Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Love Spells Returns with Flirty “Don’t Touch”

Sir Teagan Harris is the Houston-born creative mastermind behind the rising, solo recording project Love Spells. At 18, Harris poured his passion for love into music, manifesting a career out of ambition and drive, while battling homelessness for years. Eventually, he wound up in California, where he lived with a friend he met online, traveling to different music studios everyday to perfect his sound. After six months, he returned to Houston and received a call from Kevin Abstract, who invited him to work on his most recent album, last year’s Bluish.

Working on Kevin Abstract’s Blush connected Harris to his now frequent collaborators Dominic Fike and Deb Never. That life changing experience pushed Harris to return to Los Angeles and work on his highly-anticipated Love Spells debut, LOVE IS THE LAW. Released this past Friday through RCA Records, the rising Houston-based artist’s debut album seems him working with a talented cast of collaborators including Danny Parra, Boy Deco, Brad Hale, Rodaidh McDonald, Alex Craig, and Rick Nowels to create material that recalled his nights at Numbers, a beloved Houston area dance club and safe heaven for alternative communities.

While spending time at Numbers, Harris frequently danced to 70s, 80s and New Wave, and he specifically wanted to inject that particular genre-blurring feeling into his work, seeking out similar spaces in Los Angeles and leaning heavily on those eras in the studio. Movies like Dirty Dancing and Footlose were also sources of inspiration, helping the Houston-based artist and his collaborators craft a “theatrical yet authentic” feeling.

Our lives revolve around love, it governs nearly every aspect of human life,” Harris says of the record. “LOVE IS THE LAW is a grand declaration, it’s in your face and there’s nothing to hide. The album title means exactly what it says – to hold love above everything else. That message is something I’ll declare for the rest of my life.”

LOVE IS THE LAW will include the previously released “Crutch,” “Keep It To Yourself,““Maybe I Still Love You” and the album’s latest single “Don’t Touch.” “Don’t Touch” is sultry and seductive bit of honky tonk-inspired pop built around a strutting and twangy acoustic guitar and shimmering pedeal steel beneath Harris’ aching falsetto. Lyrically nodding at Prince‘s “Raspberry Beret” and The Georgia Satellites‘ “Keep Your Hands To Yourself,” “Don’t Touch” features a narrator, who tells a story of a meet cute with a mysterious stranger, who knows the art of seduction — and gets what she wants.

Directed and choreographed by Shay Latukolan, the accompanying video for “Don’t Touch” is set in a half-filled Texas honky tonk and features dance and movement as a form of seduction between the video’s incredibly attractive central couple.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal-based JOVM Mainstay Naomi Teams Up with SLM on Sultry, Club Banger “Hershey Kiss”

2026 has been a busy year for Montréal-based JOVM mainstay Naomi: She has continued to be wildly prolific while entering a bold new era working with French producer Elior Chaudagne, who produced “Univers.”

Following the success of “Univers,” the French Canadian artist returns with “Hershey Kiss,” which features Anglophone Montréal-based emcee SLM (pronounced “SLIM”). Built around a propulsive, dance-floor filling calypso-styled riddim, “Hershey Kiss” is a sultry, club banger that’s rooted in Naomi and SLM’s swaggering and defiant, girlboss energy.

“Hershey Kiss” can be trace its origins a back a little bit: Elior Chaudagne, had been pitching the Montréal-based artist an energetic beat inspired by bouyon, a Caribbean music genre that’s currently red hot right now. However, Naomi hadn’t feel confident enough to tackle the genre while adding her own touch — until SLM joined her in the studio.

The two Montréal-based artist’s collaboration, much like the song goes back a little bit: Naomi and SLM have long moved around in the same circles. But despite sharing similar sociocultural references and background — Naomi has Haitian and Guyanese roots; SLM is Guyanese. But they hadn’t worked together until “Hershey Kiss.”

Their initial artistic encounter felt natural — to the point of being seemingly symbiotic. Each artist spontaneously wrote their lyrics on the spot in a matter of a few minutes and recorded their part in practically a single take, without retouching or re-dubs. Throughout the song, they play with the conventions of bouyon with references to the ballroom scene — in both sound and energy. And as a result, there’s a raunchy, uninhibited and cheekily ribald energy to the proceedings.

Directed by Wynn Holmes and Naomi Hilaire, the accompanying video was shot at the Funhub Arcade on Cathcart Street in Downtown Montréal. The video drops the viewer into a sweaty and sultry party featuring twenty dancers performing choreography created by Naomi and Raphaël Gagnon. The video captures the raunchy energy of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Elephant Stone Returns with Jangling “I Got A Pill”

Brossard, QC-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rishi Dihr has spent the past two decades blurring the lines between Western pysch pop and Indian classical tradition. What began back in 2006 as a quest for trasncendental sound has evolved into a singlar, self-contained vision. Operating out of his Montréal home studio, Sacred Sounds Dihr has estalbihed himself as studio autuer, producing, engineering and mixing his band Elephant Stone‘s increasingly complex and cineamtic output.

