This album feels human and vulnerable. It is bleepy and bloopy. It sounds like a record made by two people who really like each other. Two people who are setting the other up for success.

Now we are given a bit of a different take on Quinton Barnes’ creativity with the release of Black Noise only a few months after CODE NOIR was released. Both conceptually and in execution, this new album is a thoughtful interrogation into noise, improv, and experimental sound composition which started out of a casual 2022 tweet that he tossed into the aether: “‘I want to work with noise/improv musicians in some capacity … not sure how yet but the idea is there’.”

Simone Atenea Medina Polo reviews the latest record from Toronto’s Eliza Niemi: Progress Bakery is an incredible sophomore album that shows off the breadth of what Eliza Niemi can do.

With this record, SENTRIES steps out of the bedroom and onto the stage—but it doesn’t feel like a departure. Instead, it feels like a natural expansion: same ghost, louder haunt.

The question was left hanging at the end of the former trilogy: what would a new Backxwash release look like after that set of releases? The answer that the album offers is a reconstruction of Backxwash sound prior to God Has Nothing To Do With This informed by the accomplishments of the last decade of her musical career.

The Loss is an exercise in catharsis, but its fury is tempered at all times by grief, by uncertainty.

III at ease features much of what there is to love about this band, and it might be an excellent jumping off point for new listeners who might eventually work their way back through their releases to grasp the breadth of what Preoccupations can do.

Live aux Foufounes is not derivative or tired or formulaic. It’s fresh and alive and pulsating. The music still contains some of the straight-time fury of punk, with bombastic, short songs played fast and loud. But they are also played really, really well.

As underscored by its title, Jimmie is the first release under the real name of Jimmie Kilpatrick, who has long performed as Shotgun Jimmie. It sees Kilpatrick incorporating experimental recording methodologies while delivering more of the ever-catchy hooks and clever, empathic lyrics he’s known for.

Men I Trust has released two excellent records when measured in their own terms. Both of these albums show off two aspects of how this band approaches composition and songwriting, and it is really up to the listener to discern which of these approaches appeals best to their aesthetic sensibilities. 

Rare are the records where a whole community went into making them, rarer even are artists who they go lengths to honour that work and influence behind-the-scenes. In Relation by Cassia Hardy is one such record, stemming from a devoted songwriter who invests all of herself to making explicit what this all means by way of sticking to her ethical and political commitments.

Chinese Medicine contains multitudes on The Trans Agenda. It is both a collection of stories and a statement of a band on the rise that leaves no doubt that they are one of the most vital punk bands active today.

Explosive post-hardcore energy from the very first second, the mathematical synchronization, pounding bass, fuzzy yet focused guitar, and complicated drumwork, Water Margin’s Gleaming Cursed has all this, and more.