rock

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Bambies’ Snotty Angels LP. Rare is the band that is capable of taking a very well-established sound, tweaking it ever-so-slightly and landing on something that is instantly rewarding and gratifying for those who hear it, but Bambies – a teeny tiny band on an even smaller label – have made an album which lands them among that aforementioned select few. The band’s sophomore album is just bombastic; from front to back, the...

Stress Dolls Queen of No (Sun Pedal Recordings) Queen of No, the new Stress Dolls album, lives up to the band name. It is a journey through head Stress Doll Chelsea O’Donnell’s anxieties, ranging from health issues (she suffers from Crohn’s Disease), relationships, social media and more existential questions. Though the music is firmly based in pop-punk, a variety of styles illuminate the various themes which run through the album. In general, the more declarative songs — where she directly...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Drowns’ Blacked Out LP. While the number of ways that a band may choose to change their sound in the name of refreshing it or updating it are almost innumerable, what The Drowns have done on Blacked Out is genuinely impressive. This time out, the band has left most of the punk and hardcore are forms that the band has been developing and refining over the last few years behind and...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the For Family And Flag Volume 2 LP. While it took a little longer for Pirates Press to return to their For Family and Flag series than anyone likely expected , there’s no question that the label couldn’t have picked a more opportune time or angle of approach for a return, as one scans the track list on For Family And Flag...

Son Henry & T. Rogers Band Grace (Twang House Records) In 2009, American blues musician and lap steel virtuoso Son Henry arrived at a music festival in Estonia with only his lap steel. The rest of his equipment was stuck at Heathrow Airport, where it remained for six months. He was rescued by T. Rogers band, “a group of mad Hungarians,” as he put it. They loaned him equipment and gave him stage time. A lifelong connection was established. Ten...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Vapids’ Revenge Therapy LP. Beyond a certain point, it’s understandable how fans of any given punk band lower their expectations of new albums, when they’re announced. Part of that might have to do with the age of the band playing a role; whether they admit it or not, fans of four-chord punk expect the bands making the music to be young and snotty. It could be argued that such is the...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Ace Of Wands’ Desiring LP. It’s hard to articulate how cool this is and how much this statement means but, from moment one of listening to Ace Of Wands’ new album, there is a direct artistic and creative line which connects Ace Of Wands to Heart. Of course, making comparisons between other artists and the work of Ann and Nancy Wilson is easy enough to do on a completely superficial level, but...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Heavy Machinery EP by SLIP-ons. There aren’t many ways for a band to write songs which sound unmistakably similar to the work of another group without sounding derivative. The only way that it’s possible to walk such a narrow and treacherous line is to be completely ignorant of it; the band in question just has to bull their way in and boldly be themselves – and any similarity that the group...

I first saw Chelsea O’Donnell perform as Stress Dolls at the Bug Jar in Rochester, NY in April of 2019. That night, she performed solo; a woman alone on stage with an electric guitar. One song, “Noise,” particularly caught my attention – it started mellow but built to her screaming, “sometimes I just want to make noise!” How could I not love that? I started following her on Bandcamp and quickly found much more to love, especially her harder rocking...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Full Sun LP by Spitting Image. While such things might seem like the definition of logic to those on the outside looking in, some bands feel compelled to lay up when they make their first introduction to audiences rather than making an orgiastic statement the first time a needle drops on their album. For example, Jane’s Addiction laid up when they made their presence known on their Warner Records debut, Nothing’s...