Sundown in Oaktown is the debut album by triton., a musical project by Scott Murphy. With the concept of space being a vital tenant of the record, Murphy’s Hawaiian roots shine brightly throughout while also leaving plenty of room for the darker tones of life in Oakland, California. It is undoubtedly well-balanced and relatable with songs about how it feels to uproot your life in “_tiki_”, trying to stay out of trouble in “_jingletown_” and grappling with homesickness in “all_is_vanity.”
The album spans twelve tracks in just over 40 minutes and manages not to be rushed without dragging. Many of the songs like the opener “_bougainvillea,” sound like they’re being performed by Murphy on a seashore with a guitar in his lap. As he reflects on his new life 2,000 miles from home, he sings “I’ll figure it out/just like I always do” while addressing his shortcomings. The fastest song on Sundown in Oaktown is “orchids” which is written from the standpoint of looking back on life from the inside of a fast-moving BART train. Murphy is transparent about his mental health struggles in many songs and “orchids” does so in a way that warrants forgiveness rather than pity: “I’m sorry my place is a wreck/I just wanted it to match my head/I’m alone again in this bed/staring at the ceiling/thinking back on what you said,” he sings against upbeat keyboards, guitar, and drums.
Having grown up in the Bay Area and gone to college in Oakland myself, I can relate to much of what triton. alludes to throughout the album. Oakland has been at the forefront of artistic and social movements for decades but since it has become one of the most expensive places to live in the US (due to gentrification and inadequate rent control laws), it can often be difficult to make a living through creative means. In a press release, Murphy’s describes the experience of how living in Oakland informed the record clearly as he “saw lines drawn everywhere, neighborhood to neighborhood, rich to poor, and began his new life, trying not to slip between the cracks, and lose himself in a city that will spit you out or swallow you whole. Living paycheck to paycheck, Scott started writing music under the name triton. as a way to make sense of his fractured identity, combining the gentle sounds of his youth with the roar of city traffic, car alarms, and broken windows.”
Sundown in Oaktown was coproduced by Thursday’s Geoff Rickley and features his guest vocals on “alcatraz,” which certainly lends it to be the most Thursday-adjacent track on the record. Other notable contributors include vocals from AJ Perdomo (The Dangerous Summer) on “_haunt” and Aaron Gillespie (Underoath, The Almost) on “all_is_vanity.” Jarrod Alexander (My Chemical Romance, Alkaline Trio, Death By Stereo, The Suicide File) plays drums on “_sangre_azul_” and “orchids” and Tim Payne (Thursday, LS Dunes) plays bass on “_EMBRKDRO_,” “orchids,” and “alcatraz.”
Hi! Hello! Here we are with some bite sized goodies and a taste of a some new things that we dug that came out in the last week (ish), quick fire responses to some great new music we think you should check out. This week Chantal, Kate and Mike weighed in on some killer songs— give ’em a listen!
Bodywash– Massif Central. The first single from the Montreal post punk duo’s just announced second album, I Held the Shape While I Could due out 4/14 via Light Organ. Chris Steward shares the inspiration behind the heavy subject matter addressed in the poignant and ethereal track:
“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.” [KH]
Cameron Castan– Two Point Oh. Cammy is back with another synth driver, “Two Point Oh.” On the first release following their beautifully executed 2022 LP Show Me, Castan has indeed come back with the upgrade installed. Chunkier keys command attention over airier melodies, so the beat feels heavier this time around. Castan somehow once again manages to perfectly capture the feeling of being young in Bushwick. “Kissed me in the bathroom. Could never keep a secret… All I do is fuck off. Go and take my shirt off. See somebody I don’t like, and I’m about to mouth off. Told me that I’m too raw. Caught me with a new broad…” Whether you’re dancing all night in the club, stumbling through the bars, or awkwardly alone in the corner at the back of the show, it’s the same limitless freedom mixed with a crushing vulnerability that makes this track so damn authentic and relatable. [MB]
Cat Clyde– Papa Took My Totems. Coming in strong with the third single from her upcoming album, Down Rounder, this one is a bouncy and catchy offering with killer drums, hot guitar licks, and sexy organ accentuating the focal instruments. The previous two singles, the piano driven “I Feel It,” and the folky, country indie “Mystic Light,” each have a different feel and these three songs nicely show the range of Clyde’s songwriting skills. But don’t let the peppier nature of this song fool you to think it’s not about a serious subject as it explores the “ravaging effects of colonialism, the state of the environment, and masculine-dominated society at large.”
