Art d’Ecco – Serene Demon | Album Review

Paper Bag Records

2025 marks a handful of anniversaries for iconic British albums, including 1975’s Young Americans by David Bowie, 1985’s Meat Is Murder by The Smiths, 1995’s Different Class by Pulp, and 2005’s Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. Canadian artist Art d’Ecco seems to pull influence from all of them, in addition to the great British-influenced New York albums like 1970’s Vintage Violence by John Cale, 1980’s Remain In Light by Talking Heads, and 2005’s self-titled debut by LCD Soundsystem. The cross-sections of art rock, new wave, and post-punk that make all of those albums memorable are Art d’Ecco’s genres de jour on his fourth album, Serene Demon, playfully finding the balance between vintage alternative and modern indie dance.

I first caught wind of Art d’Ecco via an Anthony Fantano co-sign on his last album, 2022’s brilliantly titled After The Head Rush. I remember enjoying its sonic throwbacks to the dancier side of post-punk, channeling pioneers like Gang Of Four and The Teardrop Explodes. For one reason or another, the album didn’t stick with me for very long, which is an unfortunate side effect of the modern music era–pummeling consumers with albums week after week all year long. When I first heard that Serene Demon was on the horizon for 2025, I hadn’t even realized it would have been three years since his last record, but in that time, the group has grown its sound even further. The post-punk lean is still there on tracks like “The Traveller,” but the bulk of it goes much more alternative disco and glam, similar to Roxy Music and Sparks, signified immediately by the opener “True Believer.” It almost sounds like a gussied-up version of “Moving In Stereo” by The Cars, trading in the plodding synth tones for a tasteful brass section.

“Cooler Than This” has an orchestral synth lead that feels plucked right out of “Lullaby” by The Cure, but its quirky horns and dance groove make it more reminiscent of “The Lovecats” or that weird “Close To Me” remix. d’Ecco delivers a smoky, New Romantic falsetto that really ties the track together in a unique way, capped with funky callback chorus vocals over the outro. This back-to-back with “Survival Of The Fittest” makes up the album’s tightest eight minutes; a driving bassline and drumbeat anchor the track, with d’Ecco absolutely nailing the phrasing on the chorus: “The faster life comes, the shorter it stays / The longer it bends, the harder it’ll break / So c’mon get ready, hold your feet and hold steady / Or you’re gonna get a beatdown.” It’s a rhythmic masterclass from top to bottom, something that he is an expert craftsman at throughout the entire record. “Tree Of Life” doesn’t slow things down at all, going full frenetic indie disco that fans of Scissor Sisters could absolutely get behind.

Side 2 of Serene Demon is just as creative but in a much different way. The dark and jazzy instrumental “Meursault’s Walk” gets into an almost prog-rock zone, with swirling synths over the horns and bass leading into the album’s epic seven-minute title track. Like a classic art rock centerpiece, it goes through different movements and phases, from the tender introduction into a balls-out ensemble bridge, culminating in a disco-fueled coda echoing David Bowie’s “Station To Station” or Donna Summer’s version of “MacArthur Park.” Lyrically, d’Ecco reflects again on the passage of life: “Unruly despair, when life’s precious moments disappear out of view / You say it ain’t fair, I hardly noticed when it hung around.” Contrastingly, the pop-centric “Honeycomb” follows and goes full T. Rex, at first standing out from the rest of the album, but given the context of the ‘70s glam music that he’s pulling from, it isn’t a far cry from the harder-edged dance tracks.

While I do enjoy every song on this thing, the bombastic first three songs in its second half feel a bit disparate from the standout tracks in the beginning, which have much more in common with the album’s final moments of “Shell Shock” and “A Change Of Scenery.” The bass-led closing tracks, if pushed up closer to the album’s first half, maybe would have made the album flow a bit better, with the suite of “Meursault’s Walk” and “Serene Demon” giving the album an unforgettable closing chapter instead of them hanging in the middle. But bold choices are what make Art d’Ecco’s music stand out from his contemporaries, so I might have to put my personal sequencing preferences to the side.

Serene Demon is exactly my kind of album: while its influences are clear, it finds new avenues to take them down, and it’s not just another '80s-flavored indie synthpop album either. Speaking further on those influences, Art d’Ecco channels artists and styles that I’ve loved for years and don’t always hear checked in modern music, especially from younger artists. He’s is the perfect example of what makes new music exciting, by taking what’s preceded him and giving it a new life all its own, a life that may pass quickly but is worth stopping to enjoy.

