The Fat Angel Sings

There’s an EP’s worth of alternate takes of familiar favorites on “Good Old”, the second album-length recording released by Vundabar last year, and if you’re into stripped-down acoustic versions, this collection’s for you. But the majority of the track list is comprised of unreleased cuts that feel too Vundabar-y for nearly any of Vundabar’s records—particularly the fairly dark “Devil for the Fire” released back in April—so if you prefer the band when they’re going absolute loopy carnival mode, this collection’s also for you.

Vundabar is an American indie rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. The band consists of Brandon Hagen (vocals, guitar), Drew McDonald (drums, synthesizer), and Zack Abramo (bass). The band released their first full-length album in 2013 titled “Antics”. In 2015, Vundabar released their second full-length album titled “Gawk”. In 2017, Their third full-length album titled “Smell Smoke” and a later fourth album “Either Light”. In September 2022 they released their sixth full-length album “Good Old,” which consisted of 7 songs recorded in between the release of “Gawk” and “Smell Smoke” and 4 acoustic versions of previously released songs.

I’m not sure it works as a cohesive whole, as it stretches the parameters of their sound to opposite extremes like one of those medieval torture devices, but instead it’s an intriguing look into two alternate dimensions “Devil” could just as easily have existed in. 

Gareth Liddiard (The Drones/ Tropical Fuck Storm), Jim White (Dirty Three/Xylouris White) and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) are Springtime. Their new album, due out later in the year, combines elements of free-jazz, lyricism, improvisation, avant-garde and experimental noise.

Feast or famine, Springtime will continue to sow their garden of auditory delights. Despite the global unrest and strict lockdowns that have come to define the past three years, Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm, The Drones), Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) have continually convened to weave narratives of death, destruction, desire, and devotion. Pulling the threads cast by their eponymous debut, “Night Raver” offers three character studies rife with the trio’s trademark urgency and poetics.

 
While it’s been interesting to watch Tropical Fuck Storm evolve from a more experimental take on Gareth Liddiard’s guitar-centric blues-punk outfit The Drones into something wholly unidentifiable over the course of three albums, it’s arguably been even more interesting to see where his built-up riffing energy is finding its outlets. After releasing a debut album with the jazz-rock trio Springtime last year, Liddiard—alongside pianist Chris Abrahams and drummer Jim White—immediately upped the ante with an EP (three songs, 42 minutes…that still counts as an EP, right?) that shows considerably more focus on what this project may become while, ironically, Liddiard’s political balladry sounded more wandering than ever.

released March 2, 2022

Vancouver band Dumb shows progression here on their third full length “Pray 4 Tomorrow”, but the overall group sound did not drastically change. The band already has produced two solid indie post-punk albums and “Pray 4 Tomorrow” carried everything that was great about their previous efforts forward. Dumb’s frenzied yet focused slacker rock is in full effect with fast-paced songs and plenty of quick rhythm shifts. This band has been among my favourites for the past few years. If you wish Parquet Courts still played music that sounds like what they did on Light Up Gold, you should probably check out Dumb. I am under selling them quite a bit with that statement, as they beat PC at their own game and have a remarkably consistent discography. 

“Pray 4 Tomorrow” has even tighter song structures with laser focus and a maturity in both songwriting and musicianship. There are 18 tracks which gives the band plenty of creative room as you will find several ska Specials like vibes, a couple of folk tunes with vocals from bassist Shelby Vredik, and a series of stylistic rants that sounds like the band has been playing some classic DC hardcore. “Pray 4 Tomorrow” can be both noisy and melodic and both at the same time.

It is an album that is smart and engaging as its content almost mocks the band’s name. Dumb is anything but!

released November 11th, 2022

All songs written and produced by Dumb

The dark and dreamy halftoned realism of Green/Blue comes into near-perfect focus across ‘Paper Thin’. Ever the prolific recording duo, Jim Blaha and Annie Sparrows are back with their third album in as many years, following previous releases on HoZac and Slovenly. Their Minneapolis basement studio has yet again translated to tape what many in the post-punk realm often fail to realize – a certain icy-cool confidence. Chilling vocal harmonies resonate atop melodic guitar leads and a razor-sharp rhythm section as the album stretches to just under twenty-five minutes. Green/Blue evoke a certain somber and honest set of sonics, distilling the now and pondering the future as these ten tracks spin vibrantly at 45 RPM.

Minneapolis’ Green/Blue released two great records this year as “Paper Thin” was fantastically dark and pulsing. “Paper Thin” was the second of those releases, as it followed “Offering”, which was released on HoZac Records in January. You might think with a short release time between the two that “Paper Thin” was a sequel to “Offering”, but it turned out this record is a cooler and even more precise piece of angular lo-fi post punk.

Green/Blue sound so focused on “Paper Thin” that its 25 minutes flies by quickly. Melodic grooving guitars around every corner and a never faulting vocal takes the band to a new level. “Offering” already was a solid record but “Paper Thin” showcases that Green/Blue have an even richer palette of sounds and style that will keep TFN excited for what comes next!

released June 10th, 2022

Songs written and recorded by Jim Blaha.
Played, sung, and produced by Jim Blaha and Annie Sparrows.