Clyde says she was inspired in part by her Indigenous Métis heritage and elaborates: “There’s a lot of sacredness that’s being destroyed in the world, and that’s difficult to deal with sometimes. Totems, to me, feel like places and things that are important and real, to witness the destruction of things like that is devastating.” Down Rounder will be out 2/17 via her own label, Second Prize Records. [KH]
Coffee Nap– Pet Sounds! The Song!/Future Project. A departure from previous releases that tended toward acoustic storytelling and instrumentals, the new single from Coffee Nap (Greenpoint-based musician Mike Nowotarski) is a synthy, narrative song that does indeed namecheck the Beach Boys, with a speak-singy intro that gives way to a bop about watching a friend move to California. (“You’re a New York girl at heart I know, but for now I’ll let things be.”) The second track is a slice of experimental pop, just over a minute and a half in length but lovely. Nowotarski notes he was inspired by Terror Pigeon, and that the guitar sounds were mostly created “using household objects like a spoon or matches.” [CW]
Deep Wimp– Too Much. Too much is never enough when it comes to Deep Wimp. Bringing me back to all my late 90s indie feels, it’s just dirty enough to be cool, but clean enough to play for your mom. The Brooklyn quartet has been knocking it outta the park the past couple years consistently dropping fun guitar hook driven singles at a time when we can all use some fun. Check out our thoughts on their previous single, “Plume” another catchy slice of awesome. [MB]
Deary– Fairground. The debut single from this UK band is a quirky slice of dream-pop that looks backward but also remains quite present. The production feels nostalgic, particularly the breakbeat drums, while Dottie’s Cocteau Twins-esque vocals swirl around like a carousel. “As a kid,” Dottie says, “I found fairgrounds incredibly overwhelming, an entanglement of anxiety and perplexity. This is how London feels to me now.” Stateside, they’ll be in Chicago on Jan 28th, and if you happen to be in London, catch them Feb. 2nd at The Waiting Room. [CW]
Fake Names– Expendables. This post-hardcore supergroup is back with another single, this time the title track from their upcoming second album, and they are just as fun and catchy as ever. We covered their last EP here and Fake Names have kept what works from their previous music, presenting here a punchy, drum driven track with a chantable chorus. A band whose members have Minor Threat, Bad Religion, Refused, Fugazi, Girls Against Boys, Rites of Spring, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, and more on their resumes obviously know what they are doing! Producer Adam “Atom” Greenspan has brought the pop influences forward but there is more than enough punk in this track to satisfy. Expendables is out on Epitaph March 3rd. [CW]
Fat Heaven– Quarter Life Crisis. The Brooklyn trio who’s better at being unapologetically pop-punk than almost anyone in the business is back with a new catchy as hell song and accompanying music video off their new Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls) produced record,Trash Life, coming out Feb 24 via Sell the Heart Records. Stacked with so many friends who’ve come up with band over the years, the video plays out like a Fat Heaven basement show, which if you’ve ever been, you know is one helluva party! Hopefully all the partying doesn’t catch up with them too hard, as we indeed hope they all live to the ripe old age of 120 years old. [MB]
Jess Kallen– The Knife. A country twinged, laid back folk rocker that addresses Kallen’s “competing desires for freedom and stability,” and I don’t know about anyone else, but that feels reeeeally relatable. The chorus packs an emotional gut punch as they declare “the knife in my back is coming out clean.” This is the second single from their upcoming debut album which is due out this spring and we are anxiously awaiting more details on that. [KH]
Junior Bill– Boys From Jungle. The Cardiff based band are known for their slick dub grooves in the vein of UK legends The Clash, and while that is the case here too, they have cleverly combined it with a with a bit of a grittier and punkier sound for an infectious and angular post punk jam. Big beats announce the onslaught of catchy guitar and this one will having you rocking in your chair like I was typing this up or better yet, bouncing around the dance floor.
