Monday, November 17, 2025
you can call me if you feel something
Sunday, November 09, 2025
won't you sleep with me, every night for a week/won't you just let me pretend this is the love i need?
Armand Hammer & the Alchemist - Mercy
After a couple decades of loving her music, I hear Leah's voice multi-tracked and I'm instantaneously all in.
Sunday, November 02, 2025
see-through box, i gotta let it go/“you can’t hurry love” plays on the stereo
Snocaps - Snocaps
Ratboys - Anywhere
Noname feat. Devin Morrison - Hundred Acres
you can call me if you feel something
I went to two very different shows last week.
On Thursday, I made it down to the Rickshaw for a sold out all Vancouver affair, headlined by (in my no longer very educated opinion) the city's best band: Piss. It was a great bill from top to bottom and it always rocks seeing locals sell out a big room.
Piss recently got back from a tour of the US and Europe and seeing the response/press/etc they've been receiving, maybe they're just going to start selling out big rooms now.
They make such loud, uncomfortable, and confrontational music, but they also seem like the nicest kids. Every time I've seen them, their set starts with a quick message about where to get ear plugs, masks, a request to look out for each other, and a warning that their music gets into some really dark territory. I would still love them if they just made great music, but they're also people you want to root for.
On Saturday, I went to the Biltmore for the first time in ages to see Madi Diaz.
I love her latest, Fatal Optimist, so it was a no brainer (it helps that I live about 10-minutes from the Biltmore too).
Since the album's so stripped back, the show was just Diaz and her guitar as well and it was a treat to hear both the Fatal Optimist tunes as they were recorded, plus a handful of songs from her other records given the bare bones treatment.
Shout out to the crowd, who kept the chatter to a minimum too.
Album of the week
Home Front - Watch It Die
I only recently found out that this band is one of the guys from Wednesday Night Heroes and one of the guys from Shout Out Out Out Out (they're a five piece live, but apparently it's just those two dudes in the studio). And if you've heard those two bands, then suddenly Home Front makes a ton of sense.
The formula of punk guy bellowing over synth pop maybe isn't supposed to work, but this record is loud, snotty, and fun as hell. There's depth here too. Sometimes things veer closer to pure pop and some songs get more industrial or even new wave.
They don't seem to have any big tour planned, but since the hail from Edmonton, hopefully they'll get over here at some point. It's the kind of album that seems like it would be even better live.
Song of the week
Robyn - Dopamine
I mean, if you give Robyn 7-years of time to write new music, she's going to give you a fucking banger, right?
"Dopamine" has all the hallmarks of a Robyn track--in lesser hands, it might come across as Robyn paint-by-numbers--but it still sounds fresh, new, and exciting.
It makes me wish I still "DJ'd" (played songs without mixing them), because I bet this one destroyed a zillion dance floors around the world this weekend.
Classic of the week
Madi Diaz - Enema of the Garden State
This one kinda stretches the definition of "classic," since it's a brand new release, but it's also Madi covering a 26-year-old album in it's entirety.
Fatal Optimist producer, Andrew Maury, would turn on a 4-track when recording sessions started and let Diaz warm up with whatever she wanted. She was listening to a ton of Blink 182 while jogging at the time.
It was just something fun and wasn't something she intended to release, so some songs work better than others, but honestly they all sound great. And the one's that work, really work (I'm partial to her take on "Going Away to College").
Enema of the Garden State is a Bandcamp only release and all of the money from sales goes to the Defending Our Neighbors Fund.
More heat
Hiding Places - Holy Roller
Delaney Bailey - Nightshade
now playing: Suzie True - Every Dog
Sunday, November 09, 2025
won't you sleep with me, every night for a week/won't you just let me pretend this is the love i need?
I'm going to Los Angeles for the first time in well over a decade next month.
I fucking hate driving, so it's the last thing I want to do on vacation, which kinda bumps LA way down the list of places to visit, even though it checks off a lot of my other boxes.
But they've expanded the Metro so much and, well, Snocaps is only playing in three cities and Chicago's gonna be too cold. And both Chicago and NYC are going to be a little too expensive to fly in for just the weekend.
