Audio

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: EELS Shares Two Gorgeous Songs from Forthcoming Album “COOKIE HAPPENED”

Since 1996’s full-length debut, Beautiful Freak, EELS the ever-evolving, critically applauded project of its creative mastermind, singer/songwriter, musician and producer E (Mark Oliver Everett) have combined heartbreak, humor, curiosity and emotional honesty in an expansive catalog that continues to resonate with audiences across the globe.

E’s 16th EELS album, COOKIE HAPPENED is slated for an October 16, 2026 release through E Works/Play It Again Sam. The album, which follows 2024’s EELS TIMES! reportedly finds the EELS creative mastermind turning his gaze inward towards life’s small victories, inevitable disappointments and the strange miracle of having been here at all, continuing a remarkable run of material that finds meaning and pathos in life’s messiest, strangest moments.

COOKIE HAPPENED will include the previously released “Cap In Hand,” and the album’s next two singles, “All Forgotten” and “I’m On Standby” “All Forgotten” is a meditative song built around strummed guitar and sweeping, cinematic strings beneath E’s gravelly vocal, which expresses a hard-fought mix of heartbreak, defiant pride and optimism on a song that explores mortality — with a sense of awe, acceptance and gratitude for the 1 in 70+ trillion chance that puts the song’s narrator at this particular place and time, because all is forgotten in due time.

“You can find the idea of your existence ending troubling or comforting.” E explains. “I try to lean towards the comforting take whenever possible: For thousands, millions of years you didn’t exist, and you and the world were fine. You’ll be fine not existing again. This is what hit songs are written about, right?”

“I’m On Standby” is by contrast is warm, melodic ode to unwavering friendship featuring a narrator expressing the comfort of knowing that your best friend in the entire world will always be there when you need them most — and that you would do the same for them in return. Certainly, when times are tough — and they get rough more often than not — having a deep friendship that you can depend on will keep you afloat, E says: “If you’re lucky you have a friend you’re always there for and vice versa. Bitch, I’ve always got time for you.”

Ahead of the release of COOKIE HAPPENED, fans can revisit E’s celebrated catalog as, for the first time evermore the definitive Meet The Eeels: The Essential EELS Vol, 1 (1996-2006) will be now available on vinyl. Originally released digitally back in 2008, this limited release will feature 24 of the project’s iconic tracks, including “Novocaine for the Soul,” “Susan’s House” “I Need Some Sleep” and more across a 2LP yellow gold 140g vinyl set. The vinyl edition will drop on Friday, July 31, 2026.

Beyond music E is also the author of the acclaimed memoir, Things the Grandchildren Should Know and the subject of the award-winning documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, which explored his relationship with his father, the pioneering quantum physicist Hugh Everett III.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bug Facer Shares Bruising “Nuclear Bounty Hunter”

East Yorkshire, UK-based punks Bug Facer can trace their origins back to when founding duo James Cooper (bass, guitar, vocals) and Will Longton (drums, vocals) let psychedelic prog rock band Woodlouse, wanting to explore darker […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hayley Law Shares Self-Assured, Hook-Driven “Circle Back”

Hayley Law is a Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based actor, singer/songwriter and producer, who initially wrote, produced and recorded under the moniker Hayleau. She has since retired the moniker and project, saying “Hayleau was a version of me that I really love. Softer, shyer, and still trying to figure herself out through everyone else’s voices. I think that name became a little too shaped by perception, expectation, and who people thought i should be. Coming back to Hayley Law felt like reclaiming myself and deciding I don’t want anyone else molding who I am anymore.”

Performing under her own name, the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist has crafted a sound and approach that sees her blending pop, R&B and pop rock with diaristic storytelling. Her work lives between vulnerability and control in a way that’s intimate, nostalgic and quietly disarming, pulling listeners into moments that feel as impulsive as they are intentional.

As a completely independent artist, Law has built her career on her own times while amassing over four million streams across the DSPs through purely organic growth and without chasing trends or traditional industry pathways.

