren leaves us with are, in their own way, essential to the completed story. They give us– the listeners –the opportunity to fill in the blanks with our own imagination before letting the credits roll. 

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Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @grace_roso.

The Great Dismal: Falling in Love With Shoegaze and Finding Hope in the Darkness

It’s always odd when a single album is held up as the “definitive” work of a band or even an entire genre. It leads to this interesting phenomenon where prospective fans will become interested in said band or genre, learn that this single work is the de facto entry point, and dive in with skewed expectations. The problem then becomes; what if they don’t like that one album?

Let’s say someone wants to get into Radiohead. They might learn that Kid A is considered the group’s most groundbreaking record and give it a listen. If they don’t like Kid A, they might write Radiohead off as not “for them.” In reality, this hypothetical listener might have enjoyed a different Radiohead album more, and it may only be Kid A that’s not “for them.” There’s no accounting for taste, and there are few (if any) points of consensus when it comes to music.

This exact thing happened to me with shoegaze. It’s easy to see why My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless is as lauded as it is, especially when you factor in its influence and historical context. But here’s a controversial sentence: I don’t really like Loveless. I can see the appeal, and I don’t begrudge anyone for digging it, but the record has never quite clicked with me in the way it has with others. 

The problem becomes when a single album is cited as the groundbreaking masterwork of a genre, that must also mean that it’s the best, right? It almost feels as if there’s nowhere to go from there but down. That means when I listened to Loveless for the first time and didn’t love it, I thought, “huh, shoegaze must not be for me.” Au contraire. I spent the better part of 2021 immersing myself in shoegaze, eventually hitting an obsessive fever pitch sometime in December. While everyone else was getting holly and jolly in a month that’s usually reserved for my endless supply of holiday playlists, I was listening to some of the most dour shit imaginable and loving it. 

I found something in shoegaze, something I couldn’t get anywhere else. While I’ve long been a fan of Greet Death, I hadn’t considered myself a “shoegaze guy” because all my love was allocated to this one band. Something about Greet Death’s macabre midwest lyricism and heavy-as-shit riffs clicked with my brain. For months I listened to their discography on a near-nightly basis. I never found any other bands that even came close until Wednesday dropped Twin Plagues midway through 2021. 

Twin Plagues soon supplanted Greet Death as my go-to music for those times when nothing else sounded good. It was a record that lent me some degree of comfort and compassion in a year when I needed those things badly. If you’re curious to read more about Twin Plagues, I covered the album in greater detail in our Album of the Year countdown. For the purposes of this article, the important thing to note is that this record ended up opening the floodgates to a whole host of shoegaze bands. For some reason, Wednesday’s approach gave me a new perspective on the genre and I was able to approach shoegaze with an open mind. As often happens with music I love, my curiosity gave way to obsession.

With this renewed enthusiasm, I dug back through my own history and realized I had more brushes with the genre than I initially realized. I soon discovered that the dream-pop bands I’d been listening to for years like Beach House, Alvvays, and Slowdive were considered shoegaze-adjacent. I traced the genre back to grungy songs of my youth like “Mayonaise” by The Smashing Pumpkins and “Exhausted” by Foo Fighters, which were informed by the genre while it was at its commercial peak. I even learned that recent bands like Gleemer, Holy Fawn, and Clearbody all fit the bill as well. It turned out I’d been enjoying shoegaze for longer than I realized. 

Once my mind was re-opened to the genre thanks to Twin Plagues, I went on an absolute tear, slowly uncovering (and subsequently falling in love with) different landmark albums throughout the genre’s history. I spent weeks obsessing over the bouncy Cure-inspired flavor of DIIV’s Oshin. I wrapped myself in the comforting crush of Cloakroom’s Time Well. Hell, even this silly TikTok got me to dig through Hum’s back catalog, and that’s not something I would have even considered a year ago. It’s been a blast. 

This is all a (very long) preamble to talk about my latest and deepest obsession: Nothing’s fourth studio album, The Great Dismal. This is a record I listened to a couple of times when it was first released in 2020, but I only recently rediscovered thanks to this personal shoegaze renaissance. An unattentive or cursory listen to The Great Dismal will reveal many standard trappings of the genre; fuzz, feedback, and far-off vocals. Still, something about this record kept drawing me back in. At first, it was “Famine Asylum,” which opens with a burst of guitar distortion that rears its head up through the track like a powerful stallion. Then one day, while on a run, I caught myself singing the chorus of “Catch a Fade.” Soon after that, I became transfixed by the cathartic build of “Blue Mecca.” 

Gradually, individual pieces of this album began to reveal themselves to me, and before I knew it, I was listening to the whole thing in full because every song hit a different fold of my brain. As I kept listening, individual lyrics and more subtle instrumental aspects slowly emerged from the dark swirl. 

