Category: post punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Since their formation back in 2013, the Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia-based post-punk trio and JOVM mainstays PLOHO — Victor Uzhakov (vocals, guitar), Andrei Smorgonsky (bass) and Igor Starshinov (synths) — have firmly established themselves as being at the forefront of a contemporary, new wave of Russian music. Inspired by Joy Division and late Soviet-era acts like Kino, the Siberian act’s cold and bleak sound evokes both the bitter cold of their homeland and that uncertain and uneasy period of the Soviet Union just before its inevitable collapse. 

The Russian post punk trio have released nine albums, several EPs and more than 10 standalone singles, which the band has supported with tour stops at over 40 European cities. They’ve also made stops across the major international festival circuit with stops at Боль in Russia, Kalabalik in Sweden, and Plartforma in Lithuania. And adding to a growing profile globally, the band’s music has been added to over 16,000 listener-made Spotify playlists, as well as seeing various adds on Apple Music to playlists like Inspired By and New Russian Alternative. 

PLOHO’s 10th album Почва is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through Artoffact Records. Почва will feature the previously released “Я буду жить для тебя,” and “Гештальт,” a brooding bit of post-punk anchored around eerily atmospheric synths, shimmering and reverb-soaked guitar, angular bass lines and industrial clatter serving as an icy bed for Uzakhov’s sonorous and dramatic baritone. While seemingly channeling 4AD Records heyday and Japanese Whispers-era The Cure, the new single continues a run of sociopolitically incisive material that comments on contemporary issues and concerns.


“‘Гештальт (Gestalt)’ is a song about the inevitable consequences of karma and the universe’s reaction to humanity’s actions,” the band explains. “We aimed to convey the simplicity of this phenomenon, illustrating how effortlessly things can disappear if the elements desire it. This is why the video was filmed in an anti-capitalist style, symbolizing the collapse of capitalism, the foundation of modern human society.”

Почва‘s third and latest single “‘ФАРФОРОВЫЕ ПТИЦЫ” is another brooding bit post punk anchored around a relentless motorik groove, a glistening 80s like synth melody, angular bass lines and a shimmering guitar solo. While continuing a run of material that sounds indebted to 4AD Records, The Cure and the like, the new batch of material will remind listeners that the Siberian JOVM mainstays have an unerring knack for pairing catchy hooks with incisive sociopolitical messages.

“This song is dedicated to our hometown. Siberian life, which was very different,” the band explains. “About what I saw from the window of my apartment in Novosibirsk, what surrounded me, what I felt when I lived there. ‘We’re just porcelain birds in nests and concrete slabs.'”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atlanta’s Lesibu Grand Shares Anthemic and Incisive “Anarchy”

In their three year history, Atlanta-based outfit Lesibu Grand (pronounced Le-SEE-Boo) — Tyler-Simone Molton (vocals), John Renaud (bass), Brian Turner (guitar), Lee Wiggins (drums) and Warren Ullom (keys) — have quickly made waves nationally with a lush and intoxicating sound paired with a revolutionary message: They’ve released material that’s been praised by BrooklynVegan, Alternative Press and Under The Radar, and they’ve received airplay from KEXP, WEQX and more. The Atlanta-based outfit has also made the rounds of the national festival circuit with sets at Afropunk Festival, SXSW, Punk Black Fest and Hulaween.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Lesibu Grand’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Triggered is slated for an August 16, 2024 release through Kill Rock Stars. Drawing from modern sounds like celestial pop, punk and surf rock, the album’s material reportedly sees the band weaving together threats of personal introspection and social commentary, delving into the raw emotions and visceral emotions that define the human experience, encapsulating the essence of our tumultuous society, while offering a melodic remedy for the soul.

Triggered‘s lead single “Anarchy” is a hook-driven, post-punk tune featuring angular guitar stabs, a propulsive drum pattern, a chugging motorik-like groove and atmospheric synths serving as a lush bed for Molton’s punchily defiant vocal. While bringing some fondly nostalgic memories of 80s post punk — think Billy Idol and Cyndi Lauper‘s “She Bop” — the song is anchored around some incisive sociopolitical commentary, specifically on workers rights and workers rights rebellions. Simply put, workers of the world, let’s unite and snatch back what the monied class have stolen!