The JOVM mainstays — Dihr (vocals, bass and sitar), along with longtime members Miles Dupire (drums), Robbie MacArthur (guitar) and Jason Kent (keys, guitar) – will be releasing their 10th albun, ASHA on August 28, 2026 through Elephants On Parade. Limited edition signed and hand-numbered vinyl is avaialble for pre-order through Little Cloud Records. Named after the Elphant Stone frontman’s late mother, Asha translates to “hope” in Sanskirt — and is meditation on grief, hope, and the friction between sorrow and the darkness of our time.

While the band’s reputation has long-been built on airtight pop craftsmanship and spiritual exploration, their most recent work psoesses a new, raw intensity forged through Dihr’s lengthy history collaborating with The Black Angels, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Beck and hte psych rock supergroup MIEN.

Elephant Stone remains at the forefront of the modern movement, constantly deconstructing the past to find something visceral, haunting, and undeniably human in the present.

ASHA includes the previously released “Everything Evil,” “Fascists Killed Yer Rock ‘N’ Roll,” and its third and latest single “I’ve Got A Pill.” “I’ve Got A Pill” is a jangling and deceptively upbeat tune that asks the listener to cede control; to take that pill to forget their pain; to take that pill to stop thinking so goddamn much and let someone else do the thinking . . . But just underneath the sweet wooing is something unsettling and menacing.

Elephant Stone frontman Rishi Dihr explains, “It’s about demagogues, the populist playbook. Leaders who feed on people’s fear and offer an easy fix. The pill. Take it and your problems go away. Except it doesn’t work like that. It’s control dressed up as relief.”

Directed by Adam Traynor and featuring handcrafted puppets by Diablo Puppets, the accompanying video manages to embody the song’s false promise of escape, the video follows Futzy, Radis, and Mascot in a surreal world that involves a mind-bending trip into Fraggle Rock-styled world that quickly turns into a paranoid nightmare.
 

“The lyrics to ‘I Got A Pill’ woo and warn all at once,” Adam Traynor explains. “I wanted to put the sweetness of that voice into the mouth of a Tony the Tiger-type mascot with a special breakfast gift for kids that would be sure to kick off a trip into a sugary Wonderland, a cardboard Oz, an awe-inducing game-world of artificial colours, a Dark Crystal quest for power, a Soylent Green feeding frenzy.”
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Josh da Costa Returns with Shimmering “Shireen”

Los Angeles-based artist Josh da Costa was a fixture in the early 2010s Brooklyn scene. Covering music back then, it seemed as though anyone could start a band or a project — and just about everyone did. And they all played at hundreds of now, long-shuttered venues like Cameo Art Gallery, Glasslands, 285 Kent, The Palisades, The Grand Victory, Trash Bar and countless others. da Costa’s first band Regal Degal toured with Real Estate and DIIV and opened for The Pop Group. (Unsurprisingly, I wrote about Regal Degal on this site back in 2013. Yes, this site’s early days y’all.)

When Regal Degal split up, da Costa relocated to Los Angeles. The old Craftsman house he shared with Geneva Jacuzzi, Shags Chamberlain, James Ferraro and Daryl Johns was a paradise for “freaks and friends,” as well as artists and musicians, who constantly wandered in for a jam session or for a hang. At the time, he played drums with Drugdealer and MGMT and he formed CMON, who released an album through Mexican Summer. (I saw CMON open for Jorge Elbrecht back in 2018! So I’m familiar with da Costa and his work.)

The party came to an abrupt end when the Craftsman burned down “in a blaze of glory,” set alight by a serial arsonist and the pandemic forced CMON, much like countless other acts, to cancel a big tour. da Costa’s serious relationship also ended. But for him, it wasn’t all disaster: his friends supported him after the fire, he met someone new and the pandemic meant that he finally had the time to revisit music from his adolescence and “get deep into some of the great I’d had lying around for years but overlooked.”

da Costa’s full-length debut, New Wave Graveyard is slated for a Friday July 24, 2026 release through Stones Throw Records. He imagined the album as a “greatest hits from a parallel universe, classic songs from an alternate reality.” “Instead of trying to hone in on one specific vibe or sound, I went through my own taste and record collection and tried out different approaches — as if I were more than just one artist,” he explains. While drawing from different styles and genres, the album’s material is anchored in how he crystallizes these very different approaches into something singular distinct, crafting a stylish record that defies easy categorization.