Alongside her music career, Law has played roles in globally distributed Netflix projects and studio films, including Riverdale, Altered Carbon and more. She’s set to star in Jackie! Zhou’s FLYOVER.

Building upon a growing profile, the rising artist’s highly-anticipated Law, Jesse Boykins III and Melo-X co-produced Last Summer is slated for an August 14, 2026 release. The album sonically is a blend of sensual alternative R&B-influenced diaristic songwriting and early 2000s pop punk, creating an album of material that’s intimate, emotionally unguarded yet cinematic. Across the album’s run-time, Law effortlessly moves between softness and control, exploring desire, performance, heartbreak, ego, femininity and the versions of ourselves we create to be loved. But the star of the show is Law and her voice: vulnerable without being self-pitying, confident without false armor and deeply self-aware of the contradiction of wanting intimacy while trying to remain in control.

The album will include the previously released album title and opening track “Last Summer” and the album’s second and latest single “Circle Back.” Subtly channeling hook-driven, late 1990s and early 000s R&B — think Brandy, Monica and the like — “Circle Back” is built around an atmospheric production twinkling keys, a soaring string sample, skittering beats and glitchy, DJ scratches beneath Law’s self-assured, self-aware delivery. The song’s narrator spends the song’s runtime recognizing that this love interest is probably just a fling — and that fling needs to back off a bit and just enjoy things for what they are.

“Have you ever had a fling that just moves sooo fast? By the time you come up for air, you realize you’ve spent 3 days with the person and aren’t even sure you see it going anywhere,” the Canadian-born artist explains. “That is ‘Circle Back.’ I wear my heart on my sleeve and fall quickly and this song is my reminder to check in with yourself. Not every fling turns into a relationship. And having two/three weeks of something HOT is awesome.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOHN DORIAN Shares Shimmering “LOVE I REMEMBER”

New Audio: JOHN DORIAN Shares Shimmering “LOVE I REMEMBER”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: belac Shares a Sultry, Club Friendly Banger

belac is a rising, Perth-born and-based producer, who is a product of the Internet Generation: After discovering a Martin Garrix breakdown of his hit song “Animals” when the Aussie producer was 11, he has spent the past decade consuming — and sometimes forming — internet tends and turning them into club bangers. Before music, he was one of the best beach sprinters in Western Australia and a qualified physicist. But as he explains, he went all-in on music, when he heard his own music being blasted by the electronic music club while walking around his university’s open day.

Since then, he has signed with [PIAS] Électronique, who has released recent singles “need it, breathe it” and “be with me 2009,” which manage to be simultaneously nostalgia-inducing and fresh, while giving younger fans a cache to experience an era of EDM that they might not have originally been around for. And interestingly, gamers have claimed that his work is the perfect soundtrack for massive gaming sessions.

Now while there’s a cheekiness to his music and his online presence, the Perth-born and-based producer has an unerring knack for understanding what delights dance music fans and brings them to the dance floor. And as a result, he’s become one of Australia’s most recognized, rising electronic producers, specializing in club friendly bangers with elements of 2010s EDM, Memphis trap, jazz and more.

The Aussie producer’s latest single “late night visions” is a subtly brooding and atmospheric take on tech house with a sultry vocal sample that reminds me of French JOVM mainstay LutchamaK and a lengthy list of others, while showcasing a producer who can craft a euphoric, remarkably catchy hook.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Twin Temple Shares Swooning and Lush “Doomed Lovers”

Formed back in 2017, Twin Temple — married couple Alexandra and Zachary James — are an acclaimed Los Angeles-based duo, who specialize in a new sub-genre and style that they’ve dubbed “Satanic Doo Wop,” which blends their practice of Satanism with a sound that’s influenced by The Platters, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and the like.

