Pitchfork Likes Heavenly’s New LP
Pitchfork recently gave Heavenly‘s new album Highway To Heavenly a 7.9. “With new wisdom and experience,” the site writes, “the groundedness Heavely explored on their last two records has only intensified, without sacrificing the band’s sentimental side. As long as an afternoon spent inside with tea and cookies still hits the spot and men still abuse their clout in […]
Country Music News International Celebrates The “Definitive Voice” Of Rose’s Pawn Shop
Country Music News International calls Rose’s Pawn Shop “a definitive voice in American roots music” and says the titular track of the band’s new album American Seams is “both a homecoming and a bold step into the unknown. It is a song that feels as worn-in as a favorite denim jacket, yet it vibrates with a modern, ‘amplified grit’ that […]
Zadar Official Says Jeffrey Runnings Has Lasting Power
Zadar Official says Jeffrey Runnings‘ posthumous album Piqued is “not a retrospective or curated collection. It is a raw document of where Runnings was creatively in his final years. No attempt was made to modernize the sound or turn these songs into something they weren’t. That decision is what gives this record weight. Jeffrey Runnings passed away in on […]
Return Of Rock Features Charm School
“Charm School sharpen their satirical blades even further on this latest release,” according to Return Of Rock. “‘Schadenfreude Ploy’ is a darkly humorous howl at the manipulative absurdities of modern life: tech overlords, A.I. doom, algorithmic entrapment; all rendered through a jagged blend of post-hardcore energy and indie-noise pedigree. Frontman Andrew Sellers, steeped in Louisville’s underground lineage […]
New Music From Rose’s Pawn Shop
For two decades, Rose’s Pawn Shop has evolved their version of modern-day American roots music. It’s an anthemic sound that’s taken the group from their hometown of Los Angeles — where frontman Paul Givant formed the band as a bluegrass-inspired act, making room for punky tempos and fiddle solos — to venues across the country, where their […]
Post-punk Says Charm School Hasn’t Mellowed Out On Their NACC-charting New EP
Charm School is back with new EP Schadenfreude Ploy. Post-punk writes, “if you were hoping they’d mellow out, maybe brew a cuppa herbal tea, for you have badly misjudged the situation. Andrew Sellers and his Louisville-to-LA cadre: Matt Filip, Drew English, Brian Vega – are still operating like men who found the control panel and immediately started pressing every red […]
Rock and Roll Globe Goes Honkin’ On The Highway To Heavenly, Who Tour North America Next Month
Rock and Roll Globe recently chatted with Heavenly on the event of the release of Highway To Heavenly, the seminal indiepop project’s first album since 1996. The site asked the group about the warm reception they’ve been receiving since announcing their return. “We feel very flattered,” the band’s Cathy Rogers says. “It’s absurdly lucky to be getting this second […]
Woo’s Debut Is “Timeless,” Writes The Arts Desk
Woo is at radio now with Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, their debut album now reissued in deluxe form by Independent Project Records. The Arts Desk writes, “Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong sounds timeless. A couple of tracks, ‘Wah Bass’ and ‘Razorblades,’ evoke the more contemplative side of 1975’s Another Green World-era Eno – […]
Suggest Mag Previews Souled American’s Sanctions
Suggest Mag announces, “After a 30-year hiatus, a cult-favorite alternative country band is finally releasing a new album.” The band is Souled American, which has made “unique, twangy rock since the mid-’80s. Despite high-profile fans like Jeff Tweedy and the Counting Crows, the band has been mostly quiet since 1996’s Notes Campfire. Following last year’s career anthology […]
Charm School’s Confidence Shines, Writes Jammerzine
Charm School‘s new EP Schadenfrueude Ploy, Jammerzine writes, “stands as a focused declaration from a band that understands the value of pressure. It does not chase trends or soften its stance for accessibility. Instead, it commits fully to its identity, delivering songs that feel immediate and purposeful. Charm School sound like they are carving out space rather than […]
