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Slacker Rock, Death Metal, Power Pop, Post-Hardcore, Indie Pop, Progressive Electronic, Jazz Fusion, Ambient, New Age and more.
Hello y’all!
As you might be able to tell from the stack of reviews in here, I’ve fallen down a few rabbit holes the past few weeks. First, somehow I ended up going on a deep dive into Synthpop from 1985, 1986, and 1987 in an attempt to find some hidden gems. Maybe it’s the summer, I always feel like big, slick synthpop makes sense for the warmer weather.
Then, the algorithm recommended some obscure cassette tape YouTube channels to me and that become a micro-obsession for a week or so. The first one I came across was The Sagegazers which led me to the Paul Sauvanet reviewed here later. Some of the cassettes uploaded are so obscure and are accompanied by descriptions so obtuse that I started to wonder if some of these were merely elaborately constructed AI slop. But I found some traces of certain tapes online that would suggest otherwise.
Sounds of the Dawn followed in my recommended videos, and it has been a true treasure-trove of ambient, progressive electronic and new age tapes, and I have reviewed some here as well.
And so, apologies in advance if a good chunk of today’s reviews aren’t everyone’s speed; this is just where I’ve been lately!
Otherwise, here’s some other stray items from the past week or two:
Did you know that the seminal documentary short Heavy Metal Parking Lot turned 40 this year? “Heavy metal rules… all that punk shit belongs on fuckin’ mars!” 😂
Anybody else keeping up with Pop Culture Jeopardy! lately? We have been enjoying the latest season for sure.
Speaking of seminal music-related movies, Shout! Studios uploaded HYPE! (1996) fairly recently. A documentary so good it made made me want to go and get bloated (like, big bag of bloatation) while swingin' on the flippity-flop bound-and-hagged, wrapped in fuzz and kickers with my wack slacks on. (iykyk)
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!
⛏️ FILM - Permanence (2026)
Genres: Power Pop, Post-Hardcore
Supergroup featuring Kenny Vasoli (The Starting Line), Joe Reinhart (Algernon Cadwallader, Dogs on Acid), TJ DeBlois (Halfway to Holland, A Life Once Lost) and Chris Wilson (Acquaintances, Ted Leo and The Pharmacists).
The production is intentionally raw (due in part to the unexpected passing of DeBlois, completing the album in his honor), but you can definitely hear all of the members' influence on this in terms of sound; from the melody of Dogs on Acid ("Roundabout") to Kenny's vocals ("Reassurance").
They're playing with deliberately more abrasive textures though; you can call some of these riffs influenced by post-hardcore, but there's as much power-pop melody in here as well. Press-kit name drops Drive Like Jehu, mclusky, Braid etc. in a way that seems like they just want to get across that this is noisy and poppy in equal measures.
For me, this is immediately satisfying stuff. Big guitar-forward, poppy rock music with grit and sweat.
⛏️ Comfy - Steel Chimp (2026)
Genres: Slacker Rock, Power Pop, Noise Pop
I really dig Comfy and a few of their albums have been year-enders for me (Thanks for the Ride, Volume For, Goated & Foreboded) so I'm enjoying this despite it leaving me wanting more. I do love a good EP, and for 4 songs in 10 minutes this is strong all the way through, but I can't help but feel greedy. That said, these songs kick ass and showcase some more blown-out slacker noise; "Lathe" and "Coin" are maybe the crunchiest and heaviest they've ever been. In that way, these song continue a noisier trend that they started on Goated & Foreboded, which also makes me wonder if these are songs left-over from that album cycle. Regardless, if they're keeping on this path, I'm stoked.
🌱 Desecresy - The Secret of Death (2026)
Genres: Death Metal, Death Doom Metal
"Space Bolt Thrower" got me to press play on this, and you know it's a pretty accurate description if you add a bunch of doom-atmosphere on top. I think even if I didn't know this was mostly the product of a single person, I would feel that it sounds a bit more like a "project" than "band"; particularly the drums sound a bit... inorganic? It's singular in its goal though, and that goal is being doom-y and almost suffocatingly unfluctuating in its heaviness. Good stuff, sleeper potential possibly.
✨ Feeble Little Horse - Bitknot (2026)
Genres: Indie Pop, Indietronica, Slacker Rock, Noise Pop, Dream Pop
Where Girl With Fish was a noisy guitar-forward indie rock record with moments of twee-ish pluck-and-struminess ("Tin Man", "Paces") and shoegaze-level bursts of noise, on their latest they've recalibrated their measurements to be a bit more quirk-forward (more introduction of electronic bric-a-brac). But honestly, this isn't that far off from their previous sound and more than a couple of these could be plucked off this record and placed on Girl With Fish without too much convincing needed. Unfortunately, the downfall of this band is their sound seems all posture and lacks memorable hooks. No melodies to be found here which could stop this record from dropping out the other side of my head as easily as it came in. It's a smooth listen, but not a whole lot more than that upon first listen.
