It’s always great when a band that kicks ass live is able to kick just as much ass on a record, and Desert Sharks are locked in on their new EP, The Tower. Now including Cait Smith on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, the sound that lead singer and bassist Stephanie Gunther, lead guitarist Sunny Veniero, and drummer Rebecca Fruchter achieved previously is only sharper and tighter. That sound has been described as “gloom punk”—a moniker apparently bestowed upon them by Bandcamp, as noted by Gunther in an interview with Full Time Aesthetic—and it’s an apt name. Desert Sharks meld their grungey punk to dark tones, which when paired with Gunther’s compelling voice becomes rather catchy. Following their 2019 album Baby’s Gold Death Stadium the band made a foray into cover songs, releasing two singles in 2021 paying tribute to Til’ Tuesday with “Voices Carry” and T-Rex with “20th Century Boy.” The Tower is their first original material since then.
The Tower pushes off right from the gate with the single “Medusa:” no waiting for the good stuff, just 4 hits of the cymbal and boom—bass, guitar and vocals kick right in, “He wanted to show me the bottom of the ocean.” The lyrics were inspired by the myth of Medusa to create what Gunther calls “anthem of feminine rage and reclamation of power.” “I’ll turn you into stone,” she declares.
“Sleepy Pie” is a bit more frenetic. “If you wanna love me, how can you live without me?” the lyrics ask in this sweet yet sinister track. “You make me a flesh and blood fantasy.” The video finds the quartet in a sleepover gone wrong (I know we all remember at least one incident in our teens with a seance or a ouija board, right?) and cleverly uses the tarot card imagery. (The lilies from the video for “Medusa” also appear, and it’s cool to see the band using a cohesive aesthetic.)
The record moves around in tone, exploring sometimes a doomier sound (“Emotional Breakdown”) and sometimes a poppier one (“Ego Death”) but the band never stops rocking. Even the slowest feeling track, the 6/8 time “Shadows,” induces headbanging. Fruchter’s drumming really drives everything forward, and Veniero and Smith’s one-two guitar punch nails it down over Gunther’s bass, while her voice is beautifully complemented by Smith’s backing vocals.
Title track “The Tower” is a truly epic closer, full of rolling toms and grinding bass and guitar, complete with a wailing solo. “I know things will never be the same / still I’m holding on to what remains,” Gunther sings, and it all ends on a chant of “the end… the beginning.” It all fits perfectly with the theme of the Tower card, on which Gunther elaborated: “I dabble with tarot. I’m not going to act like I’m an expert. I had a tower year [in 2022]. The tower card is one of the most intense cards because it represents major upheaval, chaos, and destruction. But on the other hand, it offers space for newness, enlightenment, and change.”
The production by Jeff Berner hits the sweet spot, crisp and clear without being slick. Gunther notes that the recording process was a bit different this time around; with the band practicing less in person after the upheaval of the past few years, they learned new technology: “…all our previous times going in to the studio, we didn’t have demos really. Like, we had phone demos from the practice space. Being pushed to work with GarageBand more, we switched our writing style to where it’s like, let’s actually record it out how we want the final product to sound.” The band enjoyed their studio time with Berner, with Gunther saying: “The way it feels when you record with Jeff Berner is that you have this other member in your band who is just as excited and just as dedicated to getting the sound that you want.“
Desert Sharks in 2022 (photo by Kate Hoos)
Desert Sharks are sometimes compared to the greats like L7 and Veruca Salt, and it’s warranted: The Tower is Desert Sharks at the top of their game, able to hold their own with those beloved bands. As this is an EP (six tracks long), I’m reminded of Blow It Out Your Ass, It’s Veruca Salt, possibly that band’s best work. Sometimes shorter is better as a showcase.
The Tower doesn’t feel short, though. The EP is one solid track after another, and the songs are so fully realized that by the time those six tracks are over, the listener has had a complete experience. It’s the best work that Desert Sharks have put out to date, and it’s poised to be a breakthrough for them.
After moving to New York City in 2010 from her native Jerusalem, singer, songwriter, and guitarist RONI has been recording music ever since, both under her current moniker and as Rony’s Insomnia. Her newest single “Don’t Look At Me Like That” is a dramatic, dynamic soulful song with a bluesy feel and soaring vocals. The drums hit a particularly satisfying groove behind the layered guitar solos.
