Jockey
Photo Cred 📷 : @moskvisual
I think we’re reaching some kind of wild critical mass with bands advancing cross-genre pollination in such a deftly but finessed way. I say this because during the runtime of “Time For You To Bury Me”, there occurs this almost divine marriage of punk and post hardcore, of emo and fuzzed out rock that I know has been done before, but sounds so good it feels new.
The feelings evoked are one of laughable misery, vocals sings and screams with a unique despondence that somehow carries this self deprecating smirk, no tongue in a cheek but a mouth open and wailing as the wink and nod of "Old Parallels" opens with uptempo punk chords wrapped in a buttery sweet rhythm section that seems to delicately melt and fuzz out with the vocals and drums.”Tail End of Mourning”, one of two singles to come out the EP, feels like a shoegaze track, but hits like if Joyce Manor was more obsessed with Dinosaur Jr than Morrissey.
“Early Grey” hums and whistles like a particularly cold fall morning, one that just that inch past being uncomfortably cold. A fuzzy wheezing guitar wiles and winnows through vocals that wrap around it like an ill fitting scarf. Album closer “A Spring Burial”, finds choruses of burials adjacent to garden walls, spiraling into Unwound-esque riffage. A pointedly unsomber discordance that very much feels like the shock of Spring melting a winter's thaw to reveal gravestones. In one shot, “time for you to bury” feels like 3 different releases given one focused effort. It winds and gnashes, it sulks and glowers, it gasps and screams and it all feels so fucking real all at once, that I was certain I’d seen my own breath by its end.
If I couldn't think of another reason to tell you how good Jockey is, I'd be left with the simplicity of saying: you absolutely should be watching this band. What they've captured on their “Time For You To Bury Me” reminds me all at once of Temple, Joyce Manor and Title Fight fighting for control of the body they all inhabit. So I say let them fight, let the spring come and the winter thaw away and when I get the chance to stroll through some damp fields on a sidecast cloudy day, you can bet this EP will be looping in my ears. Being released by the always wonderful Oliver Glenn Records as well as the dashingly handsome Jean Scene on vinyl, you can hear the full EP when it drops January 26th.
Checkout their two singles here : Jockey
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
01/22/24
Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow
Photo Cred 📷 : @zegema_beach (Image is from Apostles of Eris at ZBR Fest 2023)
Hyper is the force that can pack so much into songs that find their comfortable if not abrupt end at the 2 minute mark. And hyper is only one of many adjectives to describe Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow’s debut LP. It’s certainly been a long time coming and the density of the structure does not belie the immensity of the material. The band have long been a ghostly figure on the internet since their initial inception back in 2020.
The collaborative concoction of insane screamo dynamics cage-fighting emoviolence sensibilities on an undercard of immense desperation and climate anxiety is a project started by their drummer Adrian and became a collective brainchild including David Norman and Jesse Mowery, three absolute legends in the scene who’ve been heavy in their influence and shaping of our sound. Demarcating a point in the bands existence, the album slowly warbles before it wrenches, punches and kicks with opener “Mimitwo”. The soft pluck and stride of guitars immediately bursts into a thick and punchy riff, before slow grooving into soft choruses and heady throaty screams. “Sometimes When I’m Falling” sees a quick pivot and shift into a start stop shredfest calls back to mid-2000s punchy chugs with married unions of shouted and screamed vocals.
Our Future can rip and flurry with the best of them, but the overall atmosphere of the band as a whole helps make the album what it is. A opalescent mystique encases the project, and with little internet presence they fly more on the radar of genre purists and fanatics than the general screamo zeitgeist. At least that may have been the case with their 2021 debut EP and an excellent split with criminally underrated Komarov. With tracks like “Strike Zone Pro Box Set” and “The French Say Brobaire” the band cuts clear that change is the name of the game but heavy and fast are still the referees.
Album closer “Our Future Is An Absolute Nightmare”, wraps the whole package up with a neatly discordant bow. The longest track on the album it whiles and wanders with classic emocore singing uncertain chord fingering and masked spoken word, cutting into throaty shouts and dreams traded in a call and response with pounding percussives and sourly sweet melodies. Halting midway, a tonal change foggily emerges, with soulful guitar work and plinking undulations. It reads in plays in concert with the track title, giving full shape the the haunting uncertainty that pervades the album.
Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow is a band of many faces, largely because the true face of the band is largely obscured. Even with the players known, the mystery flourishes and eludes being pinned in one place. A sound this full between three legends of the scene and featuring guest spots from the likes of Burial Etiquette and Vi Som Alskade Varandra Sa Mycket can only come from people who hold not only the sound close to their hearts, but can also project their view of our rapidly unraveling world out on full display for all to see.