✨ Meltification - Meltification (2026)
Genres: Grindcore, Deathgrind
Pretty good deathgrind, but long in the tooth at 30+ minutes and it gets a bit repetitive. Some of this really hit the spot and there’s definitely some sick riffs in here (”Doomsday Horde Caravan”, “Calculated Demise”) but as an album it feels like a bunch of stuff slapped beside one another with an acoustic interlude in the middle and some other instrumentals peppered throughout (”Fragments”).
✨ Powerplant - Bridge of Sacrifice (2026)
Genres: Garage Punk, Deathrock, Black Metal, Egg Punk, Dungeon Synth, Post-Punk
I keep returning to this record, because it's doing a lot of stuff that I really like; garage-y egg punk approach to black metal and deathrock with an overall weird and quirky tone. But what keeps me on the fence is just how much this seems to be taking from Grime Stone Records. Like, if you played some of these songs for me blindfolded and asked me who they were, I would probably say Old Nick or Bloody Keep or some other GSR band depending on what song you picked. I mean, they aren't playing coy about it either.
They break off into their own lane, like the aside near the end of "Florida" or on songs like "Transactions", which is always welcome. When they go folk on "The Fork" it's pretty boring though. "Bad Moon Motel" is a good one that has its own tone going on that gets pierced through with the Grime Stone stuff at the mid-point almost as an aside.
Overall, I think it's cool that campy black metal is a part of their sound here, and I would say they are adding enough other stuff for it not to be outright egregious. Unfortunately, it's very telling that I like this album the most when it sounds exactly like something else that already exists. Honestly? I say they should toss a big ol' bucket of prog into this sound and see where that takes 'em. I'd be interested to hear that!
✨ Western Addiction - Psychedelic Munitions (2026)
Genres: Hardcore Punk, Melodic Hardcore
Cromulent Fat Wreck Californian punk, much more informed by your average down-the-middle melodic hardcore style punk as opposed to the super poppy skate punk style you'd also get from Fat in the 90s. This is well performed but I prefer this stuff to be really catchy, and this isn't all that hooky. They've lost a bit of the urgency and aggression that made stuff like Cognicide more immediate and stand out (bound to happen since that was 20+ years ago). I imagine existing fans will dig this as it's totally alright but I found it a little boring.
⛏️ Jane Siberry - The Walking (1987)
Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Ambient Pop, Sophisti-Pop, Singer-Songwriter
Beautiful art pop with some progressive and ambient elements. A lot of cheesy tones and textures, if you happen to be allergic to that type of thing, but personally I loved this. What's up with the proto-Minus the Bear riffing on the outro of "Lena is a White Table"!? People have rightly reclaimed this as a really ahead of its time piece of progressive pop for sure. Loved the percussion on "The Walking (and Constantly)". "The White Tent the Raft" is a fantastic opening song and will likely let you know if you're going to be along for the ride or not. There's a lot on here that probably will grate some people, particularly the closing song which plays out theatrically until snapping to the sound of footsteps in gravel at night, before getting back up again and becoming incredibly affecting. Definitely want to track this down on vinyl and spend a night or two digesting it.
(Note: after I wrote this, I went ahead and did just that… ready to call this a masterpiece to be honest. What a stunning achievement!)
⛏️ Tony Palkovic - Born With a Desire (1985)
Genres: Jazz Fusion, Synth Funk, Smooth Jazz
For something with a repressing on The Numero Group I expected this to have a lot more ratings on RYM than it does. I suppose smooth synth jazz isn't exactly the coolest thing going.
Top-to-bottom though, this is sick; piercing synths and just the right calculation of fusion and smooth. Like copies of the STUNTS and JONES IN THE FAST LANE soundtracks are trading barbs back and forth or something ("True to Yourself"). A total groove too, never gets to progressive or too weird to not bop your head along to. Would love to snag the Numero pressing of this.
⛏️ Jane Siberry - No Borders Here (1984)
Genres: Art Pop, New Wave, Synthpop, Progressive Pop
Damn, while The Walking was incredibly impressive but a bit tougher to parse (upon first listen), jumping a couple records back chronologically and I'm almost liking this one even more.