If you’ve been lucky to catch da Costa DJ around Los Angeles or have caught his Confusing Mix radio show on NTS, the album’s album overall aesthetic won’t come as a surprise. As a DJ and radio host, he has an uncanny knack for finding curious records from all over the place — music from Brussels-based micro-labels, Flying Nun Records favorites and left field post punk — and blending them in a way that somehow makes perfect sense.

Written over the course of several years, New Wave Graveyard was written during a transition period, a time when da Costa was “getting close to people and getting torn between the types of pleasure and discomfort all of that brings. Breaking people’s hearts, but mostly your own. And remaining excited about not just falling in love, but staying in love.”

Much like countless others, da Costa was drawn to LA’s “movie magic, bizarre music, sleazy sexy glammy druggy outsiders, and this blown-out bad vibe flipside to the California dream” – which interestingly enough, also describers New Wave Graveyard in a nutshell. The titular new wave graveyard is both a literal place (da Costa sometimes drives by his old burned-down house, which is still vacant) and a vibe, an elegy to forgotten fantasies and faded memories.

Nothing lasts forever: Bands start and break up. Friends flame out and lovers leave. Treasured spaces vanish. But the album reportedly bottles the sensation of being there, where the magic and cool shit happened — even if that place is completely imagined. It’s a celebration of strange people met once, but never forgotten, of shows and parties you attended and those you wished you had, of being young and earnest, and a little bit weird.

New Wave Graveyard will include the previously released, shimmering electro pop ballad “96 Year Old Girl” and the album’s last pre-release single, “Shireen.” “Shireen” is a a bit of XTC and Flying Nun Records-like jangle pop, anchored around a shimmering 12 string guitar and da Costa’s unerring knack for crafting a remarkably catchy hook. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Shireen” sounds as though it could have been released in 1983 or so — but with a subtly modern production.

Directed by Ambar Navarro, the accompanying video for “Shireen” features da Costa as a sort of unseen narrator to an 80s teen movie that quickly turns into a campy horror movie featuring a blood-thirsty vampire/werewolf.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: C.O.F.F.I.N. Shares Bruising and Anthemic Ode to Pessimism “Think Bad”

Hilariously named, acclaimed and rising Sydney-baseed metalheads/pub rockers Children of Finland Fighting in Norway (C.O.F.F.I.N.) — Ben Portnoy (lead vocals, drums), Abijah Radio (lead guitar, vocals), Aaron Moss (guitar, vocals) and Steven “Kosty” Kostogiannis (bass, vocals) — through relentlessly curiosity, work ethic and commitment to their craft has risen from a Manly Beaches, Australia upstart outfit to become one of their homeland’s most respected contemporary rock bands.

Since their formation, C.O.F.F.I.N. have shared stages with Amyl and the Sniffers, Viagra Boys and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, helping them develop a reputation as one of Australia’s integral, and must-see live acts. And building upon a growing profile, 2023’s Australia Stops earned an ARIA Award nomination for Best Rock/Heavy Metal Album, along with a National Live Music Award for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Album.

The rising Aussie quartet have spent years refining their craft, and understandably, their work began to focus on important social issues like climate action, indigenous rights, gender politics, and more. The sheer power of their musical response to the social injustices we face today has become a key element that C.O.F.F.I.N. fans across the globe have recognized and love.

The Aussie quartet’s fourth album, the Declan Mehrtens-produced Out in Oslo, which features vocals co-produced by Frenzal Rhomb‘s Jason Whalley is salted for a September 18, 2026 release through p(doom) records. The album reportedly captures the band at their most expansive and refined: While retaining the grit and energy that they’re known for, the album sees the band broadening their sonic palette with a greater sense of dynamics, richer textures and some of their most adventurous songwriting to date. Thematically, the material explores ideas around Australian identity, community, environmentalism, injustice and their homeland’s connection with the rest of the world.

Out in Oslo‘s latest single “Think Bad” is a bruising ripper that channels Highway to Hell-era AC/DC, built around enormous riffs, thunderous drumming, raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy hook and chorus. But the song is underpinned by a hilarious irony — negativity can sometimes be good for you. As the bards and philosophers from the Shaolin remind us, “you gotta protect your neck!’

 “’Think Bad’ describes the use of negativity to fuel forward motion. It’s about using hard thoughts as a compass, reminding yourself that not everything that feels good is good for you, while at the same time, understanding that the combined weight of cynicism and reckless behaviour can make the greatest losses,” C.O.F.F.I.N.’s Ben Portnoy explains.

Directed and edited by the band’s Ben Portnoy, the accompanying video follows the band as they goof around at a local amusement park while dressed as cowboys.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Allegories Returns with Menacing “They’ll Never Suspect Us”

Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — will be releasing their newest album, By accident, On purpose on October 16, 2026.

The album will include the previously released, broodingly atmospheric and introspective “Honestly, that’s enough honesty” and the album’s latest single “They’ll Never Suspect Us.” Continuing with a gorgeous and broodingly atmospheric production, “They’ll Never Suspect Us” is underpinned by a gleeful and downright giddy sense of malice.