Directed by Nathan DuCongé, the accompanying video is a vibrant mix of animation and live action set in the world of The Jetsons — but in this world, a fed up and overworked Rosie revolts against her cruel and lazy human owner.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Love Letter! Shares Bruising and Satirical “Inferno”

New Jersey-based post punk trio Love Letter! — founding members Bruce Macchione (guitar) and Marc Norton (drums) along with Emily Terzano (vocals, bass) — can trace their origins back to 2021: The band’s founding members Macchione and Norton met through a mutual friend, who worked at a local Dairy Queen. The group played for about a year and were on hiatus when they met Terzano last winter — and as a result of that meeting, the band rebranded itself both through its name and through its sound, moving form a pop/indie rock-leaning sound to a goth-inspired take on post punk.

The New Jersey-based trio’s debut EP, the four-song Mother Superior introduces listeners to their new sound, a sound that features elements of jazz, grunge, goth, shoegaze and metal. Thematically, the EP’s material aims to bring awareness to issues like climate change, LGBQT+ rights, abuse and mental health while encapsulating the feelings of isolation, anger and fear that often come with uncertain and uneasy times.

“Mother Superior is about feeling every emotion that finds its way to the soles of your feet and back up through your spine again,” the band’s Emily Tarzano explains. “It is a work of strength, persistence, and the acceptance of change not just lyrically, but instrumentally as well.”

Mother Superior‘s latest single “Inferno” is a bruising track that sounds like a synthesis of Hole, Veruca Salt and Ganser: angular power chords are fed through copious amount of fuzz and distortion and pared with thunderous drumming and a sing-songy, and ironically detached vocals. At its core, “Inferno” is an incisive bit of satire that pokes fun at celebrities who are too materialistic to even care about climate change — or its impact on themselves and others.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Weep Wave Share a Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

Released earlier this year through Corporat Records, Seattle-based post-punk outfit Weep Wave‘s Dylan Wall-produced sophomore album Speck sees the band — Dylan Fuentes (vocals, guitar), Mike Hubbard (drums, synth) and Mitch Midkiff (bass) — embarking on a kaleidoscopic sonic odyssey through the diverse array of genres they proudly call home. Thematically Fuentes’ lyrics oscillate between two contrasting realms: outward to explore the effects of the perils of capitalism and climate change — and inward, to scrutinize the self, in particular dissecting the ego and self-identity. 

In the lead-up the album’s release, I wrote about two previously released singles:

  • The Low Praise-meets-grunge-like “Rebirth Mantra,” a song built around a pummeling, most pit friendly riff, thunderous drumming and a supple yet propulsive bass line within a classic, alternating loud-quiet-loud song structure. The song captures Fuentes at his most introspective and neurotic, with the song’s narrator expressing his fears of falling into the same unhelpful — and perhaps just destructive — patterns that seemingly always leads to repeated failure and frustration. The song’s narrator envisions a transformed, evolved version of himself, a much more caring, courageous and empathetic self. Of course, are we able and willing to change and evolve? Or are we too stubborn, too blind to do what’s necessary to better ourselves?

  • “Phasing” a decidedly grunge-like ripper built around the sort of feedback fueled, power chord-driven riffs reminiscent of 90s alt rock greats like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, complete with enormous, arena rock-meets-mosh pit-like hooks and choruses. 

  • “Conscious Dust,” a Jack Endino-like grunge take on post-punk that begins with a intricate punk-meets-cheek-in-tongue Motown-like drumbeat and a fuzzy bass line. Fuentes enters the fray with a punchy chant-like delivery before the song explodes into a hypnotic and noisy mosh pit friendly ripper. As a single, “Conscious Dust” sets up the album’s overall aesthetic and thematic concerns as a sort of bold, flag-planting moment for the band and the listener. For me, the song kind of reminds me of Pearl Jam’s “Do The Evolution,” as a sort of tongue-in-cheek takedown of humanity and human consciousness.