The full album is out for listening now, with the 12’’ vinyl available via Zegema Beach Records.
Checkout the LP here : Zegema Beach Records
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
01/15/24
Mt.Ida
Photo Cred 📸 : @jaredcwood
It’s in the heaving air of winter where we often find our most solemn moments exhaled before us. The vaporous gasps we can’t hold back seem to exist if only for a handful of seconds, before merging with all and vanishing from a perceptible realm. It’s the inherent sanguine nature of winter, everything around us dies, the cloying and desperate grappling of life succumbs to the turn of the year. Mt.Ida, one of Philadelphia’s finer exports in our scene, mirror this and in response extend a warm hand in defiance of it.
“Between the Ashes” strums something familiar, a guitar tone not unknown to many of us, but instead of affording its common stark and bleak nature treat it as kindling, building tension and friction. Echoes of the legendary Raein should only be heard as just that, as the track lifts itself into comfortably melodic and hopefully resonant bass, complimenting drums that crackle and endure. Half-tempo spoken word seeks out understanding, empathizing with the unforgiving iciness of uncertainty. Screams that connect in anguish are actually a call to live as repeated choruses of I believe in life (again) / I believe in life (again), invoke the wishes of what many of us wish we had said sooner.
I’ve been eyeballing Mt.Ida for quite some time and attempting to counteract my shifting impatience for new music with the belief that they would bring something as wonderful to the table as their 2021 self-titled debut. It’s not with smug satisfaction but a confirmed joy that I can tell you they have in fact kept us waiting for good reason. “In Silence” drops in full on December 15th, with tapes coming out from some of our favorite labels, Oliver Glenn Records and Jean Scene. Make sure to grab one as they are sure to go fast.
Check out their previous single “Sacristy” on Bandcamp : Mt.Ida
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
11/27/23
Closet Witch
Photo Cred 📸 : @_scumlxrd
This week we’re incredibly excited to premiere not just a new single but the brand new music video for Closet Witch’s “Haunting and Releasing” directed and created by Iowan local legend, Jeff Carl. The forthcoming album due out on Zegema Beach Records, is already shaping up to be one of the heaviest of the year.
Those in the know have been eyeballing Iowa’s Closet Witch for quite some time, but it's largely been in recent years that their buzz has reached the levels of what the band deserves. "Haunting and Releasing" gives the aural texture of a possession, the static spectral layer of fuzz lays thinly on top of violent shrieks (featuring long time friend Frankie Furillo of The Central), mountain sundering guitars and bass with terrifying drums that refuse to relent. The music video echoes this, as jarring shapes and cuts chaotically accompany the brutal sonics, gnashing and stuttering with color, frequency and hum. Interspersed with landscapes, random and sometimes unsettling imagery, the visuals captured compliment the disorienting feeling of both the track and the title, before its sudden and viciously abrupt end.
Closet Witch vocalist Mollie had a few words to say about their new track..
“It was really cool to have two long time friends collaborate for those tracks...Frankie did vocals on the second and he's just been one of my favorite people for some time now. And then to have Jeff make a video was super cool, too, as I've known him for most of my time living in Iowa and he's just a creative individual who marches to the beat of his own drum. Both an honor to have involved. Lyrically the songs are along my usual lines, borderline story telling mixed with journalistic emotional release ...Topics relating to personal traumas that I'm sure many can in some way relate to, unfortunately, and that a lot of us find shame inducing to lament on or even bring up but cause indefinite ache in how hard they are to overcome on our own.”
Closet Witch are a band we've been eyeballing for some time and 2021's B-side EP Mellifocation only had us more excited for what was to come. However with "Haunting and Releasing" I'm beginning to feel that I am just not prepared for the assuredly full on envelopment of what's sure to be a deliciously hellish and achingly emotional full length.
"Chiaroscuro" is out November 3rd on all platforms but you can preorder one of two gorgeous vinyl variants now, released via our friends at Zegema Beach Records as well as other incredibly sick variants available through Moment of Collapse Records, Circus of The Macabre Records and Sassbologna Records for European distribution. Give the video a watch and preorder the vinyl today.
Checkout their most recent previously released new single here : Closet Witch
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
10/23/23
Aren't We Amphibians
Photo Cred 📸 : @jessssss.o
How do you hold off on expressing something deeply personal to people you don’t know? I wanted to articulate so much how the new Aren’t We Amphibians EP, “Emergency, Exit” feels as much about speaking to others as it does to yourself. In that rhetorical nature that only an emo band and your speakers can provide, it asks a classic question in a not so quiet new way: “Is it possible to be simply better off alone?”.