Arguably, one of their darker songs lyrically to date, “They’ll Never Suspect Us” reframe the classic murder ballad into something more detached, swaggering and unsettling with a narrator who imagines the act — and then rubs the prospective victim’s face in the fact that no one will care about their demise. It’s a song perfect for those true crime shows many of us love watching, including yours truly.

The accompanying video was shot on VHS tape and includes tape fuzz, wavering and undulating imagery and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: John Glacier Shares a Breezy and Hypnotic Banger

Rising Hackney-born rapper, producer and poet John Glacier released her full-length debut, last year’s critically applauded Like A Ribbon. Like A Ribbon featured a seamless blend of rap, electronic music, post-punk, ambient textures and experimental songwriting, showcasing the rising Hackney-born artist’s uniquely diaristic, stream-of-consciousness approach while quickly establishing her as an artist operating within her own lane.

The success of Glacier’s debut has also helped to catapult her into a new stratosphere within music and elsewhere. Since her debut’s release, she made her debut in British Vogue, appeared on the cover of Hypebeast and starred in Prada‘s Spring/Summer 2026 global campaign alongside Hunter Schafer, Damson Idris, Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult and the cover of HommeGirls. Her reputation as a fashionista has been further cemented with collaborations and appearances with leading houses — including Burberry, Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Lacoste, Gucci, Bogetta Veneta, JW Anderson and Fendi.

Musically, she has collaborated with a growing and eclectic list of artists across different genres, including Blondshell, MJ Cole, Montell Fish and dj gummy bear, Jadasea and Jamie xx.

The rising multidisciplinary talent is building upon a rapidly growing profile with the Take A Daytrip co-produced “Bond Girl,” the first bit of new material since last year’s Like A Ribbon. Bult with a breezy yet propulsive pulse and tweeter and woofer rattling low end paired with dense layers of twinkling and oscillating synth melodies beneath Glacier’s coolly swaggering delivery, “Bond Girl” is a hypnotic, club friendly banger that channels Ibiza with a pop-leaning accessibility. “Bond Girl” to me captures a bold, rising artist, who’s about to put the game in a chokehold — and in her own terms.

Directed by Léa Ceheivi, the accompanying video for “Bond Girl” is fittingly inspired by classic spy thrillers and stars the rising Hackney-born artist as a stylish and enigmatic secret agent, who’s both a heroine and a villain. Effortlessly maneuvering through a world of intrigue and excess, she continually find sways to evade, outsmart and triumph over rivals and others attempting to take what’s hers.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s IFULKI Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Something Greater”

London-based trio IFULKI features musicians shaped by a culture of improvisation, openness and collaboration:

  • Queen Kaltoun, a Moroccan-Italian vocalist, who relocated to London when she was 189 to pursue a career in music

  • Charlie, an English-born bassist and synth player with Irish and Ghanian roots

  • Ayman, a Sudanese drummer and percussionist

Each member of the trio have spent years performing across London’s live music circuit, playing sets at Ronnie Scott’s, Jazz Cafe and Village Underground and a long list of others, while collaboration with a collection of boundary-pushing artists including David Mrakpor, Rebekah Reid, Mei Kirby, Ayo Salawu, Arowah, Tay Grace, and NK-OK.

The London-based trio have quickly established a unique blend of Gnawa inferences, electronic textures and live instrumentation helps to create a sound that’s deeply rooted in ancient traditions while being remarkably modern. Rather than remaining within the boundaries of jazz, the project for the trio became the meeting point of everything the inspired them — the freedom of improvisation, the emotional depth of electronic music, trip-hop and soul, and the philosophy of Queen Kaltoum’s Amazigh heritage.

“Ifulki means ‘beautiful” in the Amazigh language,” Queen Kaltoum explains. “It’s a celebration of the beautiful people and beautiful connections we encounter in this life.” For Queen Kaltoum beauty isn’t something superficial. Beauty exists in kindness, generosity, solidarity and the relationships we build and maintain with each other. Those values, which are deeply embedded within Amazigh culture, quietly shape every aspect of the emerging London-based trio’s creative vision — one, ultimately born, as Queen Kaltoum says, “from a need to bring people together.”

IFULKI’s debut single “Something Greater,” which was released through [PIAS]’s new important SOURCE serves as the trio’s bold introduction to the outsider world. Featuring a broodingly atmospheric production with brassy castanet-driven gnawa percussion, tweeter and woofer rattling tump, twinkling jazz-inspired keys and a gently buzzing bass synths beneath Queen Kaltoum’s bright and effortlessly soulful vocal, “Something Greater” is a lush and cinematic blend of Bristol-era trip hop, jazz and soul that’s simultaneously headphone and club friendly.

