A jagged snare crack splits the dark, and “Devourer” lunges forward like a chain‑link fence yanked off its posts. Charming Scars barely a year old in Sulphur Springs lore sound neither tentative nor polite. Carter Luera’s guitar spits rust, Sal Castro’s drums pummel without mercy, and Mike Shirley’s bass rumbles like something subterranean finally surfacing for air. The opening riff…
A pick‑slide screams like a match across sandpaper, and the fuse is lit. “All Is Well In Hell” detonates with a double‑kick barrage that feels less like percussion and more like structural failure, hurling you into Ben Rankin’s purpose‑built inferno. Rankin tracked every instrument inside a suburban Canberra bedroom, yet the mix hits with festival‑stage authority: guitars roar in tectonic…
A rim‑shot cracks the silence, then a bass line sidles in cheeky, elastic, impossible to ignore. “Hold You Close” wastes no time flicking on the porch light of Jonny Akamu’s indie‑funk bungalow, and suddenly the night feels shorter and friendlier. Over the lean groove, Akamu sings with the off‑hand warmth of someone humming a secret while cooking for…
A single, breath‑thin flute note flickers like a candle caught in a draft gone, then suddenly blazing back with upright‑bass thunder and a brushed‑snare shiver. “Run Away – Trio Version” doesn’t soothe; it startles you awake, as if freedom itself just kicked open the fire door. Sanyoo’s three‑piece chemistry feels almost telepathic: Sophie Katharina Schollum’s voice glides over the groove, never floating…
A guitar riff screeches like metal against concrete, slicing the quiet before the horns can cackle and the drums detonate. “We The Living,” American Thought Criminals’ first blow from No Independent Thought, doesn’t request attention it hijacks it, waving a tattered pulp‑novel flag while the amps bleed feedback in Morse‑code bursts. This Knoxville trio have been throttled by bans, bomb threats, and…
Neon chords flicker alive like platform lights at dusk, and before the down‑beat even lands, “The Endless Train” is already sliding out of the station chrome wheels singing, skyline scrolling. Paris‑based Arkhameus engineers the trip with city‑pop polish and widescreen synthwave, yet buries an unspoken clock beneath the groove: every sparkling arpeggio feels borrowed from a future…
A single, trembling piano chord hangs in the air like a held breath the kind just before a prize‑fight bell and suddenly you realise “Redemption For The Winner” is daring you to step into the ring. Berlin‑based sfsf tightens the ropes with a metronomic tick that conjures your image of a countdown, not to detonation, but to personal…
A stage lit by charm, sequins, and suggestion yet somewhere beneath the spotlight, someone is disappearing. Girl in the Box by Bog Witch opens not with drama, but with a hush so precise it feels like breath held too long. That restraint sets the stage for something quietly devastating. Wendy DuMond’s performance isn’t interested in…
Somewhere between a mirage and a memory, Far Out by LACOSA opens like a coded transmission from a place untouched by time. Guitars echo like forgotten messages bouncing off canyon walls jangly, soaked in reverb, and almost reluctant to land. It doesn’t feel like a song that starts. It feels like one you wander into,…
A scream doesn’t always arrive at full volume. Sometimes it festers quietly, patiently until it splits everything open. Virya’s Seed of Doubt begins exactly there, in the moment before eruption, where suspicion takes root and self-trust begins to disintegrate. It doesn’t posture or perform. It burns slowly until there’s nothing left but ash and fury….