Starting in a strikingly different sonic direction from their previous EP, the opening chords of “Yard Work “ plant the seed of a denatured style of emo, stolidly marching, building to something atonal and ominous before cutting sideways into familiar territory. Vocally reminiscent of early Snowing and later Algernon Cadwallader, the drumming feels arena sized with the bass bouncing along in time. The anthemic nature doesn’t try to run from its roots but instead embraces them. Again this undercurrent of discomfort and urgency plays itself out on “Built For Bugs”, before the rest of the track “begins” bringing in the more traditional sound.
You'll find this pattern here and there in the EP, an undercut of panic chords and chugs with half-step blast beats punctuate or christening different tracks throughout the EP, from the dynamic solemn cut of "Lazlo" to the EP single "Carrion", the forceful nature of feeling of discerning shaky ground from bad knees when it comes to your daily headspace are called into question. For me it was the driving, winding oomph that came from "Lobster Party" that sealed this release as one of my favorites of the year.
If Read the Room was the band proudly declaring their presence to the world as an emo band, Emergency, Exit is them sonorously announcing that emo is merely a qualifier, that the sound and feeling carry a more expansive yet nuanced energy to it all. You can listen to their single “Carrion” streaming on Spotify now with the full EP releasing October 3rd, with tapes available through Thumbs Up Records.
Listen to Read the Room on Bandcamp : Aren’t We Amphibians
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
10/02/23
Coma Regalia / Snag Split
Photo Cred 📸: @doveonfilm
I love splits. I know we’ve already gone over this before but seriously. It bears repeating. Splits are a healthy measurement of any scene.
Two bands either from similar or differing circles coming together to deliver one solid batch of music, forging alliances, friendships, bridges, whatever. It’s something that I’ve always loved about our scene. So when I heard about the Coma Regalia / Snag split of course I became incredibly excited. Already legends in their own rights, I knew that by joining forces, they’d produce an instant classic. And even after thinking all that, I still was blown away.
Wasting no time, Snag immediately rip into their side with “Lyla”, an explosive yet tightly wound track, with ramping, driving drumming and stalked-down-an-alley basslines. Shifting gears immediately “Tunnels” kicks out punishing blast beats and guttural black metal growls before transforming into a shifting and melodically wrapped blending of classic screamo and hardcore. The springy, bouncing scales of “On the Human Condition” lead into a sharp clatter of drums and shrieking guitar, as an almost muted background chorus chants along. The track then wheels and winds into electric riffs and bass ripped from the deeper bowels of the earth.
Once we make it to “Evelyn” we’re met by soft plucks of guitar chords morphing into a wall of noise that slowly ease out into a soft melody. The moments like these, found throughout different points in Snag’s side have built small moments of quiet reflection before building back into huge emotional swells of rhythm and chorus. Snag wrap up their run of tracks with “A Familiar Feeling” opened by harp like riffs and atmospheric strums and licks, building and ramping before cutting left into anthemic instrumentations and powerful shouts featuring awakebutstillinbed, as Snag’s closing cries of ‘I’m sorry / It’s too late’ begin to fade out with only a sharp warning tone remaining.
That tone connects the thread into “Initiate Transfer” the first track on Coma Regalia’s side of the split. Huge arena style guitar strums and drum hits switch quickly into intensely emotional singing and shouting. “Fire/Wall” brings the throaty horse vocals into the 90s punk realm of hardcore meeting the fretboard dancing and emo/screamo twists and turns as only Coma can provide. Driving guitar lines absolutely crackle with dissonance as the drumlines fill the air with huge clatters and tight crashes. “Redirect” opens with what has to be one of the catchiest and most infectious meshing of sung and screamed vocals that I’ve heard all year, going from wildly melodic to cacophonously delicious in seconds.
Diffused and distorted spoken word hangs heavily as the chorus darts quietly sung in the background, all while the instruments wind up for the latter half of the track, erupting into a massive deluge of screams, riffs and drum hits. Barely a reprieve is given before “Algo Error” immediately picks up, carrying the melody along, equally rife with all of the incredible chaos found throughout the split. The midsections stuttering and stop start instrumentals give way to warring sonics and screams before kicking the door open to the final track on the split “Log Off”. There’s almost a B52s quality to the chorus, bouncing between 80s hardcore and the ethereal nature of Oingo Boingo, before the final droning guitars slides into silence.
Both bands cut an absolutely monumental set of tracks, easily the best we’ve heard yet. Snag’s white knuckle grip on the alarm bell of climate crisis shakes as aggressively and earnestly as ever, while Coma Regalia’s side is rife with the urgency of unplugging and feeling the air and sun available to you only a few feet away. We really could not get enough of this split and in a year of incredible drops this easily shot its way to the top of our list.
