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. Interestingly, Edkins’ new side project Weird Nightmare sees the METZ frontman showcasing […]
Alex Edkins has developed an honed a reputation for being a master craftsman of sweaty, mosh pit friendly rippers as the frontman of Toronto-based JOVM mainstays METZ.
Edkins’ new side project Weird Nightmare sees the METZ frontman showcasing a new side of his long-established songwriting featuring enormous power chords and mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses he’s best known for — but with a sugary, distorted power pop touch.
Weird Nightmare’s debut single “Searching For You” is a fun, straightforward power pop banger featuring shout-along-with-upraised-beer-in-the-mosh-pit choruses, swooningly earnest lyricism, 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.”
Directed by Ryan Thompson and animated by Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff, the accompanying visual for “Searching For You” is fittingly a trip into a weird nightmare that follows a pizza delivery person racing against the clock to deliver a pizza before it becomes free.
Colleen Green is a Dunstable, MA-born, Los Angeles-based lo-fi rock/indie pop singer/songwriter and guitarist. Green’s career started in earnest with her full-length debut, 2011’s Milo Goes to Compton, an effort initially released as a cassette and later on vinyl through Art Fag Recordings.
The Dunstable-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s debut caught the attention of Seattle-based indie label Hardly Art Records, who signed her and released her sophomore album, 2013’s Sock It To Me. Green’s third album, 20115’s I Want to Grow Up was released to critical acclaim with LA Weekly readers voting her that year’s Best Solo Artist. The album was also her most commercially successful album to date, perhaps as a result of album single “Wild One” being featured on the Netflix series Love.
Thematically, I Want To Grow Up found Green at a familiar yet profound existential crisis: Although almost always cool, she didn’t necessarily feel so at that point: Seemingly too young to be free of insecurities, she was old enough to be sick of them running — and ruining — her life.
Green’s forthcoming third album Cool is her first album in six years. Slated for a September 10, 2021 release through Hardly Art, the album’s material reportedly finds her figuring out what it means to be grown up — and realizing that being an adult, who has somehow managed to live and survive through a full and messy life is pretty damn cool. Co-produced by Gordon Raphael and Green and featuring beats by hip-hop producer Aqua and drumming from Brendan Eder, the album was recorded in several different Southern California-based studios including Glendale’s comp-ny, North Hollywood’s Tenement Yard and Los Angeles’ Cosmic Vinyl. Sonically, the album sees Green retaining the lo-fi aesthetic that has won her praise and fans globally while pushing her songs to a higher level: burnt out on bad feelings, Green wanted to have fun with melodies and beats while keeping her lo-fi aesthetic intact.
The album features “I Want to Be a Dog,” a single released to praise from the likes of The New York Times, The Fader, Stereogum, Under the Radar, DIY, BrooklynVegan, Spin, Our Culture, Closed Captioned and others. Cool’s and latest single “It’s Nice to Be Nice” is a breezy bit of power pop centered around chugging power chords, an athemic chorus and razor sharp hooks. But underneath the big choruses and power chords, the song thematically is a reminder — both to the songwriter and the listener — that in life, you often get what you give, so it’s important to be the best person you can be. And in a world that regularly seems on the verge of collapse, the song’s message seems rather pertinent.
y Renee Lusano, the recently released video was shot on a boat, just off the Los Angeles coast. We see Green making herself a simple dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and hanging out on the boat. But we see someone, who has finally gained comfort in her own skin and mind. As Green calls it, “a nice video for a nice song.”
Formed back in 2005, the New York-based rock/punk act Baby Shakes — Mary (lead vocals), Judy (guitar, vocals), Claudia (bass, vocals) and Ryan (drums) have released a handful of one-off singles, a singles compilation, a 10 inch heart-shaped EP and three full-length albums that have firmly established their sound — melodic vocals paired with fuzzy power cords that generally draws from the likes of Ramones, Chuck Berry, 60s Motown-era girl groups.
The members of the band have toured across the US, Japan, China, Ireland, the UK and the European Union and shared stages with the likes of The Romantics, The Boys, The Shadows of Knight, The Undertones, The Barracudas, Protex, Black Lips, Paul Collin’s Beat, Iggy Pop and a growing list of others. Interestingly, the New York-based punk act’s forthcoming album Cause a Scene is slated for a September 20, 2019 release, and the album is reportedly indebted to the original wave of punk — in particular, The Nerves, The Kids, early Bangles and The Go-Gos, The Runaways, as well as the Ramones.
