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Heavy Feelings Conjures the Essence of Feelings of Not Belonging on No Wave Gothic Rock Single “Breather”

Heavy Feelings, photo courtesy the artists

Heavy Feelings puts into words a difficult feeling to convey with accuracy on the “Breather” single. The title suggests multiple meanings including merely being a person who breathes like all humans must but also a need to get a break from feeling the pressure to conform instead of just be allowed to be different. To feel like you have to explain something about the way you are when you shouldn’t have to. And that sense of being stifled for nothing. The line “Someday I’ll run out of ways to explain there’s nothing to fix, it’s always this way, can’t find the right things to say” perfectly sums up the existential exhaustion you can reach when it feels like you’re being interrogated and picked apart by normies that feel like they have to figure out you can’t be just like them even if you’re not demanding they be like you. The urgent melodies and echoing vocals in the chorus express perfectly a discordant mood that is getting a bit of catharsis in the song’s asymmetrical structure and willingness to sprawl past the edges of conventional songwriting methods. It as its own kind of hooks and like the lyrics illustrate perfectly it demands acceptance on its own terms. If you like your post-punk a little more unconventional this song and the Anatomy EP (released December 20, 2024) are what you should make the effort to take in. Listen to “Breather” on Spotify and follow Heavy Feelings at the links below.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Aq2gwL6I1VfUKCmfWYEIe

Heavy Feelings on Amazing Radio

Heavy Feelings on Instagram

Bending Grid and Jolie Grieco Team Up For a Tale of Love in a Hurry on Synthwave Single “Neon Heat”

The saturated synths and percussive electronic bass lines in Bending Grid’s “Neon Heat” catches you up in the song’s upbeat momentum from the start. When Jolie Grieco’s vocals come in they’re like something you’d expect to hear on the soundtrack to a better yet still bombastic 80s action movie or a 2020’s tapping into that vibe with the clarity of modern production. Fans of synthwave will appreciate the way the heady rhythms and rich tone pair well with melancholic melodies and the expertly placed transitions into spacious introspection before the song gets back into high gear before transitioning into a satisfying ending. The song’s arc reflects the thrilling melodrama of a story of lust, seduction and love in a hurry but without the desperation one might expect. Listen to “Neon Heat” on Spotify and follow Bending Grid at the links provided.

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Bending Grid on TikTok

Bending Grid on Instagram

Bending Grid on Bandcamp

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E49: Extra Kool and Time

Extra Kool and Time, photo by Tom Murphy

Extra Kool and Time recently released their album The Grimies for streaming, digital download and limited green vinyl. The record represents the product of decades of working together playing shows and on each other’s respective tracks. Danny Vincennie aka Extra Kool and Chris Steele aka Time are two of the most gifted lyricists and rappers in Denver of recent years but their work has not often been championed in local much less national press and culture. Several years back they worked on tracks together in a project they called The Grimies with singles that appeared on obscure compilations now challenging to track down. But separately and contributing to each other’s work they have written poignantly personal and vulnerable, insightful, emotional songs about life and society that are vibrant and heartbreaking. Time has frequently released music with the brilliant producer AwareNess as the experimental hip-hop duo Calm. and along with Extra Kool and artists under the label umbrella of The Dirty Laboratory they were a force in alternative hip-hop in the 2000s. That world imploded or faded away in “commercial relevance” if not in impact in influence around the 2010s but the legacy of that time has continued in the more interesting hip-hop of today and certainly Time and Extra Kool didn’t stop creating powerful work just because the crumbling music culture wasn’t shining as much of a spotlight on alternative hip-hop for a long time. In September 2024 Extra Kool and Time finally released their fully collaborative album titled The Grimes. It’s full of vivid and emotionally resonant bars traded by both artists with tales of Denver and existential exploration of what endures in the mind and heart long term, the ghosts that haunt us, our communities and our various cultures. It’s a deep record with richly realized production from the likes of Fumes the Threat, AwareNess, Satyr and Preacher vs. Choir with contributions from Illogic. The record is rich with pop culture references used with a cleverness and poetry that makes the music fun and insightful even as it delves into heavier subjects.

