Song Review – Page 28 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Minus the Bear Evokes a Yearning For True Intimacy and Connection on the Demo Version of “The Pig War”

Minus the Bear, photo courtesy the artists

Minus the Bear released the twentieth anniversary deluxe reissue of its beloved 2005 album Menos el Oso on August 22, 2025 ahead of its reunion tour performing those songs throughout October and November in the USA. With the deluxe edition of the math/indie rock classic are demos of various tracks including “The Pig War.” The demo of that song has a slower pace in the textural beat and a more spacious and melancholic cast. The vocals are more to the front and the demo has a wider open sound like the aim was to reflect the kinds of thoughts that trail off and merge with new memories that come to you when you’re allowing yourself to just feel and remember and not impose assumptions and ego-tinged interpretations. It makes it more obvious that the song is one about yearning for real intimacy and connection rather than the idea of either. Listen to “The Pig War (demo)” on YouTube and follow Minus the Bear at the links below.

Minus the Bear on Facebook

Minus the Bear on Instagram

Angel T33th Moody Dream Pop Single “Mika 2000” is a Tale of Unlikely Love in the Isolated Corners of the Human Intergalactic Diaspora

Angel T33th seems to channel Dazzle Ships-period OMD and the manifestation of those sounds in Future Islands in the expansive and lush “Mika 2000.” The sound has an energy that feels explorative and reflecting on what wonders may be ahead. The steady pulse of harmonic distortion and hand clap percussion and the more more insistent synth melodies convey a sense of romance and tragedy that the vocalist in her breathy turns of phrase seems to sketch a story of interacting with a person, an entity who is always around but exasperating but whom one comes to appreciate on a level that can only really happen when familiarity turns to affection. Overall the song feels like a piece of a futuristic story of isolation in the far flung corners of the human intergalactic diaspora. Listen to “Mika 2000” on YouTube and follow Angel T33th at the links below. The debut album A Message to Myself dropped on August 11, 2025.

Angel T33th on Instagram

Elly Kace’s Baroque Pop Single “Even with the lights on” is a Gentle Goodbye to the Lingering Attachments to a Former Love

Elly Kace evokes strong feelings of being haunted by a former love on “Even with the light on.” The hushed piano work carries the rhythm as a harmonic guitar figure floats forward in the background to accompany Kace’s breathy and melancholic vocals. The song is like an attempt to help these lingering feelings move on like a ghost that clings to you with unresolved attachments. With gentle words and affectionate resonances Kace acknowledges these feelings as a presence and encourages both herself and the persistent feelings to move on so that a health psychological balance can be encouraged to grow. Kace’s song has a bit of a baroque pop flavor like something from decades ago but her sound palette is entirely modern and striking that balance of contrasting yet complementary styles and musical ideas lends the song a timeless quality that brings you back for a re-visit. Listen to “Even with the light on” on YouTube and follow Elly Kace at the links below.

Elly Kace on Twitter

Elly Kace on Facebook

Elly Kace on TikTok

Elly Kace on Instagram

The Double Headed Seagull Captures the Joy of Newly Sentient Communication on Ambient IDM Single “Play Artful”

The Double Headed Seagull, photo courtesy the artist

The title track to The Double Headed Seagulls’ new EP Play Artful (released August 28, 2025) composer Dave Wirth’s keen ear for melding melody with rhythm and texture in a continuous flow that eases and stimulates the mind at once. It sounds like music boxes attained intelligence and learned to communicate with each other via electrical wires in on the process of communication in a collective, harmonious process in which every entity involved contributes to a dynamic sound that reflects a joyful spirit sustained for the track’s two minute and thirty-seven seconds run time. Tones pulse slowly, a background wave of low end comes to the foreground in pleasing pulses and the simple but jaunty percussive sounds buoy the energy of all the other elements for a net effect of a gentle momentum that feels like a completion of some kind of journey at the end and arriving at your destination at ease. Listen to “Play Artful” on Spotify and follow The Double Headed Seagull at the links below.

Dave Wirth on IMDB

Editrix Embodies the Tantalizing Tension and Apprehensions of Romantic and Physical Desire on Art Punk Single “Flesh Debt”

Editrix builds slow tension with “Flesh Debt.” Suitable for a song about romantic desire and where that intersects with its physical expression. But also how one can often feel apprehension of letting those desires overwhelm your better instincts in order to fully indulge those feelings and acting upon them. Of course the consequences of it all. The angular rhythms, guitar harmonics and almost sing-song-y vocals and the push and pull of the song dynamics and its shift in maintaining higher guitar tones over the finely-arranged low end keeps you in the song until it turns into almost a thrash song toward the end for a few passages but transitioning quickly into a math-rock/jazz-inflected bit of sonic intensity that is reminiscent of FACS at its most chaotic yet covertly controlled. Listen to “Flesh Debt” on YouTube and follow Massachusetts-based post-punk band Editrix at the links provided. The group released its latest album
The Big E July 25, 2025 via Joyful Noise.

