Tag: Brooklyn Steel

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Philadelphia’s Soul Glo Teams Up with Tunde Adebimpe on Bruising Yet Vulnerable “Ppl Worried”

Since forming in Philadelphia back in 2014, rising punk outfit Soul Glo — currently Pierce Jordan (vocals, bass), GG Guerra (guitar, bass, vocals, programming) and TJ Stevenson (drums) — was dubbed the “future of hardcore” by Pitchfork after the release of 2022’s breakout effort, Diaspora Problems, a culmination of nearly a decade of playing basements, small clubs and DIY spaces and creative development.

Diaspora Problems has amassed over 14 million streams and critical praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan, who called it “. . . one of the best punk albums released in recent memory” and Pitchfork lauding its mix of ” . . . radical, actionable rhetoric, absurdist humor, and breathtaking vulnerability.” And building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band has been touring extensively, including opening for My Chemical Romance, paying Coachella’s Sonora Stage in 2023 — and they played the first hardcore set at NPR Tiny Desk.

The Philadelphia punks are currently on your with Chat Pile, Virga and Shallowater. The tour includes a November 10, 2026 stop at Brooklyn Steel, a hometown show on November 11, 2026 at Union Transfer, and more. Tour dates are below. And for more information, including tickets, check out: https://soulglophl.com/tour

The band’s newest album, NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT is slated for a January 15, 2027 release through Epitaph Records. Simultaneously more intense and more approachable than Diaspora Problems, Recorded at Philadelphia-based Foto Club, NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT isn’t all guitar-driven wth frenetic drum patterns and heavy hip-hop beats. The album features guest appearances from Commitment’s Tati Salazar, Mannequin Pussy’s Bear, New York-based experimental rapper MIKE, Chattanooga-based genre-defying rapper BbyMutha, Whipping Boy, OXBOW, and Buñuel frontman Eugene Robinson, and TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. But the band retains the familiar elements of their sound: fast, frantic playing, Jordan’s mile-a-minute delivery and Stevenson’s imitable drumming. The result is more than just a collection of 14 songs, but a profound and compelling journey through the complexities of surviving modern existence — hopefully with your dignity and sanity intact.

Throughout the album’s runtime, community is front of mind on the album’s lyrics, which the band’s Jordan Pierce describes as being “largely about failures, mine and others, in my relationships with different men in my life.” Having a long-held reputation as a vulnerable, funny and soul-baring lyricist, Pierce’s lyrics explores the idea that men live “constantly at the expense of everyone” while speaking of the Black experience within the punk and hardcore scene and everything life, resentment, relationship anxieties, drug abuse, self-discovery and breaking down the “male loneliness epidemic.” Pierce dedicates the album to “everyone, who has known the joy and pain of loving a man. All different types of love: platonic, romantic, familial, self.’

NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT‘s latest single “Ppl Worried” feat. Tunde Adebimpe is frantic, swaggering and bruising, mosh pit friendly ripper anchored around the lived-in, deeply confessional thoughts of a dysfunctional yet very human narrator, wrestling with losing oneself in grief and heartbreak, the numbing solitude of addiction and cycles of self-sabotage with a vulnerable, self-awareness that’s unvarnished and all too real.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tricky Teams Up With Mitch Sanders On Brooding and Uneasy “I’m Yours”

Trip hop pioneer Tricky will be releasing his 15th studio album, Different When It’s Silent on July 17, 2026 through his own label, False Idols. The new album is the first full-length effort from the legendary and influential artist […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tricky Returns with Brooding and Atmospheric “Because I Don’t Know”

Trip hop pioneer Tricky will be releasing his 15th studio album, Different When It’s Silent July 17, 2026 through his own label, False Idols. The new album is the first full-length effort from the legendary and influential artist and producer under his own name in six years. 

Different When It’s Silent came about during a rather prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces, Tricky has released material under several different guises including, Lonely Guest‘s 2021 self-titled effort, a collaboration with Mike Theis, called Theis Thaws, which released 2024’s Fifteen Days and last year’s collaborative album with Marta Złakowska, Out The Way. 

Returning to releasing an album under his own name took on a different shape. Recored between Tricky’s home in France and sessions in Bristol, the album is reportedly a direct, focused batch of material that reconnects with the distinct sonic language that has defined the legendary artist and producer’s work since 1995’s iconic Maxinquaye. And he does by drawing deeply on the musical community that has shaped him and his work. Central to the album’s sound is Bristol-based vocalist Mitch Sanders, whose soulful falsetto is featured through such of the album’s songs. Their deep connection reflects a shared musical background and an instinctive chemistry between the pair. 

“In my mind it was another side project” Tricky explains. But after hearing the material, his manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.