Jedd Beaudoin Talks With Jeffrey Clark About Louder Than You Think
KMUW‘s Jedd Beaudoin writes that “Jeffrey Clark is a co-producer of the Jed I. Rosenberg directed documentary Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young and Pavement. In 1993, Young, who passed in 2023 at the age of 70, was dismissed from the legendary Stockton, California indie rock band he-founded over issues surrounding his erratic […]
Piero Scaruffi Gets Mystical With Red Temple Spirits
According to Piero Scaruffi’s History of Rock Music, “Red Temple Spirits re-appropriated the most radical aspect of psychedelia, the cosmic and ritualist one of Interstellar Overdrive, the Freudian and psychotic one of The End, the one that goes beyond playing with timbres, with feedback, with classical arrangements, with eccentric harmonies, and instead explores mysterious and indefinable harmonic territories… […]
New Music From Heavenly
Heavenly – whose members have also made up the bands Talulah Gosh and Tender Trap, amongst others – are seen by many as the originators of a whole genre of music, known to some as “jangle,” others as “twee,” and to the band themselves as “indiepop.” As fiercely independent as any punk band, but as sweetly melodic as any […]
Popmatters Discusses Souled American’s Legacy
Souled American, the classic but criminally-unsung Chicago band that influenced everyone from Wilco to Counting Crows, is at radio with a new song called “Boom Boom.” The track is from their upcoming album Sanctions, which will be followed by a US tour. Last year, Tracy Santa of Popmatters wrote about the band’s legacy. “Listening to Souled American,” Santa writes, […]
Autre Discusses Venera With Venera
Visit Autre for an illuminative interview with Venera, whose stunning LP Exinifinite is at radio now from PAN. In its intro, the site explains the origin of the duo’s name and how it relates to their sound: “From the 1960s through the 1980s, the Soviets launched a fleet of probes toward Venus in what became the legendary Venera program—it was the first […]
Mix It All Up Digs Charm School’s Chaos
According to Mix It All Up, Charm School’s “Schadenfreude Ploy” is “industrial, organised chaos… translated through the songs dystopian, rugged instrumentation and doom-filled vibe… Gradually descending into cathartic mayhem, ‘Schadenfreude Ploy’ gets more hectic as the instrumentation becomes more unhinged and raw. This is specifically apparent in the brass parts that become as frenzied as the vocals.” […]
Sputnik Music Describes Red Temple Spirits
Independent Project Records is at radio now with two reissues from Red Temple Spirits, a unique band from the college rock era in the late 1980s. Sputnik Music describes the band thusly: “Brilliant guitarist and Alabama native Dallas ‘Spartacus’ Taylor and bassist Dino Paredes (a former UCLA philosophy major of Apache ancestry) coaxed entrancing drones and pulses from their […]
Stereogum Tells Souled American’s Story
Stereogum writes, “Souled American are the epitome of the phrase ‘cult favorite.’ During their years releasing music — a prolific six-album run between 1988 and 1996 — the Chicago duo played a part in developing the burgeoning alt-country scene and eventually steered their sound in an ambient direction, earning praise from everyone from Jim O’Rourke to Counting Crows in the process.” […]
Billy Corgan Chats With Patrik Mata, Whose Kommunity FK Appears On The Well
On a recent episode of The Magnificent Others, “Billy Corgan sits down with Kommunity FK frontman and goth pioneer Patrik Mata. In this rare, unguarded conversation, Patrik talks about his early fascination with Dadaism, surrealism, and David Bowie, arriving in Los Angeles in 1975 with fifty dollars and no plan, enduring hostile crowds, and turning down record deals on principle. Along the […]
Gary Young Tells TapeOp About ProTools
In an old interview with recording magazine TapeOp from the turn of the century, former Pavement drummer Gary Young – who ran a studio called Louder Than You Think – explained the benefit of not having any close neighbors. “They’re three quarters of a mile away. I could put the drums on the roof and they wouldn’t know or care anyway. […]
