The Best of Q2 2025

We’re halfway through 2025, and it feels like my brain is contorting into shapes it was never meant to hold. Unlike my intro for our favorites of Q1, I’m going to try my best not to go on a screed, but it’s hard not to treat these roundups as little check-ins. It’s also hard not to be upset at the countless acts of violence, injustice, and just plain stupidity being carried out in our name and on our dollar. It’s hard to conceive of because sometimes our day-to-day feels so completely unchanged or mind-numbingly banal. Hell, some days are even great. Then that feels weird because you’re allowing yourself one ounce of joy in the company of friends and loved ones, and suddenly you snap back to the reality of the world we’re living in. You remember the machine you’re a part of, and you try your best to operate outside of it, but sometimes that machine feels absolute and inescapable. 

I think what I’m trying to say is that this is a uniquely treacherous time to be alive, but there’s still beauty to be had. There’s salvation to be found in community, and there is support to be lent to those who need it. There’s art to share with each other, and that’s why we’re here. 

This past month, a couple of our friends had a beautiful, healthy baby. Another couple got a brand new puppy who’s barely big enough to make it up a single stair. I went to a baseball game primarily to down a beer, a hot dog, and fistfuls of popcorn. I had my 32nd birthday and was surrounded by all my beloved friends as we shot each other with squirt guns and shook our booties to Rihanna. I went to a music festival and hugged someone I loved. I took pictures outside of a tobacco shop in Ohio called “Butt Hut.” I shared some delicious meals with my beautiful girlfriend and watched Shakespeare in the park with friends. These are all varying levels of significance, and some of them might seem more frivolous or trivial than others, but they’re all part of the same thing. Finding the time to experience joy and wonder and happiness, acknowledging those feelings, and sharing them with as many people as possible is what it’s all about. 

With that in mind, please enjoy The Swim Team’s favorite albums from the last three months. Fifteen releases from fifteen artists, championed by fifteen different people. I hope you find something here to love.

---

First Day Back – Forward

Self-released

I’ve been an active participant in the emo scene for well over half my life at this point. I have seen its ebbs and flows, I’ve survived its famine years, and been relishing our current era of bounty. When one spends a long enough time being fully engrossed in the tides of genre, you begin to build a sense of which way the wind may start to blow. When I first heard The Arrival Note’s Vol. 2, I felt the tingle of an air pressure change, a movement in the sky that I surmised to be a harkening back to 90s emo that would find its way into our now burgeoning scene. Well, here we are, the first big gust to usher us towards our next few years of emo revival goodness. Actually, ‘revival’ doesn’t feel quite right. First Day Back’s debut effort is not them attempting to breathe life back into anything; it's all living, breathing experience, days and months and years and scattershot measurements of time clasped between moving string sections, moments pinched between their fret strings, memories weighing heavy on serenades and shouts.

Forward’s modus operandi, it seems, is to just be honest. Honest in feeling, honest in thought, honest in execution, and when all of that honesty starts condensing and collecting across the breadth of the album's thirty-four-minute runtime, the rain cloud accumulating over your spirit gets a spring-kissed summer shower. This album feels like a natural phenomenon in that way, and I think that with time and its tides, some kids in twenty years will point at this band and, through wide-eyed listening sessions of this album, want to find their own way through that same honesty. I'll be happy to press play on that one, too.
– Elias Amini

Turnstile – NEVER ENOUGH

Roadrunner Records

Turnstile’s summer blockbuster record, NEVER ENOUGH, has replenished for me the gigantic stadium rock feel from a band in their prime that I haven’t felt since the mid-2000s. It’s 45 minutes of crowd-pleasing summer rock action that scratches the itch of prime Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters. NEVER ENOUGH is fully loaded with explosive melodic riffs and an ample number of sonic twists and turns.

“BIRDS” is an adrenaline-pumping jam if I ever heard one. The song moves faster than a muscle car driven by Dom Toretto; it’s Turnstile at their mosh-pitting best. I just want to break something or at least knock over a traffic cone at full force whenever this song comes on. The transitions are as smooth and seamless – being able to move from chunky guitar riffs to break beats at the drop of a hat makes for a thrilling listening experience. The best example I can give is “LOOK OUT FOR ME,” which flies by at 100 mph with Q101 rock radio riffs, then morphs into a minimalist synth club hit that is full-on transcendent.

This record can be listened to nonstop on runs through the park, while manning the grill, or even while meditating by the pool. NEVER ENOUGH’s sonic versatility is the Swiss-Army knife for rock music.
– David Williams

Careful Gaze – one day this will let you go

Self-released

Minneapolis rockers Careful Gaze have always been a little messy to categorize as far as genre is concerned. Generally, it’s fair to call them a mix of post-hardcore, metalcore, and heavy indie music. one day this will let you go feels special, shedding all of those labels to do something completely unique within their catalog. What we get is an ambient EP full of sound design, synths, and subdued vocals.

The first track, “you are the strongest that I know,” has a two-minute sound bath before vocalist Gabe Reasoner comes in to silently declare, “You should stay away from me.” They repeat the phrase until you realize that this is a break-up record borne out of the challenge of letting go of people you loved, or perhaps, still love. On the second track, Careful Gaze trades in the subdued energy of track one for trap hi-hats, a handclap snare, and swelling synths, creating a build that demands release in the form of the next song. 

It’s on the closing title track where the emotional design of the record really shines. It challenges the listener to break composure while Gabe’s vocal delivery screams out, raising in intensity until the last line, dropping back down to close the record by saying “it’s fucked no matter what,” an acknowledgement that sometimes brokenness is just brokenness. There isn’t much hope here. This is simply the work of a broken person writing about brokenness.

