Desolate Realm close the circle, Dark Side Of Light string you along, She Said Destroy find success through excess, Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones get going — and it’s time for you to get a move on too, now that your latest Midweek Roundup is coming to an end. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
39 | Desolate Realm | The Circle
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Finnish doom-metal duo Desolate Realm have just shared The Circle, a track off the band’s debut album, set to be released April 23. Formed by members of Decaying, Chalice and Altar of Betelgeuze, Helsinki’s Desolate Realm combine the epic grandeur of doom metal acts like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus with classic heavy-metal of Savatage and Metal Church, and the mighty groove of Black Sabbath. Their self-titled album features eight new tracks full of epic melodies and gripping, heavy riffs.”
40 | Dark Side Of Light | Pull My Strings
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Indie/alternative duo Dark Side Of Light have released their mesmeric single Pull My Strings. It tackles heartbreak, fear of change, and the isolation many of us have faced during this global disaster. The alluring track is inspired by beats played by Grant Conway. This uniquely enticing instrumental and relatable message creates a song that resonates with any listener.”
41 | She Said Destroy | Succession
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following eight long years in hibernation, Norwegian genre-bending innovators She Said Destroy finally return with the new album Succession. Picking up where they left off with their 2012’s EP Bleeding Fiction, this effort consists of material written over the last 13 years and thus represents a broad collection of influences and musical styles. Succession is a natural continuation of She Said Destroy’s exploration of human nature on past releases. This time around the impact of the Anthropocene era on our psyche and our surroundings rears its ugly head throughout the album. These are songs of frustration, despair and hatred, but also of love and wanting to cling on to hope even when not believing that striving for a better world will bear fruit.”
42 | Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones | Let’s Go
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s simply impossible to see Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones perform and not have a great time. A smile on the lips, a swivel in the hips, and an earful of snappy tunes are the inevitable takeaways from any Ark-Tones appearance. The band’s singular blend of rock ‘n’ roll, country, blues, surf, Western swing, rockabilly, folk, pop, and jazzy rhythm & blues gets feet a-moving and hands a-clapping no matter the audience. From behind her trademark red cat-eye frames, Lara fills any hall that she and the Ark-Tones play with her neon-bright, bigger-than-life persona and her towering voice, an instrument that moves effortlessly between big-stage belting and sexy, sultry crooning. Here to Tell the Tale, the band’s red-hot upcoming third album, is diamond-hard proof. In spades.”
43 | Vision Video | Siren’s Song
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Athens, Georgia quartet Vision Video have released their latest single Siren’s Song. It is featured on their upcoming, debut album Inked In Red due out next Friday. Dusty Gannon stated: “Siren’s Song is a track that Emily [Fredock] and I co-wrote, and therefore has separate meanings for us both. On Emily’s behalf, the song was about a failed relationship, and the desire to recover that relationship. For myself, I framed that emotional landscape as a metaphor for my strange, recurring desire to go back to a warzone or be in emergency situations. Once you’ve been through something like a war, or worked as a first responder, other things in life can be pale in comparison, so the allegorical “siren” in the song is that strange voice in my head that tends to pop up to say, ‘You need me. You belong here.’ I think this song is fundamentally about looking at something you know is not good for you, but being seduced by its undeniable allure.”
44 | Acid’s Trip | Just A Man
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Gothenburg’s up-and-coming hard rock firestorm Acid’s Trip unveil a second track from their debut full-length Strings of Soul. With an uplifting southern rock feel, Just A Man reveals the band’s wide sonic palette and full potential. Say the band: ”Just A Man is a dark melancholic hit filled with upbeat guitars and melodies that just won’t go away! This song is about rough emotions, a ball and chain. It hits you in the feels and it captures that moment of defeat while becoming your true self. Get down, stand up and rise!”
45 | The Minimum Wage | White Rabbit
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Niagara band The Minimum Wage create an untamed brand of indie rock inspired by a wide range of musical influences and tastes. The band is comprised of multi-instrumentalists Branden Sterling, Sandro Rocco and Nolan Jodes. Recorded remotely during the pandemic, White Rabbit is an alt-rock tune that encourages you to keep your ears open and follow along. The band’s first official single pairs driving riffs with catchy vocals, with the addition of organ for good measure. As they say: “White Rabbit is about needing/wanting something to pull you along, or out of whatever mire you happen to be stuck in.”
