In Panic
Indie Rock, Death Metal, IDM, Power Pop, Pop Punk, Progressive Rock, AOR and More!
Hello y’all!
Some bullet-point updates and links for ya:
Got to visit a local café for the launch of my partner’s art show as well as see some live poetry! Wonderful.
After a string of movie disappointments (Backrooms, Obsession, The Running Man, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy) I finally found myself thoroughly enjoying a new film: I Love Boosters! Any movie with a whole section dedicated to miniature work in the credits is going to get my approval.
How about checking out this 1984 short film directed by Elaine & Saul Bass and written by Ray Bradbury?
Then why not watch the new video from Chat Pile… very excited about their new album!
Otherwise, here’s some music reviews. Hope you enjoy ‘em!
Emoji legend:
⛏️ denotes picks of the week, my favs.
🌱 seedling denotes albums like a lot and expect could grow on me over the year.
✨ albums I would recommend to fans of the genre (i.e. it might not convert new listeners, but you should check it out.)
✂ 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!
⛏️ Partials - Constant Action (2026)
Genres: Alternative Rock, Power Pop
Another release this year from Jesse of Broadcaster, Adult Magic) and featuring Tom Kelly (also of Broadcaster) and Dan Leo (who I believe played in Action Action and Diffuser).
If you're familiar with Broadcaster and Adult Magic, this is more hook-forward, mid-tempo indie rock with shades of power pop. They never dip into straight up pop punk, but it's very similar to alternative rock stuff in the 90s that would erroneously be called pop punk, if you know what I mean.
Honestly, this seems like 5 songs Jesse had ready to go but which didn't fit on the Adult Magic album from this year. I imagine they also didn't fit on the recently announced Broadcaster album "Lucky Number" coming soon via Dead Broke Rekerds either. That's OK, because personally I have a high floor for Jesse's voice and songwriting and 15 more minutes of material from them is a very welcome thing indeed. Enjoyed this a lot, and stoked for more from Broadcaster.
⛏️ Zorn - Return to Castle Death (2026)
Genres: Black ‘n’ Roll, Black Metal, Speed Metal, Hardcore Punk
I have limited experience deep within the intersections of black metal / punk / Black 'n' Roll / deathrock etc. etc. etc. so I listened to this purely because it was on the Shreddit release tool thing I check sometimes and I knew it existed in the spectrum of heavy music that I would want to keep notes on and that's about it.
Immediately I can understand where this is coming from, as "Kill Him With Poison" is a quick blast of blackened punky energy. Can also pinpoint the Speed Metal sub-genre tag as some of this sounds like Motörhead-adjacent type shit (non-derogatory).
I don't know how much I'm going to be running to return to this type of thing, but I also think it fills a void for relatively melodic, aggressive but still entertaining guitar-forward music that is peppering ingredients from varying forms of punk and metal that I'm already a fan of. Maybe some of this is a little one-note and blink-and-you'll miss it to feel substantial ("Catholic Girls") but even so, it's effective in the moment.
🌱 Emperor X - Unified Field (2026)
Genres: Indie Pop, Singer-Songwriter, Folk Punk, Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Power Pop, Alt-Country
Have been a fan of Matheny's since the release of Tectonic Membrane / Thin Strip on an Edgeless Platform; I was in College around that time, and my tastes were expanding beyond the indie rock and pop punk and into weirder areas, which was a perfect time to come across that record. Over the years, it has been hard to fully keep up with their releases, but every few years I'd check in on what seemed like their "main line" releases such as Western Teleport or Oversleepers International and be happy that they were still releasing high quality stuff.
This record sees them returning to Bar/None Records, and in some ways re-focusing their sound; they still have bursts of hiss and noise, but this sits mostly pretty firmly in-and-around the singer/songwriter folk area while still striking out into poppier and experimental territories in equal measure when required. In that way, this should serve as a good introduction to their songwriting voice for new listeners, as well as a welcome return for long time fans. I might prefer them in their more lo-fi, all-over-the-place form, but this is welcome too and undeniably a powerful record lyrically.
