Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Small Million Shares Slick and Trippy Visual for “Burnout”

Rooted in the collaboration of longtime creative partners Ryan Linder and Malachi Graham, Portland, OR-based indie pop outfit Small Million specializes in pairing deeply affecting sonic production informed by Linder’s background as a filmmaker with smart, lived-in lyrics about intuition and inhibition, losing control and ending up in unexpected places, being willing to fuck up, bodies being joyful, bodies being hurt and more. The end result is work that’s simultaneously intimate yet epic, delicate yet fierce. 

Since 2018’s Young Fools EP, years of experiencing chronic pain have led Small Million’s frontperson Malachi Graham to deep explorations of embodiment that have changed everything from her singing voice to her dance movies to her observations of human frailty. “There’s one side of chronic pain that leads you towards intuition, self-discovery, and listening closely to yourself. But it also means you end up sitting on the side of the room a lot, watching people and paying attention. Also you’re pissed,” Graham explains. 

Linder and Graham have been writing together as a duo but they recently expanded into a quartet, with the addition of Small Skies‘ Ben Tyler (drums) and Lo Pony‘s Kale Chesney (bass, backing vocals. Fittingly, their evolution into a quartet has resulted in the band’s sound and approach expanding to encompass more rock-based instrumentation and energy. 

The Portland-based outfit have been releasing new music throughout the course of the year, including their latest single “Burnout,” which will appear on their forthcoming album Passenger, slated for release through Tender Loving Empire. “Burnout” is a hook-driven bit of pop built around Graham’s ethereal vocal melody, glistening guitar lines, and a driving rhythm section. But underneath the infectiousness of the song is a sort of revenge fantasy about the feminine urge to destroy the male self-serving and flat vision of you, and dance in the rubble and flames. “My mom always told me to beware of being a ‘flattering mirror;’ to watch out for people who adore you because they love how you make them feel about themselves,” Small Million’s Malachi Graham explains.

Created and directed by Emma Josephson, the accompanying video for “Burnout” stars Sammy Rios as a woman struggling to burst out of being reduced to flattened, two-dimensional rendition of a person — while appearing as though she’s losing her own mind.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brighton’s Tigercub Shares “120 Minutes” MTV-like Visual for Arena Rock Anthem “Show Me My Maker”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut Abstract Figures in the Dark, the Brighton-based rock trio Tigercub — Jamie Hall (vocals, guitar), Jamies Allix (drums) and Jimi Wheelwright (bass) — exploded into the scene, with the band quickly earning praise for dynamic songwriting and a bruising sound influenced by a diverse range of influences including Led Zeppelin, Slipknot, Sonic Youth and Frédéric Chopin. 

The Brighton-based trio’s acclaimed sophomore album, As Blue As Indigo saw the band broadening the massive sonic palette that won them attention while incorporating a deeply personal introspection with lyrics that thematically explored anxiety, depression, toxic masculinity, the death of Hall’s grandmother and the suicide of a close friend. As Blue As Indigo turned out to be the British outfit’s breakthrough: The album rose to #11 on the UK Albums Charts while receiving praise from the international media, including Guitar.com and Kerrang!

The trio supported the album with an extensive touring schedule that included a sold-out UK headline tour, dates with longtime friends Royal Blood and a North American run with Clutch and Eyehategod. Last summer saw the band celebrating its signing to Stone Gossard‘s Loosegroove Records with sets at Reading and Leeds — and an opening slot for Pearl Jam during their two-night run at London’s BST Hyde Park. 

The band’s third album, the recently released The Perfume of Decay sees the band confidently embracing all the contradictions, counterpoints and catharsis of modern-day rock. “It’s all about opposites,” Tigercub’s Jamie Hall says. “Sweet-and-salty popcorn tends to taste better than regular popcorn, even though those are two opposing forces. I wanted to nail that concept with our heavy guitars, softer-sung vocals, Can-style grooves, and a bit of shoegaze. Counterpoints can come together and make a powerful connection. I’ve crossed the threshold from my 20s to my 30s, so I’m getting older, but I’m also entering my prime. This record is a reflection of that.”

The album sees Tigercub’s frontman drawing the curtains shut to embrace a moody, nocturnal sound. “The Perfume of Decay is set at night,” says Jamie Hall. “It was written at night, I recorded all the vocals at night, and it is at night when my thoughts race and uneasiness pours through me like running water. Under the glimmer of moonlight, my apprehension ebbs and flows like the tide and it doesn’t stop until the morning. Perfume is a diary of my emotional journey from dusk to dawn, an anxiety-fueled voyage through the storm. Lyrically, at points, it is almost a stream of consciousness. I sat up late and wrote the words down as they flashed before my eyes.

“I use my songwriting as a form of catharsis,” he adds, “a tool to examine my anxiety and insecurity about growing older and how those emotions seem to lead me towards turmoil. I pour those feelings into my lyrics and only then can I move on from them.”

The album’s latest single “Show Me My Maker” is a swaggering, arena rock banger built around enormous, overdrive-fueled, Soundgarden-like power chords, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and a nihilistic refrain. Play it loud, it’s Friday, y’all — and it’s time to headbang. 

“‘Show Me My Maker’ speaks for itself,” Pearl Jam’s and Loosegroove Records head Stone Gossard says. “This song has classic guts. The opening cobra strikes of a guitar riff… it’s seriously in the running for ‘mother of all riffs’ to the nihilistic exultation of the chorus refrain. I love it. Thank you Tigercub.”

Fittingly, for such a 90s grunge-inspired song, the accompanying video for “Show Me My Maker” is shot in what appears to be grainy and processed Super 8 and features the members of the band performing the song in a bare studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: LavBbe Shares A Sultry, Genre-Defying Banger

LavBbe is a rising Romanian-born, British-based artist, who can trace her passion for music and dance to her childhood growing up in a performing household: She received her first bellydancing costume as a special present from her grandmother — and she quickly began to show her talent to everyone around her. Her father was a singer, and she grew up surrounded by an eclectic array of music including rock, jazz and soul — with Amy Winehouse and Sade being major inspirations.

