Bleakness - Dancing With Darkness

Life at a Stand­still re­leas­es June 17th via Sab­o­tage Records.

Sinaïve - Ténèbres

Su­per 45 t. re­leas­es May 27th via Hid­den Bay Records.

Death Bag - Simplify

Death Bag re­leas­es May 13th.

Peace De Résistance - Bits and Pieces

When this New York dude's en­chant­i­ng and be­wil­der­ing 2020 de­but EP Hedge­mak­ers hit, i didn't have the slight­est clue who's the mas­ter­mind be­hind Peace De Ré­sis­tance. Turns out it's none oth­er than In­sti­tute vo­cal­ist Moses Brown - yeah, kin­da makes sense in ret­ro­spect, i guess. Dun­no how i missed that. His first long­play­er now un­folds a some­what more elab­o­rate, yet still pret­ty min­i­mal­ist sound­scape that once again feels out of place in all the best ways - a time cap­sule of hazy false mem­o­ries weav­ing ear­ly strains of pro­to-, art- and post punk in­to a vivid, se­mi-plau­si­ble case of the Man­dela ef­fect.

Al­bum-Stream →

Straw Man Army - SOS

The sec­ond long­play­er (ig­nor­ing last year's Her Majesty's Ship OST) by this Kalei­do­scope-ad­ja­cent New York duo sees their son­ics shift­ing in­to a com­par­a­tive­ly down­beat, dark­er and more cum­ber­some, yet equal­ly re­ward­ing di­rec­tion. There's sim­ply no oth­er group quite like them in the cur­rent post punk/-core land­scape and these chaps clear­ly main­tain their po­si­tion on the cut­ting edge of con­tem­po­rary (art-/post-)punk while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly be­ing per­fect­ly aware of its rich his­to­ry, cul­mi­nat­ing in what to me is the crown­ing achieve­ment of this al­bum - the slow-burn­ing, sprawl­ing Be­ware, which kin­da sounds like clas­sic land­mark records of the Chairs Miss­ing and The Ar­gu­ment cal­iber boiled down to their very essence.

Al­bum-Stream →

Red Gaze - Healing Games

An­oth­er ex­cel­lent EP by that band from Graz, Aus­tria with a sound more akin to some ran­dom Berlin group, mem­bers of whom are al­so play­ing in what­ev­er oth­er group you might al­so have heard of… i don't re­mem­ber ex­act­ly and can't be both­ered to look that shit up right now, okay? Post punk with an ever-so-slight death rock un­der­cur­rent. Yeah, Berlin-es­que as i al­ready men­tioned, think like… Diät, Pi­geon, Clock Of Time but al­so with some sim­i­lar­i­ty to pow­er­house US acts á la Rank Xe­rox or In­sti­tute.

Al­bum-Stream →

Beige Banquet - Export /​ Additive

Live! Live! Live! re­leas­es April 28th via Just Step Side­ways Records.

Gad Whip - Sky Bird

Sky Bird re­leas­es April 29th.

Sex Mex - Electric Chair

Elec­tric Chair re­leas­es May 13th.