If It's Too Loud...

"Someday At Christmas" is a classic song, but let's face it: It's about as hokey as Christmas music gets, which is pretty hokey. Stevie Wonder's brilliance is impossible to question, and the dream of peace is shared by everyone, but this just isn't my favorite Stevie Wonder song. This is where Gray Bouchard & The Dedications come in. They turn "Someday At Christmas" from a twee little carol into a rocker. In fact, this might be the heaviest we've heard The Dedications sound. This is a crunchy hard rock song more aligned with Bouchard's other band, Salem Wolves. The true joy of this version of "Someday At Christmas" is it keeps all the sentimentality of the original but transforms it into a grunge/80's metal power ballad, which I didn't think was a physically possible combination, but I've been proven wrong. Gray Bouchard explains his choice of a cover: “The fact is -- in spite of being a Jewish and generally non-reli...

I Was Born Swimming is a masterpiece of an album. Squirrel Flower (aka Ella Williams) hits so many of my checklists for great songs. False stops, tonal changes, slow builds from quiet, thoughtful songs into giant epics... it's all here. "I-80" starts off the album and feels like it could be multiple songs. Squirrel Flower combines modern folk and singer/songwriter elements with 90's style indie rock in ways that we've heard before from artists like Lucy Dacus, but is going off in her own direction and style with these songs. "Red Shoulder" is a great indication if you're going to love this album or not. It starts off with Williams' quiet, plaintive vocals and builds into this noisy rocker with her voice keeping the same tone throughout. And then there is "Streetlight Blues," which is my top song of 2020 according to Spotify. It crams an absolute epic, giant song into just over three minutes and thirty seconds.  Songs of note: "Red ...

This one came to me as a surprise. While I've been a fan of Abigail Washburn for some time, Wu Fei was new to me. Boy, did I miss the boat. This is as much a beautiful music history lesson as it is a goreous cultural exchange. It's high art for folkies, and it's just so pretty. Every time I listened to this, I felt transported. That's rare in the event of many albums, but as someone who is just as likely to reach for a pop album or some three chord punk, I shouldn't love the sort of interplay between American and Chinese folk standards. Yet I still find something new in each listen. I really love this record, and if you haven't heard it yet, you should, too. Songs of note: "Water is Wide / Wusuli Boat Song (乌苏里船歌)," "The Roving Cowboy / Avarguli (阿瓦尔古丽)."

Despite not being a fan of modern R&B, I've been an Ed Balloon fan for a few years now. That's because Balloon brings such a unique and interesting style to a genre that's typically anything but. He recently released a new EP, I Hate It Here. As with any of Balloon's releases, there is one standout, mind blowing track. This time around it's "Bad Gyall." This song is like a noise rock version of R&B. It's still R&B, but it's aggressive, and loud, and in your face, basically everything R&B isn't. If R&B went punk, it would be "Bad Gyall." While that might be my personal favorite song on I Hate It Here , there is plenty to love on the EP. "I Need This Cash" is more traditional sounding, if an industrial band like Ministry went back to their New Wave roots and tweaked their sound to include both. "Lonely A$$" is a bizarro jam that (as the kids say) slaps. You can listen to "Bad Gyall" belo...

Folk/noir/gothic/cabaret duo Charming Disaster have just released a new single, and shockingly it's not holiday related, or about the supernatural. No, "Driving to Idaho" is a crime ballad. As the band says, “Presenting a deliciously creepy road song for when plans go awry, things go dark, and your past is about to catch up with you. The Handsome Family meets the Manson Family in our latest single, 'Driving to Idaho.'” The song is about as creepy as you'd expect, encompassing both fairly mainstream folk and freak folk at the same time. It builds and builds in both intensity and paranoia, without the music changing all that much. Instead, Ellia Baker and Jeff Morris increase the intensity of the song with their vocals, while still trying to pretend they have their shit together. You can listen to "Driving to Idaho" below. The song is available on Charming Disaster's Bandcamp . For more on Charming Disaster, check out the band's website . Drivi...

To say that we were huge fans of The Beths' 2018 album Future Me Hates Me  is an understatement. It was the only album both of us chose for our top 10's at the end of that year. Does that mean that I didn't enjoy Jump Rope Gazers  as much. I don't think so. Future Me Hates Me benefitted from the excitement of discovering a new band that I truly love, plus I was able to see them live that year, so I was still riding high off of how great that collection of songs was live. Jump Rope Gazers  is truly a great album. It's filled with these great upbeat alt-rock/pop songs with a fantastic sense of humor and impossibly catchy hooks. If you loved Future Me Hates Me , you already love this album, too. And if you haven't listened yet, you truly need to as soon as humanly possible. Songs of note: "I'm Not Getting Excited," "Dying to Believe," "Out of Sight," and "Don't Go Away" Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths

I'm still surprised clipping. isn't huge after Hamilton . clipping. is a rap group fronted by Daveed Diggs, who played Lafayette in the hit musical. They have a few albums out, but this one is probably my favorite. There's a solid theme that persists through the record, and feels as much a horror story in album form. Yeah, songs like "'96 Neve Campell" are more up-front and mainstream, but then songs like "Something Underneath" bubble up with a manic flow and interesting instrumentation. In a year with a lot of great rap albums, from Run the Jewels to Sa-Roc, this stands out because of how whole the entire package is. Songs of note: "'96 Neve Campbell," "Bodies for the Pile," "Something Underneath."