46 | Raven Artson | Breathing Secrets (ft. Lyzza)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Los Angeles and Amsterdam-based multi-hyphenate Raven Artson continues his string of output with the 10-track Peak In Me EP. Slow-motion hyper-pop, the EP documents a life swung by uppers and downers. Says Raven: “Now that the shackles of my first release are off, I enjoy creating as freely and as much as possible. The ambition is to make personal anthems that soundtrack my own and my friend’s lives.” The EP, produced by Raven himself and co-produced by Chris Coady, features befriended artists True Blue, Negashi Armada, Ray Fuego and — on latest track Breathing Secrets — vocals from Lyzza.”
47 | Birthday Girl | Dizzy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Birthday Girl are back with the sublime new offering Dizzy. It’s a kaleidoscopic new single to sedate and soothe as we countdown the days to the return of live shows. Recalling the hallucinogenic venturings of Spacemen 3, Tame Impala and Pink Floyd, it’s a dose of highly medicated post-rock with trippy side effects and woozy temporal shifts aplenty. Behind this smokescreen of psychedelic ambience though, resides a red mist of revengeful intent. As Fran Baxter recalls: “I actually wrote Dizzy back when I lived in Liverpool. I’d just heard about a friend getting badly assaulted by someone, and so I wrote this as a futile fantasy of getting revenge. When these situations arise there’s always that voice inside that tells me to step up and be the hero, then I remember I’m not Sammy The Bull and so I just write a cute little song instead.”
48 | Neb. | IMU
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Multi-instrumentalist and producer Neb. (Nebyu Yohannes) makes his solo debut on April 30 with the beautiful Silhouette Of Yesteryear. The EP rings of sadness and nostalgia and courageously shares the producer’s most vulnerable moments over the course of 2020, baring his rawest emotions over sorrowful acoustic guitars and lofi ambient soundscapes. Channeling influences like Frank Ocean and Adrianne Lenker, Silhouette Of Yesteryear presents sonic vignettes of profound loneliness and frustration, and the inception of growth. On IMU, he meditates on an ended relationship, and the chaos and confusion that followed. Built on a melancholic acoustic guitar, he repeats the refrain: “I miss you, I miss you,” trying to capture feelings of confusion, resentment, and never feeling good enough. Neb. distills them into this simple message: “I was trying so hard to spell out every single thing that I felt, when the only thing I really wanted to say was that I miss you.”
49 | Mark Rubin: Jew Of Oklahoma | It’s Burning
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Like every good Jew, Mark Rubin looks for the humor in any situation he can. But he’s tired of being treated as an outsider in his own country, where his skin protects him from indignities non-whites suffer, but his DNA still marks him for hate. And he’s tired of not being taken seriously by people (including fellow Jews) who can’t fathom how the South-meets-West state of Oklahoma could spawn any Jews, much less a bluegrass-and-old-time-country-loving tuba and standup-bass virtuoso. Especially one known for melding acoustic roots music and hardcore punk in the influential ’90s group Bad Livers, playing polkas in dancehalls and honky-tonks across Texas with top Czech and Polish bands, and merging Klezmer and Romani music in the Other Europeans project. So he’s drawing a line in the sand — or at least, the bayous surrounding New Orleans, his current home. Rubin says The Triumph of Assimilation, out June 1, is meant to serve notice that conversations addressing discrimination and inclusion should involve Jews, too. “My ballad It’s Burning is based on a poem S’Brent by Polish Yiddish poet Mordechai Gebirtig, written in 1938 in reaction to a brutal pogrom in the city of Przytyk. In my ‘transadaption’ I feel the recognition of impending doom measured with the call to arms is just as prescient today as it was then. And in using the the form of the murder ballad I’m able to draw together both my Southern American and Jewish traditions in the process.”
