This 7″ is a coup-de-grace for Harding, who has the rhythm section of Dinosaur Jr. playing on the somewhat poppy A-side (think late-era Hüsker Dü or Gumball, but dirgier), and Emperor X helping out on the B-side’s “Pure Reason,” a screamo-hardcore punk track with the same kind of smirk you’d find on the Beastie Boys’ Some Old Bullshit. The final track—Harding solo—goes back to pop, but the lo-fi kind that you can only get when remixing something originally recorded to cassette (and this one may have originally been recorded in 1996, if I’m reading the liner notes correctly). Overall, it is an excursion into the 90s, but the good side, the one where grunge had already petered out but boy bands hadn’t quite yet reemerged. It’s worth getting for the harmonies on the A-side alone, and as a bonus, Harding used his pull with David Lynch (who he’d worked for in the past) to use a rather delicious photo of Mädchen Amick from Twin Peaks for the inner sleeve.

—D.M. Collins

Commitments follows and hides and turns corners like recurring hallucinations. Like lovers, too. See, the song titles are romanticky and full of thoughts. The beast awakes, whistling and sniffling on “Weight.” “Dark Rooms, Illuminate” is a ghost taking shape, its flesh solidifying as your eyes peel open and a gasp tries to form itself, by the bed. A “Snuffclutch” drags itself across the street, followed by a chain that keeps skipping cracks, and mutters strangeness in the ear. Some songs are short little moments, while others hypnotically stretch out like swoopy fabric made of worms. “Attachments” is folky on the outside, then bursts open, spilling a delicious yolk of glitchy beats. This is the sound of now, the 2010s. “Rhizome” will run up and down your spine as if your body is a set of stairs. Galapagoose is for fans of Flying Lotus and Daedelus. Commitments is strange and soothing, like technology. This programmer, instrumentalist, monomer from Down Under likes to start off simple but gets sophisticated and unusual as the seconds turn into minutes turn into more voices and footsteps and breathing. He fits perfectly in the extended family of Alpha Pup via Daedelus’ imprint, Magical Properties. There’s so much magic and beat crunching and crackling and bells and ebbing m and w sounds and outer space, and not much heavy bass and a lot of snapping beat fingers. See “A Time For Us.” Put this record on and spend the day in a revolving door. “One Who Can’t Move” is so sweet, Julie Andrews set it as her ringtone.

—Daiana Feuer

Let’s set Gizzelle’s long-awaited new LP down right between Big Mama Thornton—marvel at the impossibly spot-on version of “Pretty Good Love,” with Alex Vargas gnashing out perfect “Ya swear?” back-ups—and Barbara Lynn, whose songs she ably adopts and whose devastating combination of defiance and heartbreak (“You’re Gonna Leave Me,” stand-out “I’m A Good Woman”) she completely inhabits. When she’s up, she’s angry, and when she’s down, she’s despairing, and although Gizzelle touches other kinds of songs, those are the ones that will stick with you most. Anybody who remembers her harrowing “Baby Please Don’t Go” from their list of Records I Should Have Bought When They First Came Out, Dammit knows how well Gizzelle does desolation, and how powerful it sounds with the Wild Records wrecking crew behind her. R&S is about split between R&B pounders—“Seven Day Fool,” “Scorched,” “The Place,” and other hard-won original 45s you may be lucky enough to own—and the real slow ones where the band pulls back into the corners and lets Gizzelle sing like hell. The spirit of Etta James is all over this, but this isn’t just an attempt to mimic a master; Gizzelle’s “I Would Rather Go Blind” is more an answering echo to Etta, alive because of its own particular tragedy and experience. If you told me this came out 40 years ago, I’d believe you—but just because this is a hurt for the ages.

