Josh da Costa Interview

Photo: Tonje Thilesen

I first became aware of Los Angeles-based musician Josh da Costa back in 2018. It was a year when I went through a lot of life changes, and it was my third year of running “MELT Reviews.” I fully immersed myself in music and live shows that year. I would take the Amtrak from Hanford, CA to Bakersfield, then take the bus all the way to L.A. for numerous shows. One of these shows was Geneva Jacuzzi at “The Echo,” which was a fantastic show, but one of the opening bands that really blew me away was CMON (Confusing Mix of Nations.) Their blend of New Wave, Post-Punk, Electronic, and Neo-Psychedelia was irresistible, and all of these very pleasing sounds were coming from only two people, Josh da Costa and Jamen Whitelock. I instantly became a fan. Fast-forward two years to 2020 and “CMON” now have a debut full-length album out. However, 2020 was, well, 2020. The pandemic derailed every band’s tour schedule, including “CMON,” and Josh da Costa also went through a lot of life changes, which prompted him to revisit music from his adolescence and “get deep into some of the gear I’d had lying around for years but overlooked.” Over the following years Josh DJed around LA, shared a myriad of underground tracks on his “Confusing Mix” show on “NTS Radio,” and performed with various bands including Drugdealer, MGMT, and Jessica Pratt, and during this time he began writing and recording his debut solo album New Wave Graveyard, which is set to be released on July 24th via “Stones Throw Records.” I had the opportunity to interview Josh about his upcoming record via email, and he gave me some very in-depth answers regarding his creative process, what inspired the record, being signed to Stones Throw, and much more. 

Steven Sandoval: I want to start this off by saying I love the new record. I think it’s a perfect amalgamation of everything that makes 80s and 90s music so enticing. It’s varied, but cohesive and features a distinct sound that’s very much your own, as opposed to being a complete emulation of certain bands or styles. You’ve described this album as a “greatest hits from a parallel universe, classic songs from an alternate reality.” Can you elaborate on that? Are their specific bands or genres of music that inspired you while recording this album? 

Josh da Costa: As you so eloquently put it, I’d like to think it’s an”amalgamation of everything that makes 80s and 90s music so enticing”. That’s pretty much my area of interest, or rather my obsession.

Steven Sandoval: Did you play all of the instruments on this album? 

Josh da Costa: With the exception of Daryl Johns who played bass on “Tissues” and some programming assistance from Jamen Whitelock, yes I played all of the instruments on this album.

Steven Sandoval: Do you plan on touring to promote this album? 

Josh da Costa: Yes!

Steven Sandoval: This is your first album since signing with “Stones Throw Records,” which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and has released some iconic albums, Madvillainy being one of them, which is one of my favorite Hip Hop albums. How did you get signed to Stones Throw, and how has your experience with them been thus far? 

Josh da Costa: I had been working on a bunch of songs for a good few years and was looking to find them a home. I sent Peanut Butter Wolf a folder of about 20-25 songs and to my delight he agreed to release them. I’ve known Wolf for a while now through my involvement in the LA weirdo indie music scene and also through DJing at his bar the Gold Line which is in our sort of shared neighborhood of Highland Park. It felt like a very local connection that I wanted to try and honor if possible.

Steven Sandoval: The album’s opening track “Skygirl” is a banger and reminds me of bands like “The Stone Roses” and “The Charlatans,” which brings to mind the Madchester scene of the late 80s – early 90s. Were these bands an inspiration, and can you tell us what this song is about? 

Josh da Costa: Yes, those bands and that scene / sound was the biggest inspiration on “Skygirl.” That song is about falling in love, plain and simple.


Steven Sandoval: The track “Tissues” is an ode to anxiety and depression, two things a lot of us know too well, and you lyrically nailed the feeling of living with these things perfectly. If you don’t mind me asking, are these things you too live with, and if so, how do you control them amongst touring, making music and being surrounded by large groups of people? 

