When you think of Philadelphia, you most likely don’t think of folk music. Well, Philly native Shannen Moser is trying her damnedest to change that, as her latest LP I’ll Sing is one of the genre’s best offerings of the year. Hell, it’s one of the best albums of the year in any genre.
After listening to Illuminati Hotties’ first single, “(You’re Better) Than Ever,” it would be reasonable to assume the project’s debut album would be full of similarly jaunty vaguely-surfy indie pop songs. That’s maybe half-right. Kiss Yr Frenemies is about a fifty-fifty split of bright fuzzed-out jams and moodier, slow-burning ballads.
If the lead single represents the former category, then second single “Cuff” is probably most indicative of the latter. It’s ambient and atmospheric, and even its blown out chorus feels restrained compared to the loudest moments on the record, Sarah Tudzin’s voice never rising above a plaintive croon. It doesn’t even sound like the same band as “(You’re Better) Than Ever,” let alone like it belongs on the same album. And this is a trend throughout Kiss Yr Frenemies; nearly every single song brings something entirely different to the table. There’s an “ooh-ooh-ooh” backed chorus on the sugary gem “Paying Off the Happiness,” there’s a noisy, brassy climax to the meditative “For Cheez (My Friend, Not the Food),” there’s the raw singalong energy of “boi,” and none of it feels out of place.
When Out of Service burst onto the scene last year with What We Bring With Us, it was the sound of a band indebted to the sounds of the early 2000s. Bands like Jimmy Eat World, Cartel, and Taking Back Sunday had left fingerprints all across the EP, making for a pleasant if not entirely unique introduction to the New Jersey band. Still, the energy and talent on display were undeniable, and thankfully, on Morning, Out of Service have come into their own.
The title of Black Foxxes’ sophomore album, translated from Icelandic, means “rage.” Presumably, it comes from a lyric on the album’s closer “Float On”:
Now I understand rage, a feeling that is never subdued.
While Mark Holley’s assessment of the feeling is accurate, it doesn’t sum up the record quite so well. In fact, the biggest difference between Reiði and the band’s debut I’m Not Well is how much more subdued this record is.
A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This is a sort of new beginning for Sam Ray. While it isn’t a far cry from the sound that made the band (previously known as Teen Suicide) popular, with a charming lo-fi pop sound, it takes American Pleasure Club to totally new heights and finds them incorporating a host of new influences into their style.
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After putting out an EP a year for the past four years, Toy Cars are finally ready to release their debut full-length. Paint Brain, which more than doubles the band’s catalog, is the clear culmination of where they’ve been headed since the Red HandsEP. If you haven’t been paying attention, allow me to explain exactly where it is they’ve been headed. Paint Brain occupies the space between rock and roll bands like The Menzingers (yeah, I know) and The Gaslight Anthem, and overlaps with emo acts like The Hotelier or Oso Oso. It feels equally fresh and familiar.
When I listen to Champagne Colored Cars, I’m reminded of one of 2016’s biggest surprises for me, Tiny Moving Parts’ Celebrate. Both Celebrate and Champagne Colored Cars’ debut self-titled EP are mathy emo albums with more than just a little post-hardcore influence – but both manage to be so much damn fun. Now, to be sure, Champagne Colored Cars is significantly less technical than anything Tiny Moving Parts has ever released, and to me, that’s a bit of a bonus; it gets tiring sometimes when every band wants to be “American Football But Heavy.”
There’s very little solace to be found in Mineral Girls’ This Is the Last Time Every Time. The world the characters inhabit is an indifferent – if not outright cruel – one to be certain, but most of the anguish on display here comes from inside. “I’m not trying to get any better / I’m just trying to make it look like I am,” becomes something of a mantra for the record.
This Is the Last Time Every Time is an appropriate title for an album as concerned as this one is with trying to change. The title of the opener (from which comes the above lyric) is “Let’s Talk About Us,” after all. And the song is just as cathartic as it sounds. See, for all the intensity behind the lyrics, the band behind them matches it pound for pound. For the most part, they’ve ditched the fuzz from Cozy Body in favor of a rougher, more straightforward emo sound. “The Bruise on We” begins with a Mineral-style riff, building and building to a post-hardcore climax, complete with harsh shrieks. It’s the only moment like it on the album, but it feels totally necessary. Elsewhere, like the title track, the band introduces electronics into their sound.
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In 2003, The Appleseed Cast released Two Conversations, the followup to their critically acclaimed two-disc Low Level Owl project. Fans were disappointed. Two Conversations was decidedly more commercial than Low Level Owl; the ambiance was replaced with melody and, it seemed to fans, the band traded ambition for accessibility. It’s true that Two Conversations shifted away from the unrepentant post-rock sound of the Low Level Owl CDs, but it’s also true that it’s an impressive album in its own right, even if it isn’t what was expected out of The Appleseed Cast. Most have come around to that by now.
