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rcmndedlisten · 1 year

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Alternative rock is somewhat subjective, being the wilder, weirder extension of rock 'n roll traditionalism that exists somewhere between indie rock study and an ever-present punk energy. Its texture and tone may vary from artist to artist, but it’s primarily fueled by the inimitable electricity of the guitar. That brings us to the best albums from that scene in 2022, which does its most to keep that in mind, but also recognizes that alternative rock in its modern state encompasses a spectrum of emotional gravitas and amperage that continue to move its dial forward...

Alvvays - Blue Rev [Polyvinyl Records]

Blue Rev is the execution in how you make a dream pop in vivid, singular display. The third full-length album from Alvvays establishes what we’ve already known since 2014′s promising, assured guitar-pop display of a self-titled and 2017′s more refined sophomore follow-up, Antisocialites, that when the chemistry between color, texture, sound and emotion hit at just the right angle, it piques the senses inside and out in a way which makes you feel like you’ve tapped into another dimension or gravity.

Bartees Strange - Farm to Table [4AD]

Bartees Strange arrived on the scene with an anomaly of a debut in 2020′s Live Forever. The D.C.-based songwriter knew he had something to prove but didn’t let any of his underdog status shake his confidence from showing the world why he was a star that showed in the way he built worlds with genre-melding dynamics as an indie rock polymath punctuated by a natural rap and R&B swagger. On his follow-up, Farm to Table, Strange reaps what he sews in a post-fame recollection in an album that seeks out bigger spaces and fills them accordingly: festival stage-sized twilight production, a battle for authenticity, a showcase of vulnerability, and a boundless style he continues to hone as is own.

The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field [Carpark Records]

The Beths are over standing in the background on Expert In A Dying Field, the sophomore outing from the the New Zealand rockers, and it's a level-up letting the rest of the world know that. Still, vocalist and guitarist Elizabeth Stokely remains ever-the-introspect in her lyricism, compartmentalizing relationships in every definition down to the microscopic degree. Scuzzed out in wholly alive electricity, however, the Beths making self-reflection sound like a fearless excavation of your place in the world when everyone around you is either coming or going.

Camp Cope - Running With the Hurricane [Poison City / Run for Cover Records]

Since the release of 2018′s breakthrough sophomore outing, How to Socialise & Make Friends, the world has given the Melbourne trio even more kerosene to douse on what once a sound on the brink of being consumed by inner fire. Instead, they’re approaching life’s messiness with a kindness for the self that’s reflective in more room to breathe and a sunset pastel jangle that is still wildly punk and feeding off the emotional, except it all being contained within Camp Cope’s inner storm.

Caracara - New Preoccupations [Memory Music]

New Preoccupations is a nearly fragile-to-the-touch document of Caracara frontman Will Lindsey's road to sobriety and recovery, with the Philly indie rockers approaching their long-awaited sophomore effort with the kind of unassuming gratitude for life's rougher teaching in clarity that can only be learned upon understanding why those lessons on falling down are set for us in the first place. Sonically, Caracara discover precision in their own sound that compliments these realizations in a clarified turn toward Aughts-era emo-rock that maneuvers through closing corners with enlightenment.

Dehd - Blue Skies [Fat Possum]

Dehd broke through the noise and malaise of 2020′s worst parts using the most critical elements of post-punk and a seemingly infinite jolt of energy and pop bursts. Their third studio effort Blue Skies embraces a confidence in finding out what’s on that other side in spite of what may be pulling you back, with the Chicago trio taking what they’ve already grown and known in their surf-sided punk sound, and detail it with further depth in the studio with synths and layers of drum machines that revel in higher def colors in their weather alongside refracting their kinetic energy by the multiple across its 33-minute play.

Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork [4AD]

Stumpwork accentuates the hyper-observational properties of Dry Cleaning’s artful post-punk while bending the sharper angles of its predecessor into a brain stew to compliment the deeper thinks, as the South London band peers even further into the self-referential, focusing on shifting relationships, grief, and – thanks to Florence Shaw’s microscopic eye on the mundane – making the everyday occurrence witnessed a tale of fascination.

Empath - Visitor [Fat Possum Records]

Visitor is very much a change in chemical reaction for Empath, though, with tracks like its slow-swirl opener “Genius of Love”, the key bedazzled “Diamond Eyelids” or the dreamscaped drifts of “Elvis Comeback Special” pulling back their racing churn to a streak of intimate moments stuck in forever. This moves the blurry patterns of light and noise into a fuller scale sound-and-sensory-linked experience where exhilaration maybe isn’t an instantaneous drip like its predecessor, but rather something where the chemical release hits you over a cast of time.