When she turned 16, LavBbe relocated from Romania to Newcastle to continue her studies. Inspired by some of the world’s great dancers and performers, she attended classes in contemporary dance, acting and singing for a year.

Upon graduation, she became a flight attendant at Virgin Atlantic. She wound up taking a break from her dancing routine but when the pandemic broke out back in 2020, she started to create dance videos on TikTok, dancing from morning to evening. In a few months, she quickly amassed over one million followers and became a highly sought-after influencer, with a deep love of Afrobeats. Her dance videos, which reveal effervescent dance moves went viral, and she has now amassed over 4.6 million followers on TikTok, and tens of millions of comments.

After the lockdown, she traveled to New York, Los Angeles and Nigeria for work, but her music career began in earnest a few months ago, when multiple Grammy-nominated, Romanian producer Costi Ionita discovered her on TikTok. “Lavbbe is talented, valuable and multilaterally developed, with a a great voice which impresses me”, Ionita says.

LavBbe’s second and latest single, the Ionita-produced, Ionita, LavBbe and Silviu Dimitriu-co-written “Pumping” seamlessly meshes elements of Afrobeats, reggaeton, Balkan, pop and dance music in slick, club friendly production that serves as the perfect vehicle for the Romanian-British artist’s sultry, self-assured delivery. I’m certain of one thing: this artist is a certified global star, and we’ll be hearing more about her in the future.

Directed by Alex Ceaușu, the accompanying video for “Pumping” follows the Romanian-British artist through a variety of brightly colored backdrops while revealing her playful yet self-assured and undeniable sex appeal.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s DVTR Shares a Breakneck Ripper

Deriving their name as an acronym for the French phrase “D’où vient ton riz?” (Where does your rice come from?), Montréal-based duo DVTR is a new collaborative project featuring two of the city’s most highly acclaimed artists:

  • Laurence G-Do, the frontwoman of Le Couleur, an act that has toured internationally several times, and has opened for Giorgio Moroder, Polo & Pan and others, while amassing over 18 million streams across digital streaming platforms.

  • JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of others.

The duo’s debut single “DVTR” is a breakneck, blistering and incisive ripper built around scorching riffage, a relentless motorik-like groove, a shouted mantra-like chorus, mosh pit friendly hooks paired with G-Do’s feral shouts. The result is a song that kind of sounds like a wild yet seamless synthesis of Wild Planet-era The B-52s and La Femme’s “Foutre le bordel.“

Directed by Jean-Vital Joliat, the wildly kinetic accompanying video features the members of DVTR, acting as a paramilitary force in a pickup truck, driving in a suburban parking lot as they pull off a heist — of a 5LB bag of rice.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed Inuk Artist Elisapie Shares Hauntingly Gorgeous Rendition of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven”

Acclaimed Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor and activist Elisapie was born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, Québec’s northernmost region. In this extremely remote community, accessible only by plane, she was raised by an extended, yet slightly dysfunctional adoptive family. Growing up in Salliut, she lived through the loss of cousins who ended their lives, experienced young love, danced the night away at the village’s community center and witnessed first hand, the effects of colonialism — i.e., poverty, hopelessness, alcoholism, suicide, and more. 

A teenaged Elisapie began performing on stage with her uncles, who were members of Sugluk (also known as Salliut Band), a famous and well-regarded Inuit rock band. She also worked at TNI, the village’s radio station, which broadcast across the region. And while working for the radio station, the teenaged Issac managed to secure an interview with Metallica. 

Much like countless bright and ambitious young people across the world, the Salliut-born artist moved to the big city — in this case, Montréal to study and, ultimately, pursue a career in music. Since then, her work whether within the confines of a band or as as solo artist constantly displays that her unconditional attachment to her native territory, its people, and to her language, Inuktitut is at the core of her work. Spoken for millennia, Inuktitut embodies the harshness of its environment and the wild yet breathtaking beauty of the Inuit territory. Thematically, her work frequently pairs Intuit themes and concerns with modern rock music, mixing tradition with modernity in a deft, seamless fashion. 

She won her first Juno Award as a member of Taima, and since then Issac’s work has received rapturous critical acclaim: 2018’s The Ballad of the Runaway Girl was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and earned her a number of Association du disque, de l’industrie du spectacle Québeécois (ADISQ) Felix Awards and a Juno Award nod. She followed up with a performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal — at the invitation of Grammy Award-winning maestro Yannick Nézet Séguin — at Central Park SummerStage, a NPR Tiny Desk Session and headlining or festival sets both locally and internationally. 

In her native Canada, she is also known as an actor, starring in the TV series Motel Paradis and C.S. Roy’s experimental indie film VFC, which was released earlier this year. She has also graced the cover of a number of magazines including Châtelaine, Elle Québec and a long list of others. And as a devoted activist, she created and produced the first nation-wide broadcast TV show to celebrate National Indigenous People’s Day. 

Slated for a September 15, 2023 release through Bonsound, her fourth solo album Inuktiut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more. Each of the acts and artists covered have warmly given their blessing to receive the acclaimed Canadian artist’s unique treatment. Fittingly, each song is imbued with depth and purpose, as the album’s material is an act of cultural re-appropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these beloved songs by placing them within Inuit traditions. Along with that, all of the album’s songs are linked to a loved one, to her community or is rooted to an intimate story that has shaped Issac as her a person and as an artist, giving the material a deeply personal touch.

Through the album’s 10 songs, the acclaimed Inuk tells her story and offers these songs as a loving gift to her community, making her language and culture resonate well beyond the borders of the Inuit territory. But the album is also a testament to the power and remarkable universality of pop music, a reminder of the universality of human life, and fittingly an ode to the experiences, memories, places and people, who have shaped us.

The album’s first single “Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass),” caught the attention of the legendary Debbie Harry. And if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of months, you might remember that I wrote about “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time),” a gorgeous and fairly faithful Inuktiut adaptation of Cyndi Lauper‘s 1983 Rob Hyman co-written smash hit “Time After Time” that retains the familiar beloved melody of the original paired with a percussive yet atmospheric arrangement and Issac’s gorgeous, achingly tender delivery. 

