Tag: Seattle WA

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sun Spots Shares Anthemic “Rocket”

Pacific Northwest-based indie rock outfit Sun Spots features members of essential regional punk and hardcore acts, including Criminal Code, Nudes and Bricklayer. With the release of their debut EP, 2022’s Loosey, Sun Spots quickly established a songwriting process that they’ve jokingly dubbed pop songs for hardcore fans — or hardcore songs for pop fans, depending on your perspective.

The Pacific Northwest-based outfit’s sophomore EP, Dog Is Calling is slated for a Friday release through Seattle-based indie label Den Tapes. Engineered and mixed in Seattle by Cameron Heck and mastered by Greg Obis, the EP features four upbeat and driving songs that sees the band pairing thick, crunchy guitar riffs with buoyant melodies, showcasing their love of the Big Muff pedal and big, catchy hooks.

Dog Is Calling‘s lead single “Rocket” will bring back warm and hazily nostalgic memories of 120 Minutes MTV-era grunge for all of you fellow olds as the song showcases the band’s penchant for pairing big, crunchy riffs with even bigger hooks with saccharine sweet, pop melodies. And of course, this is placed with a classic grunge song structure — alternating quiet verses and loud choruses. Play loud.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Filth Is Eternal Returns with Grungy “Long Way”

Formed back in 2020, Seattle-based quartet Filth Is Eternal — Lis DiAngelo (vocals), Brian McClelland (guitar), Logan Miller (bass) and Josh Pehrson (drums) — was initially inspired by the raw, impulsive ethos of punk. The Seattle-based quartet quickly developed a reputation for a frenetic live set, which they brought to DIY venues across the country. “Filth has always been about energy at the heart of things since the earliest recordings,” the band’s Lis DiAngelo says. “We wanted to leave our blood and guts out on the floor,” Brian McClelland adds. 

Filth Is Eternal’s third album, Impossible World is slated for a March 17, 2026 release through MNRK Heavy. The highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 sophomore effort Find Out was written against a backdrop of accelerating gentrification, unchecked technology and the slow — but quickening — creep of authoritarianism and fascism. So the album thematically confronts life in our present dystopian hellscape. And yet, rather than surrendering to despair and hopelessness, the band push forward with a defiant clarity, while asking difficult questions about survival, humanity and resistance in a world increasingly shaped without anyone’s consent. 

Despite the album’s overall heavy subject matter, Impossible World has many soaring moments throughout — flashes of light that give fans a sense of possibility midst the brutal toils of contemporary life. The album is a salve in hard times, reminding the listener that art has the radical potential to enliven us, to connect us with others and to keep us holding on, as we wait out and plan through the darkest hours. 

Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band balancing hardcore urgency with a sharpened melodic sensibility. The result is an effort that draws from punk’s immediacy while seeing the band push their sound towards something much more deliberate and expansive. “I think the biggest changes from LP1 to now is that we’ve upped the intention by using more melody, harmony, and singing in general. We’re working with aggression, but moving toward something beautiful and true,” DiAngelo says. 

The album also features collaborations with The Blood Brothers‘ Johnny Whitney, Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman, Gina Gleason and Lauren Lavin, alongside their use of the FILTH EQ+, a pedal they crafted that helped shaped the album’s overall sound. 

.The album will feature “Stay Melted,” which I wrote about last month, and the album’s second and latest single “Long Way.” Featuring d a bruising and driving riff and backing harmonies from Lauren Lavin, “Long Way” sees the band pushing their sound into a grungier, subtly pop leaning direction while still being urgent. The song is also the first track that they recorded with the FILTH EQ+ pedal.

The band’s Lis DiAngelo says of the new single, “We live in a time saturated by consumer culture; we are hyper-focused on acquisition and consumption as means to happiness. ‘Long Way’ is about finding ourselves at the center of that, then finding our way OUT.” 

Directed by Che Hise-Gattone, the accompanying video for “Long Way” employs a mix of public access TV and 120 Minutes-era MTV aesthetics.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chat Pile’s Limited Edition “Masks”/”Sifting” 7-Inch Released on DSPS

Last year, acclaimed Oklahoma City-based noise rock outfit Chat Pile — Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass) and Cap’n Ron (drums) — released the limited 7″ vinyl single “Masks”/”Stifling” through Sub Pop Records.

