Tag: non-binary artists who kick ass

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Taleen Kali Shares “120 Minutes”-Era MTV-like “Crusher”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, poet, essayist, visual artist, Dum Dum Records founder, and JOVM mainstay Taleen Kali. Kail (she/they) has made a carer out of writing romantic punk songs that are simultaneously cosmic, dreamy and defiant, and informed by her Armenian heritage and her parents’ birthplaces of Lebanon and Ethiopia. But the material is underpinned by Kali’s desire to seamlessly fuse her cultural heritage and identity with the sounds of the modern countercultures she grew up embracing and exploring as a musician and singer/songwriter. 

Kali’s music career started with a stint in Los Angeles-based band TÜLIPS. After TÜLIPS closed up shop in 2016, she stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist, eventually touring across the US with Ex Hex, Alice Bag and Seth Bogart. 

The Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s solo debut, 2018’s Kristin Kontrol-produced Soul Songs EP was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound Studios. The EP, which found Kali’s long-held riot grrl ethos maturing into a multifaceted punk sound and approach with elements of noise pop and New Wave was released to praise from BUST Magazine and Stereogum, who likened her sound to a contemporary Blondie. Soul Songs was also included in Pitchfork‘s Guide to Summer Albums and LA Weekly‘s Best Indie Punk Albums. 

Kali along with her backing band followed up with an unplugged version of Soul Songsand covers of The Supremes‘ “Baby Love” and Garbage‘s “#1 Crush.” She also recorded a two-song pandemic project called Changing with her TÜLIPS-era producer Greg Katz.

Taleen Kali’s Jeff Schroeder and Josiah Mazzaschi-co-produced full-length debut Flower of Life is slated for a March 3, 2023 release through Kali’s Dum Dum Records. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the rising Los Angeles further cementing her fuzzy and noisy take on psych punk paired with vocals that run the range of femme punk and shoegaze siren. 

Over the past year or so, I’ve written about the following album singles: 

  • Album title track “Flower of Life,” a grungy psych punk ripper centered around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, soaring organ chords and Kali’s sneering delivery paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses that sonically was a bit of a synthesis of My Bloody Valentine and riot grrl punk. “‘Flower of Life’ was a spiritual concept I held onto for a long time before writing this song,” Kali explains in press notes. “The flower is a fractal, a cycle, ever blooming, ever decaying. 

  • “Trash Talk“, a jangling Brit Pop-inspired anthem centered around a chugging motorik-like groove, fuzzy power chords, Kali’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and a sneering “fuck off” attitude towards haters, trolls and toxic bullshit that almost anyone can relate to. 

  • “Fine Line,” a Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-like confection centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a forceful and driving rhythm section paired with Kali’s plaintive delivery and her unerring knack for well, placed, rousingly anthemic hooks. 

  • “Tomorrow Girl,” a shimmering Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-meets shoegaze-like pop confection featuring shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, Kali’s gorgeous and achingly plaintive delivery paired with a driving rhythm section and enormous hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Tomorrow Girl” is rooted in personal, lived-in experience and hard-won wisdom. 

Flower of Life‘s latest single “Crusher” is a swooning, 120 Minutes alt rock-like shoegazer them featuring swirling guitar textures, relentless four-on-the-floor and Kali’s unerring knack for enormous hooks paired with heart-proudly-worn on-sleeve earnestness and a blazing solo from Smashing Pumpkins’ Jeff Shroeder. “Crusher” manages to evoke the sweet ache of having a desperate crush. “Crusher’ is our ultimate shoegaze love song. You ever crush so hard you’ve been brought to your knees? This song is about all those impossible feelings, taking inspiration from some of the greats: Chapterhouse, Lush, Ride, and Curve,” Kali explains. “This song has always been our band favorite and it features a guitar solo from Jeff Schroeder of Smashing Pumpkins so we’ve been saving the best for last…”

Fittingly, the accompanying video for “Crusher” draws from 120 Minutes-era MTV and features romantic imagery — guitars played with roses, roses bursting into flames, shot through kaleidoscopic filters.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: L.T. Leif Shares Lush “Gentle Moon”

L.T. Leif (they/them) is a Canadian-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has spent stints residing in the Canadian prairies, Finland, Iceland and the Pacific Northwest — and is an adopted member of the Scottish DIY music scene. Their life and work is rooted in the self-sufficient spirit of the Canadian prairies and is informed by their travels.

