Bandcamp Friday: “…That Redemption (Maybe) Does Glimmer”
“…the mystery and the pain of incarnation.”
We’ve got ourselves a Bandcamp Friday. We will spend our blood money as we see fit. Here are 5 albums that demand your time, your attention, your salary. You would simply be the fool I already know you to be to not take heed.
life – my heart the dreaming memory
Independent/Third House | April 24, 2025
After four years, life returns with three new releases in April all featuring vocals from Tsukihi’s Anomalie. Each project is a slightly different flavour, but I’m highlighting my heart the dreaming memory for its unabashed affinity with early aughts emocore. From the opening breakdown of “her eyes the burning song,” you are transported to a side stage at Warped Tour 2003. You’re watching The Used or The Bled or Thursday or Finch or Thrice. It’s far more chaotic than those bands, and we understand a few of those bands suck, but this is the best emo-with-breakdowns I’ve heard in years.
Bad Beat / D-Bloc – DHC Split
Independent | March 11, 2025
Detroit’s Bad Beat is about to release LP2 via Triple B featuring some absolutely sick artwork from the legendary Spoiler, so consider this your stern warning of things to come. Bad Beat’s opener “10-999” is a Rampage-meets-Outbreak mean-mugging ACAB anthem for the ages. “You ain’t shit without your badge and gun.” Ain’t that the truth. Meanwhile, fellow Motor City motherfuckers D-Bloc are channeling Clevo-by-way-of-Jersey tough guy mosh and asking the tough questions: “Can’t you just fuck off now?” This quick little back-and-forth affair is the kinda double-shot of vitriol you need in this fucked up climate. Name Your Price, too.
Downward – S/T
New Morality Zine | March 5, 2025
While I think Tulsa’s Downward might fit quite well alongside fellow alt-revivalists, I hear, as is my wont, so much more Midwest emo than I do Seattle grunge on their latest LP. Think Foxing (before they stopped making good music) mixed with Citizen. With no disrespect meant for the excellent New Morality Zine, I can’t believe this isn’t a Run For Cover release. Tracks like “Absolute Value,” “Darkscreen,” and “Out of Luck” are trembling, stone-cold bummers, perfect for those nights when it feels so good to be alone in your room with another glass of wine and all your feelings.
Perila – The Air Outside Feels Crazy Right Now
Vaagner | April 3, 2025
“Barefeeter” creaks along discreetly and evocatively, the kind of song that makes you stop what you’re doing and stare at nothing in particular, head cocked, not entirely sure what to make of the moment and your surroundings. The Air Outside Feels Crazy Right Now is transpositive and elemental; it transfers and transports and interchanges various states of mind and being for one another. “I am a bundle of… atoms that differs from the surrounding sea of those same primary elements only by dint of organization and complexity, not substance,” writes Ellen Wayland-Smith. Songs like “Fossil” are this atomization of ambient.
Onsetter – Malice
Mishap / The Ghost is Clear | April 25, 2025
Featuring Tyler Squire of Throes and members of Blackcloud and Ranges, Boise’s Onsetter is fucking over it. Ireful sludgy hardcore with blown-out, mongrelized vocals and earth-beating riffs. Cult Leader stripped to the bone. Leechmilk for a new plague age. Jesuit, Cattle Press, and the rest of Hydra Head condensed and compressed into the impurity of blood diamonds. “Scapegoat,” “Upperclass,” and “Cannibal” are viperous and malevolent. When Tyler simply screams, “Fuck!” in the maelstrom of the latter, you’ve been offered your only salvation. “Ape(shit)” and “Untitled” are pure ativism, songcraft reduced in two unique ways to its vilest, most honest expression.
Why’d I skip out on today’s Flush It Friday, you ask?
I’ll be in “bootcamp” with my sister in preparation
to appear on the gameshow 25 Words Or Less.
How about that?