The limited edition vinyl quickly sold out. So, the legendary Seattle-based label just released the 7″ inch vinyl digitally on all the DSPs. Now, if you’re a physical media collector, don’t you fret. You still have a shot to grab the band’s tour-only version pressed on peach vinyl available at their live shows. They also have a collaborative logo T-shirt, too. Of course, that merch will be available while supplies last.

The A-side “Masks” is a bruising ripper that seemingly channels a synthesis of shoegaze, Bambara and Screaming Life/Fopp-era Soundgarden paired with an unhinged and punchy vocal turn from Raygun Busch. It’s a mosh pit friendly anthem meant to be played at eardrum shatteringly loud levels.

The B-side seems the Oklahoman noise rockers tackling Nirvana‘s, “Shifting” which appears on the legendary grunge trio’s 1989 effort Bleach. The Chat Pile cover manages to be simultaneously a lovingly straightforward take that’s also much more bruising and forceful than the original.

“Sub Pop is thrilled that Chat Pile graced us with these two massive songs, and we couldn’t be happier to add them to the list of greats who have released music for the label,” the label says.
 
“It’s a true dream to put out a single on Sub Pop, and our new song ‘Masks’ hopefully honors the spirit of the mythical, sometimes mystical, city of Seattle,” Chat Pile adds. “Thanks in part to the movie Hype, we have long been obsessed with Seattle, the American underground of the late ‘80s, and Sub Pop and their tools of world domination. Everything we learned about packaging Chat Pile, we learned from Sub Pop co-founders Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt.
 
“We wanted to cover a song from the early Sub Pop era, and something off Bleach seemed the obvious choice. Songs like ‘Paper Cuts,’ ‘Negative Creep,’ and especially ‘Sifting’ are fairly lateral to the type of sounds we make with Chat Pile. (Perhaps next time we’ll take on a TAD song!)
 
“To mark the occasion, we’ve also donated $3,000 to DREAM Action OK, a community-based organization that aims to empower our local immigrant community through advocacy and education to ensure justice for all immigrants. Learn more about DAOK here. 
 
“Thanks to Sub Pop for giving us the opportunity to put this single out – we hope you enjoy it. 
 
“And most importantly, FUCK ICE!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seattle’s Filth Is Eternal Shares a Bruising Ripper

Formed back in 2020, Seattle-based quartet Filth Is Eternal — Lis DiAngelo (vocals), Brian McClelland (guitar), Logan Miller (bass) and Josh Pehrson (drums) — was initially inspired by the raw, impulsive ethos of punk. The band quickly developed a reputation for a frenetic live set, which they brought to DIY venues across the country. “Filth has always been about energy at the heart of things since the earliest recordings,” the band’s Lis DiAngelo says. “We wanted to leave our blood and guts out on the floor,” Brian McClelland adds. 

Filth Is Eternal’s third album, Impossible World is slated for a March 17, 2026 release through MNRK Heavy. The highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 sophomore effort Find Out was written against a backdrop of accelerating gentrification, unchecked technology and the slow — but quickening — creep of authoritarianism and fascism. So the album thematically confronts life in our present dystopian hellscape. And yet, rather than surrounding to despair and hopelessness, the band push forward with a defiant clarity, while asking difficult questions about survival, humanity and resistance in a world increasingly shaped without anyone’s consent.

Despite the album’s overall heavy subject matter, Impossible World has many soaring moments throughout — flashes of light that give fans a sense of possibility midst the brutal toils of contemporary life. The album is a salve in hard times, reminding the listener that art has the radical potential to enliven us, to connect us with others and to keep us holding on, as we wait out and plan through the darkest hours.

Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band balancing hardcore urgency with a sharpened melodic sensibility. The result is an effort that draws from punk’s immediacy while seeing the band push their sound towards something much more deliberate and expansive. “I think the biggest changes from LP1 to now is that we’ve upped the intention by using more melody, harmony, and singing in general. We’re working with aggression, but moving toward something beautiful and true,” DiAngelo says. 

The album also features collaborations with The Blood Brothers‘ Johnny Whitney, Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman, Gina Gleason and Lauren Lavin, alongside their use of the FILTH EQ+, a pedal they crafted that helped shaped the album’s overall sound.

