Consider it tragic that Will Bradford of SeepeopleS isn’t as recognizable a name as Bonnie Prince Billy or Sam Beam. As the bandleader/songwriter/producer of this unique band with a must-listen discography for 22 years, there is no band that can nail down so many facets of indie rock as if each genre was truly their own offspring. READ MORE…
On her forthcoming LP, Bird Language, Lithuania-born, New York-based vocalist/composer Simona Smirnova forgoes the fictional narrative elements that characterized her previous releases, instead crafting a sonic portrait of the artist and the world that has shaped her. READ MORE…
If you’re not familiar with his name, Matthew Cheek has written several albums over the past years and has fronted bands and been part of the rap-influenced bluegrass act Gangstagrass (that’s his banjo you hear on their Emmy-nominated song “Long Hard Times to Come,” which was the theme song to FX’s show based on Elmore Leonard novels, Justified.
Set to Farees’s self-coined ‘wall of groove’ production style, this duet with The Meters’ guitarist is a syncopated kaleidoscope of squelchy funk, Latin vibes and Stevie Wonder-esque political ire. Plus the sort of trippy, idiosyncratic moments that make us think of Parliament/Funkadelic (‘That’s Farees right there! He’s on the drums, he’s singing, playing maracas, building spaceships, all types of shit!’). It’s not hard to see why the likes of Taj Mahal have endorsed him.
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theWorst – Yes Regrets (out June 3, 2022)
In the Spring of 2018, Brooke Binion—guitarist and vocalist of Portland, Maine’s raucous punk trio theWorst—started documenting her life in song, laying the groundwork for what would become the band’s high-energy and profoundly affecting sophomore album, Yes Regrets. Yes Regrets is a ten-track collection of blistering melodic punk songs presented in chronological order detailing the downward spiral of drug and alcohol addiction, the recovery process, and approaching the world with newfound sobriety. Binion’s transparent lyricism and coarse vocals shine atop layers of distorted guitars, fuzz-laden bass and pummeling drums, creating a record equally primed for circle pits and contemplative night drives. “This album was written over a very critical couple of years for me, so I wanted to have the album flow chronologically,” says Binion. “The first couple tracks were written before I got sober, then the middle of the record was written while I was in the process of getting sober, and then the end is sort of where I’m at now.”
Formed in 2016, theWorst gained a quick reputation in the Northeast for their energetic live shows and raw sound that combines the anthemic qualities of 90s alt-rock with driving indie-punk and shades of hardcore, with Alternative Press hailing the group as “[The] glorious love child of Joan Jett & Kurt Cobain.” With Yes Regrets, theWorst have raised the stakes without abandoning the sound that they explored on their 2017 debut LP, Jane Doe Embryo, a testament to the group’s shared musical vision and Binion’s growing confidence as a songwriter. “Jane Doe Embryo was made up of the first songs I’d ever really written, and I tried to make it more poetic and universal,” says Binion. “This new record is so much more personal. I wanted it to be more direct, less metaphorical, to really capture those feelings.”
To record Yes Regrets the trio—Binion, alongside bassist Will Bradford (SeepeopleS) and drummer Craig Sala (Paranoid Social Club, Kurt Baker, Planeside)—teamed up with longtime producer Will Holland (Pixies, Fall Out Boy, The Antlers) at Chillhouse Studios in Boston, MA, and brought in a number of friends and collaborators including Dana Colley (Morphine, Vapors of Morphine), Tony Bevilacqua (The Distillers), Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, Nth Power, Maceo Parker), and Nate Edgar (Nth Power, John Brown’s Body).
Yes Regrets kicks off with the heavily distorted dissonance of “Blacksheepish,” an energetic and emotional tribute to a friend lost to suicide, before the sludgy “Serves You Rotten” turns the focus inward, reflecting on and second-guessing the choices that can lead to hardship before ultimately embracing them and pushing forward. Elsewhere on the album, Binion details her struggles with bipolar disorder, chronicling the actions and fallout from manic periods on tracks like “Hurt Forever” and “Monomania.” “When you’re manic, it’s like your brain is making decisions that you don’t agree with but you’re doing them anyway,” says Binion. “There’s a lot of impulsivity and that feeling of knowing something is a terrible idea but suddenly you’re doing it.”
On “This House Didn’t Build Itself” theWorst play with structure and genre, with breakneck hardcore punk verses giving way to a downtempo, sparse chorus containing some of Binion’s most beautiful vocal harmonies. Meanwhile, the album’s title track, “Yes Regrets,” combines elements of fuzzy desert-rock with early-2000s New Jersey emo before building to a noisy, anthemic climax. “It’s exhausting living this way where you’re constantly punishing yourself,” says Binion. “I’ve been through a lot, and most of it was self-inflicted, but this record is just about that pain you can cause yourself and those regrets that wear you down.”
Yes Regrets doesn’t shy away from exploring the realities of addiction, mental illness, and, appropriately, regret, but at its core, the album skirts the tendency to wallow in self-pity and isolation, instead offering a sense of community and acceptance to those who find themselves in a similar situation. “There’s some stuff I wish I could re-do, but I can’t and that’s okay,” says Binion. “I just hope people realize that even if you don’t have that hardcore ‘no regrets’ attitude, that’s alright. You might feel bad about some things that happen, but you can always still move forward from it.”
“The glorious love child of Joan Jett and Kurt Cobain.” – Alternative Press
“A hard-hitting grungy rocker.” – Brooklyn Vegan
“Echoing Dinosaur Jr or Mudhoney’s early hardcore sound…[will] bowl you over with their intensity.” – Analogue Trash