The song is about surrendering to the unknown and trusting that thing will ultimately fall into place, and having the faith that whatever the outcome, that’s what is meant to happen. Queen Kaltoum adds, “An unsettling and mysterious atmosphere is present in the music, and thematically matched by the lyrics. This energy never leaves, but combines with tones of positivity and hopefulness brought in by dancey rhythms, with the piano ending the song with a bittersweet melody, contrasting the dark and brooding intensity found in the bass and drums.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: TOMORA Shares Expansive, Live Version of “IN A MINUTE”

TOMORA is a collaborative project featuring:

  • The Chemical Brothers‘ Tom Rowlands: As one-half of The Chemical Brothers, Rowlands has produced and recorded six widely acclaimed UK #1 albums and won six Grammy Awards.

  • Norwegian artist AURORA: AURORA has released four studio albums and has quickly become one of Norway’s most influential and globally recognized contemporary artists. Her single “Runaway” has amassed over one-billion Spotify streams to date.

TOMORA builds upon a creative relationship that can be traced to the recording sessions for The Chemical Brothers’ 2019 album No Geography. AURORA contributed vocals to three tracks, including “Eve of Destruction.” Rowlands then went on to contribute to AURORA’s 2024 effort, What Happened to the Heart?, which landed on the UK Top 10.

Initially, speculation was rife as to who — or what — the then-mysterious TOMORA was or could be, after the name appeared on Coachella’s 2026 Festival lineup post without any additional information last year. Then, last December, the duo released their debut single “Ring The Alarm,” which received praise from Spin, BrooklynVegan, Stereogum and DJ Mag. “Ring The Alarm” also received DJ support from Erol Alkan, ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U and a long list of others.

The duo’s TOMORA debut single was then released on a very limited and collectible white label vinyl, alongside B-side “The Thing,” which showcases a glimpse of the tender and hauntingly beautiful downtempo tracks that appear on the duo’s full-length debut, COME CLOSER.

Released earlier this year through Capitol Records, COME CLOSER was written and produced jointly by Rowlands and AURORA. The 12-song album sees the duo pairing the Norwegian artist’s distinctive vocal with the acclaimed British producer’s unparalleled studio expertise. The album sees the duo creating their own unique space, somewhere they can produce the kind of magic that comes from flicking through a perfect record collection, flowing from wigged-out 1960s psychedelia to the hyper-futurism of sounds imagined for the 2060s. 

The album is less about two separate and distinct artists finding a fertile middle ground and more the sound of two tenacious individuals connecting in the studio and hitting massive creative peaks together. 

“This is our album COME CLOSER, it is everything we dreamt of. We made it without obligation or expectation, just a joy in creation,” the duo says. “It’s the sound where we meet, the landing zone of our musical escape pods. It is a special place to us. We hope you dig it as much as we do.”

The album also includes singles “COME CLOSER” “SOMEWHERE ELSE” and “I DRINK THE LIGHT.” After a successful Spring tour to support their debut effort together, the pair went to Rowland’s Sussex, UK-based Rowlands Audio Research Studio to record a live version of album closing track “IN A MINUTE” that’s inspired by their ever-increasing extended performances of the song as part of the encourage of their first-ever live shows together, including two rapturously received sets at this past year’s Coachella.

Whereas, the album version of “IN A MINUTE” distills the duo’s quickly established euphoric push-pull chemistry into a tight, breakneck structure, the Live in the Studio version of the song, clocks in at 10 minutes gives the duo the ability to stretch out and to roam a bit musically, building from the song’s central refrain into an extended dreamy sequence of densely layered shifts, shifting rhythms beneath otherworldly harmonies, before returning to the song’s hook, giving the song even more of a mind-bending, lysergic quality.

Directed by Adam Smith the gorgeously shot accompanying video for “IN A MINUTE (LIVE FROM THE STUDIO VERSION)” captures the feverish euphoria of a life TOMORA set.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Moon Darling Shares Shimmering and Propulsive “Coyote”

Originally formed in Seattle and currently based in Los Angeles, psych duo Moon Darling — Michal Julian (vocals, guitar) and Eliza Karpel (bass) — evoke the spirit of classic, 1970s psychedelia with a distinctly modern perspective. The duo have established a sound that blends simmering textures, hypnotic melodies with sharp pop craftsmanship in a way that’s been described as “saucy and stylish” and “bewitching,” showcasing a balance of mystique and accessibility.

Recorded in a rented cabin in Widgeon Hill, Centralia, WA and engineer by the band’s Michael Julian, the Los Angeles-based duo’s sophomore album Hearts To Blame features material yet deeply melodic, and sees the band weaving together kaleidoscopic psych pop arrangements and driving disco rhythms with immersive experimentation. Throughout the album’s runtime, the album will reportedly moving between dreamlike, hypnotic groove-driven tracks and cinematic psych pop, showcasing the band’s ability to readily embrace versatility without eschewing cohesion or emotional resonance. Hearts To Blame finds the Los Angeles-based duo expanding beyond traditional and long-held psych rock conventions while remaining undeniably accessible.