This EP begs a few questions about Careful Gaze’s next full-length record. Will we see more of this lush sound design that’s being spotlighted on this EP? Will we get a resolution for the heartbreak we see here? It’s impossible to know what’s next, but I’m waiting with bated breath to see where this band will be landing when they hit the ground again.
– Noëlle Midnight

Panel – A Great Time to Be an Empath

Don’t Sing 

With each spin of Panel’s debut album, A Great Time to Be an Empath, the more I feel the need to grab someone, shake them, and scream at them about the things Annie Sparrows’ songwriting makes me feel. Throughout this record, Sparrows aches for some sort of relief from the horrors of trying to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. The moment that hits the hardest for me is after the second verse of “Victoria” when she gently croons that titular name, and her voice is so full of desperate hope that someday she’ll be able to sit comfortably in her skin. “Victoria” does what I want every new song I hear to do, to leave me breathless and lost for words to describe what just happened and how the hell I could feel all of that in under two minutes. And it is not the only song on the record that makes me feel that way. It can’t be when the record opens the line “Everybody knows that the place to start / is before the end, before the part / where you began to go but you didn’t even know / it was the start of the lights out slip” spoken over a motorik rhythm that perfectly evokes the dissociative numbness that comes with living just to make it through the day and has a piano ballad as its centerpiece about a pets love performed like a lounge act. It’s a great time to listen to A Great Time to Be an Empath.
– Lillian Weber

Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back – winnowing

Self-released

One way I try to remember each month is with a playlist of new-to-me music. In May, I heard “Out of Season” by Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back. It’s from their 2023 debut album, and liberally abuses the stereo audio format to split each guitar beat, giving the song an interesting and intentionally disjointed character. This, among other bit-crushing, oversaturating, and noisy tricks, was intriguing enough for a whole album play. Luckily for me, that same month they released their sophomore LP, winnowing. This second effort explores the softer side of low-fidelity recording. There are still plenty of crunchy crescendos and haphazard buzzings throughout, but each song feels more considered. They back off the chaos of their first album to introduce a meticulous melange, which is acoustic-forward and ever so slightly polished. If you’re a fan of Wednesday, glass beach, or Hey, ILY, you’ll find something to love about Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back.
– Braden Allmond

The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven

MNRK Records

I’ve had the pleasure of working at a lovely, albeit somewhat niche, museum since October, and I still find new little nooks, crannies, and didactics throughout the exhibits to keep me invested. Being a museum employee also grants complimentary access to other museums, such as The Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Seattle Art Museum, to name a few. However, one doesn’t need reciprocity to enter the Museum of Failure, an interactive auditory museum curated by the six-piece post-hardcore band The Callous Daoboys. 

This museum is sprawling with different exhibits, ranging from the downright ridiculously heavy (“Tears on Lambo Leather,” “Full Moon Guidance,” “The Demon Of Unreality Limping Like A Dog”) to catchy (“Two-Headed Trout,” “Lemon,” “Distracted By The Mona Lisa”) to spacy (“Body Horror For Birds”). Some artifacts scare viewers while others will bring them to tears of laughter like the downright ridiculous A GAGA BOO AAGAA BOO BOO AAGAA in “Idiot Temptation Force.”

The crown jewel of this museum belongs to “III. Country Song In Reverse,” an almost twelve-minute colossus of sounds ranging from a two-minute ambient southern soundscape to thunderous breakdowns to an auto tuned repetition of “I Love You” culminating in frontman Carson Pace screaming, “I am worthy of the ark and I hope to god you can’t swim.” 

There’s a lot of laughter, a lot of tears, and a lot of heavy shit in between. Is that not what life is? Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what I marvel at in the Museum of Failure is a group of artists who play to all of their strengths without sacrificing their uniqueness. God bless The Callous Daoboys.
– Samuel Leon

MSPAINT – No Separation

Convulse Records

I used to work at a free museum that had a wax-coated sculpture in its sculpture garden. At 2 PM on the dot, every day, a mirrored skyscraper in a different neighborhood would aim a direct beam of light and heat onto this sculpture, melting it. But every day, the museum’s restoration team would fix it—kind of a standing battle with art and capital.

This is the stubborn determination that No Separation from Hattiesburg’s MSPAINT reminds me of. In their last release, 2023’s Post-American, MSPAINT dealt in potential energy, constantly building up momentum and threatening release. In No Separation, they release it, almost leering as they proclaim a positive future amongst the wasteland.

These past couple of months have been inundated with people talking about the boundaries of hardcore, and while all that’s been going on, MSPAINT has been digging under the genre and unearthing the unruly heartbeat that drives the sound. The result? No Separation. So what if it all melts? We’ll rebuild.
– Caro Alt

Pelican – Flickering Resonance

Run For Cover

If there’s one theme that echoes throughout Flickering Resonance, Pelican’s first new record in six years, it’s the beginning of a new era for the Chicago metal quartet. Many great artists work in trilogies, such as David Bowie’s series from Berlin in the 1970s, or U2’s collaborations with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois in the 1980s. Flickering Resonance marks the seventh full-length album from Pelican, and the start of what could be a third album trilogy nearly twenty-five years into their career.

Their dynamic sound, established since 2003’s Australasia and perfected on 2009’s What We All Come To Need, continues through new catalog classics like “Gulch” and “Wandering Mind.” The explosive and theatrical passages on “Cascading Crescent” and “Pining For Ever” fill the room with whatever speakers they’re blasting on, helping paint a soaring, loud rock landscape with the rest of the LP. Pelican has been one of my home city’s most important bands to me, and their staying power has only strengthened with the release of Flickering Resonance, unleashed to a dark world now made much brighter.
– Logan Archer Mounts

Arm’s Length – There's A Whole World Out There

Pure Noise Records

At this point, there are few members left in the emo cognoscenti to sway regarding Arm’s Length’s mastery of the craft. Signing to genre-behemoth Pure Noise Records was merely a stepping stone before unleashing their sophomore LP, There’s A Whole World Out There, a record that features the group proving they’re anything but a one-album wonder. Admittedly, I was optimistically wary at first listen, because how does a group one-up a generational debut like Never Before Seen, Never Again Found? Thankfully, I was completely enamored by the rebuttal album on release day. What makes the Canada-based unit special is their knack for crafting something comprehensive and cohesive.

