If you were to take everything rolling around in Alex Turner’s head and make one cohesive record out of it then you might have something like Viruette’s Waylaid in Aspic. Formed in Boston in 2022, the trio that makes up this relatively newer outfit has assembled a collection of songs for Waylaid in Aspic that capture a smattering of styles and gives music fans a range of diverse Indie Rawk to sink thier teeth into.
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Lowell’s own Fatigue continues to impress. A veritable sonic chameleon, the Darkwave/Electro hybrid’s lush sound expands far beyond simply just one or two genres especially on latest single “Hush” which sees the local outfit flourishing when faced with a strategic sonic shift.
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Whenever we add an anticipated album to our fabled (Get it???) upcoming year preview list, most times without hearing a single note of new music, there’s always this slight bit of trepidation that maybe the band we’ve put our faith in won’t deliver (While some just don’t actually deliver a record in said upcoming year as intended but that’s a whole other post). Texan Melodic Death Metallers Hinayana was one of those bands blindly put on our 2023 preview post without any new music out but based on the strength of 2020’s Death of the Cosmic (Still on repeat here), we had a feeling.
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As HUGE Kyuss fans we’ll take our lumps and admit that initially we didn’t give …Only A Suggestion, the debut album from vocalist John Garcia’s Hermano, the time of day it deserved. Sure, we gobbled up all the post-Kyuss offerings from all the ex-members with Garcia, in particular, having an impressive (Albeit short-lived in most cases) body of work that went from Slo-Burn to Unida until rejoining with drummer Brant Bjork and, at different times, bassists Nick Oliveri and Scott Reeder for Kyuss Lives which eventually became Vista Chino before putting out some proper solo releases.
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A record hasn’t hit us like Friendship Commanders’ third full-length, MASS, in quite some time. Partly because sonically it owns and the other part due to the content which sees singer, songwriter, guitarist, and author Buick Audra crafting a concept album (And accompanying book) based on her time living on and off in our forever home of Massachusetts.
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We don’t watch a lot of reality TV but when we do we definitely get invested enough and get bummed when the higher ups overlook the underdogs we usually root for. While the Rock & Roll Rumble is by no means the same as reality TV, the fact of the matter is that the annual competition is reality. And we definitely had some favorites who some would consider underdogs after some lengthy research leading up to our preview coverage. One of those artists was Salem’s own ONE FALL who, being a relatively new band with only a few shows under their belt at the time, managed to win the whole damn thing! And from the performances we saw throughout the course of the Rumble we could see why.
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Did you know that there was a companion novella to Mike Hickey’s 2021 short film That Halloween??? Neither did we! Until we met the director quite unexpectedly earlier in the year at Salem Horror Fest and he told us all about it! Being a completist, and because we loved the short which you can read about here, we just had to get our hands on a copy. And like most books in our possession we didn’t get to it in a timely manner… until now!
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“Listen at your own risk!” might be the final line uttered by Tairrie B. Murphy at the conclusion of the debut single from new outfit SWTEVL (Pronounced “Sweet Evil”) but the only risk we can envision is listeners missing out by not taking a chance on the righteous Rawk flowing out of the speakers when “Hellzapoppin'” is on!
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Were you properly immersed in the new concept album called MASS from Friendship Commanders? Did you find yourself completely captivated and intrigued by “Dissonance”, the spoken-word closing track on that record? Well, the story doesn’t end there!
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We covered a LOT of the 2023 Salem Horror Fest selections but realized, after a point, that some of our overflow following the festival’s conclusion might be best held for a rainy day… or perhaps a Spooky Season??? One of those leftover SHF reviews of ours is for The Ones You Didn’t Burn from writer/director Elise Finnerty which, unlike most of our coverage at the time, is conveniently ready to watch as soon as you finish reading this (Links below)!
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