50 | The Casual Sexists | Fresh Legs
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Casual Sexists are willing constituents of the resurging wave of satirical and frenetic new rave. Embarking on what they call their magnum opus, the Brooklyn dyad have disclosed the coming of their debut album Your Prescription Is Ready. With the nation’s countdown to June 21 underway, Fresh Legs is an examination of dancefloor behaviours. The Casual Sexists tear through the brutal reality, creating a tongue in cheek, electro-punk anthem for those who want to dance without being pestered or fondled. They say: “The dancefloor is a complex arena. A place of communality, loneliness, euphoria, release, awkwardness, freedom, violence, transcendence, collapse. Above all though, it’s a place where self-expression should thrive, unchallenged. For some, however, the freedom of the dancefloor means something a bit different. The freedom to infiltrate personal space at will, to clumsily clutch, to slur asinine bullshit in your ear whilst you’re trying to seize the night. Fresh Legs is an acidic kiss-off to those ham-footed fuckboys who will never have the moves, for whom the dancefloor is a conduit to one-sided non-sex, a playground for deflated desires. It’s an anthem for the lone mover, the soundtrack to dancing those pestilent leeches into a corner and leaving them there.”
51+52 | Neurosis | Common Inconsistencies + Operation Ivy | Hangin’ Out
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Maybe one of the most influential punk compilations in history, The Thing That Ate Floyd is a snapshot in time: The San Francisco Bay Area, California, 1988. The Thing That Ate Floyd captured it at its peak. From Sweet Baby’s sugary pop punk hooks to Neurosis’s stoned chaotic sludge to Bitch Fight’s righteous feminist fury, and everything in between, Floyd had it all. Now it’s being remastered and reissued as a benefit for 924 Gilman St., the home base of many of the bands on the compilation that still stands today. The Thing That Ate Floyd will be released May 7. Here are two tracks from Neurosis and Operation Ivy.”
53 | Shun | Run
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Asheville, N.C. heavy rock collective Shun will release their self-titled debut June 4. The record includes guest appearances by Mark Morton (Lamb Of God) and J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Government Issue). A name inspired by a Bruce Lee quote — “Adapt what is useful, reject [shun] what is useless, and add what is specifically your own” — Shun is guitarist/vocalist Matt Whitehead, guitarist/backing vocalist Scott Brandon, bassist Jeff Baucom and drummer Rob Elzey. In advance of Shun, the band unveil opening track Run. Notes Brandon, “This album for me truly is a culmination of a lifelong passion for music and a testament to my DIY attitude towards life in general … I think Run is a great example of us hitting on all cylinders.”
54 | Schlindwein | Textures
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Textures is the second single off Schlindwein’s second album, which is anticipated in July. This track has a classic house feel with a deep and sexy bass groove and that beloved organ sound. Schlindwein gives his insight: ‘This one was really meant for my live set. It is supposed be the kind of secret weapon that gives the extra push of energy and euphoria at the climax. I can’t wait to try it out with an audience soon. You can easily imagine this track lifting moods next to songs of artists like Booka Shade or Maya Jane Coles. Dear 2021, please let us have some outdoor parties this summer!”
55 | Bryce Bowen | Ruthless
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ultra-dynamic dance-pop star Bryce Bowyn is pushing feelings aside and breaking hearts with his single Ruthless. An unapologetic and empowering anthem, Ruthless finds the talented audiovisual artist triumphant and shining radiantly in the aftermath of a failed relationship in which he refused to sacrifice his own emotional well being for someone else. Bowyn states: “This song is about rebounding after a bad breakup. I was in this messy entanglement with another boy. He wasn’t treating me very nicely, but I could tell he had feelings for me. I like to think of myself as quite compassionate, but I was sick of having my heart broken. So I took the opportunity to get a little ruthless and be the heartbreaker for once.”
56 | Oxidize | Days Go By
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Days Go By is the new single from critically acclaimed metal band Oxidize. Their album Dark Confessions is available now.”
57 | Carnage Alpha | Breath the Darkness
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Swedish metal combo Carnage Apha unleash the single Breath the Darkness, taken from their album From There to Oblivion. The band comment: “Breath The Darkness is one of the darkest song from the debut album From There To Oblivion.” Carnage Alpha’s music is a mix of melodic death metal with hints of other genres as well. Three words can be used to describe the band: Melodic, Agressive and Atmospheric.”