As is common in the emo genre, the band's initial full-length, NBSNAF, was lyrically condemned by its nostalgia-drunk tilt. The feeling is a drug – hard to quit and easy to get lost in. However, Arm’s Length find their way out on their newest LP, rooting themselves firmly in the present. Vocalist Allen Steinberg writes from hindsight's perspective this time around, and while this album is still very much sad, it takes a different outlook on it. Such is evident on heavy-hitting cuts like “The Wound,” where Steinberg pleads, “Time will heal me, will I stick around to see it?” 

If I had to whittle down this album to 300 words or less (which is what I’m attempting), I’d say it’s largely about being overtly self-aware and viewing past mistakes through a magnifying lens. Being aware enough to recognize and admit that, yeah, there is a whole world out there waiting for me, but right now, it appears too large for me to conquer. So, this album begs the question: if there is a whole world out there, where do we go from here?
– Brandon Cortez

honeybee – midtown girl

Good Luck

A dynamic, warm indie rock record that feels like locking eyes with a beloved friend across a crowded party, right when they walk in the door. Chock full of 90s influences, beautifully produced, and adorned with some of the most confusingly tight harmonies of the year, midtown girl is the sound of a band loosening up—and shifting into a new gear as a result. It’s fun, it’s efficient, it’s a lovely companion to 2024’s Saturn Return, and it sounds perfect in whichever Midtown you’re closest to.

Regarding the 90’s influences, honeybee lead singer/songwriter Makayla Scott said, “There are just these things that are ingrained in a lot of us because that's what we grew up on...it is an amalgamation of everything that I've ever known and loved, which is 90’s Country and also a lot of Y2K Pop music. Avril, Ashlee Simpson, and then some Alanis Morissette, some Liz Phair. I'm not making direct references, but the references are just there because that's what I grew up loving and learning from.”

honeybee aimed for authenticity with midtown girl. The heart and the feeling both come through, not only lyrically but with the passion and intentionality of the vocals and instrumentals. “With midtown girl, Ian Dobyns, who is the co-producer, engineer, mixer…was really coaching me this time to deliver feeling, and to not worry about precision. So now, when I listen back on these vocal takes, there are things that I would consider not technically perfect, but the whole vibe of the song and the record feel perfect.”
– Caleb Doyle

Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away

Mexican Summer

In the Sacramento Valley, heat waves slither atop the molten asphalt, and mirages shimmer among the brittle grasses. The violently warm air chaps my lungs from the inside, but at least it’s a dry heat. (That’s what they say, anyway.) To cope with the arid western summer, I have found myself spinning the perfect album for such weather: I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away by Hayden Pedigo. This instrumental folk record is a yellow-gold masterpiece, with guitar melodies that wrap you in a woolen embrace and bring grassy mirages to life. From nostalgic pieces like “Houndstooth” to the atmospheric title track, Hayden’s skillful playing will pull at your heart and tighten your chest. You’re not even sure what you’re sad about, but you feel a great and cosmic grief weighing on your shoulders. His writing is dotted with delicate phrasing and sparingly placed harmonics that feel just right, demonstrating masterful restraint. “Smoked” is the stand-out track: melancholy wanderings and improvisation, divided by pauses that feel like a sigh, prove Hayden’s exemplary storytelling. I take a deep breath. My lungs hurt, and it smells like scorched dust. But at least it’s a dry heat.
– Britta Joseph

Ribbon Skirt – Bite Down

Mint Records

The first time I heard Bite Down, I found myself helplessly mesmerized. I had few things to compare it to, but midway through “Dead Horse,” I realized the closest reference point I could pull was Japanese Breakfast’s “Diving Woman.” Both songs serve similar purposes as their respective albums’ transportive opening tracks, slowly unfurling and welcoming the listener into the world that the band inhabits. The thing with Bite Down is that feeling didn’t let up. As the Anishinaabe group phases from the spooky hyperventilated breathing of “Cellophane” to the groovy wink of “Off Rez,” I remained spellbound. There’s the piercing scream near the end of “Wrong Planet,” the carefree post-punk bop of “Look What You Did,” and then the apocalyptic world-ending reset of “Earth Eater.” Throughout it all, the band captures a unique sense of displacement, betrayal, and perseverance that feels authentic to who this group of musicians are culturally and creatively. A rock record unlike any others this year or ever before.
– Taylor Grimes

Hemmingway Lane – “Shattered Glass”

Klepto Phase

I am from just south of Michigan, about 15 minutes from the border, and something about the state always seemed magical to me. It was this place just out of reach and out of time, and I have been chasing that nostalgic high ever since. I was able to find it again last year when Hemmingway Lane reached out to me and asked me to cover their EP Let The Flowers Die. They liked the review so much that I was able to hear “Shattered Glass” as an unmixed phone demo many months ago, and I have been eagerly awaiting its release ever since. I am pleased to report that the full song exceeds expectations in every way. In the past, Hemmingway Lane has focused on a slower indie rock sound that is reminiscent of The Backseat Lovers; however, on this track, they unlock something new in their sound. 

“Shattered Glass” is a song about the time someone threw a rock through lead singer Elijah Flood’s back windshield. However, like all art, it takes on a deeper meaning, one of truly accepting the place you are in life. It is the kind of concept that really sticks with me as I enter the period of my life where I am realizing that I am no longer who I once was, and I never will be again. It will just take some time, but eventually I'll take the shards of my splintered existence and put them into something new and beautiful.
– Ben Parker

Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky

Polyvinyl Record Co.