I think that slow unveiling is a huge reason why I kept gravitating towards The Great Dismal and why I’m writing about it now. Once the few killer riffs, earworm choruses, and bizarre samples become commonplace, individual words begin to unveil themselves. First, it’s just a single phrase that rises above the dreamy swirl like “Feed me grapes” or “Innocence preserved by death,” but soon, deeply poetic and philosophical sentiments appear from the ether. The aforementioned “Blue Mecca” hinges on a repetition of “Yesterday is a long way down / Leviathan but can't be found,” which I find both achingly beautiful and spiritually provocative. It’s also sung over a gorgeous crescendoing post-rock guitar which feels tailor-made for my taste. 

Elsewhere on the album, there are musings like, “It’s amazing that my shell has kept its shape,” which embody a sort of ideological physical resilience. It’s snapping to in the midst of chaos, unplugging, and taking stock of your own being. Lines like this stand out like a lighthouse offering respite to weary sailors. It’s a nine-word observation that carries the same self-assured punch as the entirety of “This Year” before delving back into the depths. 

Occasionally the group turns their gaze outward, like on “April Ha Ha,” where lead singer Domenic Palermo sings, “Isn't it strange / Watching people / Try and outrun rain?” which comes across as a poignant observation on the futility of denialism. In other places, Nothing prod at themselves, singing, “So stumble through / A work of art / Something simple and defeating from the start.” Lines like these speak to the futility of creating anything right now, given what we are all facing down.  

On top of these incredible lyrics, the more I learned about Nothing and the history of this album, the more I found myself fascinated. Recorded in February of 2020 at the very beginning of quarantine, the band essentially sealed themselves in the studio to record this album. As the world outside slowly unfurled, Nothing crafted these crushing riffs and honed these cutting observations. It felt like a probe, investigating the human condition from a one-of-a-kind vantage point that has now long since passed us by. This is all on top of a tumultuous history of wrongful imprisonment, genre pivots, lineup changes, and general tragedy. At a certain point, recording an album while teetering on the brink of a global pandemic seems par for the course for a group who self-describes themselves as a “notoriously unlucky band.” 

Side-note, the hazmat suit press photos that came out of this album cycle are downright iconic.

The Great Dismal bills itself as an exploration of “existentialist themes of isolation, extinction, and human behavior in the face of 2020’s vast wasteland.” In regards to its relation to the swamp of the same name in southeast Virginia, the band explains, “The nature of [the swamp’s] beautiful, but taxing environment and harsh conditions can’t ever really be shaken or forgotten too easily.”

That’s another reason I find myself pulled towards this album. While 2020 was one thing, we currently find ourselves on the brink of something potentially worse. That uncertainty has been plaguing my mind for the last few months, and I’ve ironically found some level of solace in the soundscapes of shoegaze. These songs mirror my internal landscape; dark, rocky, and not entirely forthcoming. They’re not nihilistic per se, but they still acknowledge the darkness that we find ourselves in. One of the reasons I essentially swapped my holiday playlists for shoegaze this past season is that it felt ingenuine to be celebrating or forcing warmth at a time when the world feels like it’s falling apart. 

There’s plenty to be angry and upset about out in the world. Every day we face down fascism, racism, impending climate collapse, a worldwide plague, and an indifferent government operating an ever-growing police state. Even in the face of all that, I think it’s important to hold on to some sense of hope. If we don’t have hope, what’s it all for? The songs on this record may be sonically dismal, but they’re not hopeless. That’s the type of energy I hope to maintain this year. 

On reading that, you might think that striving to maintain a disposition of anything sided with “dismal” might sound less-than-optimistic, but I don’t view it that way. Large swaths of our reality are tainted by abject horror, and we can’t shy away from that. Pretending things don’t exist doesn’t make them go away. Things are bleak, terrifying, and dismal, but in the face of all this horror, there’s still a world worth fighting for.

Colleen Dow – Bumbum | Single Review

Blanketed in soft layers of reverb, the guitar intro of “Bumbum” is an invitation to a dream. A much-needed lullaby for the time when it’s a little bit too past your bedtime. Here, in the third single under their own name, Colleen Dow muses on a midnight daydream of falling asleep in a warm white room, listening to city sirens while wrapped in sheets and someone else’s embrace. It’s a fantasy I could only describe as “everything I could ever ask for.” 

But it’s not meant to last. Even before the first verse comes to a close, Dow starts having doubts about the staying power of this situation. The guitar is joined by bass, drums, and a plunky piano that simultaneously maintain the bedtime tempo while creating a march. It’s giving pacing around your kitchen at one a.m. waiting for the water for your sleepytime tea to boil. 

The song is a move away from the syrupy indie-punk of Dow’s main band Thank You, I’m Sorry towards a more intimate and inward sound inflicted by bands like Postal Service and Now, Now. Together with producer Abe Anderson, they’ve crafted a sonic treat that allows Dow’s personality as a songwriter to shine through these influences.