—Chris Ziegler

This album is hard to pin down, but I’m finally realizing a pattern here: folks like producer/collaborator Raleigh Moncrief, who might have done booming sets at Low End Theory three years ago opening for Flying Lotus, are getting way more gentle even than the smoothest sample-soul we’ve heard in the recent past. This album starts with a male chorus, echoed finger-snapping, and an occasional flamenco guitar strum—fuck, it could be a spaghetti western ballad (or, more likely, a Spindrift song) if it didn’t also have some electronic beats behind it that become more insistent and dancy as the song progresses. And things ebb in and out of being dance music for the rest of the album. Watered Lawn in its soul is a hip-hop/electronic lullaby spit out with beats and growling keyboards, but its heart is devoted to the acoustic musicianship (even looped handclaps) that Moncrief mastered playing guitar for Zach Hill and various post-rock bands last decade. And hey, is that the human voice I hear? “The Right Idea” almost has the vocal harmonies from the Velvet Underground’s “I Love You,” and the spirit of Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds and Smile vocal arrangements is probably more prevalent here than it will be on the upcoming reformed Beach Boys tour. True, a lot of this stuff sounds a lot like Baths’ last album, but it avoids Baths’ most ambient chillwave tendencies. And it’s as likely to attract indie rockers as fans as it will the Anticon crowd.

—D.M. Collins

Spring has arrived! Thanks to the first-ever Heroes + Heroines 7” record, I am blissfully basking in sunshine on a dappled-gray February afternoon. Recorded at the Distillery in Costa Mesa with the “insane in a good way” Mike McHugh, Heroes + Heroines’ freshman vinyl features “Two Weeks,” which bursts forth from silence as a gush of love letter lyrics delivered with California ease. Typical Heroes + Heroines kick hop rhythms propel me around my living room till a round of fuck-me male harmonies finds me melting into the floor. This A-side has me dancing carefree as can be to Tony Infante’s bewitching Farfisa organ as it chugs along with Gabe Diaz’ timeless rhythms. Nick Gil’s Rickenbacker 360 comes in near the end to take me to the beach for just a moment before making me get up and flip over the record. “Busy Bee,” a newer song, is a dynamic foil for the A-side. A mellower, moodier jam, “Busy Bee” demonstrates colorful yet sincerely emotive vocal expression and minimalist rhythmic play. And then the guitar comes in with that melody that tickles your memory bone juuuuust right … The breakdown is where it’s at—Infante’s organ comes in for party-time with a lil’ tambo in the background for good measure. Native Californians playing since high school, Heroes + Heroines navigate nostalgia while remaining creatively current. Channeling recent heroes Thee Makeout Party but reaching back as far as those pre-British Invasion American party poppers the Rivieras, Heroes + Heroines is here to stay—so they can make all your Spring Break dreams come true!

—Drew Denny

Photos and videos of the Shrine always show the boys skating in pools around broken furniture and tattered debris. Listening to the Shrine’s Bless Off demo works well to evoke that same mindset, where the fast-paced dangers in front of you actually slow down time and give you a sense of manic focus. It’s the difference between hippies, taking massive bong hits, and revolutionary freaks snorting the same prepared cannabinoid snuff the Zulu used to knock the shit out of the British. The Shrine are hesitant to call their music “metal,” though that seems the best fit for all the solos going up and down the fretboard, and singer Josh Landau’s occasional falsetto (more of this, please!). But it’s young, very American stuff, the kind that brings a can of spray paint when it leaves the house and owes as much to Black Flag’s My War as that album owes to Black Sabbath, all with a late seventies flair that hints at what could have been in the NWOBHM had been the NWOAHM (look it up). Think “Stone Cold Crazy” by Queen, or the fastest of fast Thin Lizzy, or a more boogie version of Motorhead—true Americana by people who learned it second-hand. Lyrically these songs seem to be first-hand accounts, sticking to angry hangovers, Troglodyte pride, and deceptively insane girls: “She had her head on straight/or so it seemed!” Boy, can I relate. You’ll be surprised at how familiar this music feels, even if most of the trucks and wheels in your life come from dodging traffic on the 10.

