Quick Spins takes a quick look at recently released albums to make certain you're listening to all the quality music being released these days. And with today being Bandcamp Friday, I'm hoping some of the words below will spur you to actually listen to, and then buy, these excellent new releases today while all the dough goes directly to the artists!
Blackwater Holylight
Not Here Not Gone
I've enjoyed Blackwater Holylight's music for a few years now, and the darkly atmospheric metal racket the band's members conjure up on a regular basis has always been pretty great. But on the just-released Not Here Not Gone the band does one of those quantum leaps from being a strong genre contender to being a great band. Their slightly psychedelic slabs of sound have been carved out to reveal more crevices and crags of nuance, and I've spent the last month climbing in and out the new terrain they explore with great delight.
Not Here Not Gone by Blackwater Holylight
Vienna Vienna's Entertain Me explodes into 2026 with catchy, dancey bursts of rock that would fit perfectly on the dance floors of either 1982 or 2002. There's a slinky and playful sleaze slathered throughout the tracks that's custom built for both the clubbers and the rockers. In these dark times, something this bright and fun is just what I needed. I think you need it too.
Keeping it simple and straightforward here since I think if you literally give this 30 seconds of your time you'll be hooked!
Entertain Me by Vienna Vienna
I was listing to Ulrika Spacek's EXPO in the car, and halfway through it my girlfriend turned to me and said it was the most Radiohead-sounding album not by Radiohead she'd heard. I had been thinking something similar, but more along the lines of that this is what an album by a band in love with a handful of latter-era Radiohead songs instead of the band's full breadth of work would sound like. If Paloalto's self-titled 2000 album was a resurrection of Bends-era Radiohead, Ulrika Spacek's EXPO is what someone unfamiliar with their pre-Kid A work might come up with. These observations are not indictements, and I think a lot of people will dig EXPO. Heck, if Radiohead's not gonna make Radiohead music anymore, it's still fun to hear someone who is.
EXPO by Ulrika Spacek
Hearing Dust Bunnies' music you'd expect to see a troupe of weathered and weary road dogs on stage, but the group is still barely out of high school. I first stumbled across the band playing in an outdoor plaza for a neighborhood festival a few years ago, and at first, I thought I was listening to a mid-'90s indie cover band. A closer look revealed a stage of teenagers, and a closer listen revealed those teenagers were playing original songs that far exceeded the level of musicianship I'd expect from them. So, I've followed the group, enjoying the progress they’ve shown over a few singles, EPs, and mini live sets, but I held off writing about them since I wasn't exactly sure where they were going to land as they kept tweaking their sound with each release.
CATFISH is their "proper" debut and sees the group comfortably inhabiting the Pavement-tinged directions they've hinted at in the past. They've inserted more space into their songs, presumably built upon their increasing confidence in their songwriting, allowing interesting dynamics and unexpected melodies to prod boundaries and poke through with flashes on increasing excellence. Don't sleep on this one; I have a feeling Dust Bunnies will be making a lot more noise and become much more well known as they continue to hone their already impressive sounds.
Catfish by Dust Bunnies
Blood People has been around for years, and always have been a reliably crushing live act, but their proper recorded releases have been few and far between, so I always get excited when they finally allow a new album of theirs to run wild into the world. HERE continues the band's tradition of crafting reliably huge and crunchy rockers that steamroll their way across aural terrain, glued together by Aly Jados' singular vocals, ingratiatingly melodic while rolling your ears through shards of glass. Any time I try and find a fitting metaphor for the forward thrust of the band's sound, my brain keeps landing on "a steamroller with the accelerator pedal held down by two tons of bricks" and you know what? That ain't completely off. Strap in and let Blood People roll over you.
BLOOD PEOPLE by Blood People
In the late ‘80s Daniel Ash's prior band Love And Rockets released their self-titled 4th album and as they teetered on the edge of what appeared to be stardom, I eagerly awaited the next album. And waited. And waited. As the years stretched on and Ash assiduously avoided replicating the sound that almost made he and that band stars, I also understood that someone who had been in around a long time and in quite a few influential groups already—including Bauhaus and Tone On Tail—might prefer to follow their own interests instead of delivering on fan expectations.
So, imagine my surprise last year when the album Are Forever by Ashes And Diamonds, a new “supergroup” of sorts led by Ash, landed in my inbox and…the “Love And Rockets album" I’d been waiting for since 1989 seemed to have finally burst into existence!
Are Forever is the spiritual successor to Love And Rockets, of that I have no doubt. And it somewhat confirms my belief Ash willfully avoiding replicating the sound that had made his old band so popular just prior to the dawn of the ‘90s. But whatever reservations he must’ve had about that sound seem to finally have been shed, and I couldn’t be happier.
Are Forever by Ashes And Diamonds