Last week was a rare miss on my part. It’s more more than a few months of doing this and I’m quite shocked that I’ve stuck with it this long. Sure, I still got a list of new music out there to you but it was rushed and I didn’t feel great about it the following day. Habits! Habits are hard to develop and super easy to break. So just like the hundreds of times that other life-improving or life-enriching activities that I’ve tried to incorporate into my daily and weekly have seen some stumbles, I’ll get right back on the musical horse and get another note out into the world!

👀 Goings On About Music

Let us take a look at some new(ish) albums and singles…

💿 Albums

• Skullcrusher - Storm in Summer EP ( Apple | Spotify )

  • There have been a few instances this year where I’ve included a single from an upcoming album but by the time the album was released it didn’t really hold my attention. When I included the single Song for Nick Drake previously I was fairly certain that would be the case for Skullcrusher but I am happy to announce that was not the case. This album isn’t upbeat but it’s still energetic with a good amount of melancholy - it’s a neat tension. I was a bit shocked to see that Phoebe Bridgers was not listed in the “Similar Artists” section of Skullcrusher’s artist page because it seems like an obvious comparison to me.

• Home Is Where - I Became Birds EP ( Apple | Spotify )

  • I took a few different albums for a spin this week but other than the Skullcrusher EP nothing else really caught my ear this week so I tried something new - I scrolled through the recent reviews on Pitchfork and looked for an album cover that seemed interesting. Then I listened to the album. This is that album. Even though the EP gets started with a pretty mellow musical approach, the vocals are raw and, for me at least, acceptably screamy (think grunge screamy vs metal screamy). There were occasions where it veered off into emo screamy and approached my tolerance limit but never quite exceeded it. Track-by-track the aggression definitely picks up as you progress towards the end. Pretty happy with how this little experiment turned out - hope you like it as well!

🎵 Tracks

• The Darcys - Swerve

  • I’d forgive you for thinking this was a Chromeo song off the jump. I included The Darcys most recent album in my year-end review and noted that the music was a bit more subdued and considered than previous releases - not this track. This single brings out all of the synths and funk that I have come to really like from The Darcys.

• fanclubwallet - C’mon Be Cool

  • Sometimes when a song features a prominent looping bass- and drum-line I can’t tolerate it. I haven’t quite figured out why that’s the case but I’d be willing to consider that it might just be my mood when I’m listening. This track came on when I was in need of something to pep me up and I was almost immediately drumming along on my desk as it played. For the most part, the vocals tend to hide in the music but every now and then they break through as the music drops away.

• Lone Waves - My All

  • The thing that initially caught my ear on this track was the bleeps and bloops in the music and I couldn’t stand them. I made note of the song and moved on with my musical exploration for the week but when the track came up later on a shuffle I actually found myself enjoying them - further evidence that perhaps one of the biggest drivers in me liking new music is my mood when I hear it for the first (or second) time. There’s nothing particularly stand-out about this track - it’s definitely upbeat and danceable but just thought it was neat to do a 180 in such a short time.

🎧 In My Queue

My typical MO for this section is to include songs that I heard - and liked - but didn’t have much to say about but since I didn’t specifically highlight any of the music from last week, I’ll take the shortcut and do that this week… when I first included the song Automatic from Motorbike James in a previous note I had very specific expectations for the album but after listening it was something else entirely. Go back and listen to Automatic first and then the rest of the album and perhaps you’ll agree. I think Optimisms highlights some of the differences… Pretty straight-forward guitar-driven indie rock on the Major Murphy album but there are no rules against really enjoying that… I got a bit of a CHVRCHES vibe from The Joy Formidable, just considerably less electronic - and I’m a sucker for a pendulum-style back-and-forth of the chords in a song… and, as usual, songs from the singles and albums noted above.

1. The Joy Formidable - Into the Blue

2. Skullcrusher - Storm in Summer

3. fanclubwallet - C’mon Be Cool

4. Motorbike James - Optimisms

5. The Darcys - Swerve

6. Lone Waves - My All

7. Major Murphy - In The Meantime

8. Home Is Where - The Scientific Classification of Stingrays

Subscribe to the In My Queue playlist on Apple Music or Spotify. It’s updated weekly with the new tracks.

Check out my profile Apple Music or Spotify for links to the playlists from previous weeks.

🤘.