Cam Recommends

Ace of Spit’s new record, II, blazes by in a cacophonous twenty seven minutes. Nearly all of its ten tracks have their feet fully pressed down on the garage rock/rockabilly accelerator and while not all tracks have vocals, when they emerge, they’re sung with the appropriate wild abandon of a grease-haired hesher. That said, exactly halfway through the record, they slide in with “Parts List” which stands out for sounding so dissimilar to the rest of the project that it’s kind of breathtaking. Substituting distorted electronic drumbeats for the kit and really hammering those pedal effects until the guitar is unrecognizable, the song clatters around until it really breaks down into its component–ahem-parts for the back stretch. It’s a great little interlude that shows that Ace of Spit might have ambitions beyond their (admittedly great) other divebar-ready tunes would suggest. 

I guess I can’t really resist a song with a good accordion part but there's even more to like here from genre-smashers Lucha Luna as they blast huge reggaeton beats over delicate guitar lines and hard hitting vocals. If you can, it’s best to roll all your windows down and turn the volume waaaay up for this one. 

Marcel Sletten’s new album is an incredible work of sound manipulation and digital collage, with giant swaths of noise descending upon the listener like pieces of carved black marble. Playing like some kind of halfway point between the slowcore down-tuned guitar blasts of Sunn O))) and the neon-glow sky-high synths of Fuck Buttons, the whole record is meditatively invigorating and challenging without being punishing (indeed, Sletten provides several tracks containing more sedate vibes). The title track, “Psycho Narcissus,” is a good place to start, but, really, the whole thing is really worth your time.

Just listen to that bass riff! The snap of the strings is mixed right up close to the listener and if you like a great bassline like I do then you don’t need anything else to recommend here, just push play. But if you do need a bit more, just keep listening! The song ramps up and with very little actual amplification this band are able to kick up quite a bit of dust, coming off something like a stoner rock band playing MTV’s Unplugged (or a Tiny Desk for those not old enough to remember the former semi-institution). The singer really sells the whole bit too with just enough rasp and edge, making this not only a great bit of music to headbang to but as a fantastic opening track to a record packed with great jams.

Time to add another song to that little indie rock subgenre of “self-deprecating breakup song where I sing about how much I suck and you’re right to go on without me…but maaaaybe it’s also kinda your fault?” (See also, “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service or  “Madder Red,” by Yeasayer). Set against gentle banjo plucking and warm production with plaintive vocal stylings, it’s easy to think it’ll be a simple love song until we get to this couplet around which the entire song revolves: “I hate myself so much, you might as well hate me too. I’m a big fucking loser the best thing about me is that I still care about you.” He sings of gentle memories, compares his lover to a storm: all very romantic indeed, until he drops that little “buuuuut maybe…” line: “are you really gonna die on that hill that you couldn’t even climb?” The song, of course, comes back to its central theme (after a very Sparklehorse-worthy guitar solo) as all songs like this do, but that little kernel of doubt oozes into the rest of the song especially as it plays out without a final resolution, just letting that seeming penultimate note hang in the air. 

I don’t mean to just throw a bunch of genre tags at you but, like, hear me out with this one as I try to describe the sound of Zu: progressive jazzy-fusion instrumental stoner math rock. If that sounds like an eye rolling chore I promise it’s not! Start with “Kether” which starts out in face-melting mode with ferocious guitar riff and pummeling drums and then only goes harder from there as synths blast their way into the stratosphere and at the two minute mark of this seven minute piece they introduce a thundering saxophone/horn section before descending into what sounds like a hardccore breakdown except they just ride it out for another 60 seconds, never once coming up for air. At the halfway point it all drops out and they rebuild it again, this time letting the drummer go wild as the synths and guitar duke it out for the remainder. It’s an exhilarating listen and if you dig it, then you’re in luck as the incredible album it’s taken from is over an hour long! 

Julianna Barwick’s Nepenthe is one of my favorite records and it got me through a particularly rough time in my life. Readers of the blog will know how much I adore Mary Lattimore (if I’m not on record yet stating that I think “Wawa By the Ocean” is maybe the best song ever written then consider this that record). So the prospect of a full length record from them instantly made their recent album, Tragic Magic, my most anticipated of 2026. And, ironically, even though both artist’s works themselves ask for patience, I didn’t have to wait at all for this, a most miraculous of projects. I want to highlight “The Four Sleeping Princesses,” though of the course the entire album is worth your time. Starting with an insistent chord progression, provided by Lattimore and her harp, the song builds on itself, layering in washes of Barwick’s ghostly vocals until it becomes a near unstoppable force by the midpoint. But then something interesting happens as that intensity very gradually fades away as the voices take center stage, briefly submerging the fraying harp in a sonic bath before all finally coalescing around one final note and fading into the aether. 

There’s not much info out there about Georgia (the country, not the US state) based musicians Stonecult and their fiery brand of instrumental stoner rock: an instagram page, links to streaming sites, a jam on youtube…But I’m hoping it’s the sign of a brand new band who feel they don’t have anything to prove and not that they intend to never put more out there because, damn if this 15 minute single isn’t a fantastic calling card. The production is immaculate, for one, with the bass in particular sounding so heavy and twangy at the same time. And while it lacks vocals, the personalities of the players still come through via expressive solos and the overall sci-fi atmosphere of the thing. I really can’t wait to see more. 

Voices from the Lake is made up of producers Neel and Donato Dozzy. Sharp-eyed readers will remember I thought Dozzy’s Magda was one of the best albums of 2024 so it’s not surprising for me to recommend this new collaboration, but it’s also not a record I can let just pass by without comment because it’s that good! Neel perhaps brings a bit more “pop” sensibility (only in the loosest sense of that word) so most of the tracks are a digestible 5 minutes or less and the relentless repetition that was deployed on Magma here seems less intended for purposes of psychedelic meditation and instead as the propulsive engine for a percolating and ever-evolving soundscape. 

A tune so dusty, well-worn and nostalgic in its spaghetti western meets Calexico vibes that it’s kind of hard to believe it’s as recent as it is. Starting with strummed guitar before layering in the lap steel and wistful vocals, the song then shuffles into an easy lope as it vibes along, evoking images of vast orange sunsets against a harsh darkening landscape. 

You’d be forgiven for not making it to the bottom of my big list for highlights from 2025’s Q4 but I really don’t want the tunes from this fantastic hard-prog rock band from Finland to slip through the cracks. They actually put out two albums in 2025 and while I recommended their output from December for the previous post (obviously) I want to now recommend a track from the record they dropped in May. Not to repeat myself but I can’t conjure anything better than what I wrote two weeks back when I said their style of psychedelic post-rock “occasionally drifts into dreamy territory before compressing into little mini-novas of sound, exploding out in all directions with a grandiose, bright white heat."

Here’s where I usually drop a fairly long preamble in which I try to sum up my year in music to some degree or another, whether it’s trying to find disparate themes or some other common touchstone. But this year?