It’s time for the top twenty of the 40+ albums I reviewed last year. Who’s in the top half?
#20: The Quality of Mercury – The Voyager
This one came out of nowhere and landed much like the alien craft on the cover. It’s a sharp mix of electro, prog-rock, and shoegaze…all done by one guy riffing on the idea of lonely spade travel.
#19: Fugue State – In the Lurch
Wild garage punk that will leave your stereo system feeling like the wreckage on the album cover. This is another band who came out of nowhere for me that I was glad to find.
#18: Dog Lips – Danger Forward
Loud, brash, and energetic post-punk here that stresses the punk more than the post. This was another band that came out of nowhere. Good stuff lies ahead for them, and for you if you snag this record.
#17: Birds of Nazca – Pangaea
Two Frenchmen making cosmic rock that sounds like it was made by at least a quartet because it’s so damn heavy and loud. It’s all instrumentals, too, which I love.
#16: Anika – Abyss
It’s always good to hear Anika, who returned in 2025 with another sultry and spooky record. Anika has a voice that can instantly hypnotize you, and her dark electro music is always alluring. I still need to catch her live one of these days.
Who’s in the top fifteen? You’ll have to come back tomorrow to learn that.
Mandy, Indiana sign to Sacred Bones and announce their new album, URGH, out February 6th, with lead single “Magazine.” On URGH, Mandy, Indiana is a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Following their acclaimed 2023 debut, i’ve seen a way, URGH finds the band expanding their far-reaching sound with each member — vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall — actively taking part in the songwriting process. Across ten tracks, Mandy, Indiana interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.
Co-produced and co-mixed by Fair and Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, much of URGH was written during an intense residency at an eerie studio house in the outskirts of Leeds and recorded across Berlin and Greater Manchester. The process was shaped by adversity with both Caulfield and Macdougall undergoing multiple rounds of surgeries in the same time frame as the album was being written and recorded. The harrowing experience and the exhaustion of their respective recoveries bleed into the surreality of Caufield’s writing, blurring the line between inner turmoil and external chaos.
URGH is deeply personal, yet also reflects the violent, fractured state of the wider world as Caulfield’s lyrics grapple with assault, systemic indifference, and the omnipresence of pain. While most of the lyrics are in her native French, the emotional clarity cuts through regardless of language. Caulfield still uses her voice as a distorted instrument and a weapon, oscillating between equal parts playful and eviscerating, showcased on today’s single, “Magazine.” The throbbing siren-sound of the song finds the band garnering drama from the juxtaposition of quiet moments and explosive commotion as Caufield sings in French: “Abandon / All hope / Because tonight / I’m coming for you.” The accompanying visualizer was directed by Stephen Agnew.
Commenting on the song, Caulfield explains: “‘Magazine’ is the expression of the frustration and deep-seated violence I felt while attempting to recover from being raped. Just like most victims of sexual assault, I will never get justice, and just like most perpetrators, my attacker will never be punished. My therapist encouraged me to channel my anger into something productive, so here it is: my primal, screaming call for retribution. It is the only way I will ever get to say to my rapist: you hurt me, so I’m going to hurt you.”
Although there are still undeniable “bangers” across the album, from the bristling techno of “Cursive” to the frazzled rap of “Sicko!” featuring billy woods, URGH feels hewn with precise cinema. Fair and Macdougall explain that “a lot of the record is a remix of itself,” a cohesion of the band’s aptitude for collaging sounds and ideas that could operate as a film score or an industrial club night. Where i’ve seen a way drew from escapism, URGH (even from the reactive nature of the title alone) belongs in the physical world, and the artwork by the artist Carnovsky, featuring an anatomical illustration of Andreas Vesalius, underscores the record’s visceral confrontation with the body and its limits.
For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. In 2025, the ability to make art that is seen and heard is its own form of protest, and directly addressing these issues is its own reclamation of power and strength in solidarity. URGH is a cathartic first step toward healing and a refusal to let the conversation die.
Mandy, Indiana will tour across Europe next year with shows in London, Paris, Berlin and more. All dates are listed below.
