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Uboa’s fifth album Impossible Light almost never made it out of the dark. From its initial conception in 2018, this record went to hell and back, dragging its immensity and too-big-to-hold emotion through the torturous process of translation to sound and returned triumphantly as a full-bodied record in a distinct new style.
 
Impossible Light begins where Uboa's 2019 breakout album The Origin of My Depression left off — and ends somewhere entirely different. The Origin stunned with its methodical use of doom, harsh noise, ambient soundscapes while documenting a raw, unhindered account of Xandra Metcalfe’s experiences with her transition and her struggles with mental health. Over time The Origin steadily grew a cult-like following which developed into a full-fledged internet community focused around noise, neurodiversity and transness. While Uboa’s signature style of highly polished, cinematic ‘hypernoise' is front and center in Impossible Light, there is also a daring departure into the genres of industrial metal/rock, setting it apart from any other Uboa release thus far and distinguishing it from other contemporary noise records.
 
Metcalfe kept the lyrical content of this record as a time capsule of the catastrophic ups and downs and rapidly changing environments within herself and in the world from 2018-2023. Key collaborators include Blood of a Pomegranate, Otay:onii, Charlie Looker and Haela Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy. Impossible Light dives fearlessly into queer sexuality, trans embodiment, grief for those who couldn't make it, solidarity for those facing unimaginable discrimination, the toxic spread of transphobic hatred and misinformation, and the ultimate hope of recovery from trauma and mental anguish. This is a record about the light at the end of the tunnel and the power it takes to keep moving towards it.

Track Listing:

1. Phthalates
2. Endocrine Disruptor
3. A Puzzle
4. Gordian Worm (ft. Blood of a Pomegranate)
5. Pattern Screamers
6. Jawline
7. Weaponised Dysphoria
8. Sleep Hygiene
9. Impossible Light / Golden Flower (ft. Otay::onii)

In an artistic landscape fueled by gamified promotional tactics, spasmodic virality, and manufactured controversy, the amount of noise that independent artists must cut through can seem overwhelming. Yet, it’s the most genuine statements — often those expecting no audience at all — that overcome. The Origin of My Depression, the 2019 album from Australian experimentalist Uboa, proves just that; presenting such a deeply affecting mix of dark ambient, noise, and extreme metal, it all but demanded its unplanned but unsurprising cult following.

With several tracks that began as live improvisations recorded in the living-room-turned-bedroom of a dilapidated queer sharehouse, and others recorded from live sets in venues, The Origin of My Depression exhibits the spontaneity and ineffability of extreme emotions. Xandra Metcalfe, the mind behind Uboa, offers sonic representations of her anxieties, depressive thoughts, and lived experiences throughout the record’s seven songs, even if the origins of these feelings escape her. The result, intensely and authentically personal, undeniably resonates, as The Origin of My Depression spread through online communities through sheer word of mouth upon its initial release. Now, four years later, the record stands as a defining statement of late 2010s underground music, and it takes just one listen to see why.

Uboa has spent the better part of a decade dipping into every corner of heavy music. From harsh noise to dark ambient, glitch to doom metal, Metcalfe’s output, though sonically varied, remains consistent in her use of such styles to express her mental state at the time of writing. Whether it's her live performances (described as a panic attack presented on stage) or her recorded material, her eclectic approach to dark music has led Uboa to become an unlikely but deserving cult figure in online music.

Track Listing:

1. Detransitioning
2. The Origin Of My Depression
3. Lay Down and Rot
4. Epilation Joy
5. Please Don't Leave Me
6. An Angel of Great and Terrible Light
7. Misspent Youth

There’s a sick irony to how a country that extols rhetoric of individual freedom, in the same gasp, has no problem commodifying human life as if it were meat to feed the insatiable hunger of capitalism. If this is American nihilism taken to its absolute zenith, then God’s Country, the first full length record from Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is the aural embodiment of such a concept.

Having lived alongside the heaps of toxic refuse that the band derives its name from, the fatalism of daily life in the American Midwest permeates throughout the works of Chat Pile, and especially so on its debut LP. Exasperated by the pandemic, the hopelessness of climate change, the cattle shoot of global capitalism, and fueled by “...lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC,” God’s Country is as much of an acknowledgement of the Earth’s most assured demise as it is a snarling violent act of defiance against it. Within its over 40 minute runtime, God’s Country displays both Chat Pile’s most aggressively unhinged and contemplatively nuanced moments to date, drawing from its preceding two EPs and its score for the 2021 film, Tenkiller. In the band’s own words, the album is, at its heart, “Oklahoma’s specific brand of misery.” A misery intent on taking all down with it and its cacophonous chaos on its own terms as opposed to idly accepting its otherwise assured fall. This is what the end of the world sounds like. God’s Country is out via The Flenser.

