The Fat Angel Sings

Formed in 2019, Lifeguard are Asher Case (bass, vocals), Isaac Lowenstein (drums, percussion), and Kai Slater (guitar, vocals). At its core, Lifeguard is a punk band. Their music is loud and energetic. It’s also, at its core, visceral and hypnotic. For the Chicago-based trio that can include repetition and blasts of speaker cone-shredding feedback. Their songs adeptly balance melody and chaos, rhythm and drone. Hooks and noise are held to the same standard. Both have to stick.

They’re a young band, but they’ve already found a place at the forefront of an important emerging music community in their hometown. They are quite prolific. In just three years, Lifeguard has put out a full-length, two EPs, and two 7” singles. 

With two EPs out, one a reissue and one featuring original material—via their new label home of Matador Records, the Chicago rockers share some of their favourite bite-sized jams. So far in 2023, Matador Records is really proving the scope of their mission by releasing albums by one of the biggest contemporary rock outfits in the world and a pair of oddball New Yorkers who are probably more surprised than you are at the contract they signed with the massively influential indie label. Similar to that latter group, local-hero Chicago youngsters Lifeguard inked a deal with Matador at the beginning of the year, joining their friends in one of last year’s biggest breakout acts Horsegirl on their roster.

Taken from “Dressed in Trenches,” the new EP from Lifeguard out now on Matador Records.

As their first order of business, Asher Case, Isaac Lowenstein, and Kai Slater are re-issuing last summer’s “Crowd Can Talk” EP (originally released by local faves Born Yesterday Records) along with a new collection of material in the form of the five-song “Dressed in Trenches” EP, both releases conveying the band’s penchant for the type of messy, driving noise rock Matador built its reputation on in the ’90s.

“Crowd Can Talk” and “Dressed in Trenches” are closely related. They were recorded in separate sessions, but at the same studio (Electrical Audio) and with the same engineer (Mike Lust) and within the space of 12 months. Each finds the band refining its voice – honing songs that are succinct, hooky, and propulsive. There’s a newly disciplined attention to detail. Lifeguard write together through collaboration and improvisation, but they’ve learned to streamline their sound, to make each hook, beat, and gesture purposeful.

On each record, there are echoes of underground guitar bands from decades past. This is not record-collector music, though. It’s the product of a present-day community. Lifeguard are, first and foremost, a performing band and the songs are written to stand up in that moment. 

John Lydon releases his post-punk project’s 11th album, “End of World”. If anyone has the credible world-weariness with which to criticize a doomed planet in the present day, it’s John Lydon. On “End of World”, this his 11th album with Public Image Ltd, Lydon’s euphoric, dance-driven, sketchy, surround-sound environment—co-created with Scott Firth, Lu Edmonds, and ex-Slits/Pop Group drummer Bruce Smith cattily captures the frontman tackling silly social media millennialism “Being Stupid Again”, false, witless friends “L F C F”, and the literal and figurative divisiveness that makes the 21st century turn “Walls”. 

You could write all this off to Lydon’s legendary contrarian snark if it wasn’t for the fact that his so-called conservative streak may have become more common-sensical than Trumpian, and that his many operatic, abstract voices on “End of World” convey surprisingly moving emotions beyond cutting social or personal criticism. The tenderness of album closer “Hawaii” and its farewell to his wife of 44 years (Nora Forster, lost to struggles with Alzheimer’s back in April) would tear your heart out if it wasn’t for its sweet, strange island allure. As PiL’s death disco rambles behind him in the mix, Lydon turns “End of World” into a hypothetical, philosophical treatise on all that we may miss when our Earth disappears.

It’s 13 songs, they all deal with very varied subjects to the best of our ability. This is how we view the world. If you choose to analyze it or tear it apart with any degree of intellectual idiocy, you’re doing it wrong, merely entertaining yourself. 

In conversation from his home in Malibu, on the day of his friend and Sex Pistol graphic artist Jamie Reid’s death, Lydon takes no prisoners—and is all the more entertaining for it. After having interviewed him at least a dozen times since PiL’s start (to say nothing of him having snagged my pack of Marlboros at Studio 54 back in the day—but that’s another story), Lydon isn’t about to let this interview be at all precious. “You’re very pompous, aren’t you,” he says, laughing. “You’re all right,” Lydon says. “But I really believe you’ve overthunk the whole thing.”

On 2018’s “Springtime and Blind” and 2021’s “Between the Richness”, Pat Flynn, singer of Massachusetts post-hardcore band Fiddlehead, brandished his grief as a badge of honour. With a voice both melodic and strident, his role in the band has been to make sense of his feelings, of which there are many; those of immense loss set into motion by his father passing in 2010; the unbridled joy at the birth of his kids; the influence and responsibility of working with young minds as a high school history teacher. Fiddlehead’s ardent third album “Death Is Nothing to Us” finds the singer at a crossroads with grief and wrestling with facets of denial and perseverance, his voice reaching for resolve within a tracklist of relentless and poignant punk rock. 

