Last we heard from Gram Ash, aka Wyatt Whit, was his Grape Lung EP, a pleasant exploration of psychedelia. Now, just a scant two months later, he’s released a follow-up EP, Welcome to the Elevator.

In terms of genre, he’s exploring similar territory with psychedelic style vocals and some brooding, tension build drums but he’s gone darker. That’s not to say that this EP is heavier or more riff based but the content and execution is decidedly more deranged. Like an acid trip veering off course, the vocals ripple with derangement, sounds swirl in and out and you’re pulled further down the rabbit hole.

There’s a decidedly more uplifting tone to the final track, which is a welcome emergence from the path previously traveled. All and all, it’s a well crafted experience that keeps you listening through the duration… and that’s no easy task these days.

In all honesty, a huge part of me hoped that this series of instrumental loops from bloopr was paying homage to the doot meme. The user avatar seems to insinuate that bloopr is at least aware of the nod to the best 1 second video on YouTube but, alas, there are no doots to be found here.

Despite that initial disappointment*, the beats offered here are pleasant and provide a nice backdrop for your daily activities. There’s even a b-side collection to go along with them that I may like even more than the primary offering. There’s a soulful vibe throughout each track that seems ripe for leveraging in a project where the songs are longer than 1:30. Nice work bloopr.

* consider this a challenge, Nashville needs more doots.

Lava Gulls started as a Knoxville band but have since moved their primary members to Nashville since late 2017, so now we can claim them as our own. Their debut full-length, Artifacts, is a sample-driven escapade that pits dance-y beats against a vaguely foreboding set of arrangements.

Much like the works of Animal Collective (or later era Flaming Lips), there’s an optimistic vibe seeping out throughout the album but each track is steeped in a darker tone. Maybe that’s being too esoteric about the production style but listening ever so slightly to the lyrics reveals that there’s some soul searching going on, which is reflected nicely in these opposing forces.

On the whole, the album is easy to imagine being performed live in a tiny, sweaty, room with a cathartic audience dancing themselves through the experience.

To call the the debut album from drumonymity ominous would be underselling it. Much like the heaviest offerings from bands like Mogwai, this is brooding, tension filled and dark.

Fortunately, it’s not all caricature or absurdly heavy for the sake of being heavy, there’s melody and drama built in to these songs that gives it an enjoyable cinematic feel. Tracks like “Human Stranding” will definitely register as brutal, big riff escapades but the later half of the album stretches out into some more melodic, almost psych-rock, areas (see “Life at Double Speed“).

All and all, another great entry for the examples of diversity of music coming out of Nashville.

I’ve been hearing output from Datenight since 2015 when they posted rough demos for the world to hear. In that time, they’ve played a bunch, refined their recordings, released some videos and have now officially unleashed their debut – Comin’ Atcha 100MPH.

The title is fitting as the music within is a bombastic onslaught of fast paced songs and punkish snarls. I can only imagine the sweat filled rooms this gets moving when performed live with audiences yelping along with the choral refrains of songs like “On the Block.”

There’s not a single song here over 2 minutes 30 seconds, a fitting structure for a band rooted in punk styles and even better for keeping the energy high for the duration.

Sometimes cover art can speak volumes to the contents of a record within. The latest collection of soundscapes from Party Trash is adorned with a highly data-moshed image that may be a lake, or a waterfall or a dirty puddle. It’s hard to tell. The music itself is ambient and atmospheric, a little warbly at times and always slowly moving.

The previous release from the outfit, Squares, was a full-on hyperactive presentation. Into the Mist is the opposite; a slow walk into the void.

I’m going to be completely honest here; I’m not entirely sure what the story is behind this collaboration of Carmen Canedo and Dream Wave (aka Kelton Young). The first three tracks of the EP also appear on Canedo’s Wheel’s Are Turning album, though some new arrangements and instrumentation are applied herein. The back half of the EP features a surprisingly compelling passage reading of Winning Through Enlightenment and two songs, presumably, sung by Young himself.

What I do know is that Dream Wave has a lot of releases out in the world and this Canedo collaboration is just another example of his prowess for juggling genres. This is a great starting point for diving into the full catalog of offerings.

Taken from their most recent release, Move On, The By Gods just released an official video for the track “Wait Up.” It’s a rather gorgeous looking video that cuts between some high contrast black-and-white footage and extremely saturated close-ups of the band having a good time in front of some colorful sheets. Oh, and some little dogs. Plenty of adorably tiny dogs.

For a band that has a fairly dark sound overall, they certainly know how to have fun with a music video. I’ve often compared the visual output of the band with some of the works of The Pixies early-to-mid 90’s videos and I stand by that. “Wait Up” continues the trend of feeling familiar but still fresh and uniquely their own.