Shake the Baby til the Love Comes Out - in a pretty suit

As a musician, math rock scares me sometimes. The very essence of such technical music is, well, its technicality—its driven by knowledge, and it’s terribly easy to listen to a band cutting up complex time signatures at lightning speeds and feel like they’re just flexing their music degrees at the rest us plebs. But this means such intellectual music needs heart, needs the human experience, more than ever, and few understand this as well as NY’s Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out, whose debut record in a pretty suit distills the chaos of existence into song. 

For only a two-piece, Shake the Baby sound massive, a juggernaut of tone and technicality that goes far beyond odd time signatures and jazzy progressions. The guitar guides the compositions all across the sonic map; “Little Spoon, Big Ego” wails with gritty, ultra-dissonant chords, while “Also Vomit” features one of the most moving melodic intros I’ve ever heard. The drums are just as maddening: “Utility Myth” places swing cymbal hits and thundering toms right next to blastbeats, while the hectic hihat work steering “Mine is Viscera” is nearly anxiety-inducing. 

Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out play their instruments with incredible ease, but what’s even more impressive is their innate understanding of tension and release. Their songs undulate between emotive melodics and harsh, grinding riffs; between fluid beats that carry the ear across the kit and haphazard smashing that mimics a five-car pileup. “Someone for Everything” opens with a colorful progression before warping into rasping chords, syncopated hits, and galloping double kick hits. Deceptive pauses pop up between periods of noisy thrashing, turning the song’s beat into an arrhythmic heart desperately trying to get back on track.

Each moment of anarchy on in a pretty suit is precise and masterful; Shake the Baby wield searing distortion and blistering dissonance like weapons, embracing the chaos that is inherent in music and using it to build tension as the song evolves. Their constant alternation between compelling beauty and reckless noise makes each tune play like a horror movie, lulling you with gentle conversation and then forcing you to jump as the killer stabs their way across the screen.

Shake the Baby til the Love Comes Out are making music that is manic and unpredictable, and in a pretty suit is calculated insanity at its finest. Their riffs are fun, their songs full of flair, yet all cut with a healthy dose of noise and chaos. Best of all, every tune is earnest—I can hear how much fun this band has making their music, and it’s that type of honesty that connects with fans. This act is bringing the heart back to an often-heartless genre, and wherever they take it next, I will surely be following them. 

My Top Tracks: “Someone for Everything

 

You can find more from Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out, including upcoming shows and news, on their Facebook page. Then head over to Bandcamp and snag your own copy of in a pretty suit.

God Program - Fragments of Illusion

While I grew up listening to metalcore, it’s a genre I thought was basically dead. Ten years of local shows with six bands playing nearly-identical riffs had taken its toll. Mainstream bands grew to avoid the sound entirely, or traded it in for a strange, loathsome pop-metal hybrid and radio play. The brutal and brusque energy that I’d loved had become sterile and store-brand, so I gave up on it. To me, metalcore was dead, and honestly, I was glad for it.

Then God Program dropped their debut EP Fragments of Illusion last fall, and made me stuff those sentiments right back in my mouth.

Fragments is furious and fearless, six songs of unbridled energy. The band’s performances are tight and technical, thundering drum beats and chugging guitars coupling into one continuously ruthless machine. Fierce screams coat the instrumentation with the human condition, punctuated by gentle and tasteful singing that spreads the emotion beyond pure fury. There is no shortage of intensity on Fragments of Illusion—every song hits like a shot of adrenaline stabbed through the breastbone.

Fragments is as original as it is ferocious; God Program keeps their debut record evolving and growing even as it spins. “What Trigonometry Couldn’t Solve” plays with dynamics by juxtaposing noisy distorted chords with moments of silence, while “Dostoyevsky vs. the Long Island Sound” slaps catchy melodic choruses against pummeling palm mutes and double-bass patterns. The grinding of ”Exposure Therapy” practically collapses into “Scorpio Rising,” an acoustic-driven tune that eschews volume and virulence for sad beauty without sacrificing the powerful performances that make God Program’s music so damn compelling.

God Program have taken a dying sound (dead to me, at least) and yanked it back from the brink. Their music is honest and driving, much more a defiant shout of life for this genre than the death rattle I expected. Fragments of Illusion is an incredible effort by a very talented act, and if this is just their debut, I can’t wait to see what chaos they cook up next.

My Top Track: “Exposure Therapy”

You can find more from God Program, including upcoming tour dates and news, by following their  Instagram @godxprogram. Fragments of Illusion is streaming on Spotify and available for purchase on Bandcamp.

Song Spotlight: "Collective Thoughts" by From Elsewhere

Emo and punk music have a tendency to thrash and to smash—not that there’s anything wrong there. Cut beat drums, searing power chords, and shouted vocals lead to the mosh pits we know and love. Yet they leave very little room for anything else. One weapon left almost untouched by such music is groove: dynamic shifts and attentive writing that add a fluidity to the music, an energy that moves the listener even as it moves the song. Groove gets largely ignored by emo and punk, but not with Indiana’s From Elsewhere, whose latest single “Collective Thoughts” functions on the very principal that punk can sway as hard as it can slam. 

