2015 roundup part #1

2015 was a fucking toilet. I lived in New Orleans, founded a sweet punk house with some good friends, discovered that living in a shotgun is like operant conditioning for paralyzing anxiety, rekindled a love of suicidal ideation, and learned how to create an ouroboros of sadness by drinking to feel anything which leads to feeling less the next day which leads to drinking etc. Eventually I went back to NY, regained some level of sanity, immediately dashed it on the windshield of traincore life, crossed over to the opposite side of the country, got hella sick, had two friends die within a two month span, and lost a partner of 5 years due to horrifying depression. Also, there's unlisted bonus tracks you can hear irl, but first you have to help shatter my exoskeleton of numbness so the tears can finally escape their cimmerian prison.

In summation: aw shit yeah brah 10/10 would entertain cutting my own head off again

You know what I hate? The internet.
'Kinkshaming is LITERALLY a thing I can't even I'M DONE Y'ALL Y'ALL Y'ALL [bevy of slang terms and phrases lifted shamelessly from black culture by white kids who only derive joy out of criticizing others for cultural appropriation] smh cuckcuckcuckcuckcuck problematic AF Y'ALL'

And so it is 2016. Admittedly, I haven't really kept up on current music like I used to. I pretty much spent the entire first half of the year just endlessly replaying old Guided By Voices and Jason Molina stuff (apropos of my sad, drunk aesthetic at the time), and then the second half being a hobo in my cleanest glad rags and a bindle full of dreams. To make up for this, I've combed through a ton of personal and collective 'best of '15' lists and exposed myself to everything I could, meaning dozens of albums in the past 6 weeks. THE VERDICT: FUCK YOU, I guess

1.) Beach Slang - The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us

This band has magically turned into the Wesley Willis of 'meaningful', young adult-oriented 90's rock revival. I'm not even trying to be a condescending dick here - this seriously bums me out - but how does a band run out of ideas this fast? Almost every single one of these ten tracks sounds like a barely tweaked rewrite of an older song, and this is coming from a band that only had 8 recorded numbers under their belt, prior. In fact, if you cut out "Bad Art And Weirdo Ideas", "Too Late To Die Young", "Porno Love", and "Young And Alive" (to a lesser extent), you're basically getting 6 inferior versions of "Filthy Luck" or "All Fuzzed Out" from their first couple EPs. I'm not sure what happened here, but I'm kinda guessing all the hype pushed these guys to crank out tunes faster than they could recharge their creative juices, because this is sort of a slog to get through, and it's only like 27 minutes long. Maybe I'm being too harsh, because I know a lot of people really love this, but it's just hard to get behind since I'm apparently one of those "I only like the demo" guys now. oh god how do i stop it

2.) Year Of Glad - s/t

When NONA announced they were calling it quits in late 2014, you can bet your bottom dollar that I made sure to inexplicably avoid their final show, especially since it was taking place less than an hour away from where I lived. Luckily, every member instantaneously formed new bands or joined old ones, and thus the roaring emptiness inside is temporarily quelled once more.
Year Of Glad is guitarist/sinus cavity projectionist Mimi's new project, featuring one of the 1994! guys (Chris), plus Mike from Good Luck and another Mike from some basically eponymous band. I never really dug 1994!, so fortunately this sounds more like an even tighter, better version of NONA over anything in the math-y, twinkly whatever subgenre that band occupied. That sentence was poorly structured to deliver the impact intended. An even better NONA is just what this post-9/11 world needs, though. The songwriting here is, like, rotavirus-level infectious with lots of clever arrangements, instantly memorable melodies and leads, and sweet vocal tradeoffs from Mimi, Chris, and one of the Mikes. I don't know why I've been assuming you know what NONA sounded like, but as an extension, this is more of that pop punk/90's alt rock Frankenstein stuff, but luckily, without any of the dull, Veruca Salt-ish trudging that occasionally smushed the fun out of Through The Head. Did you ever try to listen to an entire Veruca Salt album? I did, and now my life is in ruin, as evidenced above.
I'm tired and my partially-skunked-IPA buzz is in decline, so this review is probably as substandard as usual, but also I feel bad about it. Regardless, this EP is fucking great, and I seriously can't wait to hear what these guys do next.

