Sweet Pill
SWEET PILL Philadelphia’s Sweet Pill write eruptive emo songs that embrace the edges of pop and hardcore. The kind of band whose members are fully immersed in their local scene—through a handful of notable side projects and the show-promoting Philly staple 4333 Collective—the quintet’s sound takes wide-spectrum influence from its environment. The result is an […]
Mount Eerie
MOUNT EERIE Phil Elverum is an artist and human being from the Pacific Northwest town of Anacortes. His recordings, released variously as The Microphones and Mount Eerie, represent just a portion of his artistic output, which has ranged from running a label and co-organizing festivals to self-publishing books, photography, and painting. But it is for […]
Glitterer
GLITTERER IT’S BEEN SAID BY MORE THAN ONE TERMINALLY DOUR CULTURE CRITIC THAT TO MAKE, OR EVEN CARE ABOUT, ART IN THE WAKE OF MASS ATROCITY IS CALLOUS, BARBARIC EVEN. IF THAT’S TRUE THEN WHAT ARE WE UNFORTUNATE DENIZENS OF 2020 TO MAKE OF GLITTERER’S DECEPTIVELY UPBEAT, SYNTH-INFUSED INTROSPECTIVE ROCK MUSIC, WHICH IS STILL BEING […]
Tomberlin
TOMBERLIN Tomberlin is Sarah Beth Tomberlin, a pastor’s kid born in Florida, raised in rural Illinois. She wrote the majority of her debut, At Weddings (2018), while living at home. For a while after leaving home and church, she lived in Louisville, Kentucky. She worked a day job and kept writing songs. She posted some […]
FACS
FACS Chicago trio FACS have been perfecting their brand of intense, cathartic art rock over the course of four ever-evolving albums. Beginning with 2018’s Negative Houses thru 2021’s landmark Present Tense, the trio digs deep into the gaping maw of a black hole and pulls back whatever debris they can grasp onto. Their newest LP […]
Off With Their Heads
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS For two decades now, Minneapolis born punk visionaries OFF WITH THEIR HEADS have produced unfiltered and uncompromising weirdo riot rock for fans around the world. From their breakout album, From The Bottom, to their critically revered record Home, the band has proven themselves time and time again, and ultimately found their […]
Medium Build
MEDIUM BUILD Nick Carpenter wants honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable. Under the moniker Medium Build, Carpenter finds levity in the rough edges and complications, crafting slice-of-life songs about growing up and messing up. “The worst thing a song can do is not make me feel,” Carpenter says. “I want a song to tell me too […]
Squirrel Flower (solo)
SQUIRREL FLOWER Squirrel Flower’s heart-rending sophomore album Planet (i), following her 2020 debut I Was Born Swimming, is exactly that. A singular planet, a world entirely of artist Ella Williams’ making. The title came first to her as a joke: it’s her made-up name for the new planet people will inevitably settle and destroy after […]
Ber
BER Discovering she was a songwriter came as a revelation for rising artist Ber. Turns out she’s really good at it: Her aching 2021 single “Meant to Be” went viral literally overnight, and she’s only just getting started. More recently, Ber’s song “Superspreader” is steadily accelerating thanks to pointed lyrics rooted in heartbreak and frustration, […]
High Vis
HIGH VIS Though the band were all alumni of some of the UK hardcore scene’s most celebrated groups, High Vis’s 2019 debut, No Sense No Feeling, was a record that opened its viewfinder beyond the parameters of any genre or scene. Sure, the intensity and passion of hardcore were stoking the fires, but in its […]