The Shelf
Pop Punk, Power Pop, Death Metal, IDM, Space Ambient, Alternative Rock, Progressive Rock, Heavy Psych, Jazz Fusion, Synth Funk and More!
Mornin’ y’all.
It has yet again been longer than I expected between posts, and I have fallen very behind on my new music Friday playlists. Sorry! Here’s those playlists if you do want to dig through ‘em:
I did get to see Bayside live in Toronto since my last post, which was absolutely fantastic. If you know me, you’ll know I wrote off Bayside for years as one of those emo-pop with screams bands (no shade, I like some of that stuff) and only recently realized they are more Smoking Popes meets Alkaline Trio meets Gatsbys American Dream with guitars inching into metallic territory over the years. Totally up my alley! I got to see them play some of my favs from Shudder, an album they have identified as their worst for whatever reason, but is easily their top-to-bottom best in my heart.
A disappointment though, was paying $50 for an XL shirt only to find out when I got home that this particular brand sizes like… two sizes too small? It might as well be a youth large or something. Bummer, dude.
One thing that happened between posts was an ice storm. Big chunks of Ontario were out of power for days; we got lucky with only 48 hours of no power, and some small yard clean up to do from fallen branches. Other people had chunks of their homes or their entire cars taken out by big, old trees taking a rest on the ground.
Took a little while to bounce back from that, and coupled with mental health still being at a yearly low (waiting for the weather to finally kick in, maybe?) meant I let my posting schedule rot a little bit.
But I’m still listening to a lot of music, so on with the reviews. What have you been stoked about lately? What have you been listening to? Let me know.
Icon legend:
⛏️ denotes picks of the week, my favs.
🌱 seedling denotes albums I really dig, but may grow on me.
✨ means worth a look, if you like the genres listed in particular.
✂ denotes favourite tracks from a given record.
As always, please reach out on the hellsite, the better site, 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!
⛏️ Pond 1000 - Daffodil (2025)
Genre: Indie Rock
Very nice indie with a noisy art-rock skew to it. Brings to mind bands like Pom Poko, Moontype or even some Blonde Redhead. Wirey and plucky guitar lines, twee vocals plus slightly drone-y melodies that build and stack together in satisfying ways before clashing into releases of smudged guitar rock. This is exactly the kind of album that sneaks up on me, so I anticipate liking this more and more as I spend repeated listens with it. A nice new-to-me surprise in the new release bin.
⛏️ (T-T)b - Beautiful Extension Cord (2025)
Genre: Indietronica, Bitpop, Midwest Emo
I don't know whether it was true or not, but when I first heard of this band I already had heard Get Olde and so they were a little destined to be an also-ran band that seemed to be trying to do the exact same thing another band had just done a few years prior. Not saying I didn't enjoy what I heard of 'em, but they were pretty much already filed away under "we have Crying at home" in my mind. Even their name, an ascii smiley of crying eyes, brought them to mind.
Glad to say that they're back and while they are still doing crunchy emo-influenced indie rock with chiptune bleeps and bloops, it's still something that only a couple bands seem to do well and this is (T-T)b continuing to do it very very well. It doesn't hurt that Crying stepped away from this sound almost entirely on their second (masterpiece) album and left a big hole for someone else to step up and deliver.
This is all really effective - they nicely expand their palette of textures with strummy acoustics, pedal steel and clean plucked chords here and there, backing their hook-forward emo foundation. This stuff all builds and recedes and does the quiet loud thing, but always stays in service of good melodies and cathartic releases.
Really enjoyable and could grow on me even more this year, for sure. Potential year-ender.
⛏️ Impurity - The Eternal Sleep (2025)
Genre: Death Metal
I hate to do it, but I'm going to have to call this "meat and potatoes" death metal from Sweden. I've first listened to this in chunks over 24 hours and even re-started it at a certain point because I felt like I wasn't doing it any favors by piecemealing it out.
This feels like it hits everything right square on the head in what they're trying to do, and it all sounded good to me. Some nice moments where they pull back on the aggression and do some cheesy synth (or synth strings?) stuff like on the second half of "Tribute to Creation" which endears me to them even more. A lot of this is also short and to the point, with some songs coming in at under 3 minutes. "Rectifying Pieces" even has some of that powerviolence call-and-response vibe going on to it that harkens back to punk/grind-influenced death metal stuff. Nice touches.
