Liquid Mike – Paul Bunyan's Slingshot | Album Review

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SELF-RELEASED

OKAY LISTEN UP AND LET ME TALK ABOUT LIQUID MIKE FOR A MINUTE: This is the cure for the melancholy and culture void of the Bush administration; the angst of the aughts still felt twenty years later. This is music to steal traffic cones to. This is music that will make you feel like you’re free. For the stultifying winter, the dullness of the daily, the anguish of being alive, I prescribe ONE DOSE OF LIQUID MIKE.

Hailing from Marquette, Michigan, Liquid Mike is the quintessential Midwestern (and therefore American) alt-rock outfit. They are sweet and salty, indie rock on 1.5x speed, alternative with a touch of glam rock like the dregs of pop-punk covered in glitter. I first listened to them because my fellow Swim Into the Sound contributor Grace Robins-Somerville cited them as one of her favorite bands she discovered in 2023, and DAMN was she on to something. I listened to this record during the Chicago winter, and if there is one defining characteristic of Chicago, it is GRAYNESS, and the winters are COLD, not even in a cute way! And it is impossible to keep your spirits up during the third straight month of living with 4:30 pm twilights and failing public transit in an intentionally-created spell of mass homelessness thanks to “Governor” Greg Abbott trafficking people across the country to a location with reliably subzero temperatures!

Amidst all this misery, I felt immune to charm. Nothing was beautiful. Everything was filled with filthy slush. I thought it was simply impossible for this dreariness to feel anything but dreary. And then I listened to Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, and this music fixed me! Aggressively upbeat alternative indie rock from Marquette, Michigan really was the only thing to distract me from my own sadness! With their remarkable aesthetic cohesion, endearing Midwesternisms, and jangly power pop energy, Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot feels like a journey through the minds and hearts of Middle America, in the best way possible.

The first notes of the album shoot like an adrenaline injection. “Drinking and Driving” carries that rare upbeat euphoria that only the most exquisite specimens of hardcore rock have elicited in me (see: “Gravity” by Turnstile and “Do It Faster” by Militarie Gun). Muddy treble and crunchy percussion combine to create this marvelous, powerful sound that is truly irresistible. It feels like the sonic equivalent of a vodka Red Bull. “Pacer” is another standout track that continues in this trajectory; the song deals with coming to terms with painful relationships and delivers a taste of the painful emotional cocktails that provide a sting with a little bit of sweetness mixed in, ending on a crisp, satisfying lick.

Let me tell you–this record has everything. Hooks that will save your life. The anthemic groove of “K2;” the music shimmers with a summery brilliance, and the lyrics recall adolescent antics and feelings of belonging. You don’t have to smoke synthetic weed, you can just listen to a song about it and get more or less the same effect! There is “/ / /,” a sweet and fresh song that is only 32 seconds. I love it when songs are 32 seconds and also mysteriously titled! Then, on “Mouse Trap,” the band offers commentary on the cornerstone myth of American class mobility. Vocalist and songwriter Mike Maple sings, “Given what you know, the American dream is a Michigan home / You can see it from your window.” So true, Liquid Michael! If the national mythos can be as tangible as to be seen from your window, how can it remain so elusive? How can the happiness and collective prosperity promised to ordinary Americans over and over by our political and financial overlords ever be realized? How can life be so good yet so bad? If all we need is a dog and a house, why are we all so miserable? The album reckons with all this and more before ending on the title track, “Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot,” a thumpy and energetic return to the power rock ethos of their breakthrough 2023 album.

The music feels heavy and warm, like the vests they put on you when you’re getting X-rayed at the dentist’s office. It is comforting yet cathartic, and all these adjectives fail to capture the true guts and glory at the center of this music. Wherever you are, Midwest or not, winter or summer, this record makes you feel closer to home.

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.

Eichlers – SONGS OFFLINE | EP Review

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Eichlers - SONGS OFFLINE EP

Bad Time Records

As an individual in my late 20s, I came up squarely in the autotune generation – artists like T-Pain, Daft Punk, Ke$ha, Hellogoodbye, and countless others were making waves during my formative years, to the praise of some and the disgust of others. For the most part, I grew up the latter, taking the stance shared by many that autotune is a crutch more than it is a tool. Despite autotune eventually falling out of favor within the realm of pop music, the hyperpop genre and pioneering acts like 100 gecs have reembraced and recontextualized the sound in recent years. In just a short matter of time, the hyperpop genre has sprawled out to embrace a myriad of subgenres, creating a space for various styles of “online music” to thrive, eventually leading to new subgenres like Hyperska.

