Even “Old Death” is a seven minute odyssey/autobiography disguised as a pop song, in which Charles Bissell (of indie rock heavyweights The Wrens) reflects on the opportunity cost of two decades spent perfecting, yet never releasing, the sequel to The Wrens’ near-mythologically revered 2003 album “The Meadowlands”. The ensuing years brought a battle with cancer, mental health struggles, the breakup of a band of brothers, and the underestimation of Father Time. Bissell released some music during that time, but promised a lot more. “Old Death” was worth the wait.
Like any great protagonist, our hero is relatable, vulnerable, courageous, broken, whole, and lovable. And like all great epics, the parable of “Old Death” is one I’ll keep close to heart. I’ll sing this song from the top of my lungs, I’ll remember to put away my futile devices, and I’ll hold my kids tight while they’re still young.
The first new music in 20 years from Charles Bissell, the singer-writer-producer of the Wrens, his first release since the landmark album “The Meadowlands”.
Few albums this year balanced the sweet and sinister quite like “Endless Pursuit”, Temple of Angels‘s debut album. Melodically, the Austin Texas band resembles a dream pop outfit from the dark side of the moon, reared on Sisters of Mercy’s gothic romance and My Bloody Valentine’s glorious mess. Simultaneously, their spring-tight rhythm section, a byproduct of its members’ hardcore roots, provides the structure and counterbalance necessary to keep those euphoric soundscapes aloft. (Don’t miss the balancing act on “Tangled In Joy.”) One of the more pleasant surprises regarding a genre I’m not as familiar with, but always looking for gems from. And this group is a gem.
Formed in 2017 in Austin, Texas, Avery Burton (guitar/vocals), Patrick Todd (drums/vocals), and Cole Tucker (guitar) had all played in various hardcore and punk bands around town for years, but were keen to explore the dreamier, moodier music they enjoyed as well. After recording a few demos, they recruited Bre Morell (vocals) to be their lead singer. The new group self-releasing two EPs–2017’s Temple of Angels and 2018’s Foiled–and a single on Funeral Party Records in 2019, and were soon performing with the likes of Beach Fossils, Iceage, Narrow Head, and Turnover as well as at festivals like Levitation and Not Dead Yet.
Abetted by some of the most in-demand producers and engineers of the moment—Will Yip (Turnstile, Citizen, Title Fight) handled the mix—Temple of Angels have given us radiant guitar music suitable for punks, goths, bloomers, doomers, and everyone in between.
“Love As Projection“ is the new album by Frankie Rose, It’s her fifth studio LP and second for Night School following the reissue of her interpretation of The Cure’s “Seventeen Seconds“. Frankie Rose has forged an enviable musical legacy, from playing with bands like Crystal Stilts and The Vivian Girls but on “Love As Projection“ she takes a bold step into electronic pop production. A sumptuous recorded statement, it dances in ecstasy and broods on the tumult of the western world’s decay in equal proportion. At the heart of the album is glowing, confident songwriting, resplendent in hooks and choruses but still touched with an optimism undimmed.
A newfound creative freedom goes hand-in-hand with meticulous studio tooling on Frankie Rose’s fifth album, “Love As Projection”, a lush and exquisitely rendered record that stretches from pounding new wave anthems to slickly produced bursts of elaborate electropop. The album’s ten tracks dip in and out of atmospheres but never stray from Rose’s ethereal sensibilities or her unifying retro-futurist musical vision. The synths ripple, her voice soars, and sometimes, like on “Come Back,” it all comes together at the point of ecstasy.
The Art of Forgetting, the latest album from Nashville singer/songwriter Caitlin Rose is a departure in both theme and production from their previous release. While “Superstar” paid homage to ’80s cinema and a culture obsessed with celebrities, “The Art of Forgetting” finds inspiration through Balkan cries and the natural life cycles of handcrafted instruments. Although Rose has created fictionalized characters before, here they delve deep into their vulnerabilities and pain in The “Art of Forgetting”: a memoir of healing. Caroline Rose’s portrayal of a new beginning during the first three tracks is visceral and guttural. “Tell Me What You Want,” is undoubtedly the best track on the album.
