If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Frances Weger None of the singles we've heard so far from The Ophelias' upcoming album sound anything alike, yet they've all sounded like they belong on the same album. The latest, "Cicada," is an epic and orchestral alt-rock song. It's heavy on strings and could almost be a power ballad if it wasn't too heavy and just slightly too fast. Maybe it's the strings, but "Cicadas" reminds me of that dog's Retreat from the Sun  and it's more pop leaning songs. We've loved everything we've heard so far from their upcoming album, but The Ophelias are going to be a highlight of a crazy busy release week this Friday. Spencer Peppet (vocals/guitar) says of her band's latest single: "A song about how none of my exes or ex-friends use social media. It's left to me to guess what they're doing, what they look like, how they pass the time. I think sometimes it's better not to know!   "I name drop both Ludlow ...

Photo by Jeaninne Kaufer So far the singles for Fucked Up's upcoming record have been more musically art rock with lead singer Damian Abraham's vocals continuing to be hardcore, but on "Cicada" guitarist Mike Haliechuk takes over vocals and the musical style shifts. Musically, "Cicada" is the most punk song we've heard on the album. It's not quite hardcore, but it's more along the lines of The Replacements or Guided By Voices. Fucked Up keep an edge to this song, which ends up being one of the better versions of melodic punk that we've heard in some time. Mike Haliechuk says of the new song: “‘Cicada’ is about what life is like after you lose people, and our responsibility to carry them forward into the future, using the things they taught us as a light. I like to imagine the sound of cicadas as a metaphor for our strange life in the subculture—we all just live these weird little hidden lives under the dirt, and then once in a generation, one...