Photo via Facebook When you hear that Matt Hock and David Walsh of The Explosion have formed a new band, you're going to assume that it's pretty hard, fast, and heavy punk. If so, you'd be quite wrong. Space Cadet have released a new single, and it's about as far from The Explosion's sound as you could get. "Forever for a While" is an upbeat, jangly pop song. It's much more New Wave and reverb heavy British rock than I could ever have expected. It reminds me a lot of British bands that came out in the late 90's after Brit pop but that were lumped into Brit pop just by being English.  Matt Hock says of the new song:  “By the time the world shut down, we had four songs written and Forever For A While was the first. We just kept pulling at that thread, experimenting more and more until we had an album. In a very real way, the song was the catalyst for all of that, and for the band itself. But it can also just be seen as what happens when obsessive lun...

Somerville, MA's Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band are back with another installment in their socially distant series, this time bringing us some holiday music! The three songs on Another Worl d is Possible: Volume 3  are medleys of Christmas favorites done in their typical "...   joyful cacophony of Balkan, Klezmer and funk, with a tasteful  thrash of metal  thrown in for good measure" style. It's even more fun than that sounds. With song titles like "Sugarplum Nightmare Tango" and "If You Give a Squirrel an Orchestra (for Christmas)," you know this release is a party just waiting to happen. As the band explains, " Nightmares of sugarplums will tango in your head as God decks the Merry Jinglemen and rodents run amuck in the orchestra." You can listen to "God Deck Ye Merry Jinglemen" below. Another World is Possible: Volume 3 is available now via Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band's Bandcamp with all ...

There have been roughly a million quarantine albums released this year, but the best has been from Laura Jane Grace. None of them truly capture the feeling of being trapped in our house for far longer than we could have imagined while the world seems to be burning all around us. Stay Alive is such a loaded album title right now, and obviously Laura Jane Grace chose it for that reason. The vast majority of the fourteen songs on this album are just Grace and her guitar ("Shelter in Place" and "SuperNatural Possession" includes a drum machine) which gives the entire album such an intimate, personal feeling. It's a collection of songs about quarantine and the hopeless despair so many of us are feeling right now. It's not all doom and gloom to listen. Somehow Grace takes these feelings and uses them to inject a feeling of hope and community into the songs on Stay Alive. Songs of note: "The Calendar Song," "Hanging Tree," "SuperNatural Pos...

Oceanator, the solo effort of Elise Okusami, is noisy and brash and awesome. It's one that I missed when it first came out, and kept going back to. The guitar work is amazing, the songs are both catchy and confessional, and the whole experience is one that feels like it's racing to its endpoint while not leaving anything behind. It's one of my favorites because it's so different, and yet has a very familiar feel. Okusami has a very interesting voice in the indie rock landscape, and this debut full-length effort is a great starting point. Can't wait for what's next. Songs of note: "I Would Find You," "Goodbye, Goodnight," "Heartbeat," "Hide Away."

Western Massachusetts has long been a hotbed of killer indie rock bands, and we can add Editrix to the ever growing list. The Easthampton three piece has a new song out, and you're going to need to check this one out. "Chelsea" is this frenzied yet somewhat tuneful three minute burst of noisy rock delight. The guitars seem to be bouncing around everywhere, while the drums plod the song along forward. The whole thing seems to be spinning around in circles, with each drum beat pounding you in the face. Wendy Eisenberg's vocals are the true pleasure here. While the vocals aren't completely traditional, in comparison to the music it's what you're going to hold onto like a life raft as you traverse "Chelsea." You can listen to "Chelsea" below. Tell Me I'm Bad , the upcoming album from Editrix, will be out February 5 on Exploding in Sound Records. The album can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp . For more on Editrix, check out the band's Ins...

A Julia Jacklin Christmas song? How could we possibly not bring you that, especially when it ends up being the most lovely, melancholic Christmas song of the year? "Baby Jesus is Nobody's Baby Now" is just Jacklin's impossibly beautiful vocals over a lightly strummed guitar. That's it, and it's perfect. It has such a feeling of resigned sadness while still holding on to hope that it's the perfect way to put a cap on 2020, even though it was written in 2019 while looking forward to 2020. In a statement, Jacklin says: “2019 was a pretty rough one for my family. I was touring the whole year carrying a lot of guilt for not being able to be at home. Singing super sad songs every night was a blessing and a curse depending on the day. I was imagining Christmas as being this time where we all came together again and took a collective breath but then the bushfires hit and my family live in the country so it was a direct threat.” “I was living in Melbourne, still pr...

When Los Angeles punk legends dropped their album ALPHABETLAND seemingly out of nowhere back in April, my expectations were low. A legendary band releasing their first album in twenty seven years, plus it was their first album with the original line up in thirty five years? They've been touring as a nostalgia act for quite a while now, and I've heard plenty of these reunion albums, and usually the best you can hope for is not embarrassing.  But ALPHABETLAND is great. Shockingly great. It stands right up with 1980's Los Angeles , which nobody could have expected. When bands can start touring again, this is going to be the rare occasion where fans don't politely wait through a new song or use the new material to use the bathroom without missing anything good. If you haven't listened to it yet, you truly owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Sure, the songs on ALPHABETLAND  may be a little slower than some of the classics, but these folks are in their mid- to late sixt...

At some point in time, "Paper Stickers" came up in my playlists and I fell in love with it. Some time later came Let It Leave , the debut album of Ali Thibideau project Deau Eyes. This is such a nice slice of indie pop that I kept going back to all summer and fall and remembering "hey, this is really great." It has enough small bits of different genres to keep you guessing, and rolls along in a way that it never wears out its welcome. Definitely a welcome debut, and I can't wait to see what comes next. Just an incredible listen. Songs of note: "Paper Stickers," "Some Do," "Full Proof."