Tag: indie rock

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Drab Majesty Teams Up With Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell on Brooding “Vanity”

Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Andrew Clinco, also known for his work drumming in Marriages founded Drab Majesty back in 2011 as a way to create music in which he recorded every instrument himself. For the project, Clinco created the androgynous character Deb Demure. Alex Nicolaou, a.k.a. Mona D (keys, vocals) joined the project in 2016.

Since signing to Dais Records, the Los Angeles-based duo have released three albums, 2015’s Careless, 2017’s The Demonstration, 2019’s Modern Mirror, which saw the project combining androgynous aesthetics and commanding vocals with futuristic and occult lyrics, to create a style and sound that the band’s Demure refers to as “tragic wave.”

Drab Majesty’s forthcoming EP, An Object in Motion is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Dais Records. Clocking in at 32 minutes, the release actually sits somewhere between an EP and a mini-album, and the effort reportedly marks a new chapter in the project’s legacy story: Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote costal Oregon town of Yachats, the band’s Deb Demure leaned into the neo-psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl-shaped 12-string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar.

After early morning hikes in the rain, Demure would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into “flow states,” in which he would let the sound lead the way. Those sessions were then refined or recreated and then later elevated with contributions from Slowdive‘s Rachel Goswell, Beck’s, M83‘s and Air’s Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Uniform’s Ben Greenberg.

Fittingly, the EP reportedly holds true to its title, as it captures Demure and Drab Majesty in a transitional state, and evolving while showcasing a series of potential futures from the project.

The EP’s first single, the brooding “Vanity” features a rare guest spot from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Built around shimmering, reverb-drenched 12 string guitar, gated reverb-drenched drum patterns, Demure’s plaintive yet commanding baritone paired with soaring hooks. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell contributes her imitable, expressive vocal, which seamlessly intertwines with Demure’s vocal in an uncannily gorgeous harmony. Sonically, “Vanity” seems like a synthesis of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Close My Eyes Forever,” Sisters of Mercy, Disintegration-era The Cure and Goswell’s work with Slowdive — or in other words, something that will warm the cold hearts of any goth.

The collaboration came as a result of a mutual admiration for each other’s world. “As a long time listener and devotee of Slowdive, a band that literally shaped my DNA as a listener and musician, it was truly humbling to have Rachel offer her iconic vocal stylings to this song,” Demure says. “Her voice is a sonic treasure and unmistakable. I’m infinitely grateful to call her a friend and am still pinching myself wondering —  how did we get here?”

“It’s no secret that I am a long time Drab Majesty fan so when Deb asked me some years ago now if I would be interested in collaborating it was an immediate yes,” Slowdive’s Goswell adds., “Honoured to give my voice to ‘Vanity.'”

Directed by Jai Love, the accompanying video showcases a cast featuring Drab Majesty, Rachel Goswell, Samantha Robinson and Isabelle Rose Nelson, and is shot with a nostalgia-inducing VHS haze that’s full of the heartache of a childhood innocence long gone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wombo Shares Meditative “Thread”

Louisville-based trio Wombo — Sydney Chadwick, Cameron Lowe and Joel Taylor — exploded into the national scene with last year’s critically applauded Fairy Rust. Building upon a growing profile, the Louisville-based trio’s follow-up effort, Slab EP is slated for a Friday release through Fire Talk Records.

Recorded by Nick Roeder, Slab EP is reportedly a loose, instinctual grouping of songs that gradually morph into the sort of sonic territory that would be familiar to fans of their experimental and surrealistic escapism, as well as sweeter, stripped down material. Most of the EP’s guitar parts are scratch takes that fit both the dueling energies and intentional imperfections of the songs with overlaid vocals recorded on the same day. The end result is an of-the-moment snapshot of a band that’s settling naturally into their own sound — while being in constant evolution.

Last month, I wrote about EP title track “Slab,” a track built around wiry and scratchy bursts of guitar, relentless four-on-the-floor paired with Chadwick’s dreamily detached delivery singing lyrics that feel and sound like stream-of-consciousness non-sequiturs. “Slab” manages to be forceful yet dreamy and reveals an uncanny sense for catchy melody. The band explains that the lyrics were inspired by a book Chadwick had read about dissociation, and came from improvising lyrics in the band’s basement practice space.

