Robert Plant has always been diplomatic in his refusal to entertain the idea of a Led Zeppelin reunion, and he remained noticeably silent when this year’s critically acclaimed Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary introduced the band to a new audience.
Nevertheless, Plant has never failed to embrace his old band’s catalogue when playing live, and the official video of his set at the Dutch Pinkpop festival in 2014 bears this out. Uploaded to the festival’s official YouTube channel at the weekend, it features Plant and his band, the Sensational Space Shifters, performing a nine-song set that includes five Led Zeppelin classics.
Plant and his band opens his set with “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” – written by American folk singer Anne Bredon but credited to “Trad arr Page” on Led Zeppelin’s first album – and goes on to play covers of “Black Dog”, “Going To California”, “Ramble On” and “Whole Lotta Love”.
Elsewhere in the set, Plant and the band play Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful”, the Appalachian folk classic “Little Maggie, and two of his own solo songs, “Funny in My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ to Die)” (based on Bukka White’s “Fixin’ To Die Blues“) and Tin Pan Valley.
Fust – the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina release their new album “Big Ugly”, on Dear Life Records, the record label that launched the careers of MJ Lenderman and Florry and that has become a haven for contemporary songwriters.
Recorded over ten days in June of 2024, “Big Ugly” is the explosive sound of Fust uncovering a freedom within their sincere form of loose and fried guitar rock, realizing more than ever before an intimacy within bigness. The members –– Aaron Dowdy, Avery Sullivan, Frank Meadows, John Wallace, Justin Morris, LibbyRodenbough, Oliver Child-Lanning––weave their voices alongside guests like Merce Lemon, Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), and John James Tourville (The Deslondes) to form a music that sounds like a conversation between old friends. And that’s exactly what it is.
Bookended by collapse, “Big Ugly” is all about small town Southern bygones, wrought in close detail by Aaron Dowdy: torn-down towns where heaven seemed in-reach, a beer-fisted past self with nothing else to hold, the cans and cigarettes that lined a shabby old convenience store’s shelves. In answering questions of Southern living, it raises an age-old, universal query: What does it mean to love people and places once they’ve become part of history, one that hasn’t quite passed?
The album’s title derives from a West Virginian area based around a Guyandotte River tributary named for the crooked, “Big Ugly” creek rushing through it. A hastily assembled Internet guide to Appalachian West Virginian communities introduces “Big Ugly” as “one of those place names newspaper columnists grab on a slow day,” but Dowdy saw more than a conspicuous headline in the nickname—the evocative, oddly affectionate word pairing captured the essence of the songs he’d been writing: unfiltered snapshots of hardscrabble Southern living zoomed in on the people and places.
Fleshed out by a full band and esteemed guest players, Dowdy’s final compositions are, indeed, big. They aren’t always pretty, per se (although exquisite fiddle pulls and glossy keys attenuate some of the denser offerings, to an unearthly, beautiful effect), but unabated love seeps from every cranny of even the gnarliest, craggiest constructions, deluging every corner of the heart.
Each song is a microcosm of its own, and the anecdotes within each, are so intensely vivid that it’s challenging to imagine them having solely transpired on paper—you can almost trace the steps of every character, deepening their footprints as you meander the dirt roads winding across 11 chapters.
Florry return looser, more playful, and electrifying than ever with “Sounds Like…“, their new album out now via Dear Life. Recorded in Asheville’s Drop of Sun studios with Colin Miller, the follow-up to 2023’s “The Holey Bible” was preceded by the tracks ‘Pretty Eyes Lorraine’, ‘Hey Baby’, and ‘First it was a movie, then it was a book’. To bring it to life, bandleader Francie Medosch, who cites the Jackass theme song as “a really big influence on the new album,” enlisted collaborators including Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on vocals, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums.
The promise of a Florry show, a now familiar caravan that has been honed over ambitiously trekked zig zags across America and Europe since the release of Dear Life Records debut “The Holey Bible”, is the redemptive promise and prodigal joy of rock and roll guitar music.
Bred in the crackling warmth of the Philadelphia DIY scene, and forged with the alloys of community action, queer liberation and bedroom poetry, bandleader Francie Medosch and her absolute unit of collaborators have put in the work of sharpening their homespun tools to take up the mantle of the great lip-puckering rock and roll tradition pioneered by the likes of The Band and the Rolling Stones, but with proudly displayed Aimee Mann and Yo La Tengo bumper stickers on the rusty frame of the truck. At any second, the wheels could come off but they are steering just fine.
