#Sardonics Sonic

[smilesession]

I’m a Gen X soul I love the dream of wearing big stupid glasses and being sort of an academic burnout in spite of my curious and independent mind and watching subversive cartoons and listening to crazy thought provoking rock music like r.e.m and thinking fellers and sonic youth and country teasers and guided by voices and understanding sardonic literary and cultural references and i like reading odd books and being sort of a contrarian and having a sort of droll sense of humor and this fucking world is so stacked against those traits, in a young theythemette in the middle of rural nowhere

[hollowtones]

final thoughts on zapper?

1st world isn't as bad as I remember, 2nd world is rough, 3rd world feels actively mean, 4th world is mostly kind of boring. If child-me had played past world 2 I think I would actively hate video games today.

Sound design is consistently real weird and unpleasant but sometimes that wraps around to being funny

Level design doesn't usually feel very interesting & if you're trying to get all collectibles it sometimes feels tedious. The best bits are the little self-contained bonus rooms & the levels where things are more puzzle-focused. I don't think it really needed a boss fight at the end but I'm glad there was only one, rather than one for each world / each level.

Individual art assets are okay, but sometimes levels are a little hard to parse visually & paths you are allowed to take aren't very clear. Issues with depth perception. Fixed perspective makes it hard to see details on the models I thought were cute. (At least we have Dolphin free camera...)

Visual theming of levels feels really, really incongruent, outside of the first world. I still don't know if I like this or don't. But it sure is noticeable!

The jump button snaps you in weird directions sometimes & every time it makes me scared for my life. It straight up killed me in some of the moving platform segments. Sometimes the jump lets you get to very high platforms and sometimes it makes you jump over them and go into a pit.

Camera's weird. Zoomed in too close, very easy for things to just get you from off-screen. When you have to deal with moving platforms it feels straight up nauseating (& I basically never get motion sick!! This game got me!!)

Music is good.

This Did Not Need A Lives Mechanic. Getting knocked back to a checkpoint feels fine. Having to redo entire levels from the start because of bullshit getting me made me feel like a ghoul.

A lot of hazards have weird hitboxes. Spikes can kill you after retracting. An object can be fully moved past your location but if you move parallel to its trajectory it'll sometimes kill you anyway. Slow-moving enemies in front of you need the world's widest berth. Moving platforms in combination with hazards is a special hell. A couple times I was killed by a seeming act of god.

Mercifully short.

Zapper as a character is like if someone went "what if Gex didn't talk" and that's real funny to me. Also very funny that they gave a cricket lightning powers instead of, like... sonic / music powers. I guess "a wall of noise so loud it kills slugs and explodes bricks" wasn't cool enough for a radical, sardonic wise-guy.(??)

lol the bird has tits

This is just a Frogger game. It's kind of blatant. You can very clearly see the bones of "Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge" in all of it. (The four screenshots I have seen of that game make it seem like its level design was much more easily readable at a glance, though. Four screenshots do not paint the picture of an entire game, but...) Honestly, I can respect the "we have Frogger at home" angle to it. They clearly wanted to make a game like this again, and good(?) on 'em for doing it, I think.

Didn't like it very much. Had a laugh, at least.

It's no "Claymates". (Future scholars will debate what she meant by this for decades.)

[theramblingsofadork]

An AU moment where Dr. Starline pops off on Eggman regarding their time together post the events of Issue 50.

Everyone has a threshold of what they can tolerate and put up with. And after the disrespect he put Starline through, I imagine that once the platypus finally gets over his crushing loss and is reminded what actual respect and comradery looks like, he would have quite a few choice words to say to his now once-idol.

*Textless ver. and extended rant/fanfic under the cut!

Music: Second Wind - Sonic Frontiers

“AND ANOTHER THING, DOCTOR!" Starline barked furiously, his once tentative words now having raised into a full on shout as the platypus regained his full confidence back to stand up to the man in front of him. "I thought that you were someone worth idolizing... Your brilliance and genius were unmatched and unparalleled by anyone! I aspired to be just like you!

"But now I can see that, at the end of the day, you're little more than a pompous, CALLOUS, old man, with a repugnant disposition towards everyone, be it friend or foe!! And I was a fool to spend so much of my precious time trying to placate and win your approval!!"

It was cathartic to be finally be able to speak out to him. So freeing to finally be able to break free from the blinding, lifelong admiration that Starline had held of Eggman; of the man whom he had shaped his entire life and ideologies around. Of the man that had humiliated and defeated him, not once, but twice. It was a conversation that he knew after his defeat he may have never been able to bring himself to have, did he not have Rivet and Hex’s steadying presence at his back. Mentally holding him firm in the future and giving him something to fall back upon as he now severed the last remaining ties to his former aspirations and fallacies. Letting what little bit that remained of his once firm and steadfast foundation crumble away and fall beneath his feet.

He would not go back. He would not apologize. Whatever happened now was up to him, and would not be done in any way, shape, or form for the sake of someone who did not care for anyone but himself. He refused to let it be.

And despite the quiver of terror and dread radiating through his body at the sight of Eggman's looming form grinning above him-reminding him of the day he had lost it all- Starline was able to keep himself standing firm.

When he was finally finished with his long winded tirade, Eggman acknowledged his words by tilting his head, the doctor's glasses glinting and reflecting orange light despite the cold shadows casting upon him. And he said, in a tone laced with sardonic amusement and fascination,

"Well now! Finally grew a spine, I see!! And all that it took was a couple hundred pounds of concrete... How ironic. Here I thought that was supposed to be the other way around. You certainly do know how to surprise me, doctor."

"Screw.. you." Starline growled out between tightly grit teeth as his body shook from the immense weight of his emotional outburst.

As dismissive and nerve grating as Eggman's statement was, it was still acknowledgement, no matter how small. And at one time, it would have been enough to make the platypus' tail start to wag.

But now? Starline couldn't find it in himself to care. He was done. He had said his peace, and Eggman's words meant nothing to him any more.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 814: Nomeansno You Kill Me

Nomeansno's debut album was a tightly coiled amalgam of art punk and jazz fusion, but it didn't wield the power of their later records. Between 1982's Mama and their 1985 EP You Kill Me, the band would expand beyond the sibling rhythm section of Rob and John Wright to include guitarist / vocalist Andy Kerr. The addition of guitar added the layer of grit and distortion that had been missing from earlier Nomeansno records, and the band fully embraced that newfound abrasion with an EP that demonstrated their full sonic menace while also establishing their stylistic and aesthetic stamp.

