Clicky Clicky Music's Top Songs of 2015: Jay Edition

2015 was surely an incredible year for music, with each week delivering exciting new sounds from all corners. Clicky Clicky devoted most of its electronic column inches to acts hailing from the U.S. (and particularly our hometown of Boston) and the U.K., but also featured acts from Australia, France and Portugal, and probably other places we're forgetting. This year, favorite songs were a little more difficult to select than over the past decade that we've been doing this, in part because of the vast amount of great things to choose from (how is there not a Beach Slang or Stove song on this list? Shit is competitive, yo...), and also because we spent a lot of time seeking out records that don't necessarily reveal themselves all at once, records that establish and maintain their own peculiar universe of meaning. Even so, it is most often the case that our favorites immediately rise to the top, and that's true of more than half of the songs below. Some of our favorite records were sleepers, and some songs they contained were more insidious in their efforts to dominate our consciousness and subconscious.

So while the Infinity Girl track below was immediately addicting and we've listened to it scores of times, the Colleen track and others like it snuck up on us, suddenly and surprisingly dropping into our brain out of our mouth during a quiet dog walk or long commutes in the car. No matter how they got there, all 10 songs listed below are a part of us now, and we'll always associate them with 2015. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Keep an eye open for our year-end albums list, which will be along sometime in the run-up to Christmas, but in the meantime we invite you to rock out to Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Top Songs of 2015: Jay Edition, either a la carte via the individual embeds below, or via this both handy and dandy Sporkify playlist (which sadly but necessarily omits the cracking Hard Left track, which is presently unavailable via the service). We salute the bands below, and we thank you, dear reader, for passing the year with us. There's a lot coming up from Clicky Clicky in 2016, so remain vigilant.

1. Infinity Girl -- "Dirty Sun" -- Harm [buy]

"Dirty Sun" emerges from noise and feedback and then swells into shape on the back of Mitch Stewart's driving bass melody, which is truly the secret sauce of this, Infinity Girl's most potent pop moment since the towering "Please Forget" that featured on the band's 2012 debut Stop Being On My Side. "Dirty Sun" is even more vibrant, its crackling pace providing an irresistible pull that never betrays the listener. The Brooklyn foursome's characteristically colossal guitars and fronter Nolan Eley's cool vocal acquit themselves wonderfully, and it is the latter that supplies the strongest, if most understated, hook. Mr. Eley's narrative of a love going off the rails effectively captures the teetering feeling where romance goes from intoxicating to irreparable. That the band can make it all sound so arresting is a testament to the pop smarts that help make Infinity Girl one of today's most exciting indie acts.

"...you said you were OK, but I don't buy it, you used to get excited..."



2. Funeral Advantage -- "Gardensong" -- Body Is Dead [buy]

It's soothing and fantastic, and appointed with glistening guitars. It's dense but light, basks in airy reverbs and touts curiously affecting robot-voiced verses. It's "Gardensong," and it stands out like a crown jewel even on one of the year's standout records, the Boston dream-pop heroes' debut long-player. Fronter Tyler Kershaw's vocals are heavily veiled within the song's dreamy, trance-like state, but enough of them bob above the steady waves of crystalline, delayed guitars and the surprisingly crispy beat to indicate affairs of the heart are at issue. A glance at the lyrics reveals lovers at an impasse, a place where the thing that they both want is not the right thing. The still sweetness of that resignation is nearly as fetching as the song's melody, which is gently arrayed along layered guitars and bass whose sounds seem to stretch to a sunny horizon, despite Mr. Kershaw's downcast lyrics.

"...so if you’re not there then I'm not there / so just close your eyes..."



3. Dogs On Acid -- "Let The Bombs Fall Off" -- Dogs On Acid [buy]

Love can bring you down, but "Let The Bombs Off" feels like a celebration, despite the desperate times conveyed in its lyrics. Perhaps we can attribute that to the singular imaginary Philadelphia that exists in our head and heart; collectively, the city's indie rockers seem to have historically colored their lovelorn sentiments with a certain determination to live on -- it's just part and parcel of the city's DNA. Indeed, on "Let The Bombs Fall Off" Dogs On Acid fronter Peter Helmis (ex-Algernon Cadwalader) sings of wishing he was a widow ("'cause then I'd know that you're not coming back") and crashing his dream car ("just to see you shake"), but with a delivery that is more determined that dour. The song's chugging rhythm, deliciously chunky bass and bright guitar work don't take a backseat to the vocals, however. The splashes of bending guitar in the chorus recall the heyday of the absolutely brilliant Meneguar, but truly every second of the tune is paved gutter-to-gutter with hooks.

