After twenty-five years of anticipation, NYC indie-cult fan favorites the Van Pelt return with a new album titled “Artisans & Merchants” in 2023. The Van Pelt has returned to explore what was left behind with a new collection of hit songs, including the latest track, “Grid.”
For lovers of The Van Pelt, listening to “Artisans & Merchants” is like hearing the voice of a dear friend you haven’t seen in years. This is a stand-alone album, incredible vital songwriting regardless of the long history this band has. Pitchfork even stated that, “The lines between post-hardcore, indie rock, and emo blurred on the two mid-’90s full-lengths from the Van Pelt.”
The Van Pelt is an American indie rock band from New York City that were active from 1993 to 1997, but have reformed briefly several times since then including now. The band formed around 1993 at New York University, with Chris Leo on vocals and guitar, David Baum on guitar, Barry London on bass, and Neil O’Brien on drums. In a reunion show, soundchecks revealed that the band has a voice that was prematurely muted by their inability to see clearly in the thick of their rise.
“New York City’s The Van Pelt are an influential, but too often overlooked indie rock band — cult favorites for many an emo-inclined crate digger.”
– Consequence
The Van Pelt’s newer album can be viewed as “a friend you used to share countless beers with over banter that went nowhere other than delivering a solid night. Your friend is older, they’ve changed. In some ways you’re worried for them, looks like they might be teetering on the brink of something. In other ways it’s the same old them, a nugget of a soul too unique to ever be altered.”
The chores of the single “Image of Health” describes the beautiful desperation of the album best, “And you never felt more alive / Than when the priest came to read you your rites!”
Stream The Van Pelt and their newest album coming in Spring 2023 by clicking the link here.
Listen to the latest track from The Van Pelt, “Grid,” below.
The Late Sea has shared their latest video for the war protest track, “Cover Up.” Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Izzy Gliksberg, derived inspiration to make the debut single, “Cover Up”, after seeing conflict between Israeli and Palestinians in the news. Gliksberg grew up in Israel and the war in the Middle East affects him, as he said he was “used to seeing this kind of trauma on TV”.
(Photo credit: Bill Wadman)
The Brooklyn-based band has performed all over New York State and in festivals along the east coast. Late Sea is comprised of members, Izzy Gliksberg, drummer Graham Dobby, bassist Clinton Greene and keyboardist and vocalist, Kalen Lister. Their track list starts with their 2017 release of the debut EP The Writers Trilogy, as well as a cover release of the 1964 “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel.
(Single art credit: Alex Lorenzo)
The group’s most recent released work is is their EP, Rumor, having came out last year and was produced by Grammy Award-winning, John Davis. Prior, Late Sea shared a video for their track, “Swan Song”, and gained coverage by Audio Fuzz on their Simon and Garfunkel 1964 staple cover.
Earlier this summer, Albany-based band Coupons released their 3rd full-length record, Wasted Intimacy, via Counter Intuitive Records.
The indie-rock band consists of Dan LaFave, Collin J Reynolds, Shannon Straney, Dylan Depice, and Dan Maddalone. The 11-track album is upbeat, unique, and a great listen with different styles intertwined throughout the project. Wasted Intimacy also showcases the band’s creativity and talent, with various members contributing to vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation.
The album includes songs for everyone to enjoy, with the first single released, “Waiting,” giving listeners an intense rock track with powerful vocals whereas other singles, such as “Milk,” slow things down. Produced by Scoops Dardaris, Wasted Intimacy highlights Coupons’ range of melodies, rhythms, and beats on this release.
Throughout the duration of Wasted Intimacy, listeners are met with catchy lyrics, and songs seemingly perfect for the stage. In the song “Break a Leg,” written by band member Collin Reynolds, the lyrics “do you wanna celebrate, do you even know my name, are you getting home okay, it’s not too late” are relatable and work perfectly to hook listeners in.
With the snappy guitar on “Mardi Gras,” beautiful vocals from Straney on “Milk,” and the building piano track “Anyone Else,” this album from Coupons shines. Every track holds your attention and leaves you captivated.
In support of the album release, the band recently played a show at Empire Live Underground in Albany. Joining the group included music from the likes of Oso Oso, Another Michael, and Laveda. Be sure to take a listen to Coupons’ full discography, and stay tuned for their next live show.
Fans of Coupons music can keep up with them on Instagram and Twitter. The new record is also available to purchase on vinyl as well as to stream across platforms.
Brooklyn-based indie-rock band Wilder Maker released their newest single, “A Professional” on June 27 from their upcoming album, Male Models, out on July 29 via Western Vinyl. The single features guest lead vocalist Felicia Douglass of Dirty Projectors and Ava Luna.