Ultimately, the album’s captures a band that’s unafraid to evolve, pairing vintage influences with modern production and an adventurous songwriting. “The title Hearts To Blame really is as literal as it sounds,” the band says. “It’s about making choice and guiding yourself through life by the feeling you have in your heart, whether those are good choices or bad.”

Each of the album’s songs were written in direct response to the emotions and circumstances the band was living through at the time of its creation, making it an album that functions as both a reflection and outlet. Arguably, the album may be the most honest of their growing catalog.

“Coyote,” Hearts To Blame‘s latest single is a hooky mix of metal, disco and New Wave featuring Julian’s metal-styled falsetto floating over a galloping arrangement of punchy disco rhythms with an even punchier bass line, Stevie Nicks “Stand Back”-era synth oscillations and shimmering and squiggling bursts of guitar,Inspired by the boundless sense of adventure that comes from being out on the open road, “Coyote” seemingly channels Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” Iron Maiden, Dio and the like, but if they had a related a disco-metal album.

Filmed and edited by the duo, the accompanying music video features the duo within a feverish, psych pop dreamscape but seen through a running coyote’s mouth. It’s DIY, low-budget, delirious and downright fun.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Marble Returns with Propulsive “Anything”

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on August 21, 2026. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound. 

The album will include the previously released “Jim Carol New Year,” a decidedly upbeat, 1980s New Wave-inspired track and its latest single, “Anything.” Anchored around an angular and propulsive rhythmic pulse and shimmering and squiggling bursts of guitar, “Anything” manages to channel early New Order and Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! and Freedom of Choice-era DEVO but instead of frustrated carnal desires, the song has a decidedly domestic bent. It’s not exactly content, but it has a sense of humor about daily annoyances and irritations of friends and loved ones, the frustrations of constant stimulation and instant gratification when it seems you can’t find either. And at its core, the song points out it’s difficult to connect with people, when most folks are lookin to bail on people for the smallest possible thing.

“‘Anything’ is basically a bedroom pop version of ‘Satisfaction’ but it trades the carnal undertones for more of a domestic pastiche. With lyrics about leaving the bedroom window open, casual druggy friends popping by at all hours and other relationship annoyances, the center of the struggle is less about finding temporary satisfaction but that today’s glut of options and opportunities gives every relationship an expiration date, every encounter an easy off ramp and every minor annoyance a reason to move on,” Black Marble’s Chris Stewart says. “The sentiment is the same from those old days, lack of fulfillment, but it’s due to modern circumstances. It feels like we have every option at our fingertips but we’re somehow losing the ability to connect.”

Directed by Scott Kiernan, the accompanying video was shot at New York’s Various/Artists and captures the song’s themes of overstimulation by featuring a rapid-fire barrage of vibrant images with a meditative and occasionally bemused Stewart flickers throughout the visual noise and chaos.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: TV Priest Shares Broodingly Atmospheric “Love Song (A Good Kind of Weapon)”

TV Priest — currently, Charlie Drinkwater (vocals) and Alex Sporgis (guitar) — will be releasing their third album Cartoons on November 5, 2026 through AMK/Kartel Music Group. With their first two album’s 2021’s Uppers and 2022’s My Other People, the British punk outfit have stood out as a probing, curious group with a talent for wrapping their arms around the existential, and connecting the disconnected.

Cartoons however, emerges from the wreckage of self-reckoning, with the band finding new ways of being — and writing music from a different starting point. The result is an album of material with shades of REM, Radiohead, The National and Foals. The fire and philosophizing of their previously released work is still there, but accompanied by a bigger sprawl of gentler instrumentation, including piano, fiddle, birdsong recordings sampled, then ruptured and pieced back together again to explore “the intersection between digtalism and nature.” As they began to complete rework their sound, everything was on the table.

The band’s Charlie Drinkwater says of the album, “Cartoons is a record about confusion. About the small, daily unspooling of the worlds we thought we knew, and the strange new ones being born in their slipstream. About heroes and villains and the increasingly thin and trembling line between them. About surveillance and sanctuary, and where, exactly, a person is allowed to disappear. About me, and sometimes about you.

“Cartoons began in slowing down. Alex Sprogis and I wrote it over two quiet years, and somewhere in that time we stopped guarding our front door. We let the room get crowded with collaborators, friends, and a wider cast of players. The songs grew louder and stranger and more tender for it. It is the most communal thing we’ve ever made, and the most exposed.