In the past few months, the Seattle-based trio have released a single a month off the album, including its seventh and latest single, “Credits to My Life.” The new single may arguably be the most straightforward mosh pit friendly, grunge-inspired track off the album — with the song bringing Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and the like to mind, thanks to big power chords and even bigger, rousingly anthemic hooks paired with thunderous drumming.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bēdu Brāļi Shares Tense Yet Anthemic “Ikdienas Dzīve”

Riga, Latvia-based alt rock outfit Bēdu Brāļi — Oskars Tu (vocals, guitar), Jānis Liepiņš (bass) and Pēteris Ozols (drums) — spent the formative years of among the vibrant mid 00’s hardcore punk and rock scene in their homeland. The scene’s fiercely independent ethos and the use of Latvian language lyrics rubbed off on them; but sonically, they’ve managed to stand apart from their peers.

Their full-length debut 2022’s Duende saw the Riga-based outfit crafting a sound that featured elements of shoegaze, psych rock, post-punk and more. The Latvian trio’s sophomore album Lauskas will be released through I Love You Records.

Deriving its title from the Latvian word for shards, the album reportedly sees the trio further cementing their boundary pushing sound. The album’s first single “Ikdienas-dzive” is anchored around glistening guitars, a chugging motorik-like groove, a woozy, shoegazer textured-like guitar solo paired with Tu’s punchily delivered vocals. While sonically bringing Montréal‘s Atusko Chiba to mind, “Ikdienas-dzive,” captures a nagging sense of vacillating self-doubt, bored and uneasy dread and frustration that should feel familiar to anyone who’s slaved away at a soul-sucking day job.

“The main lyric is that my everyday life – this routine – is turning me evil. It’s me going mad because every day is the same,” Bēdu Brāļi’s Oskars Tu explains. “I can’t forget the previous day and start afresh. I just have this bitterness as work-related stuff lingers. I remember all the bullshit happening a day ago, a week ago, a month ago. I think I’m not alone in that happening.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Nick Rhodes!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes’ 62nd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: THE THE Shares Trippy Visual for Slinky and Brooding “Cognitive Dissident”

Acclaimed British post-punk outfit THE THE was founded by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson back in 1979 and through various iterations and configurations, Johnson and his collaborators have developed a sound and approach that seems to inhabit its own difficult to define genre: music of long shadows, high hopes, channeled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy that meshes elements of pop, rock, blues, folk and soul among others while spanning alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns. 

Over the course of their 45 year history, Johnson and company have released only five full-length albums of original material, 1983’s Soul Mining, 1986’s Infected, 1989’s Mind Bomb, 1993’s Dusk and 2000’s NakedSelf. Having a long-held reputation for being unpredictable, the band has also tackled covers, such as 1995’s Hanky Panky; film soundtracks, including 2009’s Tony, 2010’s Moonbug, 2014’s Hyena and 2019’s Muscle; art installations, a the Radio Cinéola podcast series; 2017’s moving, 84 minute documentary/multimedia project The Inertia Variations and various book publications including 2018’s Matt Johnson biography Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE. 

2017’s The Inertia Variations took inspiration from British poet John Tottenham’s 2005 book of the same name — particularly the idea of “brooding, abstraction and evasion” getting in the way of the creative process. The Inertia Variations eventually resulted in not just the documentary, but also the Radio Cinéola Trilogy triple album box set. 

At the end of The Inertia Variations documentary, Johnson was filmed performing a new song live in his studio, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” an energy to his older brother Andrew Johnson, an artist professionally known as Andy Dog, who died in 2016. “It was not an easy song to write,” he says. “That was the first time I’d sung in many years. I enjoyed it but found it very emotional.”

The experience prompted Johnson to revive THE THE as a live band — and it lead to the sold-out 2018 The Comeback Special world tour. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of the accompanying live film and album until 2021. And of course, the pandemic also delayed the intended start on the writing and recording of first THE THE album in almost 25 years, Ensoulment. Instead, Johnson and company released a series of 7 inch singles that started with 2017’s “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” 2020’s “I WANT 2 B U,” and last year’s “$1 ONE VOTE!”

