Dennis

New album: Lavalove || Tan Lines

Sunburnt hooks and late-night freedom

By / / Alternative Rock, Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

Nearly three years have passed since the release of Lavalove’s debut LP Love Sick, but the Los Angeles-based rockers have lost none of their enthusiasm, on the contrary. Their sophomore album Tan Lines plays like a sun-faded Polaroid you can’t stop flipping over. The ten fresh tunes are louder, looser, and built for sticky dance floors and early beach mornings.

In these songs, love is messy, obsessive, and often short-lived, swinging between infatuation, paranoia, power plays, and the thrill of being someone’s favorite mistake. Underneath the late nights and reckless highs, there’s a constant push for freedom and self-definition, chasing connection and escape while refusing to be pinned down by jobs, expectations, or anyone else’s rules.

The mix of surfy garage-rock and bubblegum pink pop-punk is messy but tantalizing, a fun and summery soundtrack for getting out.



Tan Lines—produced by Anton DeLost—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Pure Noise Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Pure Noise

New album: John Andrews & The Yawns || Streetsweeper

Songs from the edges, where nothing and everything happens

By / / Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Streetsweeper is the fifth album by New Jersey-born/New York City-based singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist John Andrews and his (first imaginary and now sort of real) backing band The Yawns. Written between bike rides, park shifts, and electric piano meditations, the nine folky indie pop songs carry the dust of everyday life without ever sounding weighed down.

We hear the artist observing the world at half-speed and making it feel full. There’s a looseness here, with jangly guitars brushing up against tender, homespun melodies, that feels both deliberate and unbothered. Close your eyes and start with opening track Something To Be Said, an earworm for the ages. The subsequent tracks drift from unpolished neat to charmingly ragged, held together by easy-going vocals and a soft-focus empathy for small moments. It makes for an ideal spring record.



Streetsweeper—performed and produced by John Andrews—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Earth Libraries. Also featuring Noah Bond (drums), Luke Temple (bass, guitar), Keven Louis Lareau (bass), Will Henriksen (fiddle), and Emily Moales (background vocals) on select tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Earth Libraries

New single: Deadly Spirits || Can’t Take It

Organ-fueled swagger and fuzzed-out hooks

By / / Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

Deadly Spirits is a new name in these columns, and I honestly don’t quite understand why we haven’t written about them before, since their sound is right up our alley. The crew from Karlstad, Sweden is all about fuzzed-out guitars, greasy organ lines, and a rhythm section that thumps like a basement party gone feral. The two cuts on the latest 45 from Rogue Records feel loose, loud, and alive: the catchy A-side Can’t Take It gets you moving from the very first second, even harder when the chorus kicks in, and B-side Rattle Queen is hardly far behind. There’s soul in the snarl, with melodies cutting through the grime, and boogaloo grooves rubbing against garage-punk bite. Shaken, not stirred.

Can’t Take It b/w Rattle Queen is out digitally and on 7″ vinyl through Disques Rogue.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Jim Jones All Stars || Cat Fight

Vintage rock’n’roll dragged through the dirt and lit on fire

By / / Blues & Roots, Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

It’s unbelievable that British garage rocker Jim Jones (previously in Thee Hypnotics, Black Moses, The Jim Jones Revue, Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind) has been bringing a sweat-soaked blast of chaos and classic crunch to the stages for about 25 years, and still hasn’t run out of energy. On Cat Fight, the third album with the Jim Jones All Stars, he bottles the intensity of their live shows and lets it spill everywhere.

The twelve new tracks, produced by Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), feel like an exciting barroom brawl of rock ’n’ roll at its most dangerous and least polite, in which influences from rhythm & blues, doo-wop, and funk (and even more subdued moments) seep through more and more. It sounds vintage without being reverent, with saxophones and harmony vocals enriching the mean guitars and electrifying screams. Raw grooves and ragged glory from the edge of control.



Cat Fight—recorded by Kevin Harris, produced by Chris Robinson—is out digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Silver Arrow Records. Featuring Jim Jones (vocals, guitar), Gavin Jay (bass), Elliot Mortimer (piano), Stuart Dace (tenor saxophone, backing vocals), Tom Hodges (baritone saxophone), Harrison Cole (trumpet), Carlton Mounsher(guitar, vocals), Ali Jones (percussion, vocals), and Aidan Sinclair (drums, vocals), with Chris Robinson (vocals), Chuck Prophet (guitar), and Gloria Jones (vocals) guesting on select tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New single: Abby Jeanne and the Shadowband || Queen Bee/Baby Come Love Me

“Oooo yeah yeah yeah (oooh yeah yeah yeah)”

By / / Funk & Soul, Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

From New York City, Abby Jeanne and the Shadowband release a marigold 7″ that echoes 60s girl group soul and garage rock grit into a modern voice. A-side Queen Bee is a bold declaration of independence and self-power, with the narrator rejecting control and asserting dominance in love and identity. In contrast, flipside Baby Come Love Me explores vulnerability and longing, capturing the push-and-pull of a hesitant romance where desire persists despite emotional uncertainty. In the end, it’s Abby Jeanne’s powerhouse vocals, equal parts raw emotion and commanding force, that leave the deepest impression here, carrying both tunes with striking authenticity.