The 14-song Different When It’s Silent sonically sees Tricky blending skeletal blues, brooding electronics, distorted guitars and stark hip-hop rhythms into a sound that’s simultaneously stripped-back and expansive. The album moves fluidly across different styles while rooted in the restless experimentation that has long defined Tricky’s work over the past three-plus decades. 

“I just love making music” Tricky says. “I’m grateful I’ve had the chance to live this life and keep creating.”

The album will include the previously released “Out of Place,” feat. Marta Złakowska and the album’s second and latest single, “Because I Don’t Know.” Featuring Bristol-based vocalist Mitch Sanders’ yearning falsetto delivering the haunting refrain “Can you feel my pain? Do you feel the same? Just let me know” over a pulsing and shadowy synth figure and blasts of scorching guitars. Tricky’s murmured vocal lurk in the background. The song is a tense, uneasy and probing examination of vulnerability, heartache and menace.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Die Spitz Shares Seething “American Porn”

Rising Austin-based outfit Die Spitz — Ava Schrobilgen, Chloe De St. Aubin, Ellie Livingston and Kate Halter — can trace some of their origins back to when Schrobilgen and Livingston met in preschool. They befriended Halter in middle school. And they brought De St. Aubin into their friend group when they started the band back in 2022. 

Initially, the quartet was looking to find reasons to hang out more often, and decided they should start a band after a late-night viewing of the Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt. They settled on the name Die Spitz over a “brown bag of Fireball,” opting for the feminine German definite article in place of the English. “It reminds me of the Grim Reaper spitting,” Livingstone jokes.

Their first live shows saw them pairing originals with covers from some of their early inspirations including Black Sabbath, Pixies, Mudhoney, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. Unsurprisingly, they express their ideas and themselves through a mischievously shameless blend of classic punk, hardcore metal, alt rock and more. They’ve also become known for riotous live show, where dueling cartwheels, members climbing rafters and solos while crowdsurfing could happen at just about any moment. 

The Texan quartet’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, the Will Yip–produced Something to Consume was released last September through Third Man Records. The album sees the band combining their passion, friendship, identity and artistry to fight against the inescapable decay and chaos that surrounds modern life, “There’s a political side to it, but addiction and love can also be all-consuming,” the band’s Ellie Livingston says. 

Something to Consume‘s 11 tracks contains multitudes and yet feels singular. It’s an expansive and expressive collection of songs, unified in its sense of deeply held camaraderie and freedom. “We depend on our freedom — freedom to do what we want, present the ideas we want, make the music we want,” Livingston says. “Whether it’s based in metal or something soft, no matter which of us wrote the song, we all contribute and work together. As a person, I don’t have a strong ego or voice, but within this band each one of us is capable of so much more.”

“Something to Consume is an album experience for everyone. Whether you’re craving a smack of lively metal or a melancholy wave of grungey violin, there’s a piece of all of us injected. Something to Consume is a call to the multitudes of ways we as humans allow consumption to enrapture our culture as well as ourselves.”

Though they’ve only been playing together for a few years, the album shows a maturity and technical prowess wielded and wed to the service of their deep and abiding friendship — and a hope to inspire change. “Some people aren’t interested in being political activists via music, but it weighs on me heavily and I feel misaligned with my calling if I don’t,” Chloe De St. Aubin says. “The four of us are free spirits with multiple interests, and there’s no limit or power dynamic that can derail us.”

The album features the previously released “Throw Yourself to the Sword,” a bruising mosh pit friendly synthesis of thrash metal, stoner rock and punk featuring some of the hardest and grimiest guitar riffs I’ve heard in some time. The album’s latest single “American Porn” comes as the quartet announces a lengthy list of summer and fall tour dates. The tour includes three New York City dates: November 13, 2026 and November 14, 2026 at Warsaw. Both of those shows are sold out. But don’t worry, they’ve got a February 19, 2027 stop at Brooklyn Steel. As always, all tour dates are below.

“American Porn” sees the rising Texans channeling a seething synthesis of grunge and riot grrl punk that calls out sexist record industry insiders and perverted older dudes, who come to their shows to leer and objectify them. “It’s a very angry song,” says the band’s Eleanor Livingston.” “And I want the people that come to our shows just because we’re pretty women or they want to sexualize or objectify us to listen to that song and tell us if they’re still a fan.”

Continuing an ongoing collaboration with director Emily Sanchez, the accompanying video for “American Porn” is a surreal fever dream of a visual that wouldn’t be out of place on 120 Minutes. The video calls out gender-roles, stereotypes and beauty standards with seething anger and a sense of mischief.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Soccer Mommy Shares Lush and Swooning “Abigail”

Acclaimed Nashville-based singer/songwriter and musician Sophie Allison will be releasing her fifth Soccer Mommy album Evergreen on Friday through Loma Vista Recordings.

