Notable Releases of the Week (2/14)

This week in the land of BrooklynVegan we launched our first cover story of 2025, on Sharon Van Etten and her new band (and their excellent new album), so check that out if you haven’t already. It’s also been a big week in NYC because Paul McCartney decided to stop by and play two tiny shows at Bowery Ballroom with a “third and final” one happening tonight. And for anyone with a place in their heart for mid 2000s indie, this was an exciting week because Death Cab For Cutie and Bloc Party both announced 20th anniversary tours for their classic 2005 albums, Plans and Silent Alarm, respectively. Not to mention Patti Smith announced a 50th anniversary tour for Horses.

As for this week’s new albums, I review four below and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Horsegirl (who he also interviewed), Richard Dawson, Art d’Ecco, Immersion / SUSS, Kestrels, and Bevil Web (Tobin Sprout). On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Bartees Strange, Westside Gunn, skaiwater, Benjamin Clementine, Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra), Rusty Williams (Hayley Williams’ grandfather), Thomas Erak & The Ouroboros (The Fall of Troy), Rizzle Kicks, Fish Narc, Frog, Mallrat, Mantar, Mereba, Manic Street Preachers, Musiq Soulchild & Hit-Boy, Winona Fighter, Alessia Cara, Gaiko, Ohgeesy, Gary Louris (The Jayhawks), Joshua Radin, Jacquees & DeJ Loaf, Brother Ali & Ant, Smear Campaign, Yung Bleu, Civilistjävel!, Abby Jasmine, Dro Kenji, Capella Grey, P-Lo, Denison Witmer, THEY., Lacuna Coil, Bleeding Through, Dawn of Solace, Dynazty, The Velveteers, Oracle Sisters, Robert Ascroft, Thala, Dead Gowns, The Delines, The War and Treaty, The Lumineers, Twiztid, the Coi Leray EP, the Last Days of Heaven EP, the Field Note/Sissy Boys split EP, Kelela’s live at the Blue Note Jazz Club album, the live Hour album, the “lost” Neil Young album, and the deluxe edition of Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet (ft. Dolly Parton), Also apparently Drake is back from the dead and released an album with PARTYNEXTDOOR called $ome $exy $ongs 4 U today.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

John Glacier – Like A Ribbon (Young)
The UK rapper and producer walks the line between pop and the avant-garde on this subtly thrilling LP

UK rapper and producer John Glacier made her 2021 debut full-length SHILOH: Lost for Words when the world was still in lockdown–following a collaborative project with fellow UK rapper Jadasea in 2020, and followed by a project with NYC cloud rap collective Surf Gang in 2023–but now she’s performing for sizable crowds and it’s having an impact on her music. “SHILOH was more of a dampener, so with Like A Ribbon, I wanted to invite new life into people’s perception of me,” she says. “I was thinking ‘how can I interact differently with the crowd?’ and one of the main things was the music I was playing to the crowd.”

Like A Ribbon–an album of material that was rolled out for the past year across a series of EPs–is minimalistic but not clouded in haze the way SHILOH was. It’s quiet but not shy, inviting but not overeager. Even and sometimes especially her most introspective songs, like “Emotions,” “Nevasure,” and “Ocean Steppin’,” are the ones I imagine the most amount of people singing along to. Hard to pin down but easy to like, Like A Ribbon is a melting pot of future garage, UK drill, grime, atmospheric art pop, and more, like a cross between “Paper Planes” era M.I.A. and “Wilhelm Scream” era James Blake. Her Young labelmate Sampha, who played as big a role as James Blake in shaping 2010s future-garage-pop, lends his soaring voice to “Ocean Steppin.'” The album’s other guest is avant-pop oddball Eartheater, who joins Glacier on top of some chopped-up surf guitar on “Money Shows.” Those are two very different but very fitting guests for an album that occupies the space between pop music and the avant-garde the way Like A Ribbon does. It’s subtle, innovative, and also dripping with crowd-pleasing confidence that John Glacier makes look effortless. Now they’re calling her a bitch? You best believe it.

Like A Ribbon by John Glacier

Venturing – Ghostholding (deadAir)
Jane Remover’s debut LP as Venturing blurs the lines between ’90s emo/shoegaze and post-internet modernism

Venturing is another project of the prolific Jane Remover, and previously, a story made the rounds online that Venturing was created as a “fictional” band that was active but obscure in the ’90s and then re-discovered later on–you know, like American Football, Panchiko, and Duster. It’s a good story, but it turns out that fans allegedly made up that story and spread it around the internet themselves, and that Jane just created the moniker to be able to create and release music with some anonymity again, like they did in the earlier days of their career. Regardless, this elaborate work of apparent fan fiction suits Venturing very well. It blurs the lines between the types of emo and shoegaze that ran parallel to each other in the ’90s and actually are more popular and more intertwined now than they were then. The only thing about Venturing that probably wouldn’t have existed in the ’90s is some of the vocal style and production, which sounds like the work of an artist who’s as immersed in the world of once-obscure American Football, Panchiko, and Duster records as they are in the world of GothBoiClique. Venturing’s debut LP Ghostholding bridges the gap between post-internet modernism and ’90s revival even more than the Jane Remover records do, and outside of its surface level era-specific traits, the unbridled emotion in these songs is timeless.