I can imagine someone listening to this and thinking it's nothing but been-there-done-that territory but it honestly really hit the spot. After a few repeat-spins, this hits me right in the gut in the best possible way. Hard to articulate exactly, why, but I'm loving this and it got bumped up to four stars.
⛏️ Goto80 - B Y S A N (2025)
Genre: Chiptune, Glitch, Bit Music, IDM, Space Ambient
Fourth release in Goto80's self-described "series of slower and longer music" which also includes S H Y G G A, G L o S o N and S T A L L O. I am a little familiar with those releases but none of them really grabbed me in a way where I wanted to sit down and listen to them straight through multiple times.
This release (which on streaming services is broken into even more manageable passages than the Bandcamp track lengths) is rhythmic and melodic enough that I enjoyed the entire 72 minutes and could see myself listening to it again.
It's all minimal, glitchy and atmospheric stuff built on a C64-chip foundation, but interesting enough that it held my attention. Might have to re-evaluate those other releases but in my memory they were a lot more repetitive and/or ambient focused. This one really hit in a great way upon first listen.
🌱 Dauber - Falling Down (2025)
Fast and scrappy power-poppy punk from Screaming Females' bassist Michael Abbate. This sounds like Dirtnap Records style (they released this physically) garage punk rock meets It's Alive Records-era Chinese Telephones. Some stuff here dips into less-punk and more power pop at times ("Sweet Tooth" reminds me of mid-career The Figgs which I'm into) but it's all anchored by fuzzed out garage rock melodies and energetic performances. Nice stuff all around.
🌱 Doomsday - Never Known Peace (2025)
Genre: Crossover Thrash, Thrash Metal
A lot of modern thrash / crossover either sits in the category of aping vintage bands so hard it becomes almost comical, or going so far into punk/hardcore territory that they just end up sounding mostly like a beatdown band. What struck me about this is that they split the difference very effectively. Sometimes they do the hardcore chug-'n'-gang-chant ("Holy Justice") and sometimes they just kick out good 90s-ass ripped denim crossover thrash jams ("The Outlaw", "Remnants of Spite").
Not saying nobody else is doing this (many are) but I feel like there is such a glut of "wink wink we're doing cheesy 90s thrash metal" that this blend of ingredients went down even smoother for me. Just the stuff I like, crammed into 30 fairly memorable minutes. Fun!
🌱 Frightful - What Lies Ahead (2025)
Genre: Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Melodic Black Metal
Sometimes it's Sunday night and I'm forcing myself to get ahead on some work for this week, and what I need is some energetic death-thrash. Sub-genres include melodic black metal but I'm definitely not an expert enough to know if that's accurate. I guess there's some traces of black metal here and there, in the atmosphere of this thing.
Not gonna lie, these 40 minutes blew by and I wasn't taking the closest of inspections, but my feet were tapping and my head was nodding (and I listened to the entire thing without getting disinterested) so I am going to consider that a success until I can spin this again and give it a more active listen. Nice, though, and I'll have to check out Spectral Creator as well.
🌱 Decrepisy - Deific Mourning (2025)
Genre: Death Doom Metal, Death Metal
Cavernous, moody and doomy death metal. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Maybe it's just me, but some of the squiggly guitar tone on "Ceremony of Unbelief" bring a slight nu-tinge to their sound. Or maybe it's just that one moment, and it stuck with me? Otherwise, this is straight forward stuff that punishes when it needs to ("Dysautonomic Terror" in particular is almost entirely focused on slowly slamming into your brain before relinquishing its grasp with some quick, flashy soloing.)
The songs are expectedly long, though not sure I can really pull into focus whether or not these are "well written" or just written in a way that you expect this music to be. I'm certainly no expert when it comes to this sub-section of the genre (or any, really. more a casual observer who likes to dig for gems.)
It may also just be the density—7 songs, 45 minutes, no single song shorter than five and a half minutes—that makes it harder to penetrate upon first listen. I liked it enough to give it the benefit of the doubt, though I'm going to have to try this a few more times before I know if I only like it or love it.