Clocking in at exactly two minutes, “Nowhere Fast,” Cause a Scene‘s lead single is a breakneck bit of fuzzy, old-school punk with an infectious, power pop-like hook — and while clearly indebted to Ramones, Go-Gos and the like, the song is one part snotty and in your face, one part sweet, and one part cynical scowl, delivered with the self-assuredness of old pros.
Mitch Bowden is the founder of Mechanical Noise Studio, a recording studio that reportedly sits at the en dog a quiet, winding country road in Dunnville, Ontario, Canada; the sort of road frequently hared with foxes, windmills and little else. He’s also the founding member and creative mastermind behind indie rock act Don Vail — and over the past decade, all of those different identities have blurred into something synonymous for him.
Bowden emerged into the Canadian indie rock scene with the release of his 2009 Jordon Zadorozny-produced, self-titled debut, an effort that deftly paired harmonic warmth and dispassionate math rock riffs. And instead of serving as a launching pad for Bowden’s career and rising profile, he spent the better part of close to a decade, releasing eight songs and playing two shows. 2016’s self-recorded, self-performed effort Fades managed to be a carefully crafted effort that on a certain level revealed the effect that isolation can have on an artist — way too much personal control, mastery of their craft countered by crippling perfectionism and a lack of urgency.
Interestingly, during the spring of 2017, Bowden (and in turn, Don Vail) received a rather fortuitous invitation as a result of the previous year’s Fades — an invitation to record material at Grouse Lodge Studios in Ireland. Of course, there was a major catch: the window to show up and record wasn’t open indefinitely; in fact, Bowden only had a matter of a few weeks to turn sketches and pieces of ideas into fully fleshed songs. And at the time, Bowden realized that the band needed to be more than just him. So he enlisted the assistance of longtime drummer Victor Malang, guitarist Matthew Fleming and keyboardist/vocalist Kori Pop for the recording sessions for the act’s forthcoming third full-length album That Stand of Tide.
The newly-constituted quartet wrote and rehearsed material together — and they all treated the experience at Grouse Lodge as an opportunity not to be wasted. And although the album was finished back at Mechanical Noise Studios in a similar fashion to his previously released material, the trip to Ireland pushed Bowden to get his shit together and finish the album. Reportedly, the album’s 13 songs at points recall Guided by Voices, Jon Biron and Figure 8-era Elliott Smith. While that may be arguable, the album’s latest single “On The Wire is an anthemic bit of fuzzy power pop centered around big and seemingly effortless hooks, and a palpable anxiety and uncertainty; but at its core is an intentionally heartfelt earnestness.
Directed by Mitch Barnes and the band’s Victor Malang, the recently released video for “On The Wire” follows a painfully awkward and incredibly sad sack man, desperately trying to figure himself out and forge his own identity. And as he does so, he fails miserably — at everything. If there’s one thing that he’s good at, it’s his own nerdy awkwardness. Interestingly, the visuals are purposefully lo-fi, and bring to mind classic MTV with a mischievous aplomb.
Slated for an April 5, 2019 release through Dirtnap Records, Love Keeps Kicking, the forthcoming, third, full-length album from County Durham, England-based punk rock outfit Martha reportedly is partially a breakup record in which the album’s material goes through the familiar spectrum of emotions associated with heartbreak but while reminding the listener that what hurts now, won’t hurt forever — and that the hurt they experience will be a vital part of their life story, informing who they are, who they will become and how they treat others.
Centered around enormous and rousingly anthemic hooks, big power chords, a motorik-like groove and boy-girl harmonies, Love Keeps Kicking‘s latest single “The Void” is an urgent and frenzied bit of power pop tinged punk — but thematically, the song as the band explains in press notes is “about the cosmic darkness that’s engulfing the planet and all life on it. Impending ecological catastrophe, nuclear Armageddon, ancient gods awakening, suicidal sedation . . . We’re staring into the void . . .”
The band are currently in the middle of a lengthy UK and European Union tour. Check out the tour dates below.