The long running group led by frontman Rob Nichols have released many singles and EPs over the years which have garnered the band praise—and opening tour slots for Supergrass in 2019—and now they are ready to release their proper debut full length, Youth Club!, later this year. I’m certainly ready to hear more and look forward to catching them at a show either here in the US, or in one of my annual UK journeys because I already know this band is going to be a load of fun live. [KH]
King Bug– Lights. The debut track of the newest live incarnation of Brooklyn shoegaze project (former solo bedroom pop) straight from the mind of multi instrumentalist/composer Eddie Kuspiel, the king bug himself, is quite the infectious earworm. The guitar hook will have you bopping and humming for days while the bassline/kick drum sucks you into the vocal and before you know it, you’ve been hooked. It’s like TVOD, Cult of Chunk, and Color Tongue got together and wrote a party anthem…and that’s actually not too far from what actually happened since members of all those groups (and more) make up the newly assembled live band. A release show will happen tomorrow Sat 1/28 at Brooklyn Made with The Silk War, Sharkswimmer and Real Burn. [MB]
Pearla– Unglow The. The final single from Pearla’s upcoming debut album is a lilting folk country romp with poetic lyrics exploring anxiety over mortality, until it gives way to a massive crescendo, all swirling guitars and riotous drumming. It occupies a space between the more traditional composition of “About Hunger, About Love” and the somewhat unstructured “The Place With No Weather” (which we covered here and here); if these and the other singles encompass what to expect from the album, it should prove to be a gorgeous debut. Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming will be out Feb 10 on Spacebomb Records. [CW]
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs– Ultimate Hammer. Are you ready to headbang? I’m ready to headbang. Good thing the stoner/psych/doom noise kings have us covered here with the second single from their upcoming new album, Land of Sleeper. The riffs are heavy, the vibes are highhhhh and I for one can’t wait to feel the full force of them playing this live at their upcoming show at Saint Vitus on 3/11. [KH]
Sally Hatchet– Habitat. Katie Glasgow’s alter-ego has finally taken its form in the physical world by way of Sally Hatchet. Furthermore breaking into digital realm as well with their debut release “Habitat,” an ethereal dark indie track that rocks just as hard as it does float through the air. Falling somewhere near the intersection of Tracy Bonham and The Breeders this is a proper introduction to Glasgow’s cool new project and nods hopefully to more vulnerable and nostalgic feels to follow. [MB]
Semaphore– Smother. Semaphore may take inspiration from the classic shoegaze sound, but there’s a lot more emoting in these songs than you might expect. Singer Siddhu Anandalingam says “there’s a disaffectedness to a lot of shoegaze… We want to actually reach our audience.” This single off the upcoming I Need A Reason To Stay certainly cuts like a knife, buzzing guitars underpinned by a hard-hitting rhythm section, with Anandalingam’s voice ranging from soft to an almost scream, as he pleads “quit claiming it’s temporary.” The album is out March 24th. [CW]
One Day, the newest album from Canadian hardcore band Fucked Up, was recorded remotely—not the most unusual thing over the past few years, but this time there was an extra self-imposed limitation: each band member had only 24 hours to write and record their parts. The idea came to guitarist Mike Haliechuk near the end of 2019, and he used the restriction— broken into three eight-hour sessions— to reconnect with his songwriting, saying “After you’ve been in a band for this long, you lose track of what your sound actually is.” He then turned the guitar parts over to the rest of the band.
Drummer Jonah Falco was the first to add more layers in January 2020, recalling “I got this email from Mike saying, ‘I made this record in one day, and I want you to record drums on it—but you can’t listen to it before you get into the studio,” while bassist Sandy Miranda recorded the next month. Lockdowns hit, and the project was shelved. In the meantime the band completed their ambitious Year of The Horse record. When vocalist Damian Abraham finally was ready to record his parts, he found himself contributing lyrics for the first time since the release of Glass Boys in 2014, saying “after retreating into the fantasy world with Year of the Horse, this record is like we’re returning to real life.”
Any other band may have felt constrained to the point of turning in sub par work, but Fucked Up have been together a long time and are masters at their craft. One Day is full of their classic sound, with solid rhythms and sharp, snappy guitars pounding along under the well-worn yell of Abraham.
The record is dense both musically and thematically, and opens with the single “Found,” a song about the threads that connect colonization, genocide, and gentrification. Many highlights are on the first half of the album, like “I Think I Might Be Weird” and “Huge New Her,” while the soaring “Lords of Kensington” also turns an eye to gentrification, this time in a Toronto neighborhood. Even the shortest track on the record, “Broken Little Boys,” feels massive.
