Song Review – Page 2 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Nadine O’s Alluring and Haunted Downtempo Pop Single “Siren Song” is the Perfect Song For a Fog Enshrouded Late Night Club

Nadine O puts enough of an effect on her vocals to give them a slight echo and reverb on “Siren Song” to give a mood of reflection, yearning and the psychological ripple of memories that haunt you. The minimal percussion comes in and out of the track as if in sync with the melancholic string arrangement. The whole song feels like something out of a European late night club in a port city, of course, like Anita Lane in her more orchestral pop mode. It’s a song seemingly written from the perspective of the titular siren beckoning for the ship that resisted her call to come back but as perhaps a stand-in for expression a yearning for a connection that seems out of reach. Stylistically fans of downtempo and a more brooding, dark pop will find Nadine O’s way with weaving together texture and atmosphere in an immersive and dreamlike musical concoction. Listen to “Siren Song” on YouTube and follow Nadine O at the links provided.

nadinemusic.com

Nadine O on TikTok

Nadine O on Instagram

Taleen Kali’s Dark Shoegaze Single “Viper” Charts a Path For Breaking Out of Oppressive Cycles

Los Angeles-based post-punk band Taleen Kali has been known for its expansive and immersive sound that blurs the boundary between shoegaze and post-punk. For its latest single “Viper” the group journeys into a heavier sonic palette and in its gritty melody one might hear the resonance of doom bands like SubRosa and Kylesa including the emotionally rich vocals but it is because both of those bands didn’t seem to be confined to doom and had well-developed atmospheric guitar that transcended genre. The structure of the song and its repeated themes bring to it a hypnotic aspect that is reminiscent of early Dead Can Dance and the ways in which that band utilized ritualistic strategies in the songwriting to lend the music a sense of being outside normal time. The music video for the song directed by Alex LeGolvan gives us a view of dark spaces of the psyche from which the themes of the song occur of the effect of breaking someone down repeatedly and how that can result in a wounded psyche yet the song suggests that one can break from that cycle. Watch the video for “Viper” on YouTube and follow Taleen Kali at the links below. The new Taleen Kali album Apex will be released in early 2027.

Taleen Kali on Facebook

Taleen Kali on TikTok

Taleen Kali on Instagram

MANAS’ Layering of Texture and Rhythm on Free Jazz Single “100 sunset” is the Soundtrack to a Transformative Experience

MANAS is a duo comprised of Tashi Dorji and Thom Nguyen who will release the album The most yielding thing in the world will overcome the most rigid on October 30 via American Dreams. Conceptualized as the score for 100 Sunset, the feature film debut from Tibetan-Canadian director Kunsang Kyirong. The piece “100 sunset” sounds like the music you’d expect to hear in an ancient temple. It sounds mysterious, the production is immersive in its use of space and how it captures the texture of Dorji’s unconventional use of guitar and Nguyen’s almost impressionistic employment of drum, gong, cymbal and utility items for an effect like abstract free jazz. But it also has an analog, tactile quality that keeps you in wondering where this evolving set of sounds is going as it does move into different dynamics as the song progresses with the soundscape not so minimal and spacious at times but with an intricacy and establishment of atmosphere that isn’t fully dependent on sustained notes although there are some of those in the drones Dorji brings forth. By the end of the song one feels like one has undergone some kind of internal change of perspective and expectation in a way no standard pop song could effect. Fans of how John Hassell established unique moods in his own compositions with a transformative processing and performance of trumpet will recognize a creative kinship here. Listen to “100 sunset” on Spotify and follow Tashi Dorjii on Instagram.

Baby Grendel Casts the Reality of Abuse and Codependency in Stark Terms on Orchestral Pop Single “Broken Skin Reprise (Beaten Bloody II)”

Baby Grendel, photo courtesy the artists

“Broken Skin Reprise (Beaten Bloody II)” is sonically a different kind of song for the often more post-punk flavor of Baby Grendel’s songwriting. In fact the song “Broken Skin” is a moodier, even more vulnerable flavor. But the “Reprise” is more rooted in acoustic sounds and brings in some orchestral arrangements with piano and all to serve a song that seems to address the uncomfortable subject of abuse and codependency and the narratives that keep people in a cycle that anyone observing from the outside seems horrific. But in writing the song with the honesty displayed here it forces the narrator and anyone that perhaps has experienced a similar relationship dynamic to see severe dysfunction and its rationalizations for what they are. That the song is melancholic and orchestral heightens the impact without savagery and cruelty. Listen to “Broken Skin Reprise (Beaten Bloody II)” on YouTube and follow Baby Grendel at the links provided.

babygrendel.com

Baby Grendel on Instagram

HeroLover’s 16-Bit Ambient IDM Single “The Ideal” is a Pleasantly Otherworldly Break From Information Overload

HeroLover released its debut full length album Tokyote on September 12, 2026. It’s an album saturated with creative ideas for production and songwriting with live instruments and samples that sounds like an update of where some 90s electronic music might have gone had it not taken the paths it did in the 2000s and 2010s. With lead single “The Ideal” the duo showcase its vibrant fusion of organic sounds with the percussion and imaginative production yet it has a feel and sound like something intentionally created with older technology like they chopped up and processed vocals and dropped them into the stream of sound to haunt what sounds like music for an abandoned mall the kind that Lola would have run inside of to get to another part of a large city. If The Crystal Method was less aggressive in some of its songs and threaded in 16-bit aesthetics and ambient IDM it might sound something like “The Ideal.” Whatever the inspirations, sources, influences and methods, it’s a song that is somehow soothing and stimulating at once and feels like a vacation from the bombardment of worthless data we get everyday if we plug into social media and the bullshit generator of a fascist regime. We could all use a break. Listen to “The Ideal” on YouTube and follow HeroLover at the links below.