Of this track, RONI says “To me, after spending most of my life in male dominated fields and environments, being made to feel, or sometimes told, that I am not as capable or capable at all, ‘Don’t Look At Me Like That’ is the ultimate self empowering song, as well as an answer to toxic patriarchal stares.” The video was edited by RONI using footage from various live performances, with graphics by Toby Verhines and we have your exclusive first look here on FTA!
RONI will be touring in April this year along with her live band, which features Tom Shani on bass and Pat DiPaolaon drums.
Produced by RONI , Jason Alexander Reyes and Jonathon Meier.
Written by RONI with assistance from Thomas Barranca
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Pat DiPaola at 727 Studios in Brooklyn.
Following their first two singles, Brooklyn’s own Horrible Timing is back with their debut EP, Late To The Party. Billed as “anxious pop punk” the band makes good use of their punk, alternative and emo influences, blending them into a satisfying mix of riffs, bounce, and anthemic vocals, sure to please fans of groups like Jimmy Eat World and Alkaline Trio.
Starting off with a bang is the kinetic lead track “Things Could Be Stranger,” which really highlights the driving guitar sounds of Patrick Saccenti and vocals (and harmonies) of Melissa Licciardello. Bassist Christian Lovrich and drummer Anthony “Smallz” Strano keep things pinned down on the rhythm section.
The previously released single “Inconceivable” is a high point, and according to the group’s Bandcamp is “a song about trying to say “I love you”, with Licciardello getting personal and singing “Just kiss me goodnight and see where this all goes / Don’t throw it all away because I can’t say- / I try my best to bend, but I just can’t break / Give me time, a song, and a line / I’ll let you know that I-“
Producer and engineer Jerry Farley (Sick of It All, Lamb of God, Every Time I Die) has really done a great job with this record, bringing out all the grit of the guitars and fullness of the rhythm section without burying the vocals, letting them fill the space. It’s a slick sound without being overproduced. The energy is high right up until the end on closer “Nothing To Write Home About,” with soaring choruses of ‘woah-oh-oh’s’ that will certainly have crowds singing along at live shows. Their release show will be on March 11th at Young Ethel’s.
Gina Birch may be best known for co-founding the legendary post-punk band The Raincoats in 1977, but she has remained a fixture on the scene for a very long time, both as a musician and as a filmmaker and music video director. Now Birch is releasing her first solo album, proving that old punks never die. I Play My Bass Loud melds decades of influences, spanning punk, rock, reggae and more into a cohesive statement from a supremely creative mind.
The title track stakes a claim and makes a statement right out of the gate, with lyrics like “Sometimes I wake up and I wonder, what is my job? – I play my bass loud!” Birch notes “There’s the whole thing about women playing their music and wanting to be heard, wanting acknowledgement or the space to do it. The bass is sometimes assigned as a lesser instrument, and yet because of reggae and the creativity of a lot of women players, it has always been a creative and phenomenal instrument.” Fittingly, the song and video features four other women bassists: Emily Elhaj (Angel Olsen), Mikki Itzigsohn (Small Wigs), Staz Lindes (The Paranoyds), Hazel Rigby (TBHQ) and Birch herself, dancing around with choreographer Brontez Purnell.
“And Then It Happened” is a spoken word track, Birch’s poetic words laid over a bass melody and swirling distortion, which fades perfectly into the lead single “Wish I Was You.” Here we find fellow musical legend Thurston Moore on “thrash chords and noise action.” It’s a hell of a catchy tune, buoyed by Birch’s musing on aging and being ‘cool,’ before she concludes “so many brilliant people I wished I could be / time has carried me forward, now I’m happy with me.”
Birch is undoubtedly a trailblazer and inspiration for her work with The Raincoats, and with tunes like “Feminist Song” and “Pussy Riot,” she is still tackling the place of women in the world, singing on the latter song “some people think we’re trouble / dangerous, profane / but we’re just doing our best to be free, wild, sane.”
On the very melodic “I Am Rage,” Birch sings “rage, I am rage, I’m a bubbling burning cauldron of rage,” words that are almost at odds with the soft way Birch delivers them. In a deftly executed turn, the next song is an ode to shoes over a dark dance beat “I Will Never Wear Stilettos.” “Feminist Song” is a retooling of a song that has appeared in Raincoats sets that mixes spoken word (“So when you ask me if I’m angry, I say why the hell would I not be?”) with the full-throated chorus “I’m a city girl, I’m a warrior, the city made me this way.”