Mandy, Indiana Tour Dates Wed. March 25 – London, UK @ Heaven Fri. March 27 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club Sat. March 28 – Glasgow, UK @ Room 2 Wed. April 8 – Dunkirk, FR @ Les 4 Ecluses Thu. April 9 – Paris, FR @ Petit Bain Sun. April 12 – Cologne, DE @ Bumann & Sohn Tue. April 14 – Copenhagen, DK @ Huset Wed. April 15 – Berlin, DE @ Urban Spree Thu. April 16 – Hamburg, DE @ MS Stubnitz Fri. April 17 – Tilburg, NL @ Roadburn Sat. April 18 – Rotterdam, NL @ Motel Mozaique
Congratulations. You just found one of your new favorite punk bands.
Hailing from Astoria, Oregon, Beta Voids have unleashed (a far better description than “released”) their debut EP, Scrape It Off, and given us a much-needed adrenaline shot and kick in the ass.
The first thing you notice about them on the opening track, “Nothing to Me,” is the great interplay between the two lead vocalists – Carrie Beveridge and Mandy Grant. They sing / yell / chant about stuff that you can care about, but they really don’t give a damn. Next you notice Alpha Rasmussen‘s wild, frenetic saxophone running around the studio and your speakers.
On “Meat Head Look” (a song, I think, about guys trying and failing to impress women), you notice Mike Vasquez‘s thudding bass that somehow is able to lock in all this chaos happening across the whole EP and give it free reign at the same time. “Palpitations” roars like Bleach-era Nirvana (thanks much to Dan McClure‘s buzzsaw guitar) if Nirvana dove further down the post-punk rabbit hole instead of the metal one in their early days.
“Alan” is a twenty-three-second tribute to famous people with that name. That’s it. That’s all you need to know, really. “Brain Malfunction” is as bonkers as its title. “Baby’s in Detox” is even crazier and seems to be about being sad about being sober.
The closer, “M-O-T-H-E-R,” is a solid rock track, reminding me of The Stooges and grounded by Seth Howard‘s straight-up garage rock beats. Ms. Beveridge and Ms. Grant either pay tribute to or complain about their moms. I’m not sure. It works either way.
The whole thing works. Beta Voids are here to stomp down doors and on faces. Get in the pit or get out of the way.
I scored Here Came the Psychedelic Furs: B-sides & Lost Grooves at a wrecka stow in Arizona last month. I had no idea this collection existed until I stumbled across it for a mere seven dollars in a used CD bin. The Furs have become one of my favorite bands in the last decade, although I have been enjoying them since I practically wore out their Talk Talk Talk album on cassette back in 1981. I missed a lot of their catalogue because most of it wasn’t available where I grew up. MTV, when it still played music videos, kept me up to date on their newest singles, but that was it.
As a result, this collection has allowed to me hear a lot of great stuff that I didn’t know existed. It starts off with a loud, gritty dance mix version of “Aeroplane” that’s over five minutes long, was produced by Todd Rundgren, and was the B-side of the “Love My Way” 12″ single from 1982.
“Another Edge” (the B-side of the “Here Come Cowboys” single from 1984) is pretty much a krautrock track with Tim Butler adding some great slap bass to the electro-beats and flashy horn section. “Badman” (taken from a promo-only 12″ release of 1989’s “Should God Forget”) has that cool psych-saxophone / spooky bass / cracking drums / drone guitar mix that only the Psychedelic Furs seem to pull off without effort.
“Birdland” is the B-side of the “All That Money Wants” single from 1988, and is a slick, dark bit of shoegaze. Up next is another five-minute-plus, Rundgren-produced dance mix from the 1982 “Love My Way” 12″ single – “Goodbye.” Richard Butler‘s vocals and lyrics are in fine form as he growls about the proliferation of apathy (“Yesterday’s news is today’s news…You don’t remember, you forget, that’s the way the stories all go…I’ll see you all around sometime if I ever go back there.”) and, at the same time, finding strength in leaving negativity.