"...blowing up my whole vicinity / I'm learning to stop worrying..."



4. Fog Lake -- "Dog Years" -- Victoria Park [buy]

This song is absolutely devastating, and in our estimation is the most devastating song of 2015. "Dog Years" is a bottomlessly poignant chamber-pop ballad from Canadian outfit Fog Lake; its whispered vocals carry a patina of menace limned by droning strings that unspool across a bed of watery piano chords. The narrator sings from a place of desolation, but the song's understated but haunting melody hints at the possibility of salvation, especially as a curtain of angelic keys swallows the song. Whether or not deliverance is ever achieved is as much as mystery as how it could have been achieved, but the understated melodrama of "Dog Years" is nonetheless perfect, and makes for a terrifically affecting piece of work.

"...haven't you heard / I know everything / I've heard angels calling me..."



5. Swings -- "Tiles" -- Sugarwater [buy]

At its best the curious music of Swings presents terrifically appealing shards of forgotten dreams, and "Tiles" is certainly the D.C. trio at its best. The song feels extracted from fleeting waking moments, when your subconscious rapidly falls away just as it reveals some deeper truth with its fading mirror. At least, that's as good an explanation as any for what is going on here, as fronter Jamie Finucane's elastic vocals are notoriously unparsible, much in the way Elizabeth Fraser's were in the front end of the Cocteau Twins catalogue. The skeletal pulse of "Tiles"'s arrangement and its cycling, ascending, straightforward melody erected from bass and guitar quarter notes set a sturdy table for Mr. Finucane's lyrics, which almost wink as they don apparent (if not actual) vocoder, change shape as vampire does to bat, and flitter off into a mysterious firmament that is distinctly the band's own.

"...one hundred percentaaaaaa WHAT THE FUCK IS HE SINGING I DON'T EVEN KNOW..."



6. Hard Left -- "Kicking It Off" -- We Are Hard Left [buy]

As social challenges have mounted during this century, it has been persistently disappointing that indie rock has not responded in kind with calls to arms, with ideas, with possible leadership toward meaningful joint solutions. You might be asking, well, why should they? To which Clicky Clicky says, why shouldn't they? Instead, macro political issues were largely ignored -- and we are not the better for it. It's an idea we discussed with comrades Mike and Tim from Hard Left here last spring, around the time of the release of the Oakland-based quartet's cracking full-length debut. Album highlight "Kicking It Off" is both exhortation and affirmation, a vow to act, and we're hopeful that it can be a model to the wider independent music community, that eventually the song will be perceived as the tip of the spear. Hard Left here delivers an uplifting, energizing banger descended straight from the day of Joe Strummer and The Clash, big fuzzy guitars, vocals that testify, beats that bang. Heed the call. Start today.

"...making do with what we didn't choose..."



7. All Dogs -- "Flowers" -- Kicking Every Day [buy]

There is magic in big guitars and steady harmonies and yearning sentiments: it's an age-old recipe, to be sure, but one that still can yield spine-tingling results when applied by skilled songwriters and performers. Columbus, Ohio four All Dogs certainly capture the lightning in the bottle here with "Flowers," although it is difficult to pick just one track from the band's terrific long-playing debut Kicking Every Day. Here the band seems to strongly channel classic Superchunk, but it is fronter Maryn Jones' charming, poignant vocal that is impossible to ignore. At fewer than 140 seconds in length, this song perhaps more than any other on our list likely keeps fans' fingers poised just above the play button and ready for another go, as 5, 10 and 20 listens just isn't enough. Gold.

"...our bodies are longing for things you don't know..."