For ‘Sounds Like…’ Florry’s effort as a fully realized band, Medosch and co. decamped to Drop of Sun studios in the nest of the Blue Ridge Mountains to record with Asheville wunderkind Colin Miller, a critical voice behind the records of MJ Lenderman, Wednesday and Merce Lemon and a powerful songwriter in his own right. Three powerhouse days in late 2023 solidified writing work done by the band earlier that summer in the now defunct Haw Creek compound under Miller’s guiding suggestion.
The result is a portrait of a ripping band cresting towards the height of their powers, uniquely equipped to capture a wildly loving, barn-burning camcorder clip of a turbulent trip with your best friends, without dipping into nostalgia bait. Lyrically, Medosch’s utterances are both careful and excessive, the product of sifting through the rubble of classic good-time media, and finding what works for both her and her community to reach the heights of abandon.
“The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album”
The expansive personnel and continent spanning footprint of Florry casts a wide net for this community. Florry the band rolls deep in the heard of North American DIY, featuring Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henriksen on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums. Medosch’s recent move to Burlington Vermont entrenches the Philly born project firmly within the ranks of fellow alt-country upstarts Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman, and gives them a vantage just outside of Pennsylvania at the thresholds of New England and the Midwest. There is a new life breathed into this music that confirms Florry as equally rooted in place work, and at home on the vast roads of America.
For listeners who fell in love with Florry’s infectious charm on sweeping tours with the likes of Kurt Vile, Real Estate, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman and Fust, ‘Sounds Like…’, provides a refreshing memento of the band that surely left them smiling. If the support behind ‘The Holey Bible’ provided validation for the insistent vision of these young artists, ‘Sounds Like’ finds them revelling in and honing their vocabulary. Praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan touched on the potential of their wild idiosyncrasies, and accurately predicted that their next steps would see them continuing to write their own story, like a 10 car pileup that you can’t take your eyes off if you tried.
Florry proves that they can let the car spin just out of control whenever they want, and you are welcome to ride shotgun while Medosch does donuts in the WaWa parking lot. The ceiling, it turns out, is truly the roof.
released May 23rd, 2025
All songs written by Francie Medosch, except “Hey Baby” which was written with help from Eli Sheppard
While Dutch Interior’s two previous albums—2021’s “Kindergarten” and 2023’s “Blinded By Fame” were low-stakes and lo-fi affairs, “Moneyball” is more intentional. On their Fat Possum debut, the band embraces their namesake, reinterpreting past forms in a different light. There’s the Merle Haggard-esque shuffle of “Sweet Time,” (which includes an interpretation of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Jessica”); the ‘70s FM chug of “Sandcastle Molds”; the Harvest Neil Young warmth on “Wood Knot.” This is old-sounding music made by a group that’s done their reading and understands its musical heritage. Sure, “Moneyball” relies on old tricks, but Dutch Interior gives them new life.
The new record from Dutch Interior. Stereogum has called the band’s music “fantastically immersive” and Paste cosigns their “recipe for a rock song that’ll stick with you long after it’s over.” Friends since childhood, the LA-based sixpiece’s new record is an an inventive blend of modern day Americana, shapeshifting indie and ultimately an inspired passion project from six lifelong friends who have made a record that sounds bigger than themselves.
When the group finally turns the amplifiers up for the riff on “Fourth Street,” it’s an earned release. The song is named after their Long Beach neighborhood where they recorded “Kindergarten“. It’s the thesis to “Moneyball’s” endearing humanism: an ode to the friendships that make up the band and hold it all down.
Despite the members’ varying song writing approaches, “Moneyball” never loses the core identity of Dutch Interior. While it helps that the five vocalists all sound relatively similar, the real identity of the band comes from the community of the musicians themselves.
It’s in the way that their personalities balance each other out: country twang alongside eerie folk, electric riff-rock next to delicate acoustic guitar. It’s the sounds of their friendships baked into the songs: natural, comfortable, and communal coexistence.
their new album “Moneyball” out now on Fat Possum Records.
We haven’t gotten a new Deafheaven album since 2021’s “Infinite Granite”, but in February of last year, they posted a teaser video captioned “The next chapter with Roadrunner Records,” marking their signing to the storied rock and metal label. “Lonely People With Power” is Deafheaven’s most confident and direct set of songs yet, combining everything the band does best and more. Bands grow and evolve, and if you’re lucky enough to be doing this for 15 years, you’ll have naturally learned some lessons along the way.