The EP opens with "Body Bag," a long-form, tension-baiting, quiet-loud-quiet rocker that harkens back to the bass-and-drum interplay of Mama, but adds jagged spikes of guitar in the chorus, giving the song an amplified sense of resolve and potency. From there the band launches into "Stop It," arguably the band's first foray into a sonic territory that could be deemed "hardcore." Set against a rock shuffle, the band sneers and spits its way through a Black Flag-style rage anthem. It's here that we get the first taste of Rob Wright's burgeoning distorted bass tone. With the gain knob cranked for maximum crunch, you can hear Rob dig into the strings to the point where they growl with aggression.

Side 2 opens with "Some Bodies," a song that harnesses the band's newfound vitriol with their signature off-kilter rhythmic configurations. There weren't a lot of punk bands playing with polyrhythms back in the 1985, but for Nomeansno it almost seemed second nature. There's even a riff in the song that is eerily similar to the main riff in Botch's "Vietmam."

This EP and a few of the other Nomeansno records in my collection were given to me by a college friend the year after I graduated. He was a year or two younger than me, and he had a radio show at our campus station KUPS (90.1 FM, if you happen to find yourself in the North End of Tacoma). I was a Nomeansno fan only so far as I owned the Jello Biafra collab album and a cassette copy of The Day Everything Became Nothing / Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed, but I was excited by the gift. This means I wouldn't have heard You Kill Me (or Sex Mad or Wrong, but we'll get to those at a later date) until at least 2001. But there are more than a few little musical moments across those records that parallel parts of my own songs. There's the aforementioned "Vietmam" riff, which we would have written right around the time this EP came into my collection. But there's the "womb / tomb" rhyme in "Body Bag" that I'd also used in Botch's "I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms" at least two years prior. There's another inadvertent parallel to a Botch song on Sex Mad's "Self Pity," but we'll discuss that later. And a bunch of Nomeansno-isms would later appear in These Arms Are Snakes material, like the descending chromatic guitar solo in "Body Bag" being deliberately swiped for the pitch-shifted bass solo in These Arms Are Snakes' "Mescaline Eyes" (sorry, Andy).

I won't lie, Nomeansno's aesthetics sometimes leave a lot to be desired. I don't love the cartoony album cover. But Nomeansno rubbed off on me in other ways. There are moments across their records that seem a little silly, especially given their musically and lyrically heavy moments. But that irreverent and sardonic twist contained its own kind of malice---taking something child-like or frivolous and setting against something dire and dripping with existential dread somehow gave Nomeansno an added layer of human dimension. They could be theatrical, but they weren't cosplaying as total misanthropes. The humor almost made the serious material even heavier. The band also had a fascination with human sexuality and confronting sexual mores (see: the band's name, "Some Bodies," "Body Bag," etc.) that would continue to pop up in their music. And you could see the parallels in Botch's often absurd and/or salacious song titles (see again: "I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms," "Frequency Ass Bandit," "Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb").

I wouldn't have cited Nomeansno as a primary influence back in 2001, but I already appeared to be walking a parallel path, and I would deliberately tread into their territories in the following years.

[cartoonrival]

Misc (JULIE-SU THE TENREC)

Masterpost

All romantic relationships are largely ambiguous (except Buntoine)

Sonic kind of flirts with everybody, Buntoine canon, Knuxsu qpr, Mighty kisses his friends

Keep Sonic’s story the same (generally); find a different way to keep readers loosely updated on the FFs (letters?)

Monkey Khan has a TikTok account where he posts thirst traps and boyfriend povs

Silver anxiety disorder

Outside of Knuckles, Mighty is JS’s closest friend in the Chaotix (or at least he’s the first to be open to her)

Focus on Sally during Sonic’s Space Adventure instead of on Sonic

Chaotix/Legion reluctant alliance to keep Dr. F from getting the Master Emerald (similar to the return to angel island arc); this is the most that JS and Lien-da have interacted since JS defected

JS Enerjak (more Dr. F’s tech/chaos energy combo cocktail)

Give JS that wholehearted dedication to her friends, Lien-da and Kragok make fun of her for it, like a stupid little kid

172: Chaotix accompany Mina on her world tour

Chaotix learn JS betrayed them, Knuckles mutters something along the lines of “she said she changed her mind” and Vector whips his head around, lifts one side of his headphones and says in a sardonic voice, “Man, Knux, I’ve gotta stop listening to my music so loud, cause I know you didn’t just say you knew about this.”

[thebowerypresents]

Wilco Kick Off the Weekend and a Three-Night Run at the Beacon Theatre on Friday

Wilco – Beacon Theatre – June 21, 2024

Like many a Wilco fan, I look back to 2004’s A Ghost Is Born with certain fondness, not least because it was an inflection-point epoch. Before touring the Ghost material — which is to say, before Wilco rounded out the band lineup we would come to know over the two decades since with guitar sorcerer Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist wonder Pat Sansone — Wilco had only just begun to push at the artier, more experimental edges of their invigorating, countrified indie-rock, hinting at what might come next. 

After that, Jeff Tweedy and Co. were totally indulging those edges: Ghost inaugurated an era of Wilco songs and shows that could be tightly compact or sprawling and annihilating and psychedelic, and today usually are all of those things, where even the quietest and most delicate tunes have simmering noise-rock rage just beneath them and are better for it. Wilco can be so sweetly on. They can go so wildly off. It’s all good. And as the size of their playable oeuvre has doubled since — including a prolific run of new material since the pandemic — they’ve refined what they do even further. They wear their “great modern rock” bona fides well. 

Wilco shows have a way of feeling casually epic. At the Beacon on Friday — the first of three for the band, back in the broiling city — they started out confident and workmanlike and then, gradually, both relaxed the vibe and upped the intensity. Tweedy was his usual affable, lightly sardonic self, steering them through a well-blended run of classics from all eras (“Handshake Drugs,” “Passenger Side,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You”), more recent tunes and obscurities. 

There was some deference to Ghost material — among the standouts, the sensational, Beatles-like “Hummingbird” just never gets old, and the crowd felt it deeply — but there was at least as much from 2022’s Cruel Country and 2023’s Cousin, the pandemic Wilco albums whose songs yield some of their most interesting experiments yet. “Falling Apart (Right Now),” from the former, is an actual, chicken-pickin’ country song, but one that isn’t so much a throwback to Wilco’s early, pre-millennium alt-country days as it is what the band might sound like if they took this version of the band back to that aesthetic. And yet, “Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull,” from that same album, has very little country at all: a woozy, jangling build that on record ebbs into rustic psychedelia but here, live, opened up, became a sonic voyage, the band all in protracted instrumental jamming at once.

