Aster Tracks

The Prize Fighter Inferno - The City Introvert (Evil Ink Records) Prize Fighter is the solo project of Coheed & Cambria’s lead singer/guitarist Claudio Sanchez. It’s the project’s second full length following-up My Brother’s Blood Machine from all the way back in 2006. On this effort he’s taking up a more electronic ballad approach as opposed to the folk songs on the first record. It’s a fine album but there isn’t much new material here. Between the re-released tracks from Death Rattle, that EP from last year, and the singles only four new songs here. Tilian - Factory Reset (Rise Records) Tilian Pearson of Dance Gavin Dance has released a new solo effort. Have to applaud Tilian on his vocals of course, but every time he releases one of these albums it never feels like some throw away tracks from another project. It feels very much like his own body of work. This may be my highest recommendation this week. Victory Over the Sun - Nowherer New album from one-woman microtonal avant-met...

  This week was packed with releases, but maybe shy on a bit of quality. Of course, even in a week with a lot of not so good stuff, there’s bound to be the good stuff. Next week’s list however, while not very big, starts a five or six week long string where we have a very big release per week. So, look forward to that. What are you listening to? Escape the Fate - Chemical Warfare (Better Noise Records) Escape the Fate has been bad for a few years now and I’m not saying their back or anything but… this album has some pluses. John Feldman is back producing and there’s a lot of good moments, there're a lot of bad moments too however so enter cautiously. I would give it like a “Not Bad” out of 10, it’s listenable but we still have so far to go if this band is to truly be viable again. Hail the Sun - New Age Filth (Equal Vision Records) Been a casual fan of this band for a long time. Always thought they had the talent but not quite the songs to back it up. I think this album has finall...

For as many albums and projects I listen to I don’t get to put much time into learning who the artists are lately, which is something I’ve missed. That being said the few weeks before this one were slow and I got to do some digging into stuff I wanted to know. After really being impressed with Deliberately Alive and having it on rotation for weeks I wanted to know; who are Future Teens. Well just to give a brief summary they appear to be an indie rock quartet from Boston, MA with a discography going as far back as 2017 comprising of drummer Colby Blauvelt, bassist Maya Mortman and co-guitarists and lead singers Amy Hoffman and Daniel Radin who as opposed to having a duet set up seem to take their individual leads on individual songs. This information was especially exciting to me as, when live music is allowed to happen, Boston is a fairly local scene to me and this would definitely be something I’d want to check out. I would like to draw your attention to their EP from this year as l...

  So, I really expected this week to be dead. I only had eight releases to sift through which is really low for what I’m usually able to find. That being said I’m happy to share three albums and an EP this week of course alongside a bunch of other songs. Hope you find something you like and as always I want to know what you’re listening to. BROCKHAMPTON - ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE (RCA Records) I’m not really plugged into the circles that this group comes from online so I’m kind of struggling to write a blurb here. I know BROCKHAMPTON is known very well and while I have no prior experience with them I found this to be really good. I’m sure you’ve heard it already if interested. Good Terms - Turning Point (Revival Recordings) This is an Easycore album which you don’t hear a lot of lately. This is a really fun listen this week and I see myself going back to it throughout the year. There’s a song on this album called “Chess” that’s a short fast-paced more punk oriented song a...

Enter Shikari is a pretty legendary band in the scene at this point. Their early releases resonated with some many people upon release and are still holding out as iconic today. Fourteen years removed from Take to the Skies and it's single "Sorry, you're not a winner" is still going strong sitting at 18 million plus streams in a day and age where the format these albums came from are no longer the default. Now, while that is impressive for me personally the band never really stood out and I had a very hard time seeing the hype behind it. Vocalist Rou Reynolds however made an interesting promise with this release saying it would be a good place for non-fans to start. Now, yes, we did cover this one in my top albums list of 2020 but I had so much more to say about this record than what could fit there because it did do exactly what Rou implied, it won me over. I would 100% call myself a Shikari fan and even look forward to whatever they do next. So, nearly a year remov...

Very lowkey week this time around. My to-listen list at first was only five releases and normally I'm able to find a lot. Still managed to get some good out of the week though and I hope you are too. As always let me know what you're listening to and if you think I missed anything. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d’s Pee AT STATES END! (Constellation) This one kinda snuck on my list this week and I’m glad it did. I know this is a pretty legendary band at this point but this was my introductory point and driving to instrumentals always puts me in a good mood. Wild Truth - Drift (Open Your Ears Records) This one is for fans of things like Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, stuff like that. Also poses the question of whether or not OYER can miss at this point. They had House & Home as well as Guardrail last week and now this? They’re killing it. chloe moriondo - I Eat Boys (Fueled by Ramen) Been waiting on this album announcement for a while seeing as we are now four singles i...

Well, I’ve teased it for weeks, but it’s finally here. Before we get too deep into this I want to thank this band for being the most involved in what I’m trying to do here. I know a “thank you” per post probably feels effortless but for someone finally figuring out the role they want to play in the music scene it’s nice to be noticed by the artists I talk about here. Thank you Caleb, David, Kevin, Matt and all else involved in these projects for making music worth musing over and for taking the time to notice what I’m doing. Now that the gratitude is out of the way let’s get into my history with this project. In the earliest form of this thing I do, it actually started with just me trying to discover new music. In the Spring or Summer of 2020 I asked the Lead Singer Syndrome All Access Club (shout out Shane Told) to provide me with any music at all released in the current year. I got a lot of stuff and listened to each and every record and got a lot out of it! That was the beginning o...