“Collective Thoughts” is a swirl of interlocking guitar riffs and drum beats, every instrument seamlessly intertwined in an emotive dance. The bass treads playfully along its own melody as the band dips between dynamic breaks, the composition undulating like ocean waves. The band hangs back for the verses, letting the soft rasped vocals float at the surface until the explosive chorus crashes into existence. 

The chorus poses the question “Would you tell them all your secrets / when they don’t give a fuck about them?” almost like a challenge, kicking the chorus to life with profanity that invites the gritty chords and chugging rhythm section to carry the tune along. “Collective Thoughts” is a tune that evolves as it goes, the intelligent compositional choices creating momentum for a band locked into a powerful and particularly unique groove. 

The indie-punk riffs and casually emotional lyrics of “Collective Thoughts” coalesce into a tune that is too danceable for its own good, and yet as introspective as a dream journal. From Elsewhere approach their songs with an intensity that is both powerful and restrained; they crank the energy up slowly as they go, letting their drum fills and catchy rhythms sink their teeth in before dragging the listener down into the depths of the song. This is a band that understands the importance of thought in music, and how it relays feeling; so I wouldn’t be surprised to see From Elsewhere making big waves in the near future. 

You can find more info on From Elsewhere on their Facebook page. They just dropped their debut EP, Just Like the Sun, featuring “Collective Thoughts” on Spotify. You can also download the single from their Bandcamp page.

Will Grayson - Yet What Else After All

All art strives to bring its audience somewhere, to create an experience that is both novel and immersive. No small task for any medium. As a lover of music, I have no trouble letting a song or a record take me away, but it is rare that I am absorbed by the music, carried into a world that is both brand new and painfully familiar. And that is exactly what happens every time I start spinning the new full-length by Will Grayson, Yet What Else After All, an expansive journey through youth and memory.

Will Grayson is a solo musician who thinks like an orchestra, and the instrumentation on Yet What Else After All really has the feel of a symphony. The record is a splay of different dynamics and textures, placing grinding, near-dissonant rock anthems next to wounded acoustic ballads. Even the songs themselves feature dramatic, almost violent shifts: “Like a Death” is a panic attack juxtaposed with a daydream, while “Angels’ Wills and Diana’s Pills” jumps from jangly 4/4 indie-pop into a jolt of mathy and fuzzed-out rock.

In juxtaposition to this cacophony of sounds are the vocals on Yet What Else After All. The melodies are gentle, like the scrawl of a pencil as it writes, and that is just what his voice is doing. Will Grayson uses rapid-fire rhyme and multiple literary devices to brighten his language and delivery, all sung in a soulful croon. His lyrics are feathered strokes of the human experience, delving into the depths of relationships and the tangled messes that they can become.

Lines like “You know why / I’m callin’ tonight / because I can’t win that fight / if I have to face you” or “Your passive reaction / smacks of a pyrrhic attack” expertly capture the tiny intensities and anxieties that often manifest in relationships. Yet it’s not all misery; the lines “Last night I tried to tell you why / I became such an ambivalent guy / oh well, okay, alright” cheekily introduce the concept of ambivalence before immediately bringing it to life within the song.

Yet What Else After All plays like flipping the pages of a photo album. Each song captures an experience in sickly-sweet detail that pulls from the past those ghost notes of nostalgia. There are parts heavy and yet beautiful, moments of clarity next to fuzzy yet familiar feelings. Will Grayson has managed to press a dream to a record, and each listen has me dizzy like the moments just after waking up, trying to remember specifics but finding only deep emotions instead. It keeps sucking me back in, and I have no doubt it will do the same to you.

My Top Track: “Because He’s Hiding Something”

You can find more from Will Grayson via his Instagram page, @willgrayson. Then head to Spotify to stream Yet What Else After All, or hit his Bandcamp page to purchase your own copy.

Destroy All Music Presents: Going Home

The DIY music scene is one of the most committed and fostering communities I’ve ever been lucky to be part of, but it’s a community in trouble. The very nature of DIY requires continuous effort from artists, promoters, fans and venues, and this last piece, the DIY space—arguably the most imperative of all—is in danger of disappearing. Issues like unavailability or unaffordability of space and the ever-present threat of shutdown from cranky neighbors or authority figures are taking their toll on the existence of DIY venues.

Without a safe space to create and promote and perform, artists and their art also become threatened. But CT label/distro/collective Destroy All Music is striving to reverse the damage with the release of their new compilation Going Home.

Though still a relatively young project, Destroy All Music have already proven themselves a pivotal part of CT’s DIY music scene. Besides regularly hosting and promoting shows, their very first compilation released earlier this year forwarded all proceeds to the victims of California’s vicious wildfires, so it’s no surprise that they’ve organized a similar campaign to support their own community. And that’s why every penny collected from sales goes directly to supporting important DIY venues in New England.

