The Fat Angel Sings

The fourth full-length from Wild Pink, “ILYSM” unfolds with all the fractured beauty of a dreamscape. Over the course of 12 chameleonic tracks, the New York-bred rock band build another world inhabited by ghosts and angels and aliens, inciting a strange and lovely daze as the backdrop shifts from the mundane (subdivisions, highways, hotel parking lots) to the extraordinary (deserts, battlefields, the moon). But within its vast imagination lies a potent truth-telling on the part of singer / guitarist John Ross, whose lyrics closely examine his recent struggle with cancer.

Singer and songwriter John Ross sounds reborn on “ILYSM”, Wild Pink’s follow-up to their 2021 breakout “A Billion Little Lights”. In a way, he was: Ross had already started writing the band’s fourth album when he was diagnosed with cancer, a battle that threatened to derail the LP, only to instead infuse it with urgent purpose.

Ross pushed forward through the dark alongside a community of collaborators, co-producing the record with Justin Pizzoferrato (Pixies, Body/Head, Speedy Ortiz) and Peter Silberman of The Antlers, and enlisting contributions from J Mascis (“See You Better Now”), Julien Baker (“Hold My Hand”), Ryley Walker, Yasmin Williams, Samantha Crain and Ratboys’ Julia Steiner (the title track, among others). The songs they made together vibrate with wonder, as befitting of any pursuit that comes on the heels of an existential threat.

The album is dreamy in a way that feels less like an escape and more like an adventure, as if Ross is seeing his world—and the people who populate it—through new eyes.

On Skullcrusher’s (aka Helen Ballentine) debut album, she wastes no time teaching a master class on vulnerability. The song writing is rooted in the confusion of childhood, examining Ballentine’s own through vaguely told memories and home-video voice memos. The guitar builds itself a home in the ambient, wide production. This is certainly not an album to be pigeonholed into one genre—the influences on this album range all over the board, and include a lot of electronic artists. It peels back the curtains from the culturally romanticized image of childhood, revealing it as a time with the same pain and confusion, as well as abstract joy as any other part of life. Being young is anything but simple, and those dreams and experiences spin around in Ballentine’s mind years after moving away from her childhood home in New York state.

In describing the song writing process involved on the album, Ballentine says, “I viewed my younger self through a wash of emotions: anger, sadness, pity, confusion, all reaching for a kind of compassion. I tried to capture the contradictions that comprise my past and define who I am now.

As I looked back, I saw my life in pieces: some moments blacked out, some extremely vivid, some leading nowhere.” The resulting LP is a shivering look inside yourself through the memories of another.

On the heels of their acclaimed 2020 albums “Saint Cloud” and “Sorceress”, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson decided to start down a new road, walking arm in arm as Plains. The duo’s first album “I Walked with You a Ways“, produced by Crutchfield’s “Saint Cloud” collaborator Brad Cook, will also be their last—Crutchfield and Williamson have declared this a one-time collaboration, which is all the more reason to cherish the resulting record. As the pair interweave their voices over warm Americana that’s at turns upbeat and wistful—and sometimes both at once—Plains invite the listener into a shared, communal space, wallpapered with the classic folk and country they grew up on.

Tracks like “Problem With It” and “Line of Sight” lean hard on Crutchfield’s knockout vocal hooks, while “Abilene” and “Bellafatima” let Williamson’s more delicate presence sneak up on you. It’s rewarding to hear Crutchfield and Williamson’s ample talents intermingle as they shape “I Walked with You a Ways” into a celebration of their shared passions.

Written between Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Marfa, the album was recorded in Durham, NC with collaborator and producer Brad Cook. The creative magic of only a few vocal takes, tracking with a band comprised of Spencer Tweedy and Phil Cook, gives the album a feel of fresh, on-the-spot conception. The trust and history of Crutchfield and Cook’s collaborations (Saint Cloud, Great Thunder EP) set the tone for this new container of spontaneity and experimentation.

