One more here before I start putting the paywall back up more often. Prithee subscribe all the same.

THE DICEHOLES Blues DL (self-released)

Reader submission; guess I struck a nerve with my righteously flippant way of demanding them but do you think I have a good eye on every way people send me a digital file or Bandcamp link? You might’ve missed this too. Elegantly destroyed minimal guitar ballads, lost in the 5 A.M. Jandek-Loren Connors-“Spirit of Love” Tower Recordings zone, beyond last call into the fully alone zone. Look more closely and it retreats even further back. We get into it, deeply, and by the time that cover of “Fools Rush In” refuses to rush in I was lost in thought about how immaculately frozen this all came across as, a mood turned to chords, a sadness prolonged on the string. Blues not in the sense of a tradition but in the desolation of being utterly alone and forlorn. Seems like I’m discovering a secret. Why wouldn’t you want this??

AXIS: SOVA Flowerage LP (God?)

Finally a trio with a live drummer, the Brett Sova Experience pulls further away from the mach 1 afterburner roboboogie and gets closer to both an SST 1988 idyll and the flora/fauna of an artier rock. Takes a lot more chances than I expected in how it’s essentially inverting the sound this group has staked itself on, to something lighter and frillier, like a solo ripped on an Epiphone Scroll with the scroll dictating the lead. Great group vocals, early ‘70s pronouncement/vague private press feeling, and a sense of bedraggled organization and antiquity that recalls when Cheer-Accident gets into art pop mode. Really sunk in during “One Looks Nice,” combining a folk-rock motif with the nighttime horizons this band always mined so well, kinda like a less-manic Arcwelder. People love to trot out that “we used to make things” phrasing and be cute or glib about it, but who else is giving us songs like this anymore?

EJACULATORS God Bless You EP DL (General Speech)

Kleenex on aisle 5 Chicago punk snarl, only really heavy on the synth playing in unison with the guitar, blasting microchips with the reproductive mucus. Good throaty chaotic vocals, tight band, not eggland material though the insistence on primal melody brings it into the zone. Found myself singing along after the second spin, so it worked, congrats. Will probably work on you too. Good stuff.

— Dug Em