Tag: Kurt Ballou

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Two More Fierce, Earnest Anthems

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — will be releasing their fourth album BEAR on October 10 through their new label home Magnetic Eye Records. 

Co-produced by the duo and their longtime collaborator Kurt Ballou, who also tracked the instrumental performances and mixed the material, BEAR’s songs are unified in a theme that runs throughout in various ways: the ever-elusive idea of belonging, where it occurs and where it absolutely doesn’t. 

Written around the realization that she had essentially been kicked out of womanhood, Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra wrote BEAR‘s material as a way to document her awarenesses while cataloging other areas of human connection: art, outsider culture, and dark rock venues — all places where empathy and creativity grow wild. She and her bandmate Jerry Roe arranged and performed the album specifically to have two sides to it musically: heavy and light. Salt and sugar. Fire and air. Lost and found. 

Last month, the JOVM mainstays excitedly shared two singles from the forthcoming album: “MELT,” a breakneck yet bold, heart-worn-on sleeve anthem that expresses the sense of betrayal, confusion and heartbreak in a sort of et tu Brute? moment. “KEEPING SCORE,” a defiant war cry of an adult, who has learned to parent and protect her childhood self — and an adult who is willing and able to defend young girls, who remind her of her younger self from the insults and ill-treatment she received when she was their age.

Building upon the momentum of the forthcoming album’s first two singles, the Nashville-based JOVM mainstays have shared two more singles: “X,” continues a remarkable run of bruising yet proudly heart worn on sleeve anthems, rooted in lived-in personal experiences. In the case of “X,” the song is built and informed by the bitter ache of unexpected and tragically unfair loss of a dear one, way too soon.

Written a few weeks after the sudden death of the band’s longtime friend and collaborator Steve Albini, Buick Audra says, ” I was grieving, but I was also watching a generation grieve in ways I’d observed my whole life—stoically, strongly, sentimentally, and somewhat individually. This song is a loving send-up to that lost generation. We wanted the track and visuals to honor some of the artists who raised us creatively, including Steve. The camera I’m holding in the second verse was his. Very moving to have and include it here. He was a young Boomer, but the absolute King of Gen X. Missed and loved.”

“MIDHEAVEN” is arguably one of the more widescreen songs of their growing catalog, a song loose enough that it lets the forceful and dexterous instrumentation and Audra’s powerhouse vocals breath while continuing to showcase the duo’s unerring knack for crafting arena rock hooks and choruses. “MIDHEAVEN goes wider; it gets into this idea of being born under a certain set of stars, and whether or not that has anything to do with who we are. As a person who feels like a lifelong misfit with a nature I can’t seem to change, I’m curious about where that starts. Is it written from the start? I’m willing to believe anything at this point. Some days, it’s tempting to blame it all on the sky.”

“I wanted the video for ‘X’ to have the vibe and look of those by our favorite bands from the Gen X/Grunge era while still being its own thing, so it’s lit, shot and performed in a way that honors that spirit without aping anything too closely (hopefully)! Everyone wanted to appear tough and cool while also not seeming to take what they were doing too seriously.” Friendship Commanders’ Jerry Roe says of the video for “X.” “There’s such a particular mood of the era that no one has captured since. It was the best time for the medium of music videos honestly, and it was a lot of fun to try and channel it. I find it moving to watch in a way that surprises me.”

“‘MIDHEAVEN’ stands out in our discography for being so instrumentally driven. The vocals and melody are just as integral a part of the song as any song in our repertoire, but large portions of this track are just the two of us ripping at each other and it’s an absolute blast to listen to and play.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Two Fierce, Earnest Anthems

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — will be releasing their fourth album BEAR on October 10 through their new label home Magnetic Eye Records.

Co-produced by the band’s members and longtime collaborator Kurt Ballou, who also tracked the instrumental performances and mixed the material, BEAR’s songs are unified in a theme that runs throughout in various ways: the ever-elusive idea of belonging, where it occurs and where it absolutely doesn’t.