The record was recorded with Youth (of Killing Joke.) “It was a fabulous experience to record at Youth’s in Wandsworth,” says Birch. “Youth likes my passion and my bad guitar playing. I like his attitude, so calm and focused… in a Zen kind of way. We are in fact opposite sides of the same coin.”
Birch is obviously in a very creative time of her life, working on painting as well as music, saying “It’s like a dream come true. I’ve been working hard in my artist’s garret, mostly painting, but always writing songs. An idea forms in my head and I write it or paint it, and now it seems, these ideas are blooming wildly, reaching over the wall!”
I Play My Bass Loud is out now via Third Man Records and available on all major streamers.
Miss Grit is the project of New York-based musician Margaret Sohn, created “to function as an outlet for their own analysis and expression of self.” After two EPs (Talk, Talk in 2019 and Impostor in 2021) which explored identity and relationships, their debut album, Follow The Cyborg, delves deeper into these issues. Taking inspiration from the idea of a cyborg (and from related films and literature, such as Ghost In The Shell and A Cyborg Manifesto), Sohn intertwines such futuristic concepts with their experiences as a mixed-race, non-binary artist to create a deeply personal yet relatable multifaceted record, packed dense with modern themes while remaining catchy to the ear.
Befitting a modern sounding album with a title like Follow The Cyborg, there are synthesizers aplenty here. But the guitar lines that punctuate many of the songs are spine chillingly good, and it would be doing the album a disservice to simply call it electronic. There is an organic use of electronic sounds—this isn’t club music, but there are beats aplenty, and the rhythms will have listeners tapping their toes and moving to the groove.
Kicking off the album is “Perfect Blue,” a track that shares a name with Satoshi Kon‘s famous film dealing with identity, performance and reality. With a gentle beginning that slowly builds through jagged edges and swirling vocals, it’s a great preview of what to expect from the rest of the album. “I’m not going back / I’ll be all I’ve consumed I’m what you asked / I’ll be the perfect blue / Can take a breath now” Sohn sings, staking out their awareness of the demands of the world around them and their attempts at actualization in the face of it.
The singles “Nothing’s Wrong” and “Like You” are well chosen, showcasing Sohn’s use of both slower and mid range tempos as a basis for building a song. Steady rhythms really are the backbone of this record, which Sohn uses in almost Kraftwerk-like precision as they build layers over top. On “Lain (phone clone)” Sohn hits upon an anxiety I’m sure many of us relate to, singing, “Hold up your hands if you can’t hold up the act / Hold up your hands if your two lives overlap / Hold up your hands if you want your memories back / Hold up your hands and let go of your phone clone” (For those of you who may not be versed in anime, the song title references Serial Experiments Lain; suddenly I wonder what a Miss Grit cover of the Lain opening theme would sound like…)
By the time Follow The Cyborg reaches the end on “Syncing,” Sohn is dealing with both individual realizations and interpersonal connections: “I’m starting to move on my own now / And I don’t want to forget how / … When we sync up…(my heart was open, for you) I’ll be there soon (hold up your hands, like you, can take a breath now).” It’s a softer, pulsing song that nonetheless maintains the energy built up through the previous nine tracks, and lists Nicole Rodriguez aka Pearla as a co-writer.
Miss Grit (photo by Hoseon Sohn)
Sohn performs the guitar, vocals, and synths on the album, with various other musicians making guest appearances throughout on strings (Dorothy Carlos on cello, Yaz Lancaster on violin), drums (Greg Tock and Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint), piano (Ben Talmi) sax (Kacey Fassett) and bass (Zoltan Sindhu, although Sohn handles the bass as well on the final track.) The record was recorded and produced by Sohn as well—it’s easy to see why NME called them a “polymath” in 2019.
Follow The Cyborg is an intricate record that will reward repeated listens. Prior to the album’s release, Miss Grit played a hometown release show at Baby’s All Right. They will hit the road in the UK in April with Bartees Strange.
Follow The Cyborg is out now via Mute Records and is available on all major streamers.
