Naked Giants
Seattle’s Naked Giants burst onto the national music scene with their 2018 full-length debut, SLUFF, a candied and insanely catchy blast of unhinged pop-punk-grunge-surf-rock. But if that record was the sound of, as one reviewer labeled them, a trio of “affable miscreants just out of high school” getting their musical rocks off, then The Shadow, the band’s new and second studio effort, is in comparison a decidedly more—what’s the word?—mature offering.That is, if “mature” is the appropriate term for an album where one member is credited with playing a fun machine, and another merely with “charisma.”And so, welcome once again to the extraordinary and eccentric world of Naked Giants. They might be older (average age: 23) and wiser, but the band members—singer and guitarist Grant Mullen, singer and bassist Gianni Aiello and drummer Henry LaVallee—are still out to conjure a rip-roaring good time.In fact, cue up The Shadow, and within little more than the first five minutes you’ve already careened through the throttling “Walk of Doom,” a blitz of post-punk riffing, wastoid gang shouting and toms-heavy drumming; the singalong anthem-for-the-disaffected “High School (Don’t Like Them),” in which Mullen aloofly intones of former class mates, “Now you’re lying on the couch and life’s busted / Never made a big sting or erupted” over waves of ratty, distorted chords; and the taut, falsetto-flecked “Take a Chance,” a Talking Heads-ish funk-rock workout with bits of shimmery synth and lo-fi slide guitar riffing thrown in for good measure.“It’s all about how many smiles can we crack on the people that are listening to this music,” LaVallee says by way of something like a mission statement. “And also on the people that are playing it.”And to be sure, The Shadow is an energetic and exhilarating musical rollercoaster ride. But there’s also a whole lot more to it.Take, for starters, “Turns Blue,” an ‘80s-tinged dream-pop torch song that floats along on an undulating bass line and heavily reverberated dew-drop guitars before erupting in a soft explosion of pounding drums and harmonized na-na-na’s in the chorus.Or “The Ripper,” a slice of mellowed-out, dark-toned psych-folk that, in lines like “wash me away ‘til my color’s gone,” explores, as songwriter Aiello puts it, the “effects of Western cultural domination and colonization attitudes from the large scale onto the small scale” (even if, LaVallee admits with a slight laugh, he interpreted those same lyrics as being about “ripping bong hits”).Subject matter aside, the point, of course, is that The Shadow reveals new and welcome layers to the Naked Giants sound, both musically and lyrically. For every anthem like the wiry, slamming “(God Damn!) What I Am” (“I’m feeling all right / I’ve got my band and my song is playing all night”), there’s a “heartfelt acoustic ballad” (LaVallee’s words) like “Song for When You Sleep,” a junkyard-blues workout like “Better Not Waste My Time” and a socially-conscious new-wave jam like “Television,” where over a loopy, hypnotic groove Aiello laments, “Eighteen, nineteen dead this week / But have you seen this fucking meme?”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
La Luz
On their self-titled fourth album, La Luz launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy for a collection of songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry that has found manifestation in the musical ESP between guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon, and keyboardist Alice Sandahl.To help shape La Luz, the band found a kindred spirit in producer Adrian Younge. Though primarily known for his work with hip-hop, soul, and jazz acts, Younge saw in La Luz a shared vision that transcended genre. “We both create music with the same attitude, and that’s what I love about them,” he says. “They are never afraid to be risky and their style is captivating. It was an honor to work with them.”The result is an album that is both the most naturalistic and psychedelic of the band’s career. All the elements of classic La Luz are still present—the lush harmonies, the impeccable musicianship, the gorgeous melodies—but it’s a richer, earthier iteration, replete with inorganic sounds that mimic the surreality of nature—the humming of invisible bugs, the atmospheric sizzle of a hot day. La Luz is an album that celebrates love—of music, of friendship, of life in all its forms.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Symphony X
A distinct murmur went around the world in 1994 when a certain six-string guitarist from New Jersey named Michael Romeo of the prog band Gemini recorded The Dark Chapter demo and sent it out to record labels. It seemed the new guitar messiah of the coming 21st Century had made himself known to the world and he’d soon launch a new band that would stir up the prog genre. With an innovative mixture of heavy metal, progressive rock and neo-classical sounds, Romeo and his men in SYMPHONY X recorded a debut album (released in Japan in ’94; released worldwide in 1995) that began their journey to create a blueprint for the young generation of prog metal bands to follow.The Damnation Game (1995) celebrated the debut of the band‘s second asset: the charismatic, deeply emotional and relentlessly aggressive vocals of Russell Allen. The Divine Wings Of Tragedy (1997) placed the emphasis on the band’s progressive approach and is still considered to be