Written around the realization that she had essentially been kicked out of womanhood, Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra wrote BEAR‘s material as a way to document her awarenesses while cataloging other areas of human connection: art, outsider culture, and dark rock venues — all places where empathy and creativity grow wild. She and her bandmate Jerry Roe arranged and performed the album specifically to have two sides to it musically: heavy and light. Salt and sugar. Fire and air. Lost and found.

The JOVM mainstays have excitedly shared two album tracks from the forthcoming album: “MELT,” is a breakneck, yet bold, heart-worn-on-sleeve anthem that showcases the duo’s unerring knack for paring arena rock-like bombast, complete with enormous riffs and thunderous drumming, with earnest, deeply lived-in lyricism and songwriting. “MELT” features what may arguably be among the most syrupy sweet melodies they’ve recorded of their growing catalog while expressing a sense of betrayal, confusion and heartache, a sort of et tu Brute? moment for the song’s narrator.

Directed by the band’s Jerry Roe with cinematography by Roe and Jarad Clement, the accompanying video for “MELT” was shot at Nashville’s DRKMTTR, where the band has built their own community and features familiar faces and friends from their music scene. It captures the sweaty joy of going to a show and bonding with both new and old friends over your love of a band; of that shared sense of a band or a musician singing songs that seem to speak about you and your life, the things you’ve felt and the things you’ve seen.

“KEEPING SCORE,” will further cement the JOVM mainstays heart-worn-on-sleeve ethos but while being a breakneck and defiant, war cry of an adult, who has learned how to parent and protect her childhood self, and is willing and able to defend young girls, who remind her of herself when she was their age from the insults and ill-treatment she received.

The accompanying video for “KEEPING SCORE” was directed and edited by the band’s Jerry Roe and features cinematography from Roe and Jarad Clement. Shot at Franklin, TN-based Westlight Studios, the video features the duo performing the song in a cinematic black and white, with stylish lighting.

“‘KEEPING SCORE’ was the first song written for BEAR. I think of it as the mother of the album,” Audra says. “When I was a kid, the mother of my best friend, a boy, singled me out as a problem for her son and all the other boys in our skateboarding crew. She was afraid I was corrupting them somehow. She called around and spread non-truths about me to the other parents, some of whom I’d never met. It was devastating, humiliating beyond words. Years later, I realized women in my own generation were doing the same thing to little girls who knew their sons. Little girls! Age seven, eight! Being called ‘hussies’ by grown women! Color me horrified. Color me involved. Now that I can speak for myself, I will also speak for girls like me. Someone should. The propulsive riff on this song is my war cry.”

“‘MELT’ is about realizing I’ve never really fit with my own kind, something I’ve only come to terms with in the last two years or so,” the Friendship Commanders frontperson continues. “I’ve spent so much time and energy trying to be a woman among women, but at the end of the day, I’m just always over here being too loud. Too much. And yet, somehow also not enough. It’s a stunning paradox. Musically, the song has a sugary quality to it, which is also referenced in the line, ‘that’s how they punch you, sugar over fists.’ This track beats me up because it’s so painfully true, but it’s also a delight to play.”

“These songs were so exciting to hear when Buick played them for me for the first time – pretty unlike anything we’d ever done up to this point in terms of energy and propulsion,” the band’s Jerry Roe adds. “Our music has tended to move either fast or slow while somehow feeling heavy at all times, and these songs lean and move forward in a way that’s much brighter and quite joyful, even through the subject matter. To play them almost feels like being flown through the air towards a gigantic bullseye made of fiery confetti! I can’t wait to play this new album live.”

You can preorder the forthcoming album here.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstays Friendship Commanders Share Urgent, Steve Albini Mix of “Outlive You”

Nashville-based duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — released their Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS last year. MASS is a concept album […]

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: Nashville’s Friendship Commanders Share Grungy Ripper “Fail”


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. The album’s second and latest single “Fail” is grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. The song evokes both a desperate cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that sadly seems to fall short. The duo explains 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.