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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.

Rapt – Until the Light Takes Us | Album Review

Start-Track

There’s plenty of music that’s designed to pull you into the past, but it’s rare that I find myself truly transported. I don’t mean this as a dig; I’m just saying that pastiche—even when well done by an act like The Lemon Twigs—is identifiable as pastiche. Listening to these kinds of referential artists is a bit like being on an amusement park dark ride; it’s fun to suspend disbelief and let a certain guitar tone conjure up images of the 90s in your mind, but finding out what you’re listening to was actually made in 2023 by some kids in Ohio is usually no more surprising than the lights coming on to reveal that you’re not actually in The Hundred Acre Woods. 

In Rapt’s Until the Light Takes Us, I found something different. Here we have a record that actually does transport me to the past, not because of any sonic hallmarks or tips of the hat, but because it legitimately feels haunted. This feeling grabbed me early on in track two, “Attar Of Roses,” where Ware sings, “The angels wept for a thousand days / For cities of blood had passed by their wings / Attar of roses paved the waving fields / A city was formed when they fell from the hills.” It sounds like the recounting of an old legend by someone who was there for its inception, the kind of tale you’d hear sung by a medieval bard. Even when the stories take a more personal bent, they sound like they’re coming from a village of old, like on “Fields of Juniper,” where we hear, “And there stood a cross in the center of town / It’s shadow lay heavy across the stone walls / You took my hand and said you’d climb / So I’d see you as a martyr that lived in our time.” The conviction with which Ware spins these tales is both eerie and appealing; it had me hanging on his every word. 

As far as instrumentation goes, the nylon string guitar is Ware’s weapon of choice throughout the record, its soft arpeggios the perfect timbre to wrap itself around his yarns. Though the guitar plays well with others, like when the piano joins in on “A Theory Of Resistance,” it really shines when it’s left to stand on its own next to Ware’s voice. In these moments, when the record is at its most barebones, its intimacy reminds me a bit of 70s singer-songwriters like Labi Siffre, a quality that always makes my ears perk up. 

That said, I really enjoy the track “Making Maps,” where we get to see a full-band version of Rapt that is a bit more contemporary in its sound. Its contrast in style from the rest of Until the Light Takes Us makes for a great palette cleanser, and it features what is probably my favorite lyric on the whole record: the devastating line “My cousin died in the morning / He didn’t even feel the sun.” It’s so simple but so affecting, bringing forward thoughts of the coldness of death and early mornings in a way that made me shiver when I first heard it.

The way that everything comes together on Until the Light Takes Us is beautiful. When I say it’s haunted, I want to be clear that I don’t mean it’s the sort of thing that might give you a fright in the night; what I’m getting at instead is that the work feels so timeless and discusses death so intimately that it’s impossible for me to look at it and not see an otherworldly gleam emanating off of the whole thing. It feels like a record made by someone with an actual connection to the metaphysical world, not just someone who philosophizes about it. To have the gift of that connection—be it real or perceived—shared with you through the music is a very special feeling, and it’s one that sat with me long after the last song had stopped playing. 

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. He has a blog about cassette tapes that you can find here. He also makes music under the name Cutaway Car.

Adventures – Supersonic Home | Album Retrospective

Run For Cover Records

Supersonic Home, the first and only album by Pittsburgh rock band Adventures, turns ten years old today. I’ll admit part of me feels silly even sitting down to write about this record because its appeal feels entirely self-evident. It’s hard to imagine someone putting this album on in 2025 and not immediately getting swept up in its brightly colored pop-punk grandeur. Because of that, if I can get even one or two people to hit play on this record, then I’ll have done my job. 

In many ways, this is perfect rock music and an unbeatable arc for a band to have: a couple EPs, a couple splits, one full-length, and then calling it a day to let that body of work speak for itself. Granted, the members of Adventures have since found more success in other projects, which makes their discography a bit of a time capsule, but I suppose that self-contained nature is at least some of the appeal.

Just to set the table, Adventures were a five-piece rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project began with three members of metalcore act Code Orange who obviously wanted to make slightly softer, more straight-ahead rock music. Due to the sizable overlap in members, Adventures is sometimes viewed as an offshoot of Code Orange, but other than the occasional shout here and there, it’s near impossible to hear any connection between the two. 