Going Home is packed with tunes from seminal New England acts, reflecting the massive spectrum of genres and styles this region has to offer. Like Destroy All Music, these acts are all banding together to breathe life into their community, donating their tunes to the record and the cause. Compilations like this not only provide a gateway into the many artists honing their craft in New England, but bring those scattered sects of the DIY community together, reminding us that we are all working towards the same goal despite the distances between us.

Destroy All Music and the many talented bands on Going Home are the very essence of the DIY scene, coming together and leading the way to keep their community alive and thrashing. If you’ve ever been to a basement show or “asked a punk” where to catch your favorite touring act, you know how important this community is. How creative. How resilient.

DIY is where every band starts, where your favorite artist started. So pick up a copy of this comp today, and help make sure there’s always a space for artists to grow, and for fans to support them.

Going Home is available digitally on Destroy All Music’s Bandcamp page. You can also grab physical copies starting December 1st from Destroy All Music's distro or from any of the fine acts on the compilation.

By Torchlight - The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1

These days it seems difficult for a singer-songwriter to really deliver something surprising. The “acoustic guitar and soulful singing” trope has been all but trampled by Top 40 radio, not to mention a lack of innovation and—too often—honesty.

But this genre is not nearly dead. I’ve already written a few articles lauding some of the pioneers of this sound, and now can proudly add New Jersey’s By Torchlight to that list, whose EP The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 breathes new life into the embers of this genre.

As far as arrangements go, The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 takes a simple formula and creates something expansive and magnificent. By Torchlight relies almost entirely on the acoustic guitar for instrumentation, yet their approaches to both composition and tone combine to make it the most expansive acoustic guitar I’ve ever heard. “The Watcher and the Damned” intermingles crushing chords and sweet melodies, while “The Edge of Forever” layers multiple arpeggiating riffs to create a wavering sonic dreamscape that mirror's the song’s ethereal lyrics. Yet the guitar is not alone on this EP: “The Edge of Forever” stacks a bass onto the arrangement, and by the very end of the record we have a full band marching alongside By Torchlight’s driving chords. 

The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 is a thematic record, both in lyrics and in composition. The writing layers fantastic imagery on the motif of a journey, bringing the record into the realm of an epic adventure. As the tale grows across the EP, so does the energy; the soft picking of “Child of the Edge” is quickly replaced by furious strumming and rasping yells before the record ends. By Torchlight approaches every aspect of their writing with intelligence and intention, making The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 a cohesive and riveting listening experience.

By Torchlight takes a small sound and makes it massive, bringing a tale to life with their instrument like a traveling bard. But The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 does more than just tell that tale—it plays it out for us, using language and instrumentation to sculpt vivid scenes for the audience. It’s an honest and refreshing take on the tag of “singer-songwriter,” and I for one am excited to see where By Torchlight will lead us next.

My Top Track: “Raise the Dead”

Both The Flames of the Phoenix, Pt. 1 and By Torchlight’s latest single “Homecoming” are streaming on Bandcamp and Spotify.

PARCH - Hell in These Eyes

Tired of all the cute fall posts littering your feed? Need something heavy and haunting to get you in the mood for Halloween? Well look no further than the new release by PARCH. New Jersey’s noise boys are back at it with another grinding EP entitled Hell in These Eyes, and it roars louder than a chainsaw in a slasher film.

Recorded in a live setting, Hell in These Eyes manages to stamp the chaotic essence of PARCH onto tape. Between my headphones is a band raging in a room, the cymbals denting as the drumsticks smash into them, the squeal of feedback through distortion pedals and blaring speakers. The vocals are throaty and furious and near impossible to pin down. Yet this is the charm of PARCH—tight performances that sound as unruly as a barfight—a charm Hell in These Eyes captures in all its frenetic glory.

The four songs that make up this EP are aggressively raw in all the right ways. “Foretold” ends so abruptly it sounds like an abandoned take. “Sunnydale” rides growling power chords and a headbanging beat, while “Alligator” dredges the waters with blast beats and mud-drenched bass. The lyrics on this record are so sarcastically nihilistic; “Clear” screams itself into existence with the line “Wake up every day with a gun to my head,” while the tape ends with devolving howls of “This town is a hole” over a collapsing band. The sonics of Hell in These Eyes are pure sludge, vicious wet death coughs of vitriol and reckless abandon.

Though less than ten minutes in length, Hell in These Eyes keeps me riled for hours. The music of PARCH hits like a shot of adrenaline, and leaves me jonesing for another fix as soon as the last song ends. Hell in These Eyes raises hell in the ears, so maybe hell ain’t such a bad place to be.

My Top Track: "Clear"

Hell in These Eyes is out on Wet Cassettes; you can also grab a copy off their Bandcamp page.