You can stream the entire split in full when it’s released October 6th via Middleman Records in the US and Shove Records in the EU, but you can stream Algo Error by Coma Regalia below.
You can preorder the vinyl here : Middleman Records
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
09/25/23
son of deni
Photo Cred 📸: @vvvydmy
In our current marvelous period of screamo we’re experiencing, it can be a uniquely difficult task to not only make yourself heard within any given scene but especially to do so overseas. Son of deni, calling both Belarus and Poland home, are very much incredible at what they do, and will certainly be grabbing your attention very soon, with their debut ep “Sporty”.
The warbling rhythmics of a clean strummed guitar tone on “bubble” both as a statement piece of the band and as it is their purposeful setting of intention. It meanders, and whistles at times, foreshadowing an album rife with melody and intensity. Staccatoed instruments pluck and thwack before a visceral scream wrenches from some throat somewhere.
“leg day” is easily one of my favorites off the EP and their most recent single. Many of the trapping of euro skramz melded brilliantly with midwest emo, to create a melodically fun but potently emotional packed track, opining the vanishing of one another from our shared experiences. Twinkles float and collide with stuttering drums and stuttering guitar and bass before plinking along in a classic 2010’s emo fashion.
Closing track “day after leg day” builds an unnerving sunniness with its riffs, and clattering drums and bass. Suddenly the track pivots to buzzing guitarwork and shredding basslines as a chorus begins to shout and scream ‘the world beside the windows seems too vast / and it asks me to remain strong / but on / Sunday, I don't want to go anywhere / I don't even want to get out of bed.’ (Translated for us by the band).
“Sporty” as a piece of the genre is certainly a solid album, but it's the instrumentation that truly steals the show. Son of deni have composed something that can both pull on the heart strings while also inviting multiple re listens to catch every nuance and note found through these five incredible tracks. “Sporty” is available now via No Funeral Records in Canada & BSDJ in Japan.
We look forward to what the band has in store for us next.
Live Longer Burn Everything
As we all make our way through the daily struggles and trials of living of this capitalist hellscape, we all are trying our best to get by and cope. However, as we lean on our loved ones, on our friends, on our community, we see a bit more light in the day than we did before. Live Longer Burn Everything embodies screamo in its most classic form, as an active form of defiance and with their latest single “Can U Trust Yr Brain?”, the latest cut from their impending debut EP “A Flash of Light And Then…”., they capture this feeling perfectly.
Reminiscent of something from the 2000s era myspace era of diy screamo, the twinkling and plinking that opens the track gently obfuscates the audio clip playing before launching into immense dueling screams and ascendant guitar riffs. Oozing both catharsis and passion, the chorus of ‘Being taken / Somewhere away / Being taken / Somewhere away from this place’ sinks just that bit deeper, screamed and yelled in woven disharmony. Sung in patterned form, punctuated by shouts, the song finds its climax resurging with massive riffs and absolutely gargantuan drumming taking the climax of the track to anthemic heights. There's even a classic mid-2000s "hidden track" moment that immediately took me back my Purevolume / Myspace days.
Within our culture we find safety, even while the world seems to be dissolving in front of us. "Can U Trust Yr Brain?" is about the deeply seated piece in all of us that can exist in community and find solace from that, especially within a scene like ours. Occasionally we forget that music is simply the primary pillar of what makes punk / hardcore / screamo and other heavy music genres appealing in the first place, but once you go to a show, make a band or even start a conversation you are able to find so much more within it.
Live Longer Burn everything's debut EP will be arriving September 22nd via BIGSCREAMOMONEY, preceding their tour with fellow mates of state, A Continent Named Coma. Make sure to check the full release when it drops.
Check out their Bandcamp here : Live Longer Burn Everything
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
09/11/23
Orbit Cinta Benjamin / Flirt Split
Photo Cred 📸: @zaairul (Photo of Orbit Cinta Benjamin)
This week for New Music Monday we are incredibly excited to bring you this brand new split from two amazing bands. Flirt hail from Leipzig, Germany and have an incredibly chaotic yet catchy brand of screamo punk filling their side out, and it brings me immense amounts of stoke to hear brand new material from Kuala Lampur screamo legends Orbit Cinta Benjamin. The bands compliment each other in a way that only true dyed-in-blue titans of the genre can.
Flirt come through with a barn burner grip of songs. Fusing the punk aspect of classic german hardcore punk with the brilliance of 2000s era screamo, the melodic emo punk sprint of “Amazon Crime'' sounds like something that could easily have opened a Raein album with charred choruses and crust crackled screams leading into mid-tempo explosive songwriting. “Morsch” and “Trist” are both absolutely dripping with that classic euro skramz sound, not retrodden, but given an even finer edge and bite with Flirt’s wheeling guitar riffs, half nodded emocore drumming and resonant basslines. Closing track “Einfach So” builds a slow waltz with sparsely shouted vocals and finally swells into its huge emotional climax.