While “Infinite Granite” may not be the consensus pick for Deafheaven’s best album, it might be their most important, since it became a true launch point for the band’s unwillingness to settle. “Lonely People With Power” sees them flexing their muscles in a way they haven’t since their run from Roads to Judah through New Bermuda, and Justin Meldel-Johnsen’s bombastic production brings a newness to an already familiar volume. There are no punches pulled on these songs, no Oasis-like breakdowns or piano-driven interludes. Clarke’s screaming is also very much back and, aside from the scaled-back trio of “Incidentals” interludes—two of which feature Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews and Interpol’s Paul Banks
“Lonely People” is a relentless onslaught of metal. For 15 years, the band has never settled, always pushing the boundaries of what their music is capable of. What started out as a black metal project between George Clarke and Kerry McCoy has matured into something way beyond just a simplistic genre classification. Deafheaven have totally entered into a league of their own, and “Lonely People With Power is their legacy.
“Rat Bastards of Haw Creek” is a film about the rock band Wednesday, but it’s also secretly a preservative study of Haw Creek, the pastoral slice of North Carolina countryside that several members of Wednesday lived and recorded music on before they were evicted this past year. In his mini-doc, Romeo depicts this home through alternating shots of broken-down trucks, abandoned grills, worn-down sheds covered in ivy, and lush fields dotted with low white houses that blend into the landscape. With this footage and the accompanying interviews about living there, Romeo created a poignant portrait of a place that no longer exists.
We may only be halfway through the decade, but it already feels indisputable that alternative country is the sound of 2020’s indie, with the twinkle of pedal steel becoming what feels like a requirement for rock credibility these days. There are lots of intangibles in this Country takeover but one tangible reason for this sound is Colin Miller, who has been at the periphery of this scene working as collaborator, creator, and contributor to some of the most buzzed-about records of the past few years.
Tucked away in the idyllic greenery of Haw Creek, several of the biggest alt-country debuts of the past decade were produced in those low white houses with Miller’s support. Indigo De Souza’s, “I Love My Mom”, Wednesday’s “I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone”, and MJ Lenderman’s self-titled album were all recorded in the walls of Miller’s home. This isn’t including the countless other artists that Miller was producing up until his last day on the property. This also isn’t counting the number of songs simply inspired by living in Haw Creek, depicting the lives of the people who populated this space.
These alt-country stars all ended up here because Miller had inadvertently built a thriving artistic community in East Asheville thanks to Gary King, the beloved owner of the Haw Creek property. King’s low rent, affable personality, and familial-like support for these artists resulted in the creation of entire songs, albums, and discographies. In the words of Miller, “Every part of the music process benefits from livin’ in a place like this.”
Colin Miller makes the kind of music you already know the words to on a first listen. At least that’s how I felt when the weeping guitars went subterranean during “Birdhouse” and I suddenly began singing “If I stay here, I will die in silence here” along with him.
The first time I ever heard Colin Miller’s name was when he was introduced during the live rendition of “You Are Every Girl To Me” on MJ Lenderman’s album “And the Wind (Live and Loose!)“. Toward the end of the Jackass-indebted love song, the group launches into an instrumental jam that allows JakeLenderman to do a roll call of his band, the Wind. Lenderman’s voice kind of lulls as he calls out Miller, looping around the L’s and playfully drawing out the R in his drummer’s last name.
The multi-instrumentalist’s new LP, “Losin’, is yet another example of a Tar Heel entering Drop of Sun Studios and exiting with the best album of their career. “Losin’ is a filled-out upgrade from the Haw Creek material, and Miller has bettered himself in all pertinent areas—singing, writing, playing, “Porchlight,” which swerves and aches from Xandy Chelmis’ pedal steel, is a lost-in-translation, ships-in-the-night tale of heartache.
He might be waiting up for an old flame back home, but someone in Beaumont, Texas is just as sweet on him. MJ Lenderman swaps roles with Miller and steps behind the drum kit, cutting loose on a snare rattling like a box of bang snaps. “Porchlight” is a track with harmonies that could roar in 105.5: The Outlaw’s daily rotation, and “Darlin’, you know you’re still my #1 tube-top angel” may very well go down as the lyric of the year. This is all captured on Colin Miller’s sun-faded sophomore album, “Losin’, both explicitly and implicitly. While some songs call directly to distinct moments, open in their mourning, the whole album is tinged with melancholia as Miller stubbornly pushes through his permanently changed life. The fuzzy melodies and ambient soundscapes of the album, combined with Miller’s unflinching misery, create a lightly haunted feeling that envelops the record, not in a literal ghostly sense, but rather in the way that life is constantly permeated by the presence of others, and once they are gone, the unrelenting memories remain. Through Miller’s signature North Carolina twang, “Losin’ is an album that is dogged in its sadness and stubborn in its acceptance of change.
