Written by:	RaduP, musclassia, nikarg, Roman Doez
Published:	March 16, 2025

Wait A Minute! This Isn't Metal! - February 2025
Metal Storm's outlet for nonmetal album reviews





We here at Metal Storm pride ourselves on our thousands of metal reviews and interviews and article; metal is our collective soul and passion, which is why we bother with this junk. That being said, we'd be lying if we stuck to our trve-kvlt guns and claimed that metal is the only thing we ever listen to. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do check out some other stuff from time to time; some of us are more poptimistic than others, but there's a whole world out there aside from Satan-worshiping black metal and dragon-slaying power metal. We do already feature some nonmetal artists on our website and have a few reviews to back them up, but we prefer to limit that aspect of the site to those artists who have been a strong influence on the metal scene or who are in some way connected to it. This article series is the place for those artists who don't matter to metal in the slightest but still warrant some conversation - after all, good music, is good music, and we all know metal isn't the only thing on this planet for any of us.

Down below, you might find some obscure Bandcamp bedroom projects or some Billboard-topping superstar; as long as it ain't metal and the album itself isn't a best-of compilation, it fits. Obviously, we're certain that not everything will be for everybody (you guys can be viciously territorial even when metal is the only thing on the menu, and we're all supposed to like the same things), but we do hope you find at least one thing that you can enjoy, instead of just pointing and screaming in horror "Not metal!" as if that would be an insult.

Here are our previous features:

January 2025
December 2024
November 2024

And now to the music...

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Another year, another Motorpsycho album, at least that's almost the way it's been since the band debuted with the Maiden Voyage EP back in 1990, with no gap between releases being bigger than two years. Even if that release schedule did make me find it hard to keep up with their new releases lately, that has always been the band's modus operandi. But releasing a self-titled record at this point in their career, especially one that's 80 minutes long, that's a move that calls for some special attention. Perhaps as a result of the lineup change that left the band reduced to its core two members, and the creation of their own record label, there was a need to re-solidify their identity.

To replace the defunct drummer position, as well as to add some spice to the instrumental palette, the duo is joined by a bunch of guests, with the album's Bandcamp page going into minute details about the credits on each track. This also goes hand in hand with the more chameleonic nature of the album's sound, with shorter more rocking songs living alongside folkier cuts as well as 20-minutes long prog epics, filling the runtime of Motorpsycho with music that, even though it may not be as concise or coherent as their more direct albums, feels like a sampler of everything they've been up to for the past couple of decades (less of the heavier or experimental early stuff), all with a production that feels so tastefully old-timey. What the future holds for the band is now only up to them, but I figure that their release schedule won't ease up anytime soon. Nor should it.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





There was a time in 2023 when it felt like one couldn’t move for new Yawning Man-associated material; not only did the group return after a three-year gap with newest album Long Walk Of The Navajo, but they then released not one but two collaborations with Fu Manchu’s Bob Balch under the name Yawning Balch before year’s end. 2024 was a year off, perhaps due to Yawning Man Gary Arce’s separate endeavours with SoftSun, but come early 2025 and it’s time for Volume Three from Yawning Balch, which, as with its predecessors, is the result of a long jam session out in the deserts of California.

Anyone who’s heard any of the three ‘Yawning’ albums from 2023 will know pretty much exactly what to expect from Volume Three: a pair of long-form instrumental psych-rock jams with warm rhythm grooves and lots of trippy melodic guitar meandering. The way “The Taos Hum” fades in leaves listeners with the impression that one has wandered in mid-jam, and the vibe set in the first 30 seconds is sustained pretty much throughout; there’s no particular ebb or flow to the song, just different guitar leads and effects coming and going atop the platform set by the rhythm section. After those 20 minutes, “Winter Widow” offers a welcome change of pace by dropping the tempo, giving off the vibe of ambling through the vast, warm expanse as effects-laden guitars float upon the wind, before slowly, slowly building some sense of momentum. As far as psych-rock goes, Volume Three won’t be a remarkable addition to the genre, and arguably it’s outshone by the previous volumes, but it nevertheless fulfils its requirement of being a pleasant listen to put on when you just need something chill in the background.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







