Exploring Electricity & Electronics
Abstract Hip Hop, Yacht Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Dream Pop, Power Pop, AOR, Hi-NRG, Indie Rock and more!
Afternoon to y’all out there.
It has been a rollercoaster for those who’s mental health are affected by the weather - it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s rainy, it’s warm again. Make your gat dang mind up, will you?
I’ve been trying to stay on top of being active. Taking my bike out whenever I can, going for walks. I hate that things like this—which are so readily available for me to do—are so often out of reach for my stupid dumb idiot brain. Oh yeah, that bike that is in your garage which is one button press away from being open so you can ride the bike into the back alley way and down the street to a beautiful trail a handful of blocks away…. too hard for you to do today? Cool, sit and rot instead.
The intentions of moving out of the city and making time for things I take for granted doesn’t come so easily after all, but I suppose I’m making small progresses here and there around enjoying my surroundings, which is progress nonetheless.
Speaking of, I came across this graffiti yesterday on a walk with Emma and I really enjoyed it. I also dig the ‘BOG’ above which reminds me of a VHS cover.
Well, let’s get on with the reviews. What have you been stoked about lately? What have you been listening to? Let me know.
Emoji legend:
⛏️ denotes picks of the week, my favs.
🌱 seedling denotes albums like a lot and expect could grow on me over the year.
✨ means I like it and would recommend to fans of the genre.
✂ denotes favourite tracks from a given record.
As always, feel free to reach out over on BlueSky or join the Rosy Overdrive Discord server where I can be found now and again.
You can also find me in the corners of Rate Your Music scrounging for obscure emo, hardcore, indie rock and pop punk.
Don’t forget: if you’re reading this in your email it will be cut off.
Read on the web for the full list of reviews!
⛏️ Wisconsin Anger Team - Beyond The Everest Crater III (2025)
Genres: Power Pop, Pop Punk, Punk Rock, Indie Rock
Earlier releases from Wisconsin Anger Team like WATAWA (2021) or Beyond the Everest Crater (2022) and Beyond the Everest Crater II (2023) were a pinch speedier, a pinch punkier, though they still sat snugly in that "it's not pop punk, it's not power pop, it's not punk rock, but it has ingredients of all of these things to some degree" place.
2024's Archie was the first of theirs that I heard, and it continued to refine their sound into a well balanced place. You could still say they have an 80s indie alt-rock air while saying some songs make you think of power poppy Green Day songs. They hold onto that here - just as you're ready to say "hey if you like Liquid Mike you should really check this out" they bash out a 40 second punk song.
This should appeal to fans of The Figgs ("Bloodbath") as much as it would a listener who's tastes have a venn diagram overlap of Dirtnap Records style melodic garage-pop-punk ("Beat Me To Death With My Lucky Hat") and 90s indie rock ("Hangin' With Jody").
I think my favourite part of this band is that while you can trace their sound's evolution across their 5 releases so far, and the measurements of their ingredients are often changing, they're still the same band releasing consistent stuff. Personally, I think they're getting better and better with every release and just might be one of the most underrated bands in indie rock currently (complementary.)
The more I listen to this, the closer I get to proclaiming it one of the best albums of the year.
⛏️ Aesop Rock - Black Hole Superette (2025)
Genres: Abstract Hip Hop, Experimental Hip Hop, Boom Bap, Illbient
As a long-time fan of Aes, I continue to struggle slightly with their release cadence as they have been dropping 60+ minute slabs of music every other year (or faster) since 2019.
In the case of this album, it retains their level of above-average to better quality, especially on some of the songs that bang a little harder than expected ("Checkers"). But still, it's hard to differentiate when the foundational elements between this or Integrated Tech Solutions or Spirit World Field Guide seem less striking (aside from some framing devices or thematic grouping) and a bit more subtle than some of their previous work. Not saying every album needs to be a complete sonic left turn but if you asked me if I wanted to hear Black Hole Superette or Integrated Tech Solutions, I'm not sure how I'd answer aside from one having regency bias over the other.
