Category: grunge

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Glimmer Shares Hazy, Summery “Someday Sunshine”

Last year, New York-based grungazers and JOVM mainstays Glimmer — Jeff Moore (vocals, guitar), Jaye Moore (drums), Johnny Nicholls (guitar) and Kevin Dobbins (bass) —released their Jeff Berner-produced full-length debut Get Weak. The album included The Colour and The Shape-era Foo Fighters-like “Dissolve” and the  Dinosaur Jr.-like “Been Down.”

The JOVM mainstay act’s latest single “Someday Sunshine” is the first bit of new material since Get Weak, and the single marks an shift in sonic direction for the band, showcasing a more melodic, dream pop-inspired sound while retaining their unerring knack for pairing catchy hooks with rousingly anthemic, power chord-driven choruses. But just underneath the mosh-pit friendly choruses, the song is underpinned by a bittersweet melancholy, seemingly fueled by the fact that summer will pass and leave you longing for those warm carefree days.

The accompanying video for “Someday Sunshine” was filmed by Digital Awareness and edited by JAM features the band performing the song and reddened in layers of psychedelic colored, VHS tape haze and hiss.

Following multiple tours across the US and Europe, the band will play a June 5, 2026 stop at TV Eye. They’ll head down to DC for Telepathic Windows Fest, before going across the pond for a July European Union and UK tour. Check out all tour dates below.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Black Ends Shares Bruising Nirvana-like “All I’m Bone”

Black Ends — currently Nicole Swims (vocals, guitar), Ben Swanson (bass), Karl Fagerström (drums) and Tom Scully (guitar) — is a Seattle-based band, who make music that sounds, well like Seattle: a heady mxi of gnarled and fuzzy guitar chords, gritty and slimy textures, bombastic, ear drum shattering volumes and Swims’ guttural croon paired with Swanson’s propulsive groove. They’ve dubbed the sound gunk pop, an evolution of grunge that’s filtered through a modern lens, and feels perfectly at home in our era of paranoia, unease and overstimulation.

2020’s Jack Endino-produced Stay Evil EP received praise from The Alternative and Post-Trash and more, and airplay from KEXP. Their full-length debut, 2024’s Psychotic Spew landed at #1 on Seattle Times‘ Best Washington Albums 2024 list. And since then, the Seattle-based band have shared bills with Bikini Kill, Otoboke Beaver, Shonen Knife, Skating Polly, Living Colour, English Teacher and Pretty Girls Make Graves.

2026 sees the band returning with a new lineup — Tom Scully (guitar) and Karl Fagerström (drums) — and a new single, “All I’m Bone, ” which marks Scully’s recorded debut with the band. “All I’m Bone” is a bruising Nevermind-meets-In Utereo-inspired ripper, featuring sludgy guitars, a churning groove, thunderous drumming and remarkably catchy, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Swims’ guttural croon. While arguably being one of the more straightforward songs of their growing catalog, the song thematically is rooted in a deeply universal sensation — the creeping unease and dread of your impending mortality and the fear of what, if anything, is beyond the mortal coil.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 61st Birthday, Krist Novoselic!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Krist Novoselic’s 61st birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bummer Camp Shares “120 Minutes” MTV-Like “One Bullet”

Originally formed as a solo loop-based recording project by its founder and frontman, Teenage Halloween‘s Eli Frank, Queens-based grungegaze outfit Bummer Camp evolved into a full fledged band after the project’s earliest releases, 2017’s Winnebago Vacation EP, 2019’s Camp Somewhere, 2023’s Big Deal EP and last year’s full-length debut, Stuck In A Dream.

The band’s sophomore album, Fake My Death is slated for a May 8, 2026 release through Trash Casual. Recorded at a New Jersey-based The Animal, Farm, the album features Brett Bivona (lead guitar) and Jon “Steel Wolf” Markson playing bass, recording, production and mixing. Compared to the previously released home-recorded work, the Fake My Death sessions brought about a much tighter timeline and a more intentional approach, while still leaving room for extra texture and character.

“When I record at home I can take as long as I want goofing around and playing with different instruments,” Bummer Camp’s frontman Eli Frank explains. ““In the studio, time is literally money… a lot of money. So you gotta be focused and use your time wisely. We did end up getting the main bits done early so we could play around with percussion and other random stuff, I think it’s important to leave time for things like that because A) it’s fun and B) it adds character to the album.”

With Fake My Death, the Queens-based grungegaze outfit aims for a much, bigger, more focused album that thematically tackles anxieties that surface and fade, and the push and pull of wanting to disappear and wanting to continue onward. Rather than featuring songwriting at a distance, the album’s material frames those thoughts and feelings plainly and turns them into direct, melodic songs specifically meant to be lived with.

“‘Wanna fake my death cause I can’t stomach anything’ is a line from the song ‘Perfect Storm,'” Eli Frank says, talking about the inspiration behind the album and its title. “The desire to tune everything out to such a point that you just want to actually disappear forever is not going to help anything, especially yourself. You gotta take the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and roll with it. In my opinion, whether you’re being punched or hugged, feeling something is better than not feeling anything at all.”