Modern bands attempting to replicate the rock sounds of the 60s and 70s is nothing new, and there’s nothing particularly innovative about Gin Lady’s own harking back to this era, but even with many other acts to compete against, it’s possible to stand out through sheer quality. Before The Dawn Of Time, the band’s seventh album (and first on Ripple Music), makes a strong impression early on with the gentle warmth and drive of “The Paramount”, a throwback to classic psychedelic and prog rock with a memorable accessibility to it that takes it not far from acts such as Fleetwood Mac. It’s a strong early standard to set, yet while it ultimately is one of the highlights of the album, the following album does a good job at sustaining this initial momentum.

The strength of the vocal arrangements (often delivering three-part harmonies) shines during the easy-going and inviting “Mighty River”, but the band’s instrumentation shines even in the absence of vocals, such as on the blissful semi-acoustic acoustic instrumental “The Long Now”. What makes Gin Lady stand out compared to a lot of retro-revivalist acts, aside from just evidently being very accomplished songwriters with an ear for catchy melody, is the real sense of serenity that the songs on this album offer. Other prog-rock and psych-rock throwback acts prioritize lighter tones, but there’s not many I can remember hearing that manage to do it both this effortlessly and this pleasingly, while still being able to bring the ‘rock’ when needed, such as with the extended guitar solo during “Ways To Cross The Sky” or when “Turn Back” is stomping along to the beat of the pounding snare.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





We Are Impala pondered the question of what people were looking for on Valentine’s Day and decided the answer was ‘cool psych rock jams’, and hey, I’m sure there’s at least a few dates that would’ve been improved by having this album on in the background. Les Efímeres is the first release from the group in 6 years, and it’s a strong way in which to return to the fold. The all-instrumental album is rooted in rock, but at its loudest and heaviest moments it does venture towards stoner metal (see the end of “Cim I Tomba”); however, it is the more delicate and subtler aspects of this record that really stand out.

The band I feel most inclined to compare this album against is Elder and the related Delving, and the guitar melodicism in the gentle introductory track “El Vol” does resemble moments from albums such as Omens, but also prog in the vein of Porcupine Tree. The longer tracks that follow have plenty of warm, resonant jam sequences that wrap you up in their charm; “Cim I Tomba”, outside of its brief heavy moments, is generally calmer, but the group can also rock with vigour, as demonstrated on the fast and driven “Contra La Tirania Del Domèstic”. The dynamic range of the album is also very satisfying; the way that “La Sala Dels Miralls”, without spilling into metallic heaviness, builds from twee clean guitar noodling early on to the swell of volume as it eventually goes into full rock mode helps bring the song to life.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







Sharon Van Etten's been at it for over two decades at this point, with most of her career being spent as an indie folk singer/songwriter, a sound that culminated in the slow and dreamy Are We There from 2014. The largest gap between releases followed, but one that saw Sharon finally break the mold towards a sound that was more synth influenced with 2019's Remind Me Tomorrow, the album that made me discover Sharon, as well as one of the albums I've covered in the first edition of this feature. The follow up pushed even further into rock sounds with a more well defined backing band. And now that backing band got promoted to having their name on the front cover.

There are parts of Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory that sound like a mix of the approaches of Remind Me Tomorrow's synth focused sounds and We've Been Going About This All Wrong's rock sounds, but the band approach channels this blend towards something that's equally more dreamlike in the vein of Are We There. The synths do a lot of the heavy lifting, both for the more rocking new wave sounds and the more ethereal heartland-ish sounds, but it's the organic band feeling that really sets it apart with how well it grooves and how the jams don't need to rely as much on Sharon's lyricism the way her singer / songwriter approach usually required. By relinquishing control and the spotlight, Sharon lets the album feel more rounded up, and The Attachment Theory get to show their craft unsubdued.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





It was only a couple of years ago, near the start of the decade, where it felt like a bunch of acts were reinventing experimental rock in a way that actually felt fresh and exciting, and distinct enough from the more post-punk leaning acts that dominated the prior decade, and getting a fair amount of recognition for it. It was a wave that I expected to last a little longer than it did, as since then Black Midi and Sprain broke up, and Black Country, New Road split up with their vocalist and had to reinvent themselves. Only Squid remain quite unchanged. Well, not only them, but Cowards does feel like quite a "we're still here" statement given how the scene evolved.