Speaking of “Love My Way” B-sides, “I Don’t Want to Be Your Shadow” was on the flip side of the 7″ version of that single. It’s has a cool, pulsing beat and a surprising bit of guitar shredding. The 7″ remix of “Heartbeat” from 1984 originally appeared on the B-side of “The Ghost in You” single. It’s another track full of Richard Butler’s bass groove, this time churning out disco funk along with the guitars, and frantic saxophone blasts.
A cover of “Mack the Knife” (the B-side to the “Angels Don’t Cry” single from 1987) is a fun inclusion, barely recognizable, and a dark, broody version that turns the title character into someone probably found more in dark basement clubs than swanky jazz affairs. “New Dream” (taken from the 1987 “Heartbreak Beat” 12″ single) is a slick blend of 1980s city pop, shoegaze, psychedelia, and a goth of goth. It reminds me of some of The The‘s work from the same era. The guitar solo on it from John Ashton is especially good. Mars Williams was also on saxophone by this point, and you can hear how much he elevates the band right away.
The 12″ remix-edit version of “Here Come Cowboys” from 1984 is another fine example of Richard Butler’s vocals and lyrics, this time taking a jab at masculine stereotypes (“It’s so hard at times to take it serious. It really gets to be a drag when all we really need is love. Here comes cowboys, here to save us all.”). You can practically feel Butler sighing as his eyes roll upwards at the idea of angry dudes screwing things up yet again.
The extended 12″ mix (over eight minutes!) of 1987’s classic “Heartbreak Beat” is top-notch. The 7″ remix of “Angels Don’t Cry” from the same year is a picturesque love song that borders on pop-alternative, another type of song the Furs do well while other shoegaze bands chose to cover their feelings on love with walls of sound (which isn’t a bad thing, by any means, and can be quite effective and evocative). Want another remix from 1987? How about Shep Pettibone‘s 12″ remix of “Shock?” It turns the track into a nightclub hit with bright vocals, saxophone, and synths but never losing it’s rock edge.
The last two tracks are live cuts. The first is a recording of “President Gas” (a song that, unfortunately, never goes out of style) on The King Biscuit Flower Hour from 1983 and was on the B-side of the “Run and Run” single. The second is “No Easy Street” and was only released on maxi-cassette (Remember those? They were cassettes that featured one song per side.) in 1988. Both are sharp recordings. “President Gas” is fuzzy and growling, while “No Easy Street” is haunting stuff that borders on dark wave at some points.
This collection is well worth tracking down if you can find it, and it begs for the Furs to release a large retrospective. There has to be a vault of live cuts, demos, and other rarities somewhere on top of their already impressive catalogue.
The story of La Peste can be traced back to a flier Peter Dayton saw in Central Park. The future frontman was visiting New York for a concert that had just been canceled. While wandering in search of something else to do, he came across an advertisement for a show at someplace called CBGB, featuring a band of mischievous looking guys in leather jackets, The Ramones. It was October 26th, 1975. He hadn’t heard of them, or of punk itself. Figuring what the hell, why not, he headed down to the Bowery to check out the show.
Dayton returned to Boston a changed man. “I stood there for 22 minutes, and when it was done, I was like, well, fuck, man, I want to do that,” he says. “And within two and a half years, I was opening for them.”
So begins the story of Boston’s first true punk band. Born as a group of art students who had never played instruments and over a few short years becoming a foundational influence for a Boston music scene that would go on to produce some of the most important and boundary-pushing American bands of the ’80s. They played with the Ramones, worked with The Cars’ Ric Ocasek and earned the attention of the legendary BBC DJ John Peel all with only one single (1978’s “Better Off Dead” to their name).
Today, Wharf Cat Records are announcing the release of a new compilation entitled I Don’t Know Right From Wrong: Lost La Peste 1976-1979 Vol. 1that will air the band’s unreleased recordings. Due out on April 17th of 2026, the collection tells the full story of La Peste with a presentation of the band’s unreleased studio and loft recordings along with the two tracks that were officially released during the band’s run. The material in this compilation comes from the Better Off Dead 7” sessions, their 1978 studio session with Ric Ocasek, a 1978 session at Electro Acoustic Studios, 4-track loft recordings made by Boston punks Billy Dafodil and Dave Cola in 1977 and the band’s first ever studio sessions in early 1977.