Impossible World‘s first single, “Stay Melted,” is a bruising ripper that seemingly channels Dirt-era Alice in Chains, Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden and Live Through This-era Hole, anchored by DiAngelo’s most incisive and forceful songwriting of their growing catalog. Thematically, the song exposes and critiques the hypocrisy at the heart of the rise of Christofascism here in the States with a brutally clear-eyed honesty.

“The world can feel like a total trash fire to the point where we become lethargic,” the band says. “Lethargy makes us our own worst enemy; sometimes you have to kill a thing before you lose yourself to it completely.” 

Directed by Sebastian Deramat, the accompanying video for “Stay Melted” fittingly brings back memories of 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fotoform Shares Lush and Woozy “Grief is a Garden”

Deriving their name from a mid-century, avant-garde photography movement, Seattle-based post punk outfit Fotoform — longtime collaborators and married couple Kim House (bass, vocals, synths) and Geoffrey Cox (guitar), along with  Death Cab for Cutie‘s and The Long Winters‘ Michael Schorr (drums) — can trace their origins back to the formation of a previous project,  the goth-adjacent dream pop act C’est la Mort, which formed shortly after House and Cox married. 

Specializing in what they dubbed “pointy-shoegaze,” C’est la Mort released their full-length debut through their own Dismal Nitch label, as well as various compilation tracks, including a limited split 7 inch with Stars for American Laundromat‘s The Smiths‘ tribute Please Please Please. After a series of lineup changes, House and Cox re-emerged as Fotoform in late 2016. 

House and Cox released their Fotoform self-titled debut in 2017. Supported with tours of the West Coast and Europe, the album received airplay and praise both locally and nationally: Album single “I Know You’re Charming” was featured as a KEXP Song of The Day. The self-titled album was voted as one of KEXP Listeners’ Top 90.3 Albums of 2017 and it landed on several year-end lists, including The Big Takeover and Part-Time Punks. 

Building upon a growing profile, the band followed up with 2018’s Part-Time Punks EP, which was selected as one of The Big Takeover’s EPs of 2018. Schorr joined the band back in 2019 and by the following year, they released two benefit singles as a newly minted trio “Yves Klein Blue,” which was recored for voter outreach and the Christmas-themed “They Say It’s Always Lonely” to benefit local food banks. Both singles found the trio expanding upon their sound with the addition of synths. 

In early 2020, the trio went into the studio with Evan Foster to record the material for their sophomore album, Horizons. Recording sessions were interrupted as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-enforced quarantines and restrictions and continued a year later with Foster and Matt Bayles recording drum parts. The album saw the band pivoting from the towering wall of guitars-driven sound of their previously released work and towards a much more nuanced sound that drew equally from shoegaze, dream pop and post-punk with the band continuing to pair synths with layers of guitars and driving bass lines.

The Seattle-based trio’s third album Grief is a Garden (Forever in Bloom) is slated for an April 18, 2025 release. The album reportedly sees the band’s evolving yet again, with the band further refining their long-held crystalline sound into a lush and introspective soundscape that blends the emotional weight of post-punk with the ethereal beauty of shoegaze with the album’s material increasingly drawing from classic 4AD heyday artists like This Moral Coil, Pale Saints and Lush.

The album’s material thematically touches upon loss, change, heartache, pain and transformation, while tackling the big existential questions. The album, also features some of the band’s most vulnerable and disarmingly honest lyrics of their growing catalog.

Album title track “Grief is a Garden,’ is a brooding slow-burning tune anchored around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, Kim House’s yearning and ethereal delivery paired with a soaring hook and chorus. Sounding a bit like Garlands-era Cocteau Twins and 4AD Records classic heyday period, “Grief is a Garden” sees the band thematically into delving deeply into personal themes of grief, loss, and in time, gradual acceptance.

“The title track to our upcoming album, ‘Grief is a Garden’ reflects on the enduring, ever-evolving nature of grief and how it changes over time,” Fotoform’s Kim House explains. “Grief blooms, decays and nourishes itself, embodying love, beauty, pain and transformation. As we move through life, we accumulate grief, and the song contemplates the evolving nature of our relationship to loss and love, as grief becomes a part of us, forever changing us and informing our new selves as we continue with life after loss.