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
Made up of musicians Gabriel Birnbaum, Nick Jost, and Sean Mullins, Wilder Maker began with a series of self-releases and home recordings before debuting music such as “New Streets” (2017), and Zion (2018) to much acclaim. Their upcoming Male Models album was live-recorded over several days and includes an impressive lineup of guest vocalists.
The track, “A Professional” is one of twelve songs on Male Models. Although the lead vocalist and songwriter of Wilder Marker, Birnbaum, does not sing on the track, Douglass’ vocals shine right in the start. Her voice carries the song’s message of isolation with feeling. With simple chords eventually overlaid with drum beats and other instrumentation, the track blends together beautifully.
’A Professional’ dips into the feeling of digital isolation … the way the physical world has become less real and more ghostly, less mysterious and more quantifiable. It’s inspired by this recurring experience I have, usually traveling, where I’ve been alone all day and I suddenly want to connect very badly with people I care about. I fire off several texts and sit there waiting for the phone to light up, with this strange feeling that everyone I know might have vanished. As soon as I imagined Felicia singing this song, I knew she’d be perfect for it, and she was. I’m so happy and grateful she was able to do it.
– Songwriter Gabriel Birnbaum
The upcoming Male Models features more guest lead vocalists, including an impressive line-up of Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), Katie Von Schleicher, Felicia Douglass, Alex Schaaf (Yellow Ostrich), V.V. Lightbody, and Mutual Benefit. Across the 12 songs on the album, audiences will find electrified soul, heartfelt folk songs, indie rock, and more.
Birnbaum drew from a wide array of inspirations for the album, including everything from American novelist James Salter, the NBA playoffs, to Thin Lizzy and the topic of masculinity. After making music for nearly a decade together, Wilder Maker is set for the release of yet another energetic album – stay tuned for July 29.
NYC based indie sensations, Back to Yours, have released their highly anticipated single “MONSTER,” which came to Spotify on April 22nd. This is the first single off of their sophomore album, It’s Dangerous at Home, the band’s second full-length album which is scheduled for release this fall. Additionally, the band will be releasing two more singles coming this later this summer.
“MONSTER” is a catchy headbanger, consisting of pop and hard rock influences. Because of it’s up-tempo pace, the song was written from the perspective of someone being chased by their sleep paralysis demon. By blending the unique euphonious music taste of each band member, Back to Yours produces warm, nostalgic, and accessible indie rock with a range of genre-spanning influences.
This upcoming a five-piece indie-rock group began playing together in the Spring of 2019, right when the pandemic started. Consisting of Aiden Jones (bass), Bryce Kassalow (vocals, guitar), Daniel Luttway (vocals, keys), Jiaan Mansuri (drums), and Tommy Levin (guitar). Originally meeting at Georgetown University sophomore year, the boys would go on to preform Beatles covers for their locals. This quickly turned into sold out performances all along the East Coast.
The boys ended up graduating remotely, and have managed to stay together to create, perform, and publish music regardless of the Covid pandemic. Despite all of the challenges they’ve overcome, Back to Yours will be having a big NYC show at the Bowery Ballroom on June 10th. You won’t want to miss the newer direction the band has taken in order to evolve with the constantly changing indie-alternative scene.
For more information about Back to Yours and their upcoming shows, please visit the link here.
Their latest single “MONSTER” is available for download on Spotify, Bandcamp, and more. In check out this catchy headbanger, click the link here.
After the year wait since their last single released, Hawkns dropped their debut new single ‘Head and Heart’ released on April 29 and is streaming now.
Hawkns consists of the three Frank brothers, Ricky, Josh, and Joe, who were born into a family of immigrants. The Frank brothers have come together through a lot of hardship such as almost losing their home and Ricky Frank being diagnosed at fifteen for a rare muscle disease.
The brothers soon later in New Haven, CT found their lead singer Hawkins French who walked into a local music studio and became the missing piece of the Indie Pop Rock outfit “Hawkns”.
Across the East Coast, the band has performed at major stages including Mohegan Sun Casino, The Bitter End, Foxwoods Casino, and the Pleasantville New York Music Festival where they shared the stage with Blues Traveler, Suzanne Vega, and Living Colour.
“The process of creating “Head and Heart” was tough for us as a band, it took a few months to get the vision we had in our head out into our headphones. We wanted to create something that was true to our story, all of the song’s lyrics also are based on real moments from our lives and our journey as a band chasing this crazy dream together, even when we felt like giving up at times. The last lyric in the song “keep on running” is meant to leave listeners with a sense of hope. We plan to follow up with a music video which is going to drop on May 6th.”
Western New York natives Joywave came back to their local roots in Buffalo on April 3.
In the spirit of a local show, Buffalo’s very own Humble Braggers opened up the night at the Town Ballroom. This synth pop band played hits off of their new EP Love & Fear. Following up, joe p took the stage with his signature basement-produced songs that wowed the crowd. Especially when performing his popular song, “Off My Mind.”