Queen Bee b/w Baby Come Love Me is out digitally and on vinyl 7″ through Food of Love.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Abes Bones || ATLAS

From a Battlin' Sky to a Flute Groove

By / / Country & Folk / Leave a Comment

We have come to know Tucson, Arizona-based slacker rock outfit Abes Bones as an idiosyncratic group that pays little heed to conventional norms, and their latest full-length album ATLAS is no exception. The twelve new songs range from melancholic folk (From the Bed of a Truck Called Frank) to instrumental party music (Mule Fat, Flute Groove) and alt-country-tinged indie rock (Oh Teresa!, A Pair of Vintage Levi’s Jeans), sometimes shorter than two minutes (Shamrock (Take Me Back!)) and sometimes longer than seven (the beautiful Battlin’ Sky), but always rich in instrumentation and harmonies. Atmospheric and colorful.



ATLAS—produced by James Willis—is out now digitally and on cassette via Coyote Oak. Featuring James Willis (keys, guitar, lead vocals, percussion), Rachel Cummings (flute, backing vocals, percussion), Shane Harkins (bass, backing vocals, percussion), Christian Payne (guitar, keys, backing vocals, percussion), and Ben Pearson (drums, percussion, backing vocals). with Dylan Barnes (keys) guesting on the opening track.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Wasted Youth Club || Shared Whining

Loud and restless as always, catchier than ever

By / / Psych, Punk / Leave a Comment

Dutch psych-punk quartet Wasted Youth Club return with Shared Whining, stretching their sound ambitiously in five loud tracks that explode with fuzz and energy. Sven van Vessem (vocals, guitar), Tim Habraken (guitar), Reinier Wiskerke (bass), and Jitze Miedeme (drums) have been around for a few years, and know how to get their audience moving, but rarely have they sounded as catchy as in the new songs, with Bad Blood and Lights Out leading the way. RIYL: Parquet Courts, Ty Segall, Frankie and the Witch Fingers.


The Shared Whining EP is out digitally and on cassette through Le Cèpe Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: GOONS! || Never Go Back

Vintage adrenaline in amplified form

By / / Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

The garage rock revival just keeps going, and today it is GOONS! keeping the fire burning with their full-length debut album Never Go Back. It is a new project by five masked musicians who wish to remain anonymous for the time being (those who delve into the record’s credits or the video below will spot some familiar names), but in any case, everything indicates that we are dealing with some old souls who have drunk too much from the magic pot of tried-and-true rock ‘n’ roll.

In the eleven songs here, you will hear some borrowed riffs and hooks (most obvious in Land of a Thousand Crimes, leaning on Wilson Pickett’s Land of 1000 Dances), along with swaggering rhythms and beguiling vocals. It is a sweaty, high-octane blast that captures vintage spirit while sounding thrillingly alive today. Utterly hipshaking fun.



Never Go Back—recorded by Graham Tichy & Troy Ponl—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Hi-Tide Recordings.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Hi-Tide

New EP: The Berns || On The Run

A genre-blurring debut fueled by nostalgia and raw inspiration

By / / Alternative Rock, Indie Pop, Surf / Leave a Comment

I’ve been enjoying On The Run, the genre-defying first EP from Ottawa-based indie band The Berns, for two weeks now, and chances are you’ll like it just as much. In five versatile songs, Joe Edgerton and Liam Mastersmith pull out all the stops to show what they have to offer. Guitar-driven storytelling full of mood, melody, and memory make a compelling debut.

Opening track Circles Around the Sun is a country-tinged, radio-ready track that feels expansive, loose, and lush. From there, it shifts gears into the rocking Roadrunner and the surf-soaked To Shoot an Elephant. Then Easy brings these threads together, before winding down with the bluesy ballad Get What You Give.


The On The Run EP, mixed and mastered by Nolan Bell, is out digitally (self-released).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Volcanics || In 3-D

No frills, just thrills

By / / Surf / Leave a Comment

Californian surf rock trio The Volcanics return with a new full-length album, In 3-D, a technicolor blast of instrumental power that stays true to their no-frills origins while dialing up the spectacle. More than 20 years into their career, so they know exactly how to digest the raw DNA of proto-punk and pub rock into an exciting surf sound, bursting out of the speakers with optimal effect.

There’s a playful, cinematic theme running through the 12 new tunes (including one sung by Jarrod Keith, Spin Out—furthermore, the vocals are limited to shouts and sound bites), but the core remains loud, fast, and unapologetically fun. It’s a retro-soaked ride along original melodies, with swagger in overdrive. Guitars snarl, rhythms surge, hips shake.



In 3-D is out digitally and on vinyl LP through Hi-Tide Recordings. Featuring Frankie De La Torre (guitar), Jarrod Keith (bass), and Ben Marazzi (drums).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Hi-Tide

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