Leif first cut their teeth with Calgary-based orchestral pop outfit The Consonant C. Since the group’s split back in 2011, Leif has explored different configurations and approaches, including experimental noise collaborations with the Bug Incision crew, playing sold-out shows with punk-hearted OK JAZZ, drumming with slacker-rock bands Hex Ray and Hungry Freaks, playing synths with Astral Swanns’ Matt Swamn, and even singing in a witch choir, Hermitess. Leif’s admirers including K Records founder and label head Calvin Johnson — they toured together with The Believer Magazine.

As a solo artist, Leif has collaborated with a collection of friends, releasing 2016’s double album Shadow on the Brim/Rough Beasts and her first release on Lost Map Records, last year’s Lost Cat cassette compilation of live and unreleased tracks, Introducing L.T. Lief. Throughout each of those releases, Leif’s spirit is collaborative generative, experimental and kind. The band members and the parameters of the project are ever-evolving, but as Leif says of the overall project, “to the friendships and the moment, we are grateful and stay true.”

Leif’s recently released album Come Back To Me, But Lightly was demoed in a room on Glasgow‘s Great Western Road and made intercontinentally with contributions both remote and in-person from pals near and far. The album features lush and sensual songs about “the body, loss as a decision, and knowing your own desire as a radical act,” the Canadian artist says. “It has a lot of imagery and thought from the northern places I’ve been living, and takes inspiration from minimalist writers, painters, and thinkers. This album comes from a six-year long space of change, from a life I was living as someone afraid of my own brain and body, into someone a lot more openly unshiney. Painful and seeping. I think that distance and decisions and loss and conflict are all things that can birth you into a different kind of being.”

Come Back To Me, But Lightly‘s latest single “Gentle Moon,” is a lush and beguiling tune rooted in a gentle, kindly spirit paired with an arrangement featuring glistening pedal steel, twinkling keys, strummed guitar and Leif’s expressive vocals singing lyrics that make references to the cosmos, the human body and longing. The song feels warm, deeply-lived in and unabashedly earnest.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Taleen Kali Returns with Shimmering “Tomorrow Girl”

Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, poet, essayist, visual artist, Dum Dum Records founder, and JOVM mainstay Taleen Kali (she/they) has made a career out of crafting romantic punk songs that are simultaneously cosmic, dreamy and defiant, and informed by her Armenian heritage and her parents’ birthplaces of Lebanon and Ethiopia. But its all underpinned by Kali’s desire to seamlessly fuse her cultural heritage and identity with the sounds of the modern countercultures she grew up embracing and exploring as a musician and singer/songwriter.

Kali’s music career started with a stint in Los Angeles-based band TÜLIPS. After TÜLIPS closed up shop in 2016, she stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist, eventually touring across the US with Ex Hex, Alice Bag and Seth Bogart. 

The Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s solo debut, 2018’s Kristin Kontrol-produced Soul Songs EP was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound Studios. The EP, which found Kali’s long-held riot grrl ethos maturing into a multifaceted punk sound and approach with elements of noise pop and New Wave was  released to praise from BUST Magazine and Stereogum, who likened her sound to a contemporary Blondie. Soul Songs was also included in Pitchfork‘s Guide to Summer Albums and LA Weekly‘s Best Indie Punk Albums. 

Kali along with her backing band followed up with an unplugged version of Soul Songs and covers of The Supremes‘ “Baby Love” and Garbage‘s “#1 Crush.” She also recorded a two-song pandemic project called Changing with her TÜLIPS-era producer Greg Katz.

Taleen Kali’s Jeff Schroeder and Josiah Mazzaschi-co-produced full-length debut Flower of Life is slated for a March 3, 2023 release through Kali’s Dum Dum Records. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the rising Los Angeles further cementing her fuzzy and noisy take on psych punk paired with vocals that run the range of femme punk and shoegaze siren. 