By comparison, this is certainly more commercial and structured in a much more accessible way, but much of what they would explode out to the forefront remains here in lightly progressive form; the beautiful synths framing the background of "Follow Me", the widescreen sound of "Symmetry", the short moments of ambient synths on "You Don't Need", a spoken word aside on "Mimi on the Beach" etc. And all of these little puzzle pieces help doubly-underline the wealth of hooks and melodies.
Have to echo one user in the RYM comments box saying that, while The Walking is an impressive achievement, the "synthy new wavey sound" on here really ties everything up in a perfect package. Really, really impressed by this one and by Siberry in general. A new favourite.
⛏️ Tim Stebbing - Princess of Mars (1986)
Genres: Progressive Electronic, Ambient, Space Ambient, Dungeon Synth
Great progressive electronic music with a space-y theme (inspired by the Edgar Rice Burroughs book A Princess of Mars); some fairly substantial ambient stretches but this has that Library Music type vibe with layered synths, plinks and plonks, and drum machine percussion. Apparently this is notable for being sampled by The Future Sound of London on Lifeforms. Very chill, very cool stuff.
✨ 鈴木繁雄 [Shigeo Suzuki] - Long Distance (1985)
Genres: Jazz Fusion, City Pop, Synth Funk
Hell yeah, this is the kind of sparkling, city pop textured, synth-overload smooth jazz fusion I'm usually in the mood for. Vaguely video game coded in melody (obviously video games were inspired by this type of stuff, and further, people from fusion bands went on to work in video games I gotta assume) but a top tier vibe through and through. This feels oddly overlooked since I know people eat this shit up on RYM, but maybe because it's a little one-note in tone it has slipped past some people?
There's also some questions of its validity online, but it didn't send any alerts through my brain around this being faked... discogs even has photos of the vinyl release. Could the fact that YouTube comments are comparing this to specific video game OSTs and Casiopea mean it's just an elaborate hoax and people are picking up on the sources used? Yet the label ICR is mentioned online as being "a private press label printing self-produced works", and Yuji Miyashita is credited as providing mastering on Discogs (and went on to be credited on many other releases.)
All that has me wanting to believe this is just a cool, obscure private press release... I will believe that until proven otherwise!
✨ Immolation - Failures for Gods (1999)
Genres: Death Metal, Dissonant Death Metal, Technical Death Metal
I've debated whether or not I should go back to an older Immolation record or stick with newer ones after having really enjoyed my time with Here in After and Descent.
Decided to move forward from Here in After, and I am glad I did because this kicks ass. I understand why there's a lot of debate around the production; while it's true that in the pantheon of 90s death metal releases this doesn't sound that out of left field, but he kick drums do take a minute to get used to, and the guitars (while crisp) have some kind of muddied skronk to their sound upon first glance.
But make no mistake, the production serves the material and this is hellish, sinister and heavy in equal measure; the riffs on this feel like they're pounding you into a shoreline. I'm only three albums into their career, but the accusations of them never having released a bad record are holding up.
✨ JEEM & Sean Reynolds - Free Reign (1987)
Genres: Progressive Electronic, Ambient
Progressive electronic with a new age atmosphere from JEEM (from Arizona) collaborating with Sean Reynolds (a mysterious credit, identified as being from England but not much else information around about them.) A lot of peaceful, meditative vibes here but with some echo-y bits of percussion to keep a pulse going. A few tracks get into some outright crashing drum fills, too. First side of the cassette is a 20 minute journey that gets spacier and spacier, and the second side has some Utopian Scholastic vibes ("Home"). "Year of the Dragon" is a bit of a miss compared to the rest of these tracks, it's aiming for jaunty and fantastic but feels really scrapped together and too piercingly annoying. Otherwise, neat stuff!
✨ Sam McNally - Creating The Golden Sparrow (1986)
More new age-y mixing of ambient and progressive electronic synthwork, with a pretty heavy proto-vaporwave type atmosphere. This was released by Sam McNally under the name "Samskara", their only release as such, but they are known as a member of Stylus and having played in Air Supply. This doesn't get TOO heavily new age but there's definitely moments of someone whacking wind chimes and shit on some of these songs (particularly in the back half) but the pulsing progressive electronic foundation of the music keeps things from getting too far gone. Doesn't overstay its welcome at 40 minutes and it kind of breezed by to be honest.
✨ Mad at the World - Mad at the World (1987)
Depeche Mode-y Christian (oops, fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole here) synthpop from '87. "Living Dead" opens up the record with a lot of energy, sounding almost like a mix between DM and Oingo Boingo or something to that effect. "All the Lonely Sheep" takes things in a moodier direction, but their slick programming and synth-work does satisfy. Corny lyrics aside, this stuff is well done and I have a high floor for this type of production in synthpop. The A-side in particular is very strong, though they admirably try some atmospherics on cuts like "No More Innocence".