🌱 Scibor - Searching for Colors (2026)
Genres: Microhouse, Ambient Techno, Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Ambient techno that skirts across varying related genres, sometimes jazzy, sometimes house-y and with an incredibly light dusting of atmospheric drum and bass (pretty much exclusively found on "Flare"). This is mostly really pleasant, rolling and skittering electronic music that lulls and soothes with melodic pads. 1 hour and 23 minutes of this is a whole lot to get through though, even if it is of high quality. Worth a peek, but I'm not sure I need 83 minutes of it in one sitting.
🌱 Church Andrews & Matt Davies - TILT (2026)
The bandcamp page for this describes it as "skewed microtonal and discordant compositions for percussion and digital synth" and goes on to further elaborate on its "kinetic, elastic, wonky without being obtuse" properties. Hard to beat that as a way to wrap your head around the sounds going on here. As always, the mix of rhythmic/percussive and melodic concepts meld really well for me on this one. Some of this also gets into really nicely organic territories ("Debris") without relying on stale "indietronica" tropes. Nice pacing as well, and doesn't drag things out past 28 minutes.
🌱 Bashful - 'Til It Makes You Sick (2026)
I guess when I reviewed Driving, I didn't realize they actually had members of Hold Tight! in the band when I made the comparison. To be fair, I was describing more of an influence than an actual band-to-band comparison so I didn't think to check. Of Driving, I said they couldn't exactly be described as nasally Weaselcore nor gruff orgcore but rather landed somewhere snugly in-between. On their follow-up, they're definitely leaning towards the former a lot more than the latter. This has more of a neener-neener, slickly poppy (but still speedy!) pop punk thing going on. Previously, songs like "Breaking In" really straddled that line and sounded more comparable to The Dopamines. Here, they're doing a little more snotty poppy skate punk ("Bachelor in Paradise") and dipping into power poppy songs that bring to mind early Green Day ("Aches and Pains"). They go further down that road into jangly alternative territory on "In the Flood" and slow things down to mid-tempo on "Summer Sun".
I think ultimately, this feels a little transitional. We're six years out from their last album, so it makes sense this doesn't just sound like more of the same. Your mileage will likely vary on the slight, but deliberate, turn they've made here towards more 90s Weasel-y type pop punk and away from the chant-along, orgcore/emo type influence they had previously.
✨ Coprolith - Putrescence (2026)
Genres: Death Metal
Cavernous and doomy death metal from Toronto, Ontario featuring members of Droid (Voivod-worshippers) and some related goregrind acts (Spastic Tumor, Foetal Waste Compactor etc.)
I really want to root for the home team here, and this is surely a solid release, but this strikes me as a bit unremarkable. They've got the nasty, cave-dwelling aura down pat, and they are certainly adept at pounding you flat with filthiness, but I craved a bit more variety. I liked when "Birthed by Remorseless Flames" and "Possessed by Incoherent Violent Suggestions" pick up the pace and stomp around between bouts of hazy pummeling.
This just seems like another example where I enjoy everything about a band's music in concept, but the songs themselves aren't imprinting on my brain the way I want them to. Another one to chalk up as potentially a MP not a YP.
✨ Grey Matter - Grey Matter (2026)
Genres: Skacore
I recall trying to get into Climbing Out a few times over the past few years, and thinking they had an interesting thing going on (seemingly equal parts skacore/ska punk and jazzier more free-form elements) so when I heard they had a new one out, I figured why not check it out?
This one feels like they're leaning a bit further into a more shouted, almost spoken word vibe to the vocal performance than Climbing Out which I feel like had more of a scream-y punk thing to it. In fact, they sound like they're doing more of a Big D and the Kids Table type approach here ("The Money"). They still have a good mix of loud/soft ska/punk with some more exploratory jazz elements though.
A lot of this is totally my speed, but something about it feels a pinch distancing; it's not the political nature of their lyrics of which I pretty much entirely agree with top-to-bottom, but at times this somehow feels like music made to be admired? Firey, political ska punk should hit me in my gut and my heart, but this kind of slides in one ear and out the other for some reason, which surely isn't their goal.
