Queen City Sounds
By Tom Murphy
Published Issue 130, October 2024
American Culture – Hey Brother, It’s Been Awhile
It would be too easy to compare this to an alchemical blend of influences Loveless, Screamadelica, George Best, Meat Puppets II and the first Stone Roses record. But the moment you get into the songs the feelings those touchstones evoke runs through it all. American Culture has taken any borrowed sonic inclinations and crafted a record imbued with a vital vulnerability and irresistible melodies that help to make its songs of heartbreak, desolation and redemption have an effect like a gentle catharsis. And one in which you get to experience some intensely heavy moments out of a life on the edge that may resonate with your own times of personal darkness.
BleakHeart – Silver Pulse
This is a deep exploration of themes of mortality and the limitations of human existence from a psychological and physical perspective. The guitar work is at turns heavy and ethereal. The synth work shines in tracing an expansive yet introspective tonal trajectory with the processional rhythms accenting what feels like a journey to the inevitable end we’ll all experience. With this release it is the arresting and melodious vocals of Kiki GaNun and Kelly Schilling together that powerfully express the direct human experience of struggling with forces beyond our control.
Glenn Ross – Troublesome
Glenn Ross is rightfully well-known for his superb and artful event and portrait photography. With this album Ross demonstrates his mastery of dusky and brooding Americana as well. The moonlit and pastoral tenor of the songs lends the record the feeling of a cinematic experience, a High Plains noir written with the bittersweet and tragic sensibility of Ed Brubaker collaborating with Chris Isaak on a soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch Western.
The Milk Blossoms – Open Portal
The lyrics of Open Portal sound like the distillation of private thoughts into glimmer jewels of personal poetry. They are vivid and poignant stories told with a radical vulnerability unhidden by production. Harmony Rose’s entrancing vocals are at the forefront, fitting for the album’s sometimes startlingly honest observations. But there is a depth to the production that feels immersive, like you’re invited into a private world where personal secrets are shared in a way that invites you to be more open with your own feelings, because the brain can get muddled with blocked emotions. On this album Rose and the band demonstrate a talent for expressing tenderness with musical elegance punctuated by passages of fiery exuberance
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – Kinnery of Lupercalia; Buell Legion
Although this is the second part of a trilogy of records that began with 2022’s Kinnery of Lupercalia; Undelivered Legion by Munly & The Lupercalians, it is the first SCAC album in eight years. Old fans will appreciate the rich storytelling, highly detailed musicianship and fantastic vocal interplay that has long been the hallmark of the band’s sound. But this record is noisier and more experimental in its soundscaping than its predecessors, lending this set of songs a more cinematic yet spontaneous sensibility more reflective of the theatrical live show.
Trees Inside Out – IOVI
The pedigree of this band is recommendation enough to give this album of jazz inflected shoegaze a listen. Roger Green formerly of The Czars and Myshel Prasad and Kit Peltzel who were once in Space Team Electra feature prominently. As do former STE guitarists Bill Kunkel and Todd Ayers, not to mention Sean Eden of Luna. Of course the songs dive deep into transporting realms of glittery/gritty guitar melody and emotionally charged lyricism built around realms of experience where personal and collective mythology intersect. It is an incandescent set of songs about love and loss and the rediscovery of the forces that drive one’s life with inspiration, rather than staying mired in the mere impulse of functional necessity.
Vahco – I’m Not Dead
The R&B inflected vocals suit the electronic dream pop of this album while its relatively lo-fi production gives it the quality of an eclectic 1980s art pop record. The songwriter went through some periods of abusive and self-destructive behavior prior to writing these songs. He lays out those ghosts and demons in poetic form throughout this sometimes uncomfortably haunted but consistently well-crafted set of songs.
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Tom Murphy is a Denver-based music writer and science fiction/fantasy/horror creator. He is also a musician, historian and itinerant filmmaker.
Check out Tom’s September 2024 install of Queen City Sounds in case you missed it, or head to our Explore section to see more of his past reviews.