Weekly Roundup: January 20th
Featuring Shedfromthebody, Initiate, Spitalfield, and more.
Editor’s Note: Yes, I know this is late. But I’m also on vacation in Las Vegas, so be proud of my dedication to the podcast/newsletter racket. Here is a photo of me right now:
ERRONEOUS BOTCH:
On their stellar third album, TOY (more on that below), Sydney alt-rockers Dear Seattle are wrestling with change. It’s a record born from transitional states of self-reflection, where recollections of who we were collide head-on with who we want, often desperately, to be.
Joining the show for our first guest episode of 2025, frontman and guitarist Brae Fisher takes us on the journey that birthed TOY as we discuss the band’s road dog attitude and live pursuits, stripping Taylor Swift songs for parts and leaning into the delicate tradecraft of anthemic songwriting.
Have you joined the TPD Patreon? Why not?
This is the best way to support me, this newsletter, the podcast, and help keep the lights on. We’ve got hours of bonus content in the archive from 2024, extra perks for the higher tiers, and lots of fun stuff planned for the months ahead.
Join our alternative music community here and send me your music recommendations! I’m deadly serious! I want to know what you’re listening to!!
Now, on with the words…
SIDE A:
A curated selection of cool shit for you to listen to.
Initiate – “Too Much”
It’s been a hot minute since we heard from Southern California outfit Initiate. The group dropped their debut LP, Cerebral Circus, on Triple B Records in 2023 and have since been relatively quiet on the release front. Latest single, “Too Much,” breathes new life into the band’s sound, elevating their aggressive momentum to staggering new heights through emotionally charged, melodic hardcore. According to vocalist Crystal Pak:
“When I wrote ‘Too Much,’ my hope with this song was that it guides the listener to begin an internal dialogue with themselves because the song is written about my own internal dialogue in regards to how destructive and careless the media has been with Palestinian lives. ‘Too Much’ touches the dark and the light, how the constant exposure to death makes me feel like living to see the next day is incredibly bleak, but when you do find the light in that dark place, it permeates through... And with that, it’s forever and always – Free Palestine.”
Watch the video for “Too Much” below:
Narrowcast. – woven in the wind chimes
The last time I mentioned Narrowcast.—the project of former Transit vocalist Ella Meadows—was quite literally years ago, with their debut EP Phenomena making my Top 10 EPs of 2021 list. Well, the group are finally back with their debut album, just in time to add to the Spacey, Shoegaze-adjacent, Alt-rock Stuff That’s Also Super Hooky and Memorable arms race currently being waged across multiple subgenres.
The LP, woven in the wind chimes, is due on January 31st through independent release. For Meadows—a proud American and trans woman—I’m sure life is looking pretty scary right now, so I feel fortunate to be able to share and listen to their incredible art despite the *gestures wildly at the ceaseless horrors everywhere*. Stream the LP’s pre-release single/s here (Spotify).
PSYCHO-FRAME – “NO REVIVES”
It’s been funny to watch the nebulous “MySpace sound” make its way through the various metalcore and deathcore revivals I’ve catalogued in this newsletter for several years now, and, as someone who was there and lived (read: loved) it, nothing is cooler to me than a supergroup of veteran heavy musicians coming together to declare themselves “the last deathcore band.”
PSYCHO-FRAME have announced their addition to the coveted SharpTone roster, and have celebrated that news by dropping a truly unhinged double single titled FEED. The group, which features vocalist Michael Sugars (Vatican/Church Tongue), also released the video for the single “NO REVIVES,” which “focuses lyrically on destroying narcissistic thought patterns and eliminating an ego that would convince someone they are above others.” Fans of 480p YouTube breakdown compilations should hit this up immediately.
Spleen – Demo II
Late last year, I had the pleasure of watching Quebecois rockers Béton Armé play in a shitty Naarm/Melbourne dive bar on a truly stacked Oi! punk bill. Believe me when I say I was in sweaty, crust punk, leather jacket heaven. Spleen are another addition to Montreal’s impressive lineup of spiky talent, who also happen to have member crossover with Béton Armé and Puffer (IYKYK; discern quality herein).
The group’s latest demo is simply titled II, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from members of those bands mentioned above: brash oi, fast punk, touches of power pop; “5 original tracks that are equal parts: Downcast / Moody, Powerful, and Original.” Stream the group’s demo in full here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Shedfromthebody – “Sungazer”
In a repeat from last year, I’m living through another January in awe of a new record from Finnish solo alternative metal project Shedfromthebody: the project of Suvi Savikko, a “producer, songwriter, artist, goth creature,” and self-described “provider of immaculate vibes.”