The fourth studio album by Los Angeles-based Indie rock band Momma is one of those records that hit me pretty casually upon first listen, but am now regularly throwing on at work when I gain control of the aux both as a small comfort to myself and also like I’m teaching the patrons of the bustling cafe what Indie rock music is truly capable of being. Moody lyrics about love and longing delicately accompany some of the surprisingly punchiest riffs I’ve heard in a while. Heavy hitters like “Rodeo” steadily planted themselves in my brain until I realized this is one of the best albums I’ve heard all year in some unexpected, beautiful Stockholm syndrome effect. So much of this album’s power lies in the atmosphere created by tracks like “Stay All Summer,” which constantly oscillates between subtle strums and shrieking guitar tones, along with the eerie electronic effects of sleepy comforts like “New Friend.” One of the singles from the album, “Bottle Blonde,” specifically commands the utmost attention and places Welcome to My Blue Sky in the upper echelon of 2025’s offerings. The nostalgic melodies, instrumentation, and composition of this powerhouse remind me of my favorite “girl rock” bands of the late 90s and early 00s and could not be more at home in a well-patronized coffee shop or blaring from your bedroom speakers while you paint your nails and try to expunge your ex from your thoughts. As we launch headlong into the summer, there is no better time to spin this emotive collection of fair-weather hits.
– Ciara Rhiannon

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Warner Records

Resident pop Swimmer reporting for duty. I was less than impressed with PinkPantheress’s sophomore LP, 2023’s heaven knows. Too minimal for my liking; I needed an oversaturation of elements to have even the slightest chance of stopping The Thoughts. “Tonight,” Pink’s first single of the year, was everything I thought heaven knows wasn’t—thumping, bubbly, clubby, relentless, addictive. The kind of song you hear playing in your head as you stick your head out the window of the Uber home. The rest of Fancy That matches that energy, stacking sample upon sample as Pink skates across house-adjacent trip-pop backbeats with her signature veil of indifference. “Illegal” is already going down as my song of the year—I’m convinced the opening synths could bring me back from the dead. I love this mixtape so much that I waited 35 minutes in a queue to secure tickets for her tour. She’s just doing it for me right now. See you in October, queen!
– Cassidy Sollazzo

Smut – Tomorrow Comes Crashing | Album Review

Bayonet Records

Look, Smut kick ass, plain and simple. Tomorrow Comes Crashing is the band’s third studio album, which puts the Chicago-based quintet back into the muck, returning to the sludgy sound of their debut. It’s a type of album where, when I hear the songs, I get a feeling that the band knows exactly who they are at this point and are firing on all cylinders toward that actualization. The group recaptures some of their original DIY aesthetics while also incorporating new tricks they’ve learned along the way.

Smut’s previous record, How the Light Felt, sifted through the intricacies of 1990s dream pop and alt-rock, with more of the songs erring on the dreamy side of things. They smoothed out the rough edges found on their debut for an enjoyable second entry in their catalog–it was as if The Sundays had a lost album that was discovered in an abandoned storage unit and finally made its way onto streaming services.

Tomorrow Comes Crashing has similar elements to their previous records but now includes monstrous eruptions of distorted rock that bring the band to an apex of their sound. Vocalist Tay Roebuck, guitarists Andie Min and Sam Ruschman, bassist John Steiner, and drummer Aidan O’Connor tap into the sonic influences of their predecessors to create 34 minutes of pure rock ecstasy. The first step to achieving this sound was to enlist Aron Kobayashi Ritch as the production assistant, who turned the volume up to max power, giving the songs enough electricity to make Ben Franklin blush. Ritch has been on a hot streak of his own this year, with credits on the recent albums from Momma, Bedridden, and Been Stellar.

The single, “Syd Sweeney,” is something I could easily imagine on a 90s episode of Beavis and Butthead with them shaking and gyrating on their couch while watching the music video in between calling each other “fart knockers.” The song has all the ingredients of a certified banger, from the fuzzed-out 90s guitar riffs to the sludgy thrash metal outro, accompanied by some expert wailing from Roebuck. Not only can you throw your neck out headbanging to the track, but dig into the lyrics, and you’ll find a message about the objectification and stereotypes of women in art. A-list actress Sydney Sweeney is the namesake evoked as the shining example of being uber-talented in her own right yet still viewed solely as a sex object by some. For me, the sign of a talented band is when you can combine engaging music with lyrics that convey a distinct message that holds meaning for the artists.

What stands out to me throughout Tomorrow Comes Crashing is the voice of Tay Roebuck, who has an incredible range, accompanied by an unpredictable Tasmanian Devil-like energy. Her versatility is evident across the album; you can hear someone go through all the emotions, from a yell to a cry to a plethora of blood-curdling screams. On the 90s-inspired ballad with an edge, “Dead Air,” Roebuck’s voice rides the wave of crisp basslines with such effortless ease. A few tracks earlier, on the explosive, twisting metal riff opener “Godhead,” she belts a horror movie-like yowl that offers a thrilling, speaker-rattling moment. 

There’s a lot of fun to be had on the in-between songs, “Burn Like Violet” has guitar riffs you would hear in an 80s action movie scene. When I hit play on that song, I can just imagine a shredded Patrick Swayze in a bar fight throwing a jabroni onto a table, sending them through a bevy of glass mugs. “Spit” is a rough and rowdy song laced with chunky metal riffs and the perfect amount of fuzz. Each track also hosts an intoxicatingly catchy chorus that makes me just want to keep hitting repeat nonstop.

“Ghosts (Cataclysm, Cover Me)” is the band tapping back into their dream pop sound, which, by the evidence of their second record, they are entirely at ease revisiting that brimming well of inspiration. The song has a moody, Gothic feel, accompanied by hauntingly executed echoes of Roebuck, making this a staple track that should be on everyone’s Halloween playlist this fall.

The realization of the trials and tribulations a band encounters while trying to live out their dreams is the focus of “Touch & Go.” The mid-album cut shows the things people don’t see beyond the shows, like flooded basements ruining your gear or inhaling burnt coffee in Anytown, USA, and having to manage your van breaking down while trying to make it to the next gig. The will it takes to persevere in your aspirations of becoming a full-time musician is harder than ever these days. Smut are well on the way to achieving their dreams by relentlessly evolving their sound to newer heights with each album cycle. The record itself is pure, unadulterated fun, but what separates this group from the pack are the detailed lyrical messages behind the kick-assery. While Tomorrow Comes Crashing feels expertly timed as a summer release with red-hot, sizzling guitar riffs and thunderous choruses, that depth beneath the surface is liable to keep drawing listeners back, rewarding them for many seasons to come.

---

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.