If you are unfamiliar with the genre, Hyperska is exactly what it sounds like: a marriage of electronic hyperpop production and peppy ska upstrokes – and no artist has embraced this intersection of genres more than Eichlers. I have been a fan of Eichlers for a few years now, an artist who first popped up on my radar around 2022 when I heard him featured on Half Past Two’s cover of “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!” with We Are The Union, who were my latest ska crush at the time. My only context for what would later be described as “Hyperska” was 100 gecs’ “Stupid Horse,” and I was completely awe-struck by the seamless blending of those “hyper” elements in a ska context. Almost singlehandedly, Ike brought the genre Hyperska to a similar light as its digitized cousins, employing familiar tools like autotune but infusing them with sensibilities inspired by the New Tone movement helmed by the incomparable Bad Time Records. Whether you’ve come around on the unrestrained use of autotune in the current culture or not, the same question indelibly comes up – “can this artist actually sing, or are they hiding behind these effects?”

In December of 2022, Eichlers performed an acoustic set that made the rounds on social media. At the time, I even made a point to repost the video of “My Checkered Future” acoustic, saying “I need an Eichlers Goes Acoustic EP.” Little did I know that is exactly what we were given with SONGS OFFLINE – a well-curated collection of iconic Eichlers bangers, stripped down to their base parts and repackaged in ways I never could have imagined at the time. While I never questioned Eichlers’s motives for employing autotune in his songs, I am ecstatic that we, as listeners, have been blessed with this opportunity to hear what Eichlers’s music would sound like in a more stripped-down setting. 

One would naturally assume that Hyperska without the “hyper” would simply be acoustic ska music; however, what we are given on this EP is something completely different. Eichlers has already teased his affinity for Midwest emo stylings, particularly with his recent interpretation of “Hollywood Baby” by 100 gecs. This time around, Eichlers decided to lean into his emo sensibilities even further, giving these songs a whole new personality as a result. 

The EP appropriately opens with the first track off of his most recent LP, “Hi (Acoustic Edition).” On the original album, Ike employs a wide range of electronic staples – from booming bass to powerful brass blasts, that are completely absent from this version. The result is a classic, acoustic emo ballad that can only be recognized by lyrics and particular parts of the vocal melody. We are lulled into an emotive, pensive intro track – complete with a relaxed, repeating guitar line presented through crisp, clean production. The aforementioned emo style also lands perfectly on songs like “OHMYGOD” and “2 OF US,” both of which offer gripping lyrics and somber melodies that blend gorgeously with the raw, acoustic backing. 

After several back-to-back listens, the final track, “My Checkered Future,” remains my favorite on the EP. The way Eichlers layers simple chords and buoyant single-note lines captures a similar energy to the original version while simultaneously solidifying its own identity. I can’t think of a more suitable way to close this finely-tuned collection of songs. 

Whether you’ve been a faithful Ikebeast for many years or just discovered Eichlers through this context, there is something in this EP for everyone. SONGS OFFLINE is both a stunning repackaging of Eichler’s most enduring tracks as well as a staunch reminder that he carries his genius and his unwaveringly infectious energy throughout all forms and interpretations.   

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. 

Cheekface – It’s Sorted | Album Review

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SELF-RELEASED

Despite being “America’s local band,” I had not heard of Cheekface until the release of “Plastic” in August of 2023. This was the third single from their (at the time still unannounced) fourth studio album, and after seeing the reaction from veteran Cheekface fans online, it became clear that I was missing out on something. It also became clear that, much like the band, their fans have no interest in what is cool. They are drawn to lead singer and guitarist Greg Katz’s dry, “talk-singing” delivery, which at times can feel like Steve Burns with a post-graduate degree and GAD giving you clues on how to survive the shiny new toaster world we live in. 

This was also part of the appeal to bassist/vocalist Amanda Tannen when the band formed in Los Angeles around 2017, stating she wanted to “be in a band that is not cool.” If you can get past the initial turn-your-nose-up-at-anything-earnest feeling you might have, you are liable to find yourself grooving along to these songs as you think critically about the morality of Ring Cameras and 3D printers. It turns out that doing things on your own terms resonates with people, regardless of the risk for potential uncoolness or overly earnest sentiments. Despite having no major label (the band self-releases all their music on Katz’s own New Professor Music), Cheekface continues to do their thing- selling out shows and growing their audience with each release. Cheekface is a cult. You either get it or you don’t. 

