A SHORELINE DREAM – TO WHERE THEY HAVE GONE Current-era themes of often replacing analog in-person contact with digital communication, which break an essential component of human connection, run throughout this new A Shoreline Dream record. Including contributions from Ride’s Mark Gardener on “Down with the Upward,” these songs and their trailing tones coupled with melancholic moods, sound like a search for something lost and elusive that could once be counted on even if it was imperfect. Because the false perfection of cultivated digital lives and personae lack authenticity, especially when presented as an endless stream of disposable choices. These songs, with their wide yet deep swirling vistas, reflect the band’s re-centering of its own identity as a vehicle of reconnecting with a more vital and grounded existence. BABYBABY4EVER – 4EVER IS A LONG TIME A breakup album of front-to-back bangers that lean into doing whatever is in one’s heart to work through the sadness, self-doubt and other un-fun emotions that come in the wake of splitting up. The rich synth tones are enveloping and captivating enough to chase away any deep psychic ache, while Lily Conrad’s lyrics honor the hurt feelings with vivid imagery that hit like emotional truth. Her vocal delivery, with its left field sensibility, is so brimming with humanity shining through the imaginative processing that these songs connect with an immediacy resonating with one’s own direct experiences with heartbreak. DESTINY BOND – THE LOVE No one was expecting a hardcore record with themes centered on love, but Destiny Bond has been anything but super predictable. The songs have the aggression and bite of the genre with plenty of adrenalized thrash riffs. But at times this album, especially on “Can’t Kill The Love,” has melodic hooks and what sound like ballads, minus the cheesiness. It becomes obvious that the themes are larger than just simply falling in love and romanticizing someone or some time of life. It dives deep into the more nuanced and often uncomfortable aspects of love as a complex emotion that feels very mixed together in the living of it. LIGHTNING CULT – IN RELIEF The title of this album seems to have multiple meanings. Mike Marchant’s vocals and the lead instruments stand out from a tableau of shifting atmospheric music. The gorgeously distorted synths and gently urgent pulses of rhythm almost push the action of the songs forward. Marchant seems to be singing songs about intention and reinvention, emerging from the weight of one’s own previous life narrative and what you told yourself you had to be, and embracing new ways of being to stand out from your previous limitations. The psychedelic synth pop style of the album makes this self-transformation seem like something to look forward to and an encouragement to engage in some of your own growth. LIZZY ROSE – FAULTLINES These seven songs were recorded in 2019 and basically buried for six years when Lizzy Rose’s life shifted focus when she became a mother and educator who no longer identified herself as an artist. Without intending to, Rose wrote a set of art pop songs in their compositional sophistication, their playful creativity, their delicacy and strength of feeling, speaking deeply to themes of love and self-discovery. In releasing the album with little, if any, modification as a raw document of a different time of life, Faultlines sounds like a time capsule from another time of life, but also of music culture. A reminder that human songwriting still has the power to transform and heal. TASSLES – NET WORTH Bedroom shoegaze chillwave, sure, but Nick Tassinari bypasses tropes with superb guitar tone and an ear for layering melodies that lend what might otherwise hit as lo-fi as an unexpected power. The programmed drums sound like something from a New Age jazz record and perfect for the hazy, dream-like quality of the songs. Each track feels like a vignette, drawn from moments of contemplation that imprint strongly on memories and become the touchstones of life, comprising the only things of real value in the commodified existence under late capitalism. A cult record in the making. SEE MORE: QUEENCITYSOUNDS.ORG No. 146 BY TOM MURPHY
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