“It is also, somehow, our most direct record and our most expansive. The songs come for you quicker now; the choruses are not embarrassed to mean what they say. But underneath, the ground has shifted. American alt rock leans against electronic production. Alex’s guitars run into programmed drums, organic field recordings, digital data samples, and a low end that takes cues from dance production. And for the first time, I stopped being afraid to sing; to carry a melody out in the open, unguarded, without the old reflex to undercut or hide something. There is hiss and choir, machine and breath.

“If we used to point the lens outward, this time we turned it back on ourselves. Cartoons is more personally political: a record about how I try, and very often fail, to move through late capitalism, work, family, love and the long weather of my own interior. There is anger in it, but also tenderness; and grief that has stopped lying to itself. Not resolution. Just company, out in the noisy world.”

Cartoons will include the previously released “The Mud Never Dries,” and the album’s second and latest single “Love Song (A Good Kind of Weapon).” “Love Song (A Good Kind of Weapon)” is a mediative, slow-burning song that seemingly channels Radiohead and The National with the song built around a gorgeous string arrangement, broodingly atmospheric and swirling electronics, what sounds like twinkling and darting synths beneath Drinkwater’s yearning baritone croon. Arguably one of the most unabashedly and unashamedly candid and vulnerable songs of the band’s catalog, “Love Song” is a both a contented sigh and earnest expression of gratitude, full of the recognition that love is often complicated, frustrating yet always deeply rewarding; that love is what makes us whole and sustains us in the most difficult, brutal times of our lives — and when everything is desperate, shitty and in flames.

“Love motivated us to form the band, yet we’d never written a song exploring romantic love or addressed it as a statement of love to our partners. This was a response to that: a shedding of any artifice and an expression of desire,” Charlie Drinkwater explains. “We wanted to explore how love is both domestic and extraordinary. It’s in the washing up done without asking, or the flowers bought on the way home from work but it’s also in the grand gestures, the late-night conversations, or the personal wonder when you learn something new about someone despite all those years together. And, after all, love is a weapon for righteous change and goodness. It’s a statement of resistance when the current world’s mood music seems to be hatred and violence (or at least we are led to believe).”

The accompanying video is a collection of surreal imagery including Drinkwater walking through a field with a heart-shaped balloon Other times, he’s on a landline phone with a long extension cord baring his soul on the phone, as well as the band’s core duo in a bare studio space.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Share Glitchy and Club Friendly “Level 5”

Wildly prolific Melbourne-based JOVM mainstays King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (harmonica, vocals, keys), Cook Craig (guitar, vocals), Joey Walker (guitar, vocals), Lucas Harwood (bass) and Michael Cavanaugh (drums) — have a long-held reputation for being restlessly creative and never standing still musically, exploring everything from prog-tinged thrash metal, primitive synth-rock, down-home jam rock and on recent releases feel-good symphonic rock.

The Aussie outfit’s remarkable 28th album Alien Metal follows on from 2023’s The Silver Cord — and grew out of last year’s “rave shows,” in which traditional instruments were abandoned, with the band gathering around an expansive modular synthesizer setup they named “Nathan,” each member making their own manipulations to create a mind-altering whole. And what initially began as an experiment soon became an obsession, inspiring what may arguably be one of the band’s most ambitious albums to date. “It completely rewired my brain,” Gizz’s Stu Mackenzie says, having discovered the possibilities of the Eiurorack synthesizer format on the recommendation of bandmate and self-confessed “techno head of the group” Joey Walker. “I was like, ‘I’m going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.”

The album was far from straightforward to make. Over the course of several years, the band scrapped countless recordings and abandoned entire creative directions while searching for the album’s identity. “We’ve never scrapped so much material as we have for this album,” Mackenzie says. “Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again.”

The breakthrough finally arrived during a late night, improvisatory jam session that went over an hour. That spontaneous jam became the foundation for the entire record with every track on Alien Metal evolving from the same source performance. The result is a seamless, constantly shifting journey through techno, hardcore, house and jungle influences, filtered through King Gizzard’s unmistakable psychedelic lens. Pulsing rhythms, distorted textures and unexpected twists collide across material that’s at once futuristic and uniquely their own. “It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful,” says Mackenzie.

“Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places,” adds Joey Walker. “And it feels unique – it feels like us, still.”

Alien Metal‘s first single “Level 5” sees Mackenzie’s heavily vocodered vocals beneath a mind-bending bit of industrial techno featuring glistening and glitchy synth textures paired with skittering, machine gun staccato beats that showcases how hard the band’s material typically goes while arguably being the most club friendly song they’ve released to date.