Fake My Death‘s first single, “One Bullet” is a melodic and hook-driven anthem that channels 120 Minutes-era MTV-era grunge featuring bruising, crunchy power chord-driven riffs while describing acute anxiety, depression and dissociation with an almost lived-in precision.

The single is accompanied by an trippy and mind-bending music video directed by longtime collaborator and multimedia artist Preston Spurlock.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Billy Corgan!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Billy Corgan’s 59th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sun Spots Shares Anthemic “Rocket”

Pacific Northwest-based indie rock outfit Sun Spots features members of essential regional punk and hardcore acts, including Criminal Code, Nudes and Bricklayer. With the release of their debut EP, 2022’s Loosey, Sun Spots quickly established a songwriting process that they’ve jokingly dubbed pop songs for hardcore fans — or hardcore songs for pop fans, depending on your perspective.

The Pacific Northwest-based outfit’s sophomore EP, Dog Is Calling is slated for a Friday release through Seattle-based indie label Den Tapes. Engineered and mixed in Seattle by Cameron Heck and mastered by Greg Obis, the EP features four upbeat and driving songs that sees the band pairing thick, crunchy guitar riffs with buoyant melodies, showcasing their love of the Big Muff pedal and big, catchy hooks.

Dog Is Calling‘s lead single “Rocket” will bring back warm and hazily nostalgic memories of 120 Minutes MTV-era grunge for all of you fellow olds as the song showcases the band’s penchant for pairing big, crunchy riffs with even bigger hooks with saccharine sweet, pop melodies. And of course, this is placed with a classic grunge song structure — alternating quiet verses and loud choruses. Play loud.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Jeff Ament!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament’s 63rd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Kurt Cobain!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 59th anniversary of the birth of Kurt Cobain.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Filth Is Eternal Returns with Grungy “Long Way”

Formed back in 2020, Seattle-based quartet Filth Is Eternal — Lis DiAngelo (vocals), Brian McClelland (guitar), Logan Miller (bass) and Josh Pehrson (drums) — was initially inspired by the raw, impulsive ethos of punk. The Seattle-based quartet quickly developed a reputation for a frenetic live set, which they brought to DIY venues across the country. “Filth has always been about energy at the heart of things since the earliest recordings,” the band’s Lis DiAngelo says. “We wanted to leave our blood and guts out on the floor,” Brian McClelland adds. 

Filth Is Eternal’s third album, Impossible World is slated for a March 17, 2026 release through MNRK Heavy. The highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 sophomore effort Find Out was written against a backdrop of accelerating gentrification, unchecked technology and the slow — but quickening — creep of authoritarianism and fascism. So the album thematically confronts life in our present dystopian hellscape. And yet, rather than surrendering to despair and hopelessness, the band push forward with a defiant clarity, while asking difficult questions about survival, humanity and resistance in a world increasingly shaped without anyone’s consent. 

Despite the album’s overall heavy subject matter, Impossible World has many soaring moments throughout — flashes of light that give fans a sense of possibility midst the brutal toils of contemporary life. The album is a salve in hard times, reminding the listener that art has the radical potential to enliven us, to connect us with others and to keep us holding on, as we wait out and plan through the darkest hours. 

Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band balancing hardcore urgency with a sharpened melodic sensibility. The result is an effort that draws from punk’s immediacy while seeing the band push their sound towards something much more deliberate and expansive. “I think the biggest changes from LP1 to now is that we’ve upped the intention by using more melody, harmony, and singing in general. We’re working with aggression, but moving toward something beautiful and true,” DiAngelo says. 

The album also features collaborations with The Blood Brothers‘ Johnny Whitney, Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman, Gina Gleason and Lauren Lavin, alongside their use of the FILTH EQ+, a pedal they crafted that helped shaped the album’s overall sound. 

.The album will feature “Stay Melted,” which I wrote about last month, and the album’s second and latest single “Long Way.” Featuring d a bruising and driving riff and backing harmonies from Lauren Lavin, “Long Way” sees the band pushing their sound into a grungier, subtly pop leaning direction while still being urgent. The song is also the first track that they recorded with the FILTH EQ+ pedal.

The band’s Lis DiAngelo says of the new single, “We live in a time saturated by consumer culture; we are hyper-focused on acquisition and consumption as means to happiness. ‘Long Way’ is about finding ourselves at the center of that, then finding our way OUT.” 

Directed by Che Hise-Gattone, the accompanying video for “Long Way” employs a mix of public access TV and 120 Minutes-era MTV aesthetics.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chat Pile’s Limited Edition “Masks”/”Sifting” 7-Inch Released on DSPS

Last year, acclaimed Oklahoma City-based noise rock outfit Chat Pile — Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass) and Cap’n Ron (drums) — released the limited 7″ vinyl single “Masks”/”Stifling” through Sub Pop Records.

