Drug Church "Prude"
From Pure Noise Records:
Drug Church is #1, so why try harder? Truer words may have never been spoken (or emblazoned upon merch that may or may not reference a novelty shirt seen on a 1998 Fatboy Slim album cover). For over a decade, Drug Church have been building a very strong case that they’re the best loud guitar band in the game; their fifth full-length PRUDE–a 28-minute blast of aggression, melody, irreverence, and genuine heart–feels like the undeniable proof. The album is so downright satisfying it tricks you into thinking there’s nothing all that surprising about a difficult-to-pigeonhole punk band from Albany, NY, with a name like Drug Church somehow having a career at all, much less one that would last over 10 years and qualify them as the best band going. But before you start trying to think of who might have them beat (good luck), consider what just might be the key to Drug Church’s unexpected staying power: Don’t take it too seriously.
Bronze "Bronze"
From Under the Radar Magazine:
Chicago indie band Bronze are set to debut their self-titled LP, a record that hearkens back to a bygone breezy and sun-dappled era of AM radio pop. Band members Dylan Ryan, Scott McGaughey, and Nic Johns are all veterans of the indie rock underground, having played with bands like The Motels, Cursive, Ben Lee, Red Krayola, and Man Man, but found themselves wanting to pursue a pop experiment. They were united by a shared love of the soft rock and yacht rock of the ‘70s like Roxy Music, Robin Gibb, and Steely Dan.
The band created Bronze as an attempt to evoke those influences, playing with sleek studio craftsmanship on a DIY budget. They have been sharing a series of new singles from the record this year, “Jewelry is Magic,” “Light on Shadow,” and “Grand Canyon,” and today they’re back with a final taste of the album, “Mezzanine,” premiering with Under the Radar.
Their latest singles have further proven the band as devotees of vintage radio pop, with each track playing with a slightly different tone. “Jewelry Is Magic” was flashy and catchy while “Light On Shadow” and “Grand Canyon” felt lithe and airy. “Mezzanine” immerses the band in a similarly kitschy retro pop veneer, but pulls them in a simmering nocturnal direction, akin to bands like The Blue Nile. The track pulses with subtle bass grooves, weaving luxuriant funk undercurrents amongst the sleek guitar licks and drum machine beat. The results feel exceedingly smooth and effortlessly playful, offering the sort of easygoing charm born from a studied love of the band’s influences.
Caribou "Honey"
Upon first listen, two things about Honey are immediately clear: First, it is an entirely new kind of Caribou record. Second, in being an entirely new kind of Caribou record, it is in keeping with Dan Snaith’s discography, each new album marked by radical thematic and sonic shifts. Honey is not a departure from the Caribou we’ve known up to this point but rather the product of a lifetime spent listening to and crafting immaculate pop music.
After two intensely personal Caribou albums (Suddenly and the Grammy-nominated Our Love), Snaith now pulls himself away a little in search of music that isn’t about any one person and is relatable to everybody. It also brings Snaith’s two personas, Caribou and Daphni, closer together than ever before. On Honey, Snaith fuses their strengths into a record that grabs you and moves you like Daphni before it uplifts you like Caribou. Huge dancefloor tracks twinkle and surprise in a way only Snaith’s productions can, with a freshness that defines an artist who is too excited by music-making to ever truly settle into any one sound.
Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn "Quiet in a World Full of Noise"
Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn share a common collaborative ethos, a genuine sense of musical curiosity, and a cosmopolitan eagerness to escape the conventions of genre. That shared vision first brought them together on 2022’s Pigments—icy and warm, stripped-down and grand, familiar and otherworldly—and now it has reunited them for Quiet in a World Full of Noise
By turns intimate, soul-baring, spectral, and startling, Quiet in a World Full of Noise blends atmospheric and orchestral soundscapes with mellifluous soul, jazz, and journalistic vocalizing—driving it all home with stark, confessional lyricism. The new album finds Richard at her most raw and exposed. Quiet expands the definitions of what constitutes progressive, avant-garde R&B by rewriting them altogether.