🌱 Burning Palace - Elegy (2025)
Genre: Technical Death Metal, Dissonant Death Metal
More death metal that hit me at the right time, making me unable to process how I truly feel about the album. This has more dissonance and technical elements going on than the stuff I have been listening to lately, so it was a bit of a fresh detour.
I don't know anything about this band or the features on here other than it was in the chart for death metal albums from 2025 and that's why I listened to it. There's some of that panic chord kind of reet-reet weardle-weardle riffing going on here ("Elegy") which isn't something I always hear in the death metal I listen to, and feels like it's maybe beamed in from deathcore or metalcore (maybe??? again I am absolutely not an expert) but also fits into the technical death metal description as well. I enjoyed how they'll go from that into a cool, subdued bass-led groove moments later and then get right back to punching you in the stomach. Some good atmospheric lead riffing here too, dripped in texture and widescreened post-rock reverb buried in the intensity.
My tastes in aggressive music historically have skewed towards enjoying stuff that sits on the technical side of things, so I'm predisposed to like this kind of stuff to some degree. That said, a lot of what makes up modern tech thrash or tech death realllllllllly can whiff past my ears, so in another way this landed in just the right spot for me.
✨ Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky (2025)
Genre: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Power Pop, Shoegaze, Dream Pop
Household Name had some kick-ass singles that helped the album as a whole stay in my memory, and while this follow-up treads similar textures and melodies, there's really not as many highs. I'll say the thing I always say about stuff that lands right at the three star mark but lacks memorability ("maybe it'll grow on me!") but it's also possible they just don't have the juice when they aren't distilling their sound into as immediately hooky songs as humanly possible.
That said, if this album is anything it is consistent. Lots of almost ear-wormy nu-alt-grunge pop rock that will sound good in the car on a sunny day. The singles here get close but not quite all the way there. "I Want You (Fever)" is the most outright catchiest thing here. "Bottle Blonde" is Clone High Soundtrack-core in a way I enjoy. "Rodeo" has some nice chunky riffs. Hard to complain when something is this baseline solid, but it is a little disappointing at the same time.
✨ Smoking Popes - Lovely Stuff (2025)
Another cromulent set of tunes from the long-running plain-sung power-pop-punk band. For their entire career, they've been one of those "their best albums is a playlist" bands for me. Take their best stuff off their first three albums and you've got a stew goin'. They kept up a string of releases in the 2000s and 2010s but nothing about those ones ever really grabbed me beyond "Hey, they're still at it every once in a while huh? Good for them!"
This is probably the platonic ideal for a new Smoking Popes album; it's under 40 minutes, and everything on it is about the same quality (didn't need the string-adorned acoustic song, personally.)
They hit on their usual types of songs - the fizzy pop-punk-adjacent (there's no actual punk here) energetic ones ("Golden Moment", "Madison") and the ballads ("To This Very Day"). I don't mind peppering a few of the latter types on their albums but they always seemed to get drug down by too many of them. I'd say that happens here as well in the latter half, but again they keep it to 38 minutes thankfully.
Still, this isn't the most memorable album in the world, it's just another OK record from a long-running band known for OK records with a couple bangers here and there. That's why this makes so much sense to me as a whole. People that absolutely love this band will likely be pleased, that's that's OK by me, at least there's a couple more songs here for that playlist.
✨ Scowl - Are We All Angels (2025)
Genre: Alternative Rock, Melodic Hardcore, Power Pop, Pop Punk
Scowl have been called a lot of unfair names over the past couple years - posers, sellouts for Taco Bell, fake hardcore, industry plants, etc. In a world where the alt-grunge-adjacent "not quite hardcore" sound is wildly popular, it felt really weird (read: or just misogynistic) that they got singled out for all of this.
For me personally, I didn't really gravitate to their stuff just because none of their songs grabbed me much. How Flowers Grow was totally okay and probably a bit more punk in foundation than you'd expect given all the names they've been called... and also I didn't find it all that memorable.