On streaming they follow the CD-release which tosses "Bad Motives" in right between the A-side and B-side (and "Chance of Luck" at the end). I skipped 'em in favor of the original tracklist, which is already a pinch long at 43 minutes.
✨ Frank Tovey - Snakes & Ladders (1985)
Genres: Synthpop, Post-Punk, New Wave
Frank Tovey released this a year after the last Fad Gadget album (Gag) and it represents a turn further away from the post-punk influenced cacophony and towards more of an arty synth pop approach. This was signaled in a lot of the aforementioned album's elements, particularly "Collapsing New People", and here it's mostly expanded and focused on. There's still angular post-punk guitar freak-outs ("Concrete", which is part Sega Genesis and part new wave-y art-punk), and the production retains a bit of a "clattering" approach from Fad Gadget, but there's even more squelching synthesizers and chrome-soaked living rooms ("Luxury"). At times there's a bit of a Sparks thing going on in these songs too ("Small World"). All around, this was an engaging listen and it scratched my itch for more bombastic, art-forward synthy 80s music.
✨ Dieter Falk - Today (1987)
Genres: Synthpop, Smooth Jazz
This definitely hits on that cocaine-synth smooth jazz stuff that I've been super into lately, but sprinkles in some bombastic AOR-esque synthpop songs into the running time as well. I don't mind the pop tunes on here, but the repetitive nature of songs like "Gospel Train" can start to annoy. Much prefer when they sound like they should be on the soundtrack for Beyond the Mind's Eye or some shit ("Back to the Roots", "Celebration"). When they're in that mode, they remind a lot of what modern Utopian Virtual is trying to reach for (non-derogatory). Pretty enjoyable!
✨ Crumbacher - Escape From the Fallen Planet (1986)
Genres: New Wave, Synthpop, AOR
Been spending a lot of time bouncing around synthpop charts from the mid-eighties for gems, and something about this really struck a good balance of bombast and organic sound to me.
Builds on a foundation of that lightly progressive AOR sound I love so much, mixing in synthpop and some new wave. Not sure exactly what this is trying to achieve with its Christian lyricism and science fiction theming, but I have to assume it's about dying and returning to Christ or whatever based on the "escape from the fallen planet" and "another class has had their time to live and learn" stuff. For a while, "Name Droppers" is the most obvious one, with lyrics about taking the lord's name in vain or whatever.
But regardless, the music is just right and I find the singer's modest talent a little endearing.
✂ Identical Twins, Royal Command Performance, Life of the Party, Graduating Class
✨ Cosmos & Their L.A. Friends - Session V (1985)
Genres: Synthpop, FM Synthesis, Jazz Fusion, City Pop
Fusion-forward but with plenty of synthy goodness, sometimes dipping into corniness ("American Boulevard") though seemingly intentional if the track name is any indication. Sub-genre tags of FM synthesis ("Silence of Fire") and city pop also check out. Apparently the "& Their L.A. Friends" were a roster of Los Angeles session musicians including drummer Chester Thompson (The Mothers of Invention, Genesis). This is best when it leans on a pulsing groove with slick, synth-based spaced out atmosphere ("Stone Brain", "Moments in the Stream") that makes this sound like a dope soundtrack to a video game you've never played. Some skippable moments (it's almost an hour) but plenty to like regardless.
✨ Sunstroke - Nothing's Wrong in Paradise (1985)
Genres: Ambient, Synthpop, New Age
New age-y in tone music that splits the difference pretty effectively between ambient, mostly percussion-less music and drawn out synthpop melodies. "Ré-Incarnation" is a good example of how this remains melodic and engaging while still very slow and meditative; almost Mort Garson-esque in some respects.
Could definitely see the argument for a progressive electronic sub-genre tag on this as well, or even something classical adjacent.
Originally released on vinyl in Belgium, but looks like it was re-pressed in 2022 by Libreville Records. The re-release moves the most driving song of the bunch ("Race of the Oasis", the only song with a beat to it) to the mid-section of the album (can understand why it was up-front originally, though it also makes sense as a centerpiece). Cool stuff, could see enjoying this on vinyl more than digitally but not holding my breath on stumbling upon it in a store, haha.
