The Nervis Brothers - The Ugly Ducklings - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Performances Land of Talk - Lizzie Powell has always been a risk-taker. As the creative force behind the influential Canadian outfit Land of Talk, the Montreal-based songwriter has over the past 15 years amassed a catalog of four unimpeachable albums that stretch the boundaries of indie rock. But Performances, their fifth LP, feels like a total reinvention an unflinching statement from an artist who's not afraid to say how they feel. Though it trades muscular guitar rock for understated piano, it's still the most urgent, cathartic, and personal of Powell's career so far. Next Door

2015 from the Bay Area death metal band. The verbose horror of Vastum's first two LPs - Carnal Law and Patricidal Lust - sadistically carved a jagged, dripping wound into an increasingly reductive American death metal scene. Arising again for their third full-length album, they plumb the depths of internalized agony and degradation farther than ever on Hole Below. Characterized by a deeply cavernous trudge through gut-churning heaviness, Hole Below both bluntly crushes and rigorously shreds to conceive fully formed grotesqueries of debased brutality. Guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf wields her axe with the experienced slice of masked executioner quartering savage riffs and twisting leads. The abhorrent vocal (and lyrical) morbidity traded by imposing front man Daniel Butler and Abdul-Rauf continues to be the most formidable combination in death metal. Along with guitarist Shelby Lermo, the intimidating rhythm section of Luca Indrio and Adam Perry steer the war machine through the pooled blood and skull fragments scattered amidst the debauched iniquity of this peculiar hell. Three albums in, this respected San Francisco band has honed their disturbed masochism into a sound manifestly their own and true to the core of the purest, darkest death metal. 20 Buck Spin presents Hole Below as one of the finest albums this year. Album Tracks 1. Sodomitic Malevolence 2. Amniosis 3. In Sickness and in Death 4. Intrusions 5. Hole Below (A Dream of Ritual Abuse) 6. Empty Breast

If you haven't yet been introduced to Lowertown - the enigmatic band comprised of Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg - now's the perfect time. It's taken a few years for the New York-based duo to catch their breath after teetering on the brink of collapse for years due to tag disputes, creative frustrations, and an unhealthy attachment to their artistic partnership, the band was due for a reset. Their new album Ugly Duckling Union - out May 22nd on Summer Shade - starts with a composed exhale from Osby, a symbolic moment that sets the scene for their most thoughtful, uninhibited, catchy, and eccentric collection of songs yet. Ugly Duckling Union is a concept album based on the band's own experiences of forging a community through their music. Duckling protagonist Dale and his companions band together to defeat LBH, a tyrannical media corporation set on separating and isolating in their pursuit of control. The album's physical packaging includes a handbook filled with lore and illustrated comics by Doctor Nowhere (Silias Orion). Beyond that, fans can dive even deeper with plush dolls and a playable Minecraft world inspired by Ugly Duckling Union. Inspired by the conceptual creativity of bands like Gorillaz and the emphasis on the communal concert experience of Fugazi, Lowertown fuses online & in-person fandoms into one complete experience. Lowertown are perhaps best known for their affecting musings on the melancholia of youth, always captured with biting honesty. But on Ugly Duckling Union, that anguish is funneled through a more mature, detached, and humorous lens. Weinberg describes their previous lyrics as Inchknee-jerk reactions,Inch compared to the more considered and self-aware writing of this LP. InchMice ProtectionInch pokes fun at Osby's tortured inability to make decisions, InchForgive YourselfInch is a blunt yet compassionate meditation on shame, and InchI Lik