Orbit Cinta Benjamin do no slouching on their side. “Essence” kicks off with dissonant, spaced out riffs and drums building over an audio clip, exploding with panic chords and sharp screams carrying the split's urgency well. “Four Corners” slide in with cascading riffs and huge drums, bleeding into roared choruses and those trademark OCB shouts. “Harbinger” punches and winds with rollicking guitar and low thundering bass. “Chalice” has the coloring of midwest style picking and drums, before swelling into an insane wall of sound and noise, tight instrumentation and larger than life catharsis. A classic screamo waltz, metered out with the chorus of conjoined shouts and screams the track winds into quiet closing out with the other half of its earlier sample.
What’s sure to be the hottest split of the year, you can get a sneak peek at “Chalice” from Orbit Cinta Benjamin’s side. Veterans of the sound, tempered with newcomers flirt, is an absolute banger and a heavily favored conteder of ours for split of the year. This joint venture out August 21st on Tomb Tree tapes will also have a 12" vinyl available from Major Label, SM Musik, Bad Health Rec., ZilpZalp Rec and Salto Mortales Records
Pickpocket
Photo Cred 📸: @neutralshrimphotel
This week's New Music Monday finds us returning to Ohio. The scene of the often overlooked state has been something to behold in recent years and one band that's really blown us away is Columbus’ own Pickpocket. Their debut album “All These Things We Thought We Invented”, has all the makings of another sonic gem refusing to be ignored.
Album opener “New Rome” rips and shreds, winding buzzsaw guitars duel against coagulated basslines and shrieked shouts of our empires end. The exultant nature of this track feels like a feat of Caligulan feast hallmarked with Nero’s fiddling as the anxious energy overwhelmingly kicks the album off on an aggressive note.
The quiet affectation that opens of “Weather Vein”, with its beleaguered little riff and strained vocal howl evolves into sharp caterwauls of experimental punk and screamo fusion. Brazen guitars and explosive drums kick in as yells transform into screams and the circling melody of the track rings eerily familiar of something off a City of Caterpillar B-side.
“On Scrapyards” has all the atmospheric and subdued horror of a Chat Pile song, but turns all of the fever pitched existential dread into a profound dead eyed stare of consumerism and climate anxiety. The expressive desired to be buried under miles and miles of junk and garbage are delivered in a lilting deadpan, I’ve decided / I want to be buried / Under fifty miles of trash / Far away from the sky / Away from the sun / Deposited into scraps of steel / Sediment and with oils and fossils when suddenly the looping melancholy riffs roars to life amongst clattering cymbals and hoarsely drummed toms as a single voice shrieks ‘Let it bury me’. Each stanza of this track punches and laments in such pained apathy that even against its own intentions, the earnestness and fear shines through.
Pickpocket reminds me of Jimmy Eat World if they were violently possessed by the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson channeling the haunting echoes of Frail Body, the meandering experimentation of Gospel and the raucous punk nature of Cloudmouth. The eight songs spanning “All These Things We Thought We Had Invented” come together to make a singular push of frantic energy, wherein Pickpocket have captured entire realms of angst and thought all into sparse lyricism, tautly spread out interludes and hellacious shrieking and shouting. We greatly look forward to what the future holds for Pickpocket and what they may have for us next.
“All These Things We Thought We Had Invented” is available on your favorite streaming platforms now.
Checkout the album on Spotify here: Pickpocket
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
07/31/23
Sparing
Photo Cred 📸: @kaylaguilliams
This week's NEW Music Monday sees the return of an old NJAP favorite, Sparing. Their latest single, brings all the melody, harmony and sing-a-longs that we've come to know and love from the band, while heavily saturated with stanzas dropping with unknown futures.
On "Static at the End", Sparing opine on this uncertain future for themselves with splattered ink lyricism careening over infectiously delicious riffs, punctuated with rattling bass-lines and drums that could scale buildings. With echoes of mid aughts emo gilding the soaring vocals and husky shouts to round out an energetic but melancholy piece of tightly executed pop-punk, the song paints the image that a lot has changed for Zach Godwin, Sparing's primary creative wellspring. The approaching dawn of fatherhood as well as the regular tumult that faces life as a musician, the lyrics in "Static at the End" bring catchy yet stark choruses, asking whether it is best to soldier on or finally lay it all to rest.
Their latest can certainly be touted as their greatest even as a return to form, and while the bands future may be uncertain, here at NJAP we will certainly look forward to what the band may bring us next.