Slab EP‘s latest single “Thread” is a slow-burning and meditative song built around Chadwick’s expressive delivery paired with jangling guitars and sparse yet dramatic drumming. The end result is a song that nods at a familiar melancholy and loneliness that’s grounded in psychological realism.

While sounding as though it could have been released during 120 Minutes‘ heyday, “’Thread’ was originally just a little thing I use to play on piano,” the band’s Chadwick explains. “I showed Joel and Cameron one day when we were messing around at practice and they persuaded me to try and put some words to it and helped me turn it into a song we could play together as a band.”

Directed, filmed and edited by the members of Wombo, the accompanying video for “Thread” is a nostalgia-inducing fever dream that fits the 120 Minutes-like aesthetic of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Weird Nightmare’s Slow-Burning Cover of The Ramones’ “She’s The One”

Alex Edkins has developed and honed a reputation for being a master craftsman of sweaty, mosh pit friendly rippers as the frontman of Toronto-based JOVM mainstays METZ. 

His side project Weird Nightmare frequently sees the METZ frontman showcasing a different side of the long-established songwriting that has won him acclaim and fans across the globe: enormous, power chord-driven rippers with mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses but paired with a sugary, distorted power pop sensibility.

Last year saw the release of Edkins’ Weird Nightmare self-titled debut, which featured three singles I wrote about:

  • “Searching For You,” a fun, straightforward power pop banger, featuring shout-along-with-upraised-beer-in-the-mosh-pit choruses, earnest lyricism and the enormous power chords Edkins is best known for but with an accessible, old-timey inspired craftsmanship that makes the song incredibly radio friendly — as though it Edkins and his METZ bandmates were covering Cheap Trick or Big Star. “It’s a fun, no nonsense rock ‘n’ roll song,” Edkins explains. “It’s about searching for meaning and inspiration all around us. In my mind, the ‘you’ in the chorus refers to something bigger than companionship or love, it’s that intangible thing we all look for but never find.”  

  • “Lusitania,” Weird Nightmare’s sophomore single is a fun, old school rock/power pop anthem centered around Edkins’ unerring ability to craft an enormous, crowd pleasing hook paired with blistering guitar work and earnest songwriting. “‘Lusitania’ was a big breakthrough for the entire Weird Nightmare album. I realized that, musically, my goal was to make songs that would make people feel good!” Edkins says in press notes. “This idea of waking up from a terrible dream or winter changing into spring. Momentary relief. We all need that feeling right now and music has always been what I turn to most.” 

  • “Wrecked,” a driving and ardent guitar pop anthem centered around big hooks, enormous power chords and sweetly, lived-in lyricism. It’s also the first Edkins song that I can remember that features boy-girl call and response vocals, thanks to a guest spot from Bully‘s Alicia Bogannano. “‘Wrecked’ is about missing something,” Edkins says. “For me, it’s about missing my wife and son while on tour. Being away has become harder and harder to do. I think most people can relate to it.  Feeling impossibly far away from the ones you love and coming to the realization that you won’t feel whole again until you return. I was really happy to collaborate with Alicia (Bognanno) on this song and I love what she adds to it. Alicia has a one in a million voice. A voice that you recognize immediately and she really lifts the song way up.”

Weird Nightmare’s first single of the year is a cover of a Ramones classic, “She’s The One.” The Weird Nightmare rendition is a decidedly low-key and slowed down ballad-like take on the original featuring Beatles-like harmonies, fuzz guitar, shimmering pedal steel by Aaron Goldstein paired with Edkins unerring knack for catchy hooks. Interestingly, the ballad-like take on the punk classic, pulls out the swooning and heartfelt sentiment at the heart of the song.

Directed by Ladyhead Design, the animated video follows an animated Dee Dee Ramone skateboarding through the streets of Toronto to some of Edkins’ favorite haunts.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nashville’s Loose Bolts Shares Earnest and Breezy Bop “Could I Stay Here?”

Nashville-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ian Brice is the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Loose Bolts. Initially started as a side project to a Northwestern Florida-based tech death outfit, Loose Bolts sees Brice specializing in a hook-driven, indie rock/indie pop sound.

Brice’s forthcoming Loose Bolts EP Temerity is slated for release later this year. But in the meantime, the EP’s latest single “Could I Stay Here?” is a breezy and hook-driven bit of crafted pop built around jangling, reverb-drenched guitar and a propulsive rhythm section.Sonically, “Could I Stay Here?” brings JOVM mainstays Dayglow and Julien Chang to mind, while revealing a songwriter that effortlessly pairs old-timey craftsmanship with a heart-worn-on-sleeve earnestness that feels lived-in.

