February 2026 – Page 3 – 7th Level Music

Eve Maret helps you process grief on “Break the Chain.”

Eve Maret (sounds like “muh-ray”) is a Nashville-based experimental artist and composer who employs a wide array of electronic media and techniques in her various disciplines, exploring the possibilities of personal and communal healing through creative action. She has been praised by the likes of WIRE Magazine, Chicago Tribune, DJ Mag, Bandcamp, and more.

Drawing inspiration from nineteenth-century orchestral and choral works, the Fluxus movement, Kosmische Musik and funk, Eve makes use of digital and modular synthesizers, a vocoder, clarinet, electric bass, guitar, and field recordings to create works that range from lush cinematic compositions to space disco. Eve’s music practice is a conversation with her numerous curiosities, manifested in the form of video art, drawing, dance, ritual, and cymatics.

Today, Maret announces her latest release Diamond Cutter. The twelve tracks are out April 17th, 2026. Diamond Cutter is an exploration of the space where strength meets vulnerability. The title comes from an ancient Buddhist text of the same name.

“A diamond represents the invisible potential within everything. Diamonds are perfectly clear, while also being the hardest substance in the universe,” Eve describes. “With this body of work, I endeavored to create music that was both strong and honest. I set aside any genre-specific limitations to allow the pure expression to come through directly. Each song is a commitment to using my authentic voice, to embodying my highest potential by singing the truth.”

Eve is also sharing the fearless, synth-soaked new single “Break the Chain,”out today. It’s a track about processing grief — feeling it, and letting it pass through. Check out the new track via YouTube and pre-order the album here.

“I made the beat when my cat Shrimpy didn’t have much time left. He sat on my lap, purring while I worked. I made it for him, and it was the last time he would be a witness to my creativity while he was alive. I think that every loss I’ve experienced gives me space to process all the previous losses, big and small, personal and collective,” Eve says. “When another being’s presence reveals to you the love you have within, that experience is never lost. I am forever changed by the love I’ve felt, and I can break the chain of suffering by giving myself love and appreciating everything around me, knowing that love is the only thing that never goes away.”

Eve’s music has been featured on Echoes Radio and Iggy Pop’s BBC radio show Iggy Confidential. “Synthesizer Hearts,” off of Eve’s 2020 release, Stars Aligned, appeared on BBC Radio 6 Music’s B-List in December 2020 and premiered on Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio show “Music From The Near Future.” In 2021, Eve contributed to Moebius Strips, an audio installation and companion album honoring the work of electronic music pioneer Dieter Moebius. Other contributors include Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak), Sarah Davachi, Jean-Benoît Dunckel (Air), Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Phew, Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia), Michael Rother (Harmonia, NEU!) and Yuri Suzuki.

In 2022 and 2023, Eve and her collaborators Dream Chambers and Belly Full Of Stars composed a live-score for FW Murnau’s 1922 film, Nosferatu, which they performed in theatres across the United States. Collaborating is an important aspect of Eve’s creative path, and she has an on-going dance music project called GLAZIER with her partner Scott Glazier, as well as a synth-rock duo, Eardrummer, with longtime friend Adrienne Franke.

Eve has performed across the United States and internationally, alongside artists such as William Tyler, Guerilla Toss, MATMOS, JEFF the Brotherhood, and Lydia Lunch.

In addition to her personal creative practices, Eve is committed to providing avenues for others to create and uplift one another. In 2018, She, Jess Chambers, Deli Paloma-Sisk, and Arlene Sparacia founded Hyasynth House, an electronic music collective and education center for female and LGBTQIA+ artists. Together they facilitated workshops, performances, and community-wide conversations in an effort to support and empower marginalized groups. The founders went their separate ways in 2019, but Eve continues to lead electronic music workshops and to organize live music events in Nashville and beyond, including her work co-producing Nashville Drone, a 6-hour music experience featuring 13 regional artists across genres, in an effort to create an immersive space for the community to connect and recharge.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to George at Terrorbird Media.]

Katzin releases “Cowboy” ahead of his new album due on Friday the 13th.

This Friday, Katzin will release his debut LP Buckaroo on Mexican Summer. The project of the New York based songwriter Zion Battle, who is just 20 years old, Katzin broke ground on his first album the summer after he graduated from high school.