“My brother Jeff passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of February, right after we released our first single. I am still trying to absorb the devastating reality that he is gone. I never could have imagined I would lose another brother just as we are starting to release songs off our album, which is centered around grief, loss, resilience and healing. The lyric ‘Waves keep crashing, unforeseen, losing someone is never what it seems‘ has been swirling around me as I feel blindsided by the loss of my brother. We’d been planning on talking about grief with the new record, but it’s another thing to suddenly find yourself newly grieving again. 

“The longing for answers to life’s unknowable questions is palpable throughout this song, as I’ve wrestled with existential doubts since childhood, questioning everything from the stories I was raised with to the mysteries of life and death itself. ‘Into the ether, we all call out‘ is a reference to the unknowable place we enter when we die – an acknowledgement and a cry for connection.

Loved ones who touch our souls meld with our spirit and never leave us. Tethers to those we’ve lost surround us when we open our hearts. We often feel these connections after we lose someone: a certain song comes on the radio or a shared symbol appears at the most poignant time. Heightened awareness of these synchronicities tethers us to those we’ve lost.

“Grief, so deeply personal yet also universal, is hanging heavy for so many of us these days. We all find ourselves in mourning, whether for loved ones, the erosion of societal values, social injustice, dismantling of democracy, upheaval from natural disasters and the intensifying climate crisis, loss of relationships, former versions of ourselves after injury and disability and anticipatory grief of what’s to come – the list is endless.

Creating this album was a ritual in reflecting on grief, sitting with it, metabolizing, and letting it sink into all the cracks and crevices, fully absorbing grief to understand – and eventually release – some of its tight hold / energy. As I return to this familiar and tender state of fresh sorrow and loss, I take comfort in the knowledge that with time, grief will soften around the edges and the warmth of love will reclaim its position in the foreground.”

Directed by Erik Foster, the accompanying video for “Grief is a Garden” is a lush and woozy fever dream shot in a verdant garden that would have been perfect in an Edgar Allan Poe short story or in a Mary Shelley novel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Shares Anthemic “What Do I Know”

Deep Sea Diver‘s long awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album, the 11-song, Jessica Dobson and Andy Park co-produced Billboard Heart is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Sub Pop. The album reportedly puts the band – currently, Dobson, her spouse Peter Mansen (drums) and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synths) — in the company of acts like St. Vincent, TV on the Radio,Flock of Dimes and others, that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. 

The album features additional production from Adam Schatz and additional contributions from The Shins‘ Yuuki Matthews, Caroline Rose and Greg Leisz. It was mixed by Park and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone. 

Some background is needed here: Back in July 2023 while recording in a Los Angeles-based studio, Dobson played a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just a few days earlier, her band played a series of semi-secret shows for fans at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well; but almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles or so between Southern California and the Seattle-based home studio she shares with her spouse and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen. 

On that first night of recording sessions, Dobson broke down, wondering what she was doing there and what her band could do to fix it. For the first time in their history, the band retreated and headed home without a completed album. Did they need to scrap the entire thing and start again with new material? 

As it turned out, no. Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After the Los Angeles hiccup a few months before, longtime collaborator and producer Andy Park asked Dobson how the new material was going over at an early fall dinner. She admitted that she needed help. And in that humbling confession, she seen found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate the band — and directly led to their fourth album. 

For Dobson, the album is a triumph over self-doubt in which what initially felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and even strength. 

As it turned out, the massive success of their third album Impossible Weight caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, and to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. Album track “See in the Dark” — a song about coveting your notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away — emerged in that setting. 
 
That particular moment of domestic creation was essential for a number of reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which managed to carry over to more than half Billboard Heart‘s material. The pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small batch of essential gear to record guitars and vocals in their basement. 

When discussions later began in earnest with Park, following the Los Angeles incident, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her that these wasn’t just good enough to use, but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates to build upon and a frame, and a way for Dobson to believe again in the material, and most importantly, herself. 