Despite the disparity in genres, it makes total sense to look back and see how Adventures spawned. Initially known as “Code Orange Kids” before shortening to just “Code Orange” in 2014, the members of Code Orange had been (perhaps unwittingly) thrust into the northeast scene. Even though they were making spine-crushing metallic hardcore, they also put out music on Topshelf Records and (somewhat famously) shared a four-way split with Tigers Jaw, The World Is a Beautiful Place, and Self Defense Family. This adjacency to “scene” music placed them within reach of labels like No Sleep and Run For Cover, two titans of the 2010 indie-emo sphere who wound up helping Adventures release their music. 

The band’s early EPs, 2012’s Adventures and 2013’s Clear My Head With You, were centered around moody melodies and Reba Meyers’ despondent wail. The lyrics were surprisingly emo, expressing feelings of inadequacy and adolescent frustration. Occasionally, things would peak in a scream or a slow-bobbing breakdown, but for the most part, these were very emotional and overwrought songs, slathered in a solid layer or two of grungy distortion. 

By 2014, Adventures were moving a bit more strategically, shifting labels, partnering with peers, and staking out a sound right at the peak of the “soft grunge” explosion. At the beginning of the year, a split with Run Forever marked the group’s final output on No Sleep. By October, a split between Adventures and Pity Sex instantly solidified the group as part of Run For Cover’s Shoegaze Canon, something I could really only place in retrospect. 

In February of 2015, Adventures released Supersonic Home onto the world, offering a ten-track exploration of the interpersonal that still sounds as fresh today as it did ten years ago. When I was still a dumbass 21-year-old emo (as opposed to a dumbass 31-year-old emo), the band that Adventures reminded me of most was Tigers Jaw, specifically any key-board-heavy song where Brianna would take lead vocals. Today, I hear a lot more second-wave emo in these sounds, with clear nods to early Jimmy Eat World and (perhaps imagined) evocations of bands like Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and The Promise Ring. 

In contrast to their early EPs and splits, Supersonic Home moved into a much less angsty territory. The music was still as open-hearted and confessional as those early songs, but the choruses were sharper, and the instrumentals were more driving and muscular. While Reba Meyers was still the primary singer, vocals were now much more of a shared effort, with Kimi Hanauer clearly coming into her own in the few years since their first output. Together, their vocals entwined over upbeat instrumentals that sit somewhere between 90s alt-rock and modern pop-punk. This was baggy shirt, flannel-clad rock shit for sure, but it also feels like music made to be held on a compact disc. 

If you want an ideal setting for a listen of Supersonic Home, I recommend waiting for the first sunny day of the year and going for a walk with this playing on your headphones. Maybe it’s just due to its February release, but I’ll always associate this album with the beginning of the year, often reserving it for one of those first days you can wear shorts (or at least shed your jacket). There’s nothing quite like stretching your legs, feeling the sun on your skin, and letting the sounds of Supersonic Home flow through you. I genuinely feel fortunate that this has been something I’ve been able to return to year after year for the last decade without tiring. 

From second one, it’s impossible not to get wrapped up in that opening drum roll on “Dream Blue Haze.” After four minutes of building and building, how can you not want to belt along “Your Sweetness” by the time that final refrain rolls around? 

Looking at the lyrics for a song like “Heavenly,” it’s amazing how far the band can go off so little. The verse is literally ten words, yet the outpouring at the end of the song when Meyers belts “He’s a swarm / he’s a swarm / I am unforgiven” is as hard-hitting as any breakdown Code Orange ever concocted. 

I could name practically any track off this album and burrow into its brilliance: the awestruck “Longhair,” the charged-up “Absolution, Warmth Required,” the bouncy closing title track. Throughout every one of these songs, the band casts an energetic blue-tinted spell on the listener, whisking them away into a hand-crafted, watercolored world like the one seen on the cover or in their music videos. Throughout it all, Reba and Kimi maintain a beautiful interplay, trading vocals, harmonizing, and adding a soft compassion to every song that bounces off the punky guitars beautifully. 

While part of me is sad that we never got anything more from this project, the collective hour of music we got from it is worth it. Probably for the best that the band didn’t keep returning to the well and diluting it with redundant music and touring, after all, their day job in Code Orange was calling the entire time. I guess what I’m saying is sometimes it’s better to know when to throw in the towel and put a period at the end of everything. To that end, I’ll leave you with the Wikipedia description of their vague-at-best ending, which never fails to make me laugh.

Cryogeyser – Cryogeyser | Album Review

Self-Released

Millennial culture is back like it never left. The kids of the late 90s and early 2000s–now considered the Y2K era–are all grown up with jobs, bills, and the stresses of adulthood. I’ll raise my hand for all three of those, and we all cope in different ways. Regardless of your age or what generation you may find yourself in, there’s something undeniably alluring about revisiting shows that take you back to a time when it was just you and your friends watching your favorite TV shows without a care in the world. This is what I like to call entertainment comfort food. 