3.) Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp

I love the shit out of American Weekend. The lo-fi fuzz settles all over my psyche like a warm blanket in a northeast winter, and it's something I've played on a zillion sad days. My love of Katie Crutchfield's songwriting dials back to 2008, when the p.s. eliot demo hit, but 2013's Cerulean Salt was effectively the flighty "I need to find myself" college phase that kills high school relationships. For me, CS was way too cold and bitter sounding to love, the new back up band sounded sterile and rigid, and the scattershot, '90's grab bag' experimentalism made it seem more directionless than expansive.
Ivy Tripp has the same mess of styles going on, but fortunately, A) the songs no longer sound like hastily filled in sketches by a studio band and B) the songs have more energy and warmth. Well, except "Air", which sounds like a CS leftover, but surprisingly, a really good one. There are a few complete throwaways like "Stale By Noon" and "Blue", but "Under A Rock", "Poison", and "The Dirt" are excellent indie rockers, and the rest alternates between slow blocks of synth fuzz and pretty acoustic numbers. "La Loose" is just awful, though. It sounds like a trust fund at a beach party with a bunch of asymmetrical hairstyles or something. And what sucks is that underneath all the cloying "ooh ooh"s and tacky synth shit is a really pretty, sad song. If you see Waxahatchee live (which I totally reccomend), she plays it alone on an acoustic, and it magically turns from 'track I'll never listen to intentionally again' to 'heartwrenching'.
I know this sounds unenthusiastic for being "such a bigh fannn", it's just that little of it has grabbed me anywhere near as hard as any of her pre-2013 material. I can actually understand why people would like this, unlike SOME ALBUMS I KNOW, and I'm sure I'll be listening to this intermittently for a long while to come, it's just not going to be another 'tea and a journal on the front porch in the rain' album for me. I'm super happy she's finally getting the praise she deserves, but I'm just not a fan of this Pitchfork-y musical direction.

4.) Jeff Rosenstock - We Cool?

This album is great, but I seriously can't stomach this shit right now. Admittedly it's been a long while since I listened to anything Rosenstock related, but I really don't remember his lyrics ever being this bleak or hopeless before. I mean, look at some of this:

"I got so tired of discussing my future
I’ve started avoiding the people I love
Evenings of silence and mornings of nausea
Shake and sweat and I can’t throw up.
I got so tired of discussing my future
That I walk through my life like I’m the only one" 

"Were you supposed to not go to college?
Stay in your mom’s house on the computer
googling grief cures, talking to no one
Waiting for life to start feeling better?
Waiting for pain to not be a constant?
Waiting to feel like anyone’s honest?
Waiting for me to stop being sarcastic
Because I can’t accept all the bad things that happen."  

"Getting drunk all alone in a quiet hotel room.
You repeat all the most shameful things that you’ve been through.
It dawns on you, that it’s true, fucking nobody loves you.
They’re waiting for you to fall, and take your place."  

"When your friends are buying starter homes with their accomplishments
Drinking at a house show can feel childish and embarrassing
With people glaring because despite what the advertisements said:
Malt liquor doesn’t make you young."

The thing is, these lyrics don't really resolve themselves through ironic posturing or pep-talk choruses like they might have in the Bomb The Music Industry! halcyon days. They're just... deadening, and if the music wasn't the kind of bombastic carnival shit Jeff's practically trademarked (NOW SKA-FREE), this would probably be unlistenable. I guess it might be me, but all the stuff on here about feeling like a failure, struggling with personal loss, and sinking into numbness through vices isn't cathartic as it is horrifying right now.

But hey! Those hooks!

Okay fuck this I'll make a second installment later.

some newer plop plunk goods

Cayetana's a three piece from Philly that apparently Tom May did a lot of salivating and interpretive dance propaganda for. I dunno. He gave them positive press, anyway, and of course, as the significantly less interesting songwriter for The Menzingers, you can bet your bottom dollar the people listened.

Cayetana's demo started flying off the big box store shelves late 2012, but I didn't end up hearing them 'til somewhere mid last year, right before I dove into the traveling vortex and forsook the nurturing teat of internet news. The demo, while solid, didn't really sink in much, and I mostly forgot about the band 'til the Hot Dad Calendar 7' was announced back in March. Emphatically throwing my hands up and uttering "oh, what the heck" with a canned asshole laugh, I tracked it down and was actually really impressed. The band's definitely not doing anything flashy here, but much like my favorite band ever, P.S. Eliot (to which the band could be compared), once the thin, flattening production loses it's potency, there are some totally great, endlessly relistenable songs under there. This here single features the title track and a re-recording of the best track from the demo, Ella, and their jangly indie-punk sound really hits home. Points go to the boldly simple-yet-effective songwriting, the emotive, forceful basslines, and the singer's lovely, quivery voice. Give it a go, and then, assuming you don't hate the shit out of it, keep a tongue out for the band's first LP, Nervous Like Me, in August this year.