Crack Cloud’s new album “Tough Baby” is both a clarion call and a life-manual for the listener. For an outfit founded as a healing outlet by and for people in addiction recovery, it’s no surprise the work of this Canadian “band” (now a multi-media collective the size of 3 bands ) sounds as urgent and vital as it does. A wide-ranging experiment with art-punk and post-punk at centre, the collective’s 3rd album engages self-examination and sociopolitical discourse with equal fervor. Highlgihts: “Costly Engineered Illusion,” “Virtuous Industry,” and “Criminal”

Unsurprisingly, “Tough Baby” is a record with purpose and resolve. nothing is wasted. sometimes the music feels deliberately compressed, the essences extracted and bottled into an overpowering cordial, as on ‘115 at night’, which sounds like an ‘80s Van Halen track being squeezed into another shape.

It’s difficult to see how a track like ‘Virtuous Industry’ can hold itself together, such are the sonic hoops it jumps through. the sharp angles and hook-laden guitar lines that were once seen as a trademark sound are less in evidence. Last track ‘Crackin Up’ does nod back to earlier releases with a booming beat and guitars that snag, like wool on barbed wire. but maybe there’s another focus taking shape, one that was not fully realised on the band’s remarkable debut, “Pain Olympics”. Zach Choy: “we made that album with no expectation of making another.” maybe that expectation lent “Pain Olympics” its febrile, combustible atmosphere. but the world moves on, and “Tough Baby” is moving with it.

The new record reflects Choy’s point that “we are always maturing emotionally with our experiences, and so how we understand and express them evolves over our lifetime.” there is a sleekness here: cinematic dreamer music that takes in the street romanticisms and seedy cruises of classic alternative pop. indeed, the record could be a brilliant c21st riposte to the likes of the pogues, the blockheads, roxy music or armand schaubroeck. ‘The Politician’ could be a search party sent out to find the bogus man after 50 years. this is music that is happy to colour outside the lines prescribed for it. in fact, “Tough Baby” reminds one of reading a nabokov novel, with lots of stylistic conceits and clevernesses, sometimes outrageous pretentiousness,

The title track employs orchestral sweeps and other stylings: a broadway musical perhaps, or the sort of uplifting orchestrations that would sit snugly on a modern film soundtrack, and boasting an intermission where we could be listening to unkle. The key track is Criminal’ – also the longest on the record, weighing in at 6 minutes – an angry soliloquy which suddenly snaps into life around a primitive beat (which sounds like someone whacking at a door with a hammer) and a scuzzy bass line. the intermittent vocals and sighs at the end only add to the drama. the band does offer antidotes to help your head find some equilibrium: Zach Choy: “the name “Tough Baby” is an allusion to our planet. to our culture. and to our selves.” it’s made to remind us that whilst we are all in the gutter to some extent, some of us are looking at the kerb.

Miracle Legion were a New Haven Connecticut-based band that immediately sprang to life on the heels of a post-R.E.M. guitar rock boom, chiefly because lead singer Mark Mulcahy’s voice bore an uncanny resemblance to Michael Stipe’s, and the arpeggio guitar structures were akin to Peter Buck’s guitar sound, in the UK, where they were feted by music media such as NME and Melody Maker. In their early stages they received frequent comparisons to R.E.M., more for their presence and overall sound than for their lyrical content. Other than a few similar-sounding songs, the respective bands’ sounds were largely dissimilar lyrically and musically, and as time passed, the comparisons became less valid. 

This is one more of a bunch of shows we recorded around this time. After a long time apart
we found that we liked being back together. Bit of a nice surprise there. Anywhow I remember driving forever in old broken down truck, NY and when we got kind of close to the venue Scotty Bells just jumped out walked.
We all really love the Bell House and that’s it. We ripped it and did it. Using the damage to good advantage. I think someone commented on my shoes and I was happy about that. Little things.

released October 7th, 2022

Miracle Legion
D.’Knell’ McCaffrey – bass
Scotty Bells – drum
Marty JIngles – sing
Ding Dong Neal – guitar

Richard Brown – sax & guitar

The late 80’s and early 90’s were a huge influence for many new artists. But when they cite sounds from great artists like Johnny Marr, Cocteau Twins, The Durutti Column and the Beach Boys, you know they are on track to something great.

