Growth

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #185. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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Ruminations on the power of the riff.

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Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how time and change can affect an artist’s creative trajectory. This might be why an unintended theme emerged when I was putting together the list of records for this column. It’s a disparate collection of recent releases that spans indie rock to death metal, but they’re all from familiar favorites who are just a little bit different than the last time we heard from them. In some cases, they’ve taken their sound in interesting new directions. For others, a change in status or stature has impacted their work, or our perception of it. Here’s what I’ve been listening to and thinking on this month.

Cloakroom – Last Leg of the Human Table

The first time I heard the single “Bad Larry” before Last Leg of the Human Table was released, it’s vaguely ’60s pop-influenced melodies reminded me somewhat of the retro-futurist soundtrack for Deathloop (particularly Ramblin’ Frank Spicer’s croon that echoes throughout Fristad Rock). That may sound like an odd comparison to draw for a band that bills themselves as “stoner emo,” a descriptor that translates sonically into “massive walls of fuzz and reverb,” but somehow, weirdly enough, they make it all work.

To be clear, the band’s core sound has remained the same: thundering walls of sound, drenched in fuzz and reverb, contrasted against guitarist and vocalist Doyle Martin’s mellow voice. Scratch beneath the surface, though, and a wealth of interesting influences emerge, revealing what makes Cloakroom more than just another band plugging into a spaceship pedalboard and letting ‘er rip. The gently picked interlude “On Joy and Unbelieving” could have been on a Gillian Welch record if played on an acoustic guitar, while “Story of the Egg” borrows some swirling ambience from early ’90s British shoegaze.

Deep Sea Diver – Billboard Heart

I have a hard time imagining Jessica Dobson lacking for self-confidence. As the vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter of Deep Sea Diver, her resume (which extends back more than two decades) includes stints with The Shins and Beck, in addition to an impressive catalog from her own band. Yet it’s easy to forget that Dobson’s musical career started with creative turbulence after being signed to Atlantic Records at age 19, writing and subsequently shelving two records that didn’t meet her own expectations.

Deep Sea Diver’s latest album Billboard Heart was a product of false starts, written and recorded after attempting to write a new set of songs in 2023, but leaving the studio empty handed. You wouldn’t know it from listening to the record though. This is more meticulously constructed indie rock that balances accessibility with intricacy, eschewing typical pop structure for more adventurous compositional tendencies. This may only be Deep Sea Diver’s fourth full-length album since their 2012 debut History Speaks, but when you’ve set the bar for quality this high, we can certainly have patience for the process.

MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

When MJ Lenderman’s debut album Boat Songs came out in 2022, it took the indie rock scene somewhat by surprise. Lenderman’s full-time band Wednesday was generating hype in rock critic circles, and so for Lenderman to find himself on an even more breakneck trajectory toward breakout success is remarkable. So, when Manning Fireworks came out in the back half of 2024, certain expectations had been established. This record needed to take another step forward, both creatively and commercially.

Thus far, it certainly looks like Manning Fireworks has delivered on both counts. Lenderman has been hailed as the heir apparent to a lofty legacy of country-fied slacker alt-rock heroes, winning over fans and writers alike with his knack for using seemingly mundane details to tell resonant stories with masterful efficiency of word. Who else could casually work a line like “Kahlua shooter / DUI scooter” into a tune and have it hit so hard as an allegory on actions and consequences? Lenderman’s songwriting sensibilities and insight into the human condition both have a timeless quality that make it easy to believe he’ll be relevant for as long as he feels like sticking around.

Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

Blood Incantation could have continued revisiting the formula that made them death metal’s band du jour after their second record Hidden History of the Human Race established themselves as genre heavyweights. Instead, they released Timewave Zero, an album that featured 40 minutes of ambient space sounds that captured the experience of being pushed out of an airlock. Gone were the throat-tearing bellows and shredding guitars, and in their place were instrumental synth pads that owed more to Tangerine Dream (who even collaborated with them on Absolute Elsewhere) than Cannibal Corpse.

Metalheads took that development as poorly as you’d expect. In their defense, it’s hard to blame them for feeling like they’d been trolled. Absolute Elsewhere splits the difference between the band’s explorative synth and crushing guitar sides, effortlessly moving between world-destroying riffs and unsettling atmospheric flourishes.  The way both elements of the band’s sound work together shows that the band’s thematic inspirations – secret histories, space travel, paranormal science-fiction – define their creative identity as much as the sonic textures they use to explore those interests. Blood Incantation was right all along: their critics didn’t get it, but maybe they’ll come around with clearer context. 

Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow

Usually, a new record from Jason Isbell would feel like comfort food; a reliable staple that I could bank on living in my listening rotation until the next time he put out a record. With Foxes in the Snow, I’m not confident that’s the case. Not because it isn’t a great record, but because in contrast to his prior work, it’s a much starker listening experience than what I’ve come to expect.  It isn’t anthemic, and it’s not really rock and roll, but its without question the record he needed to write and needed to write right now.

It feels reductive to call Foxes in the Snow Isbell’s “divorce album.” Yet it’s also telling that the album is very nearly a solo record in the absolute truest sense of the term. Isbell’s solo catalog outside of his work with the 400 Unit has typically seen him accompanied with a full band. This time around, it’s just Isbell, an acoustic guitar and the truth. The result is a record that captures the tension and dark beauty of coming to terms with yourself and your circumstances in the wake of a devastating loss. Another excellent entry in Isbell’s collective body of work, but one that, despite its sparseness, will take time to digest.

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Ben Sailer is a writer based out of Fargo, ND, where he survives the cold with his wife and dog. His writing also regularly appears in New Noise Magazine.