Much like her previous single, “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” was inspired by a childhood memory of Elisapie’s aunt Alasie and her cousin Susie:
 
“I was able to get through my pre-teen years, thanks to my Aunt Alasie, as my mother had neither the knowledge nor the experience to give me a crash course on puberty, fashion or social relationships,” Isaac recalls. “In addition to entering a new chapter in my life, we were in the midst of the 80’s and modernity was shaking up our traditional methods. My mother’s generation had lived in Igloos, and the cultural changes were too swift. 
 
“Despite her struggles, my aunt ensured I felt accepted and exposed me to new and modern things like TV, clothes, dancing, Kraft Dinner and make-up! 
 
Whenever I went to my aunt’s house, I was in awe of my older girl cousins. They were all so cool and stylish, and they loved pop music and the crazy makeup of the 80s and early 90s.  One of my favorite memories is listening to the radio with them and hearing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ for the first time. It was like a lightning bolt, and I couldn’t separate the song or the artist from my older cousin Susie. For me, the song was all about her search for beauty, connection, love, and rising above pain.”

Inuktiut‘s third and latest single “Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” is a hauntingly gorgeous, dream-like re-imagining of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” that retains the song’s familiar melody but featuring an arrangement of traditional drums and flute and acoustic guitar paired with Issac’s equally gorgeous, yearning delivery, some brooding synths and the incorporation of Inuktiut throat singing.

“Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” finds the acclaimed Canadian artist paying tribute to the Inuit men of Salliut and nodding to the time she interviewed Metallica’s Kirk Hammett in the early 90s:

“When I was 14 years old, I applied for a job at TNI, the first Inuit TV-radio broadcaster, and I was thrilled when I was chosen for the position! Everyone at the station dreamed big, and they put in a request for an interview with Metallica. The band was so loved in Salluit that we had to give it a shot. Metallica accepted only two interviews on their Québec tour, and TNI was chosen. In my boys’ eyes, I was the coolest!
 
As a teenager, I only wanted to hang around the gang of boys in my village. We would all go to my cousin’s house and smoke weed while listening to Metallica. The band’s music allowed us to delve into the darkness of our broken souls and feel good there. Men’s roles in our territory had been challenged by colonization, and it had become confusing what life was supposed to look like for a man. My boys were seeking new roles, and subconsciously, I allowed them to be my bodyguards so they could feel strong. Looking back, I was trying to give them the strength to find their place.
 
“‘Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)’ incorporates throat singing, known as katajjaq in Inuktitut. It felt like katajjaq was so appropriate, says Elisapie. It is Inuit women who throat sing. Inuit women, mothers and grandmothers had to be the nurturing ones during the hard times, as men were struggling emotionally due to colonialism. Through this song, I wanted the feminine strength to balance the men’s challenges.”

Directed by Phillipe Léonard, the accompanying video for “Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” was shot in Nunavik abroad a canoe, using a camera attached to end of a pole, much like a fishing rod. “The footage oscillates between the emerald seabed bursting with light and the deep blue sky, which makes the sensual silhouettes of the tundra mountains stand out,” explains the director.
 
The acclaimed Canadian artist will be playing an extensive series of tour dates to support the forthcoming album. Sadly, the tour doesn’t currently include any Stateside dates as of yet. But if you’re in Québec, you should catch her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Slowdive Shares Breathtakingly Gorgeous “kisses”

Deriving their name from a dream that that their co-founder Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar) had once had, and “Slowdive,” a single written and recorded by co-founder Rachel Goswell’s (vocals, guitars) favorite band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Reading, Berkshire, UK-based shoegazer band Slowdive, which is currently comprised of its co-founders Halstead and Goswell, along with Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar) and Simon Scott (drums) can trace its origins to when its co-founders, childhood friends started the band in 1989.

According to both Halstead and Goswell, their initial demos were highly derivative My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth-based songs that they recorded for fun, until the the addition of Christian Savill, a former member of Eternal joined the band. “We advertised for a female guitars, but only Christian replied. He writes a sweet letter though, he said he’d wear a dress if necessary,” the members of the band recall. Their second official demo as a band was a leap forward for the band — while their previous demo found the band heading towards noisy No Wave and experimentalism, “Avalyn,” was a gentle and steady flow of nearly white noise; in fact, the demo caught the attention of fellow Reading-based act Swervedriver, who helped bring the band on to their label Creation Records. Interestingly, the demo single eventually became the band’s debut single as the band couldn’t recreate the same atmosphere and sound in a professional studio.

Once they signed to Creation Records, the band went through the first of a series of lineup changes as their original drummer Adrian Sell left the band to go back to school. As the members of Slowdive recall, their original drummer didn’t quite fit in — he didn’t share the same aims and tastes of the others, and it made touring uncomfortable. He was first replaced by Neil Carter, who played on the Morningrise EP before being replaced by Simon Scott, a former member of Charlottes, who joined the band and played with them for about four years before leaving to pursue a career in jazz. Ian McCutcheon joined the band before the band’s self-financed 1994 North American tour, a tour they had to pay for themselves, as their American distributor SBK Records had gone out of business.

Throughout their first run together, Slowdive released three full-length albums 1991’s Just for a Day, 1993’s Souvlaki and 1995’s Pygmalion and a number of EPs,  and initially, the band saw quite a bit of commercial and critical success: 1990’s self-titled EP, 1991’s Morningrise EP and Holding Our Breath EP were released to critical praise from the likes of NME, Melody Maker, and others — with Holding Our Breath landing at #52 on the UK Albums Charts, thanks in part to the commercial success of UK Indie Chart topping single “Catch the Breeze.”

