Osmosis Tones

Presenting "I've Made This For You," an ongoing feature where one of our staff curates a playlist for another. Here, Zach curates a playlist of the preeminent anti-Luke genre: twee. 

By Zach Zollo Hope is dead.  ...or at least that's how AJJ feel when faced with the state of the world. On their latest outing, Good Luck Everybody , the folk-punk stalwarts tackle all things entrenched in the US of A with visceral wit and exceptional fervor.  As written on their Bandcamp , the explicit theme of  Good Luck Everybody  is simple: " b asic human connection is the path to our collective return to sanity." While there's potential for a sense of optimism to exist within this message, it would be wishful thinking to assume Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty have delivered something uplifting.  Rather, they have distilled their fear and nihilism into an exasperated surrender of a record. Once again, AJJ's lyrics are the central focus, rooted in weathered beliefs as much as they are snide observation. Opening track "A Poem" proclaims " songs are just commercials for awful, ugly people who want your money, and your attention, and all you

By Luke Robinson “I don’t like rap except for Eminem” has become the new white power slogan. The crown prince of controversy is well into the late stages of his career. Since 2010, he’s been consistently mediocre to pathetic, and has struggled to adapt to the times, amping up the anger (and cringe) while spouting off horrid staccato bars that are as much ill-advised edge as they are juvenile. 2017’s Revival , the laziest, cobbled-together attempt at pop rap of his career, resulted in Em becoming horrifically emotional after critics and audiences alike despised it. In the eight months that followed, he decided to pick a fight with MGK - which is like trying to rob a soup kitchen - and released Kamikaze , his big “fuck you” to the world in an attempt to prove he could still rap intensely. To no surprise, the album was tragically dated, lacked innovation, and was compressed to shit. But even as he keeps illustrating how awful he is to women , he continues to be a higher deity for

By Eleni Haberis Bombay Bicycle Club is a guitar-fronted indie band from London. I didn’t want to reduce them to such a mundane sentence, but their new album, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong , regretfully does not provide me with anything new or interesting to say. The album isn’t dislikable. However, while their music used to make you feel like you were floating through space, it now is just the backdrop to your daydreams. It's enjoyable to listen to -and it certainly will have you swaying your head - but it doesn’t leave the listener with a lasting impression. To put it simply, this album is sweet, but leaves something to be desired. The band’s older work was an indie-electronic mix with a bluesy touch, but Everything Else Has Gone Wrong feels washed out. Jack Steadman’s voice used to exhibit an alluring quality, but here, his voice is pushing on whiny, so hazy out it could’ve been from any indie boy’s mouth. Songs like “People People” make it uncertain if he wants t

By Kenny Cox From the beginning of Poppy’s career, something always felt off. The 25 year-old YouTube star turned musician got her start making videos that, while seemingly innocuous on the surface, carried an eerie, enigmatic darkness that made her a viral sensation. As Poppy pivoted to music, she kept up this balancing act, making bright, sunny electropop with something sinister lurking just beneath the glittering synths and dance beats. But with her newest record, I Disagree , Poppy shatters her persona, trading bubblegum pop for thrashing nu-metal, and creates a bewildering new identity for herself. While Poppy’s sudden transition to metal might seem out of the blue, it’s something that the artist has hinted at ever since her 2018 record Am I A Girl? , with the record’s last two tracks steering away from impeccably produced synthpop to downtuned guitars and heavy distortion. Poppy’s new sound also follows the growing influence of nu-metal on pop artists, like Grimes’ “W

"Lost In Yesterday" - Tame Impala Kevin Parker’s one of those people who was gifted with so much talent that he writes and records all of the music himself. Like an Australian Dave Grohl, Parker started the project by himself back in 2007, and his psychedelic sound has since found its way into listeners’ heads without finding a way out.   This is exactly what we expected when they released this new single, “Lost In Yesterday,” coming off of The Slow Rush , which is set to release in February.  Tame Impala has always had a way of making their songs easy to enjoy right from the get go, but to be totally honest, this song doesn’t seem to offer much more than what’s on the surface level. It’s a good song, sure, but the great songwriting isn’t there.  As the song starts, you’re bopping your head. When you’re getting into the song, you’ll find yourself thinking: gee, maybe we're getting a single that is actually going to induce excitement for the album and not

By Zach Zollo Sooner or later, a term like "post-emo" would  have to circulate through critical discourse, beyond the realm of Bandcamp tags and Facebook group recommendations. Granted, as with any "post" genre, what defines its sound is diverse, reflecting broader influences rather than rewriting or inverting tropes. A notable example as of late is Los Angeles'  glass beach , a band whose approach fuses new wave, jazz and bedroom pop to giddying effect. Yet not enough noteworthy releases truly exist within the "genre" for it to have weight beyond a cutesy term.  Enter: Floral Tattoo. The Seattle band categorizes their second LP, You Can Never Have a Long Enough Head Start , under a multitude of genres: chamber pop, folk punk, goth, shoegaze, post-rock, twee, and perhaps most fittingly, internet rock. The influences from the Pacific Northwest in their music are tangibly felt. Whether it be bands of the early-oughts Death Cab for Cutie