When we watch reruns of shows that activate our inner child, everything from the theme songs to the needle drops instantly inject peak nostalgia into our veins, transporting us back to a past version of ourselves. This brings me to Cryogeyser’s self-titled sophomore album, which is sure to scratch any nostalgic itch you may have for the vibes of yesteryear. I’d be willing to bet a lump sum of money (preferably not my money, but someone's money) that vocalist/guitarist Shawn Marom is a big fan of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, or Charmed. 

In 2019, Cryogeyser’s first album, Glitch, was a solid debut from the group. Their music was painted on a canvas dream-pop throughout, but behind those lush textures, the lyrics hid an impending doom. This is most notable on the song “Waiting,” which reminds me of the final scene from the first Terminator film where Sarah Connor finds herself driving from a sun-soaked desert into the eye of an imminent thunderstorm.

Cryogeyser’s self-titled record is more interesting, pushing their sonic scope to new heights far past those found on their debut. Whether this change is coming through the newly refreshed and solidified lineup or just the natural process of getting older, their maturation is evident. The addition of Zach Capitti Fenton on drums and bassist Samson Klitsner has cranked up the dial full-blast with colossal riffs track after track. If Glitch is like driving down the sunlit California coast in a flashy convertible with the top down, Cryogeyser is like being in the same sports car, only this time, you made a wrong turn and have found yourself flying at breakneck speed past abandoned buildings, run-down impound lots, and seedy-looking characters. 

Album opener, “Sorry,” is a sonic knockout punch that would even leave Rocky Balboa woozy. The song is a fusion of grunge, shoegaze, and dream-pop rolled into one ball of awesome. Marom’s melodies instantly captivate, making it one of their best and an easy choice for the album’s lead single. Marom said about the track, “Sorry is the song that plays at the pool party your ex is at.” I hope my exes aren’t listening to music this high quality. 

Mid-album highlight “Mountain” is a tag team effort from Marom and Karly Hartzman of Wednesday, harmonizing in tandem about the after-effects of a broken relationship. Both singers sound at home over the distorted arrangement of guitars. This got me thinking that there should be more team-ups in the indie music community. We got a stellar one last year with Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman, and that was one of the best songs of the year! Now, I’m not asking for every artist to have a Wu-Tang-like feature list on albums because that would devalue the point, but if done in moderation, the songs get elevated to feel more special, like with “Mountain.”

Maybe it’s just because they’ve toured together (multiple times), but Cryogeyser reminds me of a West Coast version of Wednesday. Both bands excel at turning their versions of shoegaze into a grimy, dirty, distorted trademark sound. Instead of the alt-country allure of Down South that Wednesday is now known for, Cryogeyser lean into the sonic landscape of their sunny, vibrant home in Los Angeles. Regional music is finally making a comeback!

Cryogeyser are also purveyors of 90s culture with their cascading waves of grungy distortion. “Cupid” (a song aptly titled for the record’s Valentine’s Day release) has an authentic alternative-rock fuzz that would make Dinosaur Jr. proud. Between the melodic chorus and scuzzy guitars, “Blew It” left a lasting impression on me, making it a compelling late-album peak. With a Lance Bangs-directed music video, there’s no doubt in my mind that “Stargirl” would have been a massive hit on MTV’s Alternative Nation. It’s a song that takes you on a journey about the isolating damage that grief does to one’s body. Marom sings, “I’m eating it fast and eating it well / My stomach feels full, and I’m going through hell.” Things progress to a fiery conclusion with cascading waves of grungy guitar distortion that will leave you slack-jawed. 

“Fortress” has a timeless classic rock-fueled pop edge. Marom’s intoxicating vocal harmonies remind me of Celebrity Skin-era Courtney Love. A couple of tracks later, “Blue Light” has a retro television show theme music quality with lyrics about self-discovery and a tidal wave of dreamy pumped guitars. It feels like I’m watching a lost episode of One Tree Hill or, for the real heads out there, The O.C. 