Over the past year or so, I’ve written about the following album singles:

  • Album title track “Flower of Life,” a grungy psych punk ripper centered around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, soaring organ chords and Kali’s sneering delivery paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses that sonically was a bit of a synthesis of My Bloody Valentine and riot grrl punk. “‘Flower of Life’ was a spiritual concept I held onto for a long time before writing this song,” Kali explains in press notes. “The flower is a fractal, a cycle, ever blooming, ever decaying. 

  • “Trash Talk“, a jangling Brit Pop-inspired anthem centered around a chugging motorik-like groove, fuzzy power chords, Kali’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and a sneering “fuck off” attitude towards haters, trolls and toxic bullshit that almost anyone can relate to. “‘Trash Talk’ is a track that speaks out against haters, trolls, and toxic bullshit in the hope that it gives a voice to anybody who’s been silenced or worn down,” Kali explains. “I wanted to write a song that embodies my favorite jangly Brit-pop songs and the energy of ‘do no harm, but take no shit.’”

  • “Fine Line,” a Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-like confection centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a forceful and driving rhythm section paired with Kali’s plaintive delivery and her unerring knack for well, placed, rousingly anthemic hooks. “‘Fine Line’ kicks off side B of the record. I wanted tTo explore the ways we feel marked by love and pain. How much of an impact the smallest of impressions can make. And how they can feel when they fade,” the JOVM mainstay explains. “I wrote this song in the summer of 2018 right when the last album Soul Songs was coming out. The process of putting out my first solo record was so strange and cathartic that a handful of new songs just came spilling out during that time, and this was the first one. I really wanted there to be a demarcation for side B of Flower of Life so ‘Fine Line’ is written in a minor key, setting the tone for the 2nd half of the album.”

Flower of Life‘s fifth and latest single “Tomorrow Girl” continues in a similar vein as its immediate predecessor with the song being a shimmering Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-meets shoegaze-like pop confection featuring shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, Kali’s gorgeous and achingly plaintive delivery paired with a driving rhythm section and enormous hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Tomorrow Girl” is rooted in personal, lived-in experience and hard-won wisdom.

“‘Tomorrow Girl’ is about finding your future self when the present isn’t cutting it. I wrote this song when I desperately wanted change. Sometimes when we want change we seek the wrong kind of love, we take drastic measures, we make dumb mistakes,” Kali explains. “This song is my dumb mistake. There are so many punk songs titled ‘____ Girl’ and I wanted to write a song in that tradition from a female POV. So, it’s a song about a girl, but we don’t know if the subject of the song is a love interest or if it’s the narrator having an inner conflict, which I wanted to leave purposefully vague; an inherently queer song.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising Brooklyn-based quartet Razor Braids — Hollye Bynum (she/her) – lead vocals, bass;
Janie Peacock (she/her) – lead guitar; Jilly Karande (she/her) – rhythm guitar, vocals; and
Hannah Nichols (they/them) – drums — is a queer, all female/non-binary indie rock outfit that combines the vulnerable, self-awareness of indie rock with the dynamic instrumentation of 90s alt rock paired with soaring harmonies and a driving rhythm section.

The Brooklyn quartet’s full-length debut, 2021’s I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted Me To was warmly received. Building upon a growing profile, the band released two singles last Spring, “Kelloggs” and “Megachurch,” which received praise from BrooklynVegan while landing on several Spotify Fresh Finds playlists.

Since then, Razor Braids embarked on their first tour through the East Coast, Midwest and South — and played Music Hall of Williamsburg, Sultan Room and Elsewhere as openers for the likes of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Jigsaw Youth and Anna Shoemaker.

For the new year, the band plans to release new music, which will expand on their unique sound with more confidence and sense of purpose. But before they moved forward with new material, the members of the band felt it necessary to take a look back at some older material with fresh eyes: “one is our own and the other a throwback favorite,” the band says.” The first single “Nashville, Again” is a thorough reworking of their debut single “Nashville” that turns the rousing rocker into a slow-burning, honky tonk centered around the act’s gorgeous harmonies and shimmering guitars. “Nashville, Again” was the first song we released as a band and in revisiting the single we got to breathe new life into a song that always feels like coming home when we play it live.”