Michel Uyttebroek - Resonance: The Rhythms of Africa (1990)
Genres: Ambient, New Age, Tribal Ambient
Interestingly, the cassette tape art on the YouTube upload of this has no mention of Africa and listening to it without knowing that, it sounded more like random nature sounds (pretty sure there's some Loons on "Tropical Joy", which makes sense actually considering Michel is Canadian.) It certainly has elements of tribal ambient and African hand percussion etc. in there though. Gets new age-y on "Cosmic Prayer" with chants of "we got to love your Brother / love your Sister" and the like. Some of this is just a little too far on the side of corny for me ("Simple Weaves" is some Carnival-ass ambient) but it had its moments.
Paul Sauvanet - Sérénité (1989)
Genres: Modern Classical, New Age, Ambient, Nature Recordings
Total new age, massage appointment cassette tape; synths and piano float like mist in the air alongside nature recordings and flickering light filtered through crystals. "Sérénité" is the most new agey of the two sides, whereas the solo piano of "Cyclique" is more... well, cyclic, and fits the modern classical genre tag a lot more. Something stops me from truly loving this, because it seems like two pieces slapped together a little bit, but both have their charms.
Lyle Mays - Street Dreams (1988)
Genres: Smooth Jazz, ECM Style Jazz, New Age, Jazz Fusion, Progressive Electronic
A good chunk of this is the exact kind of slick smooth jazz with tasteful corniness that I am often craving, but then it will take a detour into big-band-esque jazz ("Possible Straight") which is a total bummer. When they go low energy, like on "Hangtime", it surprisingly works really well. "Before You Go" as well bops along at a mid-tempo pace with swelling synths and jazzy piano solos. The B-Side in particular is where the meat of the smooth fusion with elements of exploratory tendencies or near-progressiveness lies. "Newborn" is an Ecco the Dolphin ass interlude, and the "Sweet Dreams," uh, suite, gets a little out there (even if something like the 3rd movement is regrettable.) Very much a patchwork of varying quality that I can't totally vouch for, but some moments in here are worth it.
Crash - Crash (1978)
Genres: Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock
Polish jazz fusion, ripped from cassette on YouTube but re-released on vinyl in 2021; gains comparisons online to Weather Report. Nicely blended, not too funky and not too smooth. An expected sound for fusion of this era, rock band-format with horns and rhodes, and a welcome light sprinkling of moog. I like this kind of thing with a heavier dose of corny synths but when it pops up (like on "Nocna Zabawa", which is a Chick Corea cover) it's very welcome. Hard to fault this for being too of its time so I can't dock too many points as these are top quality performances. This just doesn't entirely match my tastes right now, but if you like vintage fusion I'd certainly recommend checking it out.
Moving Fingers - Natural Selection (1986)
Genres: Synthpop
A bit of a pastoral approach to synthpop on this one, with a fuller, orchestrated type of sound as compared to the more in-your-face type stuff. Very smooth, "Karen" exemplifies the approach of piling on the accoutrements atop a choral kind of pop tune with lots of harmonizing. "Heartlands" takes that approach and applies it to a really spacey ballad fairly effectively. Elsewhere, they have a bit more of a new wavey AOR bomp to them ("Everything Changes"). Over 45 minutes, their approach(es) becomes relatively same-y though. Some good material here, but not sure I'd race to listen top-to-bottom again so quickly.
Moev - Dusk and Desire (1985)
I guess this is an outlier in this Vancouver, BC synthpop band's ouvre, because before and after this they did not have Michela Arrichiello on vocals (who replaces Madeleine Morris here). They trade-off with keyboardist Cal Stephenson on "Photos", though which adds a nice counterpoint when needed. On songs like "Kim Says" or "Circles and Squares" though, their talk-singing really lays bare their weaknesses (and the material doesn't help either.)
Going off the general vibe of what I'm seeing online, this album must be more straight-down-the-middle in terms of synthpop whereas the post-punk, gothic rock and darkwave tags on Zimmerkampf make me believe they softened on those elements here. There's still a cold, detached darkness to these tunes though which is welcome.
And anyway, I'm going to enjoy any synthpop album at least a LITTLE when they have a Sega Genesis ass baseline like the one on "Sea-Missle Motel". But all around this is one to pull a few songs from and not really a top-to-bottom spin for me.
✂ Sea-Missile Motel, Took Out the Lace, Photos, Alibis
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.
Only Dan could drop a line like "Depeche Mode-y Christian (oops, fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole here) synthpop from '87" and have me thinking "Hmmm. I should check that out!"
Really into all the new age tape stuff this go round. Regarding Powerplant: I find them interesting—liked their first releases—but now feel like if I want that weird eggpunk / metal / whatever mix, I just grab for Steröid and I'm supremely satisfied.