Tour dates
06 April – UK – Margate, Elsewhere
07 April – BEL – Antwerp, Trix
08 April – DE – Bochum, Rotunde
09 April – DE – Wiesbaden, Schlachthof
10 April – DE – Köln, Sonic Ballroom
11 April – DE – Jena, Kassablanca
12 April – CZ – Prague – Klub 007 Strahow
13 April – DE- Alte Mälzerei, Heimspiel Festival
16 April – UK – London – The Garage
20 April – UK – Manchester – Manchester Punk Fest
26 April – UK – Bristol – Exchange
27 April – UK – Brighton – West Hill Hall
28 April – UK -Birmingham – Hare & Hounds
3 May – UK – Glasgow – Mono
5 May – UK – Leicester – Handmade Festival
13th July – UK – Cheltenham – 2000 Trees Festival
28th July – UK – Steventon – Truck Festival
29 Aug-1 Sept – UK – Larmer Tree Gardens, End of the Road Festival
8 Nov – UK – London – Heaven
The Denton, TX/Austin, TX-based trio Bad Sports, comprised of Orville Neely III (guitar, vocals), Aniel Fried (drums) and Gregory Rutherford (bass) featured some of their home state’s most accomplished musicians — Neely is the frontman of the acclaimed OBN IIIs, while Fried and Rutherford have played together in Video and Radioactivity. Now, as you may recall, the band released their fourth album Constant Stimulation through their longtime label home Dirtnap Records last October, and the album which marks the band’s tenth anniversary, also found the band pushing their sound and songwriting in a new, more mature direction. centered by a leaner, tense production meant to evoke a decided sense of frustration, tension, and world-weariness.
Constant Stimulation‘s first single “Don’t Deserve Love” further cements the trio’s reputation for crafting power chord-based punk but there’s a decided power pop bent, as the song reveals a deliberate and thoughtful attention to rousingly anthemic hooks and earnest emotion. Sonically, the song manages a contemporary take on a familiar sound without being soulless mimicry. But interestingly enough, the song may arguably be the most personal song they’ve written and released as it’s fueled the crippling self-doubt and insecurity of a vulnerable adult, who has openly and freely admitted that while life has made them a survivor, they’re lonely, desperate, broken, fucked up, confused, and afraid — of connecting with others and getting heartbroken and having to start again; of being a failure and a fraud; of a world that’s going up in flames and not caring or not knowing what to do.
Directed by Z.W.Sprague and written by Orville Neely, the recently released video for “Don’t Deserve Love” stars Neely as a self-conscious, lonely, and somewhat awkward man, who acts in an out of control fashion — drinking way too much, doing way too much coke, smoking too many cigarettes and takes jokes way too far. And as a result, the video’s protagonist winds up frustrating and annoying everyone around him. After being discovered vomiting in a bar bathroom, Neely gets tossed out of the bar, stumbles off to a convenience store for more booze, vomits once again and ends the night drunkenly passed out, disappointed and alone. While being profoundly sad, the video illustrates a much bigger point — that for many of us, we’ve been that lonely, drunken slob, lost in their sadness, self-flagellation and inability to do anything about it.
Comprised of Ava Luna’s Julian Fader and Speedy Ortiz’s Andy Molholt, Coughy initially began as a late night recording experiment that the duo started while teaching at a performing arts summer camp. Eventually taking a life of its own in 2016, the project became a recurring obsession with Fader and Molhott challenging one another to write what they’ve referred to as “tiny songs” which pack as many logical twists and turns within the confines of about a minute whenever possible. After releasing some of those mini songs on a cassette tape back in 2017, Fader and Molhott went on to write their full-length debut Ocean Hug, which is slated for a March 29, 2019 release through Joyful Noise Recording.
Clocking in at 56 seconds, Ocean Hug’s first single V is a breakneck bit of grungy, power pop centered around distortion and effect pedal-fueled power chords and thundering drumming. And despite its quick run time, the duo manages to throw in a rousingly anthemic hook within a classic 90s alt rock-like song structure — except everything is super truncated, as though the duo were double parked and were worried about getting a ticket.
Directed by John Andrews, the recently released animated music video for “V” is a playful, squiggly line drawing-based take on The Three Little Pigs that features the three little pigs rocking out while the big bad wolf watches.
