One Song

I've been obsessed with Waterstrider for a long time. Not as long as the last two months have felt, but more than four years by my calculations.  I've actually whipped out the first song I fell in love with from them TWICE since the pandemic hit. If you need a reason to tap on your fucking knees right now, go listen to "Redwood" from the album Nowhere Now. That shit is money as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. And if you disagree, that's ok, you're just wrong.  BUT BACK TO THE LECTURE AT HAND BRUH. The new new that Waterstrider dropped this morning, "Liquid", arrived JUST as I was about to step into my shower after my home workout. How timely for a song about wetness should ping to my phone as I was both sweaty AND about to get all of...

I found Wilderado on a random Spotify playlist last year and spent the better part of a month obsessed with their single, "You Don't Love Me". They grabbed me ballsies with a huge ass fucking screamable-in-my-car-alone chorus, and then hooked me further by releasing the same track all stripped down and acoustic. The songwriting felt compelling and intentionally anthemic without feeling disingenuous. It felt super fucking late 90s and that made me fucking happy. Fast forward to meow, I get a new Wilderado single in the emails just meow and I pop the fucker in my imaginary tape deck and BOOM: late 90s indie rock makin' me feel all comf and like the world isn't burning to shit around me. This dude's throat has that lilt that I can only install...

I have no idea who Jonathan Something is, but I clicked through some emails late yesterday and lined up a bunch of links to peep on the way home.  Seeing as I haven't been able to listen to anything but TOOL albums for the last week, this was the one track that sort of made me clutch my pearls to my chest and sing like I'm singing along with a song I've known forever. "Heartbreaker" has that Alabama Shakes vibe to it, but with a reference to smoking menthol cigarettes and having an erection with some falsetto sensuality, I've had this fucker on repeat without even realizing it.  Super retro and comf, this shit is sunny Saturday afternoon in slow mo, with the kids all gigglin', and the rainbows all poppin' from when we soak em with the hose while they run over...

THIS FUCKING BAND. Waterstrider have the discint knack for making me forget there are other people around me. I find the audible string they're dangling in front of me, and like a cat high on dat nip, I'm closed eyes hypnotized and completely out of body. How fucking comf is this riff on "Way Out"?  Jesus balls on a faded beige broken down Bonnevile in the parking lot of a dive bar that looks closed but is actually completely packed full of guys just getting off the third shift and living life in slow motion. THIS SONG IS FUCKING GORGEOUS. The bass gently punching with that swift kicked bass drum and the muted guitar pick out under that ghastly vocal is making time stand still, and I'm fucking thankful this feeling still exists when everything else sucks, from...

Never heard LACES before, but c'mon, I'm big on names that are single words in the plural form, and I super appreciate anything that references what I normally wear under these jeans.  (HEY BACK OFF, I AM ALLOWED TO FEEL PRETTY.) This jammer, titled "moved", is exactly what you want your first foot forward to sound like. This woman doesn't just sound like she has her (musical) shit together, basically it's just her, a piana (YEA, PIANA), and a tasteful amount of reverb (and that womwomwomwom I love so much). No fluff, no muss, no fluss, no muff. This track is fucking gorg. It's like a much more mature Billie Eilish without spiders in mouths, or heck, a calmer Tori Amos without all the uncomfortable bench humping and those vocal riffs I can't duplicate so I find...

I've loved me some City and Colour for a while now. I remember bouncing one baby on my lap and one baby in the carrier with my foot as I wrote about his album, Little Hell, in my kitchen back in 2011. His voice is calming and comfortable, but with the strange and unique ability to cup my feels like a pair of sensitive ballsies and turn the tone all the way to bleak. But hopeful. It's like he's got you by the aforementioned balls, but you trust him not to squeeze, and he doesn't. Well, at least not the balls. City and Colour squeezes that heart muscle thing I forget I can lead with once in a while.  His latest single, "Astronaut", is another example of how soaringly gorgeous this dude makes music. But maybe the main reason why I felt...

Are you KIDDING!? I've loved both Blockhead and Elliot Lipp for yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars! And NOW they decide to touch tips? Uncle Tony and Mister Lipp are gonna make me impregnante myself again ain't they?  Lipphead is brilliant. And this first single, "Slippery Fingers" is straight up cool out bbq soft shorts PERF. Whenever I'm confronted with music that makes me feel just as relaxed as energized, I get a bit offended because I didn't hear it before. Thankfully this just dropped today, so while I might be late to everything because of all these kids I made, at least I got to hear this as soon as it existed publicly. Super jacked to hear the rest of this album, and I hope the vibe of being played outside while consuiming many...

Sorry if it looks like I'm fanboying on these Altered Tapes guys lately, IT'S JUST THAT I AM. This track is like the fif time in the last few weeks where I've wanted to literally LIVE INSIDE A TRACK. That smooth shoulder shimmy shimmy shit is so fucking appreciated lately. Outkast was one of the first groups where merely thinking about them threw me into a vibe where everything around me, while insane, was fine. Oh, the car's on fire? It's fine. Oh, the BBQ was canceled because of tariffs placed on our trade partners? That's fine. Oh, we're out of Squirt and have to use Canfield's 50/50 instead? Ok, that's fine. Oh, KIDS Incorporated was canceled? THIS IS ABSOLUTE HORSE HOCKEY! Altered Tapes are the hip older brothers of my brain's musical center. With...

Blisses B hold a special place in my SYFFAL heart. One of the first bands, maybe ten years ago or so, where I developed an honest friendship with the guys based solely on my love of their tunes. Turns out, it's totally possible to establish meaningful friendships with complete strangers when you have something like the love of music in common.  Fast forward about ten years, Blisses B are back with another album, AND IT IS PERFECTLY TITLED: Tell Your Friends You Love Them And Why drops on June 21st, 2019! If there was ever an album titled named for me, it's this one. HELL YEA. I spend more time than ever before reminding the people around me that I love and appreciate them, and this album title here just massaged me in the feelies. The first...

Tom sent me this band because he knew I needed it. This band's latest album, Go Farther In Lightness, hasn't really left my routine since Tom sent it to me.  Gang of Youths sort of have everything I need in a favorite band: beautiful instrumentation, powerful lyrics, similarities to bands I've grown up on, incredible crescendos, song topics that literally step on my throat.  I know many of you don't remember when the Wallflowers released their version of Bowie's "Heroes", because you're all 15 years old right now, but that chorus is forever burned into my memory as being one of the few times the chorus of a song has pushed me to tears (before I became a sensitive Stanley that is).  And it's perfect timing for Gang of Youths, not just...