✨ Pugilist - Triads (2026)
Very good UK Bass stuff, with the expected breakbeats as well as an air of classic electronica in some of the textural work. Lots of nice pads, dubby atmosphere, and moments of grit. This rolls along at a nice energy level and I found it very satisfying, if not very mind altering.
✨ Sirens - Colossal (2026)
Genres: Melodic Hardcore
Melodic hardcore in the Revolution Summer style, with Bandcamp giving RIYLs including: Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, Unity and Ignite. I'd add Fugazi in there too, because songs like "Ocean" with its chugging verses and sighing vocals bring Fugazi to mind as much as they do Rites of Spring.
And this isn't entirely a band of new upstarts emulating their idols, as Guillaume Salort is an established singer and Joe Foster played in Unity and Ignite.
Anyway, this stuff is totally pretty good and if you like the stuff I'm referencing here you will find something to enjoy I imagine. I can't imagine this will make it into my heavy rotation any time soon, but it's totally and completely... pretty good.
⛏️ All Out War - Condemned to Suffer (2003)
Genres: Metalcore, Hardcore Punk, Thrash Metal, Death Metal
The kind of album that makes you realize that RateYourMusic isn't always set up around the niches of hardcore that well, which is ironic because sometimes it can feel granular a community to a fault (go look at the arguments people get into on any bolded album's genre voting page, for example.)
You often see a lot of stuff tagged "hardcore punk" that feels like it's trying to be squeezed into far too broad a genre. And then you also see an album like this tagged metalcore... which seems correct to the words in that name, but in execution doesn't exactly sit beside what you might classically consider as a "metalcore album" perfectly either? Like I'm not going to listen to this and Jane Doe back to back and think "these are the same thing" you know?
In some ways, this feels like it perfectly splits the difference between hardcore (emphasis on breakdowns, chugga chugga riffs and making you want to throw hands in a pit) with varying types of metallic influences (thrashy riffing, some death metal elements, etc.) There's songs here you could play to a die hard Bolt Thrower fan and they wouldn't second guess it, and that kicks ass.
Anyway, that's a lot of me dumping my brain out for no real reason other than to say that this fucking hauls ass and it's completely the kind of thing I want when I think about albums that blur the line between hardcore music and metal music.
⛏️ Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness (1989)
Genres: Death Metal
I'm still only a couple years into my death metal journey at the time of writing this, but as I've mentioned in other reviews my instinct is always to dig through obscurities and underrated records for hidden gems and all of that and often times that means I lose sight of the canonized classics. I try and pepper those in when the mood strikes, and I have of course sampled a number of Morbid Angel albums over the years but never fully sat down and put one on start-to-finish or given enough thought to try and parse through my reactions.
Knowing the release date, I am unsurprised that this feels rooted in the "play thrash so evily, aggressively and speedily that it turns into death metal" style of classic release. Lots of headbanging influence on here, and there's a palpable whiff of stale beer in this album's garage. Because that's how I came to death metal (through primarily death-thrash records like Idolatry) this is immediately my tempo.
I could put on my "but actually" hat and start thinking that based on my current tastes, this feels a little like a simple pleasure in hindsight and try and parse through the "well it was groundbreaking at the time, but does it hold up having heard everything that came from its broken ground" type thing, but nah this just kicks ass through and through. You can absolutely listen to this and just appreciate the riffs, the sick solos, the bad-ass half time tempo drops ("Maze of Torment") and the incredible drumming.
⛏️ Entombed - Clandestine (1991)
Genres: Death Metal
Not a whole lot to add to the conversation here but this kicks ass, plain and simply. I know there's always a lot of "well, it was heavy for the time" conversations with death metal's seminal albums but this is actually quite sneakily heavy. Sometimes it's sitting in that "thrash riff" type heavy but when they smack you on the head with a slowed down riff ("Blessed Be") or sneak a little hardcore/punk energy it really underlines everything they're doing so well. "Stranger Aeons" made me want to punch a hole in a wall.
Songwriting holds up too, this doesn't feel like a collection of riffs or a bundle of attitude, it's very well rounded. I know that Left Hand Path is the album everyone points to, or wears shirts of, but I've bounced off it a few times and this one clicked immediately.
