Tapir! – The Pilgrim, Their God, and The King of My Decrepit Mountain | Album Review

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Heavenly Recordings

Kyle Field, of Little Wings fame, narrates the opening to each act of Tapir!’s debut album, The Pilgrim, Their God and The King of My Decrepit Mountain. Field and his Little Wings project persist as one of the most enduring outsider indie folk projects of the aughts - outsider, not in the way Daniel Johnston's lo-fi aesthetic was irreplicable, but in the way Jim O'Rourke's sprawling catalog has been canonized by a dedicated few.

Field's presence on Tapir!'s debut record is emblematic, not necessarily of the type of music they hope to make (though the influence is palpable), but of the enamored status Tapir! hope to achieve. The six-piece began playing music during the pandemic, but as they began releasing music in 2022, the bedroom aesthetic they developed stuck around, even as the group expanded their focus towards a precise visual brand. The association with red papier-mâché helmets present in nearly all of the band’s press material was an obvious move towards cementing a trademark symbol. This splashy red iconography was complemented by the flowing green hills and vast naturescapes that persist in the band’s imagery, which they curated over the album’s two-year gestation period.

Tapir!’s first EP, Act 1 (The Pilgrim), was released in 2022 and doubles as the first of three acts contained within their debut. After a remaster of Act 1 and the release of Act 2 in late 2023, Tapir!'s vision finally culminated in The Pilgrim, Their God, and The King of My Decrepit Mountain, the kind of high-concept work that pervaded amongst indie auteurs in the mid-to-late 2000's à la Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois and Joanna Newsom’s Ys. Through their debut album, Tapir! has not only crafted a narrative and aesthetic worthy of such comparisons, but boasts the musical breadth to back it up.

After setting the stage with a brief introduction by Field, Act 1 (The Pilgrim) opens with "On A Grassy Knoll (We'll Bow Together)," which also acted as the group's debut single. Paced snaps of a drum machine play with arpeggiated guitar and light flourishes of pianos, horns, and other woodwinds. Both intentionally and impulsively, the track evokes the wide range of aesthetics developed in the indie music of the late 2000s. Further than its interpolation of LCD Soundsystem's "I Can Change," the exact instrumentation paired with the thump of the drum machine sounds like what would happen if the Postal Service welcomed Jonny Greenwood as a third member.

The record rests upon pristine compositions, bedding youthful lyrics and vocals. Act 2 (Their God) features a rendition of "Gymnopédie," a 19th-century piano composition denoting the classical training that informs the sonic direction of the album. Like many of their London contemporaries, a formal excellence found in the halls of Berklee or the BRIT School courses through many of the band's tracks. Many artists that depend on technical formality deprioritize the soul of their songs, but Tapir! use theory and history to their advantage, evoking aesthetics from chamber music to accentuate their naiveté.

Tapir! primarily rely on straightforward lyrics to paint simple images, but occasionally, they drop slight winks towards a greater grasp of their poetry than they divulge. "Eidolon" is an easygoing guitar number, save for the title itself, a reference to the spirit-image of a living or dead person as conceptualized in ancient Greek literature. Largely though, The Pilgrim, Their God and The King of My Decrepit Mountain is a record that lets its music speak far more volume than the words actually put to page.

The improvement and evolution of Tapir! can be tracked throughout the three acts of The Pilgrim. Between Act 1 and Act 3, Tapir! signed to a label, expanded their resource pool, and picked up a drummer, leaving Act 3 as an incredibly thrilling conclusion to not only the journey of the album but also this chapter of the band. 

"Untitled" and "My God" are two of the LP’s tightest tracks, but "Mountain Song" closes out the album in grand fashion, justifying every overreaching concept and larger-than-life visual the record produced in its lifespan. The seven-minute opus begins tense and distant before evolving into a swirling and expansive collage of guitars, strings, drums, synths, and a whole menagerie of voices that move from phase to phase, each grander than the last. “Mountain Song” is indebted to the grand post-rock compositions of London contemporaries like Black Country, New Road and Squid, which are in turn indebted to the immense lineage of post-rock and art rock that came before them. Despite all of its influences, "Mountain Song" places a Tapir!-exclusive naivete on the grandiosity that still feels personal to the band's ethos and taste.