The album will feature the album title track “Billboard Heart,” as well as two singles I wrote about on this site:

  • “Let Me Go,” a slow-burning Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey-like anthemic ballad that sees the ballad collaboration with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham 

  • “Shovel,” a Kate Bush-meets-St. Vincent-like tune that sees the band crafting hook-driven arena rock friendly anthems informed by lived-in, personal yet somehow deeply universal experience 

“What Do I Know,” Billboard Heart‘s third and latest single continues a run of punchy post-punk-like numbers with a rousingly anthemic, arena rock friendly hook and chorus. But much its predecessors, “What Do I Know” reveals the band’s remarkably adroit yet earnest, heart worn proudly on sleeve-driven songwriting while serving as a forceful reminder of Dobson’s powerhouse vocals and dexterous guitar work.

Directed by Eric Luck and Deep Sea Diver’s Peter Manson, the vibrant jump-cut style accompanying video features the band playing the song in a small room with the family dog, various friends in costume and other surreal things go on around them. The band continues onward — playfully accepting whatever is going on around them.

“‘What Do I Know’ holds a special place on the record. It is the first song that I engineered all of the instruments myself at my home studio,” Dobson explains. “At the time, I thought I was recording a demo and most of the parts are first takes. We kept all of the imperfections, and nothing was overthought. For the music video, we wanted to lean into that same spirit and gave ourselves only a few hours to film in a very small space. The song is equally existential as it is tongue in cheek, and we wanted the video to reflect more of the raw elements of who we are as a band.” 
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Teams Up with Madison Cunningham on Power Ballad “Let Me Go”

Led by Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, Seattle-based indie rock outfit Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. While with Atlantic Records, Dobson wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with. Atlantic shelved the material and ultimately dropped her. 

After being dropped from Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her solo debut EP New Caves as Deep Sea Diver. The project became a full-fledged band with the addition of members John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound. 

The Seattle-based band’s critically applauded third album, 2020’s Impossible Weightwas released through High Beam Records/ATO Records and followed a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph to support their second album, 2016’s Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering at Aurora Commons, a drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight found Dobson and her bandmates digging far deeper emotionally than they had ever before — and pairing that emotionality with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While showcasing Dobson’s dexterous and forceful guitar work, the album’s overall lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.”

For Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry went hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explained in press notes. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Signing to ATO was a significant step up for a band that had self-released its first two albums. The surge of resources resulted in a massive wave of exposure, including a spot on the Billboard charts. 

The Seattle-based outfit’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album, the 11-song, Dobson and Andy Park co-produced Billboard Heart is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Sub Pop. The album reportedly puts the band– currently, Dobson, Mansen and Jackson — in the company of acts like St. Vincent, TV on the Radio,Flock of Dimes and others, that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. 

The album features additional production from Adam Schatz and additional contributions from The Shins‘ Yuuki Matthews, Caroline Rose and Greg Leisz. It was mixed by Park and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone. 

Some background is needed here: Back in July 2023 while recording in a Los Angeles-based studio, Dobson played a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just a few days earlier, her band played a series of semi-secret shows for fans at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well, but almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles or so between Southern California and the Seattle-based home studio she shares with her spouse and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen. 

On that first night of recording sessions, Dobson broke down, wondering what she was doing there and what her band could do to fix it. For the first time in their history, the band retreated and headed home without a completed album. Did they need to scrap the entire thing and start again with new material? 

As it turned out, no. Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After the Los Angeles hiccup a few months before, longtime collaborator and producer Andy Park asked Dobson how the new material was going over at an early fall dinner. She admitted that she needed help. And in that humbling confession, she seen found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate the band — and directly led to their fourth album. 

For Dobson, the album is a triumph over self-doubt in which what initially felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and even strength. 

As it turned out, Impossible Weight‘s massive success caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, and to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. Album track “See in the Dark” — a song about coveting your notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away — emerged in that setting. 
 
That particular moment of domestic creation was essential for a number of reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which managed to carry over to more than half Billboard Heart‘s material. The pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small batch of essential gear to record guitars and vocals in their basement. 

When discussions later began in earnest with Park, following the Los Angeles incident, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her that these wasn’t just good enough to use, but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates to build upon and a frame, and a way for Dobson to believe again in the material, and most importantly, herself. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Shovel,” a Kate Bush-meets-St. Vincent-like tune anchored around buzzing and angular power chords, glistening synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor serving as a lush yet punchy bed for Dobson’s big, earnest vocal. Much like Impossible Weight, the new single sees the band crafting hook-driven arena rock friendly anthems informed by lived-in, personal yet somehow deeply universal experience. 