Directed, edited and shot by the band’s Jerry Roe, the accompanying video features Audra, Roe and Daniel Skiver, and is split between the band playing performing the song in a bare loft space and intimately shot footage of a desperate man, who’s at the end of his rope.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Chelsea Wolfe Releases Sensual and Hellish Fever Dream-like Visuals for Album Single “Spun”

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you’ve likely come across a series of posts featuring the California-born and-based singer/songwriter guitarist and JOVM mainstay artist Chelsea Wolfe. And as you may recall, with the release of her four previously released albums. 2010’s The Grime and the Glow, 2011’s Apokalypsis, 2013’s Pain Is Beauty and 2015’s Abyss, Wolfe received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for an imitable sound that draws from gothic rock, folk, neo-folk, electronica and metal with a moody and cinematic quality — while thematically focusing on burrowing beneath the world’s brutality, ugliness, messiness and hurt to get at a profound sense of beauty. 

Wolfe’s recently released sixth full-length album Hiss Spun is reportedly inspired by a Henry Miller quote —  “What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin — to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.” And unsurprisingly, the material finds the renowned California-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist adopting Miller’s quest to become truly empowered by embracing the complete, messy self and to control the tumult within one’s soul — in the hopes of reigning in the chaos of the surrounding world. 

Ironically, as Wolfe explained in press notes, when she started working on the album, she had initially wanted to write escapist music with songs about being in your body and getting free; but “you’re just bombarded with constant bad news, people getting fucked over and killed for shitty reasons or no reason at all, and it seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember that it’s been fucked for a long time; it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.” Of course, as you may recall, Hiss Spun was recorded by Kurt Ballou in Salem, MA earlier this year, during a brutally (and perhaps prototypical) New England winter, several major upheveals in Wolfe’s personal life, her coming to terms with years of conflicting feelings of vulnerability, anger and self-destruction, and a dark family history that has managed to weigh heavily in her life.  And as a result, the material on Hiss Spun may arguably be the heaviest, darkest and most forceful material she has written to date. Additionally, long-time collaborator Ben Chisholm contributes swaths of sound collages recorded while Wolfe and her backing and were on tour — the rumble of street construction while they were on tour in Prague; the howl of a coyote outside Wolfe’s home; the scrape of machinery on a floor of a warehouse at a down-and-out friend’s workplace, as well as samples from the bomb blasts of the Enola Gay, the shrieks and mating calls of primates, the fluttering pages of a book of Walt Whitman’s poetry are all manipulated and seamlessly placed within the music.

With the release of the album’s first two singles — the brooding  Tool and A Perfect Circle meets PJ Harvey-like cathartic, emotional purge of “16 Psyche” and the atmospheric and moody “Offering,” Wolfe has managed to reveal herself as a restlessly chameleon-like artist and songwriter, actively pushing her sound to new directions while crafting material that possesses a fearless, unvarnished honesty.  And the album’s latest single “Spun” continues in the same vein as its predecessors as Wolfe and her backing band pair enormous power chords, some dexterous and blistering guitar work and pummeling drumming in a slow-burning, sludgy dirge — but Wolfe’s ethereal crooning and wailing brings an plaintive and urgent yearning to the song.

Directed by Wolfe and shot in Sacramento, CA, the video is a dark, sweaty, yet sensual fever dream that manages to have an empowering quality as its female leads — Wolfe and pole dancer, Felicia Drake possess an cool, self-assuredness, although Drake in many ways is a siren through a tense and fucked up journey through one’s own memories and dreams. And as a result, the video manages to have a lingering, almost sickening quality of life’s very real ghosts. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Chelsea Wolfe Returns with an Atmospheric and Moody Track Focusing on Finding Inner Peace Within a Tumultuous World

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few years, you may have come across a handful of posts featuring the California-born and-based singer/songwriter guitarist and JOVM mainstay artist Chelsea Wolfe. With the release of 2010’s The Grime and the Glow, 2011’s Apokalypsis, 2013’s Pain Is Beauty and 2015’s Abyss, Wolfe received attention across the blogosphere for a sound that meshes elements of gothic rock, folk, neo-folk, electronica and metal while thematically digging beneath the world’s ugliness, messiness and hurt to get at a profound beauty. And because of its cinematic and deeply moody quality,  her music has been featured in the promotional material for several TV series, including Game of Thrones, Fear the Walking Dead and How to Get Away with Murder.