Editrix on Apple Music

Editrix on Twitter

Editrix on Instagram

Editrix on Bandcamp

Scatterbrain’s Hip-Hop Punk Debut “Switch” is a Poignant Look at the Joys and Compromises of Choosing to Live a Creative Life Versus Going Into the Straight World

Scatterbrain, photo courtesy the artists

Scatterbrain is a project that includes rapper Grip, Mallbangs and the rhythm section of Grouplove and its debut release is “Switch” recorded live at Big Trouble. The charismatic performance speaks for itself as does the unexpected chemistry of styles present with Grip’s vocals having a hip-hop cadence but more punk style. The lyrics delve into the choices and compromises one makes in life that have various consequences. Initially the lyrics are about people going into straight jobs and being successful in conventional terms of having mortgages, children and stable and ample incomes and how our narrator has “drunken nights/Hotel rooms and red eye flights.” A whimsical and sardonic “Hooray” punctuates lines and then we got to the lyrics where it’s admitted that maybe this life of an artist has its undeniable rewards that someone who is more beholden to a more scripted life will never fully know. But also there’s something to be said about not being behind on bills and the ramification of being so can have on your everyday life. The song juxtaposes and plays with these contrasts of lifestyle in succinct and poignant manner that ends on a hopeful note for the creative life, “I still got miles and miles to go/Can’t stay this low forever.” Because everyone has miles and miles to go and even if they think they have things under control and streamlined and you think you know what to expect, including with people who struggle more with everyday mundane concerns, life doesn’t always work out to stay that course. The song is a tacit nod to how everyone’s life has its ups and downs. Watch the video for “Switch” on YouTube and follow Scatterbrain on Instagram.

THISFAR’s Tense Yet Soothing Downtempo Single “Leave Me and Go” Speaks to the Ambient Resignation and Anxieties of Living in a War Torn Nation

Ukrainian band THISFAR accompanies its low key, downtempo single “Leave Me and Go” with a music video that looks like someone shooting footage while driving by a sun-drenched morning countryside with a windmill in the distance. The quiet vocals are above a whisper but sung in confidence like one would if you felt like you had to be covert in your actions and speech. The kind of tentative energy that can overtake one’s everyday habits when you’re living through an active war, as in Ukraine, or perilous times in your life. The pulsing drone that begins the song over a simple beat as slightly sparkling harmonics ease into the soundscape establishing a dream-like mood reflecting on tough times. Though the references are obvious it’s the kind of song that would work for a post-apocalyptic film set in a more realistic scenario, the kind Ukraine and plenty of other war torn places in the world have been facing and continue to do so. The song has a gentle touch but an emotional intensity that keeps you hooked in throughout. Watch the video for “Leave Me And Go,” the title for which hits hard in the song, on YouTube and follow THISFAR on Spotify.

Reiyo The Giant’s Hyper Pop Song “The Show Must Go On” is Otherworldly Downtempo for Fans of Glitchcore

Reiyo The Giant, photo courtesy the artist

Reiyo The Giant demonstrates a facility with delicate yet soulful vocal power on “The Show Must Go On.” The song begins like a post-Crystal Castles hyper pop song that flows into being carried hefty, big beat rhythms. But the arrangement of the song deftly drops off all low end so that the unconventional melody commands with its drift through nearly silence like the moon rapidly progressing through the sky. But the irresistible rhythm returns to accent the end of the song as it slows down into a paradoxically rapid chillout into silence. It’s the kind of song that at 3 minutes one second feels too short yet takes the listener through a full emotional arc of exuberance and post-performance tranquility. Listen to “The Show Must Go On’ on YouTube and follow Reiyo The Giant at the links below.

Reiyo The Giant on Instagram

Cartamira’s Downtempo Synth Pop Single “Look at Me” Captures the Yearning Hopefulness of Unrequited Love

Cartamira’s “Look at Me” is a downtempo pop song about unrequited love and yearning. In evoking these feelings it captures the emotional intensity of that headspace and how you can feel like you’re perpetually in an unresolved dream and sitting between hopeful and resigned melancholy. Musically the song utilizes light dance beats and luminous and lush melodic, lingering chords to frame vocals processed to be slightly out of phase with everyday reality. It enhances the sense of floating between fascination and a blind hope for connection and recognition that may or may not manifest. Watch the video for “Look at Me” on YouTube and follow the Italian experimental pop project Cartamira at the links provided.

Cartamira on Apple Music

Cartamira on Facebook

Cartamira on Instagram

Cartamira on Bandcamp

lylyn’s IDM Single “4m Hiero” Flows From Digital to Analog Sounds and Back in its Sparkling Evocation of Joy

“4m Hiero” sounds like something constantly unfolding in chapters. On this track lynlyn seems to cernter each section around a tone that expands and blossoms carried by finely accented rhythms. The song slowly accelerates and then pulls back to passages with an aspect of reflection, floating without the rhythm propelling the atmospherics forward, allowed to drift in space. In the video companion we see the visual representation of this with images more rounded before the rhythm reasserts itself in the end into a more angular, digital representation although like a fractal that freely dissolves and takes on coherence to match the beat. By the song’s end it all fades to a restful abstraction. The song is part of lylyn’s new IDM-adjacent album Ixona due out September 5, 2025 on digital, CD and LP. Watch the video for “4m Hiero” on YouTube and follow lynlyn at the links below.

lynlyn on Instagram

lynlyn on Bandcamp