Checkout their new single here: Sparing
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
07/24/23
Welcome to Berlin
Photo Cred 📸: @squeji
It's not too often you find a DIY genre spanning album that hits as hard as anything you'd find from some larger label with infinite production expenses and unlimited studio time. It's even more wondrous and impressive when it's a new band's fresh effort, as is the case with this week's album, Welcome to Berlin's “...And It's Blinding”.
“Kalopsia” era Crows-An-Ra mixed dance punk coated in the restrictive residue of The Faint’s Danse Macabre urgently trying to wrench itself free ala 2000s era DIY post hardcore, “Dance Song” delivers on its promise and then some as wailing guitars reel to the sky and wave to the earthy basslines amongst syncopated drums with the colorful dynamic shifts on the track being only a slight taste of what's to come.
A song like “(Forward) Inverter” gave me pause after it finished, drinking in the realization that I wouldn’t get to hear it for the first time ever again. It plods along slowly as it ramps and builds until ripping a distorted melancholy series of riffs that echo the heavy fall days of 90s Emo, cresting and lamenting, the vocals ache and agonize over an incredible crescendo of all three band members meeting in unison to the tracks stuttered yet cathartic conclusion.
I love a long closing tracks and "AM Radio 720" certainly did not disappoint. From it's gritty intro to the unnerving groove it weaves in its first few minutes, the Sebadoh-esque midsection plunges into an strenuous stream of vocal intensity punched by 3rd wave Emocore intensity, with an out of left field final 3 minutes that I dare not despoil for you.
I can't mince words here, I fucking love this album. It's the most fun, intense, and beautiful musical mess I've heard in some time. "...And It's Blinding" deftly handles it's sprint across multiple sonic soundscapes while maintaining all of its vulnerability throughout. Welcome to Berlin have given every other band in the scene this year something to pay attention to. To paraphrase the great Andre 3000 "NC got something to say". We greatly look forward to what their undoubtedly bright future holds.
Checkout the Bandcamp Here: Welcome to Berlin
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
07/17/23
Joint Paper Wastebin
Photo Cred 📸: @prince_obumba
I feel weird being on TikTok. I probably shouldn’t, it is an app after all and these things are typically meant for everyone. Creators, artists, shitposters, meme fiends and so many others all flowing together and communicating, sharing, interacting with each other across the platform regardless of age sounds like too much fun to miss out on. I think this but still feel all the apprehension of being on that app. But then I have moments where I forget all that. Moments like when I came across Joint Paper Wastebin’s demos. I’m reminded of the joys of being able to randomly come across something cool on the internet and what makes it the great tool of our time. This New Music Monday we’re excited to give you Joint Paper Wastebin’s first ever single, off their brand new EP, “very cool very calm very nice”.
“I Can’t Skateboard” certainly sounds like a different band from what I had initially come across. They’re become even better. Like a contemporary midwest emo Colossal, the baritone vocals set nicely against the twinkling and joyful guitar, with punchy punk drumming and wonderfully melancholy bass rumbling in the background. Lyrics of insomnia and despondence may feel par for the course in the genre, sound invigorating and catchy here.
“I Can’t Skateboard” is one of three tracks off JPW’s debut EP “very cool very calm very nice” and it's definitely something that evokes a dark bedroom, with wide open eyes and a window playing the soft sounds of the world outside it. Capturing a lot of the finer points of midwest emo we greatly look forward to what Joint Paper Wastebin will bring us in the future. You can stream “I Can’t Skateboard” below and make sure to check out the full ep when it drops on all platforms July 15th.
onewaymirror
Photo Cred 📸: @unluckyouth
Welcome to another New Music Monday. This week we’re incredibly excited to premiere the latest track from California young guns onewaymirror. “As I Lay Dying” will be featured on their forthcoming split with Burial Etiquette “a tale of two cities” and we are incredibly hyped for the full split to drop. Hailing from Los Angeles, the band made their debut on the scene with their one song demo “Retrospect”, followed by their debut EP “but once the snow hits the ground, it hushes as still as my heart”. Their live shows are now frequently packed, often discussed and ahead of what's sure to be a killer tour with Catalyst out on the east coast, the band has already carved themselves a special spot in southern California's burgeoning scene.
Wildly sassy and intense, the track blisters to life with multiple vocal layers writhing around and in between one another, as richly distorted riffs raucously tumble against lumbering tonal bass. Drum beats wide and spacious trade tempos from surging breakdowns to a death march gallop as every sound happening gives space to its counterpart until everything blends all together for the latter half of the track, exploding and careening into silence.
