Category: Rock

TRACK | Bad Deals – Paint

5/5 golden merles

Recalling the careening melodies and cutting guitar riffs of Women at their best, “Paint” is a stunning track from Boston’s Bad Deals.

The vocal layers agreeably proffer through and alongside the rampant lead guitar, hectic and harboring great detail. In the unfolding events it is clear that there was great care put into the balance of the soundscape.

That I am the incalculable dullard writing about this good work, presently more fixated on personal creation than curation, seems undeniably cruel.

“Paint” is one of those bandcamp gems that is another in the series of deeply concerning by it’s so-far limited fanfare. That something this well realized and refined lacks an audience is very frightening. It seems a logical step from greatly loved traditions. The algorithm at play hasn’t figured out yet how to read these things properly and deliver them to those who would immediately appreciate them.

TRACK | Jeanines – Where We Go

5/5 golden merles

Jeanines’ 2019 self-titled album is full of killer hooks and excellent melodic structuring. A couple months prior to the pandemic I was fortunate enough to see them rip through a set at one of Brooklyn’s premier indie venues, Wonderville.

Golden, bright and jangly guitar tones consistently drift over some highly refined ruminations. The well crafted bass and drums are immensely complimentary, enrich the melodies and keep everything moving at pace. The songs are in fact refined to the point that no track on the record stretches beyond the 2:34 mark.

It is the output of aficionados, the zealots, the genre purists, and it is I think even more than most records meant to be consumed as part of the whole set or album foremost.

With the deceptive brevity, one track, any really, acts as an entry point that demands the others be likewise appreciated. There isn’t a weak point in the chain.

In its episodic and relative conciseness there is a mechanic here that plays with perception through a more manageable and enforced segmentation (Like happily binging a 12 hour limited series and it appearing less daunting than a single 4 hour film). These are 16 excellent tracks in just over 25 minutes and well worth a visit.

TRACK | Protomartyr – How He Lived After He Died

5/5 golden merles

With “How He Lived After He Died” we have another finely tuned and balanced appreciation for content and form. Protomartyr have done it enough that at this point it does not appear to be a mistake. There’s clearly premeditation.

The ironically named All passion no technique is yet another (and the original) entry in which Protomartyr manages to properly render human expression in a compelling and expert manner.

“How He Lived After He Died” is another rendition that does justice to their own source material, a debt that always seems to perpetually reemerge with each rendering.

Apparently 21 songs were recorded in four hours and this was one of them. A fact that is at least as frustrating as it is impressive.

Being the 10th track of 17 feels buried, but in a good way. That is a confident placement for something this great.

TRACK | Lomma – T. Hanks

5/5 golden merles

Tube amp and tremolo powered revenge anthem that it is, “T. Hanks” is a lot of fun. If you’d like some reference points that are fundamentally inaccurate but broadly reasonable in comparison, there is a bit of Ty Segall, The Fresh and Onlys, and Kasabian in there. It is driving, garage-y surf-pop.

It’s a good track for when everything is falling apart and forfeit and no effort adds up. It is a bit of commiseration in a miserable era. And in its buoyant forms and affable uttering, does a good job of making this all seem more or less fine while proclaiming the opposite.

And while we know from… life that the squeaky wheel more likely gets executed at dawn, locked in an Ecuadorian embassy, or exiled to Russia, there remains inherent value in the logging of the complaint.

So what if the world is an unforgiving and hellish place and that every ounce of good is drained out in a vice, cut with chemicals, and then sold back to you at 10x the cost? We can still refine our critiques to be appealing and catchy. There’s some good resilience here in this track and in the lessons it provides.

[Something I didn’t notice until after selecting the track but may have been subconsciously seen: our projects were featured on bandcamp daily on the same entry a week back. That doesn’t need to be disclosed I just wanted to brag a little and am glad to be associated further in this linkage.]

TRACK | Real Numbers – Only Two Can Play

5/5 golden merles

Find a way / to get away

With a tambourine of broken glass and a guitar hook like a beacon of light, we are graciously called to appreciate this post-punk pop tune. Reverb, cooing backing vocals, a moderately dread-filled recollection: nothing not to like.

Master rang / be back today
Busy yourself or be put on the shelf

There is a kind of artificial simplicity and directness involved in the testament, casual in its conveyances.

But it playfully strikes at the core of ones existence with its fidelity to the archival fermenting, the building and/or glacial erosion of the heart.