Enumclaw - Save the Baby [Luminelle Recordings]

After breaking through obscurity and a hometown burnout scene last year with their hugely promising Jimbo Demo EP, Enumclaw are learning to reconcile where they come from with where they’re going on another impressive collection of saccharine indie rock that harbors the weight of their world with equal sighs of regret and relief. Alongside producer Gabe Wax, they give the crusty pop textures of their early work a proper wash, revealing a depth detail in their melodies syrupy noise and an added ache to vocalist Aramis Johnson’s inner admissions pouring out.

Hellrazor - Heaven's Gate [Self-released]

Heaven’s Gate, the second album from former Speedy Ortiz guitarist Mike Falcone’s band Hellrazor, isn’t really taking any modern, stream-baiting trends into account, which in turn already sets it as an outlier on the scene’s current landscape. Now joined by bassist (and Jobber frontperson / bandmate) Kate Meizner alongside drummer Michael Henss of HEELE, the dream of ‘90s grunge and noise rock lives on in nightmarish form. You’ll hear gristle of early Nirvana, Hum, and Unwound rattling through the Justin Pizzoferrato polish, though its weird turns make it known Hellrazor are more than just descendants of ancient astronauts.

Horsegirl - Versions of Modern Performance [Matador Records]

Almost effortlessly, vocalist and guitarist Nora Cheng, guitarist Penelope Lowenstein alongside drummer Gigi Reece surpass all buzzy expectations that come with being a group of young artists with an assured entry point of a first impression that celebrates the joys of music discovery and the darker shades of classic ‘90s indie guitar rock inspo with their own youthfully sonic persuasions. Every generation deserves their own homage to the greats while making a statement of their own, and Versions of Modern Performance is Horsegirl’s own way of doing just that.

Knifeplay - Animal Drowning [Topshelf Records]

Knifeplay are not outright dream-pop, slocore, or shoegaze, though there are plenty of moments throughout the listen drenched in heavy distortion, an eerie peak into Americana and its murky reveries, nor are they grunge revivalists, even if they pile sludge over something ascendant. The only certain thing is that the Philly five-piece’s debut album, Animal Drowning, has bound light and darkness into their own singular prism of alternative rock in a way that breathes a new life into it, and ponders it all deeply.

Maneka - Dark Matters [Skeletal Lightning]

Devon McKnight has led the great underground punk band Grass Is Greener, played guitar in the always cantankerously colorful Speedy Ortiz, and as his own solo outlet as Maneka, put a face behind the feedback. Dark Matters, his second full-length, is a special one, though, that witnesses McKnight coming into his own by focalizing the experience of being Black and an artist within spaces still very primarily designed around Caucasian comfort and throwing out the creative rule book in the process to reflect a polymathic ear that seamlessly fuses together every generational facet of indie rock, punk, mercurial hip-hop, and shades of goth in between.

Nilüfer Yanya - PAINLESS [ATO Records]

Nilüfer Yanya has found a lane of cohesion with PAINLESS, the London-based multi-faceted songwriter’s sophomore effort. This is not to say her debut, Miss Universe, was amiss in that regard, but the fluctuating style guide it presented in experimenting with borders of indie rock, pop and R&B were – while excellently crafted – running adjacent with one another in the same, er, universe. PAINLESS is a parallel world to all that, where lines of conductive arpeggio, hypnotic trip-hop influenced beats, and sweetened soft soul rhythms are texturized through her creative gaze.

oso oso - sore thumb [Triple Crown Records]

sore thumb, the follow-up to oso oso’s 2019 breakthrough, basking in the glow, was recorded across a month before guitarist Tavish Maloney‘s passing last year, and furthers his spirit in the sound by embracing their inner weirdness more outwardly here in a crucial hang that lets loose a lot of the weight of the world basking on the glow shouldered and reveals the band’s pop-centricities to get lit to in lieu of adulting’s stranger surroundings.

Pictoria Vark - The Parts I Dread [Get Better Records]

The Iowa City-based songwriter and bass extraordinaire’s full-length debut channels smaller moment against a vastness packed in with descript reflections on adulting, relationships, and moving around personal hells as those memories haunt her many sea changes every step of the way. Funneled through an emo-adjacent alternative rock craft, each track is steady rolling thunder that can either crest in her voice’s calm or crash waves of emotions, making it feel like Pictoria Vark has assigned a melancholy wistfulness to their passing.