However Cowards does differ from Bright Green Field and O Monolith in that it feels less explosive and manic, instead restraining some of that energy towards something altogether moodier and more focused on a somewhat eerie ambiance. There are spurts that feel highly energetic in the same way that their predecessors did, but for the most part Cowards feels more interested in nuances and expansive instrumentation, with plenty of moments throughout the album that feel more grandiose in a somewhat orchestral post-rock way, while also taking some more influence from the earliest wave of post-rock of acts like Slint and Tortoise. I don't think all of it works as well as how their punchier material worked, but enough of it works well enough that it's a direction worth pursuing and refining.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





There's a bit of a disconnect between my expectations of this album based on its aesthetics and the main genre tags attached to it, and what I actually ended up hearing on it. It's not a large one, and I can't say either the genre tags or the cover arts are really inaccurate, but there's still something that caught me off guard about it in a way I'm still trying to figure out if it's good or not. So the album's gothic quality isn't as rooted in gothic rock in the same spooky darkness way, nor is its post-punk-ness a direct result of either the initial post-punk wave or the revival scene of the 2000s, rather having more in common with a more streamlined and less explosive version of bands like Black Country, New Road and Black Midi.

So you take the sound of the aforementioned bands, give it a bit of a darker gothic makeover, make it slightly more groovy in a dance-punk way, and you've got a pretty neat instrumental palette. The vocals though, are an element I've needed some time to get accustomed to, not in the sense that they're not good, but the vocal tone seems somewhat more millennial pop-ish in a way that initially feels jarring in combination with the music. But then again, this brand of experimental rock always had vocals that were at least somewhat jarring. My delay in getting used to it probably explains why I prefer the latter side of the album, but when Glutton For Punishment clicks, it's a rewarding kind of album where each track has a very distinct personality. It may not be as consistent as the EP that came before it, but "Smugglers Adventure" is the best song they've written.

Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Considering that this is their sixth record, I'm quite surprised that this is my first encounter with Chicago trio FACS, given how I'm a sucker for that post-punk explosion that happened in the 2010s. Granted, FACS' debut, Negative Houses came out in 2018, at a time when that wave was already making its final splashes, but that is still a pretty impressive run, one that seems to not have given FACS any records that were particularly underwhelming, but also none that made a big enough splash to give them their recognition. Having spent some time with Wish Defense, I wish I had gotten to know FACS sooner.

The way FACS deal with the post-punk sound is not overly experimental, a lot of it being indebted to how the sound has evolved in the decade in which they sprung up, hence why I'm only using one genre tag for them. But also their approach feels more lowkey in a way that doesn't feel too minimal (their drumming is too interesting to have their music called minimal), like a brooding post-hardcore / noise rock simmering under their surface, almost subjugated by their goth tinged melodies, creating a sort of tense darkness that feels very specific. That it doesn't always create the most memorable songs is another thing, but Wish Defense's atmosphere is making up for it.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





At this point it's a bit hard to keep up with the many aliases of (because I don't know their actual name) the musician behind Jane Remover, a couple of which I've already covered, like the post-rock tinged indie rock Census Designated from Jane Remover, the glitch emo of Frailty from dltzk, and the sample mashups of Grave Robbing by leroy. Venturing is an alias that has been putting out singles and EPs for the past couple of years but is only now properly making the step towards a full length. And considering that there are other projects like CoolGirl9 that haven't yet made that step, it probably won't be the last time I'll have to write this exact paragraph with different names.