Josh da Costa: Yeah I live with those things but I wouldn’t say to a crippling extent, for which I am grateful. However that song had been kicking around my mind for years without any real lyrics and one day I was like OK I *have* to finish “Tissues.” So I set out to write it properly and when it came time I think I was in the mood to try and embody the feeling that the music was conjuring inside of me, which spoke to that part of my emotional makeup. Because those feelings are definitely in there and in certain moments or phases of my life I can succumb to them for sure. It can be pretty harrowing when they kick in, for instance, on tour because being on tour can put you in a pretty existential state and depending on the touring party, can be quite uncomfortable. But to be honest, tour sometimes is a convenient escape from the woes of daily life at home, which can also be pretty existential I guess, except you’re not distracted by tons of people and you’re not keeping busy, moving from place to place- you’re just at home. And I typically work from home – as a matter of fact most of the songs on this record were recorded at home – so to have to be able to stay focused and motivated when surrounded by your daily reality at home can be a little challenging, especially if depresh’ and anx’ are rearing their ugly little heads. How I control them? Not totally sure I do other than sticking to a loose routine that usually consists of me going to the same café every day and ordering the same iced cappuccino and then bugging my friend at his shop around the corner for a little chat – socializing and being around people is kind of my drug of choice. Classic extrovert shit I suppose. Nuzzling up against my cat Thomas helps. Going for walks or drives with my girlfriend and coming home to watch some X-Files before bedtime is just what the doctor ordered. I used to love going to record stores but sometimes those actually make me more sad. Can’t explain it but sometimes it just feels heavy.

Steven Sandoval: “96 Year Old Girl” is one of my favorite tracks off the album. I read that it was written one night “after getting really high, ordering Dominos, and watching Terminator 2, and reckons with not feeling seen by a loved one. Can you tell us more about that? 

Josh da Costa: I mean that’s pretty much the story right there. That song is special to me – I think it definitely achieves something that I admire in other songs which is that it sorta defies genre or conventional structure but still manages to flow nicely and evoke something mysterious. Mystery or intrigue is a really hard thing to manufacture but I think I kinda bottled some of that with this one by illustrating some kind of a scene and some kind of a person. Like who is she? And then the chorus has a different perspective since I’m not addressing the 96-year old girl but addressing “you”. So it has some funny shifts and quirked up imagery that I think gives people something to think about and the textures are cool too. But all of that came about by experimenting after having had a lot of time and space to digest lots of ideas and melodies and then when I had a window to myself one night, I kicked back, relaxed with some’za and some T2, and felt inspired so l went for it.

Steven Sandoval: “Cordelia” is such a luscious and dreamy track. Who exactly is Cordelia? 

Josh da Costa: Cordelia is my girlfriend. But at the time, Cordelia was just my roommate. I met Cordelia outside of a show one night after my house had recently burned down and I was looking for a new place to live. She had just moved to town and needed a roommate so I threw my name in the hat. She graciously accepted me and I felt so honored that I wanted to pay tribute in a song. The plot eventually thickened, but I’ll leave it at that. I was also inspired by the record label “Cordelia Records” and figured it would be a great way to pay homage to both this special person and this special label.


Steven Sandoval: The album is titled New Wave Graveyard. What inspired the name? 

Josh da Costa: My friend Douglas Mcgowan inspired the name, which I had actually inspired him to say out loud one day by proposing a compilation of fairly obscure 80s songs that I was fixated on at the time. I thought it had a nice ring to it and I sorta put it in my back pocket. Eventually I felt like it applied nicely to my album.

Steven Sandoval: You’ve lived in Los Angeles for awhile now right? How much of an impact does it have on your music, and has it changed at all since you first moved there? 

Josh da Costa: I’ve lived in LA for over a decade and its had a profound impact on my music. In fact, I feel like aside from being kind of a facetious way of describing my album, New Wave Graveyard is more of a reference to my perception of LA – the sort of hollowed out carcass of this shiny, new, and exciting future city as depicted in TV & Movies and pop culture in general throughout the entirety of my childhood. It has changed though, and what used to be a little grimier and sketchier now feels a little more safe and sanitized. Of course, that is a mixed bag, and not really a can of worms I care to open but let’s just say if I were to say I miss the old days, I am sure someone else would be quick to point out that by the time I got here it had already changed a lot anyway.