Brice explains that the song lyrically is “a nostalgic window in my mind as a young man foraying into the world of romance.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Lanterns on the Lake Perform “Rich Girls”

Acclaimed Newcastle-based outfit Lanterns on the Lake‘s recently released nine-song album Versions of Us is an existential meditation examining life’s possibilities; facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies. Ultimately, the album’s material may be the most hopeful of their growing catalog to date.

It shouldn’t be surprising that for the band’s frontperson Hazel Wilde, that motherhood has fundamentally shifted her perspective. “Writing songs requires a certain level of self-indulgence, and songwriters can be prone to dwelling on themselves,” Wilde says. “Motherhood made me aware of having a different stake in the world. I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way and an alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. I’ve also got to believe that I could be better as a person, too.”

Given some of the album’s themes, there’s a biting irony to the album’s creative process: An entire previous version of the album was scrapped. Mental health struggles and personal problems within the band impacted how the initial version of the album took shape. “Despite trying everything we could to make it work, we reached the point where we just had to stop,” Wilde explains. Ol Ketteringham (drums) left the band, something that Wilde says was “heartbreakingly difficult as we were and still are extremely close.”

The band scrapped nearly a year’s worth of work, regressing to song demos with just Wilde performing with a single instrument, as they began again with Radiohead‘s Philip Selway joining the album sessions on drums and percussion. “Philip brought an energy to the songs that reignited our belief in them,” Wilde says. “Within a few weeks we had a whole other version of the album and things felt very different,” the Lanterns on the Lake frontperson continues. “We had changed the destiny of the record.”

Version of Us‘ latest single “Rich Girls” is a big, heart-worn-on-sleeve anthem built around a relentlessly propulsive rhythm section, shoegazer-like guitar textures, buzzing synths, soaring violin passages paired with Wilde’s plaintive delivery and the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. But underneath the brooding atmospherics is a narrator struggling to get past the unwieldy weight of life’s difficulties, and who expresses the desire to occasionally fake being happy, being sane or feeling competent and on on — if only for a few minutes.

The live footage of “Rich Girls” was recorded at the Old Church in Northumberland.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Frankie Flowers is an emerging Waterloo, ON-based artist. Originally desiring to explore electronic music, with the goal of being a DJ, the Canadian artist took a course on music production and learned how to spin on vinyl. But after an abysmal breakup and countless shifts working coat check at a Toronto area concert venue, Flowers’ musical direction changed: She found herself writing and creating alt rock/indie rock music as a release, rooted in the urge to use her words and voice as her main instrument.

The Waterloo-based artist’s self-produced work is influenced by her love of The Cure and Joy Division and sees her meshes elements of dark wave and post-punk.

Her latest single, the breakneck “I JUST WANT TO DISAPPEAR” is built around a looping and jangling guitar line, a relentless motorik-like rhythm section, enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with the Canadian artist’s ironically detached yet yearning delivery. While sonically, bearing a resemblance to The Cure, The Smiths and Joy Division, the song is rooted in lived-in experience. The song’s narrator expresses the endlessly negative thoughts of someone caught in a dark, extremely negative headspace. And as the Canadian artist explains “It’s about chasing toxicity, repeating vicious cycles and how your mind can basically eat you alive, if you choose to let it.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nat Vazer Shares Atmospheric and Introspective “Strange Adrenaline”

Nat Vazer is a rising, Melbourne-based singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her career to learning classical piano between the ages of five and 14. But throughout her life, Vazer has had a long-held fascination with singer/songwriters and bands, having grown up with her family’s record collection from the 60s, 70s and 80s. As a high schooler, the Melbourne-based artist stole her father’s guitar and started to learn Nirvana, The Strokes, and Death Cab for Cutie songs from internet guitar tabs.

In true DIY fashion, and like countless other young, aspiring musicians, she began writing songs in a high school punk bands, and attempting to record that material on old PCs with built-in microphones and free software. 

Vazer’s full-length solo debut 2020’s Robert Muiños-produced Is This Offensive and Loud? was released by Hotel Motel Records in Australia and Perpetual Doom Records here in the States. The album featured hit singles “For A Moment” and “Higher Places” and received critical applause at home and elsewhere: The album was nominated for a 2020 Australian Music Prize and laded on several Best Album of the Year Lists, including NME Australia, The Music, and others across the globe.