The 12-song Ensoulment is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Cinéola/earMUSIC. The album reportedly contains echoes of the acclaimed British outfit’s multifaceted and lengthy musical past, however, it’s richly representative of the mercurial band’s here and now. The album continues Johnson’s long-held reputation for being unafraid to tackle the inherent emotional complexity of the human condition — in particular, intimacy in an age of alienation; democracy in a post-truth age; empire and vassalage; the seemingly inexorable rise of AI and more. And yet, the album is rooted in hope. “It’s vital to be hopeful,” Johnson states. “And I hope people get out of the album what we put into it. It was created under very happy circumstances, with a great vibe amongst the band and all the people that worked on it. There was a lot of thought, a lot of work, a lot of love, a lot of laughter!”

The album’s material were further refined in rehearsals, just before a six-day recording sessions at Bath, UK-based Real World Studios, where Johnson was joined by long-standing band members James Ellen (bass), DC Collard (keys), Earl Harvin (drums) and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar). The album also marks the return of co-producer and engineer Warne Livesey, who worked with the band on Infected and Mind Bomb. The album also features contributions from Gillian Glover (backing vocals), Terry Edwards (horns), Sonya Cullingford (fiddle) and Danny Cummings (percussion).

Ensoulment’s first single, the Matt Johnson and Barrie Cadogan co-written “Cognitive Dissident,” is a brooding and slinky number, anchored around a strutting bass line, bursts of squiggling, reverb-soaked guitar, Johnson’s breathy speak-singing delivery, sultry cooing from Gillian Glover, atmospheric electronics, skittering percussion paired with an equally slinky and remarkably catchy hook. Thematically, the song captures the madly topsy-turvy Orwellian nature of modern life with an uncanny and unsettling attention to detail.

The recently released accompanying video for “Cognitive Dissident” was directed by Tim Pope with editing, VFX and projections People Like Us/Vicki Bennett and Peter Knight — all of whom are longtime collaborators with Johnson and THE THE. The video employs a relatively simple yet trippy premise: Johnson having projections of digital and analog noise, the song’s lyrics and some slick editing.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays PLOHO Share Politically Charged “Гештальт (Gestalt)”

Since their formation back in 2013, the Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia-based post-punk trio and JOVM mainstays PLOHO — Victor Uzhakov (vocals, guitar), Andrei Smorgonsky (bass) and Igor Starshinov (synths) — have firmly established themselves as being at the forefront of a contemporary, new wave of Russian music. Inspired by Joy Division and late Soviet-era acts like Kino, the Siberian act’s cold and bleak sound evokes both the bitter cold of their homeland and that uncertain and uneasy period of the Soviet Union just before its inevitable collapse. 

The Russian post punk trio have released nine albums, several EPs and more than 10 standalone singles, which the band has supported with tour stops at over 40 European cities. They’ve also made stops across the major international festival circuit with stops at Боль in Russia, Kalabalik in Sweden, and Plartforma in Lithuania. And adding to a growing profile globally, the band’s music has been added to over 16,000 listener-made Spotify playlists, as well as seeing various adds on Apple Music to playlists like Inspired By and New Russian Alternative.

Ploho’s 10th album Почва is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through Artoffact Records. Почва will feature the previously released “Я буду жить для тебя,” and the album’s latest single “Гештальт.” “Гештальт,” is a brooding bit of post-punk anchored around eerily atmospheric synths, shimmering and reverb-soaked guitar, angular bass lines and industrial clatter serving as an icy bed for Uzakhov’s sonorous and dramatic baritone. While seemingly channeling 4AD Records heyday and Japanese Whispers-era The Cure, the new single continues a run of sociopolitically incisive material that comments on contemporary issues and concerns.

“‘Гештальт (Gestalt)’ is a song about the inevitable consequences of karma and the universe’s reaction to humanity’s actions,” the band explains. “We aimed to convey the simplicity of this phenomenon, illustrating how effortlessly things can disappear if the elements desire it. This is why the video was filmed in an anti-capitalist style, symbolizing the collapse of capitalism, the foundation of modern human society.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Richard Butler!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Psychedelic Furs’ and Love Spit Love’s Richard Butler’s 68th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French Post-Punk Outfit Isolation Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Sanism”

With their Eliott Selwood-produced debut EP Creature Lies, the Rouen/Paris-based indie outfit Isolation — We Hate You Please Die‘s former frontman Raphaël Balzary, Julien, Lounès and Cheap Teen‘s Cyprien — have crafted material that draws from punk, pop, garage rock and post-punk. Thematically, the EP’s material takes a look at society’s perception of mental illness and the loneliness, ostracizing that can often result from suffering from mental illness.

