Connect With Us
After over 2 years of being a home body and living with anxiety, mixed with a dash of unease, it was an overwhelmingly cathartic experience to get out of the house to see live music again. Seeing old faces, visiting old haunts, and of course being treated to an incredible live set by one of the best live bands around, Idles. I’d say BGray and I were like little kids going to a show for the first time. Hit the jump for a few thoughts and some fancy photos from BGray.
Happy Monday everyone! Hope you’re doing alright, physically and emotionally. We’re here to wrap up last week’s hits, or at least what we loved. This collection has a bunch of songs included from some albums that dropped on Friday, as well as new tunes from Gustaf, Dinner and the new collaboration from Living Hour + Peel Dream Magazine. Start your week off right by reviewing what we loved last week. Have a good day!
I’m not entirely sure I’m able to describe to you my infatuation with Gustaf. Early on, with their debut 7″, it was all about those angular riffs and the band lobbing up these huge choruses that would crash down emphatically and sweep you away. But, on this new single, you get the band relying almost solely on the rhythm section; it’s the propulsive element here…well, unless you just look to singer Lydia Gammill. All the band’s videos portray Lydia with this natural tenacity, which perhaps could be construed as a certain wildness, but it’s harnessed here, almost tethered to the lonely guitar notes. Even still, you can see the rhythm of the band taking hold, pushing Gammill and company to the brink. Look for their Audio Drag for Ego Slobs on October 1st via Royal Mountain Records.
It was a bit of a slower week for us on the new music side of things, but we still had a few jams for from the last week of July. You’ll see some recurring artists here like Tummyache and Meatbodies but also new to us music like The Enigmatic Foe or Treeboy & Arc. It’s a shorter one this week so it should be great for your Monday morning or afternoon commute. Stay dry!
Brooklyn seems to be the hotspot of the day, with that Fixtures tune earlier and now a brand new tune from Gustaf; their Mine 7″ drops this Friday via Royal Mountain. This tune here is the B-Side to that release, and draws on that sort of arty post-punk style, though I love how they never shy away from a little nod to a nice hook. There’s always this sense of playfulness, even when the band attack modern desires as constructs of our own design…or at least that’s my interpretation anyways. Plus, the video tosses in just enough fun that you can tell the band would be one hell of a live show…if that was a thing. Check the vid!
Up until now, it seems that new brand of post-punk has been sensationalized and dominated by boy bands (Shame, Fontaines DC, Idles, etc)…and all that’s well and good, but I’m glad that Gustaf is here to throw a wrench in that whole push. The New York outfit has much more of a pop sensibility about their work, which is owed to the rhythm section; it definitely has that Entertainment nod when those riffs come cutting into the song’s core…followed by that call and response vocal closing. Honestly, I love how refreshing this sounds; it doesn’t sound formulaic or like a costume, and I love that about it. The band celebrate this rad tune by signing with Royal Mountain Records; they’ll drop a 7″ on December 4th.