Caroline Rose releases her fantastic new album “The Art of Forgetting” on New West Records. Rose is an artist known for their wit and satirical storytelling, but for the first time, with “The Art of Forgetting”, Roseʼs music teems with raw, intense emotion. With no guard up this time, they present the type of confessional honesty weʼve only previously caught glimpses of in their work. Of course, Roseʼs impish humour does pop up unexpectedly amidst themes of regret and grief, loss and change, shame and the inevitability of pain. Aer a series of heart-breaking events, Rose had no desire to make a statement, let alone make a new album. It was a time of contemplation and transformation. What transpired was what Rose considers a gradual union of reconnection and growth. Prompted by a difficult breakup, Rose began a deep-dive inward, unknowingly digging up long-buried childhood experiences. All the while, Rose was getting voicemails from their grandmother “who was clearly losing her mind.”
These respective moments are pieced throughout the album, offering moments of lightness amidst an otherwise heart-rending story of a person who has forgotten, and is perhaps re-learning, how to love themselves. “It got me thinking about all the different ways memory shows up throughout our lives,” says Rose. “It can feel like a curse or be wielded as a tool.” With this in mind, Rose produced the album using devices and media that embody the characteristics of fading or faulty memories. She gravitated towards instruments that naturally changed or decayed over time: wooden and string instruments, voices, tape, and granular synthesis.
She began recording basic layers in her home studio, and “from there it was about a year of experimenting with those recordings both at home and in a couple other studios––chopping them up into loops and smears, creating modular percussion, and ultimately building any additional parts around them,” says Rose. Layers of vocal arrangements from Balkan-influenced yawps to Gregorian autotune choirs, acoustic instrumentation chopped and mangled like a glitching memory, and dreamlike synths push and pull to create a hugely dynamic soundscape.
The witty and literal lyrics are bolstered by gritty guitar and Rose singing, “I just gotta take a beat / To get some fresh air in my lungs.” It’s fabulously dynamic in texture with different fortes and meticulous phrasing. Rose has reached new heights on this record, executing her ideas flawlessly.
the upcoming album ‘The Art of Forgetting’ out March 24th through NewWestRecords
If you’ve followed Pardoner since their days as film school freshmen making Hüsker Dü-vian hardcore, their ascent to slacker-punk excellence likely snuck up on you. The San Francisco quartet revises their sound subtly, meaning “Peace Loving People”, their fourth record, doesn’t feel like a change-up. But it is—at least if you add up each instance of gnarled heartache (see “Rosemary’s Gone”), each affectionate aspiration (“Doberman”); these outnumber and outshine the cynical critiques and insouciant sneers that, though still present, are no longer the band’s primary M.O. “Peace Loving People” is everything an indie rock record should be; Pardoner can do it all.
released June 23rd, 2023
Max Freeland – Guitar/Vox River Van Den Berghe – Drums Trey Flanigan – Guitar/Vox Colin Burris – Bass Sinclair Riley – Vox on Trax 3,9,10
At just six songs tallying 40 minutes, Mary Lattimore’s “Goodbye, Hotel Arkada” is a cycle of arrangements that are delightful, devastating, lovely and complex all at once. The Los Angeles based harpist has constructed an intimate and angelic masterpiece here, with construction not bereft of field recordings (you can hear household objects hitting a kitchen floor on “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” especially). There’s this strong, rewarding sense of in-the-moment energy and contemplation, that the spaces around Lattimore and her instrument are ephemeral and tangible.
2023 was always going to be a strange year, as further remnants of lives utterly changed by wider circumstances grew distant in the rear-view mirror. While not strictly dealing in post-crisis reflection, harpist Mary Lattimore wrote the songs on “Goodbye, Hotel Arkada” over the course of two transformative years, dealing with the ever-changing nature of existence.
The record features guest accompaniments from folks like Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst and Heron Oblivion drummer Meg Baird, but “Goodbye, Hotel Arkada” is a shining solo affair from Lattimore. Her harp, as deft and devastating as ever, sings brightly in a foreboding, patient, orchestral ecosystem.