Combining up-beat drum beats, melodic bass riffs, jingly guitar leads, and fluttery lighter-than-air vocals, Tallies gives out a soft, yet bouncy ray of sunshine not unlike The Sundays’ debut album ‘Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic’. Tallies bridges that long lost sound with yet a new and youthful take on something all their own.

With their brand-new sophomore album, “Patina”, The Toronto-based indie pop band Tallies have found a way to expertly walk that razor-thin tightrope between nostalgia and the present, nodding to their favourite bands of the past while transforming their sound into something tight, bright, and undeniably fresh.

The band’s 2019, debut self-titled album solidified the their stature as Canada’s leading dreampop scholars as its mix of upbeat pop hooks and heady, larger-than-life production won the band critical acclaim from the indie underground to the mainstream alike. They began work straight away on a second record, which would prove to be an even more life-affirming endeavour than their debut.

Coming out of Toronto, this indie pop band was formed by lead singer and guitarist Sarah Cogan and guitarist Dylan Franklin, with Cian O’Neill on drums.

It was during this process that Tallies began a working friendship with one of their musical heroes—Simon Raymonde, ex-Cocteau Twins bassist and founder of Bella Union, He caught wind of Tallies and made it his mission to sign the band. Through transatlantic phone calls, Tallies were able to deeply connect with a member of one of their favourite bands.

Tallies shares another new track from the upcoming Patina. Sarah Cogan says, “‘Special’ is about longing to be seen and heard by those who matter to you most. Sometimes feeling invisible is particularly painful when the indifference comes from someone whose opinion means a lot to you.

See Tallies + Sobscene + Bored Marsh w. Some Velvet Evening DJ’s at Rough Trade Nottingham Friday, 28th October, 7:00 pm

Connecticut’s Anxious don’t miss a beat on “Sunsign,” their first new material since the January release of their acclaimed full-length debut “Little Green House”. That’s not to say they’re stuck in one place: The band’s new track dials back their emo-tinged post-hardcore intensity while remaining a carthartic, energizing anthem. Recorded and produced by Mike Sapone (Taking Back Sunday, The Front Bottoms, Oso Oso), the track puts an intimate, acoustic guitar-driven foot forward, exhibiting a new high-water mark of dynamism for the band. Vocalist Grady Allen wrestles with feelings of emotional isolation and overwhelm, wondering in the song’s sticky-sweet choruses, “Am I work when I want help? / Am I thinking ‘bout myself?” These questions have no easy answers, as Anxious know well, but ultimately, the conversation itself matters most: “I call you again and you answer the same.” 

On “Sunsign” Anxious–made up of vocalist Grady Allen, guitarist/vocalist Dante Melucci, bassist Sam Allen, and drummer Jonny Camner–takes yet another step forward. The urgency that carried “Little Green House” is still there, but it’s presented in new, engaging ways. The song has a sprawl that feels like a marked evolution of the band’s sound while retaining all the earnest emotion that fans have come to love.

“Sunsign” by Anxious, available digitally now on Run For Cover Records.

On the fifth and final single ahead of their first new album in five years, Alvvays pick up the pieces after disaster. Molly Rankin and Alec O’Hanley intertwine their exhilarating jangle-pop guitar riffs over drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell’s thrumming low end, all in service of “a rapid fire recital of drive-thru breakdown, tectonic breakup and boyfriend in a coma brake failure,” as the quintet describe it.

The racing song screeches to a halt in its bridge, bringing Kerri MacLellan’s solemn keys to the forefront, as well as Rankin’s plaintive considerations of the painful fallout of loving and losing: “Why would I ever fall in love again / When every detail is over the guardrail?” Before you know it, the track is back at full throttle and beyond, fearlessly moving forward into its uncertain future. 