Work on Slowdive’s full-length debut began shortly after the band’s primary songwriting Halstead convinced Creation Records label head Alan McGee that the band had enough songs written for an album; however, they didn’t. They had to hurriedly write songs the studio — experimentation with marijuana and sounds occurred during the music, with lyrical inspiration coming from the abstract nature of the music. As Halstead recalls “[We] went into a studio for six weeks and had no songs at the start and the end we had an album.” The result was their full-length debut Just for a Day was released to praise from NME and landed in the Top 10 of the UK Indie Charts; however, the band had the misfortune of releasing their full-length debut when the British music press had started to backlash against shoegaze — with a number of critics panning the album. The backlash got even worse when critics began re-evaluating the genre after the release of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless later that year. Consider the time period:  Massive Attack‘s Blue Lines was released in April; Pearl Jam’s Ten and Metallica‘s Black Album were released that August; Nirvana‘s Nevermind was released that September; Primal Scream‘s Screamadelica, Soundgarden‘s Badmotorfinger and A Tribe Called Quest‘s Low End Theory were released about a week after Nevermind; U2‘s Achtung Baby was released a few weeks after Loveless. While critics can be shortsighted and biased, there was one thing that was obvious — a seismic shift in music was occurring. Let’s not forget to mention Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, Public Enemy‘s Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black, Cypress Hill‘s eponymous debut, De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead were also released that year, as well. Yes, 1991 was an insane year for music — and  for me, many of those albums changed the course of my music listening life. (As for the shortsightedness of music critics, Slowdive has become one of the more influential acts of their day with Souvlaki being considered a classic of the genre — but I’m jumping ahead.)

In early 1992, the band were touring to support Blue Day, a re-release of their early EP material and in a rather busy year, they were also writing songs for their sophomore album. But as the band noted the negative coverage they had received in the press had began to affected their songwriting to the point that they were increasingly self-conscious and worried about how their material would be received. They wrote, recorded and re-recorded 40 songs that Creation Records’ McGee loathed. The band scrapped the album and started over. Interestingly, the band wrote to Brian Eno and requested that he produce their sophomore album; however, Eno told them that while he liked their music, he wanted to collaborate, not produce. Halstead later called the recording sessions “one of the most surreal, stoned experiences of [his] life.” But the end result was two songs which appeared on the album “Sing,” a co-write with Eno and “Here She Comes,” which Eno contributes keys.

Creation Records wanted a much more commercial sounding album. Halstead agreed and at one point, he suddenly left, seeking seclusion a Welsh cottage while the remaining members of the band were left in a recording studio waiting for Halstead to return.When Halstead returned, he had some new music, including “Dagger” and “40 Days.”  Souvlaki, which derives its name from a Jerky Boys skit, was released in 1993 to critical panning. Much to their misfortune, Suede released their self-titled debut, which was a critical and commercial success, and an album generally credited as beginning the Brit pop movement.

With increasing issues between their label and distributor, who had been delaying the release of Souvlaki and an EP, the band went through several more lineup changes as they released Pygmalion. The band was then dropped by the their label, and the band’s founding duo along with Ian McCutcheon formed Mojave 3. “After that (Pygmalion), Slowdive didn’t so much split as take a shift in direction, one that a couple of the other members weren’t comfortable with. It didn’t seem right to carry on with the same name, we needed to get a fresh start and all the pieces fell into place for us to get one,” the band’s Goswell explains in their bio.

Since then Scott went on to form Televise, an act that added electronics to the ambient, shoegazer sound. He  also joined Lowgold in 1999 before releasing solo albums through 12k, Miasmas, Sonic Pieces and Kompakt Records before cowriting and performing with Seattle’s The Sight Below. Savill went on to form Monster Movie, a dream pop act with former Eternal bandmate Sean Hewson that specializes in an early Slowdive-like sound. Along with Mojave 3, Halstead and Goswell have released solo albums with Halstead forming side project Black Hearted Brother in 2012 while Goswell joined supergroup Minor Victories in 2015.

In 2014, the members of Slowdive reunited to play dates across the global festival curious and it included stops at that year’s Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain and Porto, Portugal, Electric Picnic Festival, FYF Fest, Fortress Festival, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Roskilde, Radar Festival and Off Festival, which they promptly followed up with a 20 date North American tour.

The band’s fourth album, 2017’s self-titled album was their first new batch of material in 22 years, and they supported the album with a stop at the dearly departed House of Vans.

The shoegaze pioneers’ fifth album everything is alive is slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Dead Oceans. The highly-anticipated everything is alive is their first album in over six years, and the material reportedly sees the British outfit finding ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound. The songs themselves contain the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings.

The record began with the band’s Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” The band’s collective decision-making ultimately saw them drawing back to their signature reverb-drenched guitar sound — but the synths seeped their way into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material. We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”

The album was recorded over a couple of years, starting in the fall of 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded. Sessions moved to Oxfordshire, and then the Wolds of Lincolnshire and then to Halstead’s Cornish studio. Early last year, the band enlisted Shawn Everett to mix six of the album’s eight tracks.
 
Because of their deep and lengthy history, there’s a palpable familial energy to the band — and fittingly to to the album: The album is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Life’s profound shifts and uneasy crossroads are often reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of their music. And while everything is alive is informed by some of life’s heaviest experiences, the material sees the band poised, wizened and pitching themselves to hope. Sure, there’s sadness, but there’s gratitude and uplift, coming from the acknowledgement that life is complicated yet profoundly beautiful in itself.

Thematically, the album is in many ways an exploration into the shimmering nature of live and the universal touch points within it. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the acclaimed British outfit boldly pushing their sound towards the future with the material touching upon the psychedelic soundscapes they’ve long been known for with 80s electronic elements, and John Cale-inspired journeys.

everything is alive‘s breathtakingly gorgeous first single “kisses” strikes me as a gentle refinement of the classic, enveloping Slowdive sound that I adore: reverb-drenched guitar textures, Goswell and Halstead’s uncannily precise yet yearning harmonies, soaring hooks and choruses and gently driving groove but paired with atmospheric synths. The end result is a song that — for me, at least — evokes a waking dream full of yearning, nostalgia and hope. “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful,” Halstead says.

