The Fat Angel Sings

The Lone Bellow Lyrics “Gold” This town’s too small for second chances Prom kings and queens and true romantics Main street on the auction block Let the window down, feel the wind Johnny put the paycheck in his arm Let the window down, let it in It’s in my blood, it’s in the water It’s calling me still I could leave, I know I oughta. “We don’t ever try to write songs with an agenda, so with ‘Gold’ the idea was to tell the story from the perspective of someone in a hard situation—in this case, a guy who’s stuck in the downward spiral of addiction,” stated guitarist Brian Elmquist. “We’ve sung ‘Gold’ as a folk song in the past, but for the recording we wanted to really experiment and push our sound as far as it could go.”

Nashville-based trio The Lone Bellow released their new single titled “Gold.” The first new release since their triumphant 2020 album “Half Moon Light”, “Gold” embodies an unvarnished intensity with a galvanizing look at the real-life impact of the opioid crisis. Recorded with their long time bassist Jason Pipkin and drummer Julian Dorio, the chorus explodes in a wild collision of bright piano tones, potent beats, and massively stacked guitars.

released July 21st, 2022
Written by Zachary Williams, Brian Elmquist and Trent Dabbs

Bread Pilot started in 2011 in Connecticut, high schoolers Taylor Hayden, Stephen Ibanez Jr, and Evan House began collaborating after meeting at one of Connecticut’s many basement shows – the three bonded over Animal Collective’s freeform writing style and discovered their shared appreciation for textured, atmospheric music.

After years of writing and touring, they tossed out many of their original tunes – hours of long jams, screams, and scattered arrangements – but several pieces still begged for the attention they deserved.

Those songs make up “New To You”, Bread Pilot’s full-length label debut that maps out a decade of memorable places and momentous occasions while exploring life’s most intimate emotions through detailed and dynamic arrangements. Catching the attention of Brooklyn indie label Double Double Whammy, “New to You” stands not only as the band’s first official debut, but as a testament to how far the band can push itself to reach its full potential – a blend of songs that are poppy and catchy, but non-traditional and non-linear.

Its softness and tenderness are at odds with emotion too strong to hold back and too intense to be hushed. Their harmonies are gentle and earnest, revealing years of deep friendship and connection. The move to Seattle was a catalyst for “New to You’s” completion, but Bread Pilot has provided an immersive, wistful escape from the disharmony of this world since the beginning.

Written in the southwest with the cacti and the dust kicking up around the clear sky, this album is about living in the future and looking to the past with some notion of peace tying them together. It’s a record of a personal odyssey into subtle and not so subtle struggles with mental health, love, and loss. Surrounded by dogs who were slated for to be put down but were spared to find a second chance.

Lead vocals and acoustic guitar were recorded by Wren in the doorway of Rancho Cowabunga studios in Arizona with the engineering guidance of Keith Abbott. Then they were sent through buzzing wires to Along the Way Studios on the Gulf Coast in the deepest south where Luke Franks added literally every other sound you hear and produced, mixed, mastered it into what it is today. Taken from a pen and ink sketch by Wren, the album cover design and concept was the work of Ryan Strong.

Luke and Wren make up Shelterheart and most folks who have heard this album note that it’s a turning point for the band and a worthy listen for you in your day to day life.

Shelterheart is Luke and Wren, friends who have been playing music together since 2005 when they met in the Bay Area, California. Toured together in long forgotten rock bands and various other musical projects up and down the west coast and the southwest for years. Though they live on different sides of the country nowadays (west coast/gulf coast), their musical collaboration has become so constant that they formed the band Shelterheart in 2018. Wren writes the songs – records them with acoustic guitar and singing and Luke orchestrated and produces all of the backing tracks. Wren’s drawings and paintings serve as an important visual component for Shelterheart and you will see them sprinkled throughout the band’s physical and virtual presence. Shelterheart’s first two EPs were released independently online. In 2022, Perpetual Doom and Along The Way Records will release Shelterheart’s debut full length album.

Released April 8th, 2022

Cloakroom celebrate their tenth anniversary as a band with their new album, “Dissolution Wave”.

“Dissolution Wave” is a concept – a space western in which an act of theoretical physics—the dissolution wave—wipes out all of humanity’s existing art and abstract thought. In order to keep the world spinning on its axis, songsmiths must fill the ether with their compositions. Meanwhile, the Spire and Ward of Song act as a filter for human imagination: Only the best material can pass through the filter and keep the world turning.

This is the universe that Cloakroom guitarist/vocalist Doyle Martin conceived as a way of processing the last few years. “We lost a couple of close friends over the course of writing this record,” he says. “Dreaming up another world felt easier to digest than the real nitty-gritty we’re immersed in every day.”

With lyrics based on an imagined cosmology, “Dissolution Wave” also marks a grand expansion of Cloakroom’s dreamy space-rock palette. Written from the perspective of the album’s protagonist—an asteroid miner who writes songs by night—”A Force at Play” has an airy, pastoral feel.

Meanwhile, the melancholy title track captures the miner’s regret as they lament that they signed up for such a long stint on the job, while closer “Dissembler” describes their anxiety about the revelator who will judge their work. “If you don’t write a good enough song in this universe, you run the risk of being forgotten and lose the opportunity to return as a meaningful form of life,” Martin explains. The stakes have never been higher! .