From “Blue Rev”, Out October 7th, 2022

Having already garnered comparisons to everyone from labelmates DIIV to Bauhaus, Thus Love work in a lineage of post-punk artists that have come before; from the jangly haze of opener “Repetitioner” to the galloping groove of “Family Man,” their debut “Memorial” is an album that plays into the sharp, abrasive turns characteristic of the genre. The latter track, in particular, pairs the push-and-pull tension that great post-punk can execute with impressionistic observation that feels snide in its incisiveness “Tuesday night happy-hour / Gasoline tearing down from the graze, they scour / Loose tin, melt down, make a mess reducing / All your day’s work to a single paragraph, repeating” before the tension finally bubbles over into a final singalong refrain: “It’s alright,” guitarist/vocalist Echo Mars sneers as the music halts for her to deliver the final shot to the song’s subject, “I’m coming in closer.” 

The Brattleboro, Vermont trio Thus Love stand together, a bond cemented by their experience as outsiders looking in. For Thus Love, DIY is an ethos that reflects not only their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists. From the band’s inception, Echo Mars (she/her) , Lu Racine (he/him) and Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and created their own recording studio from scratch.

The band was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when everything came to a screeching halt. Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with nothing but YouTube videos and her innate curiosity, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their apartment, recording during odd hours when their next-door neighbours were out and about. Their resulting debut, “Memorial”, is a stunningly accomplished album.

The hallmarks will be unmistakable to anyone who has ever obsessed over classic LPs from indie and post-punk’s progenitors—everything from the chiming, Marr -esque guitars on opener “ Repitioner ” to the pugnacious rhythmic punch on lead single “In Tandem”. But even more impressive and exciting is how Thus Love manage to tap into this celebrated lineage to find their own unique voice and tell their own story. Ultimately, despite the many difficulties and setbacks, the story of Thus Love and “Memorial” is one of triumph. Of seeking meaning in struggle. Of embracing community and love. Of finding joy in rebirth.

For fans of Dry Cleaning, Bambara, Ought, Television, The Church, Echo and the Bunnymen.

A lot has happened since March 2020, when North London’s Sorry released their full-length debut “925”. For the band’s Asha Lorenz, that meant that she “just did what everyone else did, I went a bit mad.” She and her best friend Louis O’Bryen—joined in Sorry by Lincoln Barrett (drums), Campbell Baum (multiple) and Marco Pini (electronics), and on the album by producer Adrian Utley (Portishead)—work through that inner deterioration on the band’s sophomore album “Anywhere But Here”, 13 tracks of dark pop-rock that press materials describe as “Diazepam dream pop.” Lorenz and O’Bryen purposefully modulate their give and take, and the album ends up feeling like a torn-out heart, expanding and contracting with each beat. Hooky dance-punk opener “Let the Lights On” gives way to “Tell Me,” which feints towards an intimate O’Bryen-led ballad before revealing its true form as a dynamic rock duet.

“Key to the City” backs Lorenz’s wandering, perhaps lost lyrics with neon-streaked guitar-pop, then steps aside to make room for the pseudo-blues shuffle of “Willow Tree.” Later, “Screaming in the Rain” strips almost everything but heartbreak away as Lorenz yowls like a gentler Karen O. If “Anywhere But Here” is what madness sounds like, then perhaps there’s hope for us all. 

Earwigged conversations, text messages, snatched speech recorded underground; the city’s discarded words fed into the lyrics which map the experience of urban life on a young and frustrated generation. Produced alongside Portishead’s Adrian Utley in Bristol, the result is an angular, acerbic, bittersweet triumph.

“A superb return from the multi-faceted group.” Clash ★★★★ 

“Truly impressive.” Loud and Quiet ★★★★ 

“Magnetic and magnificent.” Stereogum Album of The Week

Sorry’s universally-acclaimed debut album “925” earned a string of near-perfect review scores, A-List national radio playlists and global media profiles upon its release in March 2020. “Anywhere But Here” is the band’s first full body of work since the “Twixtustwain” EP arrived last year, alongside the official digital release of their brace of 2017 mixtapes “Home Demo/ns Vol I”. and “Home Demo/ns Vol. II”.  

from the album ‘Anywhere But Here’ out now on Domino Recordings .