Elena Ross begins “With You” like a walk in the forest with the sounds of birds and the sounds of twigs breaking underfoot and a brush of bell sounds. When her clear and melodious vocals come in with a spare piano figure underneath it’s like coming into a clearing and having a moment to take in a moment of absolute tranquility and the time to indulge reliving a memory, a cherished moment like a living daydream. The piano melody expands and strings enter with a touch of synth tone to lend the song a touch of heartbreak at simply having to remember a fond time with someone you love but holding onto that yearning. The song was inspired by Slavic folk fairy tales and sonically dwells in dark, haunted woods minus a sense of menace. But it does retain a sense of tragic romance and the cinematic. Listen to “With You” on Spotify and follow Elena Ross at the links below.
CATBEAR’s “Higher” is inspired by a time before video calls when people only heard a voice on the other end of a phone and you only had words and your imagination in connecting with people. A time when maybe you would actually talk with friends and lovers for long periods of time late into the night discussing whatever came to mind without the distraction of visuals or the pressure to share anything. Your focus could and would be just on that moment and the undeniable emotional bond of it almost as pure as that could be. The music has a retro synthpop feel with the hazy synths and infinite horizons that matches well with the romance inherent to the song’s lyrics and concept with soulful and soothing vocals that are lush and introspective that lead you through a journey into a moment of emotional intimacy and deep affection, something that seemed more attainable decades ago and could be again if everyone involved were committed to not being on call or on demand to the social and economic forces of our current era even if only for a night or a day. CATBEAR makes that seem not only possible but inherently desirable with this song. Listen to “Higher” on Spotify and follow London synthpop duo CATBEAR at the links provided.
After eight years of no obvious new music issued into the world Cincinnati, Ohio-based indie-pop band Bad Veins gives us “Wendy” from its new album Imposter (released on December 1, 2023 via Dynamite Music). The visual concept of the video (as directed by Cat Rider) for song seems to be one of a man watching old VHS camcorder footage of the titular character to whom the yearning and melancholic lyrics are directed. He stands against the screen singing as the images wash over him as the memories swirl in his mind and break his heart. It sounds like the relationship was one currently on a break because our narrator had a bit of an emotional disruption. The lines “One thing I know/If I hang around/The undertow will take me down/Wendy I grow more afraid of drifting further everyday/I never meant to come undone/I never thought I’d miss someone like I miss you, Wendy” pack a lot of meaning into such a small space. The song has that kind of energy like John Waite had on his 1982 hit “Change” but the sounds are the more hazy synthpop of that era and it perfectly suits the mood of regret and hope that songwriter Benjamin Davis captures so poignantly in this song. Has the narrator ruined things in that bond forever with his mental health issues or is there a more positive resolution? Who can say but the heartache is palpable and immediate and that’s what makes the song so compelling because so many of us have been there at some point in our lives. Watch the video for “Wendy” on YouTube and follow Bad Veins at the links below.
London-based post-punk band Beige Banquet is set to release its debut album in 2024 as a full band and its first recorded in a studio to capture its full live forcefulness and sonics beyond the limitations of the bedroom recordings of its earlier releases. The first single of the album is the frenetic and headlong “Animals.” The song creates a powerful emotional resonance with its propulsive bass line and urgent, noisy, searing guitar shimmer, splayed and finely accented drums with Tom Brierley’s vocal lines as descriptive statements about how at our base all humans are animals that respond to environmental pressures and stimuli in a similar fashion especially under pressure and in a state of stress and discomfort. Fans of the more discordant end of shame and the angular side of JOHN (TIMES TWO) will likely find some musical spiritual kindred here. Listen to “Animals” on Spotify and follow Beige Banquet at the links below.
Church Chords’ forthcoming album elvis, he was Schlager (out February 26, 2024 on Otherly Love Records) sounds like an ambitious, experimental post-punk album years in the making with numerous collaborators that songwriter and producer Stephen Buono brought together after the manner of a hip-hop producer. And you get a taste of what’s in store with the single “Recent Mineral” with the quietly sultry vocals of Genevieve Artadi who sings in Portuguese. What are the lyrics about? Might have to ask someone that understands the language or wait for the full release of the record. But you don’t need to know in order to really be taken in by the finely accented percussion and hypnotic arrangements of texture tones, slashes of echoing, stretching, warping guitar altogether reminiscent of Young Marble Giants, Faust and an abstract Bossa Nova band mixing it up to make a song that is entrancing and mysterious and you wouldn’t think overmuch about if it was in a movie like something Jim Jarmusch or Sofia Coppola would produce.