Out of the other projects, Venturing is closest to Jane Remover, being a rock-centric record, both projects being ones you could describe as indie rock. But Venturing is the more lo-fi of the two, not only due to its nearly demo-like quality, but also because of its noise pop leanings taking it closer to something like slacker rock. There's something in the performance that does scream bedroom solo project, which works to make Ghostholding feel more personal and intimate, but it's also something that makes it feel like it stays too much in the same sonic territories, even as it plays with contrasts between more mellow and noisier sounds.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





It feels almost redundant to refer to a post-rock album as ‘emotional’; the genre is arguably built upon foundations of evoking emotion through carefully crafted soundscapes. Some acts place it as a higher priority, however, and Kwoon, in spite of Sandy Lavallart’s penchant for exhibitionism (performing atop Mont Blanc, active volcanoes, and remote lighthouses), is intentionally evocative with its compositions. Odyssey is the first full album of new music from Lavallart’s solo project in over 15 years, and from the melancholic tremolo riffs of opening track “Leviathan” and onwards, it is clear that a lot of passion has been imbued into this album.

While “Leviathan” is instrumental-only, the album as a whole is not; Lavallart’s subtle-yet-stirring vocal delivery can be first heard on “King Of Sea”, and the understated soundscape of the song paired with marching snare hits takes my mind a bit to the works of A Swarm Of The Sun, although some of the guitar twangs and backing vocals owe more to the world of Ennio Morricone. The vibe of this track is sustained into subsequent songs such as “White Angels” and “Last Paradise”, but there are a few moments on the tracklist that shake things up a bit, such as the electronics-driven “Wolves” and its luscious strings arrangements; there’s also moments of greater expanse, such as the ambient-heavy 9-minute “Nestadio” near the end of the album.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







When I was in my listening phase where I deep dived into larger genres for the first time, Low Roar were one of the bands that showed up during my post-rock deep dives. They're not exactly a post-rock band in the fullest sense of the word, sharing a lot with the worlds of indie pop and indie folk and indietronica, while also sounding like the Radiohead version of each of these. The 2011 self-titled and 2014's 0 seemed to have gained some cult status for their place within post-rock, but somehow every development since has eluded me. So when I saw House In The Woods when scouting for releases, I recognized the name, but did not grasp the context.

Vocalist Ryan Karazija (who I also found out composed the soundtrack for the Death Stranding video game) passed away in 2022, and House In The Woods is the final Low Roar album, built by the rest of the band around the vocals he had recorded before his passing. The indie pop here is more minimalistic, stripped back into an almost ambient form, with its synth soundscapes blending with the chamber folk to create a backdrop for Ryan's evocative vocals. House Of The Woods is the kind of album that would be emotionally resonant even without its posthumous context, but with that in mind it does feel oddly comforting in the face of death.

Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





The Bandcamp page for End Of The Middle does question it's own "middle-ness", the one specified in the album's title, specifically pinpointing how it's open to interpretation. One of the interpretations it presents, the last one actually, is that middle could represent "Middling songwriting", which is a weird thing to put out about your own record. But that's not entirely inaccurate to say about End Of The Middle, but in a way that doesn't actually put the songs' quality itself into question, but rather how the record feels somewhat at odds with Richard Dawson's usual modus operandi.

Having seen Richard Dawson live at Roadburn performing truly solo, and having listened to a bunch of his record, his music is one that feels both simple and complex, simple in its folky singer/songwriter structure, but overtly ambitious either in songwriting or narrative scope. End Of The Middle feels comparatively more restrained in scope, the songs more direct in runtimes and musical elements, the stories more grounded, and the music more focused on the melodies and falsettos that feel specific to Dawson rather than on any ambitious artifice. That doesn't mean that the album is reduced to being "simple", the stories are still fascinating and there are still interesting sonic palettes (like the synths in the closing track) that are explored.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





It's been a bit hard following Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's catalog because of how much of it seems to fall in the shadow of his 1999 debut, I See A Darkness, so even other great solo albums or collaborations with the likes of Matt Sweeney or Bill Callahan don't get as much attention as the very dark and sombre I See A Darkness. So listening to an album with the same artist name and immediately thinking of a specific album and its sound and instead hearing something that is more jovial is a bit odd. The Purple Bird is not I See A Darkness, which should be quite obvious, and it doesn't need to be.