The second half of “Bumbum” is where the lyrics begin to hit a little *too* close to home for me. If the first verse is a cozy dream, the second verse is a rude wake-up call from Dow’s internal critic. Their fantasy turns to a vision of abandonment, loss, and fear of waking to find your partner’s bags packed so they can flee. Worse even, Dow begins to wonder if these anxieties are mutual.

Look, I’m no stranger to imagining worst-case scenarios and projecting them onto my partner's. I just wasn’t expecting to feel called out about it today. It is nice to know that the person I usually trust with playlist recommendations on Tik Tok has the same insecurities as me.

Historically, the kind of music I would compare to an anxiety attack involves a lot of screaming and thrashing guitars—the sort of thing you can see coming from miles away. But I’m actually pretty good at keeping anxiety attacks to myself. Sure, I’ll talk the ear off of anyone who will listen, but I mean this more in a physical sense. I wring my hands, I clench my jaw, and I carry it all in my chest. The choruses of “Bumbum” are an incredibly accurate representation of the feelings inside of my body. The tension of my chest lives in this bassline. Bum bum goes my beating heart. Even the layer of acoustic guitar is in rhythm with the wringing of my hands.

“Bumbum” feels like a reflection of both my physical and mental state at my most anxious. It’s as if Dow took my own desires, fears, and insecurities and wove them into a pop song. That may not be an experience most listeners would willingly flock to but, in addition to being catchy as heck, it really is incredibly comforting to have these feelings echoed back at me. In this way, “Bumbum” feels like an anxiety attack and a security blanket at the same time. It’s the sheets in a warm white room I look forward to wrapping myself in for the rest of the winter. 

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Cailen Alcorn Pygott is a writer, musician, and general sadsack from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He’ll tell you even more about his anxieties on his band No, It’s Fine.’s album I Promise. Tell him how brave you think that is on Twitter @noitsfinereally and on Instagram @_no_its_fine_.

Delta Sleep – Spring Island | Album Review

Growing up in Sacramento, California, I had a lot of friends in high school who were really into math rock. For some reason, there’s always been a vibrant scene there, and to this day, I still don’t really know why. My buddies were all into bands like Dance Gavin Dance, Tera Melos, and Hella. I was still deep into my Riffs Only Phase (think Metallica, Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age), so, to me, this all sounded like repetitive noise. I just didn’t get the appeal. I felt like my dudes were too concerned with time signatures and looping pedals when they should be emphasizing the emotional side of virtuosity.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I found some math rock that felt made for me. I stumbled onto Battles while listening to my campus radio station (shout-out KSMC). The DJ played “Atlas,” and I was floored. My perspective shifted as I realized that math rock bands are still rock bands, but bands that like to do their rocking in a, well… mathy way. Real deep eighteen-year-old thoughts, I know, but are you gonna look at me and tell me that I'm wrong? Battles allowed me to dive back into the genre with a new appreciation and understanding of what I did and didn't like. I found that bands who tend to craft noodly riffs based on repetition weren’t really my thing, and what I was really looking for were bands making big choruses.

For me, Delta Sleep are the latter of these two points of view. You’re just as likely to see the Brighton cosiners on the bill for ArcTanGent as you are The Fest. The band’s approach to math rock is imbued with splashes of big tent indie, emo, and even some post-rock. Their new album Spring Island places a heavy emphasis on the bombastic indie rock portion of Delta Sleep’s DNA. These are songs meant to be shouted at the top of your lungs in the midst of a bunch of other sweaty people. 

Lead single, “The Detail,” utilizes tried and true start-stops to build up to a massive post-rock catharsis. “Planet Fantastic” is a charming and gentle ballad of sorts that ends with the band cutting out while a chorus of friends sings the refrain one last time, presumably circled around the mic, arms interlocked over each other’s shoulders. “The Softest Touch” features a midsection that belies the song’s title. My personal favorite, “Old Soul,” is a rowdy banger that features a bending guitar line reminiscent of Coldplay’s “Yellow.” 

Lyrically, much of Spring Island is concerned with anxiety and dread sparked by climate change. On “Spun,” frontperson Devin Yüceil sings about his fears for the natural world and how the seeming inability to do anything about them is driving him mad. Meanwhile, “Forest Fire” shrouds a love song with the terror of fire season, and “The Softest Touch” laments that global warming will melt the polar ice caps while we’re all convincing ourselves that we are making a difference. The group demonstrates Yüceil’s justified paranoia with a precise frenzy that a band can only be achieved through years of collaboration.

Spring Island is an impressive achievement. It’s intelligent, but it’s not soulless. It’s technical, but it also rips. I’m thankful that my friends never stopped preaching the gospel of math rock because I would not have found Delta Sleep without them.

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Connor lives in San Francisco with his partner and their cat and dog, Toni and Hachi. Connor is a student at San Francisco State University and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.

Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.