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The second single sees the rising indie outfit covering Weezer’s 1994 smash hit “Buddy Holly.” Interestingly, the Razor Braids cover begins as a lovingly straightforward cover rooted in the act’s gorgeous harmonizing paired with the original’s rousingly anthemic hooks. But unlike the original there’s a trippy and expansive bridge that reveals the band’s love for the original — and their sense of humor. “As for ‘Buddy Holly,’ mid-90s alt-rock is a big inspiration for us and ‘Say It Ain’t So’ tends to show face at every Razor Braids-attended karaoke so we thought it’d be fun to try our hand at another Weezer classic,” the band explains. “We wanted to call it ‘Buddy Hollye’ but didn’t. But please know that we wanted to.”

The band will be embarking on a month-long tour next month and it includes a stop at this year’s SXSW. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

2/23/2023 Asbury Park NJ Bond Street Bar
2/24/2023 Philadelphia PA MilkBoy
2/25/2023 Washington DC Pie Shop
2/27/2023 Asheville NC The Grey Eagle
3/1/2023 Atlanta GA Vinyl
3/2/2023 Charlotte NC Snug Harbor
3/3/2023 West Columbia SC New Brookland Tavern
3/4/2023 Tallahassee FL The Bark
3/7/2023 New Orleans LA Gasa Gasa
3/8/2023 Houston TX House of Blues – Bronze Peacock
3/13 – 3/18 Austin, TX SXSW
3/22/2023 Nashville TN The Basement
3/24/2023 Chicago IL Subterranean
3/25/2023 Toledo OH The Ottawa Tavern
3/26/2023 Ferndale MI The Parliament Room at Otus Supply
3/28/2023 Cleveland OH Beachland Tavern
3/29/2023 Pittsburgh PA Club Cafe

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Boston’s Mel Fine Shares Soulful and Yearning “Alone Together”

Mel Fine is a rising Boston-based, non-binary singer/songwriter and producer, who cites Etta James and Joni Mitchell as influences. As an artist, the Boston-based artist has developed a sound that meshes soul, jazz and acoustic folk pop paired with a storytelling lyrical approach rooted in lived-in personal experiences. Fine’s goal is to create music for the feelings that are difficult to put into words.

In their very young career, the Boston-based artist has played over 100 stages including the Middle East, Berkshire Pride, the Red Room and countless others across both Boston and New England. Adding to a growing profile, Fine was awarded the 2021 Performance Division Voice Award by the Berklee College of Music Voice Department. They also earned second place in Berklee’s Songs for Social Change Contest with “In Between,” which honestly told of Fine’s experience growing up non-binary.

While continuing their studies at Berklee, Fine has continued to release material, including her sophomore single “Alone Together,” a slickly produced track featuring strummed, Spanish-styled acoustic guitar, atmospheric synths, thumping beats paired with the young Boston-based artist’s soulful and yearning vocal delivery and a well-placed, razor sharp hook. While subtly nodding at both contemporary pop and Quiet Storm soul, “Alone Together” manages to reveal a budding superstar in the making.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Dream Wife Return with a Tense Post-Punk Influenced Ripper

Deriving their name from a pointed criticism of society’s long-held objectification of women, the acclaimed London-based punk rock trio and JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — can trace their origins to when the trio met and started the band back in 2015 as an art project rooted in a unique concept: a band born out of one girl’s memories of growing up in Canada in the 1990s.

Dream Wife’s 2018 self-titled debut was released to widespread critical acclaim, and led to the punk outfit opening for Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells, as well as playing that year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing international profile, the members of Dream Wife also went on a series of headlining tours across the European Union and the States, which included a Rough Trade stop with New York-based genre-defying artist Sabri. 

The acclaimed London outfit’s 2020 Marta Salogni-produced So When You Gonna . . . saw the JOVM mainstays writing and recording their most urgent and direct material to date. Thematically touching upon “women’s issues” like abortion, miscarriage and gender equality, the album’s material is fueled by a “it’s-now-or-never” immediacy, with the listener being reminded that now is the time to get off their ass and start doing something right now to make a world a much better place for all of us. If not, we may all be doomed.