Earlier this year, Vazer released “Addicted to Misery,” the slow-burning first single off her highly-anticipated sophomore album, slated for release later this year. Rooted in the sort of deeply confessional lyricism that has drawn comparisons of her work to Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Julia Jacklin, and others, “Addicted to Misery” saw Vazer subtly pushing her sound in a more folk-tinged, pop direction: a finger-picked, looping guitar line,. gently stuttering drums and atmospheric electronics were paired with Vazer’s achingly delicate, yearning vocal.

Vazer describes the forthcoming album as a fast cat on a lost highway, searching for the unknown. “Each song on th album is a unique story told through the people, places and memories that have shaken me and stayed with me over time,” Vazer says of her sophomore album.

The album’s third and latest single “Strange Adrenaline” is an atmospheric and introspective track built around reverb-soaked propulsive drumming, gently buzzing guitar paired with Vazer’s achingly plaintive delivery and the Aussie artist’s penchant for heart-worn-on-sleeve, earnest lyricism and catharsis-inducing choruses.

“In the world of ‘Strange Adrenaline,’ there are 2 am diners where it’s too dangerous for lovers to hang, long drives back to childhood places, dark tales of Hollywood, recurring trauma, and visions of global warming and the end of days,” Vazer explains. “‘Strange Adrenaline’ were two words that jumped out at me one late night, while reading a Patti Smith novel.  The phrase captures that feeling of when you’re on the brink of something terrifying but extraordinary.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Shandies Share Road Trip Friendly Jam “Day Trip Tuesday”

Springfield, MO-based indie duo The Shandies — Natalie Wlodarczyk and Shannon Stine — will be releasing their fourth album, the Jeff Smith-produced If You Knew Me in July.

The album’s first single “Day Trip Tuesday” is a breezy pop confection built around glistening synth and a motorik-like groove paired with Wlodarczyk’s and Stine’s ethereal harmonies. While sonically bringing The Go-Go‘s and others to mind, “Day Trip Tuesday” is inspired by contemporary events while being timeless: During the height of the pandemic, the Springfield, MO-based duo frequently took day trips to get outside.

“We’d look at Google Maps and ask, ‘Where can we drive within two hours just to go somewhere, pack a picnic lunch, go sit on a riverbank, enjoy the af- ternoon and then drive home?’” Wlodarcyzk told the Springfield News- Leader. “We were doing one of these and it just happened to be a Tues- day, so we were in the car driving and one of us, we can’t remember which one, sang, ‘day trip Tuesday.’”

The rest quickly fell into the place. And for the remainder of that car ride, the duo wrote the bulk of the song’s lyrics and harmonies. Ultimately, the song is about a common desire — to hit the road with a friend (or group of friends) and have a adventure.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: RVG Shares Shimmering and Earnestly Defiant Ballad “Common Ground”

Acclaimed and rising Aussie outfit and JOVM mainstays  RVG — currently Romy Vager (vocals, guitar), Gregor’s and Hearing’s Reuben Bloxham (guitar), Rayon Moon‘s Marc Nolte (drums), and Isabelle Wallace (bass) — have released two critically applauded albums:

  • 2017’s A Quality of Mercy, which was recorded live off the floor at Melbourne’s iconic rock ‘n’ roll pub, The Tote Hotel. Initially released to little fanfare, the album, much to their surprise received critical acclaim both nationally and internationally, landing on a number of end-of-year Best of Lists. 

  • 2020’s Victor Van Vugt-produced Feral was released by Fire Records globally, excluding Australia and New Zealand, where it was released by Our Golden Friend. The album received breathless praise nationally and internationally, with Rolling Stone Australia calling the album “the record of a lifetime.”

The Melbourne-based band’s highly-anticipated third album Brain Worms is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Fire Records globally with Our Golden Friend releasing the album in Australia and New Zealand. Between the band’s members, Brain Worms captures the band at their most confident point they’ve ever been in as a band. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band moving past their influences, trying new things and pushing themselves towards what they believe is their best album of their growing catalog to date. 