The album will feature the previous released album title track and “Let Me Go,”a slow-burning Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey-like anthemic ballad that sees the ballad collaboration with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham.

Directed by the band’s Dobson and Tyler Kalberg and inspired by French New Wave films, the accompanying video for “Let Me Go” was filmed in and around Los Angeles on January 5, 2025 and follows Deep Sea Diver’s Dobson and Cunningham through a day in the life, hanging out and goofing off.

“I’ve been wanting to collaborate with Madison for a long time, and I was over the moon when this song came in such an unexpected moment,” Dobson says. “We were just jamming in the studio and I started playing a guitar riff that I’ve had kicking around since high school that Madison started immediately winding around on her guitar. We looped a drum machine that my co-producer Andy Park started playing and a few hours later most of the song was finished. This song felt effortlessly cool from the start; It reminds me of some of my favorite PJ Harvey songs, full of grit & power. We shot the music video with the same spirit, and as two LA natives who both love the city—we wanted to explore our hometown.  Not knowing that it was two days before the LA fires, it has subsequently taken on a new meaning as a love letter to the city we both adore.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Shares Rousingly Anthemic “Shovel”

Led by Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, Seattle-based indie rock outfit Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. While with Atlantic Records, Dobson wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with. Atlantic shelved the material and ultimately dropped her.

After being dropped from Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her solo debut EP New Caves as Deep Sea Diver. The project became a full-fledged band with the addition of members John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound.

The Seattle-based band’s critically applauded third album, 2020’s Impossible Weight was released through High Beam Records/ATO Records and followed a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph to support their second album, 2016’s Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering at Aurora Commons, a drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight found Dobson and her bandmates digging far deeper emotionally than they had ever before — and pairing that emotionality with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While showcasing Dobson’s dexterous and forceful guitar work, the album’s overall lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.”

For Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry went hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explained in press notes. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Signing to ATO was a significant step up for a band that had self-released its first two albums. The surge of resources resulted in a massive wave of exposure, including a spot on the Billboard charts.

The Seattle-based outfit’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album, the 11-song, Dobson and Andy Park co-produced Billboard Heart is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Sub Pop. The album, which features the previously released album title track and “Let Me Go,” a collaboration with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham reportedly puts the band– currently, Dobson, Mansen and Jackson — in the company of acts like St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, Flock of Dimes and others, that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say.

The album features additional production from Adam Schatz and additional contributions from The Shins‘ Yuuki Matthews, Caroline Rose and Greg Leisz. It was mixed by Park and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone.

Some background is needed here: Back in July 2023 while recording in a Los Angeles-based studio, Dobson played a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just a few days earlier, her band played a series of semi-secret shows for fans at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well, but almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles or so between Southern California and the Seattle-based home studio she shares with her spouse and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen.

On that first night of recording sessions, Dobson broke down, wondering what she was doing there and what her band could do to fix it. For the first time in their history, the band retreated and headed home without a completed album. Did they need to scrap the entire thing and start again with new material?

As it turned out, no. Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After the Los Angeles hiccup a few months before, longtime collaborator and producer Andy Park asked Dobson how the new material was going over at an early fall dinner. She admitted that she needed help. And in that humbling confession, she seen found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate the band — and directly led to their fourth album.

For Dobson, the album is a triumph over self-doubt in which what initially felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and even strength.

As it turned out, Impossible Weight‘s massive success caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, and to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. Album track “See in the Dark” — a song about coveting your notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away — emerged in that setting.
 
That particular moment of domestic creation was essential for a number of reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which managed to carry over to more than half Billboard Heart‘s material. The pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small batch of essential gear to record guitars and vocals in their basement.

When discussions later began in earnest with Park, following the Los Angeles incident, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her that these wasn’t just good enough to use, but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates to build upon and a frame, and a way for Dobson to believe again in the material, and most importantly, herself.

The album’s latest single “Shovel” is a Kate Bush-meets-St. Vincent-like tune anchored around buzzing and angular power chords, glistening synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor serving as a lush yet punchy bed for Dobson’s big, earnest vocal. Much like Impossible Weight, the new single sees the band crafting hook-driven arena rock friendly anthems informed by lived-in, personal yet somehow deeply universal experience.