The influences swirling around Tapir! are very clearly present, but they're twisted and spun in ways that still center Tapir! as the man of the hour. As more and more artists harken inaccurately to bygone eras, drawing on influences they don’t understand, artists who were already mimics, and relying on audiences ignorant of history, hearing a band that so assuredly understands the technical, conceptual, and aesthetic depth of their influences is a refreshing gust of wind. Even if the episodic structure feels akin to Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, the chamber instrumentals are incredibly Arcade Fire-esque, and the drum machines could have been bought from a Postal Service estate sale, Tapir!'s virtuosity and strong holistic concepts allow The Pilgrim, Their God, and The King of My Decrepit Mountain to stand mighty and tall on its own qualities.

Benny is the managing editor of STATIC Mag and a freelance writer. If he’s not nose-deep in a book about an over-specific era of music history, he’s probably bumping the dirtiest underground rap hit of the week or the shiniest disco track of the 70s.

Heart to Gold – “Can’t Feel Me” | Single Review

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Memory Music

Some of the best music is seasonal. I’m not talking about holiday music, and I’m not even talking about something overt, like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I mean, there are some songs, bands, and sounds that just feel like they suit a certain kind of weather. There are songs for winter that feel nostalgic and heavy and sad, music made for that moment when the sun barely crests the horizon and the temperature seems like it never rises. Then there are songs for summer, which are often eager and full of anticipation, like the feeling of waking up early to take a trip with nothing more than the open road ahead. “Can’t Feel Me” by Heart to Gold falls somewhere between spring and summer, heady with the first warmth of May, yet still tinged with the chill of old snow that lingers in the shadows of the woods.

Heart to Gold has long been a band in my personal rotation of favorites, with their 2022 album Tom being one I still put on regularly. Since the release of their first EP in 2016, their bold sound and distinct vocals have set them apart from other bands in the emo/punk scene, with tracks like “Tokyo” and “Tigers Jaw” only solidifying their position. “Can’t Feel Me” comes on the heels of their 2023 tour supporting scene giant Movements, along with Mannequin Pussy and Softcult. This is also the first we’ve heard from the band since the release of their standalone 2023 single “Chloë,” which was one of my favorite tracks of last year. Heart to Gold consistently outdo themselves with each subsequent release, and “Can’t Feel Me” is no different.

Tender guitars and soaring vocals took me by the hand and pulled me, laughing, through breezy patches of sunlight and past damp, mossy shadows. I felt like I was missing something I never had as Grant poured his heart out over rich chords.

Sometimes the highest highs, at times the lowest lows.
It must feel like I’m distant, constantly can’t feel me.
Seems like the right direction, but right now I can’t see.

His lyrics echo the sentiment so many of us twenty- and thirty-somethings feel. I think this is the right thing to do, but what if I’m making a mistake? Am I doing it right? We are watching the spring of our lives transition into summer, welcoming the change of seasons with open arms and a hesitant smile, but in the back of our heads, we still wonder if it’s where we’re really supposed to be. “Shout it out,” cries Grant, “shout it out! I don’t feel the same!” Neither do I, and as the new warmth of summer touches my skin and freckles my arms, I think I’m okay with that.

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 @brittajoes.

Dogs on Shady Lane – The Knife | EP Review

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Lauren Records

One of the most comforting things about music, to me, is that there are songs for every possible situation life could throw at you. There are songs for dancing, songs for crying, songs for driving 100 mph down an empty road at 2 am just to feel some intensity. You get what I mean. There’s a bit of Venn Diagram-level overlap in some categories (i.e., you might work out to some of the same songs you party to), but certain genres, sounds, and overall vibes exist at two opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. You’re not gonna put on Joni Mitchell’s Blue while getting ready for your wedding, the same way you wouldn’t put on Megan Thee Stallion when you need to wallow. Brooklyn-via-Providence four-piece Dogs on Shady Lane seeks to challenge this thinking with their latest EP, The Knife. Throughout these four songs, the band refuses to be put into any of these reductive categories, pulling from all sections of the Feelings Wheel to create songs that can soundtrack everything from your next rage room to a contemplative winter night by the fireplace. 