“Hype is scary. After two years of COVID it felt like the hype had gone down so we were able to just do stuff,” RVG’s Romy Vager says. “This time around we were like, this is what we’re doing, we’re taking control, we’re taking risks, and we’re going to make an album that sounds big so that when we hear it on the radio we want to hear it again. If we could only make one more album, it would be this one.”

Deriving its title from the hyper-recognizable experience of each day bearing witness to a world of private obsession being aired out in the infinite, Brain Worms may not be wholly new territory for the acclaimed Melbourne post-punk outfit and its frontperson, but there is a newfound radical acceptance. Recorded in London’s Snap Studios with James Trevacus, the ten-song album surges with lush sounds and clear intentions — and the magic of an acoustic guitar, once owned by Kate Bush, given to her by Tears for Fears, who legend has it, wrote “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” on it.

Over the past couple of months I’ve written about three of the album’s singles: 

  • “Nothing Really Changes,” an angular, 80s New Wave-inspired track rooted in enormous arena rock friendly riffage, paired with the Aussie outfit’s long-held penchant for anthemic hooks and choruses and Vager’s lived-in, heart-worn-on-sleeve lyricism: The song features a narrator desperately missing someone while confronting the lingering ghosts of their relationship — with frustration, despair, anger and a begrudging acceptance. As the band’s Vager explains, the song “started off as a songwriting experiment to write something catchy with an obnoxious riff, a cross between Divinyls and ‘Smoke on the Water.‘ It’s a song about missing someone but protecting yourself from being hurt.”

  • “Squid,” a rousing arena rock friendly anthem that brings Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Starfish-era The Church to mind: Swirling and shimmering guitar textures are paired with angular guitar attack, thunderous drumming, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses. But while rooted in an absurd, Kafkaesque-like nightmare in which the song’s narrator imagines what might happen if they were to go back in time, step on something and become a squid, Vager’s delivery is so desperately earnest and urgent that it feels very real.

  • “Midnight Sun,” an urgent, hurtling ripper built around Vager’s defiant, furious delivery, jangling guitars, and a thunderous and propulsive rhythms action paired with the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses Fittingly, the song deals with matters of disbelief, and what it feels like to live in a culture — and a world — that often prefers to argue about semantics rather than save the world from burning. If it hits close to home, it fucking should. It’s our current hellscape, where we constantly deal with a seemingly unending and pervasive, cynical, self-serving stupidity and myopia. 

Brain Worms‘ fourth and latest single, album opening “Common Ground” is a shimmering and anthemic ballad rooted in heart-worn-proudly-on-sleeve earnestness and lived-in personal experience. And at the center, Vager’s commanding presence, delivering the song’s lyrics with a mix of heartache, weariness, resignation, yearning, acceptance that can only come with the recognition of a relationship being over — irrevocably and irreparably over. “Common Ground” is in many ways about heartache and those moments of begrudging acceptance in our lives; but it’s also about the resolve to defiantly and proudly dust yourself off and figure out what’s next. If you’ve been there — and I have been many times in my life — the song speaks of the experience with a profound wisdom, unvarnished honesty and deep sense of hope.

“I think that there’s something relieving in knowing that no matter what you do you can’t sway certain peoples feelings for you,” says Vager. “I wrote ‘Common Ground’ in a deep depression but it has evolved into a mantra to tell myself that there are some things I am unable to change, and that’s okay.”

Directed by Tom Campbell and shot in a gorgeous black and white, the accompanying video for “Common Ground” features the members of RVG performing the song in the round at a local gym while dancer Jayden Lewis performs striking choreography by Zoee Marsh that sees Lewis physically struggling — first to get up off the floor, and then against his own body.

“Together we wanted to do something that was stripped back, reduced to its simplest form, with only the most basic and essential features,” Campbell explains. “There is no contrivance, no attempt to cover up or hide the infrastructure of the band’s instruments or our film gear, we embrace that chaos, but we also wanted to play with our audiences expectations to land somewhere in the middle of narrative and performance. Visually, I wanted to represent the struggle I heard in the lyrics in a physical way. How we fight these feelings, how we try to beat them down, or free ourselves from them. These feelings get inside us, under our skin – ridding ourselves of them, or exorcising them from within, becomes a kind of exercise in healing.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Berlin’s Wind Mile Shares Dreamy and Atmospheric “Alone”

WIND MILE is a Berlin-based emerging and mysterious singer/songwriter, musician and photographer, also known as Antonin Côme. Music allows the emerging Berlin-based artist to shut down the scientific/logical mind and follow his instincts.

