Album Review: Abyssal - A Beacon in the Husk

At the bottom of the sea lives a horrible titan named Abyssal, they've emerged to disgorge their fourth LP and you can find my write up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review of Abyssal's A Beacon in the Husk

For some reason I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did. 

Album Review: Hatchie - Keepsake

Hatchie wants to make your dream pop dreams a reality. Check out my write up of her new album, Keepsake over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of Hatchie's Keepsake

Your heart is like a locket. 

Album Review: Pacific Breeze: Japanese City

It's warming up outside and I am keeping cool with a delightful blast from our abandoned future-past, with a collection of Japanese pop from the past century, Pacific Breeze: Japanese City is now on Light in the Attic Records. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Japan was experiencing an unprecedented post-war economic boom driven by new developments in technology. Many of these technical wonders were exported to the US and elsewhere, cementing the country’s dominant position as a source of innovation and generating innumerable culture touchstones, the images, and sounds of which pervade culture to this day. Luxury items like walkmans, car cassette decks, and Roland TR 808s are iconic devices in our recent culture memory, inextricably linked to a period of excess and conspicuous consumption, as well as the frivolous fun of an era immortalized in the films of John Hughes and Robert Zemeckis. Japanese artists of the era were thirsty for a sound that matched the bright future that seemed to lay ahead, and so they forged that sound for themselves, combining smooth light funk and jazz-rock fusion with a mix of Japanese and English lyrics to paint sonic portraits of an imagined, and seemingly inevitable, techno-utopia. The fresh sound of this new style was deemed “city pop" because of its association with the rising urban, affluent class of the period. But the future imagined in these songs never came to pass. A market crash in the 1989s put the bull market to sleep and effectively ended the upward trajectory the country had experienced in the decades prior. Pacific Breeze: Japanese City is a curated collection of the lost sounds of the pre-crash world, the echos of which can still be heard in modern J-pop and the now ubiquitous vaporwave of Macintosh + and others. It is simultaneously some of the weirdest and undeniably earwarmy tunes to ever receive mainstream radio attention in an industrial nation. Think Steely Dan meets Boney M, or Devo meets Dinah Shore, or Diana Ross meets Orange Juice. It’s wild. It's weird. And goddammit if it isn't wonderful. I can already tell that this collection will be a constant companion of mine this summer, giving me hope for a future that is better than today, every day.

Pick up a copy from Light in the Attic Records

Interview: Hitter

Image provided by Hitter

My interview with local heavy rock rippers Hitter is finally airing on CHIRP Radio. We discuss heavy metal influences, recording their killer first demo, and the true meaning of friendship. If CHIRP's FM signal doesn't reach you where you live you can check out our conversation by visiting chirpradio.org. Direct link below. 

Interview with Hitter on the CHIRP Radio Podcast

Keep an eye on these guys. They're going to be big. 

Album Review: City Girl - Chroma Velocity

I got a little whimsical with my coverage of City Girl's Chroma Velocity. Seriously, give it a listen. It is magnificent! It's up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. 

Review of City Girl's Chroma Velocity

Album Review: Personal Best - What You At

This week I covered the latest hard-pop heartache from very gay gal rockers Personal Best. Their new LP is What You At and my review is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Review of Personal Best's What You At

Girls who date girls write the best break up songs

Album Review: Shey Baba - Requiem

All work and no play can make me a weary boy. That’s why I’m diving into the patient, transportive R’nB of LA-based singer/songwriter Shey Baba. Requiem is his debut LP which he wrote over the course of two years spent in near isolation. The goal of his sabbatical was to record an album that can invoke a sense of immersive cinematography in the mind of the listeners, as a counterpoint to the way most people enjoy music today (e.g., as background noise). Baba has a soulful, mourning quality to his falsetto singing style that is not immediately identifiable as masculine, transgressing the boundaries of gendered performance much in the fashion of Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux. His style fits well within the deconstructed pop that perennially flows out of Scandinavia, earning him an opening slot for Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfør on her recent North American tour. Whether it is the wilting crestfallen dance of “Born Sick” and “Dreamer,” or the searching cool electronic rhythms of “Inside Out,” or the delicate needling flood of the title track “Requiem,” this album is a bountiful font of emotional complexity waiting to be tapped for your set. 

Get yourself a copy of Requiem here

Album Review: Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent

Fuming Mouth is fury personified and their new album rips! I covered it over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below.

Review of Fuming Mouth's The Grand Descent

This is going to make it into my top 10 for the year. No doubt about. 

Album Review: Cave In - Final Transmission

Covered the new album by Cave In over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. A full albums worth of post/space rock mixed with metalcore, born out of tragedy.

Review of Cave In's Final Transmission

They've done better but this isn't bad. 

Album Review: Alice Clark - Alice Clark

Today I am waking up to the lovely and long displaced voice of Alice Clark. Her debut (and only record) is considered by some lost classic of ‘70s soul. Reissued this year via WEWANTSOUNDS Records, the album was tracked live in 1972 over two days at Record Plant Studios in NYC. Due to its poor initial sales, the record quickly fell out of print and Clark retired from music. Defying the odds, Clark’s recordings were revived as an integral component of the UK dance scene of the late ’80s, pushed by the owners of Acid Jazz records and their obsession with Clark’s exquisite brassy and playful tones and her record’s tightly controlled builds and instrumental sweeps. From the patient gospel-tinted pleading of “I Keep it Hid” to the disco-drenched drama and nimble intersecting melodies of “Don’t You Care,” to the jubilant soulful funk foray “Never Did I Stop Loving You” this is a tour de force ‘70s sounds, emancipated with emotion. Allow yourself to get a little sappy today with Alice Clark and this long lost jem.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Alice Clark's S/T over at WEANTSOUNDS Records

Album Review: Death Angel - Humanicide

Last week we saw the release of Bay area thrash legends Death Angel release the fantastic Humanicide. I like it quite a bit. My review of this politically charged return to form by the band is up over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Death Angel's Humanicide

Humanity had it's chance. 

Album Review: Darkthrone - Old Star

Black metal pioneers Darkthrone released their latest foray into crusty doom Old Star this week. My coverage of this twisted daddy of rock album is over at Chicago Crowd Surfer. Link below. 

Review of Darkthrone's Old Star

Some stars never lose their luster.  

Show Review: Doomed & Stoned 2019 @ Reggies Rock Club

Get your recommended dose of fuzz and fury with my write up of Doomed & Stoned 2019 featuring Blood Ceremony, Torche, Demon Lung, Wolf Blood, Frayle, Witch Ripper, and the incomparable Coven. It was one of those weekends that reminds me of why I'm a metal devotee. Check out my coverage over at Chicago Crowd Surfer.

Recap of Doomed and Stoned @ Reggies 

It's a good time to be a metal fan in Chicago. 

Coven (Photo by me)