Dance Myth – The Shapes We Make | Album Review

Say-10 Records

When I was 19 years old, I first heard Listener’s album Wooden Heart Poems, and it made me realize that listening to music wasn’t good enough. Wooden Heart Poems was an invitation to write, and I needed to accept that invitation. I started writing my own songs and poems, often putting on Wooden Heart Poems as inspiration when I couldn’t find words on my own, borrowing lyrical motifs and stretching them until they resembled the shape of my own heart. Fifteen years later, I’m listening to Listener’s songwriter, Dan Smith, as he presents his new project, Dance Myth, and I’m struck once again as though I were still the 19-year-old finding er voice for the first time.

In many ways, The Shapes We Make feels like coming home, which is appropriate for a record that deals so much with death. Dan’s voice has hardly changed in the 15 years between my introduction and this new record, which makes this album feel deeply familiar from the first word said in the passionate spoken-word style that he’s built a career around. There’s a cadence to his vocal delivery that feels like a wave, scored by guitars, trumpets, synths, keyboards, and a multitude of other supporting instrumentation ebbing and flowing to create vast dynamic shapes that draw your attention towards the emotional urgency of his words.

If you miss some of the lyrics, as I’m sure many of us frequently do on initial listens of a record, you'll still catch that wave, but the true richness comes from diving in. Most of the record’s lyrics read like letters, diary entries, and memories. They’re correspondence between the writer, the listener, and unnamed third parties. The record reads as an invitation to converse with the music as it pleads, reassures, convicts, and comforts. In many ways, it echoes Levi The Poet’s 2014 release Correspondence: A Fiction, which similarly used dramatic scoring to support poetry about love and loss in the form of letters.

On The Shapes We Make, Dance Myth seems to speak directly to us, the listeners, imploring us to join in the shared humanity that makes us complete as people, flaws and all. In the album opener, “Gentle, Gentle,” you hear Smith plead, “Forgive yourself. If you can. For who you’ve been. You didn’t know then.” It’s an invitation to actively participate in the divine practice of grace rather than standing still in our regrets, our pasts, and our mistakes. This song offers a lesson I’ve had to learn time and again in therapy: to forgive oneself—a lesson that bears repeating, as it simply cannot be internalized the first time you hear it.

It’s often unclear whether Smith intends the songs and poems to be pointed at “you,” a specific individual, or “you,” the listener, but to my ears, it feels as though he’s speaking directly to my soul. It often feels as though Smith has chosen to sit down with each listener, allowing us to listen and meditate on the words he has carefully laid out. Even when the lyrics clearly show that a letter is for a specific individual whom the listener can never know, Smith still finds a way to make it feel universal in its specificity.

Lead single “Little Bird” reads like a eulogy, with Smith taking time to share about the pain of seeing a loved one leave this life. It serves as an apology to the subject of the song as he exclaims, “Sorry you couldn’t make it to where we were.” It isn’t all bleak, though. He celebrates the evaporation of life in death, referring to the dead as going “back into everyone I meet.” There’s a universality in the specificity of this piece, as we see a particular person cemented in the lyric. It begs us to share in the specificity that engulfs our lives, Smith confidently trusting that the listener can swap out the details to match their own loss, grief, and desire for peace.

We shift from grief to fear by track six, “This Accordion Life,” as there’s a palpable sense that something is wrong; Smith describes the way he’s seen by others as “just the shape of smoke from setting myself on fire” followed closely by exclaiming that tomorrow and the past are both terrifying. He leans on the hope of getting better, knowing that the only path forward is simply to keep going, a lesson that many minority groups have heard over and over in times of tribulation.

To speak personally for a moment, I want to mention that I’m a transgender woman, which has deeply shaped the way I view this record. In my experience, being trans is largely about self-identification. It’s about looking in the mirror and deciding who you want to be– no, rather, it’s about realizing who you are. Near the end of “This Accordion Life,” we hear Smith exclaim, “It’s embarrassing. All the times I’ve hidden or was made to feel I should hide any of the ways I shine. Told everyone I’m fine, and believed that lie myself.” It feels like a dagger in my heart as I sit in wonder and regret, asking myself why I took so long to find the ways that I should have been shining my entire life.

We return to death on “Dry County” as the pronoun shifts from “I” to “she” to “we” to “you.” The “I” represents the personal response to grief. “She” represents the person who was “waving like she had to go, and so she left.” “We” shows the intimacy of memory as Smith reflects on the past that was shared. Finally, “you” represents him speaking to a mystery audience who appears to be nearing death themselves. There’s a peace to the way that he speaks of death, as though he knows the comfort and fear that comes with that extraordinary adventure, choosing to optimistically opt into comfort in the great disappearing.

Finally, on the closing track of the album, we hear him end the record by singing “Tie me up, untie me,” appearing to reference mewithoutYou’s track of the same name, where lyricist Aaron Weiss sings that exact phrase, followed by “all this wishing I was dead is getting old.” Smith follows his phrase differently, however, finishing with “tie me up again.” I can’t begin to interpret what he means in that final moment of the record, but to me, it feels like a refutation of “all this wishing I was dead” that Weiss presented, choosing to emphasize the hope and joy of living a life that’s wild, urgent, and desperate for individual expressions of love.

The Shapes We Make is the record I want to hear while driving home from the gig or sitting in the line of cars as they leave the festival I’ve been at all weekend. Importantly, for me, it’s a balm that delivers contemplation through the noise, reassurance in times of hardship and grief, and peace in a time of wars: old and new, literal and figurative. 

It feels like an exhale. A restoration. An invitation.

“So, if you are alive, raise your hands. Keep them open. Reach out for anyone.”

---

Noëlle Midnight (e/er) is a transgender podcaster, poet, musician, and photographer in Seattle, WA. E can be found online with er podcast Idle Curiosities, tweets on Bluesky at @noellemidnight.com, photos on the Instagram alternative Glass at @noellemidnight, and movie reviews of varying quality on Letterboxd at @noellemidnight.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island | Album Review

p(doom) records

Well, well, well. Once again, we find ourselves back in the Gizzverse. It wasn’t even a year ago that I was here telling you all about how death, taxes, and King Gizzard are life’s only certainties. And what did they go and do? They proved me right.