The first track on It’s Sorted gets to the heart of that success (or lack of it). “Success is cringe / I wanna be on the fringe,” Katz sings on the anxiety-ridden opener. The song manifests as a mission statement for the band as drummer Mark Edwards’ consistent, pounding rhythm mimics your speeding heart rate. “Me and panic woke up together / this is not one night, no it is forever” Katz sweats out before settling on making avocado toast for breakfast. On “Popular 2,” the band waxes poetic about doorbell cameras and the panopticon, stating, “If I’m never gonna be alone / here in my community neighborhood home / then I wanna be popular to watch / on the movie you put on from the camera on your porch.” The future is here, and the future is weird. Take comfort in the drone flying overhead! You can’t possibly be lonely if a TV show of your life is being filmed every time you leave the house or rustle your blinds. 

An anthem for growing at your own pace, “I Am Continuing To Do My Thing” sees Katz personifying his messy life. He is NOT jealous of the success of his former college friends. Who cares if their careers are taking off or their bands are blowing up? This track really highlights Cheekface’s sense of humor- one day, you’re “dispassionately vaping while you water the plants,” and the next, you’re “vaping in the parking lot with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” If you compare your success to others, you’ll never be happy. Advice that’s almost as good as, “If you steal a cop car, you will never get pulled over” from the same song’s second verse. 

The first half of the album closes out with “Life in a Bag,” a song that locks you in with a swirly synth and bouncing bassline for another track about being ok where you’re at. The almost-rapping of the verses can be off-putting at first, especially if you are poisoned by too-coolness like myself. Lines like “heaven is just wiggly air, and I’m alive now” can feel like trying to down a sugary shot without making a face, but if you open your heart to sincerity, you will soon be singing along to “Life in a bag, living my life in a bag, thank you for putting me in this bag.” 

If you couldn’t already tell, Cheekface is a lyrically dense band. They have a lot to say about the minutiae of the world, but they’re also going to make you dance. They keep you guessing in the back half of the album, offering a departure from Side A's funky and upbeat sound. An ode to new beginnings and American materialism, “Trophy Hunting At the Zoo” is only a minute long and features noisy downpicked guitar alongside pitched-down vocals. They have fun with anatomy on “Largest Muscle” and go from unserious to inspirational in the same verse- “your eyes are your largest muscle / they can recognize me when I’m wearing a hat.” How do we do that?? Katz is right if you really think about it. He’s also right about one of the most poignant lines on the record, moments later singing, “Your mind is so big and supple / you can turn that thing around at any point.” The human spirit is resilient. 

It’s Sorted closes out our journey (pun intended) with two of the best songs on the record- “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Plastic.” The former speaks again to that resilience: “We hum through our days of constant striving, and everybody seems to hum in time / the lies come free, the truths behind a paywall for $1.99.” The group wraps things up by contemplating if you can 3D print love on the album’s closer. All this needless complication and technology might make things simpler, but it comes with the cost of everything looking like the same gray plastic. 

In just under 30 minutes, Cheekface sorts the emotional recycling of your mind, leaving you cleaner and clearer than when you started. It does feel sorted- into good and bad and weird and cool (and not cool). It’s serious and anxiety-ridden, and it’s also silly. Despite thinking about everything, Cheekface faces the problems of the world with a certain nonchalance and positivity- and it might just make them the coolest band in the world.  

My name is Alex, and I make music as Birthday Dad! I released my debut album, The Hermit, in 2022 and have vinyl available now from Refresh Records! Follow me on Twitter and everything else! @iambirthdaydad

glass beach – plastic death | Album Review

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RUN FOR COVER RECORDS

I have spent years trying to appreciate the Grateful Dead. Everything about them should be exactly my speed: psychedelic country rock with long-winded live performances? I’m usually all-in on that sort of thing, but their acclaim has eluded me ever since I began getting into music. They’re a huge influence on so many artists I love, from The Black Crowes to Kurt Vile, yet I’ve never been able to figure out my disconnect. As a flagship band of music nerdery, I re-examine the Dead about every eighteen months to see if my tastes have finally progressed to a place that will let them in, but no such luck.