What began with Tori Hall in her college dorm room, Dogs on Shady Lane has existed in a multitude of lineups since 2018, finally settling into its current four-piece: Hall alongside Evan Weinstein, Calder Mansfield, and Grace Goss. The group’s breakout single, 2022’s “Cole St.,” explores an all-consuming love set to a breezy, borderline-twee backing, complete with muted horns, faraway claps, and tight vocal harmonies. On that song, Hall promises, “I’ll give you everything I own,” willing to surrender all of her earthly belongings in the name of devotion. On The Knife, Dogs refine their left-of-center indie sound by countering this softness with an intensity and pure grit we’ve not yet seen from the group. As far as I’m concerned, the grungier, the better — shit that makes you want to punch a wall but also think about the meaning of It All. Throughout this EP’s 13 minutes, I can hear influences from classic Washington grunge acts like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and 7 Year Bitch, but also recent shoegaze groups like Pity Sex and Weatherday.

The Knife exists in extremes. The EP looks at love through different lenses: a neglectful partner, the settled-dust post-breakup feeling of emptiness, washed-up guys with goatees, and the near-obsessive feelings of a new romance. It opens with “Knife (Lady),” a back-and-forth rocker that kicks off with fuzzy, jolting guitars, eventually beginning its cycle of intense throws of distortion, giving way to pared-down, gentler, all-around chiller grooves. The song exists somewhere between My Bloody Valentine’s classic shoegaze crunch and Faye Webster’s jazzy interludes. The give-and-take makes it so that you could be giving your best version of a Millennial Head Banger, then ten seconds later want to lay on a plush velvet couch with a nightcap. 

Throughout The Knife, Dogs on Shady Lane take listeners on an exploration of the emotional contradictions we as humans ceaselessly exist in. Many feelings can be true at once, and this is the reality of the human psyche! There is hate in love, sadness in joy, and confusion in certainty. It’s scary, but it’s also kind of wonderful. The band displays this perfectly as a throughline of the EP: the gently sweet verse melody of “Pile of Photos” clashing with swells of aggressive drums and guitar or the waltzy, dreamy, almost ambient breakdown of “Basement” giving way to a brutally fuzzed out jam perfect for exorcising all of your most negative feelings. There’s an erratic back-and-forth to the entire EP that perfectly parallels the highs and lows of emotionally tumultuous relationships. 

Closing track, “18,” is the EP’s purest moment. Initially released in 2020, Hall recorded all the vocals and instruments herself, including supporting harmonies, electric and acoustic guitars. The eerie electric guitar passes that come and go, combined with the miles-away drums, give the track a distant feeling. Coming off the back of the grungy explosion that is the end of “Basement,” “18” provides yet another contradiction for listeners to ponder. Hall’s vocal delivery is akin to the whispery voices of Phoebe Bridgers or Billie Eilish, making the song feel like a secret. The hook, “I’m too old to be crying so much,” caught me off guard and hit my cancer sun and moon right in the jugular upon first listen. Hearing words I’ve said to myself amidst my latest quarter-life crisis breakdown emphatically sung back to me from all angles of my headphones was one of those disorientingly unique feelings of an artist just getting me. Hall’s haunting vocals stuck with me for days after the song ended. I can still hear her in my head as I’m typing this. The Knife revels in contradictions, but Dogs on Shady Lane take listeners on a sonic, lyrical, and emotional journey that reflects the erratic feelings we all have about love. Looking for the perfect blend of grunge, punk, jazz, and folk? Lyrics that feel like they were written specifically for you? The search ends here.

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. 