The Los Angeles-based duo have developed for being one of the contemporary scene’s most talked about crossover acts, earning widespread coverage from media outlets like Rolling Stone, NME, Billboard, American Songwriter, Stereogum, Consequence, Revolver, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Loudwire, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and a long list of others, and for being one of the most provocative acts out there right now. Their uncompromising artistic vision routinely sparks much larger and more serious conversations about artistic freedom, religious freedom, freedom of expression, censorship, the role of controversy in art, and on a broader sense, the wider role art plays within the cultural landscape.

Some of y’all, will know of the duo after Charley Crockett abruptly dropped the band from his shows this past week — specifically for their usage of Satanic imagery. This lead to Jack White publicly inviting the band to open for him in Hollywood in September. Serendipitously, the duo’s third album, Doomed Lovers is coming red hot off the heels of their latest controversy.

Slated for an October 9, 2026 release through their own Pentagrammation Records, the Shooter Jennings-produced Doomed Lovers was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound‘s iconic Studio 3 and marks the acclaimed duo’s boldest chapter to date. The album continues the band’s commitment to analog recording while expanding upon their sound with lush orchestral arrangements performed by a 37-member orchestra. Yes, 37!

Born from one of the darkest periods of their personal lives, Doomed Lovers is reportedly their most intimate and emotionally revealing work to date. Expanding upon the cinematic scope of the sound that has won them acclaim while remaining rooted in the timeless sound and traditions of early rock ‘n’ roll, the album is their most ambitious and fully realized artistic statement so far.

“We poured everything into this new record that we made with Shooter,” says the acclaimed and controversial duo. “We wanted to push ourselves creatively and expand the production further than we have before, drawing inspiration from the lush orchestral productions of Roy Orbison, The Ronettes, and The Shangri-Las, and added in some Countrypolitan flair. We brought in some incredible musicians like Matt Chamberlain and Jay Bellerose, and a 37-piece orchestra. We wanted to make something as beautiful as we possibly could – of course with our dark spin on things.”

The truth is, this album was made during one of the darkest periods of our lives. We had been struggling with grief, health issues, addiction, and depression. But day by day, going into Sunset Sound, making music with incredible people who believed in us, and being surrounded by that creativity slowly brought us back to life. We started smiling and laughing again. I was becoming alive again. It connected us to why we fell in love with music in the first place and became our most personal album yet.”

Doomed Lovers‘ latest single, album title track “Doomed Lovers” features a lush, breathtakingly gorgeous, sculpted wall of sound-like production and arrangement beneath Alexandra James’ remarkably Patsy Cline-like croon singing confessional lyrics desiring an a consuming, all or nothing love along the lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and other Romantic-era literature.

The first time I heard the song, the first three or four thoughts that entered my mind were “holy shit, that’s fucking gorgeous!,” followed by “this sounds like it could have been a B-side to Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” and “Back in Baby’s Arms” or Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely” and “Crying,” followed by “I’d pay to hear Alexandra James read entries in the phone book.”

“This is the philosophical centerpiece of the album – a theatrical and confessional take on all or nothing love, the dark side of devotion and centuries old mythic literary Romantic themes,” the acclaimed duo explain. “It longs for a love so enduring and eternal that it ultimately consumes, obliterates, and drives one to madness and death. At its core, it asks the question – ‘What happens when your lover dies?’”

But what makes the song unique is that it rejects the conventional and culturally accepted answer… ‘I know I should tell you to find someone new,’ in favor of raw, unfiltered and selfish desire, things that would be shameful to speak in mundane reality.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nouvelle Vague and Flavia Coelho Tackle Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again”

Founded by Marc Collins and the late Olivier Libaux back in 2003, Nouvelle Vague was initially conceived as a one-off tribute to post-punk songwriting in a Bossa nova style. 2004’s self-titled debut, which saw them establish their unique fusion of melancholy post-punk, Bossa nova and French re-interpretational approach, unexpectedly achieved global acclaim. Since then, Nouveau Vague has become a global phenomenon.