Tony Molina loves and appreciates a well-crafted song, and he’s one of the absolute best in the game at writing them. What he doesn’t love so much is being told he’s “maturing” as a musical artist. His last solo album had what could be described as a jangly, ’60s-ish sound, and some listener reactions threw him off a bit. “I kept hearing: ‘Oh, he’s maturing, he’s getting into other shit, writing more mature stuff,’” he says. “I thought, ‘Man, that’s kinda lame, no I’m not…’ Any time somebody expects something of me, I’m usually gonna do the opposite.”

“In the Fade”, Molina’s first under his own name in four years, did provide occasion to look back in time through his lengthy musical history while also blazing a new path forward. In early 2020, embarking on recording a new album, he started taking inventory in a way he hadn’t really done before, delving deep into his personal archives for songs that might fit alongside the new material he’d been writing and demoing.

Veteran Bay Area talent Tony Molina writes some of the best under two-minute song bursts you will hear on the indie scene. His solo work has always been top notch and showcased varied styles of lo-fi, electric rockers and fragile acoustic arrangements. Previously his style stayed in the same lane on his earlier releases but here on “In The Fade”, Molina mixes it up so that the electric meets the acoustic and the rock meets the ballad for a fantastic 19 minutes of music. Everything on “In The Fade” feels in place yet carefree as Molina sounds like an artist enjoying playing the music with his friends. 

“In The Fade” just shows that you can not judge Tony Molina by one track or one album as this record perfectly conjoins all of his talents!.

Released August 12th, 2022

All songs written by Tony Molina except track 14 (Black Sabbath)

Melbourne punk power trio Clamm return with their second album “Care” in August . Clamm explore the confusion of what it is to be a young person trying to live an honourable life in this fucked up world. Their songs are about trying to navigate systems of power and oppression while retaining a healthy sense of self and mental health. Community, creativity, and catharsis are what they hope to achieve through their music.
“Care” is bigger, louder and darker than previous album “Beseech Me” (2020). Clamm dodged lockdowns to record at Rolling Stock and Sound Park Studios with Nao Anzai (NO ZU, Cash Savage, Rolling Blackouts). Nao also plays fearsome synth on the album and has joined the band on-stage at recent shows. Saxophonist Anna Gordon (Mangelwurzel) contributes wild free jazz skronk to a number of tracks.
“Care” is the first Clamm recording to feature the bass and backing vocals of newest member Maisie Everett (also in Belair Lip Bombs), who joined the band shortly after “Beseech Me” was released. Jack and drummer Miles Harding have been best friends since primary school, but with Maisie the Clamm trio finds its ultimate form.

Melbourne punk power trio Clamm returned with a sophomore release in “Care” that was their most fierce and confident effort to date. Their songs rail against systematic power while funneling all that visceral raw emotion into a positive perspective. Basically, Clamm keep their shit together and nail everything to the wall track after track!

What makes “Care” such a step forward for Clamm was the addition of Maisie Everett on bass and backing vocals, producer Nao Anzai joining the band on synth and saxophonist Anna Gordon lending some fantastic and very timely angular post-jazz on several tracks. Clamm not only released one of the better records in 2022 but “Care” is the example of what modern punk sounds like today!

“Care” is released on 19th August 2022

Florist is the self-titled fourth full length record from upstate NY based indie folk band, Florist. “Florist” is the follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed “Emily Alone”, and is the strongest album of the band’s decade-long career; an immersive work that conveys the magic of the earth and of family, and the whole of the band’s heart. For all of June of 2019, amid a hot and rainy summer, Emily Sprague (guitar, synth, vocals), Jonnie Baker (guitar, synth, sampling, bass, saxophone, vocals), Rick Spataro (bass, piano, synth, vocals) and Felix Walworth (percussion, synth, guitar, vocals) convened in a rented house in the Hudson Valley, to live and work together. It was the first time the quartet recorded that way, and for that long.

Emily Sprague didn’t need the other members of the band on Florist’s previous album, but on the self-titled fourth album recorded with the whole band, the band from New York rises to great heights.

“Emily Alone” was three years ago a fine album by the American band Florist, which at that time actually only consisted of singer Emily Sprague. On the self-titled album released this week Florist, which is now a real band again, surpasses itself on all fronts. The almost hour-long album is partly filled with atmospheric instrumental tracks, which beautifully support the folky songs with a leading role for Emily Sprague. The band creates a special atmosphere through the use of samples and looking for experimentation and it is an atmosphere that is somewhat reminiscent of the last album of Big Thief, which has gained a serious competitor with Florist.