In just a couple of years, Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile has made nothing short of a profound impression on the underground music discourse. Formed in the spring of 2019 by Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (Guitar), Stin (Bass), and Captain Ron (Drums), the noise-rock quartet would release two EPs that same year, titled This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please respectively. Spurred on by both a hearty run of live performances and a swiftly growing online fanbase, Chat Pile became a staple name among its genre contemporaries thanks to its hellish synthesis of noise rock, sludge, industrial, and mid 90’s nu-metal. In 2020, the band would sign with San Francisco underground music label, The Flenser, to put out its upcoming full length debut. That following year, Chat Pile kept its roll going, with accolades including composing the score for the indie film, Tenkiller, as well as releasing a 7” split with portrayal of guilt in the summer. Despite its creation only a couple of years ago, Chat Pile has already played alongside a number of acclaimed underground acts, including Street Sects, portrayal of guilt, Psychic Graveyard and Distorted Pony .

Track Listing:

1. Slaughterhouse
2. Why
3. Pamela
4. Wicked Puppet Dance
5. Anywhere
6. Tropical Beaches, Inc.
7. The Mask
8. I Don't Care If I Burn
9. grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg

Like the towering mounds of toxic waste from which it gets its namesake, the music of Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is a suffocating, grotesque embodiment of the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. It figures that a band with this abrasive, unrelenting, and outlandish of a sound has stuck as strong of a chord as it has. Dread has replaced the American dream, and Chat Pile’s music is a poignant reminder of that shift – a portrait of an American rock band molded by a society defined by its cold and cruel power systems.

Though very much on-brand with Chat Pile’s signature flavor of cacophonous, sludgy noise rock, the band’s shift to a global thematic focus on Cool World not only compliments the broader experimentations it employs with their songwriting but also how they dissect the album’s core theme of violence. Melded into the band’s twisted foundational sound are traces of other eclectic genre stylings, with examples of gazy, goth-tinged dirges to abrasive yet anthemic alt/indie-esque hooks and off-kilter metal grooves only scratching the surface of what can be heard in the album’s ten tracks.

Besides stylistically stretching the boundaries of the Chat Pile sound, Cool World is also the band’s first record to have someone else handle mixing duties, with Ben Greenberg (Uniform) capturing and further amplifying the quartet’s unmistakably outsider and folk-art edge.

While Chat Pile’s debut album was plenty disturbing with its B-movie-inspired interpretation of a “real American horror story”, what the band depicts on Cool World is unsettling not just from its visceral noise rock onslaught, but from depicting how all sorts of atrocities are pretty much standard parts of modern existence. In film terms, think something like a Criterion arthouse film by way of schlocky grindhouse splatterfest: undeniably gratuitous and thrilling in the moment but leaving a looming dread in the back of one’s mind for how close the horrors depicted mirror reality.

Track Listing:

1. I Am Dog Now
2. Shame
3. Frownland
4. Funny Man
5. Camcorder
6. Tape
7. The New World
8. Masc
9. Milk of Human Kindness
10. No Way Out

Caribou - Suddenly (Black Vinyl)

Suddenly is the most surprising and unpredictable Caribou album to date. Though it retains the trademark Caribou warmth and technicolor, this album is littered with swerves and left turns. Songs drop out and morph into something else entirely just as they’re hitting their stride, samples chopped up beyond all recognition burst out of nowhere. Suddenly refers to the moments of dramatic and unexpected change that occur at points in any life and within any family - universal themes that catch you off guard and change your life in a heartbeat.

Tracklisting

1. Sister
2. You and I
3. Sunny's Time
4. New Jade
5. Home
6. Lime
7. Never Come Back
8. Filtered Grand Piano
9. Like I Loved You
10. Magpie
11. Ravi
12. Cloud Song

Caribou - Honey (Black Vinyl)

Dan Snaith's latest album, "Honey," marks an intriguing new phase for Caribou. Over more than two decades Dan Snaith has had many guises. After putting every ounce of himself into Our Love and Suddenly, for his sixth Caribou album Snaith now pulls himself away a little in search of music that isn’t about any one person and is available to everybody. Huge dancefloor tracks twinkle, shimmer and surprise in a way only Snaith’s productions can but with a freshness that defines an artist who is too excited by music-making to ever truly settle into any one sound. 

There’s never been a Caribou record that sounds like the last, so change here is just as comforting as constant. They say expect the unexpected and you’ll never be surprised; well there’s plenty here to be surprised by, but then with a Caribou record you’d never expect anything less. "Honey" captures Snaith's curiosity and joy in music-making, offering a fresh yet quintessential Caribou experience.