On the A and B sides of this collection Peter Dayton and Mark Andreasson give their first shot at sequencing the La Peste LP that they never got a chance to make. The C side features the tracks from the loft recordings that were not used on the A and B sides. Side D is a window into a nascent La Peste and features studio and 4-track recordings with Curt Naihersey (Pastiche, The Kids, Mr. Curt). The D side also includes a rare curiosity from the La Peste catalogue, their collaboration with Lord Manuel, “Computer Love,” from a sought-after split 7” on Joe “The Count” Viglione’s Verulven label with The Neighborhoods & Lord Manual on the b-side.
To mark the announce Wharf Cat are sharing the Ocasek-produced track “I Don’t Know Right From Wrong” with a brand new video created from archival footage of the band.
“I Don’t Know Right From Wrong” survives as one of a handful of tracks produced by Ocasek, who acted for a time as a sort of unlikely patron and mentor for the band, and gave them a slot opening for the Cars at Boston’s Paradise Theater. He believed he could get La Peste onto the radio with just a little primping, but had the good sense not to give them a full-on pop makeover. With its ghostly synth line hovering above the band’s earthbound churn, “I Don’t Know Right From Wrong” comes across less like the Cars’ slick new wave than it does like Joy Division—who recorded their landmark debut across the pond at around the same time —albeit with a vocal presence that sounds more inclined to nervous mania than catatonic depression.
Peter Dayton says of the track:
“We didn’t really know right from wrong when we formed La Peste. But the song was always great live and everyone believed me when I sang it. It had 2 chords which made it an amazing song for it’s utter simplicity. When I went back to these lyrics to write them all out I couldn’t believe how repetitive I was. The verses were usually very similar and the choruses were almost like I was shouting a political slogan. Our fans had a real connection with each song and often sang along, even though they might not have understood them.”
No-wave, angular post-punk outfit Rayon present their beautifully whacked-out single ‘Shopping’, a tongue-in-cheek ode to consumerism and travel born from near-burnout and a revitalizing trip south of the border. The video for‘Shopping’, filmed with their awesomely nostalgic Super 8 video, showcases grocery store antics before being kicked out, proving that new life can always be found on aisle five.
Along with B-side ‘Running’, the single is available on 7″ vinyl and as atwo-track digital release via Little Cloud Records. This is the first in an exciting new series of similar records in the works for Rayon.
The project of long-time North Portland resident and Detroit-area native Eric Sabatino, Rayon now also involves members of Sun Atoms, Yuvees, Pastilla and Martha Stax – namely Anna Sabatino, Riley McLaughlin, Eric Rubalcava and Derek Longoria-Gomez. Recording on rainy weekends in a garage studio packed with old reel-to-reel tape machines, partially-functional tube amps, and leaky British motorcycles, these songs were recorded onto 16 tracks of 1/2” tape, while running the tracks through a slightly-wonky sounding tape echo.
Sabatino broke tradition with this release, deciding to mix it together with famed recording engineer Larry Crane (Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, The Decemberists, The Go-Betweens, Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie) at Jackpot Recordingand Timothy Stollenwerk (Yo La Tengo, Grouper, Morphine) at Stereophonic Mastering.
“Doing everything on film and tape is a bit of a safety check-valve, to make sure we make everything like humans with no autotune, copy/paste or AI. I’m becoming an imperfectionist,” says Eric Sabatino.
“This was the first time we’ve engaged a “professional” to work on our recordings. The education we received was immense, and Larry was kind with his explanations of everything we had previously done “wrong” with our recordings, was willing to work with what we provided and willing to get weird with us.”
Written in two parts, ‘Shopping’ is a tongue-in-cheek song about consumerism and travel, written by a person who travels and consumes quite a bit. ‘Running’ is an anxious song about the people you love and the addictions that they can’t shake – and the sound of a tape echo that’s about to stop working.
Rayon spent last winter honing these and other songs through a series of live shows, including an epic trip to Guadalajara, which served as creative fodder for the band’s latest inspiration and re-invigoration.