Steven Sandoval: You’ve also played drums for various bands including “Drugdealer” and “MGMT.” How does being behind the drum kit differ from recording solo material? 

Josh da Costa: It differs in many ways but ironically the way in which it differs the most for me is that I am pretty unfussy with drumming on my own material because I know that there is so much other work to be done that I try to spend as little time on the drum performances as possible. I inevitably end up editing the hell out of them anyway, so maybe that’s foolish, and maybe I should put a little more effort into exploring my drumming abilities on my own songs but I think I just need there to be something solid and predictable so I can just get cookin on the other parts I need to lay down.

Steven Sandoval: I’ve listened to your “Confusing Mix” show on “NTS Radio,” and I’m very impressed with how deep your knowledge goes when it comes to underground and obscure music. How do you discover these artists, and just how big is your record collection? 

Josh da Costa: I discover music primarily through three different channels – through friends, through going to record shops and digging, and through youtube. Occasionally the algorithm will surprise me but not too often. My record collection used to be bigger but it’s still fairly chunky. I haven’t counted in a while but it’s .. something.

Steven Sandoval: Any chance we’ll hear new “CMON” music in the future? 

Josh da Costa: It’s anyone’s guess as far as new “CMON” goes. Jamen and I stopped working together in 2020 and briefly jammed again a couple of years later. The last time we got together to make music felt super organic and inspired and even though it sounded completely different from what “CMON” sounded like it sounded extremely true to our shared musical vision. So even if we were to produce more music together, it’s likely that it wouldn’t sound like anything we’ve done before.

Josh da Costa’s new album New Wave Graveyard drops July 24th via “Stones Throw Records.”

Pre-order: https://joshdacosta.bandcamp.com/album/new-wave-graveyard

Chat Pile Share New Single “PEN I S MALL”

Oklahoma-based Sludge band “Chat Pile” are set to drop their third album Who Loves The Sun on September 3rd, and following their absolute ripper of a track “Deep Blue,” the band have released another track off the upcoming album that might be their heaviest yet. The track is titled “PEN I S MALL.” Yes, you read that correctly. Despite the title sounding like something you’d write on your buddy’s face with a sharpie while he’s passed out drunk, the name is actually taken from a broken sign in the maintenance tunnels of “Penn Square Mall” in Oklahoma City, where the remaining letters spell out “PEN I S MALL.” About the track, lead singer Raygun Busch says “If survival wasn’t so brutal in the United States, a maintenance job at a local mall could in theory be a fun gig…Of course, the awful beast known as Capitalism is extremely rickety with not enough to truly go around in fair share as those in the lower and even middle positions know all to well.” This track is a necessary reaction to capitalism and the exploitation of workers, and will resonate with most of us who are fed up with this system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Watch the music video for “PEN I S MALL” below:

Mazmere Releases New E.P. “David”


England-based artist Jake Sinetos’ last release under his “Mazmere” project dropped 6 years ago. It was an E.P. titled Mbjdebnrbm, and it was an uncompromising release that tackled such topics as mental illness and recovery, while the instrumentation featured noise-driven Post-Punk that perfectly provided a backdrop for the unsettling but honest lyrical themes. Now, “Mazmere” has returned with a new E.P. titled David. This one is very personal. This release is about his cousin David who has passed away, and it’s a touching tribute. “I’ve worked on the song on and off since he died a few years ago, never really feeling I’d got it where it needed to be. Every time I thought it was finished, I’d end up pulling it apart again. This version is the closest I’ve come to getting it right. The track was produced by H.A. Eugene of Brooklyn glitch duo Business 80, whose ideas and patience helped shape it into what it eventually became. It also features beautiful acoustic guitar and bass from Amyas Varcoe and electric guitar from Ian Evans, both of whom brought something special to the recording.” This release also features the track “I Can’t Hear You,” and it’s an Avant-garde wall of sound that’s as soothing as it is discombobulating. “Run” is a live track that features Rob James on drums, who has sadly passed, and it provides a glimpse into what Mazmere’s live shows must be like. This release closes with a remix of “David,” which is a beautifully bizarre reimagining that is both dreamy and nightmarish. According to Sinetos, he hadn’t planned on releasing these songs together, but upon realizing they’re all connected to the same thing, it just felt right. It’s a beautiful tribute to those who are no longer with us, and that’s something we can all relate to.