Directed by Noel Paul, the accompanying video for “kisses” was shot in Naples primarily at night, and is a dreamlike portrait of a Neapolitan teen giving rides to everyone he knows on his motorcycle. Throughout the video, both driver and passenger express longing, loneliness, heartache, ennui, weariness, pride, flashes of jealousy and more with a fearlessly honest vulnerability. “If this video evokes emotion, it’s largely due to our excellent cast. In particular Charlie and Claudia, two courageous and beautiful souls who threw themselves into their roles and set a tone of fearless vulnerability,” Noel Paul says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Friendship Commanders Share “120 Minutes MTV”-like “High Sun”

Today will be a busy day with a lot of running around: First I’ll be heading down to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade. And then eventually, I’ll be at Clem’s for my second-ever DJ set. But there’s still business and the show must go on as best as it could, right?

So let’s get to it.

Nashville-based melodic, heavy duo Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — have released two albums 2016’s Dave, 2018’s  Steve Albini-produced Bill and two EPs 2020’s Hold On To Yourself and last year’s Release The Rest, an exclusive vinyl compilation of singles released since 2020, including “Stonechild”/”Your Reign Is Over,” which continued their ongoing collaboration with the engineering and mixing team of Kurt Ballou and Brad Boatright. 

The Nashville-based duo’s forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS was recorded in Ballou’s Salem, MA-based studio, GodCity.

Last month, I wrote about album single, “Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short.

The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says. 

MASS‘ third and latest single “High Sun” sees the Nashville-based duo adopting a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey sound. While being a bit of a departure from the doomy heaviness they’re best known for, “High Sun” continues a run of a material rooted in lived-in experience with the new single further establishing the album’s overall concept: leaving a place you no longer feel welcome.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JJUUJJJUU Shares Trippy and Mind-Bending “No Way In”

Phil Pirrone is a Los Angeles-based musician and co-founder of Desert Daze. After spending a decade as a tourist bassist, Pirrone back in 2011 borrowed an SG and DL4 and began his exploration of recording looped based music with JJUUJJUU.

His JJUUJJUU debut, 2013’s FRST EP and the follow-up standalone single “Bleck” helped build up buzz about the project. Throughout that initial period, the lines and instrumentation of JJUUJJUU moved in step with the project’s ethos of ephemera and flux with the project touring in several different configurations with Pirrone at the center. During that period, Pirrone and JJUUUJJUU shared stages with the likes of The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Tortoise, Allah-Lahs, Temples, Tinariwen and others. 

Pirrone spent the next few years recording material in various spaces around California. Those sessions included collaborations with Vinyl Williams, members of Lumerians, Dahga Bloom and others, and the material they recorded eventually comprised his JJUJJUU full-length debut, 2018’s Zionic Mud. The album’s release was accompanied by alternate version of its tracks remixed or reimaged by many of the band’s most notable fans and supporters, including J. Mascis, Warpaint‘s jennylee, Liars, METZ, and Autolux. JJUUJJUU supported the album with opening slots for Primus, Mastodon, Kikagaku Moyo, and Earhtless, as well as festival sets at Pickathon, Nelsonville, M3F and others. 

During the height of the pandemic, Pirrone and his collaborators went on to record two follow-up efforts to Zionic Mud. And with the extra time on his hands, he taught himself how to record material, and then sent tracks to longtime band members Ian Gibbs and Joseph Assef. The tracks were then sent around to Boogarins, METZ’s Alex Adkins and a collection of friends that will be revealed in the future. When it was safe to do so, the band wound up at Rancho De La Luna with Dave Catching and Jon Russo and put finishing touches on the material. 

Earlier this year, Pirrone shared “Nowhere,” a track that sonically brought Connect the Dots-era Toy, Deleters-era Holy Fuck to mind, as its built around a relentless motorik pulse, rolling drum beats, bursts of feedback and distortion paired with wailing vocals buried in the mix.

JJUUJJUU’s latest single in a recent string of singles is “No Way In.” Built around propulsive, polyrhythmic percussion, a sinuous bass line and falsetto wailing drenched in reverb and delay, “No Way In” may arguably the funkiest track Pirrone has released in some time, while still retaining the mind-bending drippiness that he’s best known for. “This is what would happen if JJUUJJUU was the soundtrack of 90s video game ToeJam & Earl,” Pirrone says.

Continuing an ongoing collaboration with Micah Buzin, the accompanying video for “No Way In” brings some of the trippy animated sequences of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall to mind — but while seemingly under a psilocybin-like haze: Geometric and lifelike shapes twist, turn and morph before your eyes to the song’s propulsive, motorik-like pulse.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Say She She Shares Glittery Visual for Disco Anthem “C’est Si Bon”

Deriving their name as a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to the legendary Nile Rodgers — “C’est chi-chi! It’s Chic!” — NYC-based disco outfit Say She She features three accomplished, strong female lead vocalists: founding members Piya Malik, who has spent time in El Michels Affair, 79.5 and Chicano Batman; and Sabrina Cunningham; along with Nya Gazelle Brown, a former member of 79.5. 

The rising New York-based outfit can trace their origins back to when Malik and Cunningham found themselves living in the studio apartments directly above and below each other. The pair would hear each other singing through the floorboards and quickly became friends. “I knew the girl below me had the most beautiful voice as I would hear her early in the morning and she would hear me late at night. Between the two of us I don’t think we got a wink of sleep. Then again I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they moved to New York City to sleep,” Malik says in press notes. 

After spending years singing in other people’s bands, Malik and Cunningham felt they were finally ready to step out into the spotlight with their own project. At first, they wrote tongue-in-cheek songs about bad boyfriends, band breakups and bad politics. But shortly after, they started writing much more serious and vulnerable tunes, like much-needed therapy sessions, detailing the lives of post-modern women. And as a result, their material frequently touches upon love, lust, sex, heartbreak, betrayal and hope. 

A few years after they started the project, the duo recruited their close friend and Malik’s former 79.5 bandmate Nya Gazelle Brown to join them. At that point, the act’s core lineup was settled. 