From the start, Scowl seemed destined to make the turn that they've made here - finally just stripping pretenses away and being a poppy heavy rock band. I wasn't super interested in hearing this until I spun "B.A.B.E." and realized yeah, they're just going to do Drug Church level riff-chugging melodic pop-hardcore now. Comments box references Milk Teeth too, which is entirely in the realm of what's going on here. It's a good lane for them to be in and I welcome them going further and further down this road. People are going to claim they're trying to do a Turnstile here but it's a much less abrupt turn so I don't really see the comparison. First they get called fake hardcore industry plants and now people are saying they're too soft? lollll
Ultimately I don't give a shit if the songs are strong, and these seem slightly stronger to me (particularly melodically) than their last album. I don't love every song here, they're not all winners. They're probably at their weakest when they're doing a near-dream-pop-adjacent kind of thing like on the pre-chorus of "Fleshed Out." That song also gets maybe too close to radio butt rock riffing than I'd like them to. "Suffer the Fool (How High Are You)" sounds like a Lit song there for a second before going full power-pop. Didn't bother me but I imagine it will for most people.
I could see their next release being their actual big deal record in terms of success as a capital A album, to be honest. Jury's out, though. Eyes emoji goes here.
✨ Hexecutor - …Where Spirit Withers in Its Flesh Constraint (2025)
Genre: Thrash Metal, Speed Metal, Black Metal
My tastes in metal that overlaps into black metal generally revolve around bands that are able to integrate the black metal sound into their music in a way that skews on the "fun" side of things. In my journey through metal sub-genres over the years, I think really stone-faced, serious "trve heads only" black metal might be some of my least favourite stuff. Likely makes me an enormous poser, but I gravitate towards shit from Grime Stone Records for exactly that reason. Hexecutor might not be "carnival-ass sounds black metal" like some of the stuff from Grime Stone Records, but they have a light touch with it alongside their excursions into thrash and speed metal. It's all really amusing but it's not jokey, it's still straight faced and kicks ass but it really feels like they're having a good time finding ways to pulse all of these different kinds of riffs and moods and textures into something that works. Had a good time with this, even if it's pretty long.
🌱 Population II - Maintenant jamais (2025)
Genre: Progressive Rock, Heavy Psych
Neo-psych is a genre I grew pretty tired of over recent years. I feel like at a certain point, I just got sick of hearing the same indie-adjacent neo-psych with the same thuddingly obvious bass tone, the same blanket dry drums, with the same watery songwriting.
That said, I have a lot of time for psychedelic music, I enjoy songs that stretch out and take diversions, I dig groove-forward songs that I can space out to. And so, I can't exactly pin-point what it is about Maintenant Jamais that caught my ear, because it has a lot of standard neo-psych trappings.
Maybe it's the art-pop elements that keep their songs relatively on track. Even when they sound like the kind of dime-a-dozen post-Tame Impala imitation (like on "Mariano (Jamais je ne t’oublierai)") there's something there that helps them from disappearing into mediocrity. Maybe it's the Black Moth Super Rainbow synths that pop up here and there, maybe it's the Stereolab vibes that permeate throughout. Or it could be the guitars that cut through any time it threatens to get overly monotonous ("La Trippance").
I dunno, but this is solid stuff and it avoided triggering my neo-psych allergy completely. Might need repeated listens to see how deep my appreciation for this actually goes, but upon first glance I dug this record.
🌱 Kettel - Dubio (2025)
Genre: IDM, Progressive Electronic
Enjoyed this at a baseline level as far as progressive elecronic/IDM music goes, but something about it failed to grab me. Then I realized it is a soundtrack to a video game and watched some footage. Honestly, this feels like it is tailor made to have extra percussive elements occurring over-top of it as you do different things in the game. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination but even as background music to an afternoon of work it felt a little passive to me at times.
✨ Dart - Speed Days (2025)
Genre: Speed Metal, Hardcore Punk
This is fun. As far as this kind of retro crossover punk metal thing goes, it's a lot less in-your-face jokey than your average band doing this in 2025. Some fun duel soloin' ("Blood") but this doesn't slip into power metal much, though there's some tips of the hat (the organ on "Sick Game" etc.)
Mostly stays on the "fast, sometimes punk in foundation, metal" track for its short duration. Obviously has some Motörhead in the riffs ("Nothing to Lose)" but with the BPM cranked way up.
Not exactly the most memorable thing in the world (I don't think any of these songs are going to stick around in my brain after I hit post on this review) but not too shabby either.
✨ Maltuka - Black Rite (2025)
Genre: Thrash Metal
17 minutes of good throwback thrash metal that doesn't dip into cheesy crossover wink wink attitudes. Retains a good amount of heaviness throughout, but not enough extremity to end up in any death/black metal territories but there's a pinch of blast beats and tremolo riffing here and there, like in moments of "Xolotl."