HeroLover on Instagram

The Artist Ren’s Reluctant Breakup Song “Doin’ Fine” Infuses a Will to Leave a Co-Dependent Relationship With Tuneful Sardonic Humor

The Artist Ren, photo courtesy the artist

“Doin’ Fine” by The Artist Ren definitely taps into 90s alt rock sounds but rather than fuzzy rock it’s the expressive accents in the rhythms. And the insightful sardonic humor and pointed emotional commentary on a relationship that is clearly broken but our narrator finds she can’t leave. Could be the song is about codependent habits and how one rationalizes discomfort and dissatisfaction while joking about wanting an intervention in the line “Why can’t someone interfere?” It’s an upbeat song with an infectious melody but the words have some real bite. Fans of Soccer Mommy and Chastity Belt will appreciate the contrast of pop hooks and poetic, melancholic words. Listen to “Doin’ Fine” on YouTube and follow The Artist Ren at the links provided.

The Artist Ren on Jango.com

The Artist Ren on TikTok

The Artist Ren on Instagram

The Artist Ren on Bandcamp

Sova Coaxes Us Into Taking Our Experiences On Our Own Analog Terms on Modern Classical Ambient Song “Hymn for Slowing”

In the visualizer video for Sova’s “Hymn for Slowing” we get to see a visual representation of the inside of the piano at work striking the moody and melancholic side of the song as saxophone wafts in to provide a touch of vivid brightness as if to accent what the piano textures are doing. One feels the presence and analog, tactile quality of the piano even as the recording is both lightly processed because the granular detail of the piano hammers striking the strings and the physical resonance of those strings with the slight distortion coming through. It all lets you know a human being was involved in making this music and putting those emotions and thoughts into the elegant composition that challenges the listener to not be so caught up in the everyday world demanding we all do everything faster and more efficiently because many things are done better and experienced with more respect for our natural human emotional states when we can take our time and not try to fit it all into arbitrarily monetizable fragments. Watch the video for “Hymn for Slowing” on YouTube and follow Sova at the links below. The new album Alight! released September 4, 2026 on Hout Records.

sova.music

Sova on Instagram

Sova on Bandcamp

Chicago-Based Psychedelic Jazz Supergroup Yr Knives Reconciles Desperation and Catharsis on “Fear&Trimbling”

Yr Knives is a new project from Chicago-based composer and arranger Paul Karner along with Andrew Trim (Hanami and Retroflector), Brian J. Sulpizio (Health&Beauty), Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day) and Quin Kirchner. The writing for the forthcoming album Begin Yr Singing (out October 30, 2026 via Western Vinyl) began in 2022 with Karner, Trim and Sulpizio across various sessions before sharing the music with McCombs and Kirchner who helped to complete the pieces. Lead single “Fear&Trimbling” utilizes single guitar lines to trace feelings of anxiety while a more discordant line expresses the discordant, nervous energy as the rhythm somehow both keeps an even beat but sounds like it starts and stops to accent a state of mind that is a little scattered and trying to make sense of internal psychological turmoil as exacerbated by external emotional stimuli. The song pairs harried intensity with a will to unraveling or channeling off that mood into paradoxically labyrinthine structure and distorted minimalism. It sounds both frantic and cathartic like a modern embodiment of the more avant work of the likes of free jazz rebels Sonny Sharrock and Albert Ayler. Watch the retro-psychedelic music video for “Fear&Trimbling” on YouTube and follow Yr Knives at the links provided.

yrknives4u.com

Yr Knives on Instagram

Western Vinyl on Twitter

Western Vinyl on Bandcamp

Abe Seiferth’s Analog Synth Infused Ambient Song “Vibrometry” is the Sound of a More Tranquil and Nurturing Future

There is a great sense of space and playfulness to Abe Seiferth’s “Vibrometry” from his new album Halo (out August 19, 2026 via Noble Circuit Records). A spare and overlapping rhythm with a melodic, wide-ranging sequence in vibrant, lightly distorted tones cycles through with touches of modulation in the higher frequency register that provides an evolving texture and a sense that the song isn’t simply a programmed piece that runs without variation. The song also evolves while maintaining a sense of uplift established from the beginning. Fans of Norm Chambers particularly 2012’s Soft Terminal will appreciate how the song sounds like a future time when we’ve shed inherently destructive technologies and social constructs and have the psychological and physical space and sense of wholeness to explore further the subtle grandeur of the universe and the possibilities of the human imagination. With modular synths employed there is an analog quality to the sound that conveys a tranquil energy throughout with an almost tactile gentleness. Listen to “Vibrometry” on YouTube and follow Abe Seiferth on Spotify.

Alice Gold Invokes Trust in Times of Chaos on Folk Pop Single “BOTH HANDS”

Alice Gold returns with lead single “BOTH HANDS” from her forthcoming album Faultlines. The album comes some fifteen years after her previous record Seven Rainbows (2011) . But it doesn’t appear the intervening years have diminished Gold’s ability to project a compelling vulnerability and the new song couched in a spare acoustic guitar figure accompanying Gold singing with an expansive confidence about a willingness to trust and accept help when life seems to be falling apart and being overwhelmed by thoughts of where we have fallen short of our ideal sense of self. It would be easy to let go and succumb to a run of tragic thinking but it is also easy to trust in forces and people one doesn’t fully understand that offer enough to weather what seems like too much to handle and the understanding that not everything is under your control and because of that you can tap into parts of your life and the people in it from whom you hadn’t foreseen receiving aid and comfort. Fans of Joni Mitchell’s more pop songwriting will appreciate Gold’s command of conveying complex emotions in songs that seem simple but on closer listen have more complexity than is obvious. Listen to “BOTH HANDS” on Spotify and follow Alice Gold on Instagram.