Allison’s career started in earnest as a teenager, sharing near-demo form tracks on Bandcamp. The past handful of years, have found her employing the use of synthesizers and experimental production techniques, thanks to the endless studio resources she newly found at her fingertips. But when she started to write the material that would become Evergreen, Allison knew they called for different touch.

Songwriting has always been the acclaimed Nashville-based artist’s way to sort through life and to ground herself. And she was crafting the album in the wake of a profound and personal loss, it felt important to her to keep the material raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest. So, she opted for a much more organic production, which helped to shine a spotlight on her songwriting. The Ben H. Allen III-produced album was recorded at Atlanta’s Maze Studios and is a sonic return to the project’s roots, but recast on a cinematic scale through the use of acoustic guitar and lush string and flute arrangements.

Allison’s intention for the album was “to feel like you’re laying outside, eyes closed, the sun is on you, and you can feel the warmth & flowers & trees.” It’s appreciation that even in your darkest place, a sunny day can wash over you and lift your spirits. And with that as inspiration, this week Allison will be sharing an exclusive early first listen of Evergreen with fans, who can get to a lush outdoor location, like a backyard or a park. Starting tomorrow, Soccer Mommy fans can head to their nearest park and click open this link to access the early album listening experience.

The album’s final pre-release single “Abigail” is a lush and swooning love song that captures the desire, longing and hope of a newfound love — in this case, Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley — with a lived-in earnestness.

The ConcernedApe-inspired music video, features Allison’s Stardew Valley avatar trying to court her true love.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay TR/ST Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Performance”

Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and producer Robert Alfons is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay project TR/ST. For well over a decade, Alfons has captivated audiences with a unique blend of dynamic vocals, emotive lyrics and late night sensuality. 

Alfons’ fifth TR/ST album, the TR/ST and Nightfeelings co-produced Performance is slated for a Friday release through Dais Records. The album’s title alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s intrinsically performative nature. Recorded in Los Angeles, the album’s material reportedly seethes with dread, lust, reckoning and abandon. Sonically, the production pair achieved a thick, smoky balance of eerie synths and fog machine low end paired with bruised, crooning vocals. The result is an album of material that moves between beauty and bitterness, rousing anthems and crushing anguish rooted by emotional turmoil, the lingering ghosts of guilt and the memories of those wronged and those still unforgiven. 

Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night.

Last month, I wrote about the Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings co-produced “Dark Day,” an ethereal yet uneasy track featuring eerily atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, skittering industrial clang and clatter serving as a foggy and unsettlingly brooding bed for Alfons’ bruised and aching vocal. “I think there’s something in the song about the flashes that come to you when you try to fall asleep, flashes that show you where you have unfinished business,” Alfons says of the song. “It was such a pleasure working with Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings on production for this track.”

Performance‘s latest single, album title track “Performance” continues a run of brooding and uneasy material, anchored around a foggy, strobe-lit fueled production featuring bursts of glistening synth arpeggios, skittering, reverb-soaked beats. Alfons’ aching and bruised delivery ethereally floats over the menacing soundscape.

Directed and edited by Bryan M. Ferguson and featuring cinematography by George Harwood, the accompanying video for “Performance” follows Alfons as he arrives at a grim karaoke bar. While he’s lost in his own performance, the sparse crowd is lost in their thoughts. You can almost feel the despair through the screen.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay TR/ST Shares Brooding and Foggy “Dark Day”

Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and producer Robert Alfons is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay project TR/ST. For well over a decade, Alfons has captivated audiences with a unique blend of dynamic vocals, emotive lyrics and late night sensuality.

Alfons’ fifth TR/ST album, the TR/ST and Nightfeelings co-produced Performance is slated for a September 13, 2024 release through Dais Records. The album’s title alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s intrinsically performative nature. Recorded in Los Angeles, the album’s material reportedly seethes with dread, lust, reckoning and abandon. Sonically, the production pair achieved a thick, smoky balance of eerie synths and fog machine low end paired with bruised, crooning vocals. The result is an album of material that moves between beauty and bitterness, rousing anthems and crushing anguish rooted by emotional turmoil, the lingering ghosts of guilt and the memories of those wronged and those still unforgiven.

Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night.

Performance‘s latest single, the Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings co-produced “Dark Day” is an ethereal and uneasy track featuring eerily atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, skittering industrial cling and clatter serving as a foggy and unsettlingly brooding bed for Alfons’ achingly bruised delivery.

“I think there’s something in the song about the flashes that come to you when you try to fall asleep, flashes that show you where you have unfinished business,” Alfons says of the song. “It was such a pleasure working with Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings on production for this track.”