Creature Lies EP‘s latest single “Sanism” is a sleek and brooding synthesis of post-punk, New Wave, goth and shoegaze anchored around angular guitar stabs, swirling synth textures paired with Balzary’s desperate howls. The song captures a narrator desperately trying to keep it together in a mad, mad, mad world — out of fear of reprisal, retribution and recrimination.

The accompanying video features still photos of the band, of someone on a medicine routine while on our stitched together to create a glitchy and unsettling bit of animation.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 67th Birthday, Siouxsie Sioux!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Sixousie Sioux’s 67th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Liz Lamere Says Punchy and Defiant “Vibration”

Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work for the better part of three decades. 

Back in 2022, Lamere finally stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her full-length debut, Keep It Alive. Written and performed entirely by Lamere, Keep It Alive was recorded in the Lower Manhattan apartment she shared with Vega during COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns — and in the same space where the Suicide frontman constructed his light sculptures. Keeping it a family affair, the album was engineered by Vega and Lamere’s son, Dante Vega Lamere. Keep It Alive was co-produced by Lamere and The Vacant Lots‘ Jared Artaud. 

“There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” Liz Lamere says in press notes. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues “ We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.”

The album’s material coursed with the bold and defiant energy that motivated a young Lamere through her early double life as a Wall Street lawyer by day and a downtown New York musician, before she met and fell in love with Vega. Her relationship with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboardist on his solo work including albums like Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dugong Prang, 2007, Station and IT, as well as the posthumously released, lost album Mutator, which led to the Vega Vault, which she curates with Jared Artaud. 

After Vega’s death in July 2016, Lamere found it cathartic to write down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Artaud had started working together on overseeing the mastering of IT and the production and mixing of Mutator. During this very busy period, the pair discussed working together on her own solo material. 

Keep It Alive is a homage to a song on her late husband’s New Raceion that has a deep and significant meaning for her. It was one of the key lines she would chant on stage, becoming a staple of their live performances together. The main theme and vision of the album is preserving your own inner fire. “Alan always encouraged me to make my own music, and I’ve waited until the time was right as I’ve been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision and building his legacy,” Lamere says. 

Lamere’s sophomore effort, One Never Knows is slated for a June 14, 2024 release through In The Red Records. Much like its immediate predecessor, the album’s material is dedicated to her late partner Alan Vega and sees her continuing a minimalist approach to music that would be clearly in line with the aesthetic that she hoped Vega develop and refine since the late 1980s.

The Jared Artaud co-produced One Never Knows sees Lamere teaming up yet again with her and Vega’s son Dante Vega Lamere and was recorded in their Dujang Prang NYC home studio surrounded by Vega’s spectacular light sculptures. The album’s material was mixed and mastered by Ted Young and Josh Bonati.

The album continues a run of material charged with Lamere’s genre-defying and boundless sonic energy and poetically driven lyrics. Each song balanced the defiant lust for life that motivated the New York-based artist’s early double life as a high-end Wall Street lawyer and Downtown New York punk scene drummer,.who then met Vega and performed, wrote and toured internationally with the post-punk legend from 1985 until his death in 2016. Since Vega’s death, Lamere and Artaud have co-produced two Vega posthumously released Vega album from the vast Vega Vault archives, 2021’s Mutator and the soon-to-be released Insurrection, which will also be released through In The Red Records.

Throughout Vega’s life, the Suicide frontman encouraged Lamere to create her own music. After his death, she began writing as a form of catharsis, which became the inspirational bedrock behind her solo work. “At the end of Alan’s life, he was using the expression ‘one never knows’ to underscore that we don’t know how much time we have in this realm or where this journey will lead us,” Lamere says. “It was a phrase that had resonated so much for me. Alan taught me to go bravely into the unknown; to be fully present in the moment and deeply explore what is already here.”

Thematically, the album as Lamere says . . . “touches on universal themes and variations on those ideas that are very personal to me. I hope it will also resonate with listeners. Knowing we never fully know, accepting the certainty of uncertainty and striving to keep learning and growing is incredibly freeing.”