On her incredible debut album, Chicago singer and poet Kara Jackson landed in a space somewhere between the pure folk of her idol Joni Mitchell and the gothic songwriting of Nico. Her raw storytelling was countered by a refusal to be pigeonholed, preferring to see her work as a pure cathartic release. Written after the death of her best friend in her teens, in the title track she penned one of the greatest and most poignant songs of loss and grief.
An incredible album of heartbreak and humour, delivered with a searing, pitch perfect intensity. Production and arrangements are superb, lifting each song to true heights of prosody; already timeless classic
“Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?” my debut album is out April 14th. i cannot believe this is real and that i get to share it with you all. ive been thinking about music my whole life, been dreaming of doing it since i could conceptualize what it is on this earth i would do. for so much of my life this is a dream i shared with my best friend Maya who is no longer with us. finishing this album, it feels like crossing a milestone for us both. the title of my album, the question, is driven by grief. why do we show up on this world alongside one another? to love and to mourn? to curse each other out? to die working every day? idk im still figuring it out. im so lucky to have people around me who believe in me and in my work. i have more to share soon
Though En Attendant Ana’s daydream-y drone pop takes clear influence from fellow Parisian forebears like Stereolab, the quintet’s motorik songcraft is distinctly lean and clean, pared down to its essential parts. Tasteful, chiming guitars and stabbing basslines provide a loose framework for vocalist Margaux Bouchaudon to shoulder much of the emotional weight, navigating gloomy jazz progressions like wave pool undulations on standout track “To the Crush.” Camille Fréchou’s brass and woodwind contributions add elegant texture to the mix, weaving in and out of bursts of retrofuturist synthesizer.
Parisian quintet En Attendant Ana have dazzled since day one. From the muted strains of their 2016 EP “Songs From The Cave”, to the assured 2018 TiM debut “Lost & Found”, to the sparkling refrains of “Juillet”; released just before the world collapsed around us, and which stood as the band’s rebirth and purest statement of their music ambitions – until now. “Principia” is the band’s third album and is without a doubt their best yet.
En Attendant Ana is: Margaux Bouchaudon Camille Fréchou Maxence Tomasso Adrien Pollin Vincent Hivert
“It’s unattractive for me to burden you with shame,” sings Alicia Bognanno about halfway through “Lucky For You”, her fourth album as Bully. She shouts the line with the kind of exhaustion and straightforwardness that we come to expect from Bully. With 2020’s “Sugaregg”, Bognanno turned her band into a solo project and pushed onward with a blurry collection of cathartic, tired songs. Three years later, Bognanno picks up where she left off with “Lucky For You”, It’s another strong collection of anthemic post-grunge that doubles as Bully’s poppiest record so far. But this album’s catchiness runs contrary to Bognanno’s strongest suit, which is writing about varying forms of disappointment. Bognanno has always been an expert at pairing her chagrin to fuzzy rock songs, but “Lucky For You” likely has some of her most muscular tunes yet. In the explosive, shouted chorus of “Hard to Love,” the catchy bass lick of “How Will I Know,” and the pummelling drum intro of “Days Move Slow,” Bognanno clearly wants the smouldering, crunching textures of this record to ring out in the listener’s memory.
Between images of black holes, shades of blue, and pledges to “never get fucked up again,” the most memorable thing here is her intensifying honesty and lyrical dexterity. Bognanno’s writing for Bully has always sat atop the balance of visceral and ephemeral.
On “Lucky For You”, that tightrope balance is a beautiful achievement.
Laura Jane Grace has shared a new song from the upcoming album, The track “Cuffing Season,” is the latest single to be lifted from her new album “Hole in My Head” which is expected out February 16th via Polyvinyl. The track follows previously released singles “Dysphoria Hoodie” and “Hole in My Head,” the latter of which came alongside a Gilbert Trejo–directed music video. “Cuffing Season” is a powerful acoustic track built around Grace’s thoughts on resiliency in the face of adversity and heartbreak.
”I think as you get older and go through life’s hurts and heartbreaks, it gets harder and harder to let yourself be open and vulnerable,” Grace said. “But when you do, it can be so worth it even if you just end up hurt and heartbroken again. In the end, I don’t think you regret those kinds of losses. I think you regret not trying.”
The new album “Hole in My Head” will be released February 16th via Polyvinyl.
The Fat Angel Sings 