This is apparently only the second time that Bonnie 'Prince' Billy worked with a producer for an album, this time picking David Ferguson, who also worked with Johnny Cash and Sturgill Simpson, which does explain the more alt-country leanings of this one, as well as it having a backing band giving it less of a singer/songwriter vibe and more of a proper organic band one. The Purple Bird is indeed more jovial at times, and even in its more introspective and melancholic moments, it retains a certain warm twang that keeps it from feeling dark and sombre, though it's very heartfelt all the while, with its very specific country charm.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Italian-born, New York-based, Pasquale Grasso is a phenomenal jazz guitarist. His technique is incredible, his precision is almost unmatched by any other living guitarist, and his musical maturity has elevated him to a level that is very difficult for any of his peers to reach. I remember reading somewhere that when you hear two guitars playing, but in fact it is just one, then it must be Pasquale Grasso playing that one guitar. Having already collaborated with the amazing vocalist Samara Joy, and having released a series of recordings dedicated to jazz icons such as Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and 2022’s genre tribute Be-Bop, Grasso now presents his new album, Fervency.

On Fervency, he collaborates once again with bassist Ari Roland and drummer Keith Balla, and offers his takes on classics, such as “Cherokee” and “Milestones”, but also includes lesser-known tracks. Opener “Sub City” (originally by Bud Powell) immediately demonstrates Grasso’s ability to translate a gorgeous piano theme into an equally gorgeous guitar theme, and from then on the album is no less than a testament of how the art of jazz guitar is being protected and evolved. The emotional impact goes hand in hand with the technical proficiency in a way that provokes sheer admiration. Two original songs are also making their presence here, “A Trip With C.C.”, which is dedicated to his girlfriend, and the title track, whose meaning (very strong emotion) is very relatable to Grasso. If you are even remotely a fan of traditional jazz from the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s (so not modern jazz, fusion jazz and free jazz), do not miss this.

Apple Music | Spotify

by nikarg





Most musicians release their debut album in their 20s, Marshall Allen waited for his 100th birthday to do so. Truth be told, Allen isn’t exactly a newcomer to the music world, and his jazz career is especially prestigious. He has been a core member of Sun Ra’s various projects since the 1950s, playing the saxophone on such classics as Space Is The Place, Lanquidity or Jazz In Silhouette, and even after Ra’s passing, he is keeping his music alive as the now de facto leader of Sun Ra’s Arkestra for their live performances.

Over his long career, Allen participated in pushing jazz to new and experimental territories, and that is not something New Dawn is interested in doing. Instead, what we have here is a laid-back, cool jazz album, with some escapades into more bombastic territories. “Sonny’s Dance” stands out, with its freer, more complex structure that feels reminiscent of Allen’s past work, but the 10 minutes long “Boma” was the real highlight, with its great sense of momentum and intricate instrumentation. You can feel that all the musicians are having fun and enjoy playing here. Neneh Cherry’s vocals on “New Dawn” are great, all the musicians play very tightly, and I still can’t believe that a 100-year-old has the lung capacity to keep playing the saxophone like that.

While New Dawn is not the biggest highlight in Allen’s career, its mere existence is already very impressive. Allen has nothing to prove to the jazz world, and if you like jazz and want to relax and read a book, New Dawn will make for a perfect companion piece.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by doez





Out of all the members of famed neo-psychedelia outfit Animal Collective, Panda Bear has been the most prolific as a solo artist, being the only one to have had a solo album out even before the first of the collective's albums. Enough to have a release schedule that actually resembles an active artist, as well as an album, 2007's Person Pitch, that gets retrospective attention on its own feet rather than for being a release by an AnCo alumni. Sinister Grift comes after the lukewarm folktronica of 2019's Buoys and the more sunshine pop inspired tunes from the 2022 collaboration with Sonic Boom, Reset, the latter of which also got a dub remix album afterwards.