Over the last decade or so, the only act I've listened to more than Waxahatchee and Swearin' (plus all the related projects) is Laura Stevenson, so this one and done tour kinda ended up being a no brainer.
I've traveled for a ton of shows--I went to New York the last time the Crutchfield sisters toured together. And I've also traveled a fair amount by myself. But this one came up so quick that it's going to be the first time I've traveled for a show that I'm going to go to by myself.
I can't think of many other bands I'd do this for, but I wasn't going to miss this one. So here we go.
Album of the week
The billy woods record from this spring is incredible, but for whatever reason, I didn't spin it as much as I thought I would. But this one? Even though I've mostly been on a diet of all Snocaps all the time, I've already played this one enough to wear out a cassette tape (if those were still a thing).
These are distinctly Alchemist beats, but they still feel different from the tracks on Haram. Alan's still himself, but he's also so much more dialed into where billy and Elucid are going. These songs are dark and dense and they've got instrumentals to match
Song of the week
The Abramson Singers - Spider on the Moon
Classic of the week
Waxahatchee - Swan Dive
I was mostly joking when I posted on Instagram that if they play this song at the Snocaps show and I'm not there to hear it, I will die.
But also, Katie announcing via Substack that they'd be playing some Waxahatchee songs from the first four albums and none from the last 5-years on this tour, was one of the things that pushed me from "should I do this?" to "I should definitely do this."
I truly think the last two Waxahatchee records are the two best records she's ever put out. And all these old songs don't really fit in live with the tracks from Saint Cloud and Tiger's Blood, so it makes sense that they don't crack the setlist anymore. But that doesn't make me love them any less.
Maybe it won't be this one in particular. But maybe it'll be "Coast to Coast" or "Breathless" or "Air" or "Recite Remorse" or "Be Good." And I can't tell you how much I'd love to hear any of those live again.
More heat
Remember Sports - Bug
"Across the Line" sort of gave away that there was a new record coming, but now it's official: we're gonna get a new Remember Sports album the day before Valentine's.
This one sticks to the pop-punk thing they do best, but it throws a noisy Built to Spill (and also kinda Swearin') solo into the mix.
now playing: Snocaps - Coast
Sunday, November 02, 2025
see-through box, i gotta let it go/“you can’t hurry love” plays on the stereo
Album of the week
Maybe it wasn't a total surprise--Katie and Allison had both been teasing something on Instagram for the last week or so. But pretty much out of nowhere, and for the first time since 2011 we've got a full album collaboration from the Crutchfield sisters. This time around they're backed up by MJ Lenderman and (Saint Cloud and Tiger's Blood producer) Brad Cook.
They're splitting the difference between Bad Banana and PS Eliot and sharing vocal duties on this thing, so I guess it's fitting that the band's operating under the brand new moniker, Snocaps.
Sonically, it's back in similar territory to what those bands shared. And hey, I love the last two Waxahatchee records--they're Katie's best under that project--but hearing her in scrappy indie rock mode is an even bigger treat, because it felt like something that wasn't going to happen again.
It's not just a retread of the music they were making a decade and a half ago though and you can hear that Tiger's Blood twang on songs like "Cherry Hard Candy." Elsewhere, "Brand New City" sounds like if Lenderman dropped in to lay down some riffs on a Swearin' song.
Swearin' might be my favourite band of the 2010s and Waxhatachee's not far behind, so it's going to take me awhile to digest this one properly, but I already love it after the first handful of listens.
Apparently, they have a few shows planned before the end of the year, so maybe I have one more trip to take in 2025.
Song of the week
"I'm going anywhere that you're going" kinda sounds like it might have a romantic lean to it, but the longer the lyrics go, the more there's kind of a creepy "Every Breath You Take" or "Standing Here" vibe to it... until you find out that's actually not a love song and it's inspired by Ratboys' guitarist, Dave Sagan's anxious pup.
Easily the best song of all time about a velcro dog.
"Anywhere" is the second single off of Singin' To An Empthy Chair, Ratboys first record since one of my favourite's of 2023, The Window. It's out on February 6th.
More heat
ROSALÍA with Björk and Yves Tumor - Berghain
A very cool song that somehow has an even cooler video.
