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New releases plus Ambient Techno, IDM, Skacore, Power Pop, Post-Punk Revival, Prog Rock reviews and More!
Morning y’all.
Trying out a little double-duty post today. In the past I used to share my new music playlist in a post every week, but felt that I was starting to clutter up inboxes with the addition of the Digging for Something series. As such, I was sharing these playlists mostly in the Notes section of Substack and on BlueSky instead. But that really limits who sees them and who might benefit, so…
Today, I’ll toss some new capsule reviews your way and highlight the stuff I’m stoked to hear and see how that works. Let me know!
New Music: Friday, October 3rd / 2025
Top of the pile for me today is the new Snõõper record, for sure.
I thought some of those AFI singles seemed intriguing in a way that they haven’t sounded since probably the early 2000s. I might have to give it a whirl.
Seems like a good day for electronic music with releases by: Lexodrome, Alfa Mist, Session Victim and some others.
I would love a new one from riff-laden power-poppers Time Thieves, but a new EP will have to do.
Others on my list:
Grab-bag indie rock from Why Bother?
Emo act Stay Inside are back with a new one from Tiny Engines.
Rosy Overdrive tipped me off to the PARENT TEACHER record, sounds interesting.
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!
⛏️ Pavid Vermin - The Life of a Showgirl (2025)
Genres: Pop Punk
lmao Pavid Vermin (a band who once released a record called “Cutting Corners” with the same track listing as Abbey Road) dropped this a month ahead of the new Taylor Swift.
It’s classic Vermin, bubblegum three-chord pop punk sprinkled with some faster more punk-focused moments (”Father Figure”, “Wi$h Li$t”). This comes in at 15 seconds under 15 minutes, so it’s not exactly substantial but I admire that they keep doing silly shit like this while at the same time being a solidly catchy pop punk band.
I didn’t love Brutality Is My Only Friend, which took ridiculous over-the-top “brutal” track names and paired it with vintage wall-of-sound style power pop (also an amusing concept [maybe I should give it another try?]), but this is back in my wheelhouse of energetic sugary punk and goofy earworms.
⛏️ Sam Prekop - Open Close (2025)
Genres: Ambient Techno, Progressive Electronic
Have to admit that the few times I’ve stuck my head into Sam Prekop’s solo material in the past, it always seemed more ambient than this. Likely an issue with timing on my part, as multiple records of theirs seem to be labeled as minimal or ambient techno and progressive electronic. My memory of their solo albums always felt more like “that person from The Sea and Cake making abstract synth gurgles” (The Republic) and not “kraut/Berlin-y electronic with skittering percussion and ambient drones” but it seems like their career has a lot more of the latter than I erroneously thought.
And so this is ultimately right up my alley. Really beautiful, simple electronic music with an organic pulse and a heartbeat. Kind of just want to sit in a dark room with this cranked up loud for a while.
✨ Jorg Kuning - Elvers Pass (2025)
Genres: IDM, Tech House, Electro, Deep Tech
Good stuff, can almost get silly in its textures (”Skuddle”) but this really got my head nodding this afternoon. Not totally sure about classification but a mix of IDM and tech house does seem to make a lot of sense. Kinda reminds me of what Mr. Scruff might sound like doing super upbeat, long-form deep tech house kind of stuff. Very playful, in that regard.
✨ The Best of the Worst - New Dead Ends (2025)
Genres: Skacore
I think this band is inching towards getting better at blending their disparate influences with each release. They’re still doing up-stroke ska-core punk that breaks into metal/death/etc. core whenever they feel like it, but they seem to have dialed back on the emo / emo-pop stuff that made it all sound a bit more novelty before.
Skip through these songs and 95% of the time you’re either hitting an upstroke ska section, some variation of the riffy chugga chugga stuff or just a stretch of melodic hardcore/ska-core.
In short, now they sound a bit more straightforward like “Kill Lincoln but with breakdowns and hardcore screaming” and I think that works a lot more for them personally.
🌱 Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World (2025)
Genres: Pop Punk, Power Pop, Alternative Rock, Emo-Pop, Geek Rock
Ten years after the under-appreciated Panic Stations, Motion City Soundtrack are back with original drummer Tony Thaxton in tow. As such, in some ways this does recall their earlier work with songs like “She is Afraid” reminding us of their arena-sized power-pop era on albums like Even If It Kills Me.
Overall, it’s good to have them back again but honestly I think Panic Stations was better as a capital-A “album” and this one feels a bit like them trying out some “back to basics” clothes on, and figuring themselves back out again. Which, hey, I’m good with that because this is more big wee-oo-wee-oo power-pop from a band that does it well.
But I can’t help but feel there’s some filler here, and I didn’t feel that way about their last one. I’ve never been a fan of the band tossing a plodding slow tune in the middle of their albums and they do that again here with “Your Days Are Numbered”, even if it’s not too bad a tune.
Hard to complain too much about a quick sugar rush, though. Feeling generous so I’ll say 3.5 stars for now, but who knows if that sticks or drops to a 3 with some time. Will have to give this some more spins to decide.