SYMPHONY X’s ultimate masterpiece. Twilight In Olympus (1998) livened up the band’s classical aspects with the instrumental ‘Sonata’ (which is based on the piano Sonata No. 8 ‘Pathétique’ by Ludwig van Beethoven). Via V: The New Mythology Suite (2000), the quintet delivered their first concept album at the turn of the millenium that dealt with the myth of Atlantis. Live On The Edge Of Forever (2001) was visual proof that the band could easily transpose their complex material onto the stage. Oriented towards the eponymous poem by English poet John Milton, the thrashing harshness of The Odyssey (2002) is said to be the band’s most aggressive album to date. Paradise Lost (2007) is the darkest and most gothic-like work in the band’s discography.Considering this accomplished history of prolific creation, prog connoisseurs may ask themselves how SYMPHONY X could possibly go one better. The answer comes from the singer himself, Russell Allen: “Iconoclast delivers a summary of our previous work and a musical positioning of SYMPHONY X within the second decade of the new century.” Meanwhile, Michael Romeo raises the bar enormously with his guitar work: “This record will only become accessible to the listener after several runs. That was our purpose – otherwise we would have failed trying to create a multi-faceted and profound album that gives pleasure to our fans for a long time!”‘Iconoclast,’ an opus of an eleven-minute opening track, leads off with convoluted, labyrinthine guitar parts that become smoothly interconnected. To comprehend its motives right away would be an achievement; this also remains true of the remaining 52 minutes of concentrated prog-power.Whether it’s the straight rock track ‘The End Of Innocence,’ the ponderous and doom-like ‘Dehumanized,’ the dynamic ‘Bastards Of The Machine,’ the thrashing dark ‘Heretic’ (the most obvious cross-reference to the previous album Paradise Lost), or the virtuosic but brutal ‘Prometheus (I Am Alive),’ the fusion of musicality and the fascinating richness of detail shown here will make the listener ask whether Iconoclast should be considered a straight prog rock album or a classic rock record accentuated with elements of prog.Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Sammy Rae & The Friends
For as much as Sammy Rae & The Friends may be a band, this collective of, dreamers, and artists considers itself a family first.Fronted by singer and songwriter Sammy Rae, the group flourishes in any spotlight with a combination of all-for-one and one-for-all camaraderie, palpable chemistry, deft virtuosity, and vocal fireworks. Their sound is a mélange of Sammy’s influences, rooted in classic rock, folk, and funk and sprinkled with soul and jazz. Complete with a rhythm section, horn section, keyboards, and two backup singers, Sammy Rae & The Friends have or will deliver their high-energy, spirited and unrestrained shows to sold-out audiences in the Northeast and beyond, including New York City’s Brooklyn Steel, Boston’s The Royal, LA the Teregram, Burlington’s Higher Ground, and Chicago’s Lincoln Hall.“Because we come from so many different spaces and studies of music, we’re able to create something very unique,” Sammy states. “We learn from one another as we’re playing together. We’re grateful to have found people who speak the same language, but also speak their own. We have a vision for longevity. The only way that works is if we behave as a family. We’re all very grateful to have the support of one another. This is a large group of people where everyone plays an important role. It’s the lunch table I always wanted as a kid.”Sammy Rae & The Friends built this kind of trust one show at a time. As the story goes, our fearless leader grew up in Derby, CT, learned piano, and penned her first crop of songs at just 12-years-old. Under the spell of everyone from Queen to Ella Fitzgerald to Bruce Springsteen, she honed her voice. By high school, she cut her teeth in local venues, even releasing a series of independent solo records before college. New York eventually called to the songstress as she enrolled in Manhattan College during 2013. Toughing it out tooth and nail in The Big Apple, she left college in 2014 to pursue music full-time and threw down at countless gigs while continuing to write and record at a prolific pace. At the same time, crowds doubled with every rapturous performance as they built an inclusive safe space for fans everywhere.Meanwhile, they’ve racked up over 20 million streams on Spotify and have played festivals along The Revivalists, Lake Street Dive, ST Paul and The Broken Bones, and more. The unit only grew stronger.The band advocates for the importance of their community. Avid music fans themselves, they pride themselves on this original grass-roots, word-of-mouth growth. The Friends is their community of followers, artists and creatives who help in the creation of their songs and sustenance of the project—their mixing engineer, band photographer, graphic designer, budget manager, and everyone who hangs around the shows supporting the vision. Shows are safe spaces to feel overwhelmed with love and acceptance. “Friends” in the audience are encouraged to dress how they like, dance how they like, join the party and form person-to-person Friendships. Sammy Rae & The Friends shows are like a house party, a church of rock and roll, and shot in the arm of affirmation of individuality.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