It is a catalog of the repetitions as opposed to the punctuations and the extremities, those are the aberrations. Logged here are the days in between that more accurately represent the whole.

TRACK | Katy Needs A Life – I’m Going Down

5/5 golden merles

I’m Going Down is a tremendous album closer from Katy Needs A Life off their new record, With Friends Like Bees.

Traditionally my preference is for tracks that tend toward the briefer sort. As a rule, don’t trust anyone over 2 minutes. I like the lyrically and melodically meandering, smash and grab mentality: a series of iconic segmentations and their interplay, interruptions even. And further still, maybe even some concise field recorded embellishments that proffer small clues to the greater whole. Subtlety is underrated. If you want to hear a chorus repeated, loop the track.

But exceptions are emphatically made at the extreme polarity when they’re executed this well.

I’m Going Down is composed of a heartfelt mantra, repeated and recontextualized throughout in a burning incantation of call-without-response. The vocal delivery of this phrase moves initially from matter-of-fact and then builds to an impassioned entreaty, a heroic attempt to overcome the silence that grows in reply.

The synths act as kindling. The frenzy cultivates to a fever pitch. And when the structural reprieve and variance finally comes it’s just another dagger:

What should I do / I’m lost and I have nowhere to run to

TRACK | Bnny – I’m Just Fine

5/5 golden merles

Coming off of 2021s Everything, Bnny moves from strength to strength with this remarkable single, “I’m Just Fine.“

In a few direct lines recounting a brief encounter, swiftly this microcosm extrapolates into wide avenues of longing and of unrealized eventualities. The subtext is immense. This moment, or it’s recollection, acts as a portal to the vast emotional ocean of undercurrent that undergirds our every interaction.

And, yeah, most songs should do this. And most try to, if sort of inadvertently. But rarely do they render this phasing of micro to macro as convincingly, or wed the everyday to eternity in a manner that allows for direct intellectual as well as emotional resonance. Rarely do you feel as though the ground has opened up beneath you. And, better yet, by design.

There is great refinement in the two guitar leads, the quiet chorus of backing vocals that swells late on, and the elegant drumming variance. Where most songs would put the full burden of focus upon one of these individual endearing elements of instrumentation, the glut of quality coalesces here into one hell of a stunning track.

TRACK | La Luz – Call me in the Day

5/5 golden merles

Previously we’ve covered Shana Cleveland’s Night of the Worm Moon.

Call me in the Day is another track of her affiliation that is never skipped when it comes up on the infinite rotation.

There is a lot to learn from it’s construction, in the phrasing and resource distribution of the instrumentation. And the way the lead guitar feeds into the organ solo, when the vocals retire for nearly 90 seconds midway through, but never disrupting the ongoing celebration.

Then, later, the majesty of the slightly staggered cymbal splash on the half beats. The track is reliably, inventively playing with genre forms and templates that are at least half a century old and nevertheless coming up with some new and fresh ways to modify the material.

All that ignores the salient greatness of the core vocals and backing vocals that are the soul of the thing. And the bass that carries everything, always. It’s remarkable stuff.

TRACK | The Mallard – A Form of Mercy

5/5 golden merles

One of the 24 albums I own is The Mallard’s Yes on Blood. But this might be my favorite track that they put out, and it is from the second Castleface Records album Finding meaning in Deference.

In A Form of Mercy there is a good kind of haunted harmony that has been fused together in fuzz. It rides a balance of coherence that endearingly draws one in. It is just decipherable enough to know that you have been warned.

It is a shame they don’t make music anymore but maybe they do under another name I don’t know, or maybe they’re happy in their undoing or otherwise agreeably tasked. We are fortunate to have these two sets.

TRACK | Print Head – Can You Complain

5/5 golden merles

All along the length and breadth of Happy Happy & Hardcore Pop Print Head have constructed a balanced audio experience with remarkable depth and detail to get agreeably lost in.

For €2 EUR you’re not likely going to get a better bargain of lo-fi art-pop any time soon. As I write, one tape remains, also, if you’d like it mailed from Valencia.

I know my dear friend Darcy of Ought has found himself with some US Girls in the new band Cola. Firetalk are trawling the talented depths of the freakfolk/art rock scenes and coming up with many gems. But it sounds like maybe he is here as well, at least in spirit, sounding off in the resounding of the caterwaul, the bellow.