“Nothing Immortal” is poignant, although maybe I’m just an aging sorta-punk who feels stabbed in the throat hearing another aging punk sing lines like: “I keep hearing that same old punk song but now it all seems changed / There was always something perfect about it I wish I could get it to sound the same / I’ve heard that something is better than nothing but I can’t help wondering if this isn’t my thing anymore.”
The title track “One Day” is truly a punk love song (“Oh a ripe heart’s only wish is to be with another at the end of all history / Let just one thing be left of me / What could you do in just one day? / Fall in love, spend your time away”) and features a seriously catchy guitar melody and a beautiful music video directed by Colin Medley, choreographed by Lauren Runions and starring Amanda Pye and Tavia Christina.
In spite of being recorded separately, the songs blend simplicity and intricacy, although I can’t help but wonder if even more varied changes and tempos were out of possibility due to the nature of the format. Still, One Day captures a band at the height of their craft who is unwilling to compromise and still willing to try new things, and it’s a successful gambit. Falco notes that “This record is about how we see time passing in our lives,” and that the recording method gave them “no time to second-guess. You had to be confident.” It’s a confidence well-earned, and produced an album that will surely please their fans as well.
New York’s Skull Practitioners recently released their first full-length album, Negative Stars (In the Red), almost ten years into being a band, and it was well worth the wait. The sludgy-pop-psych-noise trio perfectly teeters between grime and sugar on this latest release, a slightly slicker follow up to their 2019 lower-fi Death Buy EP.
The band itself was born out of a Craig’s List ad and a band idea misfire. All the members were playing in other bands at the time, most notably Jason Victor in The Dream Syndicate, when Kenneth Levine (bass), put out an ad for more members to expand his then current project. “We wanted to go to a five-piece, and needed a drummer and another guitar player,” he says. “We put an ad out on Craigslist and met Jason (Victor, guitar/vocals) and Alex (Baker, drums/vocals) that way. Alex was just two weeks into living in New York. We played together for a while, and then it just sort of dissolved. Jason, Alex, and I actually had more of a shared, common musical perspective, and the three of us decided, ‘Let’s stick together with just us three.’”
So Skull Practitioners was born and they quickly recorded a limited cassette-only debut, st1, which they self-released in 2014 and out of necessity left sole vocal duties to Baker while behind the kit. And thus began their search for someone to front the band to provide the right voice. “We kept looking for a new singer, and that person never came,” says Victor. “None of us wanted to sing at all. After a while, we had been together as a three-piece for so long that we had our thing, and it became difficult for someone to fit into it. So we pulled a Genesis! The best thing about it is that now all three of us will sing, and that takes the pressure off just one of us.” Levine adds, “Whoever writes, sings. It’s their expression, so they should say what they have to say.”
The opening track “Dedication,” sung by Levine, is a garagey post-punk masterpiece full of discord and resolve. Its thunderous tom-tom onset, pounds through a wall of noisey guitars and snotty quick vocals, letting you know from jump that this record isn’t fucking around. By the time you get to the lead hook and octave anti-chorus fakeout, it’s the perfect pop overdose. I barely get to expertly syncopated guitar solo 4/5ths of the way through before I gotta start the track over to re-up my fix.
No stranger to long songs (the tracks on 2019’s Death Buy range from two minutes to well over ten), on Negative Stars the band seems to strike balance for the most part somewhere in the middle. You’d think the heftier run times would fall to the instrumental tracks, “Fire Drill” and “Nelson D,” which both allow the trio to really flex their skill over myriad musical landscapes. However, it is in fact the standout slower stripped back groove, “Intruder,” sung by Victor, swirling in X-esque chorus effect for seven and a half minutes that feels like late night driving through the shitty parts of the city in your rusted out Pontiac Firebird.
From start to finish, Negative Stars is buried in so many catchy melody layers that erode away and crack in all the coolest places, carrying along with it an underlying hint of doom. And while on this LP, the band may have reached their truest form to date on record, nothing beats seeing them shred live. Says Levine, “I think the band is represented at its best in a live setting. That’s where we’re in our element. Playing live, we’re out for blood.” Victor adds, “With the live thing, we just want to destroy, in the nicest, most friendly way—we’re nice people. Someone said about us, ‘These guys look like a bunch of accountants.’ People don’t really know what to expect before they hear us. I think they’re all a little surprised, maybe, and we like having that element of surprise— ‘We’re gonna blow your minds a little.’”