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Live Concert Photography: Silversun Pickups with Hello Mary at Brooklyn Steel 6/27/24

Live concert photography of SIlversun Pickups and Hello Mary at Brooklyn Steel last month.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hello Mary Shares Furious Ripper “0%”

With the release of last year’s sophomore, self-titled album, New York-based indie rock trio Hello Mary — Helena Straight, Stella Wave and Mikaela Oppenheimer — received praise nationally from the likes of Rolling Stone, who wrote that the album was “one of 2023’s sharpest, nosiest debuts.” Building upon a rapidly rising profile, trio will have an incredibly busy summer: Already developing a reputation for a killer live show, the New York-based trio are currently opening for Silversun Pickups on their Stateside tour, a tour that includes a June 27, 2024 stop at Brooklyn Steel. They’ll play a handful of their own headlining Stateside dates and play a set at Denver‘s Underground Music Showcase, before heading to the UK for a London headlining show, followed by an opening slot for American Football during their UK tour. The band has also confirmed a slot at this year’s Best Friends Forever Fest in Las Vegas this October. (As always, tour dates are below.)

“0%” is the first bit of new material from the rising New York-based trio since the release of last year’s self-titled album. “0%” sees the band pushing their 90s alt rock-inspired sound into a much heavier and distorted direction with the song being featuring thunderously percussive, down-tuned bass, distortion pedaled guitar fuzz, forceful drumming and Stella Wave’s throaty, feral screams — within a classic grunge song structure, alternating impossibly loud choruses, quieter verses and a mischievously dreamy break down with vibraphone and triangle.

Fittingly, the song captures a young woman boldly and defiantly expression an existential frustration — and getting a bit of joy out of the fact that she doesn’t know much of much.

The new single emerged as the trio were jamming in their practice space. After quickly become a crowd favorite live, the song really came to life in the studio, becoming the first time that the band’s Stella Wave had ever screamed on a recording. But when she hopped into the recording booth, she felt emboldened to draw out the vocal shouts the band originally planned, turning them into much longer screams. “0% is one of our favorites to play live,” Hello Mary says. “Our inspirations in the last year have broadened, and we feel like this song reflects that.”

The accompanying video edited by Caroline Knight is from footage the band has had taken over the last couple of tours, and captures the energy and passion of their live show.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Altin Gün Share Bonkers Visual for Disco-Tinged Banger “Doktor Civanim”

Released earlier this year through ATO Records, the acclaimed Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop outfit and JOVM mainstays Altin Gün‘s fourth album Aşk is a return to the 70s Anatolian folk rock sound that characterized their first two groundbreaking albums while capturing the urgency and power of their famously propulsive live show. Recorded using vintage equipment and techniques, the album’s ten songs feature visionary new interpretations and readings of traditional Turkish folk tunes, revealing how these old, beloved songs remain eternally resonant and ripe for constant reinterpretation. 

“These songs have been covered so many times, always,” Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says. “But not really in psychedelic pop versions,” Jasper Verhulst adds. “It’s definitely connecting more with a live sound – almost like a live album. We, as a band, just going into a rehearsal space together and creating music together instead of demoing at home.”

Aşk features:

  • The band’s dazzling reinvention of “Lelim Ley,” a classic song of lost love and exile, which features lyrics written by the late Turkish novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist Sabahattin Ali (1907–1948), taken from Ali’s 1937 short story “Ses.” Lelim Ley” was joined by music composed by Livaneli and released in 1975. Since then, the song has been lovingly embraced as one of the most well-known and beloved songs among Turkish people across the world. 

  • “Rakiya Su Katamam” is a kaleidoscopic, space rock/psych rock-like take on the folk standard composed by Turkish writer/theologian Mustafa Öztürk, featuring a relentless motorik groove paired with wah-wah pedaled guitar, Dasdemir’s plaintive yet sultry delivery, and a scorching guitar solo paired with the band’s unerring knack for razor sharp hooks.

  • “Su Siziyor,” a lysergic-tinged banger built around a sinuous and propulsive disco-tinged groove, Merve Dasdemir’s plaintive and yearning delivery paired with looping, glistening guitar and the JOVM mainstays unerring knack for crafting ridiculous hooks.

“Doktor Civanim,” Aşk‘s fourth and latest single is a disco-tinged banger, built around glistening synth oscillations that recall Giorgio Moroder‘s legendary 70s output,. relentless four-on-the-floor, a sinuous and ridiculously funky bass line paired with Nile Rodgers-like guitar paired with Merve Dasdemir’s sultry delivery. Simply put it’s breezy and ridiculously fun.

Directed by Ömer Deniz, the accompanying video for “Doktor Civanim” is a gloriously bonkers, sci-fi romp that features a collection of green and white-clad, gold high heel wearing, dancing nurses in a dilapidated hospital, an open heart surgery with a doctor wearing a suit, and plenty of “wait, what did I just see” moments.

“After the sci-fi movie set we all lived through during the pandemic, we wanted to recreate this song as a tribute to all the doctors and healthcare workers,”  Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says.