Photo Credit: Maddie McCafferty
Fans of Joywave packed in throughout the night with excitement as its been many years since this indie rock group toured. The Cleanse tour showcased many songs off of their latest album release in February while still playing the classics.
Photo Credit: Maddie McCafferty
Joywave is no stranger to the music scene in Buffalo. The born and raised Rochester group has been made all too familiar with the back and forth drives between the two cities to see all their favorite artists growing up. So, getting to perform at a venue they spent their youth going to was a full circle moment.
Photo Credit: Maddie McCafferty
The group consists of Daniel Armbruster (vocals), Joseph Morinelli (guitar), Paul Brenner (drums), Kevin Mahoney (bass guitar), and Connor Ehman (keyboard). The band took over the stage with their matching mechanic outfits and innovative production design. They began the night with a more recently released song “Cyn City 2000.” They even paid tribute to their pandemic album Possession by playing a couple of songs they hadn’t got to perform live. The intricate synth usage and unique sound structure made even unfamiliar listeners be awed.
As excited as the crowd was to have such high energy, it doesn’t exceed the excitement that the band had to return home and finally sleep in their own beds again. The night ended with an absolute bang with heavily praised songs “Tongues” and “Dangerous” finishing up the set. Nothing compared though to the rage worthy crowd that went crazy after heavy beats dropped off of the classic “Destruction.”
Photo Credit: Maddie McCafferty
No one wanted the night to end and luckily for that Joywave is making their way back to their actual hometown in Rochester. If you unfortunately missed out on these energetic guys, don’t worry. They’re performing at the Anthology both April 8 and April 9.
Also check out upcoming shows at the Town Ballroom. Peach Pit performs April 9 and The Airborne Toxic Event takes the stage on April 10.
Setlist: Cyn City 2000, Buy American, It’s a Trip!, Obsession, After Coffee, Every Window Is A Mirror, Coming Apart, Half Your Age, Traveling at the Speed of Light, The Inversion, F.E.A.R., True Grit, Somebody New, Ugly Ending, Goodbye Tommy, We Are All We Need, Tongues, Dangerous, Destruction
Gooseberry show a ton of promise. The four-piece band met through the Brooklyn music scene and consists of Asa Daniels on guitar and vocals, Evin Rossington on drums, Sam Rappaport on keys and vocals, and Will Hammond on bass.
The band has played in classic venues across the city like The Bowery Electric and The Knitting Factory. They have also written and released several singles since they were formed in 2019. The synthesis of these factors have allowed Gooseberry to develop a definitive sound and a deep sense of confidence in their delivery.
This confidence reigns through on their newest indie release, “Sleep,” which highlights their potential. Much like “Come A Little Closer” from Cage The Elephant, the track has a soulful body over which a whimsical battle between melancholic vocals and electrifyingly chaotic breakdowns occurs. The sum of these genre-bending characteristics all equates to an indie culmination of sonic mastery.
The band blends and switches between sounds with such grace, you would think the four had been playing together for years. However, quite the opposite reigns true. Although the band has only been together for two and half years, they play like they have a decade under their belt. With that being said, “Sleep” is sure to become an underground indie classic and a staple piece in the band’s discography.
In association with the single’s release, the band has announced the release date for their debut EP, Broken Dance, which is set to release May 6th. So long as the contents on the EP are a fraction of what the band displayed on “Sleep,” it is sure to be a banger.
Annie in the Water has released their third studio album, Sun at Dawn. After Michael Lashomb and Bradley Hester met at Hobart College in Geneva, the band has gone through a plethora of changes. Since its nascency in 2007, founders Michael Lashomb and Bradley Hester have led the band, and their newest album, Sun At Dawn, shows the band in a new light.
Beautiful & Figurative Storytelling
Sun At Dawn is a story that takes place in a tropical setting, yet it provokes much deeper thought than the sound that it embellishes. It tells a story of love and loss, and lust and gluttony, all over surf jam-rock instrumentation. An oxymoronic approach to a concept album is nothing particularly new or innovative to music at all, but it takes a certain level of mastery to execute it in a mature manner. Additionally, over what is essentially a beach playlist, this approach may be hard to execute. One can go the easy route and make an entire album over summer beach jams. However, with only a few minor criticisms to the album, Annie in the Water does an excellent job creating an invigorating piece of art.
The album starts with “Bloom,” leading with an intoxicating synthesizer and warm guitar progression that immediately hypnotize the listener. In a way, the song feels kaleidoscopic. The instruments work off of each other beautifully and transport you to a tropical setting. This is a skill that Annie in the Water demonstrates throughout the whole album, including “In The Sand,” a song about being lost in the desert.
