Photo Credit: Lupe Bustos “I’m living in your letters // Breathe deeply from this envelope // It smells like you and I can’t be without that scent.” Its lyrics like these that made Dashboard Confessional’s 2000 debut The Swiss Army Romance such a seminal, incisive record – one whose ability to capture the seismic pain of young heartbreak… Read more
With Coronavirus receding and the world slowly opening back up, the last year has allowed musicians to finally get back in the studio and record new music. Combine this with a pandemic’s worth of soul-searching and you find an entire generation of new talent making urgent music that meets this moment. From soul-searching singer-songwriters to… Read more
Photo Credit: Ed Cooke/Press Gang of Youth’s frontman David Le’Aupepe has made a career out of turning intimate personal trauma into maximalist rock anthems. On the band’s breakthrough single “Magnolia”, Le’Aupepe told of a drunken bender that culminated in a suicide attempt. Throughout two albums, Le’Aupepe recounted personal tales of substance abuse, a partner’s life-threatening… Read more
Photo Credit: David Belisle Perhaps Beach House decided to roll out their latest LP Once Twice Melody in four separate chapters to gradually acquaint listeners with its sprawling length. Clocking in at a little over 84 minutes in length, it’s the band’s longest album by a noticeable margin. The dream-pop innovators did not need to worry, however. Once… Read more
Photo Credit: Bad Suns Promo via Website The fourth full-length studio album by Woodland, California band Bad Suns Apocalypse Whenever doesn’t actually convey either indifference or the end of the world. On the contrary: most of it is both characteristically fun (if not “fun” with a serious side), and a great deal of care and planning went into making… Read more
Photo Credit: Michael Buisha It’s hard for the listener to know after only about a week which tracks will remain in your playlist rotation over time from an 80-minute, 20-track mega album such as this. Similarly, it can be hard for a songwriter to know the difference between a charming throwaway and a stunning little… Read more
Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz Laurel Hell was never meant to exist. In June 2019, Mitski Miyawaki announced that a September show in Central Park would be her “last show indefinitely.” “Indefinitely”, she assured fans, did not mean forever, but privately, she had already decided she was quitting the music business. However, she later realized, her recording… Read more
Photo Credit: Tina Tyrell Snail Mail is Lindsay Jordan, the latest in a string of solo musicians using as their music moniker what sounds like a band name (and not necessarily a particularly strong or memorable band name, at that). The 22-year-old Ellicott City, Maryland native Jordan might also seem like just another product of… Read more
After the release of her 2017 album Masseduction, Annie “St Vincent” Clark admitted that she had taken the angular sounds that had defined her music up to that point as far as she could. Since bursting onto the scene in 2007 with Marry Me, Clark’s music has progressively become starker and sharper; defined by idiosyncratic arrangements and… Read more
Photo Credit: Laura Allard Fleischl Released back in March, Brighton, England band Black Honey’s second album Written & Directed housed (for starters) what could only have been one of 2021’s best rock tracks, “Run for Cover.” Tight, kinetic, and to-the-point, the fuzzed-out guitar sounds recall the long-lost subgenre once known as psychobilly. Between the verse and chorus,… Read more