Aster Tracks

  When I’m selecting music to cover for this blog I make weekly playlists that are usually over one-hundred tracks long. Whatever songs I like, I save and when the corresponding record comes out I go listen to that. During the build up to Squeeze , the second full-length from Los Angeles musician Sasami Ashworth, or just SASAMI, I had actually decided to skip the record based on the singles. That was until about two months ago when I attended a Soccer Mommy show in my own hometown. Now, Soccer Mommy is a band very near and dear to my own heart and while we aren’t really here to talk about that yet I think it’s important to note that when going to their shows I expect openers like Peel Dream Magazine who was also performing at this show. When I heard SASAMI was a surprise last minute add-on to the tour I did not expect what I was about to see. What I saw was three huge men walk on stage in cloaks as if I was about to watch doom metal, followed by a woman dressed the same way joining...

  Guppy have released Big Man Says Slappydoo , which isn't their first record but it is their debut for southern California’s Lauren records. It was my introduction to the band though but between the first single and production from fellow Los Angeles native Sarah Tudzin , whose praises I’ve sung before here , I was pretty sure that this record was a sure thing and I’m happy to report I was correct in my hunch. That track, “Aliens” offers a bit of a calm introduction to this record before spinning into punk rock. There is a horse-galloping like percussion behind the introductions, something that begins this trend of a Western-esque regional sound to parts of the entire project. A part of me wants to call the lyricism here quirky but it’s a pretty useful metaphor for not really fitting in or being misunderstood. “Do you think they can tell? I’m an alien too, yeah my body’s a shell and inside I’m just goo.” Another line I’d like to point out is; “I’ll cut off all my hair and I’ll ...

Isle of Wight duo Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers have released their debut full length as Wet Leg. This follows a year of releasing singles throughout 2021, the first of which came out in June, and off those alone the band got some attention and praise. I was no different either; this was one of my top five anticipated albums of the year and personally felt it was the number one just based on it being a new band to check out, so I was really looking forward to this. The culture is sort of pushing back against that now, there are accusations of their success being inorganic and a lot of talk about this record not at all living up to the hype or having a different picture painted by the singles than was actually present. While I don’t disagree that there were a lot of singles, I’ll go over them all first, I don’t really find myself disappointed now that I’ve dived into the project as a whole. The first single and song that made them go viral, albeit more organically than some might ...

  Nekrogoblikon - The Fundamental Slimes and Humors (Mystery Box) California’s favorite goblin-based metal band is back with their sixth studio album. Being someone who doesn’t usually enjoy metal full lengths I was pleased to find this is all over the map in terms of heavy music, there are symphonic tracks as well as songs that veer all the way to thrash or hardcore. There is a definite cartoonish influence as well with some Dr. Seuss-esque backing vocals or synth riffs but the apex of that is the track “Going to Die.” In this one we get a number that sounds like a scene in a Disney musical where the whole village comes together in song complete with horns, some clear interaction with the world around the protagonist and even the classic sound of a banana peel slip. I find myself enjoying the record all the way through for the variety but find the record doesn’t quite stick the landing on “No Such Thing as a Key.” It’s a more doom inspired track with sort of grating vocals and ins...

  A bit of background on me, as a child I really hated Lights. Just her music mainly, as I grew up I found her to be an interesting figure. She had a lot of ties to heavier music despite being a Canadian pop star and having a lot of success in that area. Those ties though sort of made her ingrained in two cultures and as a kid who mostly liked metalcore you can see where we were at odds. When I started getting into music more broadly however I had a book of 250 records hand selected by RockSound and Light’s Little Machines was covered so I listened to it and, now that I was older, found I didn’t hate it but didn’t get the appeal. All this background to tell you a personal story; Flashback to Warped Tour 2009, (I believe, anyway) I’m fifteen, an angry and depressed high schooler, at my first Warped Tour and I walk past Light’s booth where she’s standing waiting for her own meet and greet to start so we cross paths. Now, I’m extremely embarrassed to tell you this, but I told her that...