One Never Know‘s first single “Vibration” is anchored around a motorik-like pulse paired with glistening synth arpeggios, remarkably catchy hooks and Lamere’s punchily upbeat and defiant delivery. “Vibration is about personal empowerment,” Lamere explains. “The pulse represents our life force and the power that comes from within. It’s about commanding that force and manifesting what we want to see in the mirror’s reflection. It’s about believing until the impossible becomes the probable.”

Directed by filmmaker and photographer Jasmine Hirst, the accompanying video captures Lamere dancing to the song with movements that are both calm and violent and harsh, calling back to her longtime love of boxing. “The video intentionally captures the expressions of one’s personal movements within the song,” Lamere says. “Movements that are both poetically calm and violently harsh are juxtaposed to transform into various stages of oneself and the subliminal influences that are contained within the song. The video was shot by Jasmine Hirst in one day in New York City.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Copenhagen’s Taxidermy Shares Urgent and Uneasy “Today”

Copenhagen-based experimental noise/post-punk outfit Taxidermy — Osvald Reinhold (vocals, guitar), Toke Brejning Frederiksen (guitar), Joachim Lorch-Schierning (bass) and Johan Knutz Haavik (drums) — have quickly established a sound that draws from math rock, No Wave, post-hardcore and emo among a list of others.

Thematically, the Danish quartet’s work sees them exploring the unease and disquiet of contemporary existence through delving into the cryptic and disorientating, the claustrophobic and the surreal. Crafting material anchored around unpredictable arrangements, raw and visceral textures, broad dynamic range and intense emotional delivery, the members of the Copenhagen-based outfit actively challenges the listener to confront the discomfort of the unknown. 

The Copenhagen-based quartet’s forthcoming EP Coin will feature the previously released “Rot,” a slow-burning bit of noisy post-punk that evokes the narrator’s sanity fraying at its edges with the song being built around an arrangement of intricate layers of dissonant guitars, swirling feedback and a propulsive rhythm section serving as an uneasy and stormy bed for Reinhold’s desperate wailing. Sonically, seeming to channel Disappears/FACS, as well as Radiohead and The Smile, “Rot” not only captures a narrator who’s drowning in their own vacillating and self-flagellating doubt and hatred, but one who does so in a world that’s mad and cruel to him, as he is to himself. 

Coin EP’s second and latest single “Today” features an uneasy and intense slab of post punk-meets noise rock that seemingly pairs angular and fragmented Entertainment-era Gang of Four-like groove with the sort of feedback-driven skronk and squeal reminiscent of Nirvana and Sonic Youth with frenetic and propulsive drumming. Reinhold’s desperately wailing vocal floats uneasy over the hypnotic, machine-like arrangement, seeming to rage against a brutal and unceasingly mad world.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Chapel of Roses Shares Slinky “Cast Out to Sea”

Nashville-based post punk outfit Chapel of Roses — Chris E. Kelley (vocal, guitar), Jim T. Graham (pedal steel), Preach Rutherford (bass), Colin Baker (drums) — can trace their origins back to the mid 1980s.

Their single “Chapel of Roses” received regular airplay on the local college radio station WRVU. And while the band’s members were just in high school, they toured for a bit including opening for Gene Loves Jezebel before breaking up. However, the members of the Nashville-based quartet continued to write and record music in a number of different projects throughout the years.

The band’s Chris Kelley spent the better part of the past two decades living overseas. But right before the pandemic, he returned to Nashville, and the the members of quartet started making music again.

The Nashville-based outfit’s latest single, “Cast Out to Sea” features backing vocals from Brittany Hadley. Anchored around a sinuous and slinky bass line, angular guitar stabs, driving four-on-the-floor and swirling reverb-soaked pedal steel serving as a brooding and sultry bed for Kelley’s yearning delivery and remarkably soulful catchy hooks with backing vocalist Brittany Hadley. And while the band cites Velvet Underground, Big Star, Ride, Joy Division, New Order as influences on their sound, “Cast Out to Sea” seems to channel Primal Scream and Britpop.

The accompanying, slickly edited video features the band performing the song in front of roving spotlight.