Song Review – Page 3 – Queen City Sounds and Art

J’cuuzi’s Genre Bursting Psychedelic Post-Punk Single “Greasy Comb” Fuses the Ominous and the Otherworldly

When “Greasy Comb” starts you might think J’cuuzi is doing a lo-fi cover of “Edge of Seventeen” mixed with Sparks. But both impressions fade when the song picks up speed and the bass line waxes more funky and the vocals come in with ominous tones and a second set of vocals, or the first, processed as though through a vocoder. As the song progresses like a mutant post-punk song born of a mix of !!! and Black Moth Super Rainbow it swings into a nearly industrial beat with tracers of distorted, glitched out, melodic vocals as notes. Then the song’s layers of sound drop out into the creeping vocals spare percussion for a moment. The effect is psychedelic and like the band listened to a lot of Tran Am’s 2000 album Red Line. Live the band makes its own outfits and makes a performance art presentation of the music and even the recorded output is an embodiment of a willingness to push beyond genre limitations and standard music forms and structures. Listen to “Greasy Comb” on YouTube and follow J’cuuzi at the links below.

J’cuzzi on Instagram

“All on Black” is evrshde’s Deeply Moody Downtempo Song of Solidarity for Those Suffering Through Dark Times of the Psyche

“All on Black” finds evrshde in a fully somber mood. Like a brooding combination of the darker end of Fiona Apple and the more piano-driven side of Nine Inch Nails but infused with a downtempo jazz energy. There is a great spaciousness to the song even as it sounds like the late night musings of someone who felt like they took a lot of risks and none of them feel like they paid off and it’s beyond bitterness and rallying to do better in the future. It’s the sound of feeling that moment of utter defeat completely because to do otherwise would be dishonest and an excuse for false hope leading to delusional behavior. It’s a hard place to be but the song and its ethereal synth melody drifting through personal darkness with the weight of yes personal demons but those fed on a sense of crushing failure compounded by the knowledge that being who you are with your own foibles is what lead here. But then what? The song implicitly puts that question out there and leaving any ultimate conclusions what comes next. The line “The pain’s the only reason you know you’re still alive” is most telling for anyone that has sunk that deep into murky psychological recesses and worse and struggled to come out of it because that level of depression doesn’t feel like pain but a seemingly endless nothingness, a personal emotional nullification and the capacity to still feel something at all is a reminder that you’re still around and often it’s just getting through these seemingly hopeless expanses of spiritual grayness is matter of having patience and doing regular life activities that might in the moment feel meaningless. The song thankfully doesn’t sound like a reflection of that headspace so much as expresses a solidarity with anyone who might also be similarly suffering. Listen to “All on Black” on Spotify and follow evrshde at the links below.

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evrshde on Instagram

Bad Flamingo Expands Into Sultry, Synth-Infused Dream Pop on “Velvet”

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo continues its streak of musical evolution and surprise with its latest single “Velvet.” Not only is there an enigmatic, noir video with grainy visuals like something captured in the 90s on Super-8 or DV but for this song the duo introduces more full use of synth/keyboards to create mood, texture and an emotional resonance that is both reflective, romantic and sultry. The cascading keyboard figure and the spare percussion subtle bass work coupled with vocals that go far wider than the band has typically gone in the past from vibrant lows to soaring highs like Martha Davis from The Motels. It’s more like a dark dream pop New Wave song than some of the more gritty blues pop of a good stretch of the band’s earlier songs yet it preserves the band’s gift for making love sound like a deliciously forbidden but pure and beautiful thing all at once. Watch the video for “Velvet” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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New Wolves’ Cinematic Folk Single “We Are Crowds” is an Assertion of the Importance of Our Analog, Individual Identities in the Flood of the Techno-Oligarch Agenda

The spare acoustic guitar figure and percussion that introduces New Wolves’ “We Are Crowds” is a fascinating contrast with the falsetto vocals that almost sound more processed than they already are. Like intimate folk and a futuristic ghostly figure working together with some minimal synth flourishes entering the soundscape later in the song. In that way it feels like a cinematic composition almost more than a song with the way the elements sync together and interact. The song is a creative take on the natural desire of the individual to maintain a coherent identity and to stand out in a world where technocratic aspects of society seem to work to undermine the significance of individual lives and perspectives and unique personalities and impose an interchangeability of people into essential insignificance. But the refrain of the song “I want to live” isn’t merely about survival but really living and to embrace what that means for each of us and not as a statistic in an algorithm in which only the oligarchy has actual agency. It’s not an aggressive song, in fact it is gentle in its energies, but it is a song about resistance to the process of making the bulk of us anonymous and, to employ an older parlance, cogs in a world machine. After all, all collectives are comprised of individuals who should value their own existence and unique contribution to the whole. Listen to “We Are Crowds” on Spotify and follow New Wolves at the links provided.

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New Wolves on YouTube

The Dark Urgency of Kallsup’s “Kino” Reflects the Impetus to Exit a Situation Outgrown

The urgent and melancholic guitar melodies in Kallsup’s “Kino” layered with sustained rhythm guitar distortion sets the mood for when the vocals come in with a passionate energy that suggests a will to break free from a situation one has outgrown. The lyrics are in Swedish but the emotions come across with an immediacy that brings you along for a journey through personal struggle. The music video is set in a dark space but with vivid, cool colors that lend the presentation of the song a dreamlike aspect that contrasts well with its headlong pace. Fans of Ladytron will appreciate the moods Kallsup strikes in the song and its fusion of personal darkness and uplifting rhythms. Watch the video for “Kino” on YouTube and follow Kallsup at the links provided. The band’s album Alldeles för nära is set for release in fall 2026.