Madi Diaz – Weird Faith | Album Review

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ANTI-

One of my favorite things to do when I was young was snoop through my older siblings' rooms when they weren't home. I got to see what was important to them by sifting through their junk drawer, seeing a different side of the people I had spent my whole life around. To this day, I have a vivid memory of reading my sister’s diary, quickly skipping through pages and reading short sections at random. I'm embarrassed to admit that even writing about this memory is making my heart beat through my chest as if I am about to get caught by my parents. That sense of sneaking around, reading things you shouldn’t, and glimpsing into the inner workings of someone’s brain is also how I feel when I listen to Weird Faith, the fifth album from Madi Diaz. 

I only recently found Madi Diaz’s music during the rollout of Weird Faith, and it only took a few seconds of listening to the album’s lead single, “Same Risk,” to know that she was making music that I would enjoy sitting down and engaging with on a deeper level. In addition to serving as the album’s lead single, “Same Risk” is also the opening song of Weird Faith, and it fills that role wonderfully as the introduction to Diaz’s style. The very first verse of the song had my eyes wide and feeling like a bit of a prude for being so taken aback.

I'll let you try on all my dirty thoughts
If you lay in my bed, I know we're gonna have sex
It'll happen so fast, make a suicide pact
And you can't take that back

On its own, the first thirty seconds of the song felt like an attempt at “shock value.” Phrases like “suicide pact” feel almost gratuitous, but after the pre-chorus opens up and we leave that first verse behind, it becomes clear that Diaz’s songs have more than enough substance and meaning to warrant my discomfort. 

Madi Diaz writes clever and concise songs about love and life in ways that are brand new to me. I found myself grinning every time I would connect the dots in my head to understand the concept of each song. Typically, I'm not much of a lyrics guy, so I'm not one to think about all the possible interpretations of a song in the first place, but Diaz’s songwriting stands so tall in the forefront of these tracks that it's impossible to ignore.

“Get To Know Me” is a prime example of Diaz breathing new life into a common trope. It’s a song of pointed self-depreciation that reminds me of various Willy Nelson cuts like “Touch Me,” “Am I Blue?,” and “Half A Man.” This is a style of song I love because it allows the artist to balance out this crushing self-analysis with impressive self-awareness. 

Have you met when I'm belligerent?
I might make you cry
Have I introduced insecurity yet?
Wish I could tell you why

That back and forth brought yet another smile to my face, giving and taking all at once. 

I set out to write this review during a flight from Knoxville to Denver and back. My first listen of the album began the minute I sat down in my little blue aisle seat. I got out my phone and proceeded to tap away for three hours there and another three on the way back. As dumb as I looked hunched over in seat 19B, smiling to myself, there were a handful of spots in this album that took me out of my state long enough to straighten my back and face. Some of these moments were musical, like the muted guitar strumming in “Everything Almost,” which was tough to listen to. There’s also “God Person” and “For Months Now,” where echoing vocals rang against sparse production, feeling a little too over the top on such intimate songs.

While the first ten songs of Weird Faith remind me of flipping through my sister's diary, the last two tracks come together for a freeing resolution that sends the listener off with a bit of hopefullness. This whole album addresses what it’s like to exist in a relationship as imperfect people, to come together with someone else who’s just as messed up in their own ways, and to acknowledge that. If the first ten songs are the challenges, then the title track works as a mantra that counters and consoles each challenge found in the preceding songs. “Weird Faith” is ultimately a reminder against becoming calloused in heartbreak and holding onto an optimism, or faith, of the good to be found. 

‘Cause every love brings a lesson
And I'm gonna be tested
So I'm gonna have a heart of gold
And I'm gonna have weird faith

After arriving at the album’s thesis statement in the penultimate track, Diaz adds a needed dose of substance and reality with the placement of “Obsessive Thoughts” as the closer. After a record of intimate thoughts and honest over-shares, Diaz builds waves of big energy at the beginning of this song, unlike anything that preceded it. I found the highest peak of the album here in the last song, which surges to a wailing height and then drops off into silence, ending even quicker than it started. We get to hear Diaz’s voice waver a little in the softer flourishes between cymbal crashes. I’m imagining that we are hearing the toll from multiple takes of this grand finale, and I really love the inclusion of that waiver. 