“In the past we’d meet up for a couple of days, or one day here and there,” Sprague recalls. “Living together for a month is a really big part of why the arrangements are the way they are, and also why the instrumentals are such a huge part of the record.” The result is 19 tracks that feel like the culmination of a decade-long journey, their fourth full-length album, but the first deserving of a self-titled designation. “We called it “Florist” because this is not just my songs with a backing band,” Sprague explains. “It’s a practice. It’s a collaboration. It’s our one life. These are my best friends and the music is the way that it is because of that.”

released July 29th, 2022

Emily Sprague – songs, vocals, guitars, synthesizers
Jonnie Baker – guitars, synthesizers, sampling, bowed guitars & bass, saxophone, vocals
Rick Spataro – bass, vocals, recording engineer, piano, synthesizers Felix Walworth – percussion, vocals, synthesizers, guitars

Packaging: 2LP “Deep Purple” Vinyl, 

Melbourne’s Pinch Points released an excellent record of post-punk with their 2019 debut “Moving Parts” but their sophomore album, “Process”, takes their style of angular rock to another level. The band shines with their mostly shouted rotating female/male vocals as they deliver their opinion and bring more awarness to issues like Australia’s catastrophic bushfires, gendered violence, mental health struggles, First Nations incarceration and deaths in custody. Heavy stuff of course as Pinch Points deliver each of the 10 tracks here with the same level of passion you can find on classic Bad Religion or Dead Kennedy records. Pinch Points are fired up and “Process” will raise your heartbeat from their admirable directness.

It will make you give a damn and consistently return to its flawless rhythm changes. Pinch Points deserve any time you can give them!. I love the touch points that the song Reasons to be Anxious evokes, Ian Dury’s Reasons to be Cheerful and Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Anxiety. They sound more like the later ,but with some jaded humour of the former. Throw in some Minutemen and you’ve got a genius trifecta.

A peek into the Pinchverse and the making of Pinch Points’ second album “Process”. Contains: writing, recording, shit-talking, more writing, and a trip to play Golden Plains Festival.

As the album title suggests, “Process” is a commentary on structural collapse; the systemic failures and baked-in inequalities that are ravaging ecosystems, the mental health system, the gig economy workforce and all aspects of our lives. The title “Process” also recognises the emotions processed and channelled in the songs, as a collective expression of empathy and shared grief. A true collaboration, finding consensus from the experiences of four individual humans, Pinch Points embody music-making as an act of friendship and community, upholding the band’s shared belief in the music scene as a real-life platform for connection, strength and solidarity.

released March 18th, 2022

Fresh off the release of Friendship’s great new album “Love The Stranger”, comes the announcement of a new album by 2nd Grade, the project led by Friendship member Peter Gill. It’s called “Easy Listening“, it’s due September 30th via Double Double Whammy, and the lead single is “Strung Out On You,” of which Peter says: “If Big Star had broken through commercially with “Radio City” and kept pursuing that accessible strain of power pop, I like to imagine they would’ve eventually written ‘Strung Out On You’ and scored a minor nationwide hit in 1979 or so.”

Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade returned with another fantastic dose of short burst power pop earworms on their third album “Easy Listening”. Musically and lyrically, “Easy Listening” is like a tribute record to some of the best in the genre that should bring to mind Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, Flamin’ Groovies and Guided By Voices. The group has mastered the short under 2-minute song burst and here 2nd Grade pushes some of their own earlier work with a more concise focus and a mix of lo-fi and hi-fi styles that are easy to connect with and make you want to hear them again. 2nd Grade released one of the catchiest power pop records with “Easy Listening” and it is also their best to date. There are only so many albums in 2022 that truly can get stuck in your head – “Easy Listening” is among them!

Catherine Dwyer— guitar, vocals
Peter Gill— vocals
Francis Lyons— drums
Jon Samuels— guitar
David Settle— bass, vocals

“Easy Listening” is available September 30th, 2022 Double Double Whammy Records

The intense pulsating rhythm in Delivery’s opening track, “Picture This,” will give you your first realization that their debut record, “Forever Giving Handshakes”, is one of the tightest sounding post-punk debuts you heard this year. The Melbourne five-piece work as one true musical force through all of the 12 tracks here. “Forever Giving Handshakes” pulls on many classic and modern sounds for its winning formula. At times, you can hear Devo, Television, Pixies and Pylon while other contemporary Australian groups like Amyl And The Sniffers and Pinch Points will also come to mind. From start to finish, Delivery give 100% on each track with impeccable rhythm, timing and guitar crunch. Not to mention having one of the favourite album covers this year!

Collecting songs written over the Melbourne five-piece’s two year lifespan and following on from the band’s bedroom project origins of ‘Yes We Do’ and the expanded one-two punch of ‘Personal Effects/The Topic’, ‘Forever Giving Handshakes’ captures Delivery at full force for the first time, leaning into the fully-realised live sound they’ve been quite actively working on since their first show in March 2021. Here the band collate a 12-track garage-punk opus, their five distinct voices simultaneously pulling songs in different directions while an undeniable chemistry reveals a combined hive mind ascending on a clear group mission… to rock. If you didn’t have the Delivery phenomenon yet, you’re about to.

released November 11, 2022

Delivery are:
Daniel Devlin – drums, backing vocals
James Lynch – vocals, guitar, synth
Lisa Rashleigh – vocals, guitar
Rebecca Allan – vocals, bass
Sam Harding – vocals, guitar, synth