When they go for it, they really go for it. Long masters of setlist construction, Wilco built on a strong first hour and then cranked up things, using the last third of the show on a run through some of their richest material: “Heavy Metal Drummer,” “The Late Greats,” the deceptively delicate, right-in-the-feels “Jesus Etc.,” the much-beloved hymn “California Stars,” the shoegaze-hypnotic choogle of “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” at the close of a four-song encore. And every time you think you’ve previously heard the best of Cline laying waste to “Impossible Germany” — a pensive tune that in fact houses a seven-plus-minute, no-holds-barred guitar excursion — it ends up feeling like the first time, with Friday’s showstopper a wiry adventure of maybe-this-feels-like-Eddie Hazel-meets-David-Gilmour-but-no-it’s-actually-just-Nels-doing-Nels-and-holy-shit.

Wilco’s individual players get plenty of love: Tweedy, Cline, Sansone, the might-be-MVP Glenn Kotche on drums, the stalwart John Stirratt on bass, the never-not-on-point Mikael Jorgensen on keys. Less talked about, and ever more apparent as they age, is how well over 20 years they’ve jelled as an ensemble and move as one organism over songs for whom this many players and this much musicality might be too much in an arena, let alone a theater. That they’ve also kept all this from becoming mechanical — that every Wilco show still feels fresh and unforced — suggests there are many more Wilco epochs yet to come. —Chad Berndtson | @Cberndtson

(Wilco play the Beacon Theatre again tonight.)

Photos courtesy of Savannah Lauren | @savannahlaurenphoto

[chaomother]

I just read scrapnik Island and imagine Sonic crashing one of Eggman's planes on his way to catch you and he twists his ankle or breaks his leg

And since in canon he doesn't have any pain tolerance whatsoever (y'all are so right he's truly baby) he's on the ground sobbing while trying his best to still come off as evil and proud and you can't help but feel bad for the little insane blue guy with daddy issues

"I'm.... I'm gonna catch ya.... *sniff*.... you belong to....me now....ugh...ow....ow:(.......no one.....OUCH.....DEservESYoU....*SNIFFSNIFF*....BUT ME......ithurts....help...."

weren't you supposed to be running away right now?—

a cluster of anxiety gyrated within your stomach the more tears that dripped down sonic's cheeks, and the string of babbles begun to sound less psychotic; rather they sounded more doleful and it tugged at your heartstrings.

"help..." he sobbed, and without another thought flowing through your mind, you dropped to your knees to examine his fractured ankle. the rusty, iron contraption wreathed around him didn't look fit to be snug on his foot, but there wasn't anything else you could do about it. it was stabilizing his posture, after all.

"hey hey, it's okay," you soothed him with a delicate, airy tone to assure him you'd get things under control. "can you stand up? i'll help you, hold onto me."

behind the abundant tears, hearts arose from the depths of sonic's green eyes. "c-caught you," he winced, white-hot pain sweeping through the fissures of his leg as he clung onto you. "i won't let you go, i won't let you go! our love comes first, everything else after."

you were absolutely going to drop him somewhere relatively safe before deserting him and his injured leg—there's no way he'd be able to catch you, right? with how harrowing his voice sounds, you can't imagine he'd be able to go through that added pain. not when he strained just to amble beside you.

"if you let go of me, you'll fall... just focus on your own breathing, don't think about the pain."

although, you were pretty much trapped here on this island with him. he made tails' plane crash and he made your plane crash, storm aside. you couldn't find it in you to blame anything other than him.

oh god, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. if it wasn't for your arm roped around him, sonic would be inconsolable. no matter how much it hurt, however, sonic's eyes reflected with his inordinate love for you. and so did the eyes in the murk.

"it's so dark in here," you said tentatively, dithering in your own resolve the more the two of you stumbled through the building. the surplus of abandoned, neglected parts unnerved you as they encased every room you passed. "can you shine that light up more, sonic?"

lifting the gadget of tails' that was propped between his fingers, sonic chuckled as the ravaged egg carrier came into view, "oh yeah, i forgot dad left that here."

... huh?

your blood ran cold, dread overflowing through your pulsating veins. suddenly, you had the realization that of course he knew about this island. there's no way he wouldn't.

before you could let go of him, you felt metallic wires worming up along your legs and coiling around your quivering form. glimpsing down, you saw decaying badniks gliding to you in plenitude. "no no, wait, wait-!" you choked out, finding him clasping onto you tauter; as if holding you so desperately helped alleviate his pain at last.

the hearts coruscating in sonic's eyes harmonized with the blinking lights of the badniks, making your skin crawl and your own set of tears begin to emerge.

"you can't leave this island without me. you need me," sonic grinned sardonically, "you really do belong to me. if you want to get off this island, you have to become mine. but even if you don't want to leave, we'll still be together here forever, won't we?♡"

[sonicfan1837]

@sonic-oc-central, here she is!

name:zelda

species:zeti

gender:female

weight:80kg (176lbs)

hieght:140cm (4′07′')

allignment: chaotic evil

skin: rose,black,dark rose

age:129

type: speed

likes:putting on puppet shows,making the other zeti (especially zazz) laugh,her family,making poorly made puppets of enemies,spending time with zeena and zycthe,Zazz,controlling people with her puppet strings,carnage,destruction

dislikes: Zors whining,people destroying her puppet show,sonic and tails interupting her puppet show,her tail being stomped on

abilites:Super speed,Brutal strength,Sharp claws,Enhanced jump,Enhanced endurance,Energy tether generation,Enhanced durability,Longevity,Magnetism manipulation,Telepathic Speaking,Reality Wrapping,puppet string generation.

eye color: Amethyst with yellow scerlea (left) sapphire blue with yellow scerlea (right)

hair color: pink

attire:tattered and bloody white cape,half smiley mask (sometimes),rose shirt,light blue and light rose heels,gray-blue pants,ruby pendant  necklet

apperance: zelda is a pink-ish red zeti,shes taller then zor,zeena,ziok,zurora,zarmony,and master zik,but shorter then zazz.she has a amethyst purple eye with a yellow scerlea and a sapphire eye with a yellow scerlea with black slit pupils. she has the longest tail out of all the zeti,with the tail being around 20 inches long in total.when shes in combat,she can create brilliant-rose colored puppet strings to control her enemy or multiple enemies at the same time.around her neck is a black necklet witha  ruby pendant (wich is the source of her power) with pink hair,with black markings on her hands that look like fingerless gloves. for attire,she wears a rose red shirt,A tattered and bloody white cape,gray-blue pants,raspberry rose and light blue heels.sometimes she wears half of a smiley face mask thats the color lavender blush.