Raised on skillful storytellers like Bruce Springsteen and Tracy Chapman, Battle started weaving narratives from his first year of adulthood into a collection of new music. Channelling the expansive gravitas of Springsteen’s Nebraska, while drawing from the warm, homespun atmospherics of early Orchid Tapes releases, the record incorporates symbols of the mythologized American West – cowboys, horses, vast deserts, rolling plains, ancient rock formations – to trace Battle’s leap out of adolescence in all its unsteady shine.

Katzin has so far shared three singles from the record “Anna,” “Wild Horses,” and “Nantucket,” and today he’s sharing a final single from the record, a track called “Cowboy.”

When Battle began work on Buckaroo, with collaborator and producer Max Morgen, he had just spent most of the summer in Europe, and came back to the United States inspired to explore what it means to be an American at this particular moment in history. As with several other tracks on the record, “Cowboy” is a song that spills out into questions of identity and belonging in a nation that might still be too young to know what it wants to be.

The track was born in Max Morgen’s kitchen during an especially fruitful songwriting session. “We had about six or seven tunes for the album already, and we wanted a standout, shiny, loud song,” says Zion Battle, aka Katzin. “So we sat down and wrote ‘Cowboy’ together. It felt like we were really in lockstep. It just came out so seamlessly. The kick drum on that song is actually the sound of my boots banging on the wooden deck in his backyard.” A standout on Buckaroo, “Cowboy” thunders with the quiet/loud dynamics of peak indie rock like Pavement and Pixies, arcing into its crescendo with the confidence and velocity of a Mustang hurtling down the interstate.

To mark the release of the record Katzin has announced a hometown release show at Nightclub 101 that will take place on March 11th.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Tom at Terrorbird Media.]

Dead Pioneers are ready to spill “Nazi Teeth” on their new single.

Dead Pioneers, the Indigenous fronted band from Denver, thump back into action this week with one of their most enraged, powerful and important pieces of work yet. As the upsurge of the far right and white supremacists continues to rise and come out of hiding, Dead Pioneers are ready to fight back with new single ‘Nazi Teeth’, the first track to be lifted from their forthcoming third album, further details to follow…

“While unfortunate that it needs to be done, we’ll never shy away from calling out the elephant in the room,” states frontman Gregg Deal. “Although we didn’t expect this elephant to be the revival of fascists on Amerikkkan soil. Maybe we should have. Frustrated and angry, ready and willing to fight, it’s not lost on us that the need to write a song like this or say these words out loud is grim, ironic, and disconcerting. Nevertheless, here we are, and we’re here to do it.”

The single features a fiery vocal collaboration from Stephanie Byrne of Colorado feminist punk band Cheap Perfume, reconnecting with their fantastic 2016 song ‘It’s Okay To Punch Nazis’. Stephanie’s voice breaks through the song, doubling down on confronting white supremacists throughout the world.

“We are witnessing in real time the violent and horrifying overextension of this administration, while many of our brothers and sisters have been suffering at the hands of white supremacy and colonialism for generations,” says Stephanie. “Nazi teeth is a call to action to hold the line with your friends, family, and community. Keeping Nazis down keeps us all free.”

“The United States of Amerikkka is in disarray, and ‘Nazi Teeth’ is not just our answer to what we’re seeing and experiencing in the streets of the so-called land of the free, but a call to action, fighting the continuing manifestation of forces our grandparents and great grandparents fought some 81-plus years ago,” continues Gregg. “It should be obvious, but for some people it seems this needs spelling out: Fuck Nazis, Fuck Fascism, Fuck ICE, Fuck Pedos, and Fuck Trump and his administration. If violence is the only language they speak, it’s okay to punch Nazi teeth.”

Dead Pioneers have never been afraid to use their art as a vehicle to express their beliefs and anger at the current political landscape in America. Over two albums – their self-titled debut in 2023 and PO$T AMERICAN from last year, the band have concocted a unique blend of spoken word and hypnotic post-punk, mixed with the fury and anger of real punk rock.

Order ‘Nazi Teeth’ here. Dead Pioneers are confirmed to play their first EU and UK headline tour, starting later this month. Order your tickets here.