Listen to “David” here: https://mazmere.bandcamp.com/album/david

Album Review: Downtown Boys – Public Luxury

Rating: 7/10

It’s been 9 years since the last “Downtown Boys” album Cost of Living was released, and 11 years since the band released their groundbreaking debut Full Communism, an album that made waves in the Punk scene and rallied against capitalism, sexism, homophobia, and exploitative labor conditions. That’s right, they’re as Punk as Punk gets, and 11 years later these things are still being fought by those who are tired of oppression, so a new “Downtown Boys” album is completely necessary. Their new album is titled Public Luxury, and according to the band, the title means “everything for everyone,” reminding us that we as the people have the power, and in a time where things seem hopeless for many of us, it’s important for artists to provide a sense of beauty and hope to prevent us from falling down the rabbit hole of nihilism. Musically this album is business as usual, which isn’t a bad thing by any means. Lead singer Victoria Marie’s raucous bilingual vocals that jump from Spanish to English are as sharp as ever and bring to mind Punk legends like Poly Styrene or Kathleen Hanna, the music still features frantic guitars and saxophone lines, but this is the most polished the band have sounded, without sacrificing the band’s signature rawness. However, there are some tracks on this album that depart from their usual sound a bit, and these tracks are where the band sound truly rejuvenated. “Yellow Sun” is a New Wave-tinged vibraphone-filled track that has a bit of a Post-Punk Revival sound, “You’re a Ghost” is a hard-hitting Industrial track that speaks out against ICE, and the album’s closing title track features a dreamy mix of synths and piano, creating ethereal atmospherics that reflect the optimistic theme of the lyrics. Though the band have solidified their status as Punk’s most relevant and exciting acts, I hope they continue to experiment like this in the future, because I feel like this is a natural progression for the band. A lot of us identify with the band and their anger toward all the things that keep us oppressed, but it’s hard to stay optimistic in these dire times, but the band’s message of hope is refreshing and we need more protest music like this that has a perfect balance of pointing out corruption and hopeful optimism. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval


Movie Review: Backrooms

Rating: 7/10

I want to start this review off by admitting I knew absolutely nothing about the liminal space aesthetic online, or that people even found liminal spaces creepy, I never frequented “4chan,” and I barely even know what a creepypasta is, so it should come as no surprise that I was not aware of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms web series prior to the release of his feature film of the same name, but of course I made sure to delve into the origins of Backrooms to help myself prepare for my viewing of the feature film, and I must say, I do find it fascinating. Fascinating because we’re reaching a revolutionary moment in cinema where young online content creators are being taken more seriously by Hollywood and are given the opportunity to fully realize their vision, and considering how Backrooms and Curry Barker’s Obsession are both killing it in the box office, and given that these films are actually good, it’s safe to say the kids are alright. Taking the surreal and eerie aesthetics of the web series and amplifying them for the feature film, Kane Parsons and co. translate the series quite well to the big screen. The set design is beautifully unsettling with it’s piss-colored yellow, the “found footage” scenes are perfectly executed and suspenseful, which helps revitalize a genre that has become stale, and the surrealistic nature of the film brings to mind David Lynch, and with the help of screenwriter Will Soodik, characters with traumatic backstories are incorporated into this world, but therein lies the problem. The characters we’re supposed to care about are frustratingly underdeveloped. It’s like the film is a battle between Backrooms’ signature eerie aesthetic and the character driven screenplay, and the former wins. This unfortunately makes the characters unimportant or hard to sympathize with. At the beginning we get a glimpse into our protagonist Clark’s mind as he attempts to cope with his alcoholism and failed marriage, and his therapist Mary Kline is also working through trauma related to the demolition of her childhood home and her mother’s institutionalization. We’re led to believe these characters will have a fleshed-out arc, but unfortunately there’s no payoff as the film spends more time focusing on aesthetics and long drawn out scenes to immerse you into the world of the Backrooms, and not enough time investing us into the characters emotionally, so any kind of tension or suspense that’s supposed to be there when these characters interact is non-existent. Which leaves this film a great looking surrealistic nightmare devoid of emotional weight. However, there’s enough disturbing and deeply unsettling visuals and horrifying moments to prevent this film from falling flat, and had they just focused on “Async’s” research on the Backrooms instead of a shoehorned plot of a man who discovers the Backrooms inside his furniture store, this film would’ve been a lot better. They should’ve stripped the film of its traditional narratives and turned it into a series of avant-garde atmospherics à la Skinamarink, but hey, this film was a fun watch nonetheless. Though this film is far from perfect, Kane Parsons has my attention, and I’m excited to see what he does next. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval

Chat Pile Announce New Album “Who Loves The Sun”

Photo: Ryan Lawson

Oklahoma City-based quartet “Chat Pile” have unveiled details of their upcoming third album Who Loves The Sun. The album will be released September 4th via “The Flenser,” and today the band have shared the track “Deep Blue” off the upcoming album. You can listen to the track, as well as pre-order the album below: 

Pre-order: https://chatpile.bandcamp.com/album/who-loves-the-sun

Movie Review: Obsession

Rating: 10/10

Hype can be very annoying. The flavor of the month movies or TV shows start to plague your feed on social media platforms while fans won’t shut up about them or make exaggerated statements like “best movie I’ve ever seen.” More often than not I find myself giving in to the hype, only to be underwhelmed, and that isn’t contrarianism, it’s just that I’m either too picky, too critical, or just have shit taste. The most recent example of that is how I was the only person on the planet who didn’t like Weapons, but every once in a while a movie comes along that lives up to the hype, and proves itself to be something more than just the flavor of the month, and right now that movie is Obsession. OH.MY.GOD. Taking a familiar and rather outdated monkey’s paw trope, but elevating it to its most visceral heights, 26 year old director Curry Barker has struck gold with Obsession. This movie is terrifying, emotional, funny, unsettling, gross, anxiety-inducing, and will evoke just about every emotion known to man, and that’s due to impeccable direction, perfectly timed scares, phenomenal acting, and subject matter that looks surface level on paper, but executed in a way that provokes much thought and discussion. If you’re reading this, chances are you already know the premise. Our protagonist Baron “Bear” Bailey has feelings for his friend Nikki Freeman, but doesn’t have the courage to express his feelings to her, so when he buys a “One Wish Willow” novelty toy that claims to grant one wish per person, he breaks the toy wishing for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world, and that wish comes true, but backfires very horribly sparking a chain of horrifying acts committed by his now obsessed girlfriend Nikki. Now, I’m sure every possible interpretation of this film has already been expressed through countless reviews or think pieces, but allow me to express my interpretation. Underneath the truly unnerving and uncomfortable Horror scenes, this film comments on the problematic nature of how men view and pursue women. Bear starts off as a pitiful, but likeable guy. You want him to gain confidence and find true love, but when Nikki makes it perfectly clear she’s not into him, instead of moving on, he makes the wish out of frustration, and when he finally gets what he’s always wanted, it’s clear from the start that something isn’t quite right with Nikki. It’s clear she’s being controlled by some sort of outside force. Bear recognizes this, and even expresses how he’s worried about this to his best friend, but instead of taking that opportunity to help her in some way, he lets his personal desires get the better of him and takes advantage of this new version of Nikki who would do absolutely anything for him. This new version of Nikki isn’t the real Nikki he fell in love with, but she’s attached to him and she gives him the love he’s always yearned for. Who’s the real villain here? Is it Nikki, or the guy too cowardly and impatient to let things happen organically? It’s most certainly the latter. This raises the question, if given the opportunity would a lot of men skip the time and effort it takes to truly get to know their love interest and prove themselves to be a worthy partner, just to get what they truly want, sex and their own personal cheerleader? It’s almost as if Bear didn’t really love who Nikki was as a person, but was in love with the idea of being loved by her to fill an empty void. How well did he know her? Did he just love her because she was nice to him? When he realizes the new Nikki isn’t the Nikki he once knew, it’s too late, and now he’s suffering the consequences of his selfishness, because what ensues is some of the most horrifying events I’ve seen in a film in a very long time. Brilliantly portrayed by actress Inde Navarrette, Nikki is terrifying but far from being the villain, because she can’t control it, and though she commits many vicious acts, the fault isn’t hers, it’s Bear’s. That’s what this movie is about at its core, and those themes combined with some very grizzly images and Oscar-worthy acting from Navarrette makes for a Horror masterpiece. Every second of this film is captivating. I’ve seen just about every fucked up Horror film there is to see, so I’m desensitized, but this film truly gave me anxiety and made me jump a few times. That never happens to me. I haven’t been this impacted by a Horror film since 2018 when I watched Hereditary in theaters. Obsession is that damn good. I can’t recommend this movie enough. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval

Album Review: Boards of Canada – Inferno

Rating: 9/10

Boards of Canada having a large gap in between albums isn’t exactly out of the ordinary, but 13 years? That’s a long time. A lot of us were starting to wonder if we were going to hear from the Scottish duo again, and if so, would it be necessary? Do we need a new Boards of Canada album? Considering their impressive discography of music laced with nostalgia, soaked in retro synths, and rich in ambient atmospherics, the two already have an iconic body of work under their belts. The already mysterious and reclusive duo could have disappeared from the music world completely, which would have added to their mystique, and even though most of us would want to hear new music from the two, this would have been a fitting bow out, but 13 years after their album Tomorrow’s Harvest, it’s evident the duo have more to give, and my God they’ve gifted us with one of their most captivating, hypnotic, and thematically dense albums yet. The album is titled Inferno, and opens with the track “Introit,” which takes its name from the opening of a worship service that’s usually a psalm, hymn, or chant, and the familiar synth arpeggio featured on the track immediately transports us to a world we’ve missed. I liken it to the feeling I had when I saw the opening crawl to Star Wars: The Force Awakens in theaters, but unlike The Force Awakens, what follows this intro is enthralling content. After the familiar sound in “Introit” fades away, we’re immediately introduced to a reinvented Boards of Canada. Sure their signature style is still there, but that sense of childlike wonder and dreamy Retro-futurism takes a back seat while eerie soundscapes, moodiness, and haunting vocal samples are front and center, and I mean it when I say these vocal samples are haunting. Packed with themes such as religion, religious cults, existentialism, and biology, this album perfectly utilizes vocal samples taken from documentaries about the effects of PCP, a conversation between a father and his son who has cut off his entire family to join the “Children of God” cult, Aleister Crowley quotes, a documentary about the development of a chicken embryo, and references to Nostradamus, and this all perfectly gets the duo’s point across without them having to say a word. However, is their point really that clear? Sure they want us to take something away from this album, or else they wouldn’t have made this thing so dense, but I’ve seen countless heady reviews of this album from people claiming with certainty that this album is a critique of religion and religious cult leaders who prey on the vulnerable, or that this is their way of commenting on how our uncertainty on the meaning of life and why we’re here has spawned so many philosophers and religions who try to give us answers on why we’re here and what happens after we die, and the dangers that come with certain religions, and though this is likely what they’re getting at, there’s one thing a lot of people are neglecting to mention when describing this album, and that’s nostalgia. Nostalgia is a word often associated with Boards of Canada. From the children’s TV show and speak and spell samples on Music Has the Right to Children, to the capturing of the feeling you get when you watch your favorite video nasty on Tomorrow’s Harvest, it’s been very clear that retro media has made a lasting impact on the duo, and contrary to popular belief, I don’t think that nostalgia is absent on Inferno. Remember those televangelists your grandparents used to watch? Those frightening red-faced crazy-eyed men who would yell at you through the TV screen? Remember those old documentaries about morbid cult tragedies? Remember all the history we’ve learned about violence and unnecessary wars that were brought on by fundamental religious beliefs? Remember satanic panic? These are all things that are engraved in the history of humanity, and one of the most popular mediums used to teach this history is media, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the boys from BOC have nostalgia for these things. That love for retro media is perfectly combined with the overall themes of this record. There’s no telling if there’s going to be another Boards of Canada record after this one, and when that’ll be if there is, but if this is their final album it’s an interesting album to end on, considering it’s their darkest work by far. Maybe that’s where they’re at mentally when viewing the current state of the world, because these are truly frightening times. Christian fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists are currently in the White House, educational programming has been replaced with short-form content online spreading misinformation, and all of these current wars have left many of us anxious and frightened, so it’s no surprise that an album like this would be released in this day and age, but a common theme that prevents this album from being complete doom and gloom is the theme of life itself. From the EKG machine sounds on “Memory Death,” to the heartbeat on the closing track “I Saw Through Platonia,” the preciousness of life is beautifully symbolized, and this reminds us to value life while we can, and though it may seem impossible at times, it’s important to find beauty in the chaos. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval

Album Review: Deli Girls – Losing State

Rating: 8/10

Five albums deep in their discography, and New York-based band “Deli Girls” still continue to reinvent themselves sonically. On their new album Losing State, it’s hard not to get the feeling that the band are embarking on a new chapter of their sound. This chapter is a departure from their previous self-titled album, an album that found the band trade in their usual Nu-Metal-tinged Digital Hardcore in favor of an abrasive yet dancey mix of Hardstyle and Rave Punk. Losing State harkens back to the anxiety-ridden heaviness of their early records, music that featured pure unadulterated anger toward the establishment, capitalism, and all forms of bigotry, but this time around the band cranks up the Industrial elements with rapid fire percussion, and lead singer Danny Orlowski’s anger is directed at even more specific realities that are a result of this country’s consumer culture, love for war, and reliance on technology. “If you’re gonna sell me, then pay me,” screams Danny on the track “Location,” a song that progressively gets more and more chaotic and sounds like the soundtrack to the end times. That viciousness in the music and vocals is carried throughout the album and never lets up, sounding like a constant state of Hell. However, with how deeply unsettling this album is musically, not once does it come across as pessimistic. This is protest music. This is fight music, and it faces our anxiety-ridden reality head on in an attempt to reach a point of catharsis. This is “Punk” in the modern age, and Deli Girls are the perfect band to lead the charge. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval

https://deligirls.bandcamp.com/album/losing-state

Album Review: Bustié – Throb

Rating: 8/10

Due to loss, grief, and immense focus on perfectionism, New York-based act “Bustié’s” sophomore album Throb faced many delays, but now 7 years after their debut Birds of Paradise, the album has finally arrived at the perfect time. Living in the U.S. right now is frightening if you’re a person of color, LGBTQ+, or just simply don’t support a fascist regime, so now more than ever we need music that comes from people of said communities to inspire, provide hope, raise awareness, and provide a dance party of escapism, and Bustié does just that. Combining genres such as Hi-NRG, Synth Pop, EBM, and Freestyle, Throb celebrates the elements that make these genres so undeniable and infectious. Topped with lead member Angelika Padilla’s chant-like vocals that provide another layer of rhythm on top of the already entrancing beats, this music will make anyone want to move. Whether you’re the type to cut up a rug on the dance floor, or the type to stand back and bob your head to the beat, this music is for you. Thematically this album deals with lust, loss, and sexuality, and though it’s often dark sonically, it’s perfectly contrasted with heavy elements of 80’s-styled Pop which helps prevent the album from diving into doom and gloom. It’s Janet Jackson at a Nitzer Ebb concert, and it’s fantastic. 

Written By: Steven Sandoval