As I'm wont to say about stuff like this, it's a well balanced set of ingredients. Good technicality to the riffing but not in an egghead riff-salad way at all. I'm torn because I think this achieves what it's going for and doesn't waste your time at 17 minutes but I'm also not sure how much I'm going to remember about it in a day or two.
✂ Xolotl
Teitanblood - From the Visceral Abyss (2025)
Genre: Death Metal, War Metal, Black Metal
Maybe it's just me, or maybe I wasn't listening to this loud enough, but this may have been a bit too cavernous for me today. Felt like the album was happening just a little bit out of my reach. A number of 30 to 60 second long intros or interludes of like rain or noisy dark ambient textures as well. Generally I think I appreciate how cool this is but I am not sure the songs themselves really grabbed me beyond just having a kind of oppressive and interesting bleak atmosphere to them. I like myself some war metal, death metal and black metal, so maybe it’s the production? Maybe it’s the songwriting? Who knows, it could very well be a MP not a YP.
Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam (2025)
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Alt-Country, Chamber Pop, Slowcore
Really liked Plastic Cough and Four of Arrows was a nice turn for the band into a less crunchy hook-forward approach. Maybe I need to spend some more time with this (clearly my fav thing to say when an album doesn't hit immediately, but often it does help) because this feels like they are moving further and further away from what they did best.
If I wanted to be a hater I'd focus on how in some small moments something like "Junior" sounded like Hanson doing alt-country. I think a lot of these songs feel less like something I'd want to return to and more like connective tissue in service of a larger piece. I often don't mind (and actively enjoy many) records like that, but I also feel like this alt-country indie rock plus non-folk textures thing is done so much these days and this doesn't exactly stand out. They even do the "what if we had a vocoder on our vocals but the song is twangy" thing on "Ladybug", which at this point at least 3 - 4 other bands are known for doing. "Doom" isn't a bad attempt at bringing some of their noodly guitar riffs of their earlier work back into their new approach.
This would all be fine if I felt like the songs churned into swells of emotion or brewed up melodies that I find memorable but on first spin, I'm not too sure I can say they do. Ultimately I didn't feel much listening to this, and I can't say any of the songs or hooks were all that melodically memorable.
✨ Lenny White - Venusian Summer (1975)
Genre: Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Funk, Jazz-Rock, Synth Funk, Progressive Electronic
Jazz-fusion with ridiculous cover art is a weakness for me, so I had to check this out. When the synth solo kicks in on "Part 2. Venusian Summer"? Hell yeah. Trying really hard not to label anything and everything as 🐉 D&D Fusion but "Part 1. Sirènes" does sound like something you might play as background to a fantasy-themed D&D campaign. Loved the wildly energetic basslines on "Mating Drive" too.
✨ Shadowfax - Watercourse Way (1976)
Genre: Progressive Rock, Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock, Jazz Fusion, Symphonic Prog, Progressive Folk
Immediately this ticks a bunch of 🐉 D&D Fusion boxes... the cover art, the proggy synths, the classical 12 string guitar pickin' and strummin' and the nerdy forest elf ass vibe. Really nice though, much of this crosses over into straight up prog and less fusion but the funky elements are there in spirit so I say it counts.
✨ Visitor 2035 - Visitor 2035 (1978)
Genre: Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock, Progressive Rock
Sits right on the overlap of fusion and prog. Doesn't have any of the folk sound that some prog dips into, this leans further on Mother Earth's Plantasia-style synths and bleeps and blorps and a generally spacey atmosphere. Maybe a little "plain" or "straight" for me generally but this is well performed. It's still pretty out-there with lots of in your face grooves and soloing, but it all carries an even tone that it doesn't stray too far from so it can feel a pinch samey. Good though!
✨ Mingo Lewis - Flight Never Ending (1976)
Genre: Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock, Space Rock, Progressive Rock, Latin Rock, Jazz-Funk, Progressive Rock
Can definitely understand this being referred to as Return to Forever-meets-Santana. Got some Jean-Luc Ponty in here as well. Sick as hell synth work and a really aggressively active atmosphere as a whole, just tons and tons of wild ass performances. They do prog-fusion well too on stuff like "Flight Never Ending". The Latin percussion foundation really seals this as something interesting and not just another slab of nerdy fusion, obviously Mingo is a percussionist so it is unsurprising that on a percussion level this sounds miles ahead of even other above-average fusion records.