in her introduction in the dlc,Zelda wears an obsidian harlequin bodysuit with turquoise diamond appliques. Her sleeves take a bishop style, her right sleeve having a pale Columbia blue base and her left a black base, both with sapphire accents and wide cuffs resembling whipped cream. The jester wears a ruff collar from which hang curling coattails with a ghostly blue lining and a black outside.She wears his eye-like Gemstone of Deceit as a brooch on her collar in the same place that Creampuff wears her own Gemstone.

personality:Zelda is a theatrical villain, changing reality into an illusory counterfeit carnival stage to host her performances. She holds herself in cartoonishly-high regard through these shows, showering herself in praises and titles while forcing her victims to stand audience. Unlike what her clownish appearance suggests, she is mercilessly conniving and intelligent, presenting outrageous lies carried by nuggets of truth to entice her enemies to play along. However, such showmanship serves primarily as a means for her to enforce her own twisted perspectives upon those she seeks to entrap.Although Zelda behaves with sardonic playfulness, unexpected changes to her script from her audience can cause her to drop her act completely, as if her personality was nothing more but a facade for the blackness and fury that drives her. Ever the showman however, Zelda composes herself quickly as she reshapes her show to accommodate such unforeseen developments. A perfectly-executed "finale" where she stands victorious is the only other time her true self emerges with wicked laughter, the only soul left to applaud her own dark performances. however,she is shown to have a short temper,getting easily angered with one wrong move. 

story: She was once known as the worlds greatest "playwright, poet, director, actor, clown... Everyone's most beloved trickster!" When she noticed that people were more attracted to creampuff's preformances more then hers.In a fit of rage,she clawed Creampuffs left eye out and chipped her ear with her claw.flipping her brooch upside down and returned to the lost hex,where she restarted her plays but they became more chaotic,dark,and a lot of death and gore.

concept: a fan asked if zazz has a crush on anyone, Kyle awnsered yes and that it was someone who had a short temper just like him and she was like a jester of sorts. Ian flynn backed that up while stating she was inspired by shadow milk cookie and credits will be at the end of the game for the inspiration

[dustedmagazine]

The Reds, Pinks and Purples — Unwishing Well (Slumberland)

Glenn Donaldson’s songs lodge sharp words in the softest sonic textures. Musically, he conjures caressing grace, a wash of synths, a twinkle of strummed guitars, the soft rueful solace of murmured vocals. But within these parameters, the lyrics sting. Reds, Pinks and Purples songs are lullabies that throw the most excellent shade, wistful daydreams with a bitchy, gossipy heart.

Consider, for instance, this album’s centerpiece, the sly, sardonic “Your Worst Song Is Your Greatest Hit,” which considers the incompatibility of artistic and commercial success. The tune is classic Donaldson, all sighs and soft focus regrets, a minimal melody, a bleary, blurring, backing of bittersweet sounds. And yet the words have a nearly surgical precision to them; they don’t flinch or equivocate. “Your best idea got watered down/only the worst parts could be found/still the market makes demands we can’t understand,” he murmurs and whether he’s talking about his worst song or yours, he’s not hedging things in niceness.

It's not just artists either. He views pretty much all of us dyspeptically. “What’s Going On with Ordinary People?” peers through a radiant C86 jangle at the sorry state of things. “What’s going on with everyday people, riding on a carousel,” he croons gently. “I’m pretty it’s evil, might be sent from hell.”  Or in the slightly more rocking “Public Art,” with its strident drums and tangled electric guitar tones, he looks askance at artistic difficulty and pretense, “Are you the public art no one wanted?”

And yet, Donaldson still has his soft spots; his most fetching song this time out concerns one thing that hasn’t turned to shit so far—music. “Learning to Love a Band” is a haunted elegy to becoming a fan. “Gonna find yourself alone/when the clouds lift in your home/and then it hits you/you’re learning to love a band,” he sings, as a melodica weaves through strums and drums, and it seems pretty wholehearted. Let us now sing the praises of pretty songs with a wicked edge—but also just of pretty songs. Donaldson is good at both.

Jennifer Kelly

[colgatebluemintygel]

wait toothpaste PLEASE tell me more about how ntmt is an s-coded album bc i agree so hard and i’m dying to talk about it actually!!

(also hi <3)

ESTHER HELLOOO HI welcome, have a seat 🪑 <333

YES NTMT... i am also dying to talk about this <3 SO MUCH of it feels s-coded! from the sound, to the visuals, the references, the lyrics! the combination of anger and defiance w vulnerability and self-doubt. even just the journey the album takes you on;; both sonically and emotionally! it all feels very sirius to me

on an individual song level... i blame myself OF COURSE. the hounds of hell imagery, the combo of defiance + self depreciation. "10 years old without a voice // i feel like nothing's really changed, now i'm just a little older" - s's childhood;;; the abuse, the neglect, the way he struggles to move past it and not be defined by it. i typically headcanon s as struggling with emotional regulation because his emotions were always punished and suppressed, and in some ways i feel like that feeling of voicelessness would carry over, esp in feeling like he needs to scream to be heard. also the way sky talks about people feeling entitled to her + people feeling like they know her when really they don't, or not taking her seriously. this all feels very true to how i see s. particularly re: people making initial judgements about him being a black, and assumptions people might make based on the way he presents himself, vs what's actually going on inside his head, etc etc..

nobody asked me if i was okay... ain't your right..... love in stereo... 24 hours... heavy metal heart.... self sabotage innit. the certainty of being let down/abandoned by a lover. i'm not sure if these would relate to remus necessarily (maybe love in stereo?), more just s's relationship w relationships and love.

boys! r (though even this song feels doomed tbh)

i will.. no notes

omanko. it's just soo cunty, both figuratively n literally

NIGHT TIME, MY TIME... the final song (and my favourite)... the way it opens - "i'm useless and i know it" - feels reminiscent of the kind of language walburga or orion would have used, which he has internalised (and is now reclaiming???! idk this line has always felt a little bit sardonic to me). the idea that no matter how much he tries to distract himself, he always finds himself alone in the doom hours with his emotions for company. the slowness of the song after the brashness of the rest of the album feels like the aftermath of his chaos... BUT the way it picks itself up towards the end, w the faster and faster and faster becoming more and more distorted (delirious. detached even), like he's spiraling out, won't slow down, both because of and despite his ghosts

lol 😋 in conclusion... i have spent many hours on the bus listening to this album thinking about s! and i'd LOVE to hear your thoughts <333

