It may look like water weight, but it’s just too much good music that’s stretching ye olde mail bag. Check out new tunes from MK Blank, Boh Doran, SubLuminal, Brian Elliot, Quelle Rox, Jenny Kern, The Deathray Davies, Sprints, Club Bombardier and Blood Lemon.
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MK Blank – “Have A Breakdown”
So many great influences mixed up in this one. There’s classic early alternative rock ala The Replacements swirled with a little John Vanderslice advanced pop rock skills and a dash of roots rock of the Old 97’s variety. It’s a rocker that hits so many different sweet spots it feels nostalgic while still sounding fresh.
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Boh Doran – “Cats Cradle”
Another one to proudly wear its 80’s/90’s alt rock influence on its sleeve, Boh Doran’s “Cats Cradle” is a shoegaze influenced pop song that sounds quite a bit like Juliana Hatfield fronting Lush and has us seriously considering bringing back the combat boots with sundress look of our youth.
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SubLuminal – “Android Youth”
Part of a concept album about an android on Mars that dreams of a human life, “Android Youth” is suitably cinematic, but it also retains the intimacy necessary to connect to your human ears and heart.
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Brian Elliot – “Strange”
Part cowboy shuffle, part Scott Walker cool strut, “Strange” bops and swings with cinematic flair and at times feels almost like a lost track from Hedwig and the Angry Inch – which is just about the highest compliment we can give.
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Quelle Rox – “No Surprises”
Despite its title, “No Suprises” is indeed a surprise, and what a fantastic one at that. We’ve never before heard a song that has blended bedroom indie pop sensibilities with a straight up turn down the lights r&b slow jam in a manner that works so well. Baby making music for the new generation? Perhaps.
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Jenny Kern – “Run”
Jenny Kern returns with another pitch perfect pop song for grown folk. There’s a maturity and simple sophistication to her work on par with the finest work of Everything But The Girl and Beth Orton. Kern is the current torch bearer that give us hope for the genre at large.
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The Deathray Davies – “Time Well Wasted”
Look, for as terrible as everything still is there are the occasional bright spots in 2021. Take for example the return of one of indie rock’s greatest unsung bands of the aughts, The Deathray Davies. Never ones to shy away from their love of The Kinks (check the name for starters) that love is on full display in the new single “Time Well Wasted,” a slice of wry 60’s sunshine pop perfection.
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Sprints – “Swimming”
Not unlike their fellow Irish punk revivalists Fontaines D.C., Sprints have come to kick out the jams in a refreshingly authentic way. This is the sound of desperate youth, pissed at the vinegar sold to them as water by a post capitalist society. It’s a sonic brick through the establishment’s glass house and that is a beautiful thing indeed.
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Club Bombardier – “Nothing Personal”
A thoroughly modern rocker, “Nothing Personal” moves and grooves like the bastard child of IDLES and Queens of the Stone Age and hot damn does it work. Urgent, blood pumping rock and roll.
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Blood Lemon – “Black-Capped Cry”
Well this fucking rules. A three piece all female slow doom metal song with epic vocal melodies from all three members harmonizing, this is both heavy af and beautiful af and a breath of fresh air in the heavy rock scene.
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