Nothing about Dogleg’s exhilarating debut “Melee” makes any goddamn sense. It’s just four guys from Michigan hammering the same post-hardcore or emo riffs we’ve all heard for 20 years. The album, named after the Super Smash Bros. game and peppered with further Nintendo nods, was self-produced and modestly recorded at the house of frontman Alex Stoitsiadis, who started Dogleg as a solo project in his parents’ basement. Yet somehow, these dignitaries of the University of Michigan frat party scene have carved a stone-cold classic — a stupefying encapsulation of all its predecessors’ aggression without an ounce of melodic sacrifice. From the opening chug of “Kawasaki Backflip,” Melee is a 35-minute waterslide plunge into chaos; all speed freak guitars, incendiary drums, and Stoitsiadis’s best Stink-era Paul Westerberg impression. It’s proof that bombast should be a little bit ugly. The subsequent tour would’ve made Dogleg one of 2020’s most thrilling new live rock acts.
The vicious, ascendant guitar breaks in “Fox,” which deserve some serious Riff of the Year consideration in a surprisingly competitive time. Dogleg “Fox” from the full length album Melee.
To fully understand the energy of frontwoman Eva Hendricks and Charly Bliss, you gotta see them live. I learned that when the Brooklyn four-piece totally smashed the stage the first time I saw them. Not sure why I was surprised, but any doubts I might’ve had about Charly Bliss were effectively squashed. Hendricks is a dynamic instrumentalist and her distinctive high-pitched voice stands delightfully front and centre on a range of harmonies. This is a killer indie power-pop band.
Indie rock quartet Charly Bliss have an otherworldly knack at rendering certain playful images just as sinister: “cardboard cereal,” a bleeding snow cone, a mouth red with Gatorade. 2017’s Guppy established the band as masters of this subversion. Their crunching guitars and Eva Hendricks’ sweet, pointed vocals sliding through increasingly pop arrangements are the vehicle for a creeping dark that filters through each track’s observations of the mundane humour and horror of human affection. 2019’s stellar Young Enough polished its predecessor’s frayed, glittering edges for a slow burn of synthesizers and sharpened focal points; that cleaner sound also made room for a deeper emotional reservoir. Both are examples of kinetic and potential energy refined to an art.
“We’re young enough / To believe it should hurt this much.” They’re old enough to recognize it.
It’s going to be clear to you and everyone else at the party that the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes discography could more than suffice for a day full of blowing up stuff. But in case you’re looking for some more recent bratty punk and some original songs, Pup’s newest album, 2016’s The Dream is Over, can freshen up your punk rock playlist.
The Toronto four-piece makes it look effortless as they turn songs about wanting to kill your buddies into shout-along anthems. The album title comes from a phrase the lead singer Stefan Babcock’s doctor used after Babcock actually shredded his vocal cords. So on a holiday when accidentally killing your friends is a real possibility and screaming is a must if you want to be heard, this record seems appropriate.
PUP’s ability to channel anxiety, depression, and generalized misanthropy into pummeling pop-punk hooks is an endlessly renewable resource. The band is also a good enough live act to justify the fact that half their lyrics seem to be about the exhaustion of touring. In 2019, the Canadian quartet followed up 2016 breakthrough The Dream Is Over with the equally great — and equally antisocial — Morbid Stuff. It helps that lead singer Stefan Babcock is one of punk’s great chroniclers of malcontent, even, and especially when he leans on self-deprecation: “Half the crap I say is just things I’ve stolen from the bathroom walls of shitty venues across America,” he snarls in “Full Blown Meltdown.”
What does the future of guitar music hold? The answer might very well lie with London band Black Midi and their bracing, unpredictable approach to rock.
For those still hungry for prog complexity and art-rock innovation in their post-punk, seeing the debut LP from London’sblack midi, Schlagenheim, appearing on more than a couple of year-end lists in guitar-starved 2019 should offer a glimmer of hope. Singer/guitarist Geordie Greep rips the mic like the reckless demon lovechild of Mike Patton and Grace Jones, while his mates (guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, bassist/keyboardist Cameron Picton and eight-armed drummer Morgan Simpson) expand on time signatures straight out of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic for, like, tUnE-yArDs fans with a nostalgic affinity for Fugazi’s Steady Diet of Nothing. And this is just album one.
“Of Schlagenheim” showcases just how much Simpson captains this band’s every manoeuver from behind the kit. The quasi-title cut drives the descent into madness from Roxy Music cool to full-throttle Mr. Bungle chaos without hitting the brakes for over six minutes.