[cyarskaren52]

Best Albums of 2023

Many of the LPs that made an impact this year, including SZA’s “SOS” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts,” came from looking inward.

| | 

Jon Pareles

The Personal Is Powerful

Personal reflections, not grand statements, filled my most memorable albums of 2023. It was a year when many of the best songs came from looking inward: at tricky relationships, at memories, at individual hopes and fears. Yet in the music, introspection led to exploration: expanding and toying with sonic possibilities, enjoying the way every note is now an infinitely flexible digital choice. For me, there was no overwhelming, year-defining album; this list could just as well be alphabetical. Instead, 2023 was a year of artists going in decidedly individual (and group) directions to grapple with their own questions, risks and rewards.

1. SZA, ‘SOS’

Released in December 2022, too late for last year’s best-of lists, SZA’s “SOS” ended a five-year gap between albums with a sprawling collection of 23 songs. Across all sorts of productions, her melodies blur any difference between rapping and singing, in casually acrobatic phrases full of jazzy syncopations and startling leaps. SZA sings about relationships from multiple angles: raunchy, devoted, betrayed, spiteful, injured, supercilious, insecure, regretful, sardonic, blithely murderous. And she makes her insights sound as natural as if she’d just thought of them on the spot.

2. Karol G, ‘Mañana Será Bonito’

Karol G turns heartache into ear candy on “Mañana Será Bonito” (“Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful”), 17 songs that work their way through a breakup to find a new start. Her voice sounds utterly guileless as she sings about lust, betrayal, revenge and healing. With an international assortment of guests, the Colombian songwriter brings pop tunefulness to reggaeton and also makes forays into rock, Dominican dembow, Afrobeats and regional Mexican music — claiming an ever-expanding territory in global pop.

3. boygenius, ‘The Record’

Synergy reigns in boygenius, the alliance of the singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. On “The Record,”they seem to dare one another to rev up the music and sing candidly, or at least believably, about the many ways relationships — romances, friendships, mentorships — can go sideways. Meanwhile, their harmonies promise to carry them through all the setbacks together.

4. Paul Simon, ‘Seven Psalms’

“Seven Psalms” comes across as a farewell album from Paul Simon, 82. It’s also an artistic leap, expanding his mastery of the three-minute song into an unbroken 33-minute suite that traverses folk, blues and jazz. Simon sings about mortality as a “great migration” and extols the presence and purpose of “The Lord,” as the biblical psalms do. He also ponders music, love, family and eternity. The tone is conversational and quizzical; the implications are deep.

5. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Guts’

Adolescence is complicated enough. Throw in celebrity, social-media scrutiny, headline touring and musical productivity, and it’s remarkable that Oliva Rodrigo, now 20, has kept not only a clear head but a sense of humor. The songs on her second album, “Guts,” combine pop’s concision and melody with rock’s potential to erupt. The production riffles through decades of crafty allusions as she deals with self-confidence and insecurity, misjudgments and comeuppances, and the relentless, contradictory expectations placed on a teenage female star.

6. Feist, ‘Multitudes’

Feist explores sorrow, longing, solace, new motherhood and the future of the Earth on “Multitudes.” Her latest songs are mostly quiet, but not always. They can take startling dynamic leaps: between unadorned acoustic close-ups and forays into orchestration or electronics, between lullaby and clatter, between intimacy and mystery, always seeking a compassionate path.

7. Everything but the Girl, ‘Fuse’

Despite a 24-year gap between albums by Everything but the Girl, “Fuse” isn’t exactly a reunion. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have been married the whole time. But “Fuse” reawakens and revises what they created together on their 1990s albums: a melancholy wee-hours ambience, with electronics pulsing behind Thorne’s contralto, where yearning meets experience and there’s always a chance at an epiphany.

8. Danny Brown, ‘Quaranta’

Early in 2023, Danny Brown collaborated with the avant-hip-hop producer Jpegmafia on the bristling, manic, bawdy album “Scaring the Hoes.” But “Quaranta” is a reckoning with maturity; “quaranta” means 40 in Italian, and Brown is now 42. The tracks veer from relaxed and retro to head-spinning and abstract. Brown raps about growing up in Detroit, coping with the ups and downs of a hip-hop career, and dealing with gentrification and change. On “Quaranta,” he’s an unabashed hip-hop grown-up.

9. Speedy Ortiz, ‘Rabbit Rabbit’

Rock could hardly get denser or spikier than it does on “Rabbit Rabbit” from Speedy Ortiz, the band led by Sadie Dupuis. Guitar lines race, collide, tangle and distort; Dupuis lofts blithe pop melodies above them. The lyrics are sometimes cryptic, sometimes glaringly exposed, as she sings about trauma, power and growing self-knowledge about dark moments. But the momentum is exultant, noisily overcoming the past.

10. Vijay Iyer, Arooj Aftab, Shahzad Ismaily, ‘Love in Exile’

Ambient, jazz, world music: “Love in Exile” partakes of them all. Its three collaborators share South Asian roots and American musical practice. Their improvised pieces draw on deep traditions — especially the singer Arooj Aftab’s ancient melodies and Urdu poetry — along with Shazad Ismaily’s liminal synthesizer drones and penumbras and Vijay Iyer’s patient but mutable piano patterns. They start with simplicity, then listen to one another; things happen.

Another 20 worthwhile albums, alphabetically:

100 gecs, “10,000 gecs”

André 3000, “New Blue Sun”

Corinne Bailey Rae, “Black Rainbows”

Geese, “3D Country”

Margaret Glaspy, “Echo the Diamond”

Irreversible Entanglements, “Protect Your Light”

Hannah Jadagu, “Aperture”

Kelela, “Raven”

Mitski, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We”

Janelle Monáe, “The Age of Pleasure”

L’Rain, “I Killed Your Dog”

Nkosazana Daughter, “Uthingo Le Nkosazana”

Noname, “Sundial”

Peso Pluma, “Génesis”

Raye, “My 21st Century Blues”

The Rolling Stones, “Hackney Diamonds”

Allison Russell, “The Returner”

Jorja Smith, “Falling or Flying”

Kali Uchis, “Red Moon in Venus”

Water From Your Eyes, “Everyone’s Crushed”

Jon Caramanica

Listening Widely, Feeling Deeply

The excellent albums that expanded the sound and idea of what pop music can be this year came from all over the globe, in all styles, and in many cases captured the beauty and unexpected creative shocks of cross-genre optimism. And the excellent albums about feelings this year were uncommonly direct, sparse, unbowed and sometimes whispered.