The husband and father of two makes clear that he didn’t intend to make a thematic trilogy. “It was totally organic, coincidental—no long-term plan there,” he says, speaking in a clear and concise tone that I could best describe as “teacher-voice.” This clarification followed a series of quotidian domestic events: he left the sprinkler on all night in the yard, his mother called to ask for help moving out of her office, his toddler barged into the room to say hello. The core of his impetus as a writer is summed up in this duality: the wholesome stability of his family life and the ambience of death that’s coated his understanding of existence from a young age. 

On the verge of Fiddlehead’s newest release, “Death Is Nothing to Us”. out August 18th, 2023 via Run For Cover Records

San Francisco band Juicebumps have long made it their mission to liven up the brutalist tones of post-punk, with their 2020 debut “Hello Pinky!” being equally defined by B-52’s-esque new wave, gross-out lyricism, and just a bit of the spirit of modern Bay Area garage rock patron saint John Dwyer. Now, the group is returning with a proper follow-up titled “Jumbo” set to arrive October 13th via local indie label Rocks in Your Head (founded by Sonny & the Sunsets’ titular Sonny) and Belgian psych label Time Room Records. 

Ahead of that release, they’re sharing lead single “Wiggler,” which sees both their driving post-punk sound and their playful energy enhanced since their last outing. Tight drumming and staccato guitar soundtrack a concerning narrative that’s disgustingly illustrated in the track’s official video,  which lands somewhere between Cronenberg’s Shivers, any number of schlocky ’80s ripoffs, and perhaps something a little more drugsploitative. “Everyone’s got a wiggler inside of them, they just have to believe,” the band succinctly states. “They have to want to believe.”

The horror-B-movie visual arrives with news of the San Francisco post-punks’ new album “Jumbo”, landing October 13th via Rocks in Your Head Records and Time Room Records.

from the album “Jumbo” set to arrive October 13th

Wild Nothing—the Captured Tracks staple led by Jack Tatum has announced a new album titled “Hold”, set to be released on October 27th. The project represents Wild Nothing’s first new LP in five years, and Tatum’s first self-produced record since his 2010 debut “Gemini”. The announcement is accompanied by a music video directed by Nathan Castiel for new single “Headlights On.” Mixed by Jorge Elbrecht, with drum production by Tommy Davidson of Beach Fossils, and featuring vocals from Hatchie’s Harriette Pilbeam, the song is a throwback disco-pop gem built around an infectious synth line and swinging percussion.

“It’s a song about your relationship reaching its most brittle moment and still trying to find even the smallest open window that can lead you back to that person,” said Tatum of the release. “Musically I was drawn towards something that felt very body-centric and could help get me out of my own repetitive thought patterns. It’s a propulsive and hopeful track that’s meant to act as a release valve, but the somberness that inspired the song remains intact.”

Jack Tatum’s project will share the new LP on October 27th via Captured Tracks.

On his latest album as The Drums, New York-based indie pop artist Jonny Pierce plunges into the work of healing from childhood trauma and the long shadow it casts over adulthood.

The sparkling, eponymous Jonny unfurls a love letter to a galaxy of younger selves, all hungry to be nourished, all rejoicing now that they finally get to belong. Playful, heartbreaking, raucous, and serene all in turn, Jonny embraces the mess of life in all its facets. It renders the magic that happens when you fall in love with yourself down to the marrow.

Soaring to alt-pop prestige on arrival, The Drums have released studio albums that deftly walk the line of aching melancholy and irresistible pop sensibilities, presented through a kaleidoscope of pastel guitars, reverb, modular synthesizers and drum machines. It’s a sound that’s wholly unique, and unmistakably The Drums. Listen to “Better” now

another new song “Isolette,” the latest teaser from Jonny Pierce’s forthcoming sixth studio album “Jonny“. On “Isolette”—the French word for “incubator”—Pierce croons over a poppy backdrop, taking jabs against piercing snare drums and surf-rock inspired guitar parts.

“My mother experienced what is referred to as a birth trauma when she was pregnant with me,” said Pierce about the inspiration for “Isolette.” “A doctor broke her water without her consent, and she immediately went into painful, traumatic labour. I was born prematurely. They rushed me into an incubator where no one was able to touch me.

Over the course of the pandemic, I took a lot of psych courses. In Child Psych, I learned that it is of utmost importance for a mother to have skin contact with her baby. It’s fundamental for bonding. “The love and trust you get from that initial bonding influences how you feel love and trust in future relationships. My mother had been violated at the time of my birth and I believe I became a symbol of that trauma. She detached from me emotionally, so on many levels I often feel like I never really left the isolette.”

