Category: New Music Reviews

This is listed as being a demo but who cares because it’s heart on the sleeve gorgeous as is. The vocal is so far up front that with headphones on you may kind of get that chill you do when someone whispers directly into your ear. It weirdly reminded me of the 1981 Rolling Stones classic “Waiting on a Friend”, as it beats with the same melodic heart, and is just as full of resignation, but this “boy” is 100 times more lost, wistful, and earnest, and all kinds of beautiful. And check out the band’s 2017 EP “Stranger” below, for more genuinely fine and promising things.

Short, and sticky, hypnotic and gentle and just pop, pop, pop. I’ve got to stress the sticky here, because once you hear the chorus, be prepared for it to be sleeping on the sofa of your mind for awhile whether you want it to or not. This track is off the new self-titled EP, and know what, gonna include one more from there just because it’s equally sweet and weird and just as good.

Okay, only recently got woken up to Snakeskin, formerly Shanna Polley’s solo project, now the blanket name of she and her band, via a glowing recommendation from another fab band, High Falls, and for that I owe a big thanks.”Seize” is a bitchin’ alt 90’s classic that never was, with a big fat riff and hook: an ornery, tough kid cousin to the classic “Safari” by the Breeders. It oozes that same ineffable coolness, which makes it a pretty special thing.

Here’s a true embodiment of wearing your heart on your sleeve pop music style: Natalie Davis was so enamored and inspired by Tame Impala that she named her own project “Currents”, after the band’s 2015 album. And while that influence is worn proudly within this delicately spacey, handsome, and lush melodic echo, it has some undeniable charms of it’s own, not the least of which being that it’s about how it’s okay to cry whenever the hell the impulse hits you.

This song was actually released in the closing weeks of 2017, but never got a chance to write about it, and extoll it’s many virtues and charms. Simple, with a guitar line that circles around and around, bridging a generational gap between, I swear, 70’s soft rockers Bread, gentle emo legends Pinback, and the softer moments from the underrated Wheat, “Nineteen…” is a wistful world of longing, the past, insurmountable miles, and all that good stuff. Freya’s new album is due out in May, but while you wait, I strongly recommend you check her sweet ep from last year, “The Brightest Ones” because it’s brimming with gorgeous stuff like this.

The Casual Sexists are a pop band that exist in both the past and the future. They sound like the darkest deepest recesses of Danceteria in NYC in 1982…Like gum chewing teenage girls telling a shop owner to fuck off in London in 1988 after he’s asked them to leave because they are scaring the other customers…Like the love baby of 80’s minimalist classic “Laid Back” by White Horse, Cristina’s “Sleep it Off ” album, The Slits, Shampoo, and “West End Girls”…but they also sound like the future : DIY clever, sticky, and disposable in the best way. What does it all mean ? Well, here’s the lead track off their 2017 “Karakara”ep wherein the duo treat the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” like a total rag doll in the in the second verse, which is the best:

And check out the toy robot, poptastic lead track off their previous ep “Let’s Go to the Beach” in which seagulls, sun, strychnine and Nabokov’s “Lolita” are all present and accounted for. And as a personal aside, this is the kind of song that legendary, late NY radio station WLIR would’ve been all over in it’s 80’s “Screamer of the Week” heyday, for sure, as in, this would’ve been a “Screamer”

There’s more shiny double dutch junk punk where these came from, so encourage you to explore via the band’s site and most especially check out their videos within it, featuring discarded baby dolls, blood, and cats, because they are fab :

https://www.thecasualsexists.com/casual-sexists-video

I know. This sounds like some lost Prince song, circa 1988 with Wendy & Lisa singing lead (and a damn good one at that). Sparse, off-kilter, full of air, space, and sweetness, I think the man himself would wholeheartedly smile on Praa for this, and what could ever be cooler than that ?

Plush and lush, a big echo laden, tear-stained Beach Boy-esque kiss-off, candy-coated, swirling and whirling, and mighty fine at that.

Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy” from 1991 is practically it’s own religion: it’s easily one of the greatest singles of the 90’s, and maybe forever…and that’s the song that instantly came to mind upon hearing this for the first time. While “Gone” is nowhere near as orchestrated as the former, and is more defiant than desperate (the other featured trait of “Unfinished”) it shares a similar skeleton, especially in regards to it’s emotive, and world weary vocal, and subtle yet epic hook. It’s damn beautiful and I wish it were even longer.

Here are a couple of languorous, spaced out, and gorgeous grooves from Bristol band Cousin Kula, sounding equal parts Tame Impala, Pink Floyd, and I swear, Scritti Politti ( honorable mention to the swoon-inducing 1979 West Coast style keyboarding action also very much present in both tracks) . To put it more succinctly, this is the sound of a blazing sunset being viewed through a spaceship window. Both these tracks are featured on their newly released “Oodles ” EP, and yeah, they are kind of special.