Dead Pioneers emerged as a dynamic extension of vocalist Gregg Deal’s performance art, seamlessly blending music with critical cultural commentary. Rooted in the same themes of identity and resistance that define his visual work, the band’s sound acts as a powerful platform for addressing the complexities of Indigenous experience. Deal harnesses the raw energy of post-punk and alternative influences to challenge prevailing narratives, using lyrics that provoke thought and evoke emotion. Just as his performance art confronts the legacies of colonization and systemic marginalization, Dead Pioneers – completed by Josh Rivera and Abe Brennan on guitars, bassist Lee Tesche (Algiers) and drummer Shane Zweygardt – engages audiences in a visceral dialogue about survival, resilience, and reclamation of voice. This musical endeavor not only amplifies his artistic vision but also creates a space for collective expression and solidarity, inviting listeners to reflect on the intersections of culture, history, and identity in a contemporary context. Through Dead Pioneers, Deal continues to assert that art, in all its forms, can be a powerful vehicle for activism and change.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dan from Discipline PR.]

The Darts unleash an “Apocalypse” with their new single.

Seattle’s The Darts return with “Apocalypse,” the second advance single from their upcoming LP Halloween Love Songs, arriving March 3. Where “Midnight Creep” danced in B-movie shadows, “Apocalypse” blows the door off the darker half of the album, leaning into caveman rhythms, volcanic fuzz, and the kind of apocalyptic joy that makes destruction sound like deliverance. It marks the moment the record shifts from spooky fun into full-throttle, after-midnight fire.

The song was born in Angers, France, when singer/organ conjurer Nicole Laurenne wandered through the massive medieval Apocalypse Tapestry, a wall of woven chaos, angels, beasts, storms, the whole cosmic meltdown. “The lightning bolt struck me,” she says. “The song practically wrote itself in the van as we left the castle.” Instead of doom, Nicole leaned into the strange liberation of burning it all down: freedom from suffering, freedom from crowns, freedom from being told what comes next. She wrote the line “no future, no kings” as a mantra of release — and a year later, as if the song had cracked something open, “No Kings” erupted as a protest chant across the U.S. All while the track existed only as a demo on her laptop.

Musically, “Apocalypse” hits like a ritual. A pounding, Neanderthal beat through the verses, wide-open chant on the chorus, and those snaking organ lines that nod straight to The Seeds, The Standells, and other 60s greats who knew how to make the end of the world sound like a block-party with broken amps. Rebecca Davidson’s guitar tone drags the song into modern grit with thick, grimy Mudhoney fuzz, a little L7 bite, and flashes of Bikini Kill’s unbottled anger. It’s garage rock with a cracked halo, stomped through the dirt and set on fire.

Long before the album was finished, the band slipped “Apocalypse” into their live sets, and the audience reaction was immediate. People were yelling for it after shows, asking where they could buy it, treating it like a lost classic. When the studio version was finally tracked, Gretsch Guitars tapped the instrumental for a major ad, with Lindsay Scarey and Rebecca featured front and center. A quiet demo had somehow become one of the band’s most in-demand songs before it ever saw daylight.

Recorded at Station House Studio in Los Angeles with Grammy-winning producer Mark Rains, “Apocalypse” is the bridge into Halloween Love Songs’ after-midnight terrain: heavier, darker, louder, and built to shake rooms. It’s the sound of a band deep into its evolution with Nicole, Becca, Lindsay, and returning drummer Rikki Watson, pushing garage rock to its breaking point and finding something feral and euphoric on the other side. No future, no kings — just volume.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Chad at No Rules PR.]

mclusky set to release a new six-song EP.

mclusky release i sure am getting sick of this bowling alley, a six-song mini album featuring four new tracks as well as two songs previously available digitally only, on march 20 (digital)/may 1 (vinyl) via Ipecac Recordings.

Available now for pre-order (https://mclusky.lnk.to/bowling), the collection is available physically on black vinyl, translucent red vinyl (exclusive to the ipecac and band websites), and a rough trade exclusive variant on crystal fuchsia.

The release follows the 2025 album, the world is still here and so are we, the UK outfit’s first new album in over 20 years. It debuted in the top 20 on the rock, alternative, and independent sales charts. NPR said it “is just bursting with creativity,” Pitchfork called it a “reminder of what mclusky are still capable of… melting faces,” and Brooklyn Vegan said the three-piece are “as sneering and sarcastic as ever.”

Falco: “Content. It drives the modern music world. Photos. Opinions. More photos. More opinions (please note – not all photo and are options are bad, just 99 percent of them). How about – and indulge me here – music? That content-y enough for you? Fact is we can’t stop writing, at least at the moment. It’s fun (that’s all it needs to be). It’s the common denominator of band. Only death will slow us down (note – it won’t stop us).