Wolfe’s sixth full-length album Hiss Spun is reportedly inspired by a Henry Miller quote —  “What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin — to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.” And unsurprisingly, the material finds the renowned California-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist adopting Miller’s quest to become truly empowered by embracing the complete, messy self and to control the tumult within one’s soul in the hopes of reigning in the chaos of the world around them. However, as Wolfe explains in press notes, she had initially wanted to write some sort of escapist music with songs that were about being in your body and getting free; but “you’re just bombarded with constant bad news, people getting fucked over and killed for shitty reasons or no reason at all, and it seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember that it’s been fucked for a long time; it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.”

The album, which was recorded by Kurt Ballou in Salem, MA during the beginning of this year was also inspired by a brutally cold New England winter, several major upheveals in Wolfe’s personal life, as well as the Californian singer/songwriter and guitarist coming to terms with years of conflicting feelings of vulnerability, anger and self-destruction, an dark family history that has weighed heavily upon her and her life. And as a result, the material on Hiss Spun may arguably be the heaviest, darkest and most forceful material she has written to date. Additionally, long-time collaborator Ben Chisholm contributes swaths of sound collages recorded while Wolfe and her backing and were on tour — the rumble of street construction while they were on tour in Prague; the howl of a coyote outside Wolfe’s home; the scrape of machinery on a floor of a warehouse at a down-and-out friend’s workplace, as well as samples from the bomb blasts of the Enola Gay, the shrieks and mating calls of primates, the fluttering pages of a book of Walt Whitman’s poetry are all manipulated and seamlessly placed within the music.

Hiss Spun’s first single “16 Psyche” was a cathartic emotional purge, while managing to sound as though it were inspired by Tool and A Perfect Circle, complete with pummeling drumming and roaring distortion-heavy power chords and an antehmic hook possesses a palpable aching yearning  and broiling, feral, fury at its core that reminds me quite a bit of PJ Harvey. The album’s second and latest single is the atmospheric and moody “Offering,” a track which finds Wolfe employing the use of shimmering and spiraling synths, stuttering boom-bap like low end and a cinematic string arrangement paired with her smoky crooning — but interestingly enough the song reflects the album’s larger themes of desperately trying to find inner peace while the world spirals out of control. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The 90s and 00s Metal and Alt Rock-Inspired Visuals for Chelsea Wolfe’s “16 Psyche”

Chelsea Wolfe is a California-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who with the release of 2010’s The Grime and the Glow, 2011’s Apokalypsis, 2013’s Pain Is Beauty and 2015’s Abyss received attention across the blogosphere for a sound that meshes elements of gothic rock, folk, neofolk, electronica and metal, and for material that thematically dug underneath the world’s ugliness, messiness and hurt to get at a profound beauty underneath. Because of its cinematic and moody quality, her music has been featured in the promotional material for several TV series, including Game of Thrones, Fear the Walking Dead and How to Get Away with Murder.

Wolfe’s sixth full-length album Hiss Spun is reportedly inspired by a Henry Miller quote —  “What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin — to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.” And unsurprisingly, the material finds the renowned California-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist adopting Miller’s quest to become truly empowered by embracing the complete, messy self and to control the tumult within one’s soul in the hopes of reigning in the chaos of the world around them. However, as Wolfe explains in press notes, she had initially wanted to write some sort of escapist music with songs that were about being in your body and getting free; but “you’re just bombarded with constant bad news, people getting fucked over and killed for shitty reasons or no reason at all, and it seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember that it’s been fucked for a long time; it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.” 