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter I suppose since those aforementioned framing devices and lyrical thematic grouping has kind of been the point of Aes’s career the past three or four releases. It’s hard to complain when the floor for their work remains as high as it is. Nothing here falls below "above average" and the only real negative thing I can say about it is again just how much of it there is to digest. A bunch of this hauls really hard, which is appreciated.
🌱 Moontype - I Let the Wind Push Down on Me (2025)
Genres: Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Neo-Psychedelia, Dream Pop
Really enjoyed Bodies of Water, which landed on my 2021 Year-End List so this was a highly anticipated one for me. First instinct is to say I'm going to need time to see how I feel about this, as it's much more of a slow burn than their previous album. Where that one had a sharper, slightly chaotic thing going on, here they've really pulled back into subdued territory. Gone are the spiky bursts of noisy guitar pop. They haven't totally turned their back on the sound ("Click Clack", the finale of "Long Country") but it's employed way more sparingly. These songs simmer and bubble instead of hopping from riff to riff.
I don't mind it, but it's a lot less immediate and it's entirely possible I bounce off this one, we'll see. Another one for the "need to listen to it during a long, patient car ride" pile for this year.
🌱 The Raging Nathans - Room for One More (2025)
Genres: Pop Punk, Punk Rock, Alternative Rock
A little more all over the map than expected here, on what feels like a very transitional album. This is a mix of their usual speedy pop punk ("Out of Control", "If I Want You to Hate Me") and stuff that edges out into other territory. Nothing too wildly out of left field, but they're also dipping into more melodic alt-rock style punk ("The Grudge") or stuff that almost feels indie rock or emo-adjacent ("Nick at Nite") in some of the instrumentals. Songs like "Oh, The Places You'll Gloat" maintain their foundation in quote unquote actual punk rock. Before you could just say "Hey if you like The Dopamines and The Copyrights, listen to this band" but that's a bit less true on this record. I'm digging it but much like dewtaylo's review, I'll need a bit of time to see if the hooks here dig into me as much as their previous material. Definitely has a lot of potential to.
⛏️ Call Me Lightning - When I Am Gone My Blood Will Be Free (2010)
Genres: Hard Rock, Indie Rock, Indie Rock
What a fucking enormous album. In 2004 I was really into The Trouble We're In, in particular the opening song "We Be Dragons". As a band at that point, Call Me Lightning fit into that vaguely sassy angular post-punk indie rock dance punk thing going on. They didn't fit snugly into that trend, but they were adjacent to it and it made sense that you'd see their name alongside something like, say, Beep Beep or whatever. I still think that album is underrated, but two albums later they had transformed into something else entirely.
They still have the angular, slashing guitar thing going on here, but they've taken their The Who influence (they named their band Call Me Lightning after all) and dialed that shit up to eleven.
The roll-happy drum performance on this record, particularly on a song like the title track, is just so fucking exciting to me. It's all raw and dynamic arena sized power trio action. Each of these tracks function almost like indie rock takes on the classic rock micro-epic (only a couple songs go longer than 4 minutes or so.) "The Fog" in particular has that "takes half its length to get going" classic rock format, and it kills too.
It's not exactly a concept album, but the record pulls a "tales and wisdom of life, growth and fuck ups, all told in the style of myths" thing that I really appreciate. Looking back at my "2 Albums for Every Year I've Been Alive" list, I'm really surprised this didn't come to mind for 2010 because I loved it when it released and time has really been kind to it for me.
⛏️ Pages - Pages (1978)
Genres: Yacht Rock, Pop Soul, Funk Rock, Jazz-Rock, Soft Rock, Blue-Eyed Soul, AOR
This is about a ten out of ten on the "these guys want to be Steely Dan" rating scale. They're like if Steely Dan had a bit less substance (non-derogatory) and fit more into the AOR/blue-eyed-soul mold, with some subtle genre-hopping (like the lightly calypso vibe of "Love Dance", or cheesy ballads like "This Is for the Girls").