Released January 28th, 2022

Partner Look are a Melbourne-based band made up of German sisters Ambrin (Cool Sounds) and Anila Hasnain (Studio Magic), who are joined by their partners Dainis Lacey (Cool Sounds) and Lachlan Denton (The Ocean Party). The members also share a history of friendship and musical bonds. Trouble In Mind (in conjunction with Spunk / Osbourne Again in Australia) is honoured to be releasing “By The Book” – the band’s debut – a twelve-track charmer that swoons and smirks with a scrappy, yet sophisticated take on sparkling indie pop.

For fans of The Go-Betweens, Dick Diver, The Ocean Party, The Chills, Twerps, The Goon Sax, Yo La Tengo, The Clientele, Ultimate Painting etc.

Since the inception of Anxious in 2016, the band has always acted with purpose. This may seem like a simple premise, but for five kids still in high school at the time, it’s quite an accomplishment. Early songs were packaged in limited run demo tapes with accompanying zines and hand-dyed t-shirts. Weekends were filled with regional runs of shows outside of their Fairfield, Connecticut homebase. With this amount of effort it’s no wonder that within a few years of graduation, Anxious has built a solid foundation for their debut album to flourish upon.

On “Little Green House”, Anxious explores what it feels like to enter adulthood in unflinching detail. The Connecticut band unpacks struggles, joys, and hard-earned realizations in a way that makes them feel wise beyond their years. Anthemic songs like lead single “In April” and guaranteed singalong “Growing Up Song” thread the often difficult melodic-hardcore needle in a way that feels both nostalgic for the emo renaissance of yesteryear and precisely built for the current moment of genre defiant pioneering.

While crafting Anxious’ new album, “Little Green House”, the Connecticut five-piece were afforded a luxury so few bands are when making their debut album: time. With extensive touring plans halted and regular life on pause, the band—vocalist Grady Allen, guitarists Dante Melucci and Ryan Savitski, bassist Sam Allen, and drummer Jonny Camner—headed into Allen’s mom’s basement and reflected on each part of the material that would turn into their first record over and over again. The result is an artistic leap that, had the band’s plans to spend much of 2020 on the road actually been feasible, maybe wouldn’t have happened.

UK eight-piece Caroline’s eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet – a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. Caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and O’Malley and Llewellyn’s roots in Appalachian folk.

“Sometimes things sound much better when there’s empty space,” says Llewellyn. “Sometimes you might populate [a song] with too many things and forget that an element on its own is enough.” Elsewhere on the record the band have employed a collage-like technique, combining snippets of lo-fi recordings from a myriad of different locations – a barn in France, the members’ bedrooms and living rooms, the atmospheric swimming pool in which they also filmed sublime live sessions for ‘Dark blue’ and ‘Skydiving Onto The Library Roof’ – with more traditional group sessions at the Total Refreshment Centre and their studio in Peckham.

The growth that began as a scrappy guitar band above a pub many years ago is still continuing. Caroline’s astounding debut album is merely the first step.

Sea Lemon’s Natalie Lew dives into the sweet and dreamy depths of her debut EP ‘Close Up,’ a dynamic and dazzling introduction full of raw passion and refreshingly intimate, unfiltered energy.

Dynamic and dazzling as it is tender and raw, Sea Lemon’s debut EP is an enchanting record full of raw passion and refreshingly unfiltered energy. It’s an impressively cohesive and expansive set, setting a high bar while bringing us deep into the artist’s world all at once. Dwelling in sweet, dreamy depths of weight and wonder, “Close Up” captures the intimacy, intensity, sincerity, and fragility of an artist we cannot wait to hear more from in the months and years ahead.

“Close Up” is bright, churning, and charming: An immersive five-track introduction that all but ensures we remember the name Sea Lemon. The project of 26-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitarist Natalie Lew, Sea Lemon takes sonic inspirations from “the lush dreamy atmosphere of Alvvays and Chromatics and the bittersweet glittery vibes of The Beach Boys and Rilo Kiley.”

Sea Lemon’s debut EP out now on Spirit Goth Records [SG43]!

Tops’ tendency to opt towards making straight-forward, stripped down and honest recordings lets their pop song writing shine out in the open. With aheart firmly attached to their sleeves, their songcraft delves into the emotional intricacy of personal relationships, asking questions about power and desire. Riley Fleck’s measured drumming and David Carriere’s trademark guitar licks work in tandem and in service of Jane Penny’s unmistakable, wistful voice.

Tops can’t write a bad song. This EP is full of funky pop earworms that will have you dancing all around your room. 

Tracklist: 1. Perfect Steps (00:00) 2. Janet Planet (06:38) 3. Waiting (09:59) 4. Party Again (13:13) 5. Future Waits (15:58)

A new EP from a band that just keeps getting better and better with every release! “Waiting” is the perfect recipe for the dreamy pop music this band has perfected over the years. 

Throughout “anna”, Los Angeles songwriter Ann Grace Gray aka Gracie Gray’s voice rises and falls like a downy feather in a breeze. One minute it hits your ears like a cool, sharp wind, the next it’s a warm flutter. Gray says her debut album, recorded and produced at home, is ‘about holding onto love for yourself through all of life’s changes’, a sentiment that authentically plays out through its often delicate arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano and the lightest touch of percussion and intimate lyrics that cut to the bone. Gray paints in much darker tones on ‘Happiness’, ‘Love You’ and ‘Dig’, which take their cues from grunge, slow-core and folk-drone, with shades of Grouper or Squirrel Flower.

Ultimately, “anna” is a gentle, slow-burning night time gem that hints that there is a powerful emotional presence somewhere behind all this, out of sight, contained for now.