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Kallsup on Instagram

eeMKay Glitches Reality on Psychedelic Lo-Fi Glitch Trap Single “BIGGER PICTURE”

“BIGGER PICTURE” sounds like listening to collaborators coming together contributing layers of production and vocals in real time. Trap beats, distorted synths, scratchy swells, rapping processed in dub style delay with a short echo. It’s like being surrounded by maximalist lo-fi music with rapid builds of rhythm that release into open space and loop back into the flow of the song. There is no immediate musical reference point that could be made which is the appeal of the song because while it has familiar elements they are used in a way that comes off psychedelic and hypnotic and unlike much of what one hears in hip-hop outside of artists operating in the realm of experimental glitch but with more inventive and left field beats. Listen to “BIGGER PICTURE” on Instagram and follow eeMKay at the links provided.

“BIGGER PICTURE” on Instagram

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The Huntress and Holder of Hands’ “Timbre Inaudible” is a Brooding Dark Folk Song About Grief as an Act of Memory

The Huntress and Holder of Hands, photo courtesy the artists

“Timbre Inaudible” sounds like a dark, minimalist blues song with MorganEve Swain singing about imponderables with a mysterious poetry and energy. Like the songwriter/singer is reaching for a resolution to inner struggles, the kind that come about when one’s world goes sideways and you’re left to make sense of your life know what you feel so much but still working out new meanings for your life, new directions after immense and unexpected loss. Swain’s intense yet steady vocal performance has a sustained immediacy even as she repeats lines like a mantra with layered backing vocals and strings tracing the arc of grief that permeates the song. By the end of the song the listener is left with the sense that processing grief isn’t a mechanical process and a linear progression of taking steps. It’s often remembering and honoring shared experiences and holding onto memories and not, indeed, forgetting and moving on like your life with someone is something to be discarded from your psyche like a waste product even as the pain isn’t immediately in your mind as a constant presence. It’s a heavy song but one borne of deep love. The sophomore The Huntress and Holder of Hands album Babylon released June 5, 2026 on vinyl, digital download and streaming.

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The Huntress and Holder of Hands on Facebook

The Huntress and Holder of Hands on Instagram

MAARA HERZ Bursts Through the Haze of Late Capitalism’s Attention Economy to Reassert Authentic Identity on Glitch IDM Song “IS IT POSSIBLE?”

“IS IT POSSIBLE?” with its unorthodox production and vocal processing sounds like MAARA HERZ is slipping in and out of time going forwards and back glitching out of normal space. It begins with a low, swelling drone but almost immediately it sounds like sounds were punched in and manipulated to sound like they’re going in reverse but work as a disorienting element in real time. The vocals too sound manipulated so that the words sound even more strained than the lyrics suggest. The song seems to be about struggling to hold on and function in the “regular” world and not get lost in the endless wash of demands on your time and your psyche in late capitalism. The song’s chopped and edited together sound like a signal sputtering and reassembling itself into some kind of coherence in spite of interference of its original transmission is a perfect embodiment of the song’s message and an eerily accurate cognate of how it can feel deeply trying to get through life with your psyche intact these days. Listen to “IS IT POSSIBLE?” on Spotify. The new MAARA HERTZ album 2201 released March 13, 2026.

Saint Kitten’s Moody Yet Liberating “Stay” is a Song About Casting Off the Comforts of Familiarity and Misplaced Nostalgia and Pursing the Fulfillment of Your Dreams

Saint Kitten’s “Stay” begins murky and creeping with a spare and resonant bass line accenting her vocal lines that seem to be about taking an assessment about a place and a life one is leaving for new opportunities and and the life you want rather than the one you have settled a bit into even when as it doesn’t serve your dreams. The song addresses the way comfort in familiarity can have a seductive effect on your mind coaxing you into a world and life you already know. The past can be a mixed influence as something that shapes us and perhaps puts a limit on our potential if we let it. The lens of nostalgia can cause us to view situations and experiences more romantically than is warranted. The song itself picks up pace and the fogginess of reverie clears and the words become simpler and repeat as though pushing through the tendrils of one’s old life to something perhaps uncertain but with more potential to fulfill dreams buried or smudged over by habit, routine and self-imposed sense of tradition. At turns minimalist and moody and orchestral the song doesn’t bear immediate comparisons to other artists but fans of late 90s Einstürzende Neubauten and Jenny Hval may appreciate the tones and moods of the song. Listen to “Stay” on YouTube and follow Saint Kitten at the links below.

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Piper Connolly’s “beautiful life” is a Song About Accepting the Good Things Coming Into Your Life Rather Than Run From Them

Piper Connolly, photo courtesy the artist

The quasi-fantastical opening scene of the music video for Piper Connolly’s infectiously upbeat single “beautiful life” (directed by Kev Creature) fits the whimsical tone of the song. Connolly answers a pink rotary phone on the side of a desert highway before getting in the convertible that pulls up with her bandmates. The song ramps up to a celebratory bit about an unexpected love that brings to her other unexpected joys including possibly getting into a band she had previously thought was overrated. The spirited “hey” at the beginning of every chorus is practically designed for audience participation and the song itself is basically about accepting something good into your life when it presents itself to you without having to complicate it with internal barriers that don’t serve where you are now. It’s a reminder to embrace possible happiness rather than push it aside. Watch the video for “beautiful life” on YouTube and follow Piper Connolly at the links provided.

Piper Connolly on Facebook

Piper Connolly on Instagram