They are slick as hell with dope production and synths-a-plenty. I have a lot of time for this and imagine it'll be another backyard beer drinking pick this summer. Will need to investigate their other albums as well.
⛏️ Fun Fun - Have Fun! (1984)
Genres: Italo-Disco, Synthpop, Hi-NRG, Dance-Pop
Great stuff if you enjoy cheesy 80s Hi-NRG synthpop dance music, which I absolutely do. Not really sure how much else there is to say about something like this. Euro/Italio-disco-sized melodies and some cheesy ass scratching on "Happy Station." I mean, hell yeah it's almost summer, baby.
✨ Okkervil River - Stars Too Small to Use (1999)
Unavailable on streaming, unavailable on YouTube.
Genres: Indie Folk, Folk Rock, Indie Rock, Alt-Country
I still prefer the scrappy, out-of-tune yelp-y versions of songs like "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion" or "He Passes Number Thirty-Three" than their re-recorded versions on other albums. Revisiting this EP today reminded me that I really admired this band's early work. I still have a lot of love for Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See and certain songs off Down the River of Golden Dreams though. This is probably the kind of release that is just more "time and place" for me as opposed to something I'd tell people to go seek out.
✨ Dananananaykroyd - There Is a Way (2011)
Genres: Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore, Sass, Power Pop
If I had to describe this, I think I'd start with Johnny Foreigner meets mclusky by way of Los Campesinos! featuring a singer who sometimes sounds theatrical in the same way as that guy from Billy Talent.
They come from the era of bands with really stupid names. They also come from the era when having two drummers was a novel hook. They also come from the era of bands describing themselves in stupid ways like when this band called themselves "Fight Pop."
No idea what that means, but they mix elements of indie rock, noise rock, noodly math-pop and sassy chaotic post-hardcore. When their album Hey Everyone! dropped, I really dug their style but had to look past their whole name and aesthetic. There's still stuff you need to look past on this one (i.e. them singing da-na-na-na-na-na on "Think and Feel.") If you can't stand this particular brand of thing, I just can't blame you. But I feel like both of their albums have aged relatively well compared to other stuff like this. Again, you're going to need to be the kind of person that doesn't immediately balk at the singer and the theatric nature of it all. I wouldn't call this one their attempt at being mature, but they are branching out a bit into a bunch of different places compared to their first album, which was a little more content just hammering home their noisy sassy tunes. They're trying to layer in a little more nuance here, albeit with the subtly of a blunt object.
They might also be an example of a band who's second album is more consistent, while their debut has all the really thrilling highs ("Infinity Milk," "Black Wax," "Pink Sabbath" etc.) This record isn't without those moments, like the extended intro of "Reboot" kicking off the record or the skewed power pop of "Muscle Memory". In particular, the A Side run from "Reboot" through "Time Capsule" is pretty great.
✨ Electric Light Orchestra - Balance of Power (1986)
Genres: Synthpop, Pop Rock, AOR, Sophisti-Pop
I guess people don't care too much for this album because ELO fully took a turn into AOR synthpop and away from their more quote unquote legitimate symphonic rock. Well guess what? I love cheesy 80s cocaine pop and this is mostly above average if you're into that kind of thing. "Heaven Only Knows" is an album highlight right off the bat, and " So Serious" is good too. "Getting to the Point" is a little repetitive but not bad. Then we get some major Winwood-ass synths on "Secret Lives".
The rest of the album maintains a "good but not great" ceiling, but like I said I am on board for this entire vibe so while these songs can't quite match the opening one-two punch, they sit well in the background. "Without Someone" is a good slow-burn with nice vocal melodies. "Send It" is a big of an outlier and feels like something they tacked onto the end, because why not?
Worst thing you could say about this is the energy isn't exactly high, so even though it's mostly disposable synthy excess, you'll need a modicum of patience or just be in the mood for this kind of thing when it's not in "get to the hook" mode. Will certainly have this playing in the backyard a few more times this summer, I think.