Aside from it obviously about to be a white belt summer, onewaymirror are undoubtedly going to be doing big things for the genre, their sound is one beautifully swirled mix of screamo, sass and hardcore and pair that with their youthful exuberance and intense live presence and they for sure are a band to watch in the coming years. Give “As I Lay Dying” a listen below and make sure to stream the full split, “a tale of two cities” when it drops June 30th and make sure to grab a tape via Jean Scene.
drive your plow over the bones of the dead
Photo Cred 📸: @jtph0t0s
It isn't far-fetched to say that sometimes you get burnt out on music. I'm sure many of us have come to that point at one time or another, where you just kind of need a break from sound. Unfortunately I'm terrible at this. I was trying to take a little breather from music, but as soon as I saw the name drive your plow over the bones of the dead, I quietly muttered "Fuck" and pressed play. “Demo” is absurdly noisy, in all the ways that make it a delightful cacophony to listen to.
Opener "marionette" in milliseconds builds up its wall of sound brick by quickly picked brick, a whirling dervish of shrieks, guitars and drums become a thing of sonically disfigured beauty. Follow up track “propitiation” makes a meal out of its heady driving chugs, before its about face, an absolute wind-out to softening dissonance. Next we’re greeted by the quickly executed intro of “when what once worked suddenly breaks” before a meandering, yet delightfully lachrymose melody wraps itself around an-almost decipherable sound clip, as pockets of shouts and screams turn out a varying intervals, before the tracks gives one last upswell death throe surge forward, turns into silence. Closing track “aspected of dust” taps out what sounds to be a punk number, before swiveling back into the much and mire of noisy chaos that “demo” has so eagerly heaped upon us. Wailing riffs and circular howls grapple intensely with thunderous drums as the beat punches and punches and punches, until all you have is the residue of the last 9 or so odd minutes of this potently unflinching din.
Drive your plow, as I’ve begun referring to them in the shorthand, came out of nowhere it seemed, and have earned a fair bit of buzz for this punishingly fun iron maiden of racket they’ve put out. We’re greatly looking forward to what they have in store for us next.
Checkout the Bandcamp Here: drive your plow over the bones of the dead
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
06/19/23
Drought
Photo Cred 📸: @ryanellery
New Music Monday (On A Tuesday) presents the debut single from brand new Bay Area act, Drought. The band features members of Obsolete Man, Plush Palace, and ex-Caulfield, and their debut EP lands June 23rd.
Oh, Javelin harkens back to a time when Touché Amoré were barely packing VFW halls, Pianos Become the Teeth had a touch more screaming, and we were all still being blessed by Make, Do and Mend shows. The moody, melodic post-hardcore atmosphere is a tightrope walk of tense guitar, bass and shouts shy of a crackling yell, lumbers and broods as a slow march drum thrums aside soaring distorted fretwork. Terse and cryptic lyrics punctuate the track “Are we so temporary / just taking what we carry / with every thread a different hue / but stitched together they disappear / fading in and out of view” building the intensity,before driving towards a full cathartic release.
Drought could have easily been a part of The Wave (IYKYK), but we’re glad that we get to have them now. Composed of local scene vets and a very strong first offering, the band is clearly ready to make some noise. With some soon to be announced shows lined up and this new ep they’re self-releasing we’re predicting big things to come. We look forward to what they bring us next.
Make sure to keep an eye on their bandcamp for preorders, and to stream Oh Javelin now!
OLTH
Photo Cred 📸: @arthurswebpage
While OLTH were a new name to me, they certainly don’t sound new in any way. This week’s New Music Monday is their latest song “sOng fOr jOrdan” of their debut album “every day is sOmeOne's speciaL day” and this series of singles they've been releasing seem to indicate a modern classic is coming our way.
“sOng fOr jOrdan” starts out with a fuzzed out spoken word piece, complemented by emotive hardcore soaked instrumentals. Recounting a dream of a brief encounter the track quickly shifts into a wall of cycling and gnashing guitars as a looming thunderhead of a bassline rattles against hauntingly beautiful drums. Reminiscent of Swan of Tuonela, the wailed acuteness of the howling vocals finds itself coming through clearly in the blizzard of instrumental chaos.
OLTH are wild, they have a melodic triumphant nature, tempered with tasteful and gripping distortion constantly being pierced by a high-pitched shriek that bends and warps into a scream with as much control and ferocity as molten blade carving through steel. Their first ever album “every day is sOmeOne's speciaL day” is dropping June 6th, and the band has been on a tear recently playing shows, kissing babys and generally OLTHing about in anticipation of its release via Zegema Beach Records. The tapes won’t drop until June 1st but you can hit the link below for their latest single that they’ve been kind enough to share with us:
New Forms
Photo Cred 📸: Mikko K
2019 certainly wasn't a year we thought would be the last of a then unproclaimed era. Now we have so many different monikers all trying to say the same thing. The Before Times, Pre-Covid, Pre-Pandemic and so on and so on. None of us could have suspected what would happen the following year, a life changing stretch of time that kicked off in March of 2020 which gave us little time to digest much of what had occurred a year prior.