The idea for this release starts as a bit of a stop-gap – a thing with which to help promote the north american tour – and ended up as something else entirely. ‘i know computer’ and ‘as a dad’ are new and are singles (they may make the next album, who can say, it’s already half-recorded and you will like it). Damien probably likes ‘I am computer’ a bit too much but that’s okay, the heart wants what the heart wants.

‘spock culture’ and ‘hi! we’re on strike’ were recorded during the the world is still here… why didn’t they make the album? I’m not sure. Lyrically they are important historical documents. Up there with the ‘pusheen the cat’ books and/or the u.s. constitution.

‘fan learning difficulties’ and ‘that was my brain on elves’ have only had a digital release before and are, to quote british children from forty years ago, ‘skill.’ Hopefully you can agree that iI, and by osmosis, all of us – have read a lot of books.”

mclusky North American tour dates:

March 24 Denver, CO Marquis Theater

March 26 Seattle, WA The Crocodile

March 27 Boise, ID Treefort Festival

March 28 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater

March 30 San Francisco, CA The Chapel

March 31 Los Angeles, CA The Regent Theater

April 2 Austin, TX Empire Control Room & Garage

April 3 Minneapolis, MN Fine Line

April 4 Chicago, IL Metro

April 6 Toronto, ON Mod Club

April 10 Philadelphia, PA Underground Arts

April 11 Washington, DC Black Cat

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Monica at Speakeasy PR.]

Review: Gran Moreno – El Sol

I described Gran Moreno’s new album, El Sol, to a nephew as “Latino garage-psych.” That’s about the closest I can get to how they sound. Mix their hometown Austin, Texas love of heavy psych grooves with some blues influences, border rock, and metal riffs, then bake it in the desert sun, and you get the idea.

“Las Montañas” starts off the “sun” (“El Sol”) side of the album with enough heavy riffs to start a landslide or give you the power to scale literal and figurative mountains. The last minute of this song is like a match thrown on a trail of gasoline. It doesn’t so much flow into “Aztlan” as it roars into it like a flash flood through a desert wash.

“Huracán” is almost an arena-rock track with big, Brian May-like guitar riffs mixed with soulful, mellow chords. It’s another song of many on the album that reflect the elements: “Las Montañas” (“The Mountains”) are earth, “Huracán” (“Hurricane”) could be air and / or water. After it comes “Temple of Fire” with its marching beats and tales of a long road ahead to something grand on the horizon.

“La Mentira” (“The Lie”) brings in more heavy, fuzzy, bluesy swagger and grows into a scorcher by the end. “Oaxaca / Please Don’t Cry” has a great inclusion of saxophone and trumpet on it to elevate the song, somehow, even higher. The album (and the “La Luna” side) ends with “Hikuri” — a track that blends catchy guitar riffs with hammering power chords and drums that catch you off-guard every time.

It’s a strong record, and one I’d love to hear live. It must flatten you.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Greg Loiacono & Stingray cover Sade on their new single.

Greg Loiacono & Stingray have released “Nothing Can Come Between Us,” a reimagining of the classic Sade song. Over the last two years, the Bay Area–based collective has been steadily building a following throughout Northern California, fine-tuning a retro soul sound that makes reinterpreting Sade a natural extension of their musical identity. A lone conga opens the track before the band falls into a magnetic groove, setting the stage for Loiacono’s falsetto vocal, which delivers the song’s themes of faith and trust with a palpable conviction.

“I’ve been in love with Sade since hearing her for the first time as a kid in the backseat of my mom’s Chrysler Cordoba,” says Loiacono. “Something about hearing her voice and the band moved me deeply then and still does today. So when our drummer Michael Urbano brought ‘Nothing Can Come Between Us’ to the table as a cover for Stingray, I was delighted.”

Urbano adds: “When we first tried playing ‘Nothing Can Come Between Us,’ I jumped into the same groove and tempo from Sade’s recording. The band’s percussionist Vicki Randle immediately stopped and said, ‘Don’t play it like that, do something different.’ So I slowed it down, went quarter notes on the hat, and swung the kick feel. She smiled and said, ‘There ya go.’ Once she jumped in on congas over that beat, it felt like we had our own thing goin’ for the song. Greg’s falsetto performance, run through producer Damien Lewis’ tripped-out effect, is its own thing as well. I love playing this song live; it’s like casting a spell that slowly gets a hold of the crowd. It’s not immediate. It’s one of those things that brings them to us, rather than us going to them.””Nothing Can Come Between Us” is the third single released by Greg Loiacono & Stingray from sessions produced by Damien Lewis at 2200 Studios in Sausalito, CA. The first two tracks, “Hope We Get To Dance” and “Come Back Home,” were released in 2025 via RPF Records / Royal Potato Family.

