Surprise new single from Anchor Thieves dropped today. The lead of two tracks, “Psychopomp”, may sound familiar thanks to their Q Session performance of it back in June. The proper studio version does sound remarkably similar to that live version; complete with intricate drum flourishes, pitch perfect falsetto and layered harmonies but the song expands and decays towards the end, giving it a new life of its own. All and all, it’s a truly impressive testament to the band’s live chops to keep them so damn similar and, frankly, it’s a great song either way.

The second track, “Long Way Out,” tells the tale of the impact of a breakup through ghosting – no phone calls, no texts, just silence. The lyrics and vocal delivery manage to capture a rare blend of vulnerability and spite. There’s intense heartache here but it’s driven by the frustration of a lack of courage to actually do the deed. “Psychopomp” will draw you in but I’m willing to bet that “Long Way Out” lands in your Most Played playlist.

The two songs are available now on Bandcamp and the band plays Little Harpeth Brewing on Nov 16th, 2019.

Over the past year, Makeup and Vanity Set (aka Matthew Pusti) has executed a masterclass in avoiding the pitfalls of releasing too much music without exhausting his audience or releasing half-baked ideas. Earlier in the year, he released the film soundtracks to Mather and Foyer followed by the videogame soundtrack to Overpass, all while also scoring the film A Good Woman Is Hard to Find and the horror-anthology show Radio Rental. Those last two haven’t been widely released (yet) but certainly contribute to the impressive workload. Breaking News is the fourth official release of the year but, technically speaking, could be considered the first solo release from MAVS in 2019 as it required no collaboration with an outside director or creative department. Juggling five different projects, across multiple teams and opinions and still having the ability to create your own singular musical expression is bonkers. Like I said, a Masterclass.

Aside from the impressive volume of output, the album serves as a sequel to the much revered Charles Park trilogy of albums that MAVS released between 2006 and 2011. While the music is entirely instrumental, there is an underlying story that can be pieced together from liner notes, promo videos and insights from Pusti himself. Charles Park, the character, is a vigilante that takes the law into his own hands and evades authorities. The plot is a nod to many movies of the 70’s and the 80’s, with the accompanying music feeling like a dance-y John Carpenter. Over the course of the original three records the style softened, replacing abrasive beats and a cacophony of instruments with slower, more sinister, set pieces. As a soundtrack to a fictional story, it’s sensible change of pace as the character focuses on getting away rather than focusing on vengeance.

With Part IV, Breaking News, the Charles Park character has returned from the underground and taken over a news station. Taking clues from the cover art, which depicts a They Live style monstrosity of a face on the male newscaster, it’s likely safe to assume that the real world hysteria of news and politics has upset the dark protagonist. There’s also a shadow-y depiction of Park with a gun, holding the station hostage. As an 80’s classic movie plot, this feels completely apt but as a 2019 real world event, it feels legitimately scary in its plausibility.

I’d love to say that the plot of these records can merely be treated as an aside but the idea of a vigilante taking over a news station to right the wrongs that he sees gives me pause. Couple that with the firearm on the album art and you’ve got yourself real uneasy feeling. The assumption here that MAVS is glorifying such actions; creating a record that extolls the Park character for his illegal actions is an easy leap of logic but, I believe, not the correct one to make.

Instead of making assumptions about the intent behind the music, I went straight to the source to find out the motivations of creating the record and asked Pusti what the history was. Here’s what he had to say:

I made the album in about a month. I liked the title Breaking News, because it’s a term that’s carved into our culture now. Shootings and politics and culture, it’s all breaking news. I also liked the idea of ‘breaking’ news. It’s inherently violent but at the same time it’s systemic at this point. Personally, I’m a pacifist. I feel like culturally we crave unrest now.

The album’s POV is the vigilante of the old albums is off the grid out of the country in Mexico. He’s a day laborer. He gets caught up with a group of rebels who want to kidnap the President. He tags along as a hired hand. The leader of the group ends up murdering the President and the vigilante is left to try to get out of the ensuing riots alive.

I’m not glorifying vigilantism. The 3rd album was how I processed being in a terrible hit and run accident, this one is how I processed the turn of American politics.

While never explicitly stated, Breaking News serves as a mirror for the frustration that many feel with the news cycle of our modern times. The They Live monster on the cover could not be more blatantly citing a world where lies are consistently right in front of us. The vigilante actions of Charles Park, as noted above, aren’t even explicitly his own. It’s a complacence with the violence happening around us.

Clearly, I’m obsessing over the fictional plot of a story that is never explicitly laid out. This seemingly inconsequential detail supporting the album may not be worth 500 words but, for me, the enjoyment of the album hinges on if the impetus behind it is glorifying a headspace of violence. Fortunately, that’s not the case. The album is a dark journey, as many MAVS releases are, and sets a tone for reflecting on our current political climate in which it seems that chaos, distrust and misinformation are sewn all around us.

Following up on their excellent previous single, “Expectations“, electronic four piece Scale Model has dropped a surprise new single in the form of “Spirit Zebra.”

