Engraving of Armor is the solo debut of Beck Zegans, an established member of New York’s indie scene with years of experience by this point both as a live sound engineer and guitarist. She’d been writing her own songs for some time but noticed her material taking on a heavier, more confrontational demeanor while holed up during COVID-19 shutdowns. When it came time to record some of these songs for her first album, she worked collaboratively with her band – synth player/bassist Alex MacKay (Nation of Language) and drummer Julian Fader (Remember Sports, Ava Luna) – who took turns building upon Zegans’ demos (guitar and drum loops) in their individual home studios. A fourth contributor on a couple tracks was guitarist El Kempner…
Tag Archive: Exploding in Sound
The “post-tour musings” album should be a privilege to make. It typically arrives a few years and releases into an artist’s career — that is, if they’ve been fortunate enough to be able to go out on the road. This is the very moment we find the Chicago-based trio, Stuck, in now. Off the back of 2023’s Freak Frequency, the band ventured overseas to perform their frenetic entanglement of janky post-punk guitar riffs across Europe and the UK, a prospect that’s becoming increasingly challenging for the majority of artists today. It seemed as though Stuck’s stock was rising. Therefore, it might come across as odd that within the first five minutes of their contagious new record Optimizer, we hear frontman Greg Obis exclaim, “My life was in decline!”
Holyoke, Massachusetts post-punk outfit Landowner aren’t the type to sit still. Their sound is agitated and animated, their relentless rippers rife with taut basslines, manic shouts and wiry guitar riffs. And, fittingly for a band that’s always in motion, they’ve returned with another new album, Assumption, which is out via Exploding in Sound, and rife with abstract meditations on modern life, surging rhythms and a hypercaffeinated and infectious jangle-punk sound that’s as fun as it is anxious.
Landowner guitarist and vocalist Dan Shaw went long, breaking down each of the songs on the group’s latest album, explaining some of the origins of the songs—like how a handful of them were written during paternity leave…
Lawn’s songs alternate between lackadaisical slacker pop and driving rock propulsion.
Early single “Davie” is a sweet natured slice of California guitar pop, as aimlessly charming as its not-too-ambitious protagonist. “I’m on top of the world just because/I’m not keeping score,” the singer declares, and the song, too, is pleased as punch to be right where it is, no striving required. But then, check the other single “Sports Gun,” pummeling on with urgent bass and squalling guitars and a sung-spoken spray of words that seethes with all the aggression missing in that earlier salvo.
Perhaps it’s down to the two songwriting personalities involved — the guitarist Mac Folger wreathed in California sunshine, the bassist…
Prewn’s Izzy Hagerup follows up to 2023’s Through the Window with a noisy, nasty, powerful slice of feedback-addled rock, a primal wail that sits alongside howling classics like PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love and the Throwing Muses Limbo. Like Hersh, she makes disruptive use of bowed strings; the discordant cello in the title track goes about as far into rock anarchy as an orchestral instrument can do.
As the title implies, Hagerup has social ills, not personal ones, on her mind for this sophomore disc. In a ragged voice that vibrates with angst, she nails an exploitive industry in one quatrain: “Just give your life away/Turn on your lights baby/Give them a show/It won’t be long you say/But it’s a system and/All that you know.”
Jobber to the Stars is the debut full length of the quartet known as Jobber hailing from New York, and they are anything but lightweights when it comes to muscular power-pop nuggets. The band is fronted by Kate Meizner (guitar/vocals), who has a way with a cool, laidback, chirpy vocal style and slashing guitar technique that is both cunning and powerful. Jobber are no novices when it comes to their resumes, as each member has a long list of credits with a handful of underground notables. This works in their favor as they have learned to utilize many tricks to keep their brand of noise-making sneakily complex and fluid. To the Stars mixes early grunge and some heavy rock with quirky keyboard-focused melodies that will have you recalling Rentals and…