The Aussie psych-rock experimenters’ 27th(!!) album, Phantom Island, started with extras from the Flight b741 sessions. These songs were born out of the same hyper-collaborative energy as b741, but the band felt like they needed something else to be complete. After linking with the LA Philharmonic during their 2023 marathon show at the Hollywood Bowl, the Gizzards realized that live orchestrals were exactly what they needed to complete the circle. They connected with Chad Kelly, who created arrangements to accompany the meandering jams and stitched-together hooks locked in the Gizz vault. 

Phantom Island reimagines Gizzard’s home-grown rock-centric sound, filtering it through the lens of an opera house symphony orchestra. The symphonics are overdubbed atop the messy, chaotic jams, creating a mix of meticulous arrangements and free-wheeling improv that feels quintessentially Gizzard. Stu Mackenzie used a Tascam 8-track to blend the two sounds, combining them into one rock orchestra mashup. Phantom Island propels the sky-high, airborne stories of b741 into outer space. Gizzard broke through the atmosphere, sending their sound and their stories to another dimension. The result is an album that feels animated and colorful, even with its more insular narratives. When I close my eyes and listen, this feels like the soundtrack of its own movie or musical, bouncing between styles without losing cohesion. Would I be surprised if they turned this into a stage show? Not even a little—why shouldn’t King Gizz have their own Gamehendge? They dropped a “making of” documentary on YouTube last week, a 13-minute look into bringing the orchestrations into their cosmic sprawl. On the other side of the glass wall, the Gizzards sit on a couch in their flight uniforms from the “Le Risque” music video, heads hanging back as they listen to their jam fragments intertwine with the lush strings or grooving horns.

I’ve always loved King Gizz for their instrumentation. The high school band nerd in me is partial to Mackenzie’s penchant for flute, but I also remember being entranced by their dueling drum sets the first time I saw them live (Brooklyn Steel 2018, I almost passed out because I got too high). Gizz has always had inklings of symphonics in them, but Phantom Island is spacious, giving them more room to go on rambling tangents, switch from biker rock to chamber orchestrals, and delve even deeper into a narrative throughline. The album takes the listener on a journey from outer space to the underworld, with tales of being lost at sea (“Aerodynamic”), flying in a spaceship (“Spacesick”), or speeding down an anonymous open road (“Eternal Return”). Each song chronicles a different adventure and sometimes a different adventurer—whether or not the characters across the record are the same person, they’re all on their own journeys within the same greater universe.

Phantom Island opens with the title track, a jazz-funk jam that provides us with our setting: a feverish dreamland where nothing is what it seems (“Is this mental confusion or have I finally found my purpose?” and “The palm tree’s looking at me funny with a sideways belligerence”). The song unravels into its own miniature rock opera (“Phantom Island / Insane asylum” is now what my brain plays while returning to factory settings), making it clear early that nothing on Phantom Island is what it seems. 

The strings take center stage by the time we get to “Lonely Cosmos,” arpeggiating through unsettling minor chords and mixing with flute before fading into a sole acoustic guitar. It’s the send-off into space and the subsequent realization of your prolonged solitude. Where b741’s existentialism was strategic and hidden, Phantom Island gets right down into it. The unnerving string theme returns after the line “Are we alone in this cosmic effigy?” bending into its own dark, tangential underworld before yanking itself out of it, propelling back into its punchy acoustic melody with the line “I’m inhaling stardust.” It’s so casually random that I can’t help but chuckle. It’s that constant back-and-forth that keeps you on your toes, even when the orchestrals are at their most overpowering.

“Eternal Return” and “Panpsych” are the most b741 of the bunch, leaning psychedelic rock while still using the orchestrals as a central counterpoint. “Eternal Return” mixes spiky guitars and saxophone with sweeping strings and double-tracked vocals, creating a 360-degree sound that speaks to the song’s theme of being “on a round-trip perpetual.” “Panpsych” is equally as fuzzy and jam-centric, with flute tying the main theme together through cryptic lyrics (“The wind whispers secret message for those who’ve grown ears to hear it”).

Gizz holds the theme of “Lonely Cosmos” close through all of Phantom Island’s wandering journeys. Subsequent tracks place their characters in isolation, stranded or lost or eons away from anything familiar. “Spacesick” follows a nauseated astronaut on his first trip to space, already fantasizing about being back at home. “Aerodynamic” finds a lone sailor contemplating his last moments at sea. “Sea of Doubt” combines twangy country rock with pensive introspection, toying with anxiety, uncertainty, and the need for friends to help bring you back to yourself. Its opening is so bright and eager that the first lines, literally being “I’m on the edge of a cliff,” have delayed impact. The airy delivery, combined with the crisp guitar tones and trilling woodwinds, conflicts with the tension in the lyrics, namely in the lines about anxiety landslides, mind forests, and treading water. Two-thirds of the way through, the strings pull away, leaving just acoustic and vocals. A sweet falsetto, a harmonizing flute, a sigh of relief. “Here comes the sun to clear the fog / Here comes a friend for me to lean on”—bordering on corny, but its simplicity and gentle sincerity tugs at the heartstrings, an unexpected softness from the same guys who conjured sludge, fire, and thrash metal on PetroDragonic Apocolypse just two years ago.

By my twentieth trip around Phantom Island, it became clear that the whole journey could very well just be in my head, and that is precisely the point. The album drifts between structure and instinct, between story and sound. You can follow the narrative if you want, or simply let the whole thing wash over you. It will consume you regardless. The deeper you go, the harder it is to tell whether you’re hearing a rock record dressed up in strings or a symphony unraveling into a jam. Either way, we can take comfort in the fact that the Gizzverse keeps expanding. 

---

Cassidy is a culture writer and 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 Substack.

Spice on the Side: A Conversation With Blue Cactus

Photo by Steph Stewart

With their third full-length album, North Carolina’s Blue Cactus has built on the rock-solid Classic country sounds they developed on their first two records—and they’re getting a little weird with it this time. Believer feels like what happens when you doze off on the screened-in front porch after putting a little something funny in your sweet tea. The familiar sounds comfort you, but then your mind drifts to something a bit more exploratory and cosmic.

Steph Stewart’s vocal range is truly impressive, and her songwriting style builds the perfect framework for it. Mario Arnez lays down some classically Sun Records style guitar work, but isn’t afraid to let Trey Anastasio influence the tone or experimentation.

