Posted: by The Editor
The Alternative Weekly Roundup is a column where our staff plugs a variety of new releases in a concise, streamlined format. Albums, singles, videos, and live sets. Check back each Monday to see what we were jamming the week prior.
Feverchild – “See Through Wedding Gown”
The best songs on Feverchild’s self-titled 2021 EP, “Stargazing” and “Fever Dream,” were the ones with the most push and pull, the ones that showed off the band’s control of dynamics. Their new single “See Through Wedding Dress” is as heavy as the heaviest moments on last year’s singles, but it also features some beautiful, clean leads that sparkle like broken glass. In other words, it’s everything the Belgian emo band does well in three and a half minutes, and it could’ve come out twenty-five years ago and it’d still sound just as good.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
XO – “Falling”
The bicoastal shoegaze duo XO, from twin brothers Jeff and Jake Turner, based in Los Angeles, CA, and Portland, ME, self-released a couple of singles in the last year including “Shine” and “Breathe” following their recent EP Courage. Their latest single “Falling” is rhythmic and pensive with bright shimmering notes that lead into an emotionally captivating outro and stands out amongst the innumerable acts in the scene as it’s sonically more clean and distinct than most with touches of classic emo and slowcore that soothes and inspires. Fully produced by the band themselves, it’s one of their best releases yet.
Loan Pham | @senseofexile
twentythreenineteen – “Everything in Between”
“Everything in Between,” the new single from twentythreenineteen, builds its groove from a breezy, rambling riff that lulls you into a sense of comfort while the group subtly builds on top of that riff. It all makes for a sound that leans into the tasteful feel of ’70s AM radio—all warmth, reverb, and grooves.
Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
Horse Rider – Real Melody
Real Melody, the debut LP from Horse Rider, is as lived-in, warm, and comforting as an old cardigan, and occasionally as frayed. The Austin, TX, indie rockers occupy a similar lane to waveform* or Slow Pulp, with enough quirks and wrinkles to satisfy fans of the current crop or noisy shoegaze bands gaining steam. “Call” and “Jesse” have a woozy alt-country lilt, “Ragdoll” layers towering slacker-gaze riffs over glitched-out drum machines, and “Hollow” and “Thorn” ride the same wave of anthemic alt rock that carried Narrow Head to the top of the genre. Horse Rider have a rare ability to pull together all the various flavors of indie rock that are popular now without sacrificing their own identity, and Real Melody is a cohesive and gripping debut—certainly one of 2023’s best.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
Hurry – “Beggin’ for You”
Philly power pop idols Hurry’s latest single is catchy and familiarly fuzzy, and fills me with excitement for their fifth album, Don’t Look Back, dropping August 11th on Lame-O Records. Drawing from the likes of The Get Up Kids and Matthew Sweet, lead singer Matt Scottoline makes ‘90s revival full of that smooth upbeat anxiety we all love on “Beggin’ for You.” “Do you think of me before you close your eyes?” he asks, and after hearing that, I sure am now.
Anne Hurban | @fyrbrdtransanne
Grist Mil – midheaven
Three years after the release of their first EP Young Dudley, Grist Mil, the New York duo of Derrick Sherman (Sainthood Reps) and Nick Amalfitano (Family Dinner), have returned with their new indie/electronic EP midheaven. Over the course of four songs, midheaven is a woozy and conceptually self-aware retelling of someone caught in a depressive episode following drug use and the process of coming out of it. Dreamy and sentimental, it tells a story through self-deprecating lyrics woven with bright synthesizers, pop beats, and distorted guitars for an ultimately sobering journey through loss and loneliness.
Loan Pham | @senseofexile
Mikie Mayo – “big couch”
A song that is as whimsical and endearing as the idea of writing a love song focused around a big couch that takes up the living room of a tiny house, Mikie Mayo’s “big couch” is a vibrant bit of folky bedroom pop. It’s the first tune off Mikie Mayo’s upcoming bunny boy.
Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
quinn – slaps
The three-song slaps EP is quinn’s fourth solo release under her own name this year. It’s the tightest, too, the one that most hones her trap-adjacent style and sharpens it into something jagged and idiosyncratic. Even if she’s left digicore behind, she’s retained the genre’s eccentricities.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
Flower Language – “Heavy on Me”
Ever since Denver’s shoegaze/alternative rock band Flower Language released their gorgeously underrated 2021 EP Dreams in a Different Place, which was mixed, recorded, and mastered by Gleemer’s Corey Coffman, I have been eagerly waiting for them to drop new music. Their newest single “Heavy on Me” delivers a moody ethereal track that’s one of their most hypnotically melodic and moving songs yet with impassioned vocals, and emotive hooks that would appeal to fans of Superheaven, Keep, or Downward.
Loan Pham | @senseofexile
Superdestroyer – SoakedInSynth.Zip
Every time Superdestroyer puts out a new record, I feel like it’s the best Superdestroyer record yet, but that really feels like the case with SoakedInSynth.Zip. Here, Superdestryer strips away much of the chaotic, underwater acid-trip feel of his past few releases to focus on building synth-based songs out of specific textures or sounds. The decision works great, allowing the vocal melodies a little more of spotlight, even if they purposefully fade at times into a wash of synths that range from pumping to twinkling, with occasionally blippy touches thrown on top. Like Superdestroyer’s recent releases, SoakedInSynth.Zip is also soaked in an ambient sense of dread that oozes through every bit of these songs. It’s probably most apparent in the wellness check from a student loan collector that is “Don’tTryToBeSuperdestroyer.wav,” a standout track that ends with the admonition “Look around you / Everything’s pointless / Nothing has meaning / Look around you / It fucking sucks.” Still, SoakedInSynth.Zip is far from a downer, with Superdestroyer creating plenty of danceable moments of joy amidst the dread.
Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
Everyone Asked About You – “Sometimes Memory Fails Me Sometimes”
There was never another band that was able to replicate Everyone Asked About You’s sound. The Little Rock, Arkansas, four-piece introduced elements of twee pop into emo throughout their all-too-brief tenure, but thankfully Numero Group is doing a full remastered reissue of the band’s catalog, titled Paper Airplanes, Paper Hearts. The first single off the comp is the nearly five-minute “Sometimes Memory Fails Me Sometimes,” one of the longest tracks in the band’s discog–and one of the most forceful, showing that they could stand up to any other band in the genre in terms of muscle.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
The Alternative’s ‘New Music Friday’ playlist
Each week our editor Lindsy Carrasquillo compiles a playlist of songs our staff has been jamming. We post it on Fridays on Twitter and then include it in each edition of the Weekly Roundup to make sure you don’t miss any of the great music we’re recommending.
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