None of the group’s four members are of drinking age in the United States, and they’ve been an active unit for hardly two years. But they’ve already thrilled listeners across the globe with the sonic flag they’ve planted at the intersection of noise, post-punk, prog and krautrock. Freewheeling one moment and strapped into a monstrous groove the next, Black Midi have been known to set stages alight with incendiary performances. It’s no wonder they became the talk of the town thanks to live videos and gigs.
Could they be the best thing since the Klaxons or Bloc Party but the band have arrived. Black Midi! The student art rock band are bringing a new youthful energy and slight of malice back to the arena of post-indie inspired alternative guitar and synth music. They make this overtly known from the start with the supercharged opener that is “953”, introducing an album that is said to have laid down eight of the record’s nine tracks in just five days. Drums are fast and skittering, rhythms are dancey and guitars keep it Madchester jangley. “Speedway” (is that a wry Prodigy reference?) is among the album’s highlights alongside the punk-funky “bmbmbm” and the short but trippy “Years Ago”. With a 100 per cent backing by UK music institution Rough Trade: meet this generation’s newest sensation.
The energy of a Black Midi performance is impossible to capture in recording, vocalist/guitarist Geordie Greep says So, they don’t try. Last month, they released their debut album, Schlagenheim, which was produced by Dan Carey of indie label Speedy Wunderground. Its German title translates to something like “hitting home”, which is funny for a record that revels in zig-zagging between tempos, riffs and entire styles – but also an apt way to sum up the impact Black Midi have already made on the world of rock.
Black Midi managed to ascend to nigh-mythical status in their home country with barely any online presence and barely more recorded material. Then they hit Stateside, and it all made sense. Their live show is a spectacle to behold, a roiling mass of grooves and riffs and beats mutating and exploding off in a million different directions. And with their debut album Schlagenheim, they successfully managed to get that electric anything-is-possible feeling down on wax. No matter how many times you listen, their songs never fail to surprise.
Try to resist a unit that Brooklyn Vegan described as “a whole band made of Jimbos from The Simpsons.” If Danger Mouse was the last straw for you with Parquet Courts, here’s the Stooges to their Velvet Underground, an all-spikes sarcasm brigade formed around the holy mission to Make Indie Angular Again on 2018’s deliciously discordant Seeing Green and 2019’s slightly craftier Club Nites. Just check the Archers of Loaf grunge-bursts that punctuate Dumb’s “Submission” or the manic Beefheart-sliding-on-a-dessert-cart-into-a-wall spree of “My Condolences.” And they even mock their own revival with an anti-anthem called “Slacker Needs Serious Work.”
The only time Dumb break g/b/d allegiance is to stick a gloriously honking sax solo at the end of “Beef Hits,” revealing their most furious song as their silliest, as most angry dweebs boil down to anyway.
Less than a year since they signed to Mint Records for 2018’s Seeing Green, Dumb is already back with a new full-length, Club Nites — this time with even more neuroticism and indignation. Club Nites is a collection of narratives drawn from the nightlife ecosystem.
Released June 7th, 2019
Dumb – Club Nites From the album “Club Nites” available via Mint Records.
In March 2020, the Nashville-based artist experienced the devastating tornado that tore through much of East Nashville, followed by the global pandemic. Tuttle, who grew up in California and has toured as a solo artist for years, suddenly found herself—along with the rest of the musician community—sheltering at home. She found solace in revisiting favourite songs from throughout her life in an attempt to “remind myself why I love music.” She conceptualized an idea for a record with renowned LA producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird) to be recorded over 2,000 miles apart.
Molly Tuttle’s new covers album, “But I’d Rather Be With You”, is out August 28th and has her taking on songs by The National, Arthur Russell, Karen Dalton, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Harry Styles, Cat Stevens and more. Here’s her cover of Rancid’s “Olympia, Washington,” which she’s reworked into a twangy rocker. “I used to listen to Rancid and Operation Ivy all the time as an angsty 7th grader, and a couple of friends and I spent many hours learning their songs to perform at our school concerts,” says Tuttle. “Years later, I still love these songs!! When I played a show in Olympia, WA last fall this song was stuck in my head all day so we learned it at sound check and played it in the show. Then in December I showed it to Ketch Secor and we played it on our duo tour — he also sang harmony on this track and sounds terrific.
This song is so good and just makes me super happy for unexplainable reasons.”
From Molly Tuttle’s upcoming covers album “…But I’d Rather Be With You” available August 28th, 2020.