Stingray is led by vocalist/guitarist Greg Loiacono, who is also a founding member of the legendary San Francisco rock band The Mother Hips. He’s joined by drummer Michael Urbano, percussionist/vocalist Vicki Randle, bassist/vocalist Kofy Brown, keyboardist Danny Eisenberg, and guitarist Tom Ayres. The six-piece is currently headlining shows throughout California.

Upcoming Shows:
3/21 – Templeton, CA – Club Car Bar
5/17 – Big Sur, CA – Hipnic XVII
6/20 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Live Oak Music Festival

Keep your mind open.

[Nothing can come between you and the subscription box.]

[Thanks to Kevin at Calabro Music Media.]

Rewind Review: A Place to Bury Strangers – Live at Levitation (2023)

On their Live at Levitation album, it’s easy to forget that this recording was only the second show of A Place to Bury Strangers‘ current lineup (Oliver Ackermann – guitar and lead vocals, John Fedowitz – bass and lead vocals, Sandra Fedowitz – drums). They jumped right in (literally, in Ackermann’s case, as he was so frantic that his guitar almost flew into the stage) and proceeded to, as always, flatten the place.

Mrs. Fedowitz’s Devo-like drumming gets things off to a great start on “Dragged in a Hole.” Mr. Fedowitz’s bass throbs like a bubbling volcano on “Let’s See Each Other” as Ackermann’s voice and guitar bounce off every surface.

“We’ve Come So Far” always hits like a burst of anti-aircraft fire live, and this version is no exception. It’s difficult to tell which of the three is hitting harder on it…and that’s kind of the point. Mr. Fedowitz’s thick, sludgy bassline opens “Never Come Back” while Ackermann’s guitar sounds like jet engines starting, failing, roaring, and screeching.

Mrs. Fedowitz hits her toms so hard and fast in the first third of “Alone” that it’s surprising her drum tech didn’t have to replace them every eight bars or so. The breakdown / switch in the song that rushes it into heavy shoegaze is outstanding. “I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart” is another stunner. It sounds like the entire room is collapsing under an attack from a Martian tripod and barely gives you a chance to process everything that’s happening.

I say this about “Ocean” a lot, but it’s always true: Every time I think I’ve heard the loudest version of it live, APTBS somehow makes one even louder and wilder and more transcendent. This one evolves / devolves into feedback-chaos and almost makes your brain melt. The album ends with “Have You Ever Been in Love?”, which has Mrs. Fedowitz singing / chanting high notes to contrast the heavy, almost deafening buzz of the entire track.

APTBS shows are designed so you (and the people a couple blocks away) not just hear the music, but feel it. It rattles your whole body. My fiancé said, “I think I need a neck adjustment after that.” when she saw them for the first time. This album gets you close to that nerve-rattling, mind-altering sensation. My longtime description of APTBS is “They’re not for everyone, but I want everyone to hear them.”

Play this one loud, and everyone around you will (and should).

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Dorthia Cottrell – Death Folk Country (2023)

Dorthia Cottrell said that the title of her solo album Death Folk Country is a way to name “the world inside me.” You can guess from the album’s cover, an image of her as a vampire / werewolf / demoness / ghost, that this world is a dark place that hides and holds beauty and mystery.

After a soft instrumental opener, “Death Is the Punishment for Love,” “Harvester” curls into the room like fog that takes feminine shapes around you and threatens / entices you to stay in it forever. “Black Canyon” has Cottrell examining deep places within all of us, whether we want to admit they exist or not. They’ll emerge sooner or later “like a lover come back from the war.” The song is just her voice, an acoustic guitar, soft, rolling cymbals, and organ tones that sound like wind moving through a haunted house that eventually turns into birdsong.

“Family Annihilator” is the longest track on the album at nearly seven minutes. Cottrell sings, her voice echoing, about loss and the strength needed to continue moving forward through (and with) grief. The vocal effect of Cottrell’s voice being both lead and backing vocals (often in slightly different keys) is used throughout the record to great effect, making her sound like her physical and astral self are singing about the same thing from both earthly and cosmic perspectives.