Pinkshift - Love Me Forever [Hopeless Records]

Love Me Forever, Pinkshift’s debut full-length, fulfills all promises and expectations behind their early buzz in aligning them with the likes of greats Paramore, My Chemical Romance and Jimmy Eat World as a band who are going to take over the scene with huge anthems barreling through pop-punk, hardcore, and very emo’d out haunts and devastations, be it the universally romantic, political or the entirely personal, from the life and times experienced by frontperson Ashrita Kumar alongside guitarist Paul Vallejo and drummer Myron Houngbedji.

Pool Kids - Pool Kids [Skeletal Lightning]

The soaring trajectory of emotive pop rock anthems of the Tallahassee band’s self-titled sophomore effort promises the scene’s next big star power songwriter in frontwoman Christine Goodwyne, who alongside founding member in Caden Clinton on drums, fully realize their depth in word and hook with the addition of guitarist Andrew Anaya and bassist Nicolette Alvarez, creating hushed romanticized reflections that crystallize across electrical lines straying from the path of conventional symmetry, yet still pull you into their undertow.

Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever [Loma Vista Recordings]

You probably didn’t have an indie rock darling like Soccer Mommy linking up in the studio with Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never (and more recently, some of the most entrancing electronic-pop production these last few years with the Weeknd and Caroline Polachek) on your 2022 bingo card, but it works to Sophie Allison’s benefit on her third full-length, Sometimes, Forever. The growing pains of 2020′s color theory are starting to feel more distance along with her distance gaze of bedroom pop, revealing bolder lines surrounding her think bubbles without losing any of the impressionistic character of her everyday morbidity.

Special Interest - Endure [Rough Trade]

Unlike the aggressive flashbulbs and industrial rot schisms that were right in the trenches of our turgid political landscape on their 2020 breakthrough, The Passion Of, Special Interest’s follow-up is no less a call to arms from the fringe, but is its own violent neon dance rebellion at that where commandeer and vocalist Alli Logout, guitarist Maria Elena, bassist Nathan Cassiani and electrician Ruth Mascelli build a dark disco around the bold movements of the club kids, gothic freaks, indie sleaze, and punks. It’s a space where many sounds of rage coexist and express themselves in the same, single energy to celebrate whoever it invites while rising against any and all oppressors together.

Sweet Pill - Where the Heart Is [Topshelf Records]

The Philly indie-punk quintet’s first round presents something that’s much needed in the emotive rock realm, with these 10 tracks showing off both a muscularity gained from its members reps in the hardcore scene, but also a pop fluency thanks to the malleable performance of vocalist Zayna Youssef embedded around its smart, emotive punk with infinite promise. American Football, Paramore and Algernon Cadwallader equally walked their own paths so a band like Sweet Pill could come along and discover where the hidden intersects run.

Wet Leg - Wet Leg [Domino Records]

Wet Leg ultimately will wear you down whether you like it or not in spite of their very TikTok-able takes by contuining to show up to the party (even if they themselves don't want to be there!) The self-titled debut album from the Isle of Wight duo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers is that obligatory buzz record for the young, stoned and buzzed that pulls off messy fun with a post-punk finesse. Add in hyper-self-aware sardonic quips, and it's easy to hear how their cool factor radiates effortlessness.

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sinceileftyoublog · 2 years

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Square Roots 2022: 7/8-7/9

BY JORDAN MAINZER

In its first incarnation since the pandemic, Lincoln Square’s preeminent summer street festival, Square Roots, continued its penchant for expanding the average person’s definition of “roots” music. This year’s lineup, with the likes of Bob Mould and DEHD, made the case for punk being just as big of a part of America’s roots as any type of music, while still showcasing the best of the Midwest in folk and indie rock.

Ten years ago, the best reason to see Mould would be to hear a pitch-perfect mix of classic songs from Hüsker Dü, Sugar, and his perennially underrated solo career. But over the past six years, specifically, he’s been on a real heater. 2016′s Patch the Sky is potentially his best post-Workbook solo record, and unlike last time I saw him, Friday night, he played both “Voices in My Head” and “Black Confetti”, the former a nice change of tempo after a flurry of Hüsker Dü heavyweights like “Never Talking to You Again” and “Celebrated Summer”. 2019′s Sunshine Rock had its moments, and Mould burned through one of its unabashed highlights, the unintentionally Yeah Yeah Yeahs quoting title track. And as this will be the first year Mould will be able to fully tour his pummeling protest album, 2020′s Blue Hearts (Merge), it was the solo album from which he thankfully pulled the most. Bassist Jason Narducy offered soaring harmonies on “Siberian Butterfly” and screams on “Next Generation”, while “Forecast Of Rain” and “The Ocean” played the role of “Voices In My Head” in the set, a break before the flurry of madness.