1. Asake, ‘Work of Art’

The second album by the Nigerian singer Asake captures the sound of exultant celebration. Rooted in the South African dance style amapiano, and playing with a range of more traditional Nigerian styles, it is elegant, careful and precious; as crisp as sunshine hitting skin, a restoration and a renewal.

2. Ice Spice, ‘Like..?’

As a rapper, Ice Spice is sturdy, terse, poised, cool — a virtuoso of delivering tough talk with a whisper. This EP, her first, is a primer on how to reconcile drill’s pugnacity with the sweetness of pop — no one since Pop Smoke has done it better.

3. SZA, ‘SOS’

SZA sings as if she’s revealing confidences, viciously detailing how perceptible flaws lead to imperceptible holes that gnaw away at you until they’re filled. Her second album — actually released in late 2022, after list-making season — is an aching catalog of letdowns, recriminations and, ever so rarely, relief.

4. NewJeans, ‘Get Up’

The most modern, most progressive and most slick pop release of the year is this futurist delight of an EP from the Korean girl group NewJeans, who are adaptable to a host of styles, including sultry R&B and pop-jungle.

5. 100 gecs, ‘10,000 gecs’

The maligned, the overlooked, the caustic, the cheeky — 100 gecs loves them all, and builds undeniably jubilant songs from these deeply shattered parts. This is the duo’s second album, and trades some of the debut’s shock for a kind of twisted tunefulness. The punishment continues; morale improves.

6. Megan Moroney, ‘Lucky’

Don’t let the inherent perkiness in the country singer Megan Moroney’s voice fool you — she’s an acute conveyor of what it feels like to hold it together while your insides shatter. This debut album has plenty of moving heartbreak songs, but also a few that detail how the person most likely to let you down is … you.

7. Peso Pluma, ‘Génesis’

For the last few years, traditional Mexican music has been updating rapidly, with a legion of younger stars indebted to hip-hop’s swagger taking the baton. Peso Pluma is this generation’s truest synthesist, and this album is his most ambitious yet, a blend of woozy and proud.

8. Zach Bryan, ‘Zach Bryan’

Another year, another album of songs written with a disarmingly pointillist perspective delivered with the ease and beauty of a rumpled pile of brown leaves on a crisp late-fall evening.

9. Sexyy Red, ‘Hood Hottest Princess’

It’s uncanny how unfinished but inevitable the songs on Sexyy Red’s breakout album sound, as if the way to navigate the space between casual smack talk and rap’s biggest stages wasn’t a crazy leap, but a practically indifferent saunter.

10. Bailey Zimmerman, ‘Religiously. The Album.’

A bruising collection of post-Morgan Wallen/Luke Combs power country, Bailey Zimmerman’s debut album has the straight-faced grandeur of anthemic 2000s arena rock overlaid with heartbroken lyrics descended from multiple generations of young men, in various genres, given to shouting their feelings at top volume.

11. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Guts’

A snarling turn for the most important new pop starlet of the last few years, “Guts” is the sort of album you make when you experience enormous success and immediately sense the hollowness within. These songs are salted with some pop-punk, a dash of riot grrrl and a withering opinion of everyone fame has put in her path.

12. Drake, ‘For All the Dogs Scary Hours Edition’

The rare case of a bonus edition of an album deepening the meaning of the original version. The six additional songs added to the deluxe collection make Drake’s most recent album less about midcareer meandering and more about throne-sitting

13. Tanner Adell, ‘Buckle Bunny’

A pop-oriented singer who has an easy way with twang (but doesn’t over-rely on it), Tanner Adell casually traverses oozy R&B, barroom country, tsk-tsking hip-hop and disconsolate balladry on this winning debut. Her take on country music is uncanny, provocative and — if only Nashville would relax its borders — feels somewhat inevitable.

14. Troye Sivan, ‘Something to Give Each Other’

The best and most assured album Troye Sivanhas made is full of horny-on-main flirtation, high-viscosity production, and lyrics that reckon with the way that sweat on the dance floor can actually be a damp cover for tenderness.

And 10 more:

Natanael Cano, “Nata Montana”

Lana Del Rey, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”

Jung Kook, “Golden”

Le Sserafim, “Unforgiven”

Mandy, Indiana, “I’ve Seen a Way”

Saint Levant, “From Gaza, With Love”

Skrillex, “Quest for Fire”

Uncle Waffles, “Asylum”

Morgan Wade, “Psychopath”

Morgan Wallen, “One Thing at a Time”

Lindsay Zoladz

Smart, Stupid and Fully Alive

My favorite albums of the year tended to be acts of aural world building: finely detailed utopias (or dystopias) that invited temporary immersion into other psyches and sounds. Some of these reflected on the brokenness of the planet, others indulged in abstract absurdism. But all offered a needed respite from reality, using the musical imagination as an escape route.

1. 100 gecs, ‘10,000 gecs’

So much great pop music walks a tightrope between stupidity and brilliance. 100 gecs see that tightrope and, in the opening moments of their kaleidoscopically anarchic second album “10,000 gecs,” light it on fire. “If you think I’m stupid now, you should see me when I’m high,” the digitally manipulated voice of Laura Les sings. “And I’m smarter than I look; I’m the dumbest girl alive.”

100 gecs — Les and the producer Dylan Brady — are garbage collectors of modern cultural detritus who fashion pummeling pop-rock from the junkyard of our collective unconscious. (On one song on this album, they rhyme Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos, mosquitoes, burritos and Danny DeVito.) But as nonsensical as these songs appear to be — and on some level, absolutely are — meaning and emotion trickle through. What seems like a novelty song about a frog at a kegger becomes, somehow, a poignant plea to accept social awkwardness in others.

When Les and Brady released their self-titled debut in 2019, they seemed like digital-era jesters, thumbing their noses at good taste in their quest to make hyperactive music of the future. On “10,000 gecs,” though, they wisely look back to a seemingly dead genre — rock music — and enliven it with genuinely appreciative, sonically studious tributes to pop-punk, metal, gonzo alt-rock and yes, even ska. The result is loud, brash, jubilant and unsentimentally inclusive in a way that so much of the music from which they borrow was not. “10,000 gecs” is a 27-minute blast of joy that speaks the language of our broken brains. They’re even dumber than they sound. They’re the smartest band alive.