Directed by Tyler Kalberg, Jessica Dobson, Peter Mansen, the accompanying video for “Shovel” follows the members of Deep Sea Diver in a red pickup truck driving to the woods to ostensibly bury something — or someone — or to find something under the cover of night and in the halogen glow of headlights. As Dobson is shoveling, she expressively dances and bops around. It’s brooding, cinematic and yet it’s quite playful.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Only Twin Shares Cinematic and Swooning “Give You Up”

Initially known for his work with Forgive Durden and Cardiknox, Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Dutton is the create mastermind behind the rising, solo, synth pop project Only Twin.

Back in Seattle, every show Dutton went to gave him a sense of longing. It didn’t matter if they were playing to dozens or hundreds, the band was up on that stage tearing their hearts out in front of the world. Dutton knew he wanted to be up there on a stage, like the bands he was catching as a fan. As a teen, carpooling with his friends’ older siblings meant expose to bands and songs he had never heard before. Songs that weren’t played on the radio — and songs that opened his eyes and ears in transformative ways. “I’m always trying to capture that feeling I had when I was discovering music that changed my life,” Dutton says.

Inspired by the likes of The 1975 and Bon Iver, Only Twin emerged out of necessity. When Cardiknox split up, producing became Dutton’s full-time job, and he wanted to start a project that showed himself as a left-of-center, indie pop aesthete. But as Dutton used music to process both the dissolution of Cardiknox and a breakup, Only Twin took a life of its own. “It started as a way to carve out a little space for myself,” he says. “But as I started reclaiming tracks I’d written for other people, the project gave me closure on a huge chapter in my life.” 

Dutton’s sophomore Only Twin effort, the recently released it Feels Nice to Burn sees him bottling that sense of nostalgia. “I still feel like that wide-eyed 13-year-old at his first show in a lot of ways,” he says. Thematically, It Feels Nice to Burn continues the exploration of love, rebirth and new beginnings that he explored on his Only Twin debut, 2021’s Rare Works. Sonically, the new album sees Dutton finding the sweet spot between left-of-center indie pop and dreamy rock, while marking the next chapter of his life, one that sees him embracing the love of a lifetime and fatherhood. Unsurprisingly, the experience of falling in love, getting married and raising a child has given new meaning to his music and to himself.

When the Night-era St. Lucia-like album single “Give You Up” is slow-burning, seemingly 80s rom-com-inspired song featuring glistening synths, gated reverberated drums, bursts of twinkling keys, bursts of shimmering and squiggling guitars paired with Dutton’s plaintive delivery paired with the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s unerring knack for crafting swooningly earnest tracks with big hooks and choruses.

“Give You Up” is rooted in lived-in personal experience with the song describing the moment Dutton and his wife “jumped into the deep end” of their burgeoning relationship.

Directed by The Director Brothers, the accompanying video for “Give You Up” stars Julianne Hough as a bored office drone, who has an odd yet adorable affair with an old office copier that plays on rom-com tropes.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Weep Wave Share a Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

Released earlier this year through Corporat Records, Seattle-based post-punk outfit Weep Wave‘s Dylan Wall-produced sophomore album Speck sees the band — Dylan Fuentes (vocals, guitar), Mike Hubbard (drums, synth) and Mitch Midkiff (bass) — embarking on a kaleidoscopic sonic odyssey through the diverse array of genres they proudly call home. Thematically Fuentes’ lyrics oscillate between two contrasting realms: outward to explore the effects of the perils of capitalism and climate change — and inward, to scrutinize the self, in particular dissecting the ego and self-identity. 

In the lead-up the album’s release, I wrote about two previously released singles:

  • The Low Praise-meets-grunge-like “Rebirth Mantra,” a song built around a pummeling, most pit friendly riff, thunderous drumming and a supple yet propulsive bass line within a classic, alternating loud-quiet-loud song structure. The song captures Fuentes at his most introspective and neurotic, with the song’s narrator expressing his fears of falling into the same unhelpful — and perhaps just destructive — patterns that seemingly always leads to repeated failure and frustration. The song’s narrator envisions a transformed, evolved version of himself, a much more caring, courageous and empathetic self. Of course, are we able and willing to change and evolve? Or are we too stubborn, too blind to do what’s necessary to better ourselves?