In the UK, Dream Wife’s sophomore album was a critical and commercial success: The album landed at #18 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the only album in the Top 20 to be produced by an all womxn/non-male production and engineering team — and the only non-major label release to chart that high. 

The trio’s latest single “Leech” is the first bit of new material from the member of the London-based JOVM mainstays since So When You Gonna . . . is an urgent post-punk inspired ripper that sees the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features a looping and wiry guitar bursts for the verses and explosive power chord-driven riffage for the song’s chorus. The song manages to be a tense, uneasy and forceful mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time with the song addressing the double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.

“It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

Directed by Bethany Fitter, the accompanying video is centered around a concept and creative direction by the members of Dream Wife, and CGI effects by Amy Gough: The video features the band wearing outfits by East London-based designer Ingrid Kraftchenko, playing the song in someone’s blood stream with CGI leeches crawling around.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Secret Shame Share Stormy and Cathartic “Zero”

Asheville-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Secret Shame can trace their origins back to summer 2016 when Matthew (bass) and Lena (vocals) met through mutual friends. As a duo, the band released their self-titled debut EP, but they mostly stuck to hometown DIY shows. 

Nathan, who had released the band’s debut EP, later joined on drums and not long after, Aster joined on guitar. The Asheville-based outfit’s full-length debut, 2019’s Dark Synthetics was released to widespread critical acclaim with album single “Calm” being featured on The New York Times‘ playlist, and the album landing on a number of that year’s Best-of-lists, including landing at #77 on Bandcamp Daily and #1 on Post-Punk.com. 

Building upon that momentum, the band embarked on an East Coast tour, which kicked off at Hopscotch Festival. They also recorded a split 7″ single “Dissolve/Pure” with Aster as the band’s sole guitarist. 

Throughout the band’s growing catalog, they’ve maintained a steadfast refusal to a single genre, but pull from a wide range of influences including post-punk, death rock, shoegaze and dream pop among others. But at the core of their sound is a palpable and uneasy tension between rage and melancholy, the beautiful and the bleak that finds some resolution in the way the music reflects the lyrics’ mood. 

2022 has been a busy year for the Asheville-based JOVM mainstays: They headlined this year’s Dark Spring Boston and they’ve quickly become a regular presence at Hopscotch Music Festival. They’ve also spent much of the year touring extensively, opening for the likes of Xiu Xiu, Wednesday, Soft Kill, Choir Boy, and Vision Video. 

Secret Shame’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Autonomy is slated for an October 28, 2022 release. Recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun with engineer/producer Alex Farrar, the album reportedly sees the JOVM mainstays reaching a new level of maturity both musically and lyrically: While the 11-song album may be diverse and yet cohesive, the album’s material is centered with lyrics that directly confront the realities of addiction, body dysmorphia, abuse and mental illness with an unvarnished honesty. 

Late last month, I wrote about album single “Color Drain,” a single that found the JOVM mainstays taking up a dreamy, shoegazer-like take on post punk that brought Cocteau Twins to mind paired with enormous, catharsis-inducing choruses and Lena’s achingly plaintive vocals. Lyrically the song features some of the most painfully honest lyrics in the band’s growing catalog: “Color Drain” details Lena’s long battle with anorexia, and how it feels to walk through the world in an apathetic and dissociative state after realizing that they both wanted help and simultaneously didn’t want to accept that help.

Autonomy‘s latest single, “Zero” much like its immediate predecessor sees the band’s Lena detailing struggles with addiction, body dysmorphia, abuse and mental illness with the unfiltered and unvarnished honesty of someone, who has gone through hell and back multiple times over. Lena’s lyrics and expressive, Sinead O’Connor-like delivery are paired with an arrangement that turns from shimmering and brooding to full on raging storm for the song’s catharsis-inducing coda.

I’m certain that someone out there has gone through many, if not all, of the same things that Secret Shame’s frontperson has experienced. But what “Zero” will say to you is that you’re not alone, that someone out there has been through the same hell, that not only would they empathize and truly get your struggle, but that there is understanding, kindness and hope — even if its three or four minutes.

