There are certains bands I can't listen without bias. I can't help it. I don't mean to, it's just that my ears are tuned to a certain album or a certain sound and then my brain filters all the sound so that all I can hear are the wonderful sounds of one of my favorite bands.
My good friend Eric can't stand it when I say I love "Sunburnt" by Martin Phillips and The Chills (this was released on vinyl by Fire Records for Record Store Day 2026). No, I suppose it's not classic Chills, but it still is Martin Phillips. I can say the same about more recent Verlaines albums.
Eleventh Dream Day will likewise always be special to my ears and brain. I'm surprised I didn't know about "Since Grazed", their most recent (2021) release for Comedy Minus One. The Chicago-based band with a veritable stable of all-stars that have been with them for some time (Douglas McCombs, James Elkington are most notable), continue to churn out melodic rock. The vocals of Rick Rizzo and Janet Bean will never (and I mean never) get old. I would start my listening adventure at "Yves Klein Blues".
They continue to sound like themselves but also mix in Neil Young, Wilco, and Jeff Tweedy.
By the way, for my money, "Ursa Major" is one of my all-time favorite EDD albums.
Mint Mile has been an active concern for going on a decade now, but the build has been slow: Three promising EPs were finally followed by a sweeping full-length that dropped the week after the bottom dropped out on reality and the pandemic began. Ambertron was a grand triumph in a year that did its best to stifle such art, but its casual, communal air felt out of sync in a year where easy connection was impossible. Like time and those of us that survived, however, the band has moved on. Those changes are well processed and documented on the appropriately titled Roughrider.
The best place to start with Roughrider might be right at the end with âI Hope Itâs Different.â The alt-country ensemble SIlkwormâs Tim Midyett has been writing for and helming with the steady assistance of bassist Matthew Barnhart, guitarist Justin Brown and drummer Jeff Panall is here led by Nina Nastasia on vocals instead â an acclaimed songwriter in her own right whose âThatâs All There Isâ Silkworm covered way back in 2003. Nastasia looks optimistically to what comes next as she sings âI hope itâs different / Not just another good time / Insulated by uncomfortable liesâ set to the bandâs twangy slow dance and given added flourish by Poi Dog Ponderingâs Susan Voelz organization of the strings. Itâs like opening a window and walking outside, the promise of fresh air and a new environment before you after Midyettâs scrawling shifts and meandering moods.
That doesnât mean âI Hope Itâs Differentâ is the best song here, exactly. Mint Mile has taken up the mantle of the kind of unspooling Americana Jason Molina used to excel at so well, which is a funny thing to say given Roughriderâs brevity relative to Ambertron. Even so, the band is firing on all cylinders here regardless of track length; âInterpretive Outlookâ does every bit as much with its sub-three-minute runtime as âBrigadierâ does pushing eight. The breadth of musicianship is on full display and Midyettâs songwriting expands or contracts to fit the music as needed; his roughened, unsparing delivery had me recalling early Jets to Brazil and Lucero.
But perhaps even more so than Ambertron, this is a record about community. To wit: The band shines brightest when the core four are accompanied, which is almost always. The fluid grace of Brownâs pedal steel guitar and Barnhart and Panallâs anchoring rhythm section never sounds better than when thereâs just a little something extra â Susan Voelzâs violin, say, or Alison Chesleyâs cello. I was disappointed to discover frequent associate Howard Draper did not bring back the âmagic spackling thingâ as a credit from Ambertron, but nevertheless, his piano, organ and lap steel guitar frequently add a magic touch where an otherwise strong song couldâve settled. Thereâs Corvairâs Heather Larimer lending vocal assistance on âEmpty Island.â And for Silkworm fans, âHaloclineâ and âS c entâ each feature Joel R.L. Phelps on saxophone. You could write out the whole list of credits for how many contributors are worth noting and for how much they add to make such a satisfying record.
As with Ambertron, though, the best songs on Roughrider happen when Mint Mile piles on the people in a gradually growing jam that stretches the bandâs legs. Mirroring âThe Great Combineâ and âAmberline,â âS c entâ and âBrigadierâ probably started as simple singer-songwriter sketches but grew into enormous, swooning spins. MIdyett appropriately struggles on âBrigadierâ to hit an attempt at his highest registers as he sings âCanât overcome the life we madeâ while the strings skitter and Panallâs percussion finally brings the band to a crashing finish, where Draperâs pulsing, spirit-cleansing organ takes you out. Itâs a real thing of beauty.
The whole album and band â really, we should be more generous and call them a collective â is a thing of beauty. Once again, Mint Mile has delivered music with weathered emotional complexity that retains an open-ended sense of optimism that, maybe from now on, the ride wonât be so rough. How easy it is to fall for that kind of burdened but unbeaten perspective.
Kinski unleashes the jet engine roar on this tenth album for the psychedelic riffers. The trio has been on the job for more than a quarter century, cranking out visceral grooves based on rock ân roll licks, played over and over, to thunderous crescendos. You might think that opener âDo You Like Long Hair?â is chill, or at least more chill than normal, but even this pulsing, weaving, post-rockist litany rears up to bite you at the end, guitar and bass riffery jutting in like knives into a body. Et tu, Kinski? Et tu?
The band has been more or less constant from the start: Chris Martin on guitar, Lucy Atkinson on bass, Barrett Wilke on thumping, pillaging drums. The band has weathered a certain amount of interpersonal drama (Martin and Atkinson were married once, and now theyâre not.) but theyâve also gotten super, super attuned. âGang of 3â churns and roils and flexes at a simple, repetitive groove, but every iteration is subtly different, every one absolutely true.
Kinski has experimented, off and on, with vocals. âGuest Girl Vocalistâ from Accustomed to Your Face, sported a brat-punk vocal turn from Atkinson, pitched somewhere between Bikini Kill and Sonic Youthâs Kim Gordon. This album returns to the more common format, with Martin droning oblique poetry over oceanic tides of amplification; to continue the Sonic Youth analogy, he sits where Thurston Moore does in the mix on the epic title track but leaves his vocal perch fairly often to ignite flaming fireballs of guitar play. Later rip-snorting âExperimental Hugsâ lays a punk rock vocal atop hard and heavy motifs that slam from side to side.
If you love Kinski â and itâs always surprising to me that this sentiment is not more generally shared â Stumbledown Terrace will fill your need for loud-as-fuck transcendence, a black hole whorl of noise and hook that is, oddly comforting. Does it advance the cause? Does it break the mold? It does not. But it rocks hard enough to knock the stuffing out of your ears, and thatâs worth a lot. Hail Kinski.
Itâs been six long years since we last heard from South Bendâs âCarp Rock Duoâ The Rutebega. The band, which consists of singer/guitarist/songwriter Joshua Hensley and drummer/spiritual guru Garth Mason, has made endearing and emotionally buzzing alternative rock for the better part of 20 years. Hensley has a knack for pulling the listener into his heavy, aching songs. Songs that lock into theâŚ
Savak (Brooklyn, New York) are a supergroup of sorts. They are made up of members of The Obits, Holy Fuck, and Nation of Ulysses. I would say their sound is pretty hard to pin down. But, Iâve enjoyed nearly every song on this - be sure to listen to âKeys to the Cityâ. Look at this list of âsounds likeâ that Iâve compiled: The New Pornographers, Mission of Burma, The Byrds, R.E.M., and Thin White Rope.
This record is being released by Ernest Jennings Record Co. Their previous release was put out by Comedy Minus One.