“This EP almost didn’t happen. I nearly walked away from Rayon. The last record wasn’t selling, a lack of decent show offers, festival rejections and a general feeling of burnout was happening. Our second guitarist left, and then our drummer. The addition of guitarist Riley McLaughlin (from Yuvees and Club Deluxe) and Eric Rubalcava (drums) and Derek Longoria-Gomez (percussion and bass) from our “band-in-law” Sun Atoms brought new life and energy to the band,” says Eric Sabatino.
“We played some of the first enjoyable shows in a few years, and a new energy emerged. We started functioning as a band, we traveled to Mexico, and came back to record these songs. And another record is in the works. As for the new video, we got kicked out of two grocery stores making it. The Mexican Tienda was cool as hell; they loved it. We shopped and goofed around in stores, drove the old car down to the park under the bridge and had a picnic. Jeff filmed it all on a cute old Super 8 camera.”
Before forming Rayon, Eric Sabatino spent years playing with bands in Southern Michigan and Portland, sometimes with as many as six projects on the go at the same time. Self-described as “a guy who grew up on 80’s/90’s post punk and grunge trying to reconcile their love of R&B, Soul and 60’s British Pop”, Sabatino is now fully focused on this one project, built on the experience of years of writing, collaborating, studio work and touring with some of the Pacific Northwest’s hardest working bands.
‘Shopping b/w Running’ is out now digitally and available as a limited pressing of 150 blue transparent 7″ record and 150 black 7″ vinyl. It can be ordered in all formats via Bandcamp.
Keep your mind open.
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Photo By Lyle Bell | L-R Clint Frazier, Graeme MacKinnon
Home Front reveal new single and video “Eulogy”. The cathartic punk hymn “is a reflection on what it means to lose the people we care about,” the band tells. “In these turbulent times we recognize death comes for us all, but it’s the recognition of someone’s lasting impact that leaves its imprint on us. We all have scars, but wear ours proudly as we move forward into the haze.” “Eulogy” is the latest preview of Watch It Die, their new full-length coming November 14 via La Vida Es Un Mus
For decades Home Front’s Graeme MacKinnon and Clint Frazier have embedded themselves in grass roots music making, community building, and the overpowering ebbs and flows of diy punk. Formed in 2020, they’ve given their lifetime of experience a chance to distill and then power into this musically omnipotent project which equally conjures textured Tangerine Dream sounds in a film montage, or the pummelling soundtrack to the first steps taken towards winning the fight of your life.
Home Front holds on to a particular kind of passion. The sort of thing that guides you – like a climbing vine steadily blanketing your bests and worsts, cutting through changes and impasses; victory and loss. MacKinnon and Frazier’s nod to influences and the themes of their lyrics are direct and detailed while maintaining enough creative distance to feel universal and unique. The production has again been bolstered by a team of long time confidants making a huge and unique record under the humble and hard working circumstances of remote pre-production and choosing to do their recording in home studios in their home town in Edmonton, Alberta.
The architecture of Watch It Die is simple – 12 songs of danceable, hummable, rousing and honest music that only Home Front could make. The emotion of this LP is what solidifies these musical notions into meaningful art. “For us, ultimately, this is music that comes out of loss and heartbreak and failure, but I hope people have a good time listening to us. You can get rowdy, you can get emotional, you can do whatever you want, but maybe with all of that freedom, we all take a second to reflect on all our fallen brothers and sisters and friends who may have slipped away.”
On previous revered recordings Games of Power (2023) and Think of the Lie(2021), Frazier and MacKinnon gave us a snapshot of a cynical and alienating world. A place where hope was tempered by insignificance, exhaustion takes us, and where 2,000,000 voices screaming in unison can still go unheard. Watch It Dieinstead of asking us why and how we got here, struggling to cope with the sadness of a desperate world, brings us their “step forward” moment. A dose of optimism and ownership in the bleakest of times in which maybe it doesn’t have to feel so bad to be alone or desperate. Where the passage of time is not coloured by the nostalgia of a lost youth but more toward the celebration of wisdom earned. Watch it Die owns the ills it describes and catapults us alongside its creators who have the confidence and presence of mind to live beyond their limitations.