Directed by the band’s Lena Machina and Aster Nema, the accompanying video for “Zero” is captures the inner monologue-like feel of the song with a feverish and feral intensity.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Bruno Capinan is a Salvador, Brazil-born, Toronto-based queer, non-binary singer/songwriter and performer, who released their third album Tara Rara earlier this year through Lulaworld Records in Canada. Tara Rara, which translates to “rare desire” in English sees Capinan drawing from and highlighting their Brazilian roots with a strong focus on gender and racial justice, rooted in the Brazilian-born, Toronto-based artist’s experiences as a Black, non-binary person. The album features an orchestra of seven string musicians, 90% of whom are BIPOC and LGQBTIA+, including some of different generations and different cultural backgrounds.

Tara Rara‘s latest single, the breathtaking and effortlessly beautiful “Meu Preto” is arguably the most quintessential and classic samba song on the album. Featuring strummed acoustic guitar, shuffling Latin rhythms, a gorgeous and cinematic string section paired with Capinan’s expressive vocal delivery, full of aching and desperate longing.

Translated into English as “A Song About Two Black Lovers,” the song’s narrator laments the distance between them and their lover, while hoping for a reunion.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Asheville-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Secret Shame can trace their origins back to summer 2016 when Matthew (bass) and Lena (vocals) met through mutual friends. As a duo, the band released their self-titled debut EP, but they mostly stuck to hometown DIY shows.

Nathan, who had released the band’s debut EP, later joined on drums and not long after, Aster joined on guitar. The Asheville-based outfit’s full-length debut, 2019’s Dark Synthetics was released to widespread critical acclaim with album single “Calm” being featured on The New York Times‘ playlist, and the album landing on a number of that year’s Best-of-lists, including landing at #77 on Bandcamp Daily and #1 on Post-Punk.com.

Building upon that momentum, the band embarked on an East Coast tour, which kicked off at Hopscotch Festival. They also recorded a split 7″ single “Dissolve/Pure” with Aster as the band’s sole guitarist.

Throughout the band’s growing catalog, they’ve maintained a steadfast refusal to a single genre, but pull from a wide range of influences including post-punk, death rock, shoegaze and dream pop among others. But at the core of their sound is a palpable and uneasy tension between rage and melancholy, the beautiful and the bleak that finds some resolution in the way the music reflects the lyrics’ mood.

2022 has been a busy year for the Asheville-based JOVM mainstays: They headlined this year’s Dark Spring Boston and they’ve quickly become a regular presence at Hopscotch Music Festival. They’ve also spent much of the year touring extensively, opening for the likes of Xiu Xiu, Wednesday, Soft Kill, Choir Boy, and Vision Video.

Secret Shame’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Autonomy is slated for an October 28, 2022 release. Recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun with engineer/producer Alex Farrar, the album reportedly sees the JOVM mainstays reaching a new level of maturity both musically and lyrically: While the 11-song album may be diverse and yet cohesive, the album’s material is centered with lyrics that directly confront the realities of addiction, body dysmorphia, abuse and mental illness with an unvarnished honesty.

Autonomy‘s latest single “Color Drain” sees the JOVM mainstays taking up a dreamy, shoegazer-like take on post punk, in a way that recalls Cocteau Twins and others paired with Lena’s achingly plaintive vocals and enormous, catharsis-inducing choruses. Lyrically, the song features some of the most painfully honest lyrics in the band’s growing catalog: The song details Lena’s long battle with anorexia and how it feels to walk through the world in an apathetic and dissociative state after realizing that they both wanted help and didn’t want to accept that help.

Secret Shame will be embarking on a month-long East Coast tour throughout October and November that includes a November 13, 2022 stop at The Meadows. Check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates:

10/15 – Asheville, NC – Burnpile (festival headliner)

10/24 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West

11/08 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen

11/09 – Detroit, MI – Smalls

11/13 – Brooklyn, NY – The Meadows

11/14 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery

11/15 – Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA

11/16 – Richmond, VA – Richmond Music Hall

11/17 – Charlotte, NC – Snug Harbor

11/18 – Greenville, SC – Swanson Warehouse