This track takes a much different tact than the prior. Where “Expectations” comes out of the gate swinging as a full-on dance party, “Spirit Zebra” is a slow burn that swells and builds over its near five minute runtime, climaxing into an absolutely immersive wall of sound. For a band that labels themselves “synth pop / indie rock”, I think they can add “post rock provocateurs” to the list now as well.

In 2019, it’s impossible to know if these singles are part of a larger whole or simply standalone treats. If they’re standalone entities, they’re highly enjoyable, immersive, trips. If they’re part of a longer record, it certainly seems like the band has put together something curiously new and diverse for future listening.

It wouldn’t be a proper Halloween in Nashville without a new release from Boo Dudes. Past years have included albums of Halloween songs done in surprisingly sincere Ska style, jangly country or classic 50’s style. This year switches things up just a little bit with a new album from Boo Dude (singular) entitled Candy Corn Sells… But Who’s Buying?. According to the album notes, this is Not an official Boo DudeS release. Ghastly Mike was away figuring some stuff out at the time of this recording.*

Of course, that distinction is just part of a larger narrative from the band involving band members hating one another, catalog rights being stripped away and other such nonsense. Part of that ridiculousness includes a YouTube series that launched earlier in September, showing Jesse Boo and Ghastly Mike at odds. It is, admittedly, a lot to keep up with but pretty impressive that they maintain the whole thing year over year. More videos on their Youtube.

All that aside, Candy Corn is chalk full of ridiculous-but-legitimately-enjoyable genre-hopping. “NecroComicCon” feels ripped from the pages of Rob Zombie, “Hop Vampire Hop” is doo-wop dance tune recorded as if it were front of a live audience (complete with very awkward drum fills and bad audience clapping) and “Student Loans” is a fuzzed out blast warning of the inescapable haunting of educational debt (possibly a spiritual sequel to 2017’s “Grave Robbin’ Grants Goblin“?).

For my money, Boo Dudes (singular or plural) are the most successful when they don’t stick to a particular style. An album of ska songs is conceptually funny but not exactly fun to listen to. The fact that Candy Corn is able to growl through a White Zombie riffer and croon a pensive ballad from the perspective of Frankenstein’s Monster and bop out a ghoulish dance song about getting ripped while buried in a tomb…. well, that’s a Halloween Good Time if ever there was one.

It’s been a minute since The By Gods released their excellent full-length album Move On back in October of 2017 but a recent press release announcing their newest single “Eureka” reveals that they’ve been anything but dormant in that time.

“This is the first single we’ve put out since our last record, Move On, in 2017. Some terrible things happened right at the release of that record and everything just needed to be put on hold and things have been slow to pick back up. I wrote like 35+ songs as I reflected and processed everything. We reached back out to our friend and producer Alex Newport (Death Cab For Cutie, Bloc Party, At The Drive-In, City and Colour) who produced our last album. We worked through all of the songs together and went in to record a bunch of them. He really pushed us to try new things in the studio and it was some very good therapy for me. We’re happy to get these songs out to the world.” – George Pauley

That therapeutic approach is noticeable on the new track. Stylistically, it has all the same basic elements of a By Gods song (deep bass, Pauley’s somewhat detached voice, some eerie guitar) but the track feels gentler than previous releases, dare I say, more contemplative? Additionally, there’s some tricks up their sleeve that appear here; musical dropouts, shiny acoustic guitars, mumbling additional vocals. They may be subtle details but they reward multiple listens.

Thirty-Five songs is a lot of songs to bring to the table and “Eureka” is but one of the batch. It’s too soon to forecast what comes next for The By Gods but this first taste is a pleasingly intriguing one.

Hear the song on all the streaming platforms, on Bandcamp and catch them on tour at the dates below:
10/19 – Greenville, SC @ Radio Room
10/21 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ortlieb’s
10/23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Gold Sounds
10/24 – Newport, KY @ Southgate House
11/08 – Florence, AL @ The Mane Room
11/15 – Nashville, TN @ The East Room

Finding information about Ryan Mims is surprisingly difficult. There’s a Twitter that hasn’t been updated since June and a few tidbits that he’s a founding member of the group Internet Strangers, a rather un-googleable but surprisingly enjoyable search term.

What is known about Mims is that he’s got a rather impressive video for his debut solo single “Wax“, shot by the folks at AM?PM Video. It’s a “oner” that glides around an apartment set following various characters into and out of the frame in a style Spielberg would be proud of. The track itself transitions from a melancholy indie pop song into a smooth rap diatribe about a minute in. Honestly, it’s a surprising turn for the song but Mims contemplations on the frustrations of our current political times keep it interesting. The last third of the track transitions into a second oner with an almost funeral procession vibe to it, as Mims floats along with a crowd of solemn faces.

There’s something intriguing here to say the least. While information on Mims may be hard to come by now, his blending of hip-hop beats, rap and indie sensibilities – not to mention the impressively pro stylings of the AM?PM video – indicate that there’s plenty more ahead for this project.