Listen to our interview with Extra Kool and Time on Bandcamp and follow the artists at the links below. The vinyl can be purchased on the Bandcamp or at select Denver record shops.

Time on Instagram

Time on Bandcamp

Extra Kool on Instagram

Extra Kool on Bandcamp

Loic Moonmattress’s Ambient Hip-Hop Single “Last Nostalgia” Poignantly Signals Goodbye to a Previous Chapter in Life

Loic Moonmattress <i>Last Nostalgia</i> cover

A poignant self-awareness informs the title track to Loic Moonmattress’s new EP Last Nostalgia (December 18, 2025). In the song the artist looks back on a chapter in his life he recognizes has come to an end in a way that prompted some moments of self-examination with a sense of how that period like many distinct periods in our existence isn’t the beginning or the end but part of a hopefully long life story which helped to shape us for the better and the struggles that in retrospect were sometimes self-imposed by our attitudes in the complexity that is lived experience. The lyrics are like the impressionistic thoughts read in cadence over harmonic drones that resonate with the clarity of a waking dream while minimal keyboards keep the cadence and later on lightly distorted guitar lends the often borderline ethereal track a tactile immediacy that brings string of reflections back to the present tense and the world of this moment. The song blurs the line between experimental hip-hop, ambient and dream pop in a unique way that is welcome when a lot of music is trying to be in an established style but Loic Moonmattress has never really settled for being in some pocket seeming to prefer to chart a different and consistently fascinating musical path. Watch the video for “Last Nostalgia” on YouTube and follow the Edmonton-based artist at the links below.

Loic Moonmattress on Instagram

BAGGY GRL’s Heady Industrial Dance Single “Love is on the Screen” Comments on the Disconnected Nature of Virtual Associations

The distorted low end pulses and modulated beats that run through BAGGY GRL’s “Love is on the Screen” create a sense of headlong urgency. And one that is reflected in the music video with its flashes, jump cuts and lo-fi production like a found footage horror intermixed with scenes of the producer frolicking in a bathtub, on a balcony, on a psychedically colorful couch, in darkened rooms and in the depths of an interdimensional cosmos. The horror featuring BAGGY GRL as well like a miscreant loose in a hardware superstore. The pace of the song accelerates with a thrilling sense that you’re not quite where the song is going to go with its electronic industrial dance sounds that fans of Machine Girl and Boy Harsher will appreciate. There is a confrontational spark to BAGGY GRL’s performance that gives the song an edge to the playful spirit on screen as the artist offers perspectives on the nature of virtual relationships when the illusions of performative identity dissolve. Watch the video for “Love is on the Screen” on YouTube and follow BAGGY GRL at the links below. Her new album BADMOUTH dropped January 22, 2025.

BAGGY GRL on Instagram

“ryder” Finds lilith and V V N Weaving an Irresistible, Neo-Soul-Infused Hip-Hop Spell of Affection and Infatuation

Boston-based producer and DJ lilith teams up with V V N for a left field hip-hop single called “ryder.” The song is about deep affection for and infatuation with a loved one. The vocal delivery is wide-ranging and gentle but passionate and the beats and sound sculpting is like an evolution from classic neo soul with expertly crafted layers of rhythm bringing together ideas from classic hip-hop and strong electronic percussion and the textural feel of the best end of trap. It has that spontaneous and raw quality of a bedroom production but there is nothing lacking in the way the song brings you into the mood, the vibe, the moment. It sounds like the kind of song you’d want to hear from someone you love with all the sincerity and sensuality that would make it irresistible. Watch the video for “ryder” on YouTube and hear more of lilith’s choice cuts on Spotify.

Drew Danburry’s Wintry Indiepop Single “Love” Radiates a Touching Warmth

Drew Danburry infuses a tenderness and subtle poetry to “Love” that elevates a simple song about the way love for someone can help you get through some rough moments. The song is concise but captures that mutual feeling people have for each other in a way that feels complete. Musically it’s like if a Christmas song got an indiepop treatment and was about something deeply personal rather than about something like a season or a holiday yet contains that uplifting, warmly nostalgic energy that turns what might seem sappy into something that hits as poignantly sincere. Listen to “Love” on Spotify and follow all things Drew Danburry and his Telos Tapes label via the link tree on his Instagram profile. “Love” can also be heard on the Bird Songs EP which released on December 19, 2024 for streaming, digital download and cassette.