Out of the two, Sinister Grift is more reminiscent of Reset, also being a very pop inspired record, although this time around being a fully solo record instead of a collaboration, and bringing the Beach Boys influence to the forefront. That surf sunshine pop gets passed through the neo-psychedelia filter of the sounds that Panda Bear has worked with so far, and there are plenty of moments where the dub that was explored with the dub remixes of the previous album gets explored as more than an alternate version. A lot of the appeal of Sinister Grift comes from the psychedelic and airy production, but it also feels very catchy and memorable in its vocal lines and melodies.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





It's a bit funny that we're getting two albums by Animal Collective members this close by release date, even though technically they came out in different months. But whereas Panda Bear has been prolific enough to have a self standing solo career, this is the first Geologist studio album outside of the AnCo stuff. Well, some asterixis might be necessary here, because Geologist did release a limited edition live album back in 2018, Live in the Land of the Sky, and an EP called Tuscon Tracks back in 2023, but A Shaw Deal is a proper studio full length, but at the same time, it's a collaboration instead of a fully fledged solo album, while also being Doug Shaw's (here as D.S.) first solo record.

Context aside, it makes sense that the most experimental and ambient focused of the AnCo crowd was going to come out with the most experimental and ambient focused of the records, A Shaw Deal is very focused on textures and repetition, and a lot of its sounds coming more out of electroacoustic experimentation, alongside some synths and guitars, makes for a pretty inaccessible record. It's the kind of abstract ambient album that can feel mesmerizing in the correct mood, and obnoxious in the wrong one. So far it has been a mix of the two for me, depending on where my mood pendulum swings.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Klein is a London producer that has been at it for about a decade and has already put out a shitload of albums and EPs, mostly under various sound collage genres, and even though I stumbled upon some of them in the past, something was off-putting enough about them that I didn't really commit to checking it out. Thirteen Sense's list of genre tags (which also include noise rock, experimental rock, post-metal, and industrial, aside from the already mentioned ones) and the turn-of-the-century New Wave Of American Metal font on the cover art seemed more intriguing.

Well, the first track was about as off-putting as my initial impression of the rest of the catalog was, but then something happened when I got to the rest of the tracklist. "Double Life" being a longer instrumental piece, free from the off-putting weirdo vocals made it much easier for the piece to feel immersive, for its repetitive glitching drone to actually resonate in a very surprising way. That's a sense that comes and goes in the record, with the way it plays with noise and distortion and glitches and echoey production and processed vocals varying my level of enjoyment throughout, but it leaves me with a lot of respect for the bits that do work within it.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Nicolás Jaar has been one of the most exciting names to follow in electronic music, from classics like 2011's Space Is Only Noise and 2016's Sirens to the more danceable Against All Logic side-project. But ever since 2020, it seems like there has been an even more experimental streak, last year's massive sound collages of Archivos de Radio Piedras being one I didn't even dare to touch, but more relevantly, the Darkside side-project alongside Dave Harrington, which started out as a Daft Punk remix project called Daftside, became a lot more psychedelic and hard to define with 2021's Spiral. Now, with the addition of a third member with percussionist Tlacael Esparza, Darkside continue their experimental streak.

While genre-wise, the skeleton of Nothing has more in common with 2021's Spiral than the project's debut with 2013's Psychic. Being an electronic-tinged neo-psychedelia album is itself an experimental affair, but Nothing does take that dream-like logic of its music progression even further, often introducing elements that might not always make the music more enjoyable. The vocals on the opening track are a particular head-scratcher that I thankfully powered through to make it to the more engaging parts that come later in the album. The trio structure that the band has on this album does make the music feel fuller in its groovier moments, but that's something that feels like it comes second place to the project's desire to throw weird things at a wall. Some of it does stick.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Synthwave has long had overlapping appeal with metal; one only needs to look at big names such as Carpenter Brut and Perturbator, and how both not only have past experience in metal bands but also still appear regularly at metal festivals to this day. Some acts within synthwave lean more towards heavier styles, with the level of distortion used by Dance With The Dead a prime example; Neurostrike, a new name in the scene, don’t opt for similar distortion, but between the rugged lower-register vocal style and pounding beats, there’s more than a hint of industrial to debut record Neon Uprising.

