What a day at the races. We got the local ecosystem lined up at the starting line. Species ranging from leg counts and pedal structures in order of their last meal’s size. We got dogs of all sorts. Dogs like street urchins, with bald spots on their elbows. Dogs with broken backs that slink around… Continue reading Viagra Boys – Welfare Jazz
Author: Z Staehling
Black Country, New Road – For the first time
By gum, we’ve got ourselves a scene. Sure, it’s been a scene for a couple years now, but I’m sure there’s a scene in Topeka that’s gone just as long if not longer. This scene’s gotten too big for its britches, and it’s hardly a scene anymore, it’s a country. When it cries for independence,… Continue reading Black Country, New Road – For the first time
Ron Gallo – Peacemeal
Ron Gallo started off dismissing it all (2017’s Heavy Meta), then he began to question it all (2018’s Stardust Birthday Party), now he seems to understand that the more you know the less you understand, and from there it’s about how content you are with such a bombshell. This year’s Peacemeal is Ron Gallo beginning… Continue reading Ron Gallo – Peacemeal
The Muckers – Endeavor
Well, maybe if 2112 were made in 2021… It’d start like this: I’d hate to call it a warm summer day, but at some point you gotta respect the classics, your elders. So it was a warm summer day and the theme park was seeing to it. The park is named after some candy or… Continue reading The Muckers – Endeavor
Prison Pit
Prison Pit: The Complete Collection By Johnny Ryan [Fantagraphics] Welcome to the wasteland, fuck face. It’s a barren scape conveniently filled with grievous characters that pop into foul play. Vignettes of a knee pad crusader tearing ass through the pit and pissing on the remains. The violence is uncanny, like visions of a road raged… Continue reading Prison Pit
Ennio Morricone – Morricone Segreto
Ennio Morricone, the flying spaghetti monster responsible for some of the most memorable soundtracks of all time, is newly survived by a compilation of his truest creative works in Morricone Segreto. Morricone is such a big film scorer and composer that his works break into the mainstream, and someone who simply wears Nikes or drinks Modelo… Continue reading Ennio Morricone – Morricone Segreto
IDLES – Ultra Mono
Joe Talbot has no idea what he’s talking about. Ultra Mono feels like the tantrums of a boy who didn’t get his way, and that’s not punk at all. People who think IDLES are punk also think love wins. Punk is frothing at the edge of rabidity and spitting at the dogs on leashes. IDLES were… Continue reading IDLES – Ultra Mono
Endless Digital Birthdays – Becoming a Body
I think there’s a neighborhood or damp-in-the-night cobble street in the UK that cranks out clay schizophrenic models that mold and shape into Escher appropriations by Dali. The monstrous “it” blobs seething through closed storefronts while Jekyll and Hyde scream for their lives. The subterranean workshop makes these models with Talking Heads records and sheet… Continue reading Endless Digital Birthdays – Becoming a Body
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – K.G.
I know I came here to do something. There must’ve been some good reason for me to draw all over this eggshell page with intricate English mosaic, or else what am I doing? Am I losing my mind? My touch? If I’m not here for any good reason, or any reason at all for that… Continue reading King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – K.G.
Bent Arcana – Bent Arcana
One finds it very hard to not treat the Bent Arcana LP with kid gloves, as most media ear worms aren’t herbivorous. They see the name “John Dwyer” and they give it one blurry thumb up. This is because they just don’t understand it but are afraid to say otherwise. I don’t completely understand the… Continue reading Bent Arcana – Bent Arcana
Osees – Protean Threat
John Dwyer, extraordinaire-extraordinaire, delivers the first real album from the latest psych-O incarnate: Osees (drop the “H” you dust sucker!) What was previously long and lysergic-dipped jazz ooze (2019’s Face Stabber) is now quick pelts of ice-punk burst. As in the proverbial “WE,” we call it: Protean Threat. WE just got word back from the Nationale Garde,… Continue reading Osees – Protean Threat
Los Cogelones – Hijos del Sol
The whites in my eyes reflect on the wet smelling road, glistening asphalt turned to sea floor by a barrage of rain tracks out of the thin ether. It’s getting bad now. Old man told me a storm was coming, I felt it so in a previous pulsing migraine, only I didn’t listen with intents… Continue reading Los Cogelones – Hijos del Sol
Bob Log III – Happy Birthday Baby, Vol. 1
Bob Log III, the sly slide mystery man on the other end of the daredevil phone sex line, has a new album out, and you can be a song on the next one if you play your credit cards right. That’s right! Bob Log III, the one-man blues unit, while stuck between a rock and… Continue reading Bob Log III – Happy Birthday Baby, Vol. 1
The Lemon Twigs – Songs for the General Public
The Lemon Twigs give us their tired, their poor, Their huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of their teeming shore. Let me start off by saying I love The Lemon Twigs, which is why I hold them to a higher standard than most other bands. I saw them play with a five-piece… Continue reading The Lemon Twigs – Songs for the General Public