  • “Phasing” a decidedly grunge-like ripper built around the sort of feedback fueled, power chord-driven riffs reminiscent of 90s alt rock greats like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, complete with enormous, arena rock-meets-mosh pit-like hooks and choruses. 

  • “Conscious Dust,” a Jack Endino-like grunge take on post-punk that begins with a intricate punk-meets-cheek-in-tongue Motown-like drumbeat and a fuzzy bass line. Fuentes enters the fray with a punchy chant-like delivery before the song explodes into a hypnotic and noisy mosh pit friendly ripper. As a single, “Conscious Dust” sets up the album’s overall aesthetic and thematic concerns as a sort of bold, flag-planting moment for the band and the listener. For me, the song kind of reminds me of Pearl Jam’s “Do The Evolution,” as a sort of tongue-in-cheek takedown of humanity and human consciousness.

In the past few months, the Seattle-based trio have released a single a month off the album, including its seventh and latest single, “Credits to My Life.” The new single may arguably be the most straightforward mosh pit friendly, grunge-inspired track off the album — with the song bringing Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and the like to mind, thanks to big power chords and even bigger, rousingly anthemic hooks paired with thunderous drumming.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and producer Grant Eadie is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit Manatee Commune. Over the the better part of the past handful of years, Eadie has specialized in a carefully molded sound that pairs natural overtones extracted from field recordings and other sources, live instrumentation and arrangements and slick yet nuanced production.

Eadie’s fourth Manatee Commune album Simultaneity is slated for a July 19, 2024 release Bastard Jazz. The album, which marks a return to his longtime label home, is anchored around the lush and vibrant production that’s his trademark while being a bold and mature step forward in his sound and songwriting approach. Eadie has stepped away from standard songwriting and lyrics altogether, with the album’s material leaning closer to ambient electronica while keeping one foot solid in the realm of house music.

Simultaneity‘s latest single “Faulted” is a lush and woozy track anchored around gentle layers of glistening and reverb-soaked synth arpeggios, skittering percussion and tweeter and woofer rattling thump that twist and turns into dreamily prismatic patterns. Sonically recalling Octo Octa‘s Between Two Selves, “Faulted” is a track that’s meditative enough to be lounge friendly but with enough muscular oomph to be club friendly.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Akira Galaxy Shares Glittery and Yearning “Silver Shoes”

Born Akira Galaxy Ament, the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based 20-something singer/songwriter and musician Akira Galaxy grew up steeped in eclectic music by her music-loving family for as long as she could remember. Ament cut her teeth as a musician fronting several high school bands in her hometown — before stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist.

The Seattle-born artist’s five-song Chris Coady and Sam Westhoff co-produced debut EP What’s Inside You was released earlier this year through Bright Antenna Records. The EP sees the rising artist effortlessly blending rock ‘n’ roll edge with synth textures that channel 80s dream pop while also drawing from the magic and beauty of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, where Ament often retreats to write. “I moved to LA as a teen to start my endeavor as a musician, but it wasn’t until I hit the pause button and went back to Seattle at 20 that I discovered my musical and lyrical voice,” the rising artist says. “I remember intending to go back for 2 weeks and ending up staying for 7 months. I like to think it was a perfect combination of things—the guitar, my childhood bedroom, and the state of the world. A fire was ignited beneath me, birthing the first song off of the EP, What’s Inside You.

The EP’s material delves into and touches upon themes of love, yearning and disappointment, resulting in a vulnerable yet self-assured debut effort. EP single and closing track “Silver Shoes” is a dreamy and atmospheric Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac-meets-Beach House-like track centered around glistening synth arpeggios, strummed reverb-soaked guitar and steady backbeat serving as lush bed for the Seattle-born artist’s yearning delivery. Throughout the song, its narrator yearns for and attempts to resuscitate a love that has long since died; so at its core, the song is tied into the sort of foolish, desperate and obsessively nostalgic hope of the lovelorn.

Directed by David Black, the accompanying video is a glittering dream that features the rising singer/songwriter and musician in a glittery jumpsuit and glittery faceprint and shot through kaleidoscopic filters and bright lights.