The limited edition vinyl quickly sold out. So, the legendary Seattle-based label just released the 7″ inch vinyl digitally on all the DSPs. Now, if you’re a physical media collector, don’t you fret. You still have a shot to grab the band’s tour-only version pressed on peach vinyl available at their live shows. They also have a collaborative logo T-shirt, too. Of course, that merch will be available while supplies last.

The A-side “Masks” is a bruising ripper that seemingly channels a synthesis of shoegaze, Bambara and Screaming Life/Fopp-era Soundgarden paired with an unhinged and punchy vocal turn from Raygun Busch. It’s a mosh pit friendly anthem meant to be played at eardrum shatteringly loud levels.

The B-side seems the Oklahoman noise rockers tackling Nirvana‘s, “Shifting” which appears on the legendary grunge trio’s 1989 effort Bleach. The Chat Pile cover manages to be simultaneously a lovingly straightforward take that’s also much more bruising and forceful than the original.

“Sub Pop is thrilled that Chat Pile graced us with these two massive songs, and we couldn’t be happier to add them to the list of greats who have released music for the label,” the label says.
 
“It’s a true dream to put out a single on Sub Pop, and our new song ‘Masks’ hopefully honors the spirit of the mythical, sometimes mystical, city of Seattle,” Chat Pile adds. “Thanks in part to the movie Hype, we have long been obsessed with Seattle, the American underground of the late ‘80s, and Sub Pop and their tools of world domination. Everything we learned about packaging Chat Pile, we learned from Sub Pop co-founders Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt.
 
“We wanted to cover a song from the early Sub Pop era, and something off Bleach seemed the obvious choice. Songs like ‘Paper Cuts,’ ‘Negative Creep,’ and especially ‘Sifting’ are fairly lateral to the type of sounds we make with Chat Pile. (Perhaps next time we’ll take on a TAD song!)
 
“To mark the occasion, we’ve also donated $3,000 to DREAM Action OK, a community-based organization that aims to empower our local immigrant community through advocacy and education to ensure justice for all immigrants. Learn more about DAOK here. 
 
“Thanks to Sub Pop for giving us the opportunity to put this single out – we hope you enjoy it. 
 
“And most importantly, FUCK ICE!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 60th Birthday, Robert DeLeo!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Robert DeLeo’s 60th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, Dave Grohl!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Dave Grohl’s 57th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seattle’s Filth Is Eternal Shares a Bruising Ripper

Formed back in 2020, Seattle-based quartet Filth Is Eternal — Lis DiAngelo (vocals), Brian McClelland (guitar), Logan Miller (bass) and Josh Pehrson (drums) — was initially inspired by the raw, impulsive ethos of punk. The band quickly developed a reputation for a frenetic live set, which they brought to DIY venues across the country. “Filth has always been about energy at the heart of things since the earliest recordings,” the band’s Lis DiAngelo says. “We wanted to leave our blood and guts out on the floor,” Brian McClelland adds. 

Filth Is Eternal’s third album, Impossible World is slated for a March 17, 2026 release through MNRK Heavy. The highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 sophomore effort Find Out was written against a backdrop of accelerating gentrification, unchecked technology and the slow — but quickening — creep of authoritarianism and fascism. So the album thematically confronts life in our present dystopian hellscape. And yet, rather than surrounding to despair and hopelessness, the band push forward with a defiant clarity, while asking difficult questions about survival, humanity and resistance in a world increasingly shaped without anyone’s consent.

Despite the album’s overall heavy subject matter, Impossible World has many soaring moments throughout — flashes of light that give fans a sense of possibility midst the brutal toils of contemporary life. The album is a salve in hard times, reminding the listener that art has the radical potential to enliven us, to connect us with others and to keep us holding on, as we wait out and plan through the darkest hours.

Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band balancing hardcore urgency with a sharpened melodic sensibility. The result is an effort that draws from punk’s immediacy while seeing the band push their sound towards something much more deliberate and expansive. “I think the biggest changes from LP1 to now is that we’ve upped the intention by using more melody, harmony, and singing in general. We’re working with aggression, but moving toward something beautiful and true,” DiAngelo says. 

The album also features collaborations with The Blood Brothers‘ Johnny Whitney, Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman, Gina Gleason and Lauren Lavin, alongside their use of the FILTH EQ+, a pedal they crafted that helped shaped the album’s overall sound.

Impossible World‘s first single, “Stay Melted,” is a bruising ripper that seemingly channels Dirt-era Alice in Chains, Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden and Live Through This-era Hole, anchored by DiAngelo’s most incisive and forceful songwriting of their growing catalog. Thematically, the song exposes and critiques the hypocrisy at the heart of the rise of Christofascism here in the States with a brutally clear-eyed honesty.

“The world can feel like a total trash fire to the point where we become lethargic,” the band says. “Lethargy makes us our own worst enemy; sometimes you have to kill a thing before you lose yourself to it completely.” 

Directed by Sebastian Deramat, the accompanying video for “Stay Melted” fittingly brings back memories of 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 61st Birthday, Eddie Vedder!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder’s 61st birthday.