Côme debut EP was written during a rather liminal period of his life: between Germany and France, and between his time as a student and adulthood. The EP’s material is rooted in the ambition to craft a coherent batch of songs that the listener can dive into repeatedly — built around guitar arpeggios, glistening synths and propulsive bass lines paired with dreamily delivered vocals.

The EP’s latest single, the dreamy”Alone” is built around glistening guitar arpeggios, twinkling synths, the Berlin-based artist’s dreamy and plaintive delivery and enormous hooks. While sounding indebted to 80s pop, “Alone” is rooted in a lived-in earnestness — and is inspired by personal experience: The one was written between two different conversations with his six new roommates, who were — thankfully for him — becoming his friends. And as a result, the song is an ode to socializing and meeting new friends while reflecting his own need to be surrounded by people.

The accompanying video is comprised of footage of Côme hanging out with friends at various locales in Berlin, playing a house show and pensively hanging out on rooftops. The end result is an intimate visual portrait of a young, emerging artist.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Drew Kohl is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter. Relocating to Nashville back in 2014, Kohl quickly immersed himself in the city’s country/Americana scene, dressing the part and writing and performing folk-styled material. He has toured with the likes of Kiely Connell and Ray LaMontagne — and he has played at The Chicago Theater, Louisville Palace and lengthy list of other venues. But after spending several years in the scene, Kohl became increasingly disillusioned. He suddenly shifted to electric guitar and sought refuse in late night writing sessions that drew from Pavement, Elliott Smith, Johnny Marr and others.

Kohl found those late night writing sessions liberating — he explored new sounds and darker thematic concerns. The end result is his latest music project Cold Equations and the project’s forthcoming Paul Moak-produced self-titled debut, which was recorded at Smokestack Studio. “The first LP I wrote, “Ghost Town”, was super liberating – I didn’t have to fit into the ‘Country- Americana mold’ so I felt free to explore new sounds and lyrical themes,” the Nashville-based Kohl explains. “The Americana genre started feeling super restrictive and I didn’t really resonate or identify with the aesthetic anymore. So I withdrew from performing for a while and started writing indie rock songs in my bedroom which eventually became the songs on this upcoming album. This is the record I always wanted to make.”

After meeting Ryan Dishen (drums) at a punk show and later John O’Brien (bass), Cold Equation quickly became a full-fledged band that started writing, revising and rehearsing the material that Kohl originally wrote during those late night sessions.

“Identity Crisis,” the self-titled album’s latest single is a decidedly 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock anthem built around fuzzy power chords and the sort of mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses that would make Dave Grohl proud. As Kohl explains, the song is inspired by the sensation of something very familiar suddenly becoming unfamiliar — and facing someone, who suddenly acts out of character. But the twist is that the song’s narrator is the one, who’s having the crisis.

The self-titled album is slated for a June release.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sweden’s The Background World Shares Heartbreaking “Love Ends”

Skövde, Sweden-based indie outfit The Background World was founded by primary songwriters Martin Platan (lead guitar0 and Hanna Leijon (vocals) back in 2017. As the duo quickly began to amass a collection of songs, they started playing live shows together. But they realized that the material they had been writing, needed to be further fleshed out to fulfill their vision. Platan and Leijon first recruited Marcus Helmmer (keys). They then recruited Oscar Hjerpe (guitar) and Mikel Åkerman (drums) old friends, who the band’s founding members had collaborated with in several different projects over the years. The last additions to the band were high school friends Edwin Muratovic (bass) and Tove Håkansson (backing vocal).

As a newly-minted septet, The Background World recorded a live session on YouTube and a live EP, which was released on all the DSPs. Whether as a duo or as a septet, the band’s material thematically touches upon addition, mental health, searching for something better and even just the simple things in everyday life.

The members of The Background World are working on their full-length debut, which will feature last year’s “Why” and the Swedish band’s latest single “Love Ends.” Built around shimmering guitars, Leijon’s achingly plaintive vocals and enormous hooks and choruses, the new single is a lived-in anthem about the heartache of being in a relationship that’s petering to an inevitable breakup that sonically recalls Til Tuesday‘s “Voices Carry” and JOVM mainstays FRANKIIE.