Their 10th album, A Date with Depeche Mode is slated for an October 30, 2026 release through Kwaidan Records/[PIAS] Recordings. And as you can probably tell, the album sees the French outfit tackling the work of pioneering British electronic outfit Depeche Mode. The album’s second single, “Never Let Me Down Again” feat. Brazilian artist Flavia Coehlo was according to the a conscious risk, because her voice manages to carry the full light of Rio. The original version is a brooding and hypnotic tune built on an intertwined promise and threat.

Coehlo and Nouvelle Vague manage to craft a bold and unique interpretation of a beloved song that doesn’t betray the spirit and intention of the original. The summer breeze and sunshine of Nouveau Vague’s rendition is superficial; the song is underpinned by a tense, brooding unease. Goths at the beach, perhaps?

Seriously though, Nouveau Vague’s work points out the melancholy of English New Wave and Brazilian Bossa Nova are practically two sides of the same coin.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Everything But The Everything Shares Yearning “Hollow Heart”

Bay Area-based indie rock outfit Everything But The Everything originally started off as a collaborative recording project founded by producer, songwriter and bassist Izzy The Gent, recently expanded into a full-fledged band with the additions of Sophia Prise (vocals), Tobias Hawkins (vocals), Andy Lund (guitar), Ian Dowed (guitar) and Cody Rhodes (drums).

While previous releases features a rotating cast of collaborators, the project’s latest singlem the Rex Shelverton-produced “Hollow Heart” marks a new chapter — a recording project becoming a full-fledged band. Sophia Price and Tobias Hawkins trade achingly yearning vocals beneath a driving bass line, dramatic drumming, and shimmering post punk-meets-New Wave atmospherics. Channeling Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen and the like, “Hollow Heart” features a towering wall of sound-like approach that showcases the simpatico between the members of the lineup.

And at its core, “Hollow Heart” is rooted in earnest performances and even more earnest songwriting. “This feels like the natural evolution of Everything But The Everything,” says Izzy The Gent. “What started as a collaborative project has grown into a real band with a shared creative vision. Sophia and Tobias bring so much personality and emotion to the music, and this song reflects what happens when everyone contributes their voice to the process.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Valery Trails Shares Hard-Charging and Introspective “Fragment Hanging 2026”

Last year’s Winter Palace saw the Brisbane-based outfit The Valery Trails — currently Andrew Bower (vocals, guitar, keys), Sean Bower (bass), Dan McNaulty (drums, percussion), Screamfeeder’s Tim Steward (guitar) and Skye Staniford (vocals) — continuing their trademark jangle and crunch while exploring some diverse styles and genres, including synth pop-stylings, horn-driven retro flavors and some straightforward rock.

This year has been busy for the Aussie JOVM mainstays: The Valery Trails side project Soviet Dust released their self-titled debut EP earlier this year. And the band will follow up last year’s Winter Palace with the forthcoming Down on Buffalo Speedway EP. Down on Buffalo Speedway sees the Aussie quintet resisting, re-imagining and recording or remixing a selection of tunes from 2014’s Buffalo Speedway. “Buffalo Speedway was an early high-water mark for the band, with a number of songs becoming setlist staples,” The Valery Trails’ Andrew Bower says, “With the current extended lineup including Tim Steward and Skye Staniford, the songs have evolved over the years, so the idea to re-record some tracks with the current lineup and reflecting the band’s current live sound has been in the back of our minds for a while.”

“The new tracks benefited from having creative input from the current extended lineup of the band, and the freedom to experiment that came from working in my own studio,” Bower adds. “We were able to try things without being ‘on the clock.’ I don’t think the remixes would have happened if we were working in a traditional method of booking time in a studio.”

The EP will feature the previously released “Waiting 2026,” which wasn’t originally a single or a focus track on Buffalo Speedway but has been a fixture in the band’s setlist for some years, and “Fragment Hanging 2026.” The Down on Buffalo Speedway EP rendition of “Fragment Hanging” is a hard-charging mix of jangle pop, alt country and rock that channels Wilco, Flying Nun Records and the like, anchored by earnest, lived-in lyricism and loose, live-on-the-floor performances.