—D.M. Collins

My L.A. RECORD compatriots cautioned me that Beth Jeans Houghton “doesn’t need our help” to get her album promoted. But perhaps YOU, fair reader, need encouragement to look past the U.K. gossip rags and Houghton’s Gaga-esque costumery, and really engage with this album’s songs. Do it! This carefully crafted yet free-soaring song assortment combines folk with pop as well as Nick Drake ever did, and pairs twee micro-orchestration with deceptively dark lyrics in a manner reminiscent of Love’s Forever Changes—hell, to hit the point home, Houghton shoots a bird out of a tree in the very first verse of the very first song, mimicking “Live and Let Live” before “setting the scene” with angelic trumpets, pianos and Floyd-esque midget helium voices. And this is just her first song—each one that follows is a masterpiece of time changes, swirling harpsichords and banjos, or perhaps a clunky waltz interrupted by a Mad Hatter tea party, the constant thread being her gorgeous voice. Oh, that voice! Though she’s capable of angelic flights and smart multi-layered harmonies with herself or her Hooves, her preferred voice is a womanly Mia Doi Todd alto, put to best use in the summery “Atlas,” whose amateurish lyrics about dating an older guy are the album’s only clue to Houghton’s barely-legal youth—though my favorite is “Veins,” lyrically like PJ Harvey but evocative of an alternate world where Christine McVie was the best part of Fleetwood Mac! Houghton’s next move is probably to Los Angeles, to record a sophomore album with Neil fucking Young—let’s hope she sticks around to show my fellow writers what for. P.S. The CD has a hidden punk track?!?

—D.M. Collins

For about fifteen years, the generic, catch-all genre suffix for music was “–core.” Now it’s “–wave.” FYI, Magic Wands is a –wave band. Their singer is a girl, and she doesn’t sound like she cares about anything she’s singing about. You can imagine her wearing sunglasses in the studio—you can’t really imagine them ever without sunglasses. For some, this sort of 10s aesthetic is going to be too gauche to give a chance, and that’s a shame. I mean, you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s a song called “Teenage Love” for christ’s sake. You could definitely move some designer denim with this album. But for what it is, it’s masterful. The vacant 80s guitar works perfectly in a sort of invisible homage to the Cure. The lyrics are spaced out and vague, like the vocal effects. Fans of the Xx and Yeasayer will find much to like. For my money, “Kaleidoscope Hearts” is the strongest track, blending a gaze-y guitar foundation with a hip-twisting backbeat and a bassline that’s strictly by the books. Magic Wands draws a lot from the dark, sad British synths of the 80s, but with enough modernity to keep it fairly obsequious—to keep it from sounding “retro.” In fact, you’ll probably only hear about the 80s-ness of this album in reviews. Because this isn’t going to be the return of New Wave. This is the new New Wave. This is just –wave.

—Matt Dupree

Since their eponymous debut a little over a decade ago, Cali-country revivalists I See Hawks released four more albums before this latest mosey into the sagebrush. Indeed, ISHILA records continue to provide a reliable index to the Southern California zeitgeist, as this fifth collection is more joyful than the high lonesome hallucinogens that dropped during the angst-ridden Noughties. SoCal, like most everywhere else in the USA, is now merely broke; and that bust-ass frame-of-mind, as anyone can tell you, makes for great country music. Indeed, “The Spirit of Death” flaunts joyfully at encroaching mortality, and a similar spirit of auto-cutthroat balladry can’t help but inform “Your Love is Going to Kill Me.” “I Fell in Love With the Grateful Dead” is a rework of “Raised by Hippies” off 2006’s California Country, but “Highland Park Serenade” is one of their most affecting tunes ever—a tender and dearly felt tribute to one more gently crumbling jewel box neighborhood. This town fairly brims with high-lonesome ghosts, and it’s good to have these fellows back to set them howling.

—Ron Garmon