“Effigy at the Gates of Ur” sounds like a lullaby. “Midnight Boy” brings in spaghetti western guitars and might be a love song about a back door man (to use an old blues term) or a love affair with a vampire (“If heaven could see what he’s doing to me, I’d be running like the devil in a cemetery.”). “Hell in My Water” combines violin tones with deep acoustic guitar sounds to create something that feels a bit menacing but you can’t help exploring it.

“Take Up Serpents” refers to a verse in the Bible declaring that one filled with the Holy Spirit could handle serpents without fear, and Cottrell seems to wonder if she’d ever be brave enough to seek such faith and strength. “For Alicia” is a lovely track about someone who’s going through pain and only wants someone else to carry that cross for a while. “Eat What I Kill” is just Cottrell’s haunting voice and acoustic guitar, but they’re enough to wallop you as she asks, “Are you saying my name like a curse?” and wonders if she’ll be lost forever after losing love yet again. “Of earthly pleasures, you can have your fill. I only want to eat the things that I kill,” she says. Damn. She’s not playing.

The album is bookended with “Death Is the Reward for Love,” and it’s a send-off of brighter synths and uplifting (yet still spooky) vocal effects to remind us that the amount of grief we have for love lost is equal to the amount of love we had.

It sounds simple to call this record “haunting,” but it is. It gets into you and lingers in your chest.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Dry Cleaning – Secret Love

“To me it feels meaningful to talk about emotional things in a calm way.’ – Florence Shaw, lead singer and lyricist of Dry Cleaning.

That sums up not only Ms. Shaw’s approach to Dry Cleaning’s songs on their new album, Secret Love, but across their catalogue. Shaw’s vocal delivery, which often sounds like she’s some kind of quiet trickster watching from afar, often puzzles people. She writes and sings “about emotional things in a calm way” while her bandmates (Nick Buxton – drums, Tom Dowse – guitarist, Lewis Maynard – bass) often go bonkers behind and around her. It can be a jarring experience. Shaw is sometimes like an eye of a hurricane. Your ears aren’t sure where to give their attention. It’s best to just absorb it.

Lead single “Hit My Head All Day” has a wicked disco bass line from Maynard and a funk groove by Buxton to get your body moving. Dowse’s guitar comes in from the post-punk show next door and the dancers happily let him rock out while they keep dancing. Underneath the fun beats, Shaw sings about being frustrated with the barrage of not only thoughts, but also the idea she has to keep thinking them (“Life, a series of memorials and signals telling us this or that. Telling us this or this, think of that. The objects outside the head control the mind. To arrange them is to control people’s thinking.”).

“Cruise Ship Designer” is a song about a man who has a great career, yet he feels empty about it. Shaw wonders what it must be like to design floating cities and still feel unseen. Shaw tells a tale of someone invisible to most — the kind of song Dry Cleaning do well. “My Soul / Half Pint” has almost a surf groove to Dowse’s guitar during the chorus, and Shaw, tired of how domestic responsibilities have been heaped upon women, proclaims that “Maybe it’s time for men to clean for, like, five hundred years.”

“Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)” has this bright, slightly shoegaze-y texture that is difficult to describe. “Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit” has some of Shaw’s best lyrics on the album as she craves for time uninterrupted by “a video call or a survey or a dick pic or a loud bang.” She only gets privacy in “sample size” (just like most of us) and she only wants to be still and present. The saxophone on it adds a great touch.

“Blood” has smoldering punk rage under it as Shaw sings about the normalization of atrocities and violence across our screens. “Evil Evil Idiot” has Shaw expressing her frustrations with someone who won’t shut up about microplastics (and with influencers in general). The bursts of Dowse’s guitar are shocking at first. They match Shaw’s snarl.

Buxton and Maynard put down a fuzzy punk beat on “Rocks,” which is the grittiest track on the album and probably scorches live. On “The Cute Things,” Shaw seems to enjoy and be annoyed by little things in a relationship (“You talk like a greetings card, but I admire you and your family vibe.”). “I Need You” has her asking for stability in a world that keeps getting weirder by the day (“Why does it need to be over and over, and without end or change, and repeating over and over?…You’re the one that I need. You will make it all better.”). The synth bass reflects the weight she’s feeling of the constant barrage of anger around her.

The album ends with “Joy,” in which Shaw proclaims her belief that we’ll come through all this chaos and end up in a better place (“We’ll build a cute, harmless world. Don’t want one from you, cult.”).

Dry Cleaning are confronting emotional things all over this record, and inviting us to do the same in a calm way…but also acknowledging that calmness can proceed a storm.

Keep your mind open.

[I might hit my head all day if you don’t subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]