Porches
I’ve been making music as Porches since 2009. It’s an ongoing exploration of any sounds or ideas that I find interesting in a particular moment. Ideally, as time passes, these seemingly disparate ideas will become unified in the context of the Porches catalogue. Kind of like a public diary.My aim is to swim to the bottom of myself and find the most beautiful and strange things I can offer. Porches is my love affair with music and my love affair with the world. Music keeps me alive and I hope these songs can serve the people that listen to them as well.My new album, Ricky Music, was written and recorded between Dec 2017 and the spring of 2019. Mostly in New York at my apartment, but some of it in Chicago, Los Angeles, and various cities while touring around Europe. This record is an account of the beauty, confusion, anger, joy and sadness I experienced during that time. I think I was as lost as I was madly in love. In these songs I hear myself sometimes desperate for clarity, and other times, having enough perspective to laugh at myself in some of my darkest moments. That’s sort of what this album is about, I hope you enjoy it.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Samia
Samia’s 2020 debut album, The Baby, was a testament to her impressive vocal might, irresistible tunefulness and vulnerable lyricism, both clever and illuminating in equal measure. Drawing widespread acclaim from Pitchfork, Stereogum, NPR, NME, The Sunday Times, and others, the LP more than delivered following the promise of early singles like 2018’s “Django” and 2019’s “Ode to Artice.” After emerging as one of the most exciting up-and-comers in indie rock, Samia released a companion album this past January titled The Baby Reimagined, a collection of covers and remixes featuring Bartees Strange, Anjimile, Field Medic, Palehound, former tourmate Donna Missal, and more.Samia spent much of 2020 in self-reection, and she also made various life changes that left her feeling more earnest and centered. “I got back into therapy and started thinking about boundaries, I moved to Nashville, I did yoga sometimes,” she says. During this time, she wrote a handful of songs that make up Scout, a new EP out digitally on July 23. “These were pretty much the only four songs that came naturally during this time, but I think they really mirror my emotional experience this past year,” Samia says.While The Baby leaned more on self-deprecating humor, Scout was born out of a need to “honor feeling secure in what [she] had to say.” Lead track “As You Are” revels in the preciousness of unconditional love (“When somebody loves you / They take you as you are,” she belts in the chorus) and oats delicately with graceful vocals and steady percussion. Staticky guitar number “Show Up” is an acknowledgment of personal growth, and its unwavering desire for wholesome joy really tugs at the heartstrings (“Nothing could ever stop / my ass from showing up / to sing another song for the people I love”). The EP is packed with reverence for life’s ups and downs, but more than anything, it’s an ode to loved ones.The compassionate glow of this EP partially stems from her new Nashville surroundings, as well as her recent experiences “feeling genuinely loved, making new friends, and holding onto old friendships.” There’s a palpable intimacy to these recordings, whether it’s the voicemail murmurs of “As You Are,” the heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics or the piano twinkles throughout. It’s reminiscent of that reassuring exhale in the mirror after an imperfect yet fullling day. As Samia puts it, Scout is “The Baby’s slightly older sister letting her know that everything is gonna be alright.”The EP title is a nickname of Samia’s, and it’s a tting nod to the record’s benevolence. “My partner calls me Scout,” she explains. “It’s just a word that implies bravery to me. I always picture a little girl with a sash and badges basking in her autonomy selling Samoas.” Whether you’re a girl scout trying to gain condence or an adult who needs reminders of our inability to make everyone happy (“Elephant”) or the untold power of being there for someone (“The Promise”), this EP is an unashamed loving nudge.Links: Website | TikTok | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
David Bromberg Quintet
This is a seated show.With his 1971 self-titled Columbia Records release, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter David Bromberg emerged as a wunderkind of American music. The blend of traditional and original material, virtuosic musicianship and iconic cover art trumpeted the arrival of a new and audacious artist. With seven more albums and associations with Bob Dylan, Jerry Jeff Walker, George Harrison, the Grateful Dead and Bonnie Raitt, Bromberg’s reputation and following grew exponentially until the incessant demands of touring finally brought the recordings and shows to an end in the early 1980s.The twenty-two-year drought ended in 2006 with the release of the Grammy-nominated Try Me One More Time. David followed up with Use Me, a typically unorthodox Brombergian effort, partnering him with Linda Ronstadt, Vince Gill, Los Lobos, Dr. John, Keb’ Mo, John Hiatt, Levon Helm and others as David asked them to either write or choose songs and then produce him performing them. Two more albums emerged from 2013 to 2017, Only Slightly Mad and The