✨ NOFX - So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes (1997)
Genres: Skate Punk, Pop Punk, Melodic Hardcore, Ska Punk
Been in the mood for some fast and melodic skate punk so I reached for this. As people usually say, the whole "Kill Rock Stars" thing has aged very poorly, and some of the back-half of this ends up blurring together, but Side A has some of their best work. You can't argue them as a singles band though because when you stack their best songs up they seem unstoppable, but the albums always have fun stuff you've forgotten about.
I like this era of the band when they were tossing everything they had—including random outbursts of ska—at the wall. To be honest I always forget this is post-Punk in Drublic but pre-Pump Up the Valuum because those two were the ones I owned on CD in high school and they felt very much like a one-two-punch kind of set of albums even though they're actually 2 releases and like 6 years apart. Anyway, this is fun and 30 minutes is just the right pace for them to peace out at.
✨ Strung Out - Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues (1996)
Genres: Melodic Hardcore, Skate Punk, Pop Punk
Listened to this and Twisted by Design a ton back in College, but it has been a while since I checked back in with them.
Over the years, I've tried to follow their post-Twisted by Design career but nothing they ever did after really landed for me. I should be one of the first people interested in a skate punk band turning up the "metallic riffs" knob on their sound but it never really did it for me with Strung Out.
Looking at the track list here, and seeing all the songs that stand out in my memory being on Side A ("Firecracker," "Better Days," "Solitaire," "Monster," etc.) had me worried, but despite the rest of this album being a case of "the same song, rewritten 12 more times", these 30 or so minutes pretty much flew by on the strengths of their speed and melodic approach.
Push comes to shove, I might need to revisit Twisted to see where I land on which of these two I prefer, but this was fun to revisit.
Carly's Day Out - ...The Past Is Behind Us (2001)
Unavailable on streaming, unavailable on YouTube.
Genres: Pop Punk, Punk Rock, Emo
This band appears to have been formed from the ashes of a band called Third Generation Mafia (based on the Punknews review from 2001.) I came across this band after reading about how The Honor System (themselves formed from the ashes of The Broadways band) are getting the re-issue treatment. Saw some fliers posted to Facebook and started looking up some of the bands they played with and tried tracking down some stuff to listen to.
Some of this is scrappy poppy punk as you'd expect of this time (I don't need to tell you what chord progression is used in opening track "Now What Happened?" for you to already know which one it is) and some of it is a little emo-adjacent. Stuff like "Shapeshifter" or "Goodnight Princess" nudges into melodic hardcore or post-hardcore territory maybe? They're definitely leaning into the screaminess on some songs like that. A couple times I thought about stuff like Lifetime, Can't Slow Down-era Saves the Day or even The Movielife ("Complaint Department").
I've heard a lot of music just like this, and can say this is a smidge above your average band. Nothing mind blowing that would raise them out of "they were my favourite local band!" obscurity, but not too shabby either. Some duds for sure, but some decent songs too. Would have been interested to see where they'd go from here.
Just Surrender - If These Streets Could Talk (2005)
Genres: Emo-Pop, Pop Punk, Post-Hardcore, Mall Screamo
Was looking through some albums from 2005 to see what I could find turning 20 years old that I had never heard before. The combo of album art plus genres listed above stuck out like a sore thumb. Good lord, that is some 2005-ass art!
Pressed play and this is some big time Taking Back Sunday-core. The dual singers trading off wordy verses, the alternatingly plucky emo and chunky emo-rock riffing, and the singing that edges into "yelling" territory without actually doing the emo-core scream... all of that stuff is on display in a major way.
I think if you're really trying to scrape the barrel on this genre to find gems, this is probably a bit above-average. It makes sense that "I Can Barely Breathe" and "Tell Me Everything" have over a million streams on Spotify because those are the songs that sound most like Tell All Your Friends b-sides. Something like "Our Work of Art" is chuggy enough to warrant a post-hardcore sub-genre tag, I suppose.
This kind of band really needs to have enormous hooks for me to get down with them on an album level, and there's some songs here that manage it, but not sure it's too memorable as a whole. Worth a look if you absolutely need more of this sound in your life though.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.