I say this all to contextualize my thesis: glass beach is my anti-Grateful Dead. Nothing about this band should work for me, but I find them absolutely fascinating. Their influences of note, like Car Seat Headrest and Radiohead, have been among my most maligned artists since my first encounters. glass beach’s lowercase presentation, sometimes erratic genre-hopping, and hour-plus album runtimes are all things I’ve turned my nose up at when done by other bands. It’s the way they create a specific melting pot with all of these things, the way it all comes together in the end. They deliver their brand of leftfield indie rock a cut above other groups, and they aren’t shy about proving it on plastic death.

the first glass beach album was self-released midway through 2019 and got picked up by Run For Cover Records by the end of the year. The Massachusetts label made a name for itself in the 2010s by releasing pop-punk mainstays like Citizen’s Youth and Turnover’s Peripheral Vision. But in the last few years, the focus has shifted to more indie unknowns and upstarts from all over North America. The loud angst of their standout albums was left behind for the twangy emo of Runnner, the pleasant pop of Mini Trees, and the frenetic cacophony of glass beach.

Much like its predecessor, the latest album by glass beach is a bombastic LP that refuses to pigeonhole the band to any one subculture. It’s too smart to be simply nth wave emo, too angular to be just indie rock, and too what-the-fuck to be anything else. If we’re splitting hairs, you could loosely throw glass beach in the math rock camp, but not every song gets as noodly as the style dictates. There’s an argument for post-rock, but that doesn’t really apply to the more aggressive moments. On first listen to either album, it would be easy to assume the band is just throwing ideas at walls for parts of every song and seeing how much they can peel off in one sitting. But for the most part, it all feels pretty intentional, each song its own alternative suite.

After a five-year gap, intent is the name of the glass beach game. Album opener “coelacanth” is six and a half minutes of full-force emo prog, like if Between The Buried And Me were a new Topshelf Records signee. From the spoken word intro to the first droney moments of vocals to what sounds like a xylophone-led bridge, this is exactly the type of song that forces you to understand that glass beach are not students of convention. It ascends to a scaley, arpeggiated guitar passage over classic emo horns that sounds like what would happen if you played songs by Protest The Hero and American Football at the same time. The track ends with offbeat music stabs that could have been a coda to a ‘90s noise rock track.

“motions” follows with a more compact and direct version of this unique style, pumped up in the way only glass beach can make it, like if The Dismemberment Plan wrote an anime theme song. “Reveal the underbelly, I hollow out your shell. I spiral in dark matter, I’m so sick of going through the motions.” A sentiment that can be shared by many, though if I have one consistent criticism throughout the album, it’s that “Classic” j’s vocals are sometimes a bit too underperformed and slurred in their delivery, undercutting the lyrics’ potential impact. The composition of these songs are fiendishly creative; it would have pushed this thing the extra mile to have a more defined lead vocal on tracks like this or the Slaughter-Beach-Dog-in-space-style balladry of “guitar song.”

Additionally, I can’t say the metal breakdowns on songs like “slip under the door” or “commatose” don’t stand out in a bit of an awkward way, but they’re thankfully not peppered in often. These heavy moments aren’t used as a crutch or a gimmick; just like everything else on plastic death it’s clear that glass beach have a vast understanding (and appreciation) of many different styles, it’s just some they pull off better than others.

People in the seventies used to think there were hidden satanic messages if you played Led Zeppelin records backward. I don’t think there’s any hedonistic undertones on “rare animal,” but its intro riff sounds like a honky tonk country single played too fast in reverse, which gives it a ton of personality. The track is a standout moment for me, with the band locking into an air-tight groove throughout the explosive, post-Vaudevillian-space rock melodies and top-notch, multi-part vocal layering. A perfect choice for a single, as it does the best job of presenting all of glass beach’s capabilities in one piece.

plastic death is brickwalled with strange bangers, and I think “puppy” is the album’s crown jewel. This song has j’s strongest delivery on the entire LP, paired with a top-notch guitar riff that sounds like a lost alternative gem from the late ‘90s repurposed for a hyperpop track twenty years later. The lyrics appear to be from the canine’s perspective, making this one ripe for replay to grasp its feelings. “Hold your hands in between the bars, and I’ll lick your palms and bite your fingernails. Hold your hand in between the bars, and I’ll just lay here so effortlessly still.” Talking more about intent, it clearly wasn’t unplanned to have this lead into one of the album’s softest cuts, “the killer.” If this were anywhere else in the tracklisting, it may have been easy to gloss over due to the bulk of the collection. The song’s string arrangements are a wonderful addition that make the album seem as grand as possible.