✨ Saga - Saga (1978)
Genres: Progressive Rock, AOR, Progressive Pop, Space Disco, New Wave
After mostly enjoying Worlds Apart, and being in the mood for lightly progressive pop / rock type stuff after seeing a free Gowan concert this past weekend, I figured why not revisit Saga and start at the beginning? This is definitely what I expected, less in-your-face about incorporating synths, but they're still all over the record. Very classically prog rock in sound and composition, but with big AOR-level melodies propping it up. "Humble Stance" was immediately recognizable, as I'm sure I've heard it on Canadian classic rock radio a lot over the years. This has a space-y atmosphere that I wasn't expecting though, as slight as it is. Some of this almost feels more along the lines of when Gentle Giant took turn into pop, which is right up my alley. Definitely has some of that prog pomp rock that I'm not as heavily into, but their mix of progressive pop, rock and AOR (ok, so proto-neo-prog?) is very tasteful on the whole.
✨ Jimmy Eat World - Jimmy Eat World (1994)
Genres: Pop Punk, Emo, Skate Punk
Considering I think Static Prevails is pretty good and that Clarity is wildly overrated, I figured I should check out their true debut. I remember stumbling across this on YouTube in the 2000s or something and thinking they sounded a bit more my speed in this era.
This sounds about what you might expect a young group of dudes would be playing in 1994 with these genre tags; they're not quite pop punk, not quite emo, not exactly punk rock, not totally alternative rock, but they have a sprinkling of all of that in here. First thought in my mind when hearing "Chachi" is that they sound more like Samiam or Gameface than the pop punk or emo I expected on here. Maybe it's the art, but I expected more early The Get Up Kids than anything else ("Usery" does bring them to mind though). They get a bit of momentum that will bring skate punk to mind on songs like "Amphibious" for sure and on a song like "Splat Out Of Luck" they almost have a bit of Superchunk in them.
So, they've got the youthful energy and the reference points down, really all that is left are the songs. You can see how they got from here to Static Prevails in a couple years, for sure. They mostly dialed back the punk rock scrappiness, nudged up the muscle in their riffs, added some soft plucky emo moments, and tried to focus in on stickier melodies. This is a neat diversion and definitely a sound I like a lot, but not incredibly memorable either.
✨ Faceless Burial - At the Foothills of Deliration (2022)
Genres: Technical Death Metal, Death Metal
Because I spent a lot of time also mining for obscure technical thrash records, I also have an appreciation of certain strains of tech death. Modern tech death has always struck me as having taken the ball way past the goal line; insanely riff-dense, seeming to serve no purpose other than to play as fast as humanly (or maybe via drum programming sometimes?) as possible. That hyper-modern side of the genre usually bounces off me; too robotic, too in-organic, in search of nothing but the almighty extremity.
So, I can appreciate a band like this who seem to be playing tech death in that 90s way, where sure they're hopping from riff to riff, switching tempos, tossing in lead-licks, random tremolo riffing and then back again... but there's a subtle approach in their songwriting here that hides underneath and seems to guide me through when things seem to be getting overly chaotic. And when they sound a bit more indebted to groovy riffs butting up against OSDM type material ("Dehiscent") it works too. I always appreciate legible bass performances in this type of music and for some reason "From the Bastion to the Pit" stood out to me in that way with an almost jazzy, psychedelic bass performance.
Biggest issue here is just overall density of the album as a whole—the first three songs alone will have you feeling like you listened to an album's worth of material. But, if you're into just the right balance of technicality and brutality, this might scratch your itch.
✨ Peter Michael Hamel - Organum (1986)
Genres: Minimalism, Modern Classical, Post-Minimalism, Berlin School
Organ forward Minimalism (or Post-Minimalism? which is it!?) which sees waves of overlapping pipe organ melodies repeat and cycle around one another with little stabs of world music type leads ("Part I"). The texture here is pretty immaculate, but "Part II" goes a little past piercing for my tastes. "Part III" is very pretty at times and makes me think of Brian Eno a bit. Ultimately, I think the first Part held my attention most and the other three were interesting and/or challenging at times but not something I'm dying to hear again.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.