A track like “Cadillac” sounds effortlessly timeless, arranged with renders of NASCAR crashes, tinted windows, toothy laughs, and routines of “suckin’ down coffee, Pall Malls, and oxygen.” Micro and macro blame encroaches like a summer hot spell, but you can find sketches of King’s beloved image in the foibles, as Miller sings “there goes all my hope for you” and his vocals stack in twos, maybe threes before locking into Lenderman’s guitar leads—lines blackened with the right amount of sludge.
Colin Miller – Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, Vocals, Synths, Aux percussion, Drum machine programming Jake Lenderman – Drums, Lead Guitar Ethan Baechtold – Bass, Keys, Aux percussion Xandy Chelmis – Pedal Steel
On her tenth official full-length record, “New Radiations”, she returns with a raw, intimate, and breath taking collection of eleven otherworldly songs.
The last we heard from Marissa Nadler, she was soaring through “The Path of the Clouds” and its companion EP, “The Wrath of the Clouds“.
From the first note, Nadler’s lush voice and intricate fingerpicking are front and centre. She layers Everly Brothers–style harmonies over dreamlike, lonesome soundscapes—fuzzed‑out distortion, Hammond organ, and ominous synthesizers—that elevate her warm vulnerability with texture and atmosphere. Each track unfolds like a vignette of a life lived, delivering emotional weight that resonates with quiet intensity.
Lyrically, she shape-shifts through time and space—inhabiting characters in an airborne Cessna, a spaceship, a getaway car, and alternate dimensions. Her storytelling is cinematic in scope and deeply personal in impact and the contrast between sweet, catchy melodies and dark, visceral lyrics runs deep. Whether singing from the first-person narrative or channeling these other people, the album taps into the universality of love and loss with gravitas and empathy.
Songs that elevate her warm vulnerability with texture and atmosphere. Each track unfolds like a vignette of a life lived, delivering emotional weight that “hits harder” with the curtain pulled back.
“New Radiations” is the title track off of the soon to be released album, out August 15th on Sacred BonesRecords and Bella Union Records.
The Clean are one of the most important indie bands to ever come out of New Zealand. Their EP ‘Boodle Boodle Boodle’ (1981), recorded on a four-track, had an instant lo-fi appeal and became the Flying Nun label’s first major success. They were shaped by the likes of Syd Barrett, Velvet Underground and The Stooges and have gone on to influence the likes of Pavement and Yo La Tengo. The band were on hiatus for the majority of the 80s, but came back to release three albums in the 90s and two in the 00s. This is their second album and the first time this title has been in print on vinyl since its initial release.
With more budget to record than when they were cutting their teeth in the early 80s, it’s a higher fi record and of their post-reunion releases, this is the closest in feel to their early material. ‘Linger Longer’ is a haunting piano-led cut full of poignance and psychedelic feel. ‘Secret Place’ shines a spotlight on The Clean’s iconic stripped back drum style and ‘Something I Need’ has a Lou Reed and Mick Jagger feel to the vocals as folk-y acoustic instrumentation prevails beautifully underneath. A staggering band.
“Cutthroat” is Shame at their blistering best. An unapologetic new album with Grammy winning producer John Congleton at the helm; it’s souped up and supercharged. It’s exactly where you want shame to be. Still in their twenties, the five childhood friends – Charlie Steen, guitarists Sean Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green, bassist Josh Finerty and drummer Charlie Forbes – have grown Shame exponentially, with ambitious sonic ideas and the technical chops to execute them. Having proved themselves several times over with legendary live shows and three critically-acclaimed albums under their belts, Shame went into “Cutthroat” ready to create a new Ground Zero.
“This is about who we are,” says Steen. “Our live shows aren’t performance art – they’re direct, confrontational and raw. That’s always been the root of us. We live in crazy times. But it’s not about ‘Poor me.’ It’s about ‘Fuck you’.” Crucial to this incendiary new outlook was producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen). From their initial meeting, Congleton’s no-bullshit approach became a guiding force to streamline the band’s ideas.
Stamped throughout with Shame’s trademark sense of humour, the album takes on the big issues of today and gleefully toys with them. Casting a merciless eye on themes of conflict and corruption; hunger and desire; lust, envy and the omnipresent shadow of cowardice. Musically, too, the record plays with visceral new ideas. Making electronic music on tour for fun, Coyle-Smith had previously seen the loops he was crafting as a separate entity to the things he wrote for Shame. Then, he realised, maybe they didn’t have to be. “This time, anything could go if it sounded good and you got it right,” he says. The result is an album that revels in the idiosyncrasies of life, raising an eyebrow and asking the ugly questions that so often get tactfully brushed over. “I’m not here to answer the questions, I’m a 27-year-old idiot…” Steen caveats with a self-effacing chuckle. But the one answer that “Cutthroat” gives with a resounding flourish is that, right now, Shame have never sounded better.
The Fat Angel Sings 