Oldest Sea Plumbs the Depths of One’s Personal Demons on the Orchestral Folk Single “All Shall Love Me and Despair”

Sam Marandola sounds fragile yet gritty on the new Oldest Sea single “All Shall Love Me And Despair” like Marianne Faithful taking over an abandoned music hall. In that hall assembling a group of musicians to haunt it with gorgeously gloomy sounds: lingering piano chords and pulses of strings, heartbeat percussion and other vocals joining the leads later in the song for a net effect like a quiet epic of impending doom. The title is perhaps borrowed from the line when in The Lord of the Rings Galadriel is offered the One Ring by Frodo and then utters those words in the end when she knows she can reject its dark temptation. The song, though, seems to be about being tempted by despair and self-loathing written in terms of personal mythology and manifested as one’s own demons and struggling with self-oppression mixed with the feedback and interactions outside one’s own head. The moods, textures and the style is a kind of Gothic folk akin to a darker cousin to Dead Can Dance and the song gets into your head with its fascinating, orchestral progressions and emotionally charged atmosphere. Listen to “All Shall Love Me And Despair” on Spotify and follow Oldest Sea on Instagram.

Evo Auxilium’s Techno-Industrial Post-Punk Single “chop it up!” is a Song About the Comforts of Friendship With One’s Creative Peers

Evo Auxilium builds the electronic bass driven “chop it up!” on a foundation of rich low end. The percussive synth tones and the songwriter’s attention to the textural qualities of all the sounds in the track is impressive and easy to get lost within as melodic spirals pulse outward and dissolve in your mind. Stylistically it fuses post-punk moodiness with the techno impulses of Clark and the latter’s use of percussive melodies. It’s a song about reconnecting with a friend one doesn’t get to see often that lives out of town but when you’re together you can fall into welcome familiar patterns of hanging out and talking about the usual concerns perchance work on some creative work time permitting. It’s a nice mix of playfulness and sonic intensity reminiscent of Sextile’s most recent album Crash but in this case the techno mixes with perfectly with industrial sensibilities rather than those more shoegaze adjacent. Listen to “chop it up!” on Spotify and follow the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based artist Evo Auxilium via LinkTree.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E48: Oryx

Oryx is a trio based in Denver that has been evolving its evolving its unique style of heavy music since forming in 2012. When the band emerged it’s grittily colossal metal sound fit in well with the then ascendant doom metal underground with roots in sludge rock and grindcore. Early Oryx shows and releases showcased a band seemingly able to balance a precise musicianship with a wall of sound that felt spontaneous and on the verge of collapse. It suited well the band’s lyrics that evoked the precarious place the world has been in due to the effects of human civilization under the yoke of rapacious capitalism driven by greed and the accumulation of wealth into a few hands at the expense of all.

Some of Oryx’s early music had a thrilling density of frequency and rhythm but something about their shows have felt cathartic and liberating. That component of the group’s identity has manifested most fully in terms of songwriting on its new record Primordial Sky. The album doesn’t skimp on the beautifully brutal riffs and elegantly pummeling rhythms but also there is a wide open quality that while the lyrics describe a world on the brink of being post-human due to the hubris of societies that seem to be taking a casual attitude toward anthropogenic climate catastrophe and feckless approach to the rise of fascism and authoritarianism worldwide which have historically accelerated mass destruction. And yet the Oryx album doesn’t sound like it’s built on despair. Instead its poetic and mythical lyrics and the sound of the music come off as both looking at the world to come and looking back from another era when the current one we’re living in has passed. The band’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World seemed like an angrier affair but one with an accurate diagnosis of the state of things. The new album isn’t hopeful per se but realistic in its spirit of looking forward to a time when things can begin again without the toxic legacy of the world now to poison the possibilities.

Listen to our interview with Oryx on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below. Primordial Sky is available on streaming, digital download and cassette from their Bandcamp page and on colored vinyl through Translation Loss Records.

Oryx on Facebook

Oryx on Instagram

Oryx on Bluesky

Oryx on Translation Loss Records

Oryx LinkTree