8. Colleen -- "This Hammer Breaks" -- Captain Of None [buy]

Hand percussion like heavy steady rain (perhaps struck off her favored instrument, the viola de gamba), and quietly chanted vocals that layer and diffract, render Colleen's "This Hammer Breaks" eery and enchanting, much like the rest of her excellent 2015 set Captain Of None. The record explored mastermind Cécile Schott's love of dub reggae music, which is reflected her in the delays and reverbs that push and pull on the percussion and vocals here. The second half of the composition dives deeply into a polyrhythm and cleverly leverages production elements to render something mysterious and maximal from relatively minimal instrumentation. Squeaky, spacey tones overtake the songs and pulse through the final minute of "This Hammer Breaks," and it seems as if the entire composition is sucked down a drain at its close, adding to and not detracting from a truly mesmerizing listen.

"...you never know what's in the heart..."



9. Krill -- "Phantom" -- A Distant Fist Unclenching [buy]

It turns out Krill in one very real sense is not forever. And we had a hard time choosing just which tune from its 2015 swan song represented the whole of the band for Clicky Clicky. A strong argument could be made that "It Ends" hosts a multiplicity of meanings that make it a strong proxy for the set. But Krill has always been about the investigation, and so ultimately we chose the song that opens, rather than closes, A Distant Fist Unclenching as one of our favorite songs of the year. The song's rocking middle third, with bashing percussion and fronter Jonah Furman's exercised vocal, is especially engaging, but it is the song's understated coda -- and Mr. Furman's incisive questions that plumb the parameters of one's internal and external lives -- that is startlingly thrilling in its bare truth.

"...what is the proper orientation of the world to me? and does it have to be to me..."



10. Spectres -- "Blood In The Cups" -- Dying [buy]

Albums this purposefully dark can feel campy, but there is no wink and nod to be found on Spectres' stunning full-length Dying (winks and nods seem reserved for the band's videos and social media posts, which are regularly deliciously funny and irreverent). While still boasting the Bristol, England-based foursome's characteristic, Sonic Youth-indebted aural assault, "Blood In The Cups" is among the set's most melodic compositions, and its balance of beauty and firepower is terrifically compelling. Spectres' greatest skill is conjuring visceral moodscapes with its music, and "Blood In The Cups" exemplifies this, stretching anxiously but languorously across almost eight minutes with a psych-blues derived sound that recalls LA's The Warlocks. With its pulsing bass, spectral vocals, and maelstroms of guitar, "Blood In The Cups" presents a perfect storm, while highlighting Spectres' terrific vision and control.

"...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

United We Win: Hard Left On Class Struggle, Challenging Consensus, And Fighting The Most Important Fight

[PHOTO: Gina Clyne Photography] Oakland hard mod quartet Hard Left have surely released one of the best punk records of the year, and its neatest feat is being Really Fun and Actually Meaningful at one and the same time. The combo is comprised of veteran musicians whose collective credits include work with the legendary acts Black Tambourine, Boyracer and Lunchbox. Its cracking full-length debut We Are Hard Left came out earlier this week on Hard Left's own Future Perfect imprint, and it is propelled by big guitars and bigger guitar hooks, growled exhortations and ganged choruses. Even before we got our hands on the record back in March, we were struck by the entirely refreshing way Hard Left foregrounded its politics in early singles; if anything, the full-length doubles down on doling out messages of unity and informed dissent in vibrant, fist-pounding anthems like "Kicking It Off" and "Hard Left Rules OK," to name but two. As we found out, that is no accident. After chewing over the place of big-picture politics in contemporary indie rock in a chat window with fronter and co-founder Comrade Mike, we decided to throw open our conversation into a more in-depth interview. Comrade Tim, guitarist and singer for Hard Left, joined in on the fun, and the results are below. As much as we are grateful to Mike and Tim for the time they gave to this discussion, we are even more grateful for the forthright political message in their music. We think the guys would agree that the world doesn't need just another punk record; we would submit that what it needs is THIS punk record -- and more like it. Recent album release shows for We Are Hard Left have been described as "total chaos," and it is heartening that the audience is out there, ready for this music and its message. But, as we all know from consuming "news" "reports" every day, there is a lot more work to be done. Hard Left gave its record away one song a week ahead of its release, but if you have not yet heard it (and even if you have), jump to the bottom of the piece, click play on the Bandcamp embed, and then hop back up here and dig in.