Blues the Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues, both produced by 3 x Grammy winner Larry Campbell. Recorded at Levon Helm’s Barn, Only Slightly Mad brought the band back to David’s eclectic ‘kitchen sink’ musical philosophy, while The Whole Blues proved Texas fiddler Johnny Gimbel’s theory that: “There are only two songs—‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and the blues.”With David’s band settling into its current lineup, Mark Cosgrove (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Nate Grower (fiddle, mandolin, guitar, vocals), Josh Kanusky (drums, vocals) and newest member, Suavek Zaniesienko (bass, vocals), in 2019 they recorded Big Road, giving Bromberg fans the most intimate portrait of David and his band to date. With twelve new recordings, five hi-def performance videos and a mini-documentary detailing the album’s creation, the content rich album was released on Compass/Red House Records in April 2020. COVID put an end to all live shows until fall 2021, which is where David is poised to write his next chapter.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify
Hovvdy
Last year, Charlie Martin impulsively wrote T-R-U-E L-O-V-E in all caps across the top of what would become the title track of his and Will Taylor’s fourth Hovvdy album. The on-the-nose instinct encapsulates the LP’s elemental look at relationships – familial, romantic, friendly – and that desire to capture them in a bottle. Since the creation of their last album, both Charlie and Will have married their partners. Will became a father.A nod to their roots and a reach for more, True Love maturely embraces the best of the duo’s hyper-genuine, chin-up qualities developed over the past seven years. Charlie and Will first met at a baseball game while touring with other bands, both as drummers. Back home in Austin, the pair connected over shared sports-centric upbringings in Dallas and, most prominently, likeminded batches of solo songwriting. The interlocking tracks would become 2016 LP Taster, introducing a comforting sonic push-and-pull continued in the innate melodies of Cranberry (2018) and the propulsive storytelling of breakthrough Heavy Lifter (2019).Fourth album True Love follows a surprisingly folksy and beautifully determined course, just hinting at the lo-fi layers of the Austin-based project’s DIY origins. Co-produced by the genre-morphing Andrew Sarlo (Nick Hakim, Big Thief, Bon Iver), the acoustically-driven, forward-looking songwriters’ statement stamps Hovvdy’s debut with Grand Jury Music.Charlie and Will add: “This collection of songs feels to us like a return to form, writing and recording songs for ourselves and loved ones. Spending less energy consumed with how people may respond freed us up to put our efforts into creating an honest, heartfelt album.”Throughout 2020, the band visited Sarlo’s small Los Angeles studio to put down their biggest-sounding record yet. Trusted guidance freed Charlie and Will to play to their strengths on essential elements – an upright piano, an acoustic guitar, a few keyboards. Songs harken to the duo’s Southern totems of Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams, with longtime collaborator Ben Littlejohn adding pedal steel and dobro for subtle drawl. Will calls True Love “the other side of the coin” from past LP Heavy Lifter’s tweaked pop, reflecting instead on the sturdy strums of sophomore Cranberry.“Sarlo heard things in our individual production styles that we might otherwise feel self-conscious about, but he would lean into them,” says Charlie. “We knew we could come in with a very stripped-down acoustic guitar song and it would end up being expansive and vast. I felt really confident in letting this record be as tender and beautiful as we could make it, knowing there would always be a layer of darkness in there.”“Blindsided” embodies the bespoke Hovvdy balance. Charlie’s waltzing piano lines and classical bedding make way for punctuated vocal assurances. Will’s textured guitar downbeats also softly power syncopated storytelling on “Lake June.” Channeling the warmth of new fatherhood, he repeats “I love you so much” at the song’s center.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Snail Mail
Lindsey Jordan is on the brink of something huge, and she’s only just graduated high school. Her voice rises and falls with electricity throughout Lush, her debut album as Snail Mail, spinning with bold excitement and new beginnings at every turn.“Is there any better feeling than coming clean?” sings the eighteen-year-old guitarist and songwriter halfway through the sprawling anthem that is “Pristine,” the album’s first single. You can’t help but agree with her. It’s a hook that immediately sticks in your head—and a question she seems to be grappling with throughout the record’s 10-songs of crystalline guitar pop.Throughout Lush, Jordan’s clear and powerful voice, acute sense of pacing, and razor-sharp writing cut through the chaos and messiness of growing up: the passing trends, the awkward house parties, the sick-to-your-stomach crushes and the heart wrenching breakups. Jordan’s most masterful skill is in crafting tension, working with muted melodrama that builds and never quite breaks, stretching out over moody rockers and soft-burning hooks, making for visceral slow-releases that stick under the skin.Lush feels at times like an emotional rollercoaster, only fitting for