Believer is comforting, gentle, and contemplative, and it brings surprise after surprise that welcome multiple relistens. It’s a fantastic summer album that blurs the lines between country music subgenres.

It was Steph and Mario’s first time in Kansas City, and I was lucky to welcome them to the Heartland. We sat down at Slap’s BBQ on the Kansas side, before their show at The Ship on the Missouri side. We talked about Believer, Hurricane Helene, Weird Al, cheesecake, and State Parks. Blue Cactus is finishing their tour up in the Northeast and New England through July.

---

SWIM: I mentioned earlier, Blue Cactus has a very classic sound. There is that Patsy Cline element, that kind of squeaky-clean Nashville Sound, especially on your early records. But the music has really evolved.

Steph, you’ve talked about the women of Lilith Fair being a big inspiration, and Mario, you've talked about your early experiences with Weird Al’s music being a big inspiration. What is the importance of having diverse influences and a variety of tastes outside of country/Americana music?

MARIO: I don't think you can separate anything, especially these days. Just having so much music available to us and growing up in the 90s into the 2000s where we were getting a lot of whatever MTV was feeding us, I grew up with a lot of the popular stuff. And then, yeah, Weird Al’s survey of Pop music, mixed in with a little polka, just kind of opened me up to all kinds of music.

SWIM: Those polkas really introduced me to a lot of songs that I hadn't heard before.

STEPH: And I think with Lilith Fair, I was really drawn to other women making music when I was coming up. So that was pretty influential, and there were just so many different styles of singing.

My family was really big into karaoke, so that's how I got into performing in front of people, doing that with them. We would go almost every Wednesday night to the Dragon Palace. It's this American Japanese restaurant in Hickory (North Carolina). We would just sing karaoke there, and it got me to enjoy the limelight a little bit. I would try out all kinds of songs. And my dad got a karaoke system at the house. First, it was like LaserDisc, and then he eventually upgraded to the same thing that they had at the karaoke bars. So I would basically practice at home, really just trying to imitate people. I think that really strengthened my voice a lot. I got a pretty big range from that. I mean, I was singing everything from like Sarah McLachlan, to the Cranberries, to Jewel, and of course, Patsy Cline and 90s country like Shania Twain.

I think it just got me trying stuff early on. I didn't have formal voice training, but I feel like that was it.

Photo by Caleb Doyle

SWIM: You both mentioned the 90s. I've noticed that, specifically what you might refer to as alt-country, is having a big moment. Country music, Americana, and folk are all having a bit of a moment right now, kind of a Renaissance. My theory is that it goes back to the fertile period for country music in the 90s and 2000s, which I think was an inspiration to people our age.

Especially in your home of North Carolina! MJ Lenderman and Wednesday are from Asheville. Fust is from Durham. North Carolina is really a breeding ground for this genre and its subgenres.

What is the importance of community for fostering a scene like the one in North Carolina?

STEPH: I think our immediate community has just been such a huge support. It's hard putting out a record! Having something like Sleepy Cat Records, which is really just a group of friends who are also musicians, and they believe in your work and want to see it get out there, sometimes that’s what it takes. It's hard to know how much of a drive I'd have at this point if it weren't for them. We all play music with each other, too.

Our drummer is one of the founders of that label! He's literally the backbone of the band and a pillar in our community. That (the community) really does make this all feel worthwhile. Like I said, I don’t know if I’d still be doing this if it weren't for other musicians in general.

The night before last, we stayed at our friend Dylan Earl's house, and he’s stayed at our house multiple times. It’s so important to have this network of a road family who also know what it’s like and do this, and we just help each other out.

It's just really restorative to be in that company of people who get it and give you a place to relax. We didn't even want to go downtown and walk around. It's like, no, let's just sit on your front porch!

MARIO: There are a lot of other bands and folks running labels in The Triangle (North Carolina’s “Research Triangle,” comprised of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, and everything inside the triangle that those cities form). There are great studios and a bunch of different festivals and live events going on. So there are a lot of folks that you end up interacting with over the years being in the scene. It feels like a nice, dynamic place to be!

STEPH: Recently, the previous governor enacted new funding to go specifically towards North Carolina music. So they have a whole Arts Committee that basically oversees it, and there's this new financial support, which is so critical. We've been fortunate to work with that organization, Come Hear NC, and they've helped fund projects the labels put together. This can give that extra amplification as an artist in that area, which is really great.

SWIM: It's crucial to what you do! There are conversations about why there's a dearth of artists and musicians in some places, and it's like, well, people can't pay their rent. So if you give people money to do those essential things, they can be making art instead of working doubles every weekend.

On the same token as your community, late last year, Hurricane Helene ravaged the Southeastern part of the country, largely in places like Western North Carolina. Blue Cactus contributed to a 136-track compilation album, Cardinals at the Window, which gave 100% of proceeds via Bandcamp to relief efforts in NC and greater Appalachia.

What was it like to have so many musicians contribute to this thing that was supporting your home? And what role do artists play in a disaster of that magnitude?

MARIO: People absolutely turn to music when they need something to pull them along. I mean, there’s absolutely no substitute for federal funding and disaster relief. But yeah, in the small ways that we can help, it was a no-brainer to contribute to that (Cardinals at the Window).

We also bought chainsaws and sent supplies all over North Carolina. There are some great mutual aid organizations around us that we were able to connect with quickly.

STEPH: Overall, the touring lifestyle is very much in the ethos of mutual aid.

Staying at each other’s houses and helping out however you can, that’s just sort of built into the way a lot of musicians live. So the immediate reaction when something that devastating happens is like, how can we help people? And, yeah, of course, federal aid.

Marshall, North Carolina, was almost wiped off the map. The river got completely rerouted. A lot of those people were musicians that were friends of ours. So they basically had to act as first responders. And we were just in touch with them, like, what do y'all need from where we were at?

SWIM: We just had a huge tornado come through the north part of St. Louis City. That was like three weeks ago, and they just got federal funding in some small way. People have been up there every day cleaning up people's homes, you know?