Madi Diaz gives us insight into her heart through masterfully crafted songs. She tells us stories about herself in ways I have not heard done before. I love it when I am able to notice even a sliver of the amount of work that went into making a piece of art, which made listening to Weird Faith a lot of fun. 

Our anxieties don't disappear once we figure out what helps to tamp them down. “Obsessive Thoughts” on its own is a tough place to be, but thankfully, we have our weird faith to help us along our way. 

Kirby Kluth grew up in the suburbs of Houston but now lives in Knoxville, TN. He spends his time thinking about motorcycles, tennis, and music. You can follow him on Instagram @kirbykluth.

Friko – Where we've been, Where we go from here | Album Review

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ATO Records

“Heaven is out there / Middle of nowhere /
Hiding away until it’s time.”

I love art that forces me to think critically about it.

In high school and later college, I prided myself on reading difficult classics in order to understand why art was considered “art.” While I don’t regret reading James Joyce’s Ulysses for an independent study, I tend to see greater use for it as a paperweight nowadays.

Sometime after graduating, I really got into watching films. For the past few years, I’ve aimed to watch at least 75 movies by year’s end. I’ll watch and find something to enjoy in everything from Eraserhead (1977) to Women Talking (2022). Hell, I even unironically loved Beau is Afraid (2023).

When I owned a turntable, I would read along with the lyrics of whatever records I played. It’s not that the albums were poorly mixed or that the lyrics were indecipherable, even though a fair amount of them were mumbly shoegaze. In fact, in those genres where the words were more obscured, I liked that the meanings and themes were buried behind intriguing, elusive imagery.

This preamble is not to say I’m pretentious (e.g., I contend the Venom movies are a darn good time). I just love to wrestle with authorial intent and artistic interpretations. I simply love the messiness inherent in art.

Friko’s Where we’ve been, Where we go from here falls squarely in this category of “challenging” art.

As I listened to Friko’s debut LP for the umpteenth time, the lyrics didactically teased me on the computer screen. The natural reverb of the room filled my ears. With the orchestral strings warming my wintry heart, an epiphany dawned: I’ll never solve the puzzle of their album, or at least not all of it. But Friko already knew that, as per “Chemical,” where the band sings, “Starting to believe / The puzzle never solves / Because it’s all / Chemical.”

To songwriters Niko Kapetan and Bailey Minzenberger’s credit, solving the puzzle of it all is not the point of their record. The processing, not the product, is the message. Vocalist/guitarist Kapetan is in search of “better for yourself and the people around you” while struggling in our turbulent world. Sometimes, that comes in the form of lamenting lost love like “For Ella,” and other times, that chase is shown through deliberate ignorance like on “Get Numb to It!”

The lens through which Kapetan struggles for better is as vast as the genres that Friko explores. Art rock, chamber pop, and literary indie rock enthusiasts will all find something to love here. Sudden dynamic shifts, the strings, or the live performances that remind you of the best-sounding DIY venues. The music video for album opener “Where We’ve Been” depicts Friko’s expansive, masterful musicality in an intimate room. Emotion quivers through Kapetan’s voice until it explodes into catharsis. Natural amp feedback is pushed into wall-of-sound territory while Minzenberger’s drums maintain the guiding heartbeat to keep listeners on the road to better. 

Friko is a group of excellent musicians building off the backbone of talented songwriters whose brand of artistry is decidedly left of mainstream. Despite the learning curve inherent in interpreting an album like Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, Friko manages to convey clear, passionate yearning as artists in search of something better, be that love or the omnipresent fight to grow and change. Like my favorite pieces of art, contending with Where we’ve been is a challenge worth undertaking, not for its end, but for the depths explored along the way.

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.