Jordana has shared a new EP titled Something To Say via Grand Jury Music. It’s the first of a two-part EP series, with her follow-up To You arriving in the fall. Classical Notions of Happiness has plenty of folk and lo-fi pop moments as well as stripped-back indie-pop ones, and Jordana’s music has only become more dense since then. Something To Say is full of richly-produced, hooky indie-pop—each song brimming with intriguing textures. Fried synths and warm guitar tones hover over bulky, glitchy beats, and there’s never a flat moment. The six-track EP’s sonic magnetism is due in part to producer MELVV, who also worked on “Crunch,” a standout track from her re-released debut album. Jordana’s stylish, airy vocals have never sounded better as they float effortlessly like plush clouds.
“Forgetter” from Jordana’s “Something To Say” EP, out July 31st
We have loved Courtney Marie Andrews ever since she performed at End Of the Road Festival a few years ago she did a lovely signing in the Rough Trade tent spending a lot of time chatting to people. She’s come a long way since then. Her committment to her craft shines through on every album she releases and, right now, she’s gearing up to release a brand new album, “Old Flowers”, this coming June. “If I Told” is the first single from the album. Andrews’ folk sensibility fuses together an earthy Americana with the delicacy of aged lace curtains hung in your grandmother’s windows. It’s the small flourishes – the lilting vocals, the attenuated harmonies, the gentle instrumental texturing – that really elevates “If I Told” from your average folk song to the level serious artistry. Give “If I Told” a listen below and then hop over to Bandcamp to secure your “Sonoran Sky” blue vinyl copy of Old Flowers. Vinyl copies are limited so better get that pre-order in before they’re all gone.
Girl Skin are a Brooklyn-based indie-rock band, led by singer/songwriter Sid Simons. They combine aspects of fragile folk and delicate art rock to create ethereal chamber-pop songs that are unafraid to wear their vulnerable hearts on their sleeve.
This six-piece based in Brooklyn known as GIRL SKIN has a much softer approach to music-making. Their latest single, “Forever & Always,” comes to us from the band’s debut album, Shade is On the Other Side, which will be available on April 17th through Jullian Records. At the helm of this endeavor sits singer-songwriter Sid Simons who wrote and recorded the album at his Brooklyn home with the help of his musical entourage. “Forever & Always” starts and ends with a simple indie-folk sound, but between those two points, the song swells and assumes different forms, sometimes achieving orchestral proportions. The love song sentiment is strong in “Forever & Always” and it definitely pulls on the heartstrings… even on a grumpy old writer like myself. This song has the power to lift spirits to the lofty heights of new love. Check out Girl Skin below
Brooklyn-based indie-folk band Girl Skin have just released the latest single from their debut album, ‘Shade is on the Other side’. Front-man, Sid Simons says of new song ‘Soft Gun’: “I was in my living room one day working on a song that wasn’t really going anywhere and my brother and his soon to be ex-girlfriend were upstairs arguing. They were arguing loud enough that I could hear almost every word, so I started writing down some of the things they were saying to each other and then began singing the lines I wrote down. By the time the argument was over and my brother had come downstairs, I had a song.” Well, that’s how to write a song. It’s warmly textured, summery fuzzy-folk, complete with dreamy, drifting vocals.
Band Members:
Sid Simons,
Sophie Cozine,
Stan Simons,
Ruby Wang,
Noah Boling,
Wyatt Mones,
Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn has been creating incorruptible independent pop music since the late 90’s. Mirah recently announcedthe reissue of her debut LP, You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This, accompanied with a full tribute LP with contributions from over 20 artists. The reissue is out July 31st, 2020 on Double Double Whammy.
Mirah has shared the full album streams for the double LP 20th anniversary reissue of You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This. The reissue includes a remastered version of the record as well as a tribute to the album that features covers by Mount Eerie, Half Waif, Hand Habits, Palehound, Shamir, Sad13,Allison Crutchfield and more. The LP established Mirah as one of the smartest and most exciting young artists in America. It also went on to inspire a new generation of indie musicians, drawn in by Mirah’s deft and introspective songwriting.”
“To get to hear my songs performed by all of these amazing folks was like having a weird cool dream about my life 20 years ago,” Mirah said of the tribute album. “You know that way that dreams can feel both real and surreal at the same time? I love getting to float above myself and listen in on all of the brilliance that the musicians on the covers album gave to this project.”
Additionally, to celebrate the reissue, Mirah has announced a series of live streams featuring performances of songs from her first three records that kicks off on 8/11 with You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This.
20 Year Anniversary Reissue of Mirah’s first album You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like. This was originally released on K Records in 2000 and has been out of print on vinyl since 2014.
Double album with the first disc a straight repress, but the second has a long list of notable artists covering the record including Phil Everum, Hand Habits, Jenn Wasner, Half Waif and many others.