FTA first reported on the infectious disco-infused synth bass driven “Less From You,” the sleaze dance party single from We Are Scientists, back in the fall (read here) and we’ve been locked in for the ride ever since. For years their catchy songs about being damaged and the excesses of youth/young adulthood have captured hearts and minds while also having had the unique opportunity to grow up alongside their fans. And their eighth album, Lobes, explores the journey the band has been on during those years.
Vocalist/guitarist Keith Murray said via a press release “there was definitely a period in my life when I thought being jaded was cool” going on to say “I was incredibly steadfast in my beliefs.” Having had his pessimism proven wrong so many times in life, Murray says it’s been impossible to “really maintain that full-throttle cynical outlook into adulthood. Sure, whittling down my pessimism has meant that I don’t get to enjoy the peculiar pleasure of having my own rotten expectations subverted quite as often, but ‘Less From You’ celebrates the greater delight of having my already-high hopes exceeded.”
The album’s lead single, “Operator Error,” a song that the band says is about how Murray “has a big mouth” which he confirmed by elaborating “I have a tendency to deliver hot takes and to get extraordinarily overheated about utterly inconsequential things,” features the tenants of their classic sound but in a more refined and mature way than the singularly guitar driven sounds of their earlier work. Indeed, the song serves as a bridge between their previous lighter release, Huffy, and the darker Lobes, letting you know right away what the album is about. Swimming in chunky synths and a dance-driven bassline, it serves as an entry point to the album which is their synthiest and most electronic record to date.
The band says the album was born out of an exuberance of enthusiasm and euphoric creativity that resulted from recording and producing that last record themselves from their Midtown Manhattan studio amidst the Covid lockdowns. They share that “the lyrics for Lobes were written over a stretch of two to three years. Though the origins of the first songs began around the same time as Huffy, they exist in entirely different musical universes.”
The ensuing singles served to offer even more texture to the band’s range of influences. A slower groove, “Lucky Just To Be Here,” goes from quiet and contemplative to epic and sweeping and back again in just under five minutes, showcasing all the things this band is great at—big emotions and deep grooves all wrapped into one. “Settled Accounts” flies high on the disco stratosphere and pairs perfectly with the disco romp of “Less Than You,” both with straight out of the 70s nightclub bass lines courtesy of bassist Chris Cain.
Other highlights include “Turn It Up” a slice of straight up sexy dance pop about seeing how far you can take it with a new lover reminiscent of their early party time anthems “I wanna see this thing bend/ Just as far as we can both withstand/ I wanna see this thing bend/ So, can we let it keep getting out hand?” Its opposite is perhaps “Miracle of ’22,” which closes the album out. This is much less a party and more a tune that offers a reflective take, exploring the chaos and confusion of the world we currently inhabit and the grinding painful feeling of never being able to escape but still having a grain of hope, maybe. While dark, it is surely something we can all relate to particularly over the last several years of everything we have collectively endured: “I guess I’m running out of time/ I’m gonna have to make my move/ If I somehow make it out alive/ It’ll be the Miracle of ’22” eerie sounding autotune on Murrary’s voice amplifying the feeling of being lost.
We Are Scientists is a band that has always been fun and dark and groovy and chaotic all at the same time; their anthems to youthful excess and drunken decadent partying are classics of the early aughts that still resonate today. They have grown a lot over the course of eight albums and keep re-inventing themselves in the process, but somehow the songs on Lobes have the familiar feel going all the way back to their first album, With Love And Squalor. The songs serving as a warm welcome and a reminder that the gritty underbelly of the city (and its nightclubs) is never far away and neither are the blood and emotion pumping through our veins.
Lobes is available now and available on all major streamers. The band is currently on tour in support of the album, see our coverage of the release show.
“Time moves fast, I move slow, I keep looking backward, not which way to go,” Megadose frontman Stephen Steen sings on the opening track of the group’s newest record, and indeed time has moved fast. It’s 2023, and everyone has barely (or not even) wrapped their heads and/or ears around all the music 2022 had to offer, and this year is bringing new and exciting albums already. Now, Steen may not have been citing this change in calendar numbers specifically in this lyric, but with the album Heating Up, it seems this does coincide with his music appreciation and creation. And just in case anyone is thinking otherwise, yes, this is a good thing.