I foresee something similar happening with Prawn’s new album, Run. 2014’s Kingfisher was unanimously praised on release by fans and critics alike. The record’s blending of emo and punk with post-rock made for an engrossing listen – one you can sing along to as well as brood to. Like Two Conversations, Run is a far more straightforward album than its predecessor. It’s more Into It. Over It. than Moving Mountains, let’s say – especially when the punk influence shines through on songs like “Empty Hands” and “Snake Oil Salesman.” The latter of which is a highlight on the record; Tony Clark shouting, “I know what you’ve been selling,” is one of the most fun moments in the band’s whole discography.
Captain, We’re Sinking’s The Future Is Cancelled was one of the most impressive punk albums in recent memory. It’s a tense listening experience, as songs burst and crash with little warning; vocalists Bobby Barnett and Leo Vergnetti jumped between near-inaudible whispers and throat-damaging howls at the drop of a dime, singing harrowing stories of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. It all felt spontaneous, necessary.
The King of No Man feels a bit more rehearsed. Where before the band had more jagged edges, they’ve smoothed them over. Instead of finding catharsis through ragged shouting as on The Future, No Man finds it in quieter moments, to varying effects. Opener “Trying Year” ushers this new era of Captain, We’re Sinking in appropriately, pumping the brakes every time one would think Barnett’s getting ready to let loose (although he or Vergnetti does sneak a pretty impressive guitar solo in there). “Hunting Trip” is a slowburn comparable to “A Bitter Divorce” with a less intense payoff, finding Barnett singing the song’s climactic final lines over a clean guitar line. It feels a bit toothless in the end, like there should’ve been a little more push to end out the song, and it sort of sputters out rather than exploding. Then there’s “Dance of Joy,” a bizarre, drum-led song that would never fit on The Future Is Cancelled. It’s weird to even think the same band wrote this song and “Shoddy Workmanship,” but it ends up being one of the album’s highlights, due in good part to Vergnetti’s powerful vocal performance.
I was starting to get nervous about Cigarettes After Sex. Their debut EP, I., had picked up some steam when it was released – in 2012. Sure, they’d released a couple singles here and there, but without any word of an album, or even an EP, I got a little bit disheartened. Cut to present day and Cigarettes After Sex are releasing their self-titled debut and it’s everything I could have wanted out of a follow-up to I. The album picks up up exactly where the EP left off, offering up ten tracks of melancholic, languid indie rock.
Like Semisonic sang on their classic 1994 single “Closing Time,” “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Such is the case on both halves of Jake Clarke and Spur’s new split. Clarke was one of the vocalists of the grunge band Superheaven, and his half of the split sounds like the natural next step from his old band’s ‘90s-inspired rock. Spur, on the other hand, rose from the ashes of the emo band In Writing, and they play a blend of coarse punk and shoegaze.
I remember the first time I heard Sinai Vessel. It was around four years ago and their sophomore EP profanity had just come out. I was immediately captivated the band’s raucous indie rock – sort of like a more upbeat and aggressive Pedro the Lion. Songs like “Cuckold” and “Flannery” carried the energy and raw emotion of songs by scene favorites like Taking Back Sunday or The Weakerthans. I knew the band had a phenomenal full-length in them, and I knew they going to blow up with its release. But that full-length didn’t come, and I found new bands who gave me similar feelings. I revisited profanity now and then, but mostly when I thought about Sinai Vessel it was to wonder what could’ve been. Then, all of a sudden, I didn’t have to wonder anymore – Sinai Vessel signed to Tiny Engines, one of my favorite active labels, and announced that long-awaited full-length.
I’m sure there’s a joke to be made about Dryjacket’s debut album being titled For Posterity, given their throwback sound, but I’m neither clever nor unoriginal enough to make it. There would be truth to it though — from the pun song titles (“Spelling Era,” “Abe LinkedIn”), to the horns, to the dual vocals — everything about For Posterity feels familiar.
You can pull out hints of The Promise Ring and Piebald at every corner of the band’s pop-sensible emo, and the trumpet calls to mind American Football, of course. The band even pays tribute to their more eclectic, more technical forefathers on “Epi Pen Pals” and “Milo with an ‘H.’” This is all to say that, much like my sort of attempted joke, For Posterity isn’t all that original. It plays, generally, like a recap of the genre for anyone who might’ve missed it the first time around.
“Word is getting out that The Weakerthans are done.”
This tweet from The Weakerthans’ drummer, Jason Tait, last July didn’t surprise many fans – their last album had been in 2007 and they hadn’t played a show in two years – but it was confirmation, and it still stung to read. So when it was announced that Weakerthans vocalist/guitarist/lyricist John K. Samson would be releasing his second solo album this year featuring collaborations from Tait and Weakerthans bassist Greg Smith (among others), it almost felt like that hiatus was over. Many fans probably expected Winter Wheat to sound, somewhat, like a Weakerthans album. Given the members involved, it didn’t seem like a stretch, especially consider Samson’s last solo outing, 2012’s Provincial, was stylistically similar to his old band’s brand of indie rock. Those people were wrong.