Directed by Hayden Somerville, the accompanying video places the viewer in a dystopian hellscape in which a collection of scientists perform a weird experiment on a humanoid mutant to hilariously weird effect. Not to spoil things too much, but it involves an autopsy and a connection to a modular synthesizer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Hannah Cole Shares Bruising, “120 Minutes”-era MTV-like “MMA”

Covington, LA-born, Nashville-based artist Hannah Cole can trace the origins of her career to her childhood: She began writing songs and singing at six, despite the fact that there wasn’t much of a music scene in her hometown. After relocating to Nashville in 2019 for school, Cole was exposed to new sounds and possibilities — and given the permission to dream big. Much like Bully and Soccer Mommy, Cole found a way to merge a taste for heavier sounds with a studied sense of songwriting craftsmanship, juxtaposing brushing, distorted guitar with a cool, honey sweetened vocals and a punchy, melodic hooks.

Cole has released two EPs, 2023’s Big Bite and 2024’s Glisten. But her highly-anticipated full-length debut, the 10-song Switchbacks is reportedly a marked step in the Covington-born, Nashville-based artist’s development while showcasing her unique blend of style and technique. Slated for a September 4, 2026 release through Tight Knit, the album was recorded by Cole and her longtime collaborator and partner Joseph Kuhn in their home studio between 2024 and 2025, playing nearly every instrument. Aided by mixer Sonny Diperri, Switchbacks features a much wider and dense sonic palette than Cole’s previous releases with the material’s massive, cathartic splashes of sound specifically constructed with the live show in mind. Sonically, the album can be described as a blend of shoegaze and alternative rock with infectious pop melodies and strains of 90s nostalgia.

Thematically, the album’s material is a commentary on the pursuit of success and how to protect the pure joy and love that lives at our core. “Success is a moment that comes and goes,” Cole concludes, “but I think the joy and experience that comes with making music is something I can take with me forever.”

Switchbacks‘ lead single “MMA” features bruising wall of sound riffs and swirling shoegazer textures and thunderous drumming beneath Cole’s honeyed delivery, punchy melodic hooks and enormous choruses. Channeling Whip-Smart-era Liz Phair, L7‘s “Pretend We”re Dead,” and Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins, the song is a razor sharp take on the gamble of success, exploring the ugly side of the music industry through the image of Las Vegas: while being the so-called fight capital of the world, a rich and glamorous city with a seedy underbelly, surrounded by a void of sand.

After reading Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, which Didion explores the scummy underbelly of 1970s Hollywood, Cole began thinking about Nashville, often referred to “Nashveagas,” ”Reflecting on her experience in the industry, Cole says, “I’ve taught myself how to live outside of reality, how to put on a show.”

Fittingly, the video draws from 120 Minutes-era MTV and features edited footage of skateboarders wiping out hard, rodeos, people getting arrested and dreamily shot closeups of Cole among other imagery, It’s a fever dream that captures the strangeness of contemporary America.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: sundayclub Shares Shimmering and Broodingly Conflicted “Corydon Ave (To Meet You)”

Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life. 

The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut saw its official release today through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin. 

The album includes the previously released “Camera Shy,” “Blue Wave,” and the album’s latest single “Corydon Ave (To Meet You).” “Corydon Ave (To Meet You)” is a shimmering tune that’s simultaneously brooding, tense, full of barely contained longing, and rousingly anthemic while capturing a narrator, who’s conflicted, guilt-ridden and obsessed with someone — and the narrator just can’t quite figure out what to do or if what they want from this person is even possible. You can sense the desire to tell the

“Corydon Ave (To Meet You)” can trace its origins to the neighborhood where the band’s Nikki grew up — Winnipeg’s Corydon, a culturally rich pocket of the city that Courtney came to know through him. Spending time there, she found herself unexpectedly and intensely struck by a new acquaintance, who happened to be from the same neighborhood.

“Along with being struck with the beauty of it, I became impossibly and unexpectedly struck by a new acquaintance who also happened to be from the area,” Courtney explains. “Realizing the intense feelings and infatuation that quickly developed, the song took a deeply personal turn. It became an opportunity to create this world in which the two of us could be together, despite it being so fragile in reality.”

At the time, Courtney was navigating her sexuality, and what followed was complicated, consuming guilt-ridden and heady. The song became a way to hold all of it. “I was starting to explore my sexuality around this time and so there were also a lot of confusing, guilt-ridden feelings that came with it as well,” Courtney adds. “The relationship felt almost hedonistic at times because it felt so forbidden and self-indulgent and yet felt like something I wasn’t supposed to want or enjoy. It was a constant gauging of mine and her physical and emotional boundaries and I found myself wrestling between wanting to preserve and yet cross them at the same time.”

The gorgeously shot visual captures the narrator’s feverish, barely contained desire for her love interest in the subtle and often confusing “did that mean what I desperately hope it means?” moments of our lives, when we love someone and aren’t sure if it’s reciprocated and are afraid to take a bold chance. And if you’re queer or exploring what your sexuality is, that moment can invite a crushing fear — of being outed against your will or worse.