Based off their swiftly created 2021 debut album, Wild & Free, their specific brand of pop rock has been described as combining elements of new wave, slacker rock, and power pop. Sure, there were some power pop riffs on the album, and the title track is one of the most Ric Ocasek sounding non-Ric Ocasek songs since “12:51,” but the debut sounded anchored in the ways of 2010s indie slacker pop rock, matching the laid back atmosphere of Real Estate’s 2011 album, Days. The album did show heavy Jonathan Richman influence, with “My Self-Punishing Odyssey of Despair” being a particular standout in this regard, however I’d be hard pressed to find any indie band that didn’t have the first Modern Lovers album somewhere in their DNA. But if Wild & Free was meant to define the band as a current indie pop rock band, Heating Up is meant to shatter that expectation.
On this sophomore release, Steen and company prove that they know “time moves fast” and that they “keep looking backward” by performing pop rock songs that sound like they fit in every decade from the 60s to the 00s, and curiously (almost) completely leaving their easy-breezy 2010s indie vibes to their 2021 selves. The one slight exception is “Rock Yer Head,” which has an introduction that almost feels like a 2010 LCD Soundsystem bit. And though one may want to “Rock Yer Head” to “Dance Yrself Clean,” this track goes on to sound very 00s Room on Fire influenced, which only means Ric Ocasek is a grandfathering influence this time around rather than a fathering one.
The 90’s show up on the Britpop-ish (by way of Supergrass) second single “Pigs,” a catchy bass heavy song that challenges notions of traditional masculinity, and the Mazzy Star style neo-psychedelia of “Mote of Reflection” and “Fade In” (the “Fade In”/”Fade Into You” is inconsequential). The 80s appear immediately on album opener “Silver Cup,” which would sound right at home on The Stone Roses’ 1989 self titled debut. 60s pop comes around with “Minor Groove” that feels like a Zombies’ track, and album closer/ third single “The Voyeur,” where they play with prog rock sounds a la late 60s-early 70s Moody Blues, though Steen sings “Dead-ass, no lies,” to remind everyone they are not quintessentially British.
The remaining four tracks, arguably the album’s centerpieces, are all embodiments of 70s power pop, and solidify that even with the range of influences, this is a power pop record. Badfinger, Sweet, Starz, Raspberries and Cheap Trick’s influences can all be heard in these tracks, but none more so than the defining 70s power pop band Big Star. Where Jonathan Richman was the godfather of Wild & Free (and he does still play a part here), Alex Chilton of Big Star takes on that role forHeating Up. Lead single “Hey 911” which the band says “offers a winking retrospective on the ironies born of experiencing global trauma, a stunted political uprising, and too much time by yourself,” is incredibly Chilton influenced and “Summer Fest” and its country influences harken back to the Memphis roots of Big Star (and the song “Thirteen”). “Tahuya Cruisin’” is very Big Star sounding as well, but the audience addition recalls The Rolling Stones’ 1965 EP Got Live If You Want It!, which was very influential to Big Star themselves.
The centerpiece of the centerpieces is “Jackie’s Gotta Run,” which is a rollicking power pop tune with an accelerando at the end that sounds as if some angsty kid in the 70s was playing it and his little brother came and hit the switch from 33 RPM to 45 RPM. And if these tracks somehow aren’t convincing that the 70s are this album’s focus, the cover will be. If a picture of Topher Grace was added to the album cover, it would be a scene transition of That ‘70s Show (also a show that features Big Star as its theme song).
Reading up to now may have some readers thinking, “how can an album so diverse even fit together apart from connections made by some genre obsessed music critic?” (or something like that). The trick is that Heating Up is not some compilation by Big Star, Mazzy Star, Stone Roses, and Moody Blues cover bands, this is Megadose interpreting these power pop styles throughout time in their own unique way. They make the album flow seamlessly through their musicianship and Steen’s lyrical wit, and combine these eras to form their own 2020s sound. And if looking back at their influences and making the music they want while not looking or worrying about which way they’re going make Megadose a bunch of slack rockers, then we are damn lucky they’re slacking. Dead-ass, no lies.
Heating Up was self released and is available now via Bandcamp and all major streamers.
