Author: Ethan J. Barrons

Never playing too far ahead or sequestering in a hummable drone, Pepitone’s vision and direction gently tug lines and variables, blending Homebound’s steadied, synthesized structures, into a return to our deepest selves.

Armada, the third installment from Sandrider (Good to Die Records), is an outsized record of brutal magnetism and seismic tugs, capable of seducing even the most hesitant flannel donning, trucker hat youth.

The finale, “Masquerade”, is, however, the most alluring, guttural, and sophisticated. Skelly states arty slogans worthy of being silk-screened to a wagonload of American Apparel pocket tees

The songs presented on Pound hit like a 30-pound Alka-Seltzer tablet tossed into a kiddy pool of soda. The fizzing and bubbles are contagious; but it’s the effervescent nature of Pound that’s impossible to forget.

Lyrically, Dhavvan toes the line between humble, journalistic murmurings and cryptic authenticity. His soft-rock troubadour edge may get lumped into an adult-contemporary imprint, but Echoes succeeds not in what’s being said, but how aerodynamically charged the surrounding music engulfs Dhavvan.

After more than a dozen great to brilliant albums, Jurado effortlessly notches the wood with another grand statement. Ponder the achievement. Damien Jurado earned his keep long ago. He’s part of a small list of songwriters in their third decade making powerful art and with Horizon’s sound and lyrical architecture, climbing in familiar yet clean-slated ways, the view is revelatory and confirming.

The songs on October Blue, even without any filmic background, fit a brooding tale. Kapp fleeces saturated valley months, extracting suburbia’s dark and delicate corners with a secure cabling of rooted drones, lifting guitars and unforeseen horns.

Carlson’s storytelling gifts are scattered throughout Conquistador and on repeat listens you swear an apparition is watching your steps. His ‘imaginary Western’ begins and ends from the view of the female adorned in feathers and lace.

Kenniff’s best moments are full of lingering reservations, chiseling, and exposing glimpses into the mystery that captivates him. Not surprising, Occasus and everything else Kenniff touches, reciprocates.

The imperial colors on American Dollar Bill wield a ferocious appeal amid Jackson Pollock-like dripisms. Keiji Haino & SUMAC apply thick and hairline brushstrokes over a stately red font on both cover and record. Their canvas is a blend of extreme unpredictability streaked with intentionally disorienting compositions.

Selected Acoustic Works becomes the soft hand on your back, the pre-dawn walk, and Christmas Eve snow. Anderson performs these songs as if they were inscribed into him from birth. He carries and holds space with every note, thereby giving over to the gravitational pull that scours the cracks for flickers of light.

At its core, Black Fax is analogous to its muscled and toned cover art. The fulfilling album is a cinematic gathering of flexing and molded sounds. Even when Newaxeyes are making fists with dense drones and aggressive pulsing, their melodic seasonings flavor just enough glow, thereby assisting we all return unscathed.

As Elverum continues holding space as father and widow, his art leeches into areas void of cryptic artifice and bookish synthetics. His unadorned approach resonates deeply as his sobering participation and wrestling with the unknown endures. He longs for what can’t be and with this has created something to be shared: the unfathomable.