BONUS ROUND:

Hey, remember when I made that post on how randomly throwing a bunch of female-fronted bands together to make a comparison not only makes you seem like an idiot, but a reductionist/sexist idiot? Because this one takes the cake: 

Gary Sleith ie "some guy on bandcamp": I love indie of this nature, FFO Hop Along, Lemuria, Big Eyes etc I LOVE THIS EP!! They've signed to Tiny Engines, can't wait to near more Favorite track: mountain kids.

Maybe you're not familiar with these three, so let me be direct here: this might be the most ridiculous conglomeration of bands I've ever seen used as a descriptor ever. Ever. Not only do none of these bands play the same style of music, none of them sound even remotely alike at fucking all, nor does Cayetana notably borrow elements from ANY of them. What the fuck is the unifying "nature" here? The vaginas? I mean, seriously, Hop Along sounds so, so unlike Big Eyes it's like - why it's like there was no actual criteria for making this comparison at all!

This is kind of a surprise. I was planning on writing up a positive review of this album, heralding it as "an unfairly ignored blah blah my ass" or something, but then, upon re-listening to it for the first time in a while, it's actually kind of... not my thing. Like, at all, actually. I could tell you why or just move on, but hey, let's be a dick about it for a literary exercise. BASICALLY: are you a man in your mid-20's to early 30's? Do you have a beard and drink fairly often and to excess? Maybe your politics lean more into libertarianism than anything that requires much self-questioning or action? Do you dig later Hot Water Music, Jawbreaker, and Dillinger Four? Then you'll LOVE three thousand bands that synthesize this exact same mixture of elements without adding much of anything to the cannon! With lyrics ranging from quoting Vonnegut to toasting to losing your best gal to vague political commentary to a hamfisted homage to Furi Kuri, you can almost smell the beard oil and Evan Williams through the speakers.
I'm being mean but I can't believe how many bands still sound like this. Some of it's passable, some of it's cringe-worthy or eye-glazingly dull, but holy shit, that complete lack of hooks. And those vocals. Fat Mike levels on unnecessary enunciation on the standard issue Midwest drunk beard guy vocalist makes for not the best time ever. The track "Irish Coffee" is kind of enjoyable, at least. Give it a listen here if I haven't douchebag'd you out of potential interest.

I checked this out because some random guy in the comments section for punknews was like, "Beach Slang is good". SIR ITS A DEAL. Strangely enough, this actually is really, really good, and apparently has an equally good pedigree. I had no idea of this, but apparently the band's made up of members of Ex-Friends, the insanely good NONA, and is helmed by ___ Snyder of Weston. I've physically owned Weston's Got Beat Up for, like, 5 years now, and it just occurred to me I've never even heard it once before, likely because it of the ULTRA POP PUNK cover and song titles. Like "Retarded". Remember the 90's? When that was an okay thing to not only say in public, but title a song as? Looks like I finally have some incentive though, 'cause Snyder's throaty, Paul Westerberg-y vocals and surprisingly heartfelt, yearning, reveling lyrics are the metaphorical shit, and might even be good enough for me to not hate Weston and their (entirely presumed) reliance on "wuh-uh-oh"s and "light-hearted" misogyny.

Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken? is the band's debut, and apparently only dropped a month back, making me topical for once. The 4 tracks here are a fantastic smoothie of 90's power pop a la Gin Blossoms and uh, fairly early Goo Goo Dolls (the whole planet's doing the whole re-sanctification of the shitty 90's bands, so this is now permissible in punkland) poured through a Jawbreaker sieve, replete with Paul Westerberg-Blake Schwarzenbach hybrid vocals. Look, that description kind of makes me do cloying "pfft" noises, too, but trust me - and trust Pitchfork, because me and Pitchfork, we're one in the same on this one. Yes, reliably tight bros 'r' us, all giving Kanye West rave reviews on our respective sites and nodding off as the car continues running in the sealed garage when hyperbole just isn't enough to express our academical snobbery on music that will sound dated in 5 years.
But yeah, this EP is ridiculously good. Check it out here.