2. Caroline Polachek, ‘Desire, I Want to Turn Into You’

“Welcome to my island,” the art-pop auteur Caroline Polachek proclaims at the beginning of this twisty travelogue through her own musical mind, before letting loose one of the most towering choruses of the year. This follow-up to the underrated “Pang” from 2019 explores Polachek’s sonic obsessions including opera, flamenco, Celtic music, Y2K-era soft rock (Dido makes a fitting cameo) and the outer limits of experimental pop. Welcome to La Isla de Polachek, population: One.

3. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Guts’

Olivia Rodrigo has a knack for capturing the visceral ache of growing pains, the physical recoil of cringe. It’s all over “Guts,” her chatty, triumphant “yeah, right” to the sophomore slump. Notice the way her voice breaks when she recounts her social faux pas or the romantic mistakes of her recent past: “How could I be so stupid?” she sings, practically retching that last word. Rodrigo may be a Gen Z heroine, but the irresistible rockers on “Guts” prove that the ’90s mean something more specific to her than mass-produced Nirvana shirts and borrowed nostalgia. If anything, she’s a home-schooled riot grrrl, waking up from the teenage dream and stumbling into an admirably messy young adulthood.

4. Lana Del Rey, ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’

Pop’s divisive princess swings for the heavens on her sprawling ninth album, and even at her most meandering, you have to admire the ambition. Throughout this dizzying, 78-minute swirl of the sacred and the profane, Lana Del Rey pays tribute to her own hodgepodge canon of Americana: Harry Nilsson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Forensic Files,” John Denver, Angelina Jolie and — finally, provocatively, deservedly — herself.

5. Debby Friday, ‘Good Luck’

With perhaps the most confident and promising debut album of the year, the Toronto-based electronic musician Debby Friday creates an alluringly dark, industrial backdrop for her slinky self-mythologizing and galvanizing pep talks to herself. “Speak up, speak up, Friday Child,” she intones on the intention-setting opener. “Say what you came to say.” Does she ever.

6. Fever Ray, ‘Radical Romantics’

Karin Dreijer, formerly of the Knife, injects an enlivening jolt of vulnerability into their long-running solo project Fever Ray on this bold exploration of desire, seduction and midlife romance. “Looking for a person with a special kind of smile/Teeth like razors, fingers like spice,” they sing, summing up an album that sounds, thrillingly, like the world’s weirdest personal ad.

7. Water From Your Eyes, ‘Everyone’s Crushed’

Like Sonic Youth if it had been raised on memes, flavored vape cartridges and forced Zoom hangouts, the Brooklyn-based duo Water From Your Eyes (Rachel Brown and Nate Amos) mold dissonant guitars and deadpan vocals into hypnotic art rock that obliquely reflects the absurdity — and at times, the stubborn compassion — of the world in which it was created.

8. Jamila Woods, ‘Water Made Us’

On her third album, Chicago’s Jamila Woods, one of contemporary R&B’s sharpest observers, turns her gaze inward and — in a voice at once plain-spoken and poetic — charts the insight and self-discovery she’s gained in the process of her patient search for love.

9. Jessie Ware, ‘That! Feels Good!’

The British pop musician Jessie Warecontinues her midcareer transformation into a liberated disco diva with a killer record collection — ESG, Grace Jones, Donna Summer — on this fizzy, appropriately exclamatory ode to the pleasure principle.

10. Anohni and the Johnsons:, ‘My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross’

For the first time in over a decade, Anohnireunited with her band the Johnsons, inspiring her to push her forcefully tender voice in a new direction and craft a loose, soulful and casually virtuosic album that updates Marvin Gaye’s classic 1971 query for an age of climate grief, selective listening and hardening hearts. Let Anohni melt yours.

And 5 more:

L’Rain, “I Killed Your Dog”

Sufjan Stevens, “Javelin”

Mitski, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We”

Spencer Zahn, “Statues I & II”

Jana Horn, “The Window Is the Dream”

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University. More about Jon Pareles

Sent from my iPhone

[plungermusic]

First floor Frippery, Sanctuary & platform boots…

... Mule and Nashville balladry, agitprop and blues. Going up!

Department stores might seem a strange analogy for an album inspired in part by Eastern mystic philosophies of enlightenment, and partly by Marx & Engels’ call for the violent overthrow of the state, but you can’t deny Mike has laid out an eye- (and ear-) catching range of shiny, varied wares (though all bearing the manufacturer’s unmistakeable imprimatur). And the music business is after all a branch of retail: there is a point where artist meets artisan, and the demands of commerce are never far away. So do market forces explain the heavier direction taken on most of his latest release, Third Eye Open?

That added heft is epitomised by the Cult-in-their-late-80s-pomp overdriven wall of power chords, eastern-spiced lead lines, and thick reverbed-up drums of I Swear, backed (or indeed ‘fronted’) by Derek Randall’s highly aggressive, to-the-fore, low-slung bass, like Allen Woody on steroids (particularly in the grinding middle break). Cool Water carries that vibe forward, filling-rattling bass and acerbic Dancing Days rhythm guitar, with unison vox-and-lead-guitar melody lines emphasised by Darren Lee’s machine-gun fills and the very Zeppish tutti ‘stabs’.

The title track’s noodling, headphone-swapping intro belies the bludgeoning riffing to come: a portentous Mule-cover-Sabbath half-tone falling chordal riff leads to a blues on PCP progression, with blistering polemical lyrics delivered with real venom and a Rocky Mountain Way chorus. There’s gentler moments though in the extended “Short, sharp shock” Dark Side midbreak of melodic slide and relaxed drums, with spoken (though not quite audible) lyrics.

Zep/Cult touches appear even in the backwoods resonator-picking of Born To Me in the bursts of unison guitar and drums, but overall the hillbilly beat and multi-voice choral harmonies (including a guesting Jack Hutchinson, who also adds to the BVs on I Swear, The Preacher and Never No More) lend an Oh Brother Where Art Thou?-after-toad-licking swamp revivalist meeting atmosphere… at least until the closing vortex of stinging slide.