Directed by Oskar Andersson, the accompanying video for “Love Ends” stars the band’s primary songwriting pair as a couple on the verve of a disastrous and heart-wrenching breakup: Platan’s character is a catatonic and disinterested. And at points, if you pay close attention, you see Platan blink in and then out of the frame. Leijon’s character is desperately trying to hold on to the relationship — and perhaps her own sanity. Is their relationship real or a simulation? That’s up to you to decide. The video ends with Leijoin’s character noticing something being off, waking up to see that her man has left her in the middle of the night. But the video pulls out into her real world, suggesting that her video game and life have imitated each other.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kiltro Shares Shimmering and Wistful “All The Time In The World”

Years ago, Chilean-American singer/songwriter and guitarist Chris Bowers Castillo moved to the Chilean port city of Valparaíso and became a walking tour guide. “I would dress up as Wally and give tours to families and kids,” he remembers with a laugh. “It was great, because I got to know the city incredibly well. I’d walk for hours, then spend the rest of the day partying and drinking, probably way too much. But I also wrote lots of new songs.” 

When he got to to Denver, Bowers Castillo searched for a moniker that reflected the evocative and subtly rebellious musical concepts he had brewing and his head, and eventually settled on Kiltro. a Chilean slang word for a stray dog or a mutt. He then teamed up with Will Parkhill (bass) and Micheal Devincenzi (drums). He then recruited Fez García (percussion) to join the band for their live shows. “I wanted to do a project mixing different styles and aesthetics,” Castillo explains. “Valparaíso is my favorite city in the world and will always influence my music. There were street dogs everywhere, and I’m a mutt myself.” 

Slated for a June 2, 2023 release, the Denver-based outfit’s forthcoming sophomore album Underbelly reportedly represents a bold, new chapter for the band, as they seamlessly fuse Latin roots music with American rock music. “When we first started the band, I was playing folk songs – focusing on my interior spaces and finding catharsis through melody,” Bowers Castillo says. “I’ve always been attracted to music that is melancholy and personal. Then we added the rhythmic component, and I realized that having a bit of noise and chaos can add emotional depth. Underbelly reflects everything that happens inside your soul when the world stops on its tracks.” “We tried a lot of new things on this record,” Kiltro’s Will Parkhill adds. “We were living through unprecedented times and coming to terms with all of it. The album is a reflection of that. At the end of the day, we wanted to create the kind of music that we didn’t hear anywhere else.”

The album’s first single “Guanaco” is built around a sinuous and propulsive groove paired with glistening guitars, Latin-influenced percussion, four-on-the-floor, Bowers Castillo’s gently cooed Spanish delivery and a sleek, almost dance floor friendly hook. Sonically, “Guanaco” sees the Denver-based outfit specializing in the sort of off-kilter funk reminiscent of Fear of Music–More Songs About Buildings and Food–Remain in Light-era Talking Heads but with a defiant, genre-defying flair. 

 “A guanaco is a South American animal that is a bit like a llama. It’s known for spitting,” Bowers Castillo explains. “In Chile, it has another meaning, and is colloquially used to refer to police vehicles that shoot water at protestors. We wrote this song in the wake of the 2019 protests for a new constitution in Chile.  The line “ya viene el guanáco” means simply “here/now comes the guanáco,” which against a driving, melancholic backdrop, had an almost fairy tale quality to it. I felt it communicated a sense of foreboding and nervous anxiety. Taken more literally, it means a beast is coming, here.  Of course, a guanaco is not a terrifying thing, but a police line in riot gear with the machinery of dispersion and violence, is. 

He continues “To be clear, the aim was never to make an explicit political point. Rather, I wanted to capture that peculiar environment of communal tension and mounting emotional energy, be it conviction or catharsis, or fear. The album had yet to take shape in those months, but I was certain the song would make an apt intro to whatever came next. I hope you enjoy it.”

“All The Time In The World,” Underbelly‘s second and latest single is a decidedly folk turn, built around simmering reverb-soaked acoustic guitar, Latin-influenced rhythms and atmospheric synths with Bowers Castillo’s plaintive delivery. And at its core, “All The Time In The World” simultaneously evokes a wistful and bittersweet nostalgia over things that are lost and can never return and a hope for a bright new future ahead.

Written during quarantine, “All The Time In The World” was a breath of fresh hair for the band while making the record in dark times. “It’s a reminder that no mater how the world may spiral, it’s important to stop and take a breath,'” the band explains.