Lightning Orchestra – Source and Deliver
Gunshot! Gunshot! Nanoo, Nanoo. What it is? Hip and Heavy, the number one contender for Best Boogie 2020: Jump back and dig this scene man. This here’s the skinny, the lowdown. I was beatin’ the drag down Cheshire Bridge, you know, the row with all the honeys on it? WHORES man, Ho Stroll ‘76. Now don’t… Continue reading Lightning Orchestra – Source and Deliver
My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II
Jim James is now Randy Newman. Do with that information what you will. After all, it’s my word that gets printed over yours. I can write bleep blop bloop bleep fuck fuck fuck, it’ll get printed in pretty onyx ink and you can spend the better part of a day wondering what I meant by… Continue reading My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II
Mini Skirt – Casino
I believe punk has found a rightful home in the Land Down Under. It took us long enough. But everything about that floating penal rock calls for punk music. It’s hot, it’s dry (and still savage). The poison still flows beneath the ground there, something I can’t say about many other places. Where punk all began… Continue reading Mini Skirt – Casino
James Swanberg – The One and Only
James Swanberg is your weird uncle. He has been a loyal servant to the DIY Chicago scene for as long as I can remember. While he’s rarely been under the spotlight, James has been consistently intricate to the development of the community, operating from just behind the curtain with his rapid and prolific song-a-day campaign… Continue reading James Swanberg – The One and Only
Twin Peaks – Side A
I could stand still for the rest of my life. Think about how little difference it would make: I’m a speck of spittle, blowing my chunks around like I could ever be more than a fleeting thought (I’m not). I’m an anemone, blowing about a sea of slime and debris (I am). One day the… Continue reading Twin Peaks – Side A
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
If Homer were pushed into a space vacuum by time bandits and landed in the year 2020, Rough and Rowdy Ways would be his favorite album. Because when you’re great, you settle for nothing less than epic. I’m not here to provide historical analysis to Dylan’s venomous prose. If you want a pair of glasses… Continue reading Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Crywank – Fist Me ‘Til Your Hand Comes Out My Mouth
A last hoorah if there ever was one. Crywank are James Clayton and Dan Watson, two anti-folk mad hatters from Manchester. Being self-managed and having virtually no coverage, they’ve made DIY ripples around the world with their sound. They decided sometime last year that they would break up after one last world tour. Said tour… Continue reading Crywank – Fist Me ‘Til Your Hand Comes Out My Mouth
Rookie – Rookie
Good guy rock and rollers Rookie release a long-awaited debut in unsure times, more treaded waters of brackish stature for a group who just jumped the gun. Is this the true death of a salesman? Lawdy I hope not. Rookie was just getting started. The Chicago outfit rides the same tides as greats like Twin… Continue reading Rookie – Rookie
Wasted Shirt – Fungus II
Humor me with a summer day; grassy knolls and bush across untouched land. Rock formations range from the ground up to the bright blue baby sky for a post-impressionist dream. Then, the Earth starts to rumble from nowhere. The ground starts to let go, and poisonous oil shoots out for miles, killing every last bastard… Continue reading Wasted Shirt – Fungus II
Caroline Rose – Superstar
On her fourth album, Superstar, Caroline Rose choreographs a glitzy rise-and-fall scenario for a symbiotic alter ego. The record plays with the idea of it all, stardom and its catches, but it doesn’t get its feelings hurt; it’s got a chip on its shoulder and a tongue in its cheek. For that reason, it’s a… Continue reading Caroline Rose – Superstar
The Chats – High Risk Behaviour
Australia, world superpower in all things garage and punk, gave us The Chats, a mullet sportin’ Foster’s lager PSA, and they gave us High Risk Behaviour, a shotgun slap of punk ooze just in time for the coming jean shorts season. This new wave of Aussie punk has taken the same measures that their British… Continue reading The Chats – High Risk Behaviour
The Strokes – The New Abnormal
The Strokes don’t wanna be your hero. They’re too nice to tell you this, but your poster on the wall doesn’t get them off. Maybe it used to, somewhere towards the beginning. The voice of someone’s generation, be it maybe just a blip in time, The Strokes seized that day nonetheless. They had the Big… Continue reading The Strokes – The New Abnormal
Viagra Boys – Common Sense
Sweden’s Viagra Boys are an undeniably cool outfit that float authentic punk into the downstream. The live shows are sporadic, frantic, sweaty, and quite literally puke-ridden, as frontman Sebastian Murphy tends to get choked up during a song or two. He releases the bile kraken onto the stage then goes back to whatever he was… Continue reading Viagra Boys – Common Sense
ALA.NI – ACCA
ALA.NI brings starlet presence to misconceived miscellanies in her sophomore album ACCA, resulting in aural sensation that keeps you well fed. After proving her worth with the suave, tin-can radio approach on her 2017 debut, You & I, this time around she has an all new spunk that makes ACCA sound totally fresh and even… Continue reading ALA.NI – ACCA