A chance to catch your breath after the helter-skelter opening comes in Fallen Down: tighter snare rolls and fluid, less-in-your-face bass back a Western-badlands-tinged amble with a stadium chorus. Also marginally less explosive is Face By Your Window: originally a laid-back candidate for 2019s Clovis Limit Pt2, it returns after a gym workout - the hypnotic resonator blues picking underpinned with military rolls and a steady bass pulse, plus some superb electric slide ornamentation; the gritty, half-spoken delivery and a spare slide solo make for a very echt blues feel.

It’s back on the high octane mixture for the twin pairing of The Preacher and Ugly Brain: the former matching a James Gangesque laddish swagger with a sackload of glam glitter, particularly in the overhead slow-clap crowd-participation chorus and multi-vox terrace chant vibe, and there’s also a lovely sweet’n’sour pinch harmonic solo; the latter (rhythmically and sonically very similar but lent a boogieing swing) features Mike’s Joe Walshish playful sardonic snarl, a catchy playground vocal hook and, yes, cowbell!

Mike shows his romantic side in the Nashville-ballad-with-a-hint-of-The-West duet (Be With You) Tonight, swapping verses with Jess Hayes (daughter of Richard and Val of Bad Influence, and leader of her own band). A little out of character with the rest of the album, (and to Plunger’s ears reminiscent of Pussycat’s Mississippi) it does feature excellent guitar, both in a twangsome cowboy lower register break and exquisite soaring Gary-Moore-does-Comfortably Numb sustain guitar, as well as lovely organ in an extended coda.

Things get heavy again (musically and lyrically) with the closing pair: Never No More channels Cortez The Killer in a febrile philippic against politicians, plutocrats and the powerful - a menacing, loping riff topped with howling feedback accents and highly Youngian noodling, and the return of the thick, meaty drum tone (this time from Brian Irwin); Kicks Like A Mule continues the invective assault over a Damned-cover-25 Or 6 To 4 (or While My Guitar Gently Weeps, if you prefer) descending riff, complete with fleet-fingered southern-fried soloing and two-part harmony guitars, and another lengthy coda.

The pick of the album for Plunger though is track nine, Eulogy - a brutal Belew-era-Crimson aural bombardment in sevens (and this is by no means the only track that flirts with tricksy timings!), with appropriately angular ascending riff: alternating a bruising bass-led near-spoken Thorazine Shuffle verse with a searing wall-of-fuzz screamed ‘chorus’ and highly complex very Frippish atonal solo… stunning stuff, and indicative of Mike’s boundary-stretching versatility and invention.

As with all Mike’s band albums the production throughout is lush and many-layered, from the multi-tracked harmony (and non-harmony) vocals and doubled- or tripled-up guitar parts to quirky touches like the something-that-sounds-like-jew’s-harp (actually a Hohner Clavinet through a wah pedal, like Cripple Creek by The Band) on Born To Me or the washboard ‘snare rolls’ on Face At Your Window. The guitar work is sublime (natch!) even if there’s understandably less discursive soloing than on Peach Jam - the range of ferocity, expression and tone is an object lesson in taste and artistry (particularly his slide playing), while the vocals are more vitriolic and passionate than Plunger think they’ve ever been…

… and that’s likely the real key to the heftier nature of Third Eye Open: the times we live in (and Mike’s obvious disgust with them) are probably reasons enough to go full tonto on the heaviness front… 

Whatever the inspiration, as young Mr Grace says, it’s ‘all done very well!’

Third Eye Open is released on Friday 28th April, available from the usual online suspects and is available to pre-order here: https://shop.mikerossmusic.co.uk/product/third-eye-open-cd for CD and here: https://shop.mikerossmusic.co.uk/product/third-eye-open-vinyl for marble vinyl 12″ album.

[bringinbackpod]

We had the pleasure of interviewing Her Head’s On Fire over Zoom video. Indie rock, of all stripes, is far too long in the tooth —and the classic back catalogs far too crowded— fo half measures: If we are to have new "left of the dial" songs in an age where the wry cleverness and heart-on-sleeve (or heart-patch-on-messenger-bag?) vulnerability of yore have listed into a kind of sardonic nihilism, then those songs must be full of that strange alchemic mix of chords and melodies that make hearts flutter and souls soar—they must be incandescent; bright flares that light us up and burn away the pretenses and bullshit the world circa 2022 seems determined to encase us in. Enter Her Head's On Fire — a fiery, enlivening quartet with an unfuckwithable pedigree (Saves the Day, Garrison, Small Brown Bike, The Bomb, Gay for Johnny Depp) that serves as the DNA for a 10-track genetic splicing debut full-length, College Rock & Clove Cigarettes, that is not only simultaneously familiar and transcendent but also very, very good. If you ever thrilled to the anthems of Samiam, pounded the steering wheel to Superchunk, reveled in the waves of Dinosaur Jr's melodic fuzz, gladly went over to the Farside, got down to some Elvis Costello, or can remember where you were the first time you heard Sense Field…well, then Her Head's On Fire's heart-seeking post-post-hardcore, "emo"tive rock stemwinders will be the best thing to happen to you in a very long time. Building on the promise of an auspicious bow via last year's well-received split with living legend J. Robbins, College Rock & Clove Cigarettes is a beguiling and powerful statement: Her Head's On Fire has your number and a container of clean sonic kerosine. All you have to do is follow the light, open up to the real, and find your way back to the messy, anthem-inspiring glory of love once again. We want to hear from you! Please email Tera@BringinitBackwards.com . www.BringinitBackwards.com #podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #HerHeadsOnFire #Garrison #SmallBrownBike #SavesTheDay #TheBomb #NewMusic #zoom Listen & Subscribe to BiB https://www.bringinitbackwards.com/follow/ Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter! https://www.facebook.com/groups/bringinbackpod

[cosmo112]

Can I get the egos with a reader that has been in a car for so long and they're starting to hurt? Any egos is fine

YES! tysm! Guessing as genuine HC’e

Darkiplier

Since he doesn’t really get pains anymore. he’s lost, but happy [with a resting bitch face] to help!

He teleports you inside and safely helps you walk again. if it hurts to sit, he will carry you.

thats a threat

Wilford Warfstache

one grumble. and Upsie daises! your now suddenly being carried everywhere til the pain chills out.

Every time someone asks he uses a baby voice and goes ”someone can’t walk 😢 poor thing.”

Yancy

Okay. He’s fresh outta prison. and ya’ll go on a trip.

but it starts to hurt since well you’ve been driving constantly. So yancy Scoops you up and you both enjoy the views from the spot ya’ll stopped.

[shironezuninja]

Snippy Me: It looks like De Vil manor, from 101 Dalmatians.