This mid-album trilogy of songs ends with lead single “the CIA,” a track that leans a bit post-punk in the verses before bursting into a cosmic math-pop chorus. Like “motions,” if you were to condense plastic death down to a few introductory tracks, this feels like an obvious one to display. It’s interesting to have some of the more straightforward songs bundled towards the back half (as “straightforward” as an album like this can be), but it would be against the glass beach code to make an expected sequence.

In the album’s final leg, we get “200,” which I can only describe as yachtgaze. Smooth and slightly jazzy verses get dispersed around a heavy guitar chorus before a bridge that feels like an Andrew Lloyd Weber-meets-Coheed And Cambria crescendo. That theatrical intermission is only the suffocating lead-in to the penultimate “commatose,” which runs just shy of ten minutes. It’s at this moment we finally hear the album’s lyrical namesake, j passionately delivering: “Plastic death, plastic death, suck the marrow ‘til there’s nothing left.” During this section, the song moves into some absolutely head-spinning instrumental territory, like an Alan Parsons-produced breakcore track. The second half of the song leans a bit more reserved, eventually fading out into a wide soundscape. Even with its two defined movements and a nearly double-digit runtime, the track doesn’t feel overblown at all from the sum of its parts.

Album closer “abyss angel” begins as a gorgeous piano ballad with the second-place standout lead vocal across the entire tracklisting. It’s a tender moment of respite from the overwhelming pummel of the songs before it, evolving into the most Thom Yorke-esque recording so far. The performance itself from the entire band is quite good, although I don’t know if I personally needed another six-minute technical journey to cap off an album full of similar cuts. After the epic “commatose” preceding it, I think the final moments of vocals, piano, and ambience would have been better suited to be the last drive from this thing.

glass beach’s most impressive qualities fall into two crucial criteria. First, regardless of whether you like everything the band is capable of, they have undeniably crafted a sound that is all their own. You can easily tell what their influences are, but once they mix them all together, there’s not a single group that sounds like them. It’s the hard individualistic work that helped artists from Frank Zappa to Twitching Tongues stay instantly recognizable in any lineup of contemporaries. Second, plastic death is not an overreach by any imagination. glass beach isn’t writing outside their capabilities or creating a braggadocious album to shame any band that can’t deliver the same way. The sonic fusions don’t feel lazy or half-baked, but calculated and genuine. Sure, I can’t say that I’m in love with every experiment or idea for the entire hour it’s on, but I can feel the work that was put into it, which is what makes plastic death the ultimate feat that it is.

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.

Jimmy Montague – All The Same | Single Review

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SELF-RELEASED

“All The Same” by Jimmy Montague feels like a breath of fresh air. His discography is full of soft-rock jams that meld contemplative and deliberate arrangements with the free-wheeling spirit of rock ‘n’ roll from days gone by, but the new single opens on a decidedly more vintage (and somehow even sweatier) vibe– a rollicking and expressive crescendo of jazz piano. If nothing else, it demonstrates the compositional and instrumental talents of the man himself. But that isn’t all it does. Its drawn-out and embellished chords also foreshadow the jaunty, Broadway-esque main riff of the piano-driven rocker, which is eventually propelled into motion by chunky drums played metronomically to a driving rock ‘n’ roll beat. Montague’s vocal delivery, which is simultaneously hushed and urgent, has never shined brighter than it has on this song. He sounds both impassioned and detached at once as he croons for a love he waits for by the phone. The verse elides into a wonderful backslide of a chorus before the inimitable Chris Farren takes the wheel with an almost effortless guitar solo and a falsetto disco verse. Truly a meeting of the minds guys.

The groove comes first to both him and Montague on this track– the verses slip by, the second chorus is unsung, and those driving drums play the song out. “All The Same” is an evolution from Montague’s last LP, honing his instinct for slick pop-rock without sacrificing musical complexity, vintage pastiche, pure rock and roll, or complete sincerity. It’s a perfect slice of ‘70s nostalgia to pair with a big-bodied automobile, a beautiful lover, some worn-in bell-bottom jeans, and whatever remaining marijuana you can pull together. You can stream the song now on your platform of choice, at the strong recommendation of this writer. Jimmy Montague’s new LP, Tomorrow’s Coffee, drops early 2024.

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.