Thrilled to announce I will release my sixth studio album ‘Jonny’ due Friday, October 13th.

here are 16 songs birthed out of my deepest wounds and out of my wildest joys. When I listen back to it, I hear my soul reflected back at me. I think you’ll find yourself somewhere in it too. For now however, I offer you a brand new single from the album.

There’s something intangible about Country Westerns vision of rock. It’s raw, frayed, like an abrasion that refuses to heal. Cover it up, cast it aside for a moment, but there’s always a bit of burn to remind you of its presence. The band’s sound is lodged between southern rock and a long shuttered ideal of indie, leftover from the Dutch East India days. On “Forgive The City“, Country Westerns offer up the kind of classic that would have rattled out of cassette decks in every college town and soundtracked the jukebox on a hundred last call clean-ups. It feels like an album that’s already lived ten lives and it’s not bound to leave the turntable around here for the whole year.

released April 28th, 2023

All songs written and performed by Country Westerns. Produced by Matt Sweeney, 

“Swing From The Sean DeLear” is the new 4 song EP by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds on In The Red Records. It celebrates dreamlike bridge between life and memory. Recorded and mixed with Jim Waters, (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth etc.) at Waterworks Recording in Tucson AZ,  “Sean DeLear”, is a tribute to the late, magical, and ubiquitous Los Angeles underground institution named Sean De Lear. The rocking song uses the metaphor of those passed on as swinging from a chandelier, a festive image we all hope is true!

Side Two of the EP is a 14 minute psych, Chicano groove titled “He Walked In.” The text is based on a visceral fever dream Kid had about his friend, and Gun Club bandmate, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, whom passed away in 1996. Leading us back to the theme of feelings sustained between life and memory, the song dreams on as the band spreads their monkey bird wings, Mark Cisneros on flute, and guest, tambourine queen Cesar Padilla lost in music but found in sound. 

In such uncertain times, one thing is most certain; Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds will always bring the party.. and the other world.

Flyying Colours are a band that have perfected their sonic punch and ‘you never know’ is another infectious and highly rewarding listen of exhilarating sound and joyous harmony.

Shoegaze dreampop four-piece Flyying Colours release their stunning third studio album. formed in Australia in 2011, Flyying Colours released their debut single ‘Wavygravy’ in 2013, honing their sound on the Melbourne live scene and have picked up high praise along the way alongside heavy rotation across worldwide radio including BBC radio 6 music and kexp. the band released their critically acclaimed sophomore album ‘Fantasy Country’ in 2021 with the nme describing the release as “saturated dream-pop vistas”. recorded over a two-week period in the summer of 2021 at Red Doors Sounds with producer Woody Annison, Flyying Colours intended to capture a moment in time with recurring themes and sounds which feature throughout ‘you never know’. opening with the rollicking noise-rock of ‘lost then found’ and the catchy, upbeat melodies of ‘i live in a small town’, Flyying Colours are an unashamed wall of sound. ‘oh’ is a nod to ‘loveless’ era my Bloody Valentine while the sumptuous ‘Bright Lights’, beams with an ethereal beauty as floating melodies and shimmering guitars cascade.

Flyying Colours release their stunning third studio album. “Fantasy Country” is rich in sonic texture and shimmering atmospherics with a heavy dose of melody. From the swooning, sludgy ‘Goodtimes’ and urgent noise-fest of ‘Big Mess’, to the gorgeous melodic pop of ‘OK’, Flyying Colours look to redefine noise within the context of pop music. Elsewhere, ‘It’s Real’ is perfect, summery dreampop while the crushingly loud ‘White Knuckles’ and chugging ‘Boarding Pass’ is a hazy, echo-laden spaced-out affair. Having released their critically acclaimed debut album “Mindfullness” in 2016, 

Flyying Colours are a band that have perfected their sonic punch and ‘You Never Know’ is another infectious and highly rewarding listen of exhilarating sound and joyous harmony. Elsewhere, there are grandiose pop moments in ‘Goodbye To Music’, ‘Modern Dreams’ a nd album closer ‘Never Forget’.

Our AU tour begins this weekend, followed (finally) by our rather belated EU/UK shows…I feel like I should say…and it feels strange to say…that these shows will be the last time we perform many of these songs (in these cities) live. After countless scrawled (and as we grew up printed) setlists placed conveniently just out of sight on sticky stage carpets, it is now time for us to say goodbye to much of our music (forever) – and hello to something (shiny and) new for our future. While this may sound odd and/or a little dramatic, this is just something we have to do that is very personal and important to us. We are forever grateful for the love and support given to this music and have revelled in every dropped chord, forgotten lyric and wrong pedal we have stepped on along the way. We look forward to sharing it all with you live one last time. For those places we haven’t been able to tour much (or any) of this music, we endeavour to make that happen and won’t retire “the hits” in these places until we do. This has felt particularly strange to type…see you at the show Flyying Colours