Whisper and Wane is the fourth studio album from Savikko, and it’s a genuinely mesmerizing listen, full of gothy, ambient, ethereal, and doom-laden soundscapes. If that latest Ethel Cain record was too avant-garde (read: impenetrable, wanky, drone-brow) for your tastes, this might have the delicate subversive hooks you yearn for. Listen to my favourite track, “Sungazer,” here.
SIDE B:
More tracks for you. Deep cuts for the real heads. Still cool.
Calyces – Fleshy Waves of Probability
This came courtesy of Since Always Press, a new PR collaboration between F.OT.S. Wil Collins at Prosthetic Records and Justine and Sammy from Church Road Records—an eternal shout-out to cool people doing cool things together.
Calyces are a progressive/post-metal outfit hailing from Athens, Greece. The quartet’s new record, Fleshy Waves Of Probability, is the long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s Impulse To Soar and is scheduled to be released on March 21st through Dry Clean Records. The band have landed on a sonic sweet spot that recalls the late-2000s output of Baroness, Mastodon, Torche, and other bands that used to have “sludge” as leading descriptors. Stream the LP’s pre-release singles here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Spitalfield – “Remembering Right Now”
In my humble opinion (and let’s face it: that’s what you’re here for, folks), Chicago pop-punkers Spitalfield are one of the most underrated acts from the early 2000s. For every Fall Out Boy or Motion City Soundtrack, a group like Spitalfield seems to fall unceremoniously through the cracks of time. Oh, don’t believe me? Listen to “Five Days and Counting,” from their seminal Remember Right Now LP, and tell me it doesn’t belong on TRL circa the Summer of 2003.
Well, it turns out I’m not the only one doing some millennial navel-gazing, as the quartet have dropped a new meta-single with their unique brand of nostalgia as the primary agenda. As the band states: “Let’s start a fire in the backyard—put on a record and start remembering right now.” Listen to “Remembering Right Now” below:
Algor Mortis – Ensoulment / Spoiled
The metal scene in Naarm/Melbourne is going on a tear, and it’s been beautiful to witness. Terminal Sleep are currently crushing in Europe. Gutless dropped an absolutely skull-cracking LP last year. And now, death metal quintet Algor Mortis are back with two new heaters for the good folks at Maggot Stomp.
Ensoulment / Spoiled is the follow-up to 2024’s crushing Stages of Death EP (which was also their Maggot Stomp debut) and features the same putrid, gurgling, bone-crushing mix of brutal death and slam goodness we’ve come to expect. The band are currently on a national run with Cavalera Conspiracy, and I’m predicting a big 2025. Watch this space, etc. Stream the two-track single in full here (Spotify).
FEATURE ALBUM:
A closer, more in-depth look at a new record that ticks my boxes.
Dear Seattle – TOY
In my podcast episode with Dear Seattle frontman and guitarist Brae Fisher last week, we explored the thematic tensions at play with the band’s stellar third studio album. TOY is about the tension between two transitional states of life: wrestling with the desire or need for change and the temptation to stay right where you are, safe and secure. And this exact tension animates my favourite tracks on the record, yielding two of Dear Seattle’s most captivating songs.
“Promise” is an ode to rock bottom, that moment in a relationship where your lowest low will either break what you have or be the floor that allows you to bounce back stronger than ever. Fisher’s chorus is positively jubilant, contrasted by nervous verses wracked “with complacence and lacking the guts” to put things plainly and honestly. There’s an earnestness to Fisher’s delivery here that shatters me, and if you’ve ever let someone down, this makes self-doubt sound euphoric.
In “We Were So Close,” the slow deterioration of a close friendship becomes the victim of time. The track rests on a gripping pre-chorus that leads into an explosive instrumental moment, but the subtle temporal shifts in Fisher’s lyrics tell the real story:
'Cause I meant what I said and I'd say it again/
Who we are right now doesn't change us then.
And it's stuck in my head, playing over again/
Who we are right now doesn't change us.
Reflecting on who you are now won’t change who you were in the past or even who you are/were to someone else. But is that ever enough? Does acknowledging change (or the lack of it) make it easier to keep someone close to you, or simply turn them into “Someone I used to know”?
Stream here: Spotify | YouTube