The Bomb Bassets - Dress Rehearsal (1995)
First EP for a side-project that was kind of a lark from members of The Mr. T Experience, The Hi-Fives, Sweet Baby Jesus, Brent's T.V. etc. As you'd expect from the members involved, this is power-pop-punk that leans into the vintage-aping sound with lots of ooh-lahh-lahhs, sugar sugars and honey honeys, etc.
"Please Don't Die" was released as a single in advance of this alongside a few others off the EP and it's definitely the highlight here. "Million Dollars and a Cadillac" ain't bad either, but the rest of it is pretty forgettable.
I've always felt the Bomb Bassets are one of those bands I want to love more, because I have a ton of time for both The Mr. T Experience and The Hi-Fives so the meeting of those minds should be an all-timer but instead it's just a neat little diversion for die-hards.
My brain wants me to rate this lower at 2.5 stars but my heart likes those two songs enough that I feel like a 3star rating is OK too. It's a real soft 3 though, if I'm being honest.
✨ Campaign - It Likes to Party (2010)
Genre: Punk Rock, Post-Hardcore
I have been revisiting my MP3 collection and came across a couple EPs by this orgcore band. Big time drunk bearded dudes wearing denim vibes (and that's before you look at the album art, which is so on the nose it might as well be a parody.) When "Best Luck" started playing it unlocked a specific time in my life immediately. Definitely a classic of the MP3 era for me personally - huge dual singer, finger point, beer spilling stuff. The rest of these songs are solid but that's definitely the stand out.
They got a lot of comparisons to Hot Water Music at the time it seems, understandably (anyone that was doing punk + gruff yelling always equaled HWM.) Also hearing Doves-era Tenement Kids in here too, and some of the same singalong stuff that makes Hold Tight! so good.
✂ Best Luck, Rock Bottom Summer
RIYL: Hold Tight!, Hot Water Music, Hold Tight!
✨ Asphyx - Last One on Earth (1992)
Genre: Death Metal, Death Doom Metal
Pretty good death metal that dips into really head-slammingly blunt doom-death at times. The production wore my ears thin as it went on (on Spotify at least, the YouTube upload sounded a bit deeper and nicer to me but I am a sicko who wanted the last.fm scrobbles.) Not sure if there'd be more here that warrants closer inspection but it was fine while it lasted.
✨ Edge of Sanity - Nothing But Death Remains (1991)
Genre: Death Metal
Didn't mind this at all, though it seemed a pinch flavourless. This is very solid death metal that has a good amount of emphasis on the alternation between slow and crushing and fast and heavy. Some good stop/start moments and a dollop of melody, though I don't know if I'd go so far to call it melodic death metal? I guess there's some moments where their riff clarity and groove-adjacent drumming get it into that territory ("Immortal Souls"). Definitely some breakdown adjacent moments in there for instance. But generally, this is nice and I enjoyed it while it was on. My understanding is this band gets more and more progressive as time goes on so I might have to see where that takes them.
The Stand GT - They're Magically Delicious (1995)
I have a thing about listening to releases that Kurt Bloch of Fastbacks had a hand in, and over the years bands like Sicko or Flop has proven it a good rule of thumb that it'll probably be something up my alley. Couple that with the fact that The Stand GT are from small-town Ontario made me even more interested in checking them out.
My first exposure to them was on the 13 Soda Punx compilation, which saw them standing alongside some bands I've already mentioned here. That should give you a good idea of what to expect - emphasis on the pop, the power, some fizz and not so much of the punk at all.
Some of this reminds me of weaker material from The Figgs, and some of it makes sense sitting alongside stuff like Fastbacks or Sicko. Often sugary with the outlines of hooks, but never inherently... catchy. "The Wait" carried over from their previous album, probably because it's the stickiest thing here in terms of melody.
My sickness means I will have to check out more from this band to see whether or not this was a dilution of a more immediate earlier sound, or if they went on to hone their melodies on further releases. Not a lot here unless you are a sick in the head completionist like me, though.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.
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