Throughout their self-titled record, Cryogeyser encapsulate a brooding yet blissful ambiance, setting the tone with a dreamy type of grunge sonic structure on “Sorry” all the way to the tear-soaked trip hop closer “Love Language.” It’s a kind of mood that leans heavy on nostalgia, which meshes well with the reflective nature of Marom’s lyrics, looking in the rearview mirror on past decisions or relationships. I think it’s a brilliant move, harkening back to the past sonically while coming to grips with lost times. Cryogeyser created a soundtrack for us to return to whenever the present is overwhelming, the past seems confronting, and the future seems uncertain. As the trio blur those time frames together, things somehow only manage to become more clear. 

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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.

The Laughing Chimes – Whispers In The Speech Machine | Album Review

Slumberland Records

There’s a part of me that still thinks a goth is the coolest thing you can be. It’s not even something that I particularly identify with or feel a strong pull toward, but to me, there’s nothing more fascinating than the person in the corner with the swoopy black hair and an extraneous leather belt. 

While it’s easy to see how a crush on Sam from Danny Phantom could segue into the emo investments and highlighter-colored hair of my late-Aughts scene period, I often kick myself for taking so long to arrive at an admiration for this type of music. I look at the discography of a band like The Cure or The Jesus and Mary Chain, and I see nothing but decades of consistency. I also look at the number of bands they’ve influenced, like Mogwai, Beach House, and countless others, then wonder why it took me until my mid-twenties to develop an appreciation for goth and new wave.

Perhaps I was apprehensive because it felt ingenuine to be drawn to this aesthetic as a relatively stress-free, well-off kid from a suburb of Oregon. Goths were something I saw in movies and TV shows; even by the time I was a teenager, the music felt like an ancient text, and for me to adopt that style would have come across as nothing but hollow. The reason The Cure can make an album as phenomenal as Songs of A Lost World more than 40 years into their career is because that’s who those people are at their core. Robert Smith has always been that bitch. 

The same thing goes for jangle-pop acts like R.E.M., who, in my estimation, have near-spotless discographies and have always sounded effortlessly cool, even when they were still greasy, pimple-faced college kids. It makes total sense then that I’d hear an album like The Laughing Chimes’ Whispers In The Speech Machine and be drawn in like a fly to honey. 

Despite sounding like an album you’d pick off the shelf of an English record store in the mid-80s, The Laughing Chimes hail from southeastern Ohio, lending their blend of post-punky dream-pop a sturdy midwestern foundation. It’s a trip to think about these four making such gothy works from Athens, Ohio, of all places, but anyone who’s visited that part of the country can attest to the imposing industrial abandon that marks your days. I imagine it’s actually quite similar to the drab places where this music often emerges like London or Scotland, but what does my Pacific Northwestern-ass know?

Whispers In The Speech Machine starts by whisking the listener straight up in a pitch-perfect jangle riff that serves as the engine for most of the record’s 28 minutes. It’s easy to get drawn in, nodding along to the delay-drenched guitar lick of “Atrophy” as Evan Seurkamp’s dreamy vocals float by. You’re liable to soon lose your place in time and space as The Laughing Chimes move you from one scene to the next with a studied precision. Just like the washed-out half-exposure on the album cover, things start to feel half-real and overgrown, an amalgamation of physical places and hallucinatory visions constructed from half-remembered locales. Was I really here, or was it just something I saw in a movie? Why does that building look so familiar? Who are all these people that I feel like I should know? 

Though it feels scant, these eight songs have the exact right elements: the aforementioned arpeggiated guitar paired with driving, cool basslines that link up perfectly with Quinn Seurkamp’s effervescent drumming. Despite being prominent in the mix, the vocals often feel more like a vibe-guiding suggestion than a critical element–it’s just as easy to get sucked up into the gorgeous swirling guitarwork and driving rhythm section as it is the wraithy lyrics surrounding them.

Some songs like “Country Eidolism” retreat into more retracted acoustic-guitar-led pensivity, which the band knows to quickly chase with a high-energy burst like “Cats Go Car Watching.” Through all these lush instrumental explorations, the Laughing Chimes remain locked in on their gothy inspirations. A playlist of songs that influenced the LP reveals not only expected suspects like The Cure and Bauhaus but more modern touchpoints like Alvvays and early-career R.E.M. 

Up until the final moments of “Mudhouse Mansion,” you’re likely to remain under the band’s witchy spell until its final reverb-soaked jangles have come to a rest, at which point, you’ll be hopelessly dumped back into the real world with all of its horrors and pains. The transportive nature of Whispers In The Speech Machine is one of its powers, no doubt, but the band’s harkening back to this older style of music also serves to show us how far we’ve progressed (or flatlined) in the previous decades. If the contrast feels stark, then the music is doing its job.