These features are demonstrated at their peak on opening song “Neon Rebellion”, a thunderous start to this 20-minute release. Some of the edge is taken off right after for the smoother, sleeker “Steel And Smoke”, an understated slicker of a song primed for cruising around sci-fi dystopian streets to. The rest of the album fluctuates between the parameters of these extremes, rarely reaching the intensity of “Neon Rebellion” but still making use of harsher vocals (“Ghosts Of The Software Nightmare”) and thumping industrial beats (“Cyber Dawn”). One of the other album highlights is “Glitch In The Skyline”, an up-tempo track that thumps along, but with a brighter tone that is complemented by a female clean vocal cameo that suits the tone more naturally.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





It's not just pop music that is constantly on a race to revive nostalgic sounds, but because pop music is such a mainstream zeitgeist phenomenon at every point of the past six or decades, it's much easier to notice with pop music. We've had a lot of 80s nostalgia, and 90s nostalgia, but 00s nostalgia is something that's a bit harder to come across. Perhaps because the turn of the century still feels too recent to be something we classify as "the past" despite happening a quarter of a century ago, and we don't wanna process how old we've gotten. But those sounds from our upbringing are now old, and hearing bits of them in Choke Enough, even in a very processed form, is nostalgic.

Oklou is only now releasing her debut, but she's a couple of years older than me, so she must've been even more steeped into the turn of the century pop sounds, so all that trance and EDM making its way into an alternative R&B that's being melted into a very ambiental form of poppy electronica, whose processing is quite reminiscent of the relatively recent hyperpop wave, makes it sound like the kind of pop album that could only be made by blending nostalgia and a love for the more internet addicted kinds of pop. Choke Enough is very stripped back though, to the point where it feels too background-y, but the vibe it offers feels too specific to ignore.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





I am arriving a bit late to the IC3PEAK wave, often seeing them mentioned more alongside protest music acts like Pussy Riot for their message rather than the music, often accused of being edgy and pretentious. I can't tell you much about that, I can only tell you that they started out as a witch house act, then they slowly added more alternative metal elements (often more trap metal than anything), which made them simultaneously more and less appealing towards metalheads. However, very little of that, both of the protest side and the witch house / trap metal sound lineage, is visible on Coming Home.

Coming Home instead is some pretty accessible and ethereal sounding indie pop. There's a lot of focus on Nastya's high pitched and angelic sounding vocals, perhaps exceedingly and unnaturally so. There's less edge in the production and the instrumentation, though there's a surprising amount of rock instrumentation, often something more akin to the post-punk revival sounds, with a lot of driving percussion and bass to boot, as well as moments that are more ballad-y and focused on an acoustic guitar. Coming Home is thus a pretty soft and stripped back album, one that does a lot of interesting things, more focused on mood than bite.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP







I first encountered the name Maud The Moth as one of the many names announced for some Roadburn edition, clashing with something else I wanted to see more, and even though I didn't get to check her out, the name remained in my mind, associated with something I enjoy. And now I saw that name again when scrolling through reviews on Angry Metal Guy, and that familiarity and association was enough for me to want to check that review, only to find that the reviewer rated it a 5/5, which is incredibly rare, let alone for an album that isn't even remotely metal. Well, there have been some intersections between the two worlds. Side projects like Die Verbannten Kinder Evas. Dead Can Dance and Diamanda Galas have served as huge influences and even collaborators. Anna Von Hausswolff, Elend, and Diary Of Dreams have a profile here.

And more specific here, Amaya López-Carromero, the Spanish-born voice behind Maud The Moth is also a member of the alt-doomgaze Healthyliving. Though there's no direct metal connection in Maud The Moth, nor in The Distaff, its elegiac somberness lies within similar emotional cores. Sparse instrumentation, often of a droning chamber variety, builds a very subtle dramatic grandeur underneath the tour de force of Amaya's operatic vocals, only exploding and crashing in bits, preferring to keep the tension building. The way this interplay between tension and release makes The Distaff incredibly immersive and evocative, in a way that builds upon the decades of sonic tradition, while most importantly building its very own character.

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by RaduP

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