Jordan’s explosive, dynamic personality. Growing up in Baltimore suburb Ellicot City, Jordan began her classical guitar training at age five, and a decade later wrote her first audacious songs as Snail Mail. Around that time, Jordan started frequenting local shows in Baltimore, where she formed close friendships within the local scene, the impetus for her to form a band. By the time she was sixteen, she had already released her debut EP, Habit, on local punk label Sister Polygon Records.In the time that’s elapsed since Habit, Jordan has graduated high school, toured the country, opened for the likes of Girlpool and Waxahatchee as well as selling out her own headline shows, and participated in a round-table discussion for the New York Times about women in punk—giving her time to reflect and refine her songwriting process by using tempered pacings and alternate tunings to create a jawdropping debut both thoughtful and cathartic. Recorded with producer Jake Aron and engineer Johnny Schenke, with contributions from touring bandmates drummer Ray Brown and bassist Alex Bass as well, Lush sounds cinematic, yet still perfectly homemade.The songs on Lush often come close to the five-minute mark, making them long enough to get lost in. The album’s more gauzy and meditative songs play out like ideal end-of-the-night soundtracks, the kind that might score a 3am conversation or a long drive home, from the finger-picking of “Speaking Terms” to the subtle, sweeping harmonies and French horn on “Deep Sea.” It only makes sense that Jordan wrote these songs late at night during a time when she was obsessively reading Eileen Myles and listening to a lot of slowcore and folk songwriters.“Heat Wave” is one of the album’s most devastating moments, a song that wallows in a crumbling mid-summer relationship. “I broke it off, called out of my shift, and just cried in my bathtub and wrote this song,” Jordan recalls.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Squirrel Flower
Squirrel Flower’s heart-rending sophomore album Planet (i), following her 2020 debut I Was Born Swimming, is exactly that. A singular planet, a world entirely of artist Ella Williams’ making. The title came first to her as a joke: it’s her made-up name for the new planet people will inevitably settle and destroy after leaving Earth, as well as the universe imagined within her music. “Planet (i) is my body and mind,” Williams says, “and it’s the physical and emotional world of our planet. It’s both.” Buoyed by her steadfast vision and propelled by her burning comet of a voice, the record is a love letter to disaster in every form imaginable. Tornadoes, flooding, gaslighting assholes, cars on fire—these songs fully embrace a planet in ruin. As Williams rides from melancholy to jubilance to complete emotional devastation over the course of twelve songs, she carves out a future for herself and those she loves. Planet (i), out June 25, 2021 on Polyvinyl and Full Time Hobby, is at once a refuge, an act of self-healing, and a musical reflection of Squirrel Flower’s inner and outer worlds.Williams wrote most of the songs on Planet (i) before the COVID-19 pandemic, but disaster looms large in its DNA. Susceptible to head injuries having played a lot of sports in her youth, Williams received three concussions from 2019-2020; two at cafe jobs in her home state of Massachusetts, and a third, funnily enough, while making out with someone in a sloped attic at a house show. Amidst the chaos of touring internationally during her own healing process, she began weaving threads between her physical and personal sense of ruin and her lifelong fear of the elements: of being swept up by storms, floods, and the deep ocean. “To overcome my fear of disasters,” Williams says, “I had to embody them, to stare them down.” This journey of decay and healing is the lifeblood of Planet (i). “I’m not scared of the storm,” she insists on “Desert Wildflowers.” “I’ll be lying on the roof when the tornado turns.”Once quarantine set in, Williams, known for her magnetic live concerts, began to produce demos in her room, amassing a collection of more than 30 recordings. “I constantly write,” she says, “but because of the pandemic and the unemployment checks I received, I was able to spend every day recording what became the skeleton of this album.” Feeling a sense of artistic synchronicity over international phone calls with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius), and with newfound covid antibodies, Williams flew to Bristol, UK in the fall of 2020 to record Planet (i) at Chant’s studio, The Playpen. “We had this shared creative language,” she recalls, “and the recording process was, like my demo process, very sculptural. Instead of recording live with a full band, we built this record layer by layer, experimenting, taking risks.” Williams dedicated her time in Bristol to exploration, both in the studio and outside of it. As she roamed the city in her beloved green garden mucks, the same boots featured on Planet (i)’s album art, Squirrel Flower unlocked a new creative alchemy.While Williams and Chant played most of the instruments on the record, Bristol drummer Matt Brown and Portishead’s Adrian Utley also joined their sessions. “Adrian brought such stunning textures to the arrangements,” Williams says. “I was starstruck watching him play guitar with a pair of pliers.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