The album, which was recorded by Kurt Ballou in Salem, MA during the beginning of this year was also inspired by a brutally cold New England winter, several major upheveals in Wolfe’s personal life, as well as the Californian singer/songwriter and guitarist coming to terms with years of conflicting feelings of vulnerability, anger and self-destruction, an dark family history that has weighed heavily upon her and her life. And as a result, the material on Hiss Spun may arguably be the heaviest, darkest and most forceful material she has written to date. Additionally, long-time collaborator Ben Chisholm contributes swaths of sound collages recorded while Wolfe and her backing and were on tour — the rumble of street construction while they were on tour in Prague; the howl of a coyote outside Wolfe’s home; the scrape of machinery on a floor of a warehouse at a down-and-out friend’s workplace, as well as samples from the bomb blasts of the Enola Gay, the shrieks and mating calls of primates, the fluttering pages of a book of Walt Whitman’s poetry are all manipulated and seamlessly placed within the music.

The overall effect was to be a cathartic emotional purge and as you’ll hear on “16 Psyche,” the latest single off Hiss Spun, the song while managing to sound as though it were inspired by Tool and A Perfect Circle, complete with pummeling drumming and roaring distortion-heavy power chords and an antehmic hook possesses a palpable aching yearning  and broiling, feral, fury at its core that reminds me quite a bit of PJ Harvey. 
Directed by Zev Deans, the recently released video for “16 Psyche” is deeply inspired by late 90s and early 00s alt rock and metal videos and features a cameo by Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, who appeared in similar videos of the era, and fittingly the video consists of dark, foreboding imagery of Wolfe in a straitjacket, being carted off as though she were Hannibal Lecter, Wolfe and her backing band performing the song in a smoke machine-filled studio dressed entirely in black and more. As a boy and teenager, who was obsessed with watching MTV, just watching the video brings back a ton of memories — Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” anyone? 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chelsea Wolfe Returns with Her Most Punishing and Feral Song To Date

Chelsea Wolfe is a California-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who with the release of 2010’s The Grime and the Glow, 2011’s Apokalypsis, 2013’s Pain Is Beauty and 2015’s Abyss Wolfe received attention both across the blogosphere and nationally for a sound that meshes elements of gothic rock, folk, neofolk, electronica and metal while thematically digging beneath the ugliness, messiness and pain of the world to get to the beauty underneath; in fact as a result, her music has been featured in the promotional material for several TV series, including Game of Thrones, Fear the Walking Dead and How to Get Away with Murder. 

Reportedly inspired by a Henry Miller quote “What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin — to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it,” Wolfe’s forthcoming sixth full length album, Hiss Spun the California-born and based singer/songwriter and guitarist adopts Miller’s quest to become empowered by embracing the mess of the self, to control the tumult of the soul in hopes of reigning in the chaos of the world around oneself. Interestingly enough as Wolfe explains in press notes, she had wanted to write some sort of escapist music; songs that were just about being in your body and getting free; however, “you’re just bombarded with constant bad news, people getting fucked over and kill for shitty reasons or no reason at all, and it seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember it’s been fucked for a long time, it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.” 

Recorded by Kurt Ballou in Salem, MA during the beginning of this year, Hiss Spun was reportedly inspired by a brutally cold New England winter, major upheavals in Wolfe’s personal life, Wolfe coming to terms with years of vulnerability, anger, self-destruction and a dark family history and its weight upon her and her life and as a result, the material may arguably be the heaviest, darkest and most feral Wolfe has ever written. Additionally, long-time collaborator Ben Chisholm contributes swaths of sound collages recorded while the artist and her backing and were on tour — the rumble of street construction while they were on tour in Prague; the howl of a coyote outside Wolfe’s home; the scrape of machinery on a floor of a warehouse at a down-and-out friend’s workplace, as well as samples from the bomb blasts of the Enola Gay, the shrieks and mating calls of primates, the fluttering pages of a book of Walt Whitman’s poetry are all manipulated and seamlessly placed within the music. The overall effect was to be a cathartic emotional purge and as you’ll hear on “16 Psyche,” the latest single off Hiss Spun, the song manages to sound as though it draws from the work of Tool and A Perfect Circle with an oceanic quality — but underneath the pummeling drumming and roaring distortion-heavy guitars and anthemic hooks, is an earnest, palpable ache and yearning.