WE ALL SHINE ON: Drew Beskin & The Sunshine will release its newest EP Aug. 24 via Super Canoe, but the first single, “Revenge Body,” is streaming everywhere as we speak. The five-song record is named Garrett, and while it still retains a decent amount of the group’s generally pronounced Brit-pop influences, this one also leans hard into the Amer-indie scene. There’s nothing here that one could casually refer to as a “banger,” but there’s plenty to sit quietly with and absorb. Beskin’s vocals, in particular, have a new maturity and huskiness that lends a sense of gravitas to these tracks. Beskin is joined on this release by Tommy Trautwein and Elijah and Gideon Johnston. Also, while I’ll generally defer to a band’s authority when it comes to choosing which songs to release as singles, I’ll tell you that the fourth song, “Never Even Listening,” is the true sleeper here. It has an urgency the other songs don’t and lots of chunky guitar riffage. The band will celebrate this release with a free show on the Georgia Theatre rooftop Saturday, Sept. 2 with opening acts Spencer Thomas and Hunter Morris & Blue Blood. Doors are at 7 p.m. with music starting at 8 p.m.
IT’S STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME: The pop-punk crew in Way Past Cool just celebrated the release of the group’s debut EP It’s Fine, I’m Fine, Everything’s Fine. The six-song record was recorded at Full Moon Studios with engineer-producer Jay Rogers and mixed in Atlanta by Peter Catalano (59X Records). The whole thing is really slick and shiny, and the production is heads-and-tails above anything you’d expect from an independent release from a local punk group. It adheres very strongly to everything you already know about pop punk—chunky 4/4 rhythms, barre chord-based guitar patterns, etc.—so much so that it’s meaningless to mention any groups that may sound similar, because the list would be too long and obvious. That said, there are some really good instances of guitar solos here and, of course, plenty of catchy if not totally memorable melodies. Honestly, the strongest element in the whole group is singer Emilee Campbell, who really delivers on each song here and never retreats into rote performance or clichéd vocal tomfoolery. I wish I could tell you exactly which songs stood out on this, but the copy that was delivered to me only had initials for each song. You can sleuth this out yourself on Spotify. For more information, follow them via facebook.com/waypastcoolband.
TURN UP THE RADIO: Do y’all remember this band named Novanauts that first started making noise around Athens circa 2010 or so? Neither do I, but to be fair, I’ve forgotten more bands than most folks ever even get the chance to hear. Anyway, they’re based out of Atlanta now, and I know I said a few weeks ago that I was going to ease up on covering Atlanta stuff—and I still am!—but its new single “Out In The Open (The Day When We Stood Still)” is worth a listen. It’s got a totally huge modern rock sound similar to Imagine Dragons, Thirty Seconds To Mars and very select portions of My Chemical Romance. Anyway, that’s literally all the news there is about this, so find it on all streaming services now, and for more information, please see facebook.com/NOVANAUTS.
EARPHONE WEATHER: A fresh set of ambient-glitch pieces from sweetearthflying named fervency just came out earlier this month. As previous listeners might have anticipated, this is a nicely meditative set of music that spans seven tracks. And like the famous maxim concerning this type of music goes, and one I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t require close listening but rewards it. Perhaps most satisfying are the title track and the sprightly “the first mirror.” Find this at sweetearthflying.bandcamp.com.
LIVE DELIBERATELY: A new massive set of instrumental tunes from Space Brother was released Aug. 1. It’s getting to the point where if Space Brother didn’t deliver a huge set of music, did he really deliver anything at all? This new group of tunes is named Walden Pond Part III. It contains a whopping 20 tracks and, like a lot of Space Brother’s work over the recent past, it fully embraces a kind of retro-mystical futurism seemingly wholly composed in a dream state. Nearly all traces, save the occasional break beat or steady rhythm, of Space Brother’s hip-hop past are now covered over by the sands of time. As an object for listening, this is kind of a task unless you put it on casually and just let it play. Concentrating on it misses the point. Let it reveal itself, and if there’s something there, it’ll show. If not, it won’t. So, find out for yourself at spacebrother.bandcamp.com.
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