CALM. – PUSHING ON PORTALS Arguably the duo’s most musically daring work to date. The record explores the theme of using a time travel device to go back and more or less edit your life. We hear a psychedelic backdrop lending the record a haunted vibe that is equal parts Legendary Pink Dots, Coil and Dilla. The sonics alone are worth the listen. But Time and AwareNess weave a story arc that goes from playful to a re-litigation of nostalgia, before moving straight to a powerful assessment of the core drivers of our psychology. These self-imposed limitations that we’ve held onto as an essential part of our identity can be let go, without having to disown our lived experience as the threads of our authentic selves. GENTLEMAN DELUXE – WAY HIGH This debut EP from Aaron Howell’s solo project is likely not what one might expect from the veteran songwriter more known for punk and hard rock. Instead, it is a collection of stories about life told in the language of countrified power pop. Whether he gets credit for it or not in other projects, Howell knows how to convey heartfelt emotions with a combination of conviction and sensitivity. With these five songs the songwriter takes on classic themes of love and loss, relationships, blue collar life and parenthood. But he does so by approaching each as an adventure within the grander adventure of life, while sounding like a long-lost classic pop artist we should have known about all along. GLUEMAN – GLUEMAN III With enough slap back reverb on the vocals to give the songs a touch of the psychedelic, this third full album from the Denver-based garage punk band goes well beyond the safe borders of many bands that have drunk deep of the influence of Oblivions and John Dwyer’s back catalog. One imagines The Cramps, Negative Approach and Black Flag touring together and having a third band develop of mutual members who would open the show with a searing set of disorienting fury. The fiery, raw momentum of this album is infectious and somehow stays fresh for the duration of its nine tracks. MCLUSKY – I SURE AM GETTING SICK OF THIS BOWLING ALLEY Seething, slabs of impressionistic noise rock and free verse deconstructions of mediated life under the failing infrastructures of technocratic late capitalism. The title of the album alone speaks to a revolutionary ennui that inspired the raging spirals and abrupt starts and stops of songs. Together, they sound like civilization coming unraveled with a commentary track on the dramatic dissolution of the world as we know it. What could be a more mundane symbol of inadequate bread and circuses offered by a third-rate ruling class than a bowling alley and its snack bar with dubiously nutritious fare? PRIMITIVE MAN – OBSERVANCE A crushing flow of gritty, atmospheric doom like the endless barrage of information and demands on your time that are part of every day existence. The music, even though it is at times the band’s most melodic and accessible, really sounds like a cry of outrage and resistance to the destruction, deprivation and diminished expectations we’re expected to adopt as normal. Influenced in part by the work of San Francisco poet laureate Tongo EisenMartin, this album doesn’t bother with the expectations of genre. We hear raw, processed environmental noise throughout, like the ambient and corrosive presence of civilizational greed that manifests in genocide, abuse, corruption and the destruction of the shreds of remaining institutions, seemingly unchecked by the shadow of the rule of law. A bracing and essential statement. TOTEM POCKET – CHUMP Strands of MBV’s tonal warp, Dinosaur Jr.’s noisy melodicism and psychedelic garage punk, Totem Pocket turns what could be heard as lo-fi into a virtue. Live, this music is searing and engulfing. But on a recording, it makes more sense for the vibe to come across with the vocals sounding like they’re navigating the fiery guitar haze with a grace and elegance, elevating each song into something transporting. Sure, the band rocks out across this album. But what makes the songwriting standout is how the vulnerable, melodic vocals shine through the beautifully noisy bombast of guitars, bass and drums. SEE MORE: QUEENCITYSOUNDS.ORG BY TOM MURPHY
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