Cam Recommends

If Sunn O))) had to release a “radio-friendly” single it might sound a little like this track from this expansive doom/drone project from Belgium musicians Neptunian Maximism. Derived from an intensive 4-day residency recording in a centuries-old Anglican church building in London, they constructed a listen that is alternatingly pummeling and meditative (and sometimes managing to combine the two). And maybe due to the nature of the live recordings in the ad-hoc recording space, but it also sounds electrifyingly alive and present. The horns hit with an intensity and clarity and somehow rise above the monstrously low bass and drum section and it all swirls around multiple stop-start dirge crescendos that continue to build in intensity until it all dissolves into black wispy vapor. 

Chilean progressive rockers Chercán (great name) introduce their latest album with a stunning 7 minute mini-epic that surges on waves of chugging guitars and tightly wound blasting horns. Singer Martín Peña-Voces really swings for the fences with a high-wire vocal delivery that shifts from hysterical high-register growls to smooth crooning with an ease of a wizened prog-rock veteran. Halfway through the track we get a fantastic breakdown with horns that build tension before what sounds like a wall of distorted guitars and roiling drums build to an orchestrally flourished finale. It’s a bracing piece of music that is only the beginning of a great album. 

A rollicking good time from jazzy instrumental funk rock outfit Calibro 35. Very much puts me in mind of those stalwarts of the genre and friends of the blog The Budos Band (and, to be clear, it looks like Calibro 35 has been in the game for nearly as long as The Budos Band), but Calibro 35 also brings a distinctly cinematic flare, and one evoking a very particular era of gritty grindhouse theaters and midnight screenings with some Morricone-scored Spaghetti Western vibes for good measure. There’s also just enough modern touches (some light record-scratching and beefy bass-end) that elevate it to top-tier status.

With “A Fine Pink Mist” Chico, CA based power-pop rockers bring us an absurdly catchy opening track to their new full-length record that’s overall filled to the brim with fuzzy, buzzy, high-tempo power-pop psych rock. The opening track seems to take bits of vintage Ramones and classic Misfits and then blends them together with the frenetic energy of high-octane Osee’s tracks and finally mixes in a huge amount of just plain tasty musical sugar for a rip-roaring, fist-pumping listen. 

 With a new Anamanaguchi album on the horizon maybe I’m just more primed than usual to respond to any chiptune-adjacent sounds but this new record from Chicago 3-piece Gosh Diggity hit me like a ton of bricks. Mixing emo/pop punk sounds with chiptune isn’t anything new but gosh darn it, Gosh Diggity brings such an energetic and youthful touch that it sounds incredibly fresh. The three members constantly swap the mic and occasionally bring in a gang of background singers when a particularly anthemic moment needs more muscle. Approaching everything from a decidedly youthful (but extremely clear-eyed) perspective, lyrically they often grapple with Real Shit™ like religious intolerance in the face of free expression (“The Season”), environmental collapse (“It’s Too Crowded in Here,” “10 Simple Tricks…”), growing up with all its uncertainty (“12th Grade,” “Display," "Growing Pains"), relationship ennui (“Dog Song”) and social anxiety for former “gifted students” (“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter)”. But they can also bring the humor (“Gosh Diggity Dental" with its hilarious voicemail sample and subsequent black-metal scream) and consistently coax their vintage video game system hardware to produce huge hooks and gummy earworms that seem nearly impossible. It’s only 30 minutes long but Gosh Diggity show that they have the ambition, chops and vision for an incredible musical career. 

I don’t always mean to harp on about genre and its various boundaries, fungible as they are. Genre, is, by definition, a reductive concept in that it seeks to streamline and categorize (indeed, that’s part of why I’ve resisted the urge to attempt genres as label tags). But, as humans, we do have to start somewhere and with this enterprise of discussing art, genre has its uses. And when it comes to the Texas-based experimental musicians Pyramids, a conception of genre is useful in that they crush so many disparate sounds together the only way to even begin to wrap your head around it is to be able to identify its component parts. From hard-hitting reggaeton beats, softly whispered rapped vocals, blasts of trumpets, breakbeats, black metal screams and occasional drops into tuneful danepop, the entirety of Pyramids’ latest full-length, Pythagoras, is a truly bewildering and breathtaking record. “Bones and Eggshells,” while illustrative of the rest of the songs generally, is still just one facet of a mesmerizing whole. If the pithy notion that “rules are only meant to be broken” has any shot at credibility, it’s with Pyramids insistence on salting the earth between every music boundary possible–and we’re all the better for being able to hear their uniquely expansive vision.