One album that we've been super stoked on this month is Get Behind the Horses, the debut LP from Apples with Moya. Featuring Cam LaFlam and Dylan Hanwright of Great Grandpa, Apples With Moya excels at making charming indie rock in the vein of bands like Strange Ranger and Options. Get Behind the Horses is a promising debut for the band, a solid collection of mid-tempo rockers with a laid-back vibe that's infectious. This is one album you don't want to miss out on.
Bruiser and Bicycle, the Albany duo made-up of Nick Whittemore and Keegan Graziane, released Woods Come Find Me towards the end of the month, a severely underrated gem of stirring psych-folk. Billed as the "first official album" from the band, Woods Come Find Me is a purposefully stripped-down record, with most tracks consisting of nothing more than two guitars, a kick drum, and vocals. With it's woodsy aura, call and response melodies, frantic energy, and (occasionally) shrieked vocal lines, this record is a must for fans of early Animal Collective.
February was great for fans of art-pop, with Sir Babygirl's vibrant debut Crush on Me and Thelma's sophomore LP The Only Thing both dropping this month. On Crush on Me, Sir Babygirl juggles a plethora of wide-ranging influences, from mid 2000s emo to PC music, creating a charming, eccentric sugar high of a debut. Meanwhile, The Only Thing is a more knotty and introverted take on pop, with Natasha Jacobs' surging vocals soaring to new heights. Swapping out guitars for synthesizers for the most part. The Only Thing is an unexpected turn for fans of Thelma's self-titled debut from 2017, but definitely one that's worth looking into.
Girlpool returned with their third album, the excellent What Chaos is Imaginary, the band's first album since Cleo Tucker came out as trans and started taking hormonal treatments. Norwegian rockers Spielbergs released their scrappy debut This Is Not The End, filled with anthemic hooks and the reckless abandon of youth. We also have Bellows, who released their most realized and sonically ambitious album yet with 'The Rose Gardener' earlier this month. I would highly recommend checking out all of these albums if you haven't already, and lucky for you we've got reviews for all three of these albums on the site, so make sure to check those out.
Charly Bliss, who released one of our favorite albums of 2017 with their excellent debut Guppy, are gearing up for the release of their follow-up LP, Young Enough. Our first peek at the album ("Capacity") is a shimmering earworm, and a bit of a detour from Guppy's guitar-indebted framework. Michigan rockers Greet Death dropped "Strange Days" out of nowhere, the first we've heard of them since their debut Dixieland. The production on this track is amazing, with all the instruments sounding so crisp in the mix, adding new levels of intensity to their onslaught of distorted guitar riffs.
One of my favorite bands currently out there, Big Thief, came back with the wonderful "UFOF", the first single from their forthcoming album of the same name. It's the prettiest song about an alien abduction that I've heard all year. Fans of Big Thief will definitely enjoy the little touches that separate the track from something off Masterpiece or Capacity, and if you're not already a fan, what are you even doing with your life? Club Night, who signed to Tiny Engines in 2017, *FINALLY* announced their debut titled What Life, which is coming out in April. Along with the album announcement they shared "Village", the jittery third single from the album (and my personal favorite so far). If you were to split the difference between Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Cymbals Eat Guitars, you'd end up with something like Club Night, and I can't wait to finally hear their debut.
After dropping a 15-track, 15-minute Grammy-nominated visual album with Whack World, hip-hop oddball Tierra Whack has blessed 2019 with a pair of excellent singles, "Only Child" and "CLONES", the former of the two being the longest song she's released to date, and possibly the best. Slingshot Dakota are back with a new album titled Heavy Banding, and the world is a much better place with them in it. I know that a lot of the staff (myself included) have been listening to "Habit" by Rosie Tucker on repeat, who's new album is out this Friday, so make sure to go ahead and cop that from New Professor.