The Alternative Weekly Roundup is a column where our staff plugs a variety of new releases in a concise, streamlined format. Albums, singles, videos, and live sets. Check back each Monday to see what we were jamming the week prior.
Bleary Eyed – “2 True”
The Philly shoegaze scene has been extensively documented—and brought to life with this past weekend’s Slide Away festival—and with good reason; perhaps the most exciting band in that orbit right now is Bleary Eyed, whose blown-out take on the genre is a nice reminder that in many ways the original shoegaze bands were growing out of psychedelic rock. Woozy and overwhelmingly noisy, exemplary new single “2 True” is one of their best.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
Thank You I’m Sorry – Repeating Threes
Thank You I’m Sorry is making the most out of their new status as a full band. The three songs on their new Repeating Threes EP are bar none the best songs the band’s ever put out, expressive and dynamic in entirely new ways; the closing “Car Sick,” with its layered vocal hook and stop-start energy, feels like a song they’ve been working towards ever since forming back in 2020.
Repeating Threes by thank you, im sorry
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
Perennial – Lemon on Plastic
New England trio Perennial shakes things up with their latest EP Lemon on Plastic, an energetic sonic museum that takes you from one immediate bombastic track to another with experimental ambient tracks nestled in between. While they have often been dubbed as dance punk, post-hardcore, or art punk, they strike me simply as a rock and roll band, and it’s about time rock made a comeback for the masses.
Lemon On Plastic EP by Perennial
Loan Pham | @x_loanp
Two Door Cinema Club – Happy Customer
It seems that with every passing year, we learn to appreciate the early 2010’s radio pop bands more and more. All of those snappy single coil guitars, upbeat drums, and lyrics full of yearning feel more pleasant as time goes on. The band at the forefront of this sound was Two Door Cinema Club and after a bit of rest, they are back full swing with their latest single, “Happy Customer”. We get all the elements that made us fall in love with Two Door Cinema club 13 years ago and this new single gets us excited for their upcoming summer tour.
Kyle Musser | @godvfwine
downt – Underlight & Aftertime
Underlight & Aftertime, the latest album from Tokyo three-piece downt, is another stunner. It pairs new takes on three cuts from their 2021 self-titled LP (“AM4:50,” “mizu ni naru,” “111511”) and 2023’s eight-and-a-half minute single “13月” with seven new tracks that show off their range, from the eerie and ambling “Yda027” to the ever-building “紆余.” It’s clear on Underlight & Aftertime that downt’s pushing past the math-emo they built a name on and venturing into weirder, more obtuse territory, and they do that even better.
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
Madame Reaper – “Alright Tonight”
Elizabeth Phelan | @OneFeIISwoop
Damper – “German Shepherd”
“German Shepherd” is the best kind of emo song—bright and mathy enough to grab your attention, but restrained and dense enough to keep your wondering what’s coming next. There are a lot of parallels between Damper’s sound and, say, Empire! Empire!’s a decade ago, and I can only hope we’ll think of Damper that fondly one day (preferably sooner than later).
German Shepherd / Pisces Moonlight by Damper
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
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