Watch It Die is a road map of hope. MacKinnon and Frazier state: “For all of us in Home Front, ‘Watch It Die’ comes at a very transformative time. Geopolitically, musically and in our personal lives. With friends and close family members dying, to massive uncertainty around the world, this album encapsulates what it’s like for us to step into a ‘new world’ where all the old adages of ‘everything is gonna work out fine’ feel like a joke. We watch rich people get richer while the rest of us struggle just to get by. We watch colonizers kill without consequence and in an age of information at our finger tips we watch people choosing to be ignorant to what’s going on around them. ‘Watch It Die’ speaks about our own humanity, a rebirth into a new world and how we can never go back to the way things were. We suffer for their dreams, but in saying that we must recognize the importance of our own community and look to energize them to build a better way of life. We have always been an anti-war, anti-genocide, pro-peace band. We are against crimes to human rights and all of those struggling through the horrors of imperialism. We stand with the people of Palestine and we stand with the Canadian Indigenous communities who struggle to uphold treaty rights as well as basic human rights like clean drinking water and generational trauma. One takeaway from our music is to make a safe space where our community can come together to air out grievances and find a better way to a new future.”
Home Front have confirmed a run of West Coast dates including San Francisco, Sacramento and two nights in Los Angeles at The Palladium supporting Cock Sparrer on November 22 and 23. See below for a full list of dates and stay tuned for additional touring announcements. Home Front’s touring members Brandi Strauss on bass, Ian Rowley on guitar, and Warren Oostlander on drums.
Home Front Live Dates:
Nov 20: Sacramento, CA – The Starlet Room Nov 21: San Francisco, CA – Thee Parkside Nov 22: Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium # Nov 23: Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium ! Dec 13: Winnipeg, MB – The Handsome Daughter + Dec 19: Calgary, AB – Palomino * Dec 20: Edmonton, AB – Starlite Room ^ Feb 06-08: The Hague, NL – Grauzone Festival
# w/ Cock Sparrer, Dillinger Four, Castillo ! w/ Cock Sparrer, Dillinger Four, Generacion Suicida + Record Release Show w/ Imploders, Pure Impact * Record Release Show w/ CloseTalkers, Puppet Wipes, Poltergeist ^ Record Release Show w/ Languid, Real Sickies
After the release of album Never Exhale at the start of the year, DITZ return with a 9 minute, three-part noise-rock epic new single ‘Don Enzo Magic Carpet Salesman’, and it marks a bold new direction for the band. Fierce, hypnotic and unpredictable, it captures their live energy in full force, and comes with additional track ‘Kalimba Song’.
Both will be also be available on a limited edition 12” on 28th November via City Slang Records, with the first copies sold exclusively on their upcoming tour ahead of this date.
Vocalist C.A. Francis says of the new single, “Don Enzo began as a demo Jack Looker made after our touring wrapped early in the year. It started as one short movement, but after I added lyrics and sent it back, he returned it with five more minutes of music, creating a three-part structure. The song reflects my frustration with AI art – the first part reacting to the issue, the second written from the AI’s perspective, and the final section representing the last gasp of real art before being overwhelmed by artificial output.”
The debut album from Irish / Portuguese quintet pôt-pot, Warsaw 480km, is an album about feeling adrift during dark hours but also knowing that light eventually will come.
Lead singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Mark Waldron-Hyden wrote most of the album while bouncing around different landscapes and residences…all the while dealing with grief over the death of his father. What emerged was a pretty damn cool post-punk / krautrock / Ennio Morricone (and, believe it or not, James Brown)-inspired album.
“22° Halo” opens the record with a fierce bass lick from Joe Armitage and guitars that you think are going to overwhelm you for a moment but then fade into the shadows. “Sextape” started out as a jam session and became your next favorite song to put on a psych-rock mixtape. The blend of male and female harmonies between Waldron-Hyden and Elaine Malone and Sara Lelsie and near-surf rock guitars from Waldron-Hyden and Mykle Oliver Smith are instantly hypnotizing, and Malone’s harmonium is like incense in your meditation chamber.
