Bang, bang, blammo! Ty Segall can't stop pumping out the songs - and if your problem is that he's got too many songs for you to hear, lucky you with your cute little problem! As Ty switches gears from rock to punk to pop music and then elsewhere, a wealth of great songs and singing and music is coming down fast; later we'll have time to think about it. For now, ponder this new one: "The Main Pretender" aims to cull the herd by focusing its sights on a greatest common multiple of our society - people who just can't get see the forest for the head up their ass! Driven by an acidulous alto sax lick and a roiling bass line, "The Main Pretender" bounces like rubber and sticks like glue, exploding into a middle-eight-chorus progression that there's no coming back from - and so there's no need to even try. Mikal Cronin's saxophone, so urbane and sophisticated on the previous "My Lady's On Fire", here reaches for notes that were never wrote (perhaps a suggestion to pretenders everywhere to get free and reach for something outside of themselves instead!), setting the stage for a burning guitars-and-saxes-and-vocs climax. The production, with rough edges not only intact but deployed for maximum positive impact, is a marvel, forcing "The Main Pretender" into our frontal lobes, where it just won't quit. They never do!
The new double EP from Berlin group Jealous is delightfully difficult to pin down—goth-y dark rock that delivers endless chills. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 26, 2021
This brutal 7” from the Australian group Power is crammed to the gills with gnarled riffs and searing, throat-shredding vocals. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 7, 2019
On their first new record in six years, the Virginia garage punkers take on the end of the world with the requisite clang and clamor. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 9, 2024