The song’s overarching themes are familiar, if you’ve lived a full, messy life — in particular, the sense of regret and shame over a relationship that failed and your part in it, and the lingering desire to have done more or to have done something different. But you live and learn through both heartbreak and disaster.

“This one is a deep cut from the Buffalo Speedway album, and one we’ve never played live,” Bower shares. “”The first verse is literally one of the most autobiographical things I’ve ever written. I’m not exactly sure how this led to the second verse introspective musings about how I messed up a relationship though… there’s something about the oppressive atmosphere of a Brisbane summer night that can prompt such melancholy trains of thought.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Doomed Shares Punchy, 80s-Inspired “Page 1”

The Doomed is a mysterious and emerging post-punk outfit, who released their self-titled debut EP today. The EP’s latest single “Page 1” is a hooky bit of punchy 80s-styled post-punk, anchored around shimmering and angular […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn’s Marigny Shares Bruising “The Still”

Brooklyn-based post punk/heavy goth rock outfit Marigny blends coldwave textures, heavy analog distortion and dark atmospheres to craft material that’s simultaneously intimate and volatile. Their sound is intentionally analog and physical — loud, low end, corroded textures, cassette tape-like saturation and tension that feels more like a live room recording than a clean, polished digital mix. Thematically, the band’s work explores grief, obsession, addiction, masculinity and spiritual decay through a modern Afro-gothic lens.

The Brooklyn-based outfit’s debut single “The Still” is a bruising and gritty blend of post-punk, industrial, drakwave, New Wave and goth that showcases their ability to craft a punchy, hook-driven and rousingly anthemic song that’s rooted in raw, soulful emotion.

“My whole life has been defined by the feeling that I’m missing something,” says Marigny. “For nearly a decade, this prevented me from making music that I believed in. But I’ve finally found the language I’ve needed to put that pain into art. ‘The Still’ was the first step, and I’m very excited for the future of this project.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BelaBela’s Posthumously Released “Virgin Mary” Marks Launch of Bella Angel Fund

Bella Isabella Catherine Jhun was a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, dancer, visual artist and aspiring producer, best known as the creative mastermind behind the shoegaze project BelaBela. Jhun’s work explored themes of vulnerability, spirituality, heartbreak and […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s TheWhatIfMix Shares a Club Banger

TheWhatIfMix is a London-based electronic music artist, producer and mixing engineer, whose work is centered around one core question: What if you achieve your dreams? His sound sees him blend elements of deep house, tech house and atmospheric electronic textures in a way that’s designed to move both body and spirit. Thematically, each track features a much deeper — and much-needed — message of self-belief, transformation and reconnection with the self.

For the London-based artist, TheWhatIfMix as a project is anchored in the concept that music is much more than sound, that it can be a reminder, a release and a push forward.

“La Magia” reached number 1 on aBreakMusic. His recently released five-song EP Higher Self received airplay on FutureHits Radio. Thematically, the EP is a journey through self-awareness, transformation and the belief in infinite possibilities. And building upon a growing profile, the London-based artist’s latest single “WAKE UP” is a high energy, club rocking bit of techno that channels JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, complete with a mantra-like sample.

As TheWhatIfMix explains, “‘WAKE UP’ is about questioning what we are shown, seeing the system more clearly and taking that power back.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Smirk Shares Bruising, Rousingly Anthemic “Going Off To Die”

Growing up in Portland, OR in the early 2000s Smirk creative mastermind Nick Vicario was engrained in the scene that birthed acts like Poison Idea and Wipers. He started playing in bands at an early age and hob-knobbed with members of Tragedy and Criminal Damage in cover bands and even on the gridiron. When Vicario turned 12, his first band The Diskords were championed by Maximum Rocknroll, which lead to several releases and The Exploding Hearts taking them under their wing.

Playing in hardcore acts like Cower, eventually led him to indie pop act Wild Ones which released two albums over an eight year period, the latter which was released by Topshelf Records. After stints with Public Eye, Cemento, Crisis Man and a handful of others, as well as touring with Surfer Blood and Dreamdecacy, Vicario decided to focus on his solo project Smirk, releasing two albums, 2021’s S/T effort and 2022’s Material.

