Get a quick dose of garage rock from Cheap Time’s latest 7″ - “Goodbye Age” b/w “Soon Over Soon” released via Orlando, FL. label Total Punk Records. Be sure to stick around for the b-side, as it’s got a choppy new-wave-snear thing going on.

I’m definitively behind on hearing the latest full-length from Soccer Mommy, aka Sophie Allison, but am glad to encounter it in November rather than August when it was released. The Fat Possum release, Collection, is a more produced version of the bedroom musings that Allison has released previously but it’s still a, mostly, introspective endeavor fit for colder nights indoors. 

There may be more drums and tinkling synths present in the arrangements but the lyrical content is intensely personal; declarations from the perspective of finding your way through relationships and personal growth. Those aren’t exactly new subjects for indie rock but the vocal delivery makes them feel extra unshielded. 

I’ll even go out on a limb and say there’s something akin to early Liz Phair happening here.  Allison isn’t as openly sexual as Phair was but she’s able to write an intimate song that shows vulnerability and strength simultaneously while also being a memorable pop song.

If you aren’t familiar with director Kogonada, I suggest taking a deep dive into this Indiewire piece and learning about his history and his journey to becoming a full-fledged filmmaker. His debut, Columbus, has received rave reviews from the likes of The Nashville Scene to NPR to a 97% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All that is to say, it certainly seems to be a film worth investigating.

What many of the articles mention is the Original Soundtrack backing the film, brought to you by Hammock. It makes sense for a band that’s been together for over a decade making cinematic scores spawned from their own brains to collaborate with a film of this nature. There are only four tracks posted for preview over on their Bandcamp but the entire record is streaming on Spotify.

It’s a slow, spaced-out, moving body of work occasionally undercut by some tense, foreboding, presence. Hammock has been refining this kind of sound for years and this is an exemplary application of their efforts.

It’s been a minute since we heard from Joshua Moore’s one-song-a-month project, V to Z, but he’s back with “Artificial Dead”. It’s hard to say what genre any of these tracks exist in but I’ve always given them kind of a Mike Patton Pass; they’re all over the place but have some undercurrent of consistency regardless of being a space-rock endeavor or some other thing. 

Always looking forward to more of this.

The big riff sound of Sad Baxter is part of the 90′s resurgence movement that bands like Bully, The By Gods and others have tackled full force. This isn’t a knock on them but, rather, just an apt description of the influences they’re drawing from. The latest 7-inch, “Baby” b/w “Silver” continues that sound with explosive force. Deezy Violet’s vocals have an occasionally growling texture to them that’s hard not to enjoy, particularly when they explode through a choral backing. 

It’s one song but it’s so good that it debuted on NPR’s Songs We Love, a deserving endorsement.

Over the past year, PANGS has continuously released a trickle of singles that fall into the category of Absolute Bangers; high energy tracks with loads of keyboards and hooks. Their latest offering, the Vanishing Point EP, takes a much milder turn; on both tracks there’s a much softer Lindsay Bennett vocal back by a melancholy and sweeping soundscape. The little bit of half-spoken musings during the title track even harkens back to songs of the 50′s. It’s a different look for them but it works extremely well.

Really excited to hear the new album from The Subnovas based on this album summary:

“I Cannot Stop” is the lead single off of our forthcoming album Between The Light Years, a concept album involving themes of nuclear apocalypse, eternity, and other heady ideas.

A space-rock influenced concept album about impending nuclear apocalypse and all the mortality questions that come along with it may hit a little close to home these days but I’m ready for it; particularly based on the enjoyability of this first song.

Fun fact: I know nothing about Robyn Hitchcock. Of his 21 studio albums, I have heard only this 2017 self-titled release. Having seen him walking around Tomato Fest or hearing friends sing his praises, I still managed to have zero context about his work.

So, with that in mind, I’m either a hilariously inappropriate person to share thoughts on his latest record or a incredibly apt conduit for thoughts on it as I have no idea how it measures it to previous undertakings.

What I can say is that this is absolutely not the case of a British artist with an illustrious career moving to Nashville to re-invent himself as some sort of Bluegrass aficionado. The album is British pop in all the enjoyable ways; self-deprecating, poppy and sometimes just a bit absurd. While there are elements of Nashville seeping in via the occasional slide guitar or twangy lick, it’s an enjoyably diverse record that defies pigeonholing. 

I may not have known a thing about Hitchcock’s work prior to this offering, I’m certainly game for a deep dive now.