In the writing of its new album A Lump of Death: A Chaos of Dead Lovers, Greek experimental metal band Unverkalt took its cues from events of the 1970s involving cults, criminal acts and serial killers that seemed to be in the news on the regular in that decade. The songs have a darkly haunted quality and its atmospheric parts have a distorted and gritty quality that lends a menacing air of the macabre to every track with vocals that are part epic and melodic and at times reminiscent of Cranes. It’s truly a different kind of record in the world of heavy music and doesn’t fit in the usual subgenres. The single “Mr. Monster” begins with a buzzing, hovering sound that might be a synth or a looped guitar part. But then hanging guitar chords come in with softly pounding drums and vocals delivering a story that seems to be that of a person who feels conflicted and yet eerily accepting of someone who commits unspeakable acts against others and feels compelled against their will to engage in lethal behavior. The pulsing synth sound in the song hits like a flickering light in a dark room illuminating the activities with the starkness of a strobe imposing a visual sense of slow motion. And the song does sit suspended like that for moments before it floods with all the guitars, vocals, drums and electronic sounds in a dramatic denouement. Fans of SubRosa/The Keening/The Otolith, Faetooth and Windhand will greatly appreciate Unverkalt’s unorthodox and creative approach to crafting evocative heavy music. Listen to “Mr. Monster” on Spotify and follow Unverkalt at the links below. A Lump of Death: A Chaos of Dead Lovers was released on October 20, 2023 via Argonautica Records on digtal download, streaming, vinyl and CD.
“Plastic Lungs” is a song that sounds like its falling apart as it goes forward. It has a loose clockwork beat and its layers of atmospheric discordant guitar work really fit the mood of a song that seems to be about someone who is coming apart more than a little himself. Lines like “I know that memories and nightmares sometimes feel the same” and “I don’t think my dreams are as kind as they used to be,” “I know you’re wondering what’s wrong” and “I think it’s happening again but when” resonate with the feeling of someone who has experienced a mental breakdown in the past and/or witnessed it in someone close to them. In the music video the wintry kaleidoscopic colors and the doubled imagery and a face obscured by colored television snow and other imagery and it pairs well with the song and its themes of being on the verge of being overwhelmed by one’s own personal demons yet resisting that pull with creative work and expressing the possibility with emotional honesty rather than trying to hide from one’s own psyche. Imagine a lo-fi Mercury Rev gone lo-fi shoegaze indiepop and you have a good idea of the rich tonal moods of Rew’s song “Plastic Lungs.” Watch the video on YouTube and follow Rew at the links provided.
Daniel Trakell imbues “Waves” with a spirit of deep introspection and gentle rhythms and textures. His breathy vocals and the shimmery lap steel draw you in to a story about two people who were once close and parted ways because one person is still struggling with their inner demons years later and yet the metaphor of an ocean that washes random and not so random things on shore and provides a global path taken by a wide variety of travelers who may not even mean to return to their old hangouts. We hear a pained acceptance in Trakell’s voice as he creates the portrait of a person who seems to always be on the run in a futile attempt to escape their troubles embedded deep in their psyche rather than face them and reconnect with those that love them in an authentic and enduring way. But for some people this doesn’t happen and they come in and out of your life whether physically and/or emotionally and you try to value your time with them even when their going away always seems to elicit a wave of sadness. It’s a folk song with immersive moods and its haunted melodies linger with you long after the song has ended. Listen to “:Waves” on Spotify and follow Daniel Trakell at the links below. His new album Into the Blue arrived on November 24, 2023.
On “Horizon,” the concluding track of SANDS’ debut full-length The World’s So Cruel (released October 13, 2023), Andrew Sands brings together the rich array of sounds that he brought to the rest of the album. The guitar has a bit of pop jangle, the melodic bass line buoys the ethereal tones, multiple strands of synth course through the track and bring a nostalgic glimmer that uplifts the melancholic tones ever so slightly. It’s clearly a bittersweet farewell song and one where the emotions are mixed but the decision to part ways for the betterment of both parties is there. The final lines “Reality’s not what you expect/Don’t want to spoil your dreams.” Heavy but elegant. The style of the song recalls but the moods of chillwave but the songwriting and the way Sands has arranged how the emotional beats hit is like shoegaze after the impact of Britpop. Listen to “Horizon” on Spotify and follow SANDS at the links below.
“Mind the Gap” is a single by Berlin-based Lolita Terrorist Sounds from its harrowingly fascinating album St. Lola (released October 20, 2023). Apparently it’s a musical journey that connects London and Berlin and its music video show on 8mm is reminiscent of the kind of visuals one saw in Einstürzende Neubauten’s video for “Sabrina” – dark, lurid, spooky but in the end deeply compelling. We see a gender fluid protagonist taking a train as mentioned in the lyrics of the song through what looks like Europe of the 1970s or 1980s. The song is driven by a simple piano figure propelled by urgent percussion, some vital and haunting lap-steel presumably provided by longtime Swans member Kristof Hahn who contributed to the album. Band leader Maurizio Vitale’s vocals are somehow both intense and inviting and the song encourages the listener to do something inspiring with their lives rather than count down the days remaining to you in purely mundane pursuits. The song is in the vein of industrial post-punk as the aforementioned foundational industrial band and the likes of Crime and the City Solution and of course Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The album was recorded and produced in a studio in East Berlin in a building formerly used by presumably the Stasi during the era of the Berlin Wall. The setting and the limited use of old microphones and analog equipment gives all the songs a certain quality of spontaneity and hauntedness that suits well its themes of marginalized people and the undeniable appeal of the freedom of gritty, urban avant-garde modes of expression. The album also includes the late, great, experimental multi-media artist Rob Rutman (Steel Cello Ensemble) on bow chimes for opening track “Shaved Girl.”
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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