Lyrics read “I’ve arrived it seems, but nothing here is green, no rain just shine, no roads in sight, to lead me to the land, I’ve yet to find.” They continue: “I’m lost in my plan, burning up in the desert sunset, pull the map out of the sand, although there’s nothing written there.” While these lyrics articulate and describe the situation our protagonist is in, the feeling extracted from the song would be nothing without the instrumentation’s ability to complete the story. The key the instruments work in completes the deserted feeling the protagonist feels. The guitar feels sandy and the sporadicalness of the keys adds a layer of confusion. On the other hand, the percussion and bass add the perfect amount of bounce to maintain an oxymoronic element of stoke in such a depressing song. “In The Sand” is a song about feeling lost after losing a partner you care deeply for, and it is a beautiful way to articulate this emotion.
Another song that transports the listener and contemplates an oxymoron is “Water.” Like the previous song, this song is also about losing a partner. The lead singer feels that their ex-partner is omnipresent and they feel an incredible, insatiable lust for them. They know, however, that they can never go back to them, and while this fact is never explicitly stated in the lyrics, the instrumentation communicates an entirely different story.
This song, a step away from the tropic jams on this album, also makes beautiful use of the mark tree. In every verse, the lyrics start off incredibly abstract, drawing metaphors to the rain and the moon when speaking about this person. As the verse progresses though, the lyrics get more and more real, at which point the singer eventually breaks and confesses that their former lover moved to California, a far detour from the Upstate New York-based band. At the end of each verse, however, the mark tree melodically transports both the listener and the protagonist back to a dream-like state, where they can feel free to live in the fantasy with this partner. Sounds of pouring water also play at the end of the song, suggesting this person will always be a part of this person.
Jam Bands Jam
As stated earlier, a major feat of the band is the ability to bounce their instruments off of each other. “Lights Up,” for instance, begins with a feeling of slight dissonance between the instruments. This is totally intentional; the instruments follow the same time signature, there is just a slight air in between them. Without even realizing it though, the instruments were jamming together in perfect unison. Notably, the instrumentalists seem like they are enjoying themselves and that joy is contagious for the listener.
Similarly, “In The Sand” ends in a beautiful cacophony of jam rock. The guitar solo reeks of swagger, sludge, and beautiful vibes. Accompanying it is a beautiful percussive beat and the two instrumentalists work off of each other in an infinitely excellent and masterful way. It is impossible to finish this song without bobbing your head.
Sun at Dawn definitely has a unique sound to it, however, this does not stop the listener from hearing some obvious influences, including the whammy guitar from “Seeds.” It sounds exactly like something Hendrix would have played, but Hendrix would have played better. The guitar of “Bloom,” on the other hand, doesn’t feel like a carbon copy. Instead, it more so pays a nod to Jimmy Page. In the same essence, “Water” draws a striking similarity to Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.”
Now, every artist wears their influence on their sleeves from time to time. My only concern for Annie in the Water is that, even though this album displays incredible personality, whether or not that personality is distinct to the album only and not the band. Additionally, throughout the album, the presence of synthesizers, for the most part, at the very least add something of value, although on a song like “Water,” an incredibly introspective song about long-lost love, can be heavy at times.
Overall, Sun At Dawn is an excellent album with some minor flaws. The band’s contagious and figurative instrumentation alongside introspective lyricism makes for an enjoyable seven-track run. Sun At Dawn is available on Spotify and Apple Music now. For more information, check out their Facebook or Instagram.
Brooklyn based rock band Le Big Zero announced the release of their second album, A Proper Mess, on April 8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ozo1vt8zg
As part of the announcement, Le Big Zero released their first single and music video from the album, “Horror Movie Pie Fight.” According to a press release from the band’s label, Know Hope Records, the upcoming album, and newly released single, are “exploration[s] of monotony and anxiety in the modern age.”
Le Big Zero’s band members include guitarist and vocalist, Michael Pasuit (center),vocalist Carolina Aguilar (far right), bassist Ben Ross (right) and drummer Lukas Hirsch (left).
To put together their new single,”Horror Movie Pie Fight”, lead vocalists Michael Pasuit and Carolina Aguilar took on a novel approach to recording this particular song: they never harmonized. Meaning they don’t sing in the same octave and instead let their voices exist side by side to one another on the track.
Unique to the song is that Carolina and I don’t harmonize. It’s the only song that’s sung in parallel octaves instead…When we didn’t come upon a decent harmony for HMPF, (Horror Movie Pie Fight) we decided to go that route as an experiment, and we really liked the result.
Michael Pasuit, vocalist and guitarist
The song tells the story of an individual that writes a horror movie only to lose creative control over the project after a studio buys the movie rights. Despite addressing concerns that may be widespread and frighteningly possible for artists, “Horror Movie Pie Fight” has an absurdist tone that makes the song palatable while still being thought provoking.
Le Big Zero released their first studio album, Ollie Oxen Free, in 2019. A Proper Mess will be available on all streaming platforms.