“WRSW” was inspired by the road sign mentioned in the album’s title as Waldron-Hyden was riding in a car with his father’s ashes. As the story goes, he saw the sign emerge along the road on a dark night and it gave him the sense that he’d get through both the night and his grief (even in the latter would remain to some degree for a lifetime). The upbeat krautrock rhythm gives you (and Waldron-Hyden) the power to keep moving forward. “Fake Eyes” is a haunting track that seems to just…hover.
The press release I received for Warsaw 480km mentions how “I AM!” is indebted to Lou Reed. That’s correct, as it sounds like a groovy Velvet Underground track you forgot existed. Waldron-Hyden’s swaggering beat on “Can’t Handle It” reminds me of Cramps records – as do the repeated lyrics of “Tell me, baby, do you feel all right? Tell me, baby, would you take my life? Because I just can’t handle it.”
The guitar work on “The Lights Are On” is a great mix of psych-garage and dark country twang. “Hot Scene” continues that Morricone influence and adds a bit of Delta 5 post-punk flair as it builds to a loud buzz in your head. The album ends with “Change Your Life,” which could be a suggestion made by Waldron-Hyden to us, a friend, a lover, or himself. I’m not sure…or if it matters.
What does matter is that you give this album a spin. It’s a great debut and portends more good things to come from them.
Dry Cleaning announce their new album, Secret Love, out January 9th on 4AD and release the lead single, “Hit My Head All Day.” Secret Love is the finest expression yet of the profound friendships between frontperson Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard. Here, the south London four-piece take their place in rock’s avant-garde, catalyzing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins.
The follow-up to Stumpwork, one of 2023’s most beloved records, Secret Love started life in Peckham rehearsal spaces, all four members writing, playing and responding to each other in the room: in Dry Cleaning, music and lyrics form an inseparable, generative whole. Secret Love evolved through affirming sessions at Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio, The Loft, and explosive ones with Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan and DanielFox at Sonic Studios in Dublin, taking advantage of the sensory particulars of each space, and finally, with Cate Le Bon at Black Box in the Loire Valley. After interviewing various potential producers, they picked Cate—an esteemed solo artist who has also produced albums for Deerhunter, Devendra Banhart, Wilco and Horsegirl—for her unabashed positivity and openness. “Being in a room with them and hearing that vitality and life force that exists between them all, it’s such a unique expression,” Le Bon says.
Trust is Secret Love’s guiding theme, as signified by today’s compulsively catchy single and album opener, “Hit My Head All Day.” Powered by pistons of breathy synths and cresting arcs of guitar, Florence’s signature mix of absurdism and sensitivity shines through. “The song is about manipulation of the body and mind,” Florence explains. “The lyrics were initially inspired by the use of misinformation on social media by the far right. There are powerful people that seek to influence our behavior for their own gain; to buy certain things, to vote a certain way. I find it hard to read people’s intentions and decide who to trust, even in everyday life. It’s easy to fall under the influence of a sinister stranger who seems like a friend. We took a playful approach to the song. At one point it had harmonica on it instead of a vocal. At the demo stage we were inspired by There’s a Riot Goin’ On by Sly and the Family Stone.” The song arrives with an accompanying visualizer featuring movement by choreographer dance duo BULLYACHE.
Secret Love will be available digitally, on CD, cassette, black vinyl, limited edition Apricot vinyl (4AD store & indie retail) and Pearl/Arctic vinyl (Rough Trade exclusive). An exclusive run of white labels of Secret Love will be available to order for 48 hours only from today via the 4AD store, and a small quantity of JCD’s will be available exclusively on Bandcamp. A limited number of signed photo prints will also be available via 4AD and select indie stores.
Dry Cleaning Tour Dates Thu. Oct. 23 – Madrid, ES @ Barceló Theatre Fri. Oct. 24 – Valencia, ES @ Loco Club Sat. Oct. 25 – Barcelona, ES @ Paral.lel 62 Fri. Nov. 7 – Brighton, UK @ Mutations Festival Sat. Nov. 8 – Bristol, UK @ Simple Things Festival Sat. Jan. 3 – Bognor Regis, UK @ Rockaway Beach Festival Wed. Apr. 22 – London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
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