Ghostholding by venturing

Cryogeyser – Cryogeyser (self-released)
The LA trio’s self-titled album is a mix of grunge, indie rock, shoegaze, and dream pop that’s fueled by sincerity and big, soaring hooks

Cryogeyser have been steadily rising since releasing their debut LP Glitch in 2019. They had a stint on Terrible Records (Blood Orange, Solange), worked with cool producers like Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa and Deafheaven collaborator Jack Shirley, and shared stages with the likes of Wednesday, Citizen, DIIV, TAGABOW, and Hotline TNT. For their new album, they’ve self-titled it, they’re self-releasing it, and it’s self-produced by drummer Zach CapittiFenton, who cites the production techniques from studio triumphs like Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism and The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream as core influences. (It was then mixed by Sonny Dipperi, who’s worked with DIIV, julie, Animal Collective, and more.) It finds the band channelling a mix of grunge, indie rock, shoegaze, and dream pop that–like the aforementioned Venturing album–is both very ’90s and very current. But Cryogeyser definitely aren’t just another shoegaze band. As vocalist Shawn Marom put it in a a recent interview, they’re more of a “people-who-appreciate-shoegaze” band than a shoegaze band proper. And part of that has to do with Shawn’s big, soaring hooks and lyricism that’s meant to be paid attention to. Cryogeyser is short but sweet, it doesn’t try to reinvent the indie rock form but it just does it really well, with songwriting that stands out from the hoards of bands doing something similar on the surface. The Wednesday connection also lends this album its one outside voice, with guest vocals from Karly Hartzman that help make “Mountain” sound as towering as its namesake. It’s a good pairing; like with Wednesday, you get a real sense of sincerity from Cryogeyser, you get the feeling that this is a band that prioritizes substance over style.

Church Tongue – You’ll Know It Was Me (Pure Noise)
The Knocked Loose-related band’s Pure Noise debut is a self-reflective metalcore concept EP about love featuring members of Deafheaven, Initiate, and Twitching Tongues

Midwest metalcore band Church Tongue have been around for about a decade, but there’s been more awareness about them lately, thanks in part to guitarist Nicko Calderon joining Knocked Loose in 2020. They’re now signed to Knocked Loose’s label home of Pure Noise Records, and their Pure Noise debut You’ll Know It Was Me gets another boost from its three very cool guest vocalists: Deafheaven’s George Clarke, Initiate’s Crystal Pak, and Twitching Tongues’ Colin Young. Colin adds his howling wail and his own lyricism to “When It Betrays,” Crystal brings her impassioned screams to “The Fury of Love,” and the blackened shrieks of George Clarke grace the EP-closing title track, which Nicko originally wrote for Knocked Loose after they toured with Deafheaven, and he had George’s voice in mind from the start. (It should be said that George’s shrieks sound very cool in a metalcore setting and I hope this isn’t the last time we hear him do something like this.) Given the fact that he was writing riffs for both bands at once, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that You’ll Know It Was Me captures some of the same doomy brutality as You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, but Church Tongue are also a great band in their own right, outside of all their marquee-name connections. Vocalist Mike Sugars has a thunderous scream of his own, and the songs he wrote for this EP are deeply personal and self-reflective. The prevailing theme throughout these six songs is love, and that ranges from finding sobriety through self-love to an eerie love song written for Sugars’ wife, “about how if he dies before her, he will haunt her forever,” as Calderon puts it. (That’s the one with George Clarke.) Sugars’ soul-bearing screams and the riffage from Calderon and fellow guitarist Chris Sawicki are backed up by a gut-punching rhythm section (bassist Jack Sipes and drummer Kyle Spinell), and it’s all wrapped in the crisp, bold production from longtime Church Tongue producer/engineer Greg Thomas (of END, ex-Misery Signals) and his studio partner Chris Teti (of TWIABP). Good timing and all those other factors aside, most important of all is that Church Tongue have just delivered one of the best metalcore releases I’ve heard in a minute.

You’ll Know It Was Me by Church Tongue

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Horsegirl, Richard Dawson, Art d’Ecco, Immersion / SUSS, Kestrels, and Bevil Web (Tobin Sprout).

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out The BrooklynVegan Show.

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