Clicky Clicky: There is something very optimistic about We Are Hard Left -- it's right there in the opening lyrics of the record, innit? Just the fact that the record exists is a reassurance that there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful. Was that something the band felt was important to express?

Tim: Definitely. We are into the concept of uplift, and try to inspire a sense of common purpose and utopian possibility.

Mike: Absolutely correct. Given the challenges we all face right now it's so easy to be negative, preachy and finger-pointy. We want to avoid that vibe at all cost.

CC: There is a lightness to the record that comes from the tempos, the energy, the big guitars. It sounds like it was a lot of fun to make. I think all of you have known each other for some time. When you decided there was going to be this thing called Hard Left, was the idea of the band espousing a political message something that was right there from the beginning? Or were you guys excited just to have the opportunity to play together?

Tim: Well, Mike and I always tell the story of how we hatched this idea. We were hanging out at SLR headquarters, and I randomly said "I'm thinking about trying to join an Oi band," and Mike looked right at me and said "Let's form an Oi band!" A couple of weeks later, we were at the Rain Parade show in San Francisco, and I said, "you know, if we're going to do this band, it needs to be explicitly left;" and Mike said "yeah, HARD Left." And there it was. So the political message was central, always, but it kind of came about with the musical idea simultaneously. But in terms of lightness, yeah, I think we have a similar vision of a band that is serious in its politics, but doesn't take itself too seriously, and is vibrant in aesthetic terms, and is fun. We do get into a bit of pageantry and self-stylization, and we think that that adds to, rather than detracts from, the political message.

Mike: And you're right, the record was a lot of fun to make, and kind of easy as well. Donna, Tim and I worked on the songs a bit at home, went to AZ and ran through them a few times with Stew, then we hit record. All of the arrangement ideas and the excitement seem to come very naturally. So it is crazy fun.

CC: Something the blog has harped on at irregular intervals over the years has been the lack of political engagement by bands in the late 20th and early 21st century. The last song that got me really excited about the power of dissent and the potential for change was Report Suspicious Activity's "Subtle," and looking at the archives now I see that was 10 years ago. Vic Bondi is of a certain age, and I don't think there is a person involved in this interview whose age doesn't start with a 4. Recognizing that none of us is a sociologist, why do you think younger musicians aren't driven to tackle the important, macro issues now? The reaction to the Reagan/Thatcher era felt so electrifying, so strong, even from the safe suburban enclave in which I was raised. The reaction to the Bush era... well, at this point I can't even tell if there was one.

Tim: I don't know. This is a really good and important question. I think the spirit of resistance comes in waves; and, a few important examples aside, we seem to be in the trough right now. I think it's seen not to be "cool" now to engage with anything, unless it's the minutia of personal taste-based stuff, like making artisan pickles or whatever. Not to single people out. I mean, food consumption and production is actually a really important site of struggle now, and will be even more so in the future. But I do think there's a suspicion of systematic analysis, married with a feeling -- carefully inculcated by the mainstream media and "liberal" opinion -- that things "went too far" in the 1960s, and that to be a "reasonable person" is to more or less accept the neo-liberal consensus, and eke out whatever personal resistance you can in matters of taste and consumption. Systematic analysis is brewing, and it will come back big time. History is never over.

Mike: I do think that there is a lot of engagement in issues of personal and identity politics right now, and that's great. There is a lot of talk about with those issues too, but we want to push people a bit to look at the bigger picture too.

CC: I wonder if it is not something to do with the fact that today there aren't as many chronologically proximal role models, meaning musicians championing progressive politics or dissenting politics, for bands today as there were for bands in the '80s. Even Hard Left looks to the '70s for inspiration, not just musically, but also politically, yeah?

Tim: Hard Left looks back as far back as 1789, but we also look to stuff in the present.

Mike: That might have something to do with it. But I do think that there's also a sense of hopelessness right now, the idea that what's wrong is just too big and too entrenched that there's no point in fighting back. As Tim states, any "reasonable person" accepts the neo-liberal consensus, when in fact it is that very ideological orthodoxy that's led us to this very dangerous point in history, politically, economically and ecologically.

CC: Say what you will about baby boomers and boomer nostalgia, but at least the legