Orchid
ORCHID It’s a little known bit of punk lore that when Bruce Springsteen wrote “everything that dies someday comes back,” he was specifically referring to the reunion of the New England band Orchid. Maybe the Boss was a prophet, maybe I’m lying, or maybe Orchid’s obsessions (black jeans rather than blue, roller rinks, mixtape nostalgia, […]
The Virus & The Pist
One Step Closer
ONE STEP CLOSER One Step Closer signal a sea change with Songs for the Willow. With last year’s This Place You Know, the band had already mastered a unique stripe of mournful melodic hardcore informed by eclectic emo influences. But on Songs for the Willow, they’ve tapped into a dynamic, emotionally powerful, and sonically intricate […]
Slater
SLATER From seductive club bangers to therapeutic, night-time-cruising tunes, Slater has solidified his role as a tastemaker and star of the new wave of alternative pop. Since 2013, Southern California’s rising underground sensation, Slater, has blended the best elements of alternative, pop, and hip hop into a new, unique sound all of his own. Smooth, […]
Cheekface
CHEEKFACE When we last left the arguably interesting adventures of Cheekface, they’d released the minor phenomenon “Emphatically No.” The band’s sophomore album bowed at #1 on Bandcamp’s alternative and vinyl sales charts, became a college radio staple, and propelled the L.A. talk-singing trio into packed houses of Cheek Freaks across the US. So I guess […]
Matt Pryor: Red Letter Days Tour
MATT PRYOR Prolific Lawrence, Kansas-based singer, songwriter, and guitarist Matt Pryor began his music career in 1994 with the ska-punk outfit Secret Decoder Ring, but it would only be a year later that he would form the band that would come to define him, the Get Up Kids. One of the premier second wave emo […]
Haram & Taqbir
HARAM TAQBIR BLANK SPELL ZORN
Home Is Where
HOME IS WHERE Home Is Where make anxiety-riddled but cathartic rock songs about the apocalypse. the whaler—the Palm Coast, Florida quartet’s ambitious and exhilarating sophomore full-length—is a concept record about getting used to things getting worse. Across 10 interconnected but self-contained songs, the album captures the desensitization and disorientation of tragedy becoming mundane. the whaler, […]
Bratty
BRATTY On her new album TR3S, singer/songwriter BRATTY opens up about all that’s weighing on her heart: her anxieties and insecurities and deepest infatuations, the singular pain of feeling too much, the strange disconnect of dealing with seasonal depression in the summertime. In an evolution of the unguarded storytelling that’s made her one of the […]
Militarie Gun
MILITARIE GUN Militarie Gun are a truly uncategorizable band. Led by vocalist Ian Shelton, the band’s debut full-length, Life Under The Gun, is almost impossible to describe without bouncing between contradictions. Is it abnormally aggressive pop music or is it unusually catchy hardcore? Is it deeply intellectual or is it satisfyingly primal? Is it a […]