Somewhere in the murk of 2019, New Forms became a band and in December of that year dropped their debut EP, “I don’t want to live my life again” and it was good. Really good. Many of us were excited by what the band had to offer and were looking forward to more. However, with the advent of what was happening to the world, the band took a step back from performing, choosing instead to hone and evolve their sound. Now shy of four years since the EP, New Forms return to us with a new single, “The Hidden One”.
The band’s reoriented lineup hides behind a touch of obfuscation and though presented as a mystery to what the band has in the works, this single comes through as strongly as their previous work had. In classic fashion, the song is short, saccharine in its heaviness, and utilizes its minute length to the fullest. Whirling drumming rounds out coarse shouts as crushing guitars and surging bass lines thrum and bounce to build up into an explosive build up and release. In the bands own words:
“The Hidden One, put simply, is about growing up. Every person’s history is entirely unique and theirs alone. As we age, we carry with us emotions that are tied to memories which we choose to hold onto and others we need to let go of. Shifting from childhood to adulthood is a complex and ongoing process of changes and challenges that sets the stage for the rest of a person’s life.”
Boasting members of Youth Funeral, Reveries and Casper Elgin (to name a few) the band's pedigree shines through in their cohesive and powerful brand of Emoviolence. Make sure to give the single a listen below and catch them if you can at This Is Emoviolence, put on by our beloved Illuminate My Heart Records, on May 13th in Providence, Rhode Island at AS220.
Taubenhund
Photo Cred 📸: @severine_kpoti_photographie
Photo of Jochen who is one of the artists on this song
This week we have been honored a superb premiere from our friends over at Zegema Beach Records via their Tomb Tree Tapes imprint. New Music Monday is excited to bring you the latest single from TAUBENHUND, the new super group featuring members of Burial Etiquette, Warren Of Ohms, Letterbombs, Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow, In Wolves' Clothing and many more.
We’ve been obsessed with “Even an Insect Can Dream of playing God” ever since it hit our inbox. Taken from the debut EP, “A Collection of Highly Unlikely Collaborations”, the track kicks off with intensely twangy packing strums and scattershot drumming as shirek-howled vocals wind and soar. Breaking into dancey territory before ripping back into melodic riffs and heavy humming bass, the song accelerates as quickly as it slows, pulling you further in with its powerful bridge before ramping to its massive conclusion.
“A Collection of Highly Unlikely Collaborations” is very much the sum of its parts and “Even an Insect Can Dream of playing God” is just one incredible song amongst many others. Available through Tomb Tree Tapes Wednesday April 19th on three sick variants. Make sure to grab one, but in the meantime enjoy this exclusive track they shared with us.
Versera
Photo Cred 📷 : @andwefoughtt
Despite my best attempts to avoid it, I remember the bad times every now and again. I try to catch myself from following that fog strewn path back into an awful darkness that I worked hard to pull myself out of. There’s a personal hell for all of us, waiting in the back of our heads and I know I'm not the only one who's had an award ceremony for my personal top moments of utter failure, especially after listening to “All the poems I wrote about you”.
“Je déteste ton absence” twangs to life, strumming and swelling almost immediately before bursting forth into this colorfully noisy wall of sound. Cacophonous and potent, a howled shriek pierces through squealing riffs, chugs, and pained choruses round out an incredible opening track.
The battle hymn-esque opening of “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but maybe if they had coffee” seems to be in direct opposition of the track's almost whimsical title. In classic Screamo fashion, the name cheekily compliments swirling guitars and thunderous drumming all clanging across winding bass lines before zeroing out into silence.
As the EP closes out with “We were oblivious” the strongly opined pain found throughout the project is reiterated with an even heavier emphasis. The anguished vocals paint vivid pictures across a canvas of dissonant and heavy instrumentation. The melodically reserved guitar interlude provides brevity in the form of a held breath before spinning itself back into an incredible racket of clattering cymbals and massive riffs.
“All the poems I wrote about you” is a brilliant first offering from Versera. Its blistering assembly of sound feels the right amount of heavy coupled with intense vocal work. Noisy screamo is something that can work easily but to make it sound really good is a whole other obstacle to scale. The band makes quick work of this and deftly handles a storied tradition of the genre in a way that some bands struggle with even later on in their careers.
Versera are definitely ones to watch in the coming years and we look forward to whatever they bring us next.
Check them out on Spotify : Versera
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
04/10/23