STEPH: I'm sorry that happened. It just feels like it's become more and more common.

SWIM: I know. Unfortunately, I think that's what they were telling us about climate change. And nobody in charge really took it seriously.

Anyhow, for a more, um, uplifting question: Do you have an album or a song that you go to when you want to roll the windows down and drive around?

STEPH: I really love Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day.” It's one of my forever favorite songs, and that song really does help me get my day off to a good start. I should probably be listening to it a little bit more lately, because I just have to wake up and go, and I think I need a little bit of a morning soundtrack some days.

MARIO: I've got polarizing opinions here. When I need to drive, we've got a long stretch and we need to go, go, go. If I need something that I know I'm not gonna be flipping tracks or anything, I just put on some live Phish.

SWIM: Oh hell yeah. I love to hear that!

STEPH: Yeah, he listens to that a lot.

SWIM: Love to hear that. I was just listening to The Gorge ’98 this week.

MARIO: Great year.

SWIM: Great choices, both.

For the new album, Believer, Steph, you took some original photos, and Mario, you used those photographs to make some graphic design art on the cover and inserts. In addition, this is your third full-length album, and you’ve been making music together for at least eight years. Does the music and the act of putting together an album feel more personal now?

MARIO: Absolutely. I feel like this is definitely the most elbow grease we've put into a release, on a personal level. It feels like with every release, we’ve figured out how to put more of ourselves into the music.

We also just try to spend a little bit less money along the way! But yeah, over the Pandemic, we kind of picked up other skills.

STEPH: Yeah, I’m a perpetual hobbyist. I feel like I'm constantly finding new art forms that I want to dabble in and learn how to do. So it just seemed like, well, these photos look great.

We both felt those photos really made sense with the theme of the record. The whole process of taking those pictures was wild because I was kind of disappointed. The field had started to die. All these sunflowers were just dying. And I had black and white film, and I thought I would get something different initially.

It was like, well, I'm here. I might as well just take some pictures and see what happens. As I was walking around the park, there were so many birds there. A lot of goldfinches and other pollinators. It felt like those sunflowers were more full of life at that point than they were when they were in full bloom. They were about to drop their seeds and create food for all these birds.

It's funny how you look at something on the surface and don't initially see that kind of beauty in it.

SWIM: Yeah. It's like reframing what we think about the cycles of nature.

I think it's in The Great Gatsby where he talks about how “life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Fall.” We think of the fall as everything starting to die, but it’s really this big clearing-out. Readying for what's to come next.

Have you picked up a live performance hack or tip?

STEPH: This isn't anything that revolutionary, but I almost always have to sing along in the van on the way there, so I warm up my voice. I don't do a lot of formal warmups, but I love singing before we’re actually on stage, and singing other songs that aren't ours.

Reba McEntire is a really good warmup because she's got this incredible range. If I can sing one of her songs, then I know I'll be ready.

MARIO: Shake off the cobwebs. If you've been driving for a couple hours and you've just been sort of a hermit for over half the day, you really gotta clear out the cobwebs. Either start talking out loud all of a sudden, or do some stretching. I feel like that's number one, just to make sure that we're not feeling like we're still rolling out of bed all day.

STEPH: Staying in State Parks on this tour has been really helpful. Most of the time, we'll have time to go on a nice walk. It helps me feel really awake and ready, for sure.

SWIM: What's the most recent physical media you've bought?

STEPH: Hmm.

MARIO: Clothes?

STEPH: No, those don't count.

It's been a little while now, but I did buy a Linda Ronstadt record at the Fuzzy Needle (in Wilmington, NC).

Photo by Caleb Doyle

SWIM: If this album was a dish or a meal, what would it be?

STEPH: Hmm. Interesting. Well, maybe this is just because I like it, but I definitely think the dessert would be cheesecake. Let's just start there.

SWIM: That's the way to do it. Start with dessert.

STEPH: Mm-hmm. Cheesecake and probably not plain cheesecake. I think it would have some kind of like raspberry sauce.

[to Mario] What kind of a main course are we talking about? Or an appetizer, for that matter?

He is the cook in our family.

MARIO: This is just funny. This comes back to the question of influences versus what the music actually sounds like.

It doesn't feel like it would just be some everyday meal that I'm whipping up. Yeah. We're talking something outside the norm!

Okay…we open with a Greek salad…

STEPH: I think that sounds great. I don't know why I'm thinking fried chicken. [To Mario] Are you thinking fried chicken?

MARIO: Sure!

STEPH: Okay, and then you're gonna need a couple of sides with that.

MARIO: This is not turning into a James Beard meal...

STEPH: I feel like we should really put more thought into this!

SWIM: It’s eclectic, though!

STEPH: Maybe hot chicken! But not too hot.

MARIO: Like a two on the spice? And you can add your own?

STEPH: Yeah, you can add your own spice. It'll be spice on the side.

I feel like there are a lot of shifts on the record. So, you do have that country kind of twangy stuff right at the top. That feels like hot chicken. But then you're getting into the synths and swirly stuff, and maybe that's like some kind of mashed potatoes, but they're not your classic ones.

There's gonna be something a little special left of the center. Yeah. [To Mario] What would that be?

MARIO: I mean, I don't mess around with truffles…

STEPH: No, I don't like those either.

MARIO: I think a James Beard type would do that, but I wouldn't!

SWIM:. Maybe just not a smooth mashed potato. Maybe there's some chunks.

STEPH: You like a chunk?

SWIM: Oh, I love a chunk.

STEPH: You can tell they're real potatoes!

SWIM: Mm-hmm.

I also love the fact that this answer took thought and collaboration. I think that speaks volumes of the record. It's one of those records that, at the end, you kind of do finally exhale.

It is comforting, it's dreamy, it kind of has your head in the clouds a bit, but then there are some experimental aspects to it. And that makes it so fun!

---

Caleb Doyle (St. Louis, MO) is a music writer and dive bar enthusiast. He would love to talk to you about pro wrestling, your favorite cheeseburger, and your top 10 American rock bands. You can find Caleb on most social media @ClassicDoyle, or subscribe to his music Substack, Nightswimming, HERE.