Guided By Voices, meanwhile, are used to Mould’s challenge. They’ve released two of three planned albums in 2022, and both are some of the strongest with the Robert Pollard-Doug Gillard-Bobby Bare Jr.-Mark Shue-Kevin March lineup. Both Crystal Nuns Cathedral and Tremblers And Goggles By Rank (Guided by Voices Inc.) continue the band’s prog rock-inspired streak. A few songs on the former are bolstered by cello from Chris George, like the slow-lurching, yet mammoth “Eye City”. Saturday night, GBV played what I thought would be the most challenging of those to pull off life, “Climbing A Ramp”, which is almost entirely built on George’s strings. That said, Gillard, who rips solos with the best of them, carried the song to the end and right into his masterpiece “I Am A Tree”. I would have liked to have heard a song like “Re-Develop”, with its soaring vocals around acoustic-to-electric guitar lines, or “Never Mind The List”, a tune that has the potential to become a crowd shout-along for years to come. “Go inside, let us play / And I’ll always throw another list away,” sings Pollard on that one, perhaps referring to the band’s time-honored tradition of giving away their setlists at the end of shows.

Tremblers And Goggles By Rank, on the other hand, basks in the lyrical non-sequiturs that define GBV, returning from the rare moments of thematic clarity on Crystal Nuns Cathedral. As it’s the more recent of the two, the band played from it more than they did any album, even Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes. They led off the set with the choppy “Unproductive Funk”. “Boomerang” was the clanging respite between anthems “Tractor Rape Chain” and “The Best of Jill Hives”. Of the two The Who Sell Out-inspired tunes on Tremblers And Goggles By Rank, Pollard and company opted for the power pop of “Alex Bell” over the album’s pseudo title track. While “Alex Bell” is a name portmanteau of two of the co-founders of Big Star, its ambitious structure is certainly a far cry from the ear candy of Chilton and Chris Bell. I was perhaps most surprised to hear 6+-minute Tremblers closer “Who Wants To Go Hunting”, which makes use of pianos and timpani; Gillard at least triggered some noise for good measure.

The two bands that played before Guided By Voices on the festival’s main stage have been following formulas that work for them for years, kind of like GBV themselves (well, up until these past few years’ delving into prog rock). But instead of indie rock ditties, Chicago’s DEHD thrive with lovelorn surf punk and Minneapolis’ The Cactus Blossoms with languid country folk. The former recently released their fourth studio album and Fat Possum debut Blue Skies, produced by the band’s singer/guitarist Jason Balla and mixed and mastered by heavyweights Craig Silvey and Heba Kadry, respectively. Indeed, Blue Skies combines the ethos of previous records like Flower Of Devotion with more tools at the band’s disposal, from the personnel involved to access to more instruments. It’s their best record yet, but its success is more due to the band refining what they do to a science. “Run, baby run” and “Walk, baby walk” are calls that pervade two of the live highlights from the new album, bopping even more than “Dream Baby Dream”. The former comes from Blue Skies lead single “Bad Love”, which combines almost all of the things DEHD do well: Emily Kempf’s bellowing vocals, Balla’s twangy guitars, drummer Eric McGrady’s two-snare gallop. “Run, baby, run / Run from the bad love / New love baby, come on honey, gimme some,” is a paean to the optimism of summer crushes, tailor made for a festival set.

The Cactus Blossoms played greatly from their most recent album One Day (Walkie Talkie), whose best songs combine dark themes with breezy instrumentals. Despite the googly eyed choogle of a song like “Desperado” or the retro sway of “I’m Calling You”, the brother-led band isn’t all roses, and One Day exemplifies their complexity. Take a track like “Ballad of an Unknown”, soft psychedelia that’s actually a story about a vagrant suffering from society’s lack of care, the opposite of hippie idealism. On “Is It Over”, Jack Torrey and Page Burkum sing, “All washed up, you're bound to fall / Just waiting for the curtain call,” a sense of fatalism hovering above their pleasantries. Of course, listening to the band in a crowd of people drinking good beer is pleasant, not lost on The Cactus Blossoms. One Day’s “Everybody” was a surefire set highlight despite its absence of Jenny Lewis (who guests on the studio version). “Everybody tryin’ to do what’s right / Everybody stayin’ up all night / Everybody waitin’ for the light,” is a simple, but true sentiment, especially heartfelt delivered in unison with a buzzed crowd. And of course, You’re Dreaming centerpiece “Change Your Ways Or Die” is the best tick-tock chug this side of the late, great Walkmen.

Overall, Square Roots continues to be the best street festival of the summer thanks to its cohesive identity. I can’t wait to see what comes in 2023.

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