Ben: The new múm album, Smilewound, has a lot to offer fans of electroacoustic indie pop, but there’s something about “The Colorful Stabwound” that has me listening to it on repeat this week. The rolling percussion has a propulsive snap, the instrumentation is relatively minimal, but every piece fits together like some sort of obtuse puzzle, and the vocals, to the extent they’re present, hint elusively at regret. It’s really something remarkable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUja8VXma8w

Anna: I was re-visiting Johnny Flynn‘s A Larum on Rdio this past week, and I felt like something was missing – a song I remembered being on the tracklist, except it wasn’t coming up. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and instead listened to “Wayne Rooney” and tried to recall the absent song lingering in the back of my mind. On a whim, I pulled my LP version of the album off the shelf once I got home, and lo and behold – “The Ghost of O’Donahue,” the vinyl-only bonus track that used to make me wish my record player had a repeat button back in 2008. A kind soul has since put the song on Soundcloud, so if you’re like me and find yourself becoming addicted to this beautiful, classic folk tune, you’re in luck. “This is the calendar / These are the dates.”

 
Nicole: All week, I’ve really just been getting excited for the weekend, honestly. Saturday evening Wild Moth celebrates their LP Over, Again at Thee Parkside with local support from Permanent Collection and No Tongue. Over, Again came out Tuesday on Asian Man records, and you can stream the entire thing on PunkNews.Org. Also — even though it’s everyone’s habit to show up late to shows, consider checking out the lesser known opening band, No Tongue. They’re an Oakland four-piece who just released a 7-inch this month, suggested for fans of more DIY hardcore and melodic post-punk such as Comadre or Funeral Diner.

Jason: I first witnessed the spectacle that is Nashville’s Diarrhea Planet when they took the stage at Bottom of the Hill last fall at an opening gig for JEFF The Brotherhood. Having never heard a single note of their music before that moment, I was overwhelmed by their four guitar assault and immediately taken by their energy, their cohesiveness, and the undeniable hooks in their pop-punk meets hair metal sound – not to mention their penchant for playing their guitars behind their heads and with their teeth. Despite their unfortunate name (and the equally unfortunate name of their best known song to date, “Ghost With A Boner”), Diarrhea Planet had me at hello. Now, they’re back with a new album I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (via the Orrall brothers’ Infinity Cat Recordings), and it’s full of even more glorious, fist-pumping anthems. Watch the video for “Separations” below, and then kick yourself because (like me) you missed them at Brick and Mortar on Tuesday night.

Zack: In the most bittersweet press release I’ve ever read, my favorite musician Carey Mercer announced on Tuesday that he will self-release Carey’s Cold Spring, the latest LP for his main project Frog Eyes in early October and, sadly, that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer. He released one track on Tuesday, the album closer “Claxxon’s Lament”, an old song that Mercer was inspired to re-record after playing it for his dying father. As always, the song gives Mercer’s voice center stage to form a desperate yet triumphant plea, while bright, trembling guitars pierce through a creeping, deathly gloom. With his father’s death and his own diagnosis with cancer, I can’t help but think back to one of his cleverest lines from a very old Frog Eyes album: “You better hold tight, because even cancer needs a home.” Or, hopefully more convincing to the infinite void of the universe (the only one listening), I could reference Mercer’s 2012 masterpiece, Fuck Death. Seriously.

Pre-order the album for $10 CAD on Frog Eyes’ Bandcamp.