I swear to Jah that I first heard about this band because they sent Weekly Alibi a flyer for their Fourth of July performance in Los Lunas back in 2015 or 2016. Well, they’re still around and better than ever. In fact, this record rocks in a way that only competent, brain-baking prog-rock can. Forget about doom, sludge and any other kind of sleepyheaded metal. This is the real item, la neta, as they would say in the Middle Rio Grande Valley and south of there. It begins super proggishly on the first track “U” and continues from there with a Euro flair that just won’t stop. Check out what follows; it will blow your mind. The licks are solid, the drumming propulsively complex, the vocals triumphantly clear and the vision grand on tunes like “Anathema,” “Once Upon a Burial” and “Exist.”
HoneyWire Always in Sight (Self-released)
Since Kaleb Slack split from Dirt City and headed up north to the one with the broad shoulders, his ouput as a singer-songwriter has gained momentum. Slack released an eponymous debut EP as HoneyWire in 2018 that received critical acclaim from hip and happening indie music blog Divide & Conquer. Now, HoneyWire is back, showing growth and testing limits. Always in Sight begins with a neo-new wave twist that had me running to Google to compensate for my Swiss Cheese brain. Of course! HoneyWire’s sound reminded me of Jyoti Mishra’s Brit electro-pop project, White Town! The second track, “Glow” gets a little glitchy, so you can throw in Amnesiac-era Radiohead, too. But, free from influence, Slack’s sound grows beatifically melancholy on an unassuming cover of Roxy Music’s masterpiece “Love Is The Drug.” By the fifth track, “Deep,” he’s ironically stumbled—out of derivation—into something darkly awesome. Totally wow.
Alex Chavosaurus Enthused Pulse (Self-released)
In high school, my brother and his friends had a band called The Life Brothers. One of the dudes played toy piano; the other two had guitars. They had totally cray-cray tunes like “Guidry’s Baby Food” and “Garbage Day.” In college, I had a roommate—who later lived next door to my brother in Tempe, Az.—who introduced me to a band called The Shaggs and their record Philosophy of the World. Now it’s my turn to introduce you all to the future of rocked-out electronic hip-hop, courtesy of Alex Chavosaurus. Raw and outrageously unfettered either by convention or derivation, this album has it all, from the perplexingly brutal “Go With The Flow” to the perversely uncanny “ChugALug” and the funkadelic “Space Dreams.” Buy this record today or risk becoming old and square forever.