⛏️ Flin Flon - A-OK (1998)
Genres: Post-Punk Revival, Art Punk, Indie Pop, Dance-Punk Revival, New Wave
When Telekinesis released 12 Desperate Straight Lines, they spoke a lot in interviews and on Twitter about how they were incredibly inspired by Flin Flon for that record, particularly for fuzzy, hooky basslines. I knew Mark Robinson a little bit from dabbling with Air Miami and Unrest but this was a blindspot.
Ever since then though, Flin Flon has since been my go-to Mark project, personally. Nothing but cool rhythms, fuzzed-out bass lines and plucked, simplistic guitar notes over addictively monotonous or plain-faced melodies. Always wondered why this gets a lot less hype than Unrest, but I can ultimately understand why it slides right off of people’s ears and brains because it’s a really specific thing that has a lot narrower an audience than some of their other projects.
It scratches a particular itch for me though so I love their entire discography. This debut is certainly a highlight, though.
⛏️ Dogs on Acid - Dogs on Acid (2015)
Genres: Power Pop, Indie Rock, Midwest Emo, Slacker Rock
I assumed I must have reviewed this at some point on here, but I guess I haven’t. There being a new Algernon Cadwallader album reminded me I should circle back on this one like usually I do a couple times a year.
It’s wild how under-the-radar this seemed to have flown over the years. I remember when it came out, it had some oomph behind it (originally released on Jade Tree around the time they were also working with bands like Spraynard and You Blew It!) but this feels like it has dissipated into the rearview these days.
Unfortunate, because it kicks ass. Maybe people wanted more twinkly midwestern-emo from these Algernon, Glocca Morra and Snowing members? But it’s a great hooky indie rock record with emo-adjacent tendencies. Definitely resembles some of Joyce Manor‘s less punk informed releases, but you can also hear 90s acts like Archers of Loaf (“The Prick”) and Built to Spill (“9 Times”) in here too.
✨ Starcastle - Citadel (1977)
Genres: Progressive Rock, Symphonic Prog, AOR
After this record, Starcastle went full-on AOR and sapped all the prog out of their sound (or so I’m told), so I had to wrap up my tour through their albums with this one—their second release of 1977. This one retains the fence-sitting between accessibility and progressiveness that I heard on Fountains of Light, and also keeps their emphasis on organ/synth cheese (thankfully.) Worst thing you could say about the band would be that they are pretty same-y over these two records, but I guess releasing records in January and October of the same year would do that to any band.
But... if you like cheesy progressive rock with AOR slickness, corny fog-machine guitar solos, big-time synths and sick bass lines, this may be for you like it is for me.
✨ Buggles - Adventures in Modern Recording (1981)
Genres: Synthpop, New Wave, Progressive Pop, Progressive Pop, Art Pop, Sophisti-Pop, New Wave
Had heard over the years about this one being an interesting hidden gem, and it definitely is intriguing in part to the circumstances around its creation.
Buggles members Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes joined Yes for their 1980 album Drama (a personal favourite), but when it came time to follow up The Age of Plastic, I guess the relationship splintered some. Geoff was focusing on Asia and apparently isn’t on much more than a few tracks here, so you’ll often hear this referred to as a Trevor Horn solo record with a big focus on the Fairlight CMI synthesizer.
As such, it’s kind of a mixed bag of weird poppy tunes, new wave atmosphere and some progressive excursions (”Vermilion Sands”). They even re-hash (or re-work, I suppose) a Yes song from Drama with “I Am a Camera”. Nothing really hits the nail on the head, but it’s cool in that ‘throw everything at the wall’ kind of way.
Regardless, Trevor Horn was on their way to becoming an in-demand producer for acts like ABC or Frankie Goes to Hollywood and would bring bombastic pop synth maximalism successfully back to Yes for Owner of a Lonely Heart, and as such this ends up a curiosity marking a turning point in their career more than anything. Neat stuff, though.
✨ Brutality - Screams of Anguish (1993)
Genres: Death Metal, Technical Death Metal
Damn, between this and the Sentenced album I featured in my last review round-up, I’m doing well on 90s death metal bangers. What strikes me most about this album is how they are leaning in two directions at once but still nailing it. They’ve got a real technical death metal streak in their songwriting, with a fair amount of “can’t sit still” style riffing, while also having a subtle undercurrent of melody. Sure, there’s some interludes that amount to some plucky guitar lines and wind blowing through a cemetery (non derogatory), but otherwise this generally maintains a high level of brutality and technicality alongside it’s sneaky melodic nature. Kicks a whole lot of ass, honestly.
Proteus - Infinite Change (1981)
Genres: Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock, Progressive Rock, Jazz-Funk
Synth-forward instrumental progressive fusion (or maybe fusion-forward synthy prog?) with really wild, active synth-soloing. Pretty dope spray-painted van atmosphere on this one, even if it blends into the background a little bit as it goes on. I don’t mind pleasant prog-fusion like the (mostly) leisurely “Afternoon Affirmation” though. “Steppin’ Out” gets a little fonkified but thankfully sounds a little like something Spyro Gyra might have whipped up for the weather network.
In the right mood this could get a notch above three stars but potentially the vibe is just samey and could see this settling at a three.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.
Hadn't listened to Motion City Soundtrack for a decade plus until the needle drop in Didi sparked a revisit. I need to check out their newer stuff though!