Tracklisting

1. Broke My Heart
2. Honey
3. Volume
4. Do Without You
5. Come Find Me
6. August 20:24
7. Dear Life
8. Over Now
9. Campfire
10. Climbing
11. Only You
12. Got To Change

Caribou - Honey (Limited Indies Yellow Coloured Vinyl)

Dan Snaith's latest album, "Honey," marks an intriguing new phase for Caribou. Over more than two decades Dan Snaith has had many guises. After putting every ounce of himself into Our Love and Suddenly, for his sixth Caribou album Snaith now pulls himself away a little in search of music that isn’t about any one person and is available to everybody. Huge dancefloor tracks twinkle, shimmer and surprise in a way only Snaith’s productions can but with a freshness that defines an artist who is too excited by music-making to ever truly settle into any one sound. 

There’s never been a Caribou record that sounds like the last, so change here is just as comforting as constant. They say expect the unexpected and you’ll never be surprised; well there’s plenty here to be surprised by, but then with a Caribou record you’d never expect anything less. "Honey" captures Snaith's curiosity and joy in music-making, offering a fresh yet quintessential Caribou experience.

Tracklisting

1. Broke My Heart
2. Honey
3. Volume
4. Do Without You
5. Come Find Me
6. August 20:24
7. Dear Life
8. Over Now
9. Campfire
10. Climbing
11. Only You
12. Got To Change

Formed in Fredericia, Denmark in 2015, Lifesick create brutal and brutally honest songs with lyrics inspired by the turbulent nature of life. Musically influenced by Swedish death metal, Lifesick's authentic and explosive mixture of crushing tones and modern breakdowns create an uncompromising sound and vision.

Track Listing:

1. Death Wish
2. Peace Through Superior Firepower
3. Double Cross
4. Hollow Treats
5. Legacy of Misery
6. Poems for My Funeral
7. Liquid Courage
8. Loved by None
9. The Mourning March
10. Straight Jacket

Tokyo aggressors Kruelty have announced a new EP via Closed Casket Activities in Profane Usurpation. Set for a November 22nd release, the four-track presentation follows the traction earned from the band's 2023 EP, Untopia delivered via Profound Lore. 

Joining forces again with longtime friend and collaborator Taylor Young, who has worked with the band since their 2020 effort, A Dying Truth, the tandem curate a compelling mesh of punk, hardcore, grind and death metal that lands with as much power as precision. 

Track Listing:

1. Absolute Terror
2. Profane Usurpation
3. Bloodless Mankind 
4. No Fear of Judgement

For over a decade, Drug Church have been building a very strong case that they're the best loud guitar band in the game; their fifth full-length PRUDE-a 28-minute blast of aggression, melody, irreverence, and genuine heart-feels like the undeniable proof. The album is so downright satisfying it tricks you into thinking there's nothing all that surprising about a difficult-to-pigeonhole punk band from Albany, NY, with a name like Drug Church somehow having a career at all, much less one that would last over 10 years and qualify them as the best band going. But before you start trying to think of who might have them beat (good luck), consider what just might be the key to Drug Church's unexpected staying power: Don't take it too seriously.

Track Listing:

1. Mad Care
2. Myopic
3. Hey Listen
4. Demolition Man
5. Business Ethics
6. Slide 2 Me
7. Chow
8. The Bitters
9. Yankee Trails
10. Peer Review

In the little over a decade since Neck Deep formed in the Barlow brothers' spare room in Wrexham, Wales, a lot has changed. But now, as the band stand on the brink of their fifth, self-titled full-length, there's an acknowledgement that the more things change, the more - in some ways at least - they stay the same. True enough, this collection encompasses everything the Walians have excelled at across their career, enhanced and dialed to 11.

Track Listing:

1. Dumbstruck Dumbf**k
2. Sort Yourself Out
3. This Is All My Fault
4. We Need More Bricks
5. Heartbreak Of The Century
6. Go Outside!
7. Take Me With You
8. They May Not Mean To (But They Do)
9. It Won’t Be Like This Forever
10. Moody Weirdo

Produced by Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale, "The Romance Of Affliction" stands as the quintessential SeeYouSpaceCowboy record. It's violent and vicious, harrowing but oddly comforting, bleak yet beautiful. It's a complex and compelling mix of genres that defies categorization and which truly places the band in a world of their own. 

Track Listing:

1. Life As A Soap Opera Plot, 26 Years Running
2. Misinterpreting Constellations
3. The End To A Brief Moment Of Lasting Intimacy
4. Sharpen What You Can
5. With Arms That Bind And Lips That Lock
6. Losing Sight Of The Exit...
7. ...And My Faded Reflection In Your Eyes
8. Intersecting Storylines To The Same Tragedy
9. Ouroboros As An Overused Metaphor
10. Anything To Take Me Anywhere But Here
11. The Peace In Disillusion
12. Melodrama Between Two Entirely Bored Individuals
13. The Romance Of Affliction