Vicario’s third Smirk album Speculative Fiction is slated for a July 3, 2026 release through Smoking Room. The album sees the Smirk mastermind restarting personally and musically. The album’s material sees Vicario eschewing the speed and thrash punk of his previously released work and taking a more measured, power pop approach. The result is decidedly more mid-tempo, channeling the likes of Big Star, The Paul Collins Beat, and Stiff’s earliest releases but filtered through the DIY spirit of Guided by Voices.

Thematically, the album sees life imitating art: Vicario slows thin down, retools and gets meticulous, making deliberate decisions with songwriting, creative and sonic approach and collaboration to execute a brand new vision. And fittingly, the album’s material may arguably be the most refined, focused approach to punk — with a pop sensibility. This newfound take on his sound and approach mirrors his lifestyle outside of the fast line and behind a white picket fence.

Written and entirely by Vicario, Speculative Fiction sees him calling upon some old friends to help flesh out the material’s overall sound for the recording sessions — Ceremony‘s Ross Farrarr, RIXE’s Max Smadja and Advertisement‘s Ryan Mangione-Smith. The album was primarily recorded in his home studio, although the Smirk creative mastermind recruited Ian Rose to record a few album tracks at Brooklyn’s The Daisy Chain Studios. Andy Oswald handled mixing for the bulk of the album. Live, Vicario is backed by members of Hotline TNT, Poison Ruin and Pardoner.

Speculative Fiction‘s latest single, “Going Off To Die” is a bruising, nihilistic sigh of defeat and surrender, that seemingly channels Social Distortion while showcasing Vicario’s knack for catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. Thematically touching upon an age-old theme for punk rock — unrest in the suburbs but with a twist, “Going Off To Die” features a narrator looking back on past indiscretions and their repercussions — but with an exhausted sigh that says “I give up. I might be cooked — for now.” And in that embittering acceptance, there’s a sense of freedom — and a newfound way of moving forward.

“‘Going Off to Die’ is about leaving Los Angeles in a sort of quiet defeat,” says Vicario. “It comes from a place of shame and deals with reckoning with who I was and accepting that leaving was the only way forward.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Forest Shares Anthemic “Anchor”

Rising Los Angeles-based artist Forest will be releasing her highly-anticipated full-length debut, Swan Dive through AWAL on September 25, 2026. Swan Dive is reportedly the Los Angeles-based artist’s most fully realized work to date, expanding upon the alt-rock foundation of her earliest releases into something much larger sonically and more fluid. The ten-song album features walls of distorted guitars paired with electronic textures, industrial undercurrents and moments of startling pop clarity. The result is an effort that’s intimate yet overwhelming and sees the rising artist showcasing her capability to shift from whispered confession to emotional free-fall — within the turn of a phrase.

The rising artist’s full-length debut will include the previously released “Prosthetic Stars,” “Whore and Savior,” “Lay With Me” and the album’s latest single, “Anchor.” Featuring fuzzy and chugging power chords paired with thunderous drumming and Forest’s emo and pop-influenced vocal within a classic grunge structure, “Anchor” showcases an artist who can pair earnest, lived-in lyricism with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses with a seemingly effortless bombast.

“‘Anchor’ delves into the idea of becoming wrapped up in something you can’t get out of,” Forest explains. “It was written in my childhood bedroom on a trip to Chicago, at a time when I had felt the past wrap its arms around me. The thought of being stuck and tied to the past was the driving thought throughout this track.”

Forest has developed a reputation for unforgettable performances, sharing stages with Starcrawler, Chokecherry, Empty Shell Casing and a long list of others. She kicked off the year, playing the sold-out emo revival festival Burndown in Santa Ana, CA. During the spring, she went on an extensive North American tour with Clarion. The rising artist will be embarking on a West Coast tour opening for ivri. Check out the tour dates below.