Sonically, Say She She’s sound nods at 70s girl groups — multi-part female harmonies paired paired with funky, disco-inspired arrangements played by a backing band featuring some of New York’s most talented and accomplished players, featuring former members of  Antibalas, Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaries, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, The Shacks, Twin Shadow and others. Locally, they’ve developed a reputation as a must-see live act, playing sold out shows at Bowery Ballroom, Nublu 151, Brooklyn Bazaar, C’Mon Everybody and Baby’s All Right among others. 

Their eight-song, Sergio Rios-produced full-length debut Prism was released through Karma Chief Records last year. Recorded on old tape machines in the basement studios of friends, the album features guest spots from The Dap Kings‘ Joey Crispiano and Victor Axelrod, The Shacks’ Max Shrager, Chicano Batman’s Bardo Martinez, Antibalas‘  Superhuman Happiness‘ and Low Mentality’s Nikhil Yerawadekar, Twin Shadow’s Andy Bauer and NYMPH‘s Matty McDermot. 

The acclaimed trio return with “C’est Si Bon,” a funky disco love letter, built around a sinuous bass line, twinkling keys, space lasers paired with the trio’s gorgeous harmonies, penchant for big, catchy hooks, deep groves and expansive psychedelia-tinged song structures. It’s a summertime club anthem that reminds the listener to seize the day and make their time count.

Directed by Lucas Hauchard and Valentin Duciel, the accompanying video for “C’est Si Bon” is fittingly a glittery, disco ball tribute to both disco and the world’s great fashion capitals with sections shot in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. And of course, the ladies of Say She She are wearing glittery outfits throughout.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Defiant Feminist Anthem “Hot Topic”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year, the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a Friday release through Mothland. 

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that are manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. 

In the lead-up to the rising Canadian outfit’s highly-anticipated fully-length debut, I’ve managed to write about two singles:

  • “Anyway,” a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal and super heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. 

  • “Serpent,” a track that sees the Montréal-based post punk outfit quickly locking into the sort of dance punk groove that brings Echoes-era The Rapture and early LCD Soundsystem to mind paired with insistent shaker-driven percussion, twinkling keys, the collective’s unerring knack for dance floor friendly hooks and choruses and lyrics — in French — describing friend group drama. The song is a cheeky and sarcastic ode to complicated friendships that despite the language is very familiar. As the band puts it, “The person it is directed towards loves dancing. It’s a pretty dancy song. We hope they dance to it.” 

Stay Safe‘s third and latest single “Hot Topic” is built around a lurching yet dance floor friendly, DEVO-like grove paired with slashing bursts of guitar, twinkling bursts of keys and off-kilter percussion paired with Viens-Synnott’s defiant yet wry, shouted vocals — presumably at a clueless cis-het dude, who can’t quite get the hint.

The song’s arrangement was initially written to score an extended avant-garde dance piece also titled “Hot Topic,” choreographed by the band’s Viens-Synnott and shot in a single, continuous take. “The concept was to choreograph a dance piece to be shot as a sequence to capture the ephemeral elements present in performing arts,” Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. “Drawing influences from the Riot Grrrl movement, I created a dance piece where five women take up all the space on a dancefloor, unapologetically. We can dress how we want, enjoy our night out however that looks for us and we don’t care what you think.”

After completing the piece, the band edited down the song into the version that ultimately appears on their soon-to-be released debut. And the accompanying video is also, an abridged version of the original dance piece. (For this post, the music video is above the main text of this post, the short film is below the main text. Both are a trippy experience.) The song, the short film and the video are a testament to the Montréal-based band’s unique nature as a collaborative, artistically open group with varied and differing creative ambitions and entanglements — and in a fashion seemingly similar to that of JOVM mainstays La Femme.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Night Beats Shares Trippy, Isley Brothers-like “Nightmare”

Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Danny Lee Blackwell is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed psych rock outfit Night Beats. And with Night Beats, Blackwell creates music like one might assemble a puzzle: He builds his work from one moment, an initial spark that for him, must fit a specific criteria — it must give him goosebumps. If he gets goosebumps, then he will purse that idea relentlessly until he has a new song; if not, he moves onto the next moment, constantly looking for the perfect molecule of a song. 

Rajan, Blackwell’s fifth Night Beats album is slated for a July 14, 2023 release through Suicide Squeeze/Fuzz Club. The album began much like every other Night Betas album before it: Shortly after the release of 2021’s Outlaw R&B, Blackwell had the familiar itch to create new music. Writing isn’t a process that Blackwell has to sit down and engage with, rather it’s something he’s always doing. The only differentiation between creative periods is what makes it on certain albums and what winds up falling victim to the cutting room. “Whenever my writing gets to a point where songs begin to take shape, it begins to feel like a faucet,” Blackwell explains. “As soon as Outlaw R&B was finished, I began writing and very quickly fell in love with a few ideas that encapsulated the feeling of Rajan. I think writing is a constant cycle in that it never really begins or ends, but there are definitive points where the writing is leading somewhere.” 

Early on, Blackwell felt that the album would be dedicated to his mother. Although thematically, it doesn’t always reflect his tribute, the material is informed by the familial tie. “This isn’t a concept album, because every album has a concept. That term never made sense to me. But if it’s about one thing, it’s about this pursuit of freedom that was instilled in me by my mother,” Blackwell says. “In the arts, I’m very lucky in that I have 100% control over what I want to say, and how I do it,” he explains. Fittingly, the album’s material is wildly diverse and lands somewhere between Spaghetti Western film score and psych pop opus — while being among Blackwell’s most cohesive works to date. Some of the album’s songs nod at Anataolian funk and Western tinged R&B. Others with 70s Brazilian psychedelia, Chicano soul, rock steady — and even Lee “Scratch” Perry-inspired dub. “Rajan is just one of six examples of me doing exactly what I want, and not caring about whether it’s checked out or not. I’m a journeyperson. I want to make things for the sake of making them,” Blackwell says. 

And while clearly indebted to its influences, Rajan is wildly innovative and finds Blackwell pursuing his wildest musical whims. “I’m here to explore. I think exploration is the underlying reason in a way, of why we do the things we do,” Blackwell explains. “I feel lucky. What can I say? I feel blessed.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • Album opener “Hot Ghee,” which simultaneously sets the stage for what to expect sonically from the album and establishing a scalding hot take on the interaction of psych rock, jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop and more. Built around bluesy and sultry guitar lines, swinging drumming, layers of intertwined harmonies, subtle bursts of twinkling piano, “Hot Ghee” sounds like a synthesis of Altin Gün, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and Free Your Mind . . . And Your Ass Will Follow-era Funkadelic that’s mind-bending while displaying Blackwell’s unerring and deft craftmanship. 

  • “Thank You,” a soaring and groovy bit of gospel-tinged psychedelia built around Blackwell’s yearning falsetto, twinkling keys, dense layers of bluesy wah wah pedaled guitar, towering feedback, paired with a gospel backing chorus. Sonically nodding at a bit at Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself” and Parliament Funkadelic’s “Testify,” “Thank You” expresses a sense of profound gratitude. 

Rajan’s third and latest single “Nightmare” sonically brings to mind the psych soul leanings of 70s Isley Brothers — i.e. 3+3, Go For Your Guns and The Heat is On and others: you’ll a hear dense arrangement featuring blazing guitar solos paired with shuffling funk guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line paired with layers upon layers of vocals, including Blackwell’s yearning delivery — and his unerring knack for a well-placed, catchy hook.

“I wanted to hear sounds and cries of unconditional, blind love. I wanted swirling, fitful guitars, speaking in tongues, thrashing around in a chest trying to break free. A call and response to the blood curdling voice of a lost soul, ringing out, pleading for understanding,” Blackwell says. “Rajan is laced with distant, layered choral groups, exploring pathways paved by Isley Brothers, David Ruffin, Grace Slick and other psychedelic soul pioneers of the time. I wanted to hear the sounds of service to the ones you love, even being blinded by it. This song creates a circle, if you’re listening. A cascading roadmap through a nightmare. Thunder and lightning, flashing neon blue lights, rhetorical puzzles.”

The accompanying video features Blackwell and his backing band performing the song. Shot on grainy film stock, the video captures the band in front of lysergic and hazy filters, kaleidoscopic bursts of light, and geometric figures.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Share Expansive, Face-Melting Ripper “Mild Davis”

Since initially forming in Bloomington, IN well over a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych rock outfit Frankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have a long-held reputation for restless experimentation rooted in the multiple permutations of their lineups, and for a high-powered and scuzzy, garage punk meets thrash punk take on psych rock paired with absurdist lyrics, frequently fueled by dreams, hallucinations, paranoia and lust. And as a result, their material can be simultaneously mischievous, menacing and dreamlike.

Slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Greenway Records/The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays’ forthcoming seventh album, Data Doom is built around the cerebral yet viscerally songwriting of the outfit’s co-founders, while marking the first written and recorded material featuring Smith and Aguilar.

In crafting what may arguably be their most rhythmically complex work to date, the band drew heavily from each member’s distinct sensibilities: Smith tapped into her extensive background in West African drumming, an art form she first discovered through her music instructor parents. Aguilar leaned into formative influences like longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.

Self-produced by the proudly DIY-minded band and recorded direct to tape by the band’s Menashe, Data Doom ultimately took shape through countless sessions in their Southeast L.A.-based rehearsal space, with the band allowing themselves unlimited time to explore their gloriously strange impulses. “There was no pressure and no real time constraint for this record, and because of that the creativity flowed in a very free way that probably wouldn’t have happened if we’d been on the clock in a studio,” Frankie and the Witch’s Dylan Sizemore says in press notes. “It showed us that the more we take the time to communicate and share our ideas with each other, the more it feeds our creative energy and helps us to make something we’re all really excited about.”

While showcasing the expansive and eccentric musicality of past efforts like 2020’s Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . ., Data Doom reportedly features nine high-wattage songs built with both dizzying intricacy and completely unfettered imagination.

Data Doom‘s latest single “Mild Davis” is a expansive, stream of consciousness-driven song that sees the acclaimed JOVM mainstays cycling through a whirlwind of rhythms and textures paired with dexterous guitar work, proggy synths and a series of mind-bending solos. Seemingly drawing from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo-era DEVO, acid jazz freakouts, garage psych and space rock, while influenced by Miles Davis‘ early 70s electric period, “Mild Davis” may arguably be the wildest, face-melting ripper I’ve come across this year. “We worked on that for two weeks straight, puzzle-piecing together different parts into one very weird and stream-of-consciousness song that’s mostly in a 7/4 time signature,” the JOVM mainstay outfit’s Josh Menashe recalls.

Lyrically, the song sees Sizemore shifting between savagely despairing the state of the world and resolutely dreaming of a brighter future. “I wrote ‘Mild Davis’ in a moment of feeling pessimistic about what technology is doing to our society, especially as AI is creeping to the forefront more and more,” says Sizemore. “But then the bridge comes from a more optimistic perspective, where it’s questioning whether we could reboot the whole system and start all over.”

The song is accompanied with a fittingly mind-melting, animated video that places the band in a surrealistic hellscape of technology, fascism and destruction.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: INEZONA Shares Brooding and Gorgeous “Stardust”

Singer/songwriter, percussionist and guitar Ines Brodbeck is a mainstay of the Swiss music scene, best known for being the creative mastermind and frontperson of the recording project INEZONA. Her third album, 2017’s Gabriel Sullivan-produced Now featured contributions from musicians, who have worked with Calexico, Bob Dylan, Neko Case, and Giant Sand, and saw her drawing from her Latin American roots.

Brodbeck found a creative soulmate in Sullivan, and Now also became the start of a fruitful and ongoing collaboration Back in 2019, Sullivan was in Switzerland and the pair went to Basel-based One Drop Studio with the members of INEZONA — Fabian Gisler (bass, synths) and Eric Gut (drums) — to work on material that Brodbeck had brewing for some time. The end result, the Sullivan, Brodbeck and Gut-produced Heartbeat seems the Swiss-based outfit crafting harmonically and rhythmically complex material that reportedly move like a constantly flowing stream.

“Stardust,” Heartbeat‘s latest single is a Tarantino film-meets-Spaghetti Western-meets-David Lynch film-like song built around an atmospheric arrangement of shimmering pedal steel, strummed guitar, and a steady groove paired with Brodbeck’s gorgeous, yearning delivery. Thematically, “Stardust” is a homage to the power, beauty and immensity of our planet and the universe we inhabit. The song was originally conceived for a dance piece for dancer and choreographer with Brodbeck performing it solo.

Directed and shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white by Pascal Dick in Kandern, Germany, the video features Brodbeck (vocals, guitar) and a backing band of Gut (drums), Daniel Somaroo (bass) and Nick Nobody (guitar). A gorgeous black horse plays a major role in the video: We’re first introduced to Brodbeck riding the horse to her bandmates — and as the video proceeds, we see the band with the horse.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Black Angels Share a Scorching Ripper

Austin-based JOVM mainstays  The Black Angels —  currently Alex Maas (vocals, bass), Christian Bland (guitar), Stephanie Bailey (drums), Jake Garcia (guitar) and multi-instrumentalist Ramiro Verdooren — released their sixth album Wilderness of Mirrors last fall through through Partisan Records. Co-produced by the band and Brett Orrison with engineering by John Agnello, Wilderness of Mirrors finds the band attempting to achieve something fresh and new through a gentle and subtle refinement of the sound that has won them fans across the globe. 

Throughout the album’s material, the band adds mellotron, string arrangements and an assortment of different keyboards to the mix, which adds different textures to their overall sound. Thematically, the album continues upon their long-held reputation for touching upon contemporary concerns — in particular, our uncertain and urgent moment of political tumult, the pandemic, and the ongoing devastation of the environment and its long-term implications to us and our descendants, among others. 

Late last year, I wrote about four of the album’s released singles:

  • “El Jardín,” a single, which at first glance is classic Black Angels: Bailey’s thunderous time keeping, Maas’ plaintive falsetto and supple bass lines paired with layers upon layers of guitar pyrotechnics and effects from Bland and Garcia — but the song’s sparking and brooding bridge sees the band adding bursts of twinkling Rhodes to the mix. Written from the perspective of our dear Mother Earth, “El Jardín” is a forceful and urgent warning to all of us: destroying the environment will ultimately lead to the destruction of humanity. 

  • “Firefly,” a loving yet classic Black Angels-like homage to 60s French pop, featuring a guest spot from Thievery Corporation‘s LouLou Ghelickhani, who contributes sultrily delivered vocals in French and English, alongside Maas’ imitable falsetto and paired with a hook-driven arrangement featuring reverb-drenched guitars, Maas’ supple and propulsive bass lines, some simple yet forceful timekeeping from Bailey and twinkling keys. 

  • “Without A Trace,” a bit of classic, Passover through Directions to See a Ghost-era Black Angels centered around fuzzy and distorted power chords, a reverb-drenched guitar solo, Bailey’s thunderous and propulsive time keeping paired with Maas’ imitable vocal delivery and supple bass lines. The song sonically and thematically is an eerie and brooding meditation that asks “is is still possible to be invincible when everyone else is expendable.” 

  • “Empires Falling,”  a scorching, politically charged ripper that examines humanity’s repetitive art of violent mass destruction. Built around scorching, power chord driven riffs, Maas’ imitable falsetto, a driving rhythm section powered by Bailey’s forceful time keeping, the song continues a run of material that harkens back to their earliest releases but fueled by an urgency informed by our desperate, uneasy time.

The album’s fifth and latest single “History of the Future” is a classic Black Angels headbanger built around scorching guitar riffage, Maas’ falsetto delivering lysergic-tinged lyrics, Bailey’s forcefully propulsive time keeping paired with the Austin-based JOVM mainstays unerring knack for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses.

Directed by Clever Cardoso and filmed in Terlingua, TX, the accompanying video was inspired by Pink Floyd‘s famous Live at Pompeii concert film, and captures the band playing the song amidst the immensity of the mountains surrounding them.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sweden’s The Sweet Serenades Share Hopeful and Anthemic “Akhilia”

Martin Nordvall is a Swedish singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the acclaimed recording project The Sweet Serenades. And with The Sweet Serenades, the Swedish artist specializes in a sound that’s designed for both small clubs and late night car rides.

Nordvall’s work has been highly praised across the blogosphere, and as a result of his material appearing in TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Teen Wolf and The Fosters, the acclaimed Swedish artist has toured around the world.

His last album 2020’s City Lights featured a brooding sound built around dark synths and programmed beats. But his forthcoming fifth album, the Johannes Berglund-produced Everything Dies reportedly features a much more playful sound. “While writing and recording the new album I lost my father in [sic] a heart attack, I also became a father myself for the first time,” Nordvall says of the album., “The contrast between loss and happiness can be heard in the songs  – in the end it’s a hopeful album filled with energy – life is a cool thing.”

Everything Dies‘ second and latest single “Akhilia” features rumbling toms, insistent four-on-the-floor, a mischievous marimba melody, twinkling synths, and buzzing guitars paired with Nordvall’s penchant for enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses and his weary yet hopeful delivery. At its core, is a song with a simple yet profound and oft-heard message, that frequently needs to be repeated — all things pass in time.

“Rumbling toms, four on the floor, a contagious marimba melody mixed with 80s synths and distorted guitars. Could be the first time The Little Mermaid and New Order has something in common,” Nordvall says of the new single. “This is an ambitious song that wants to be heard. It wants to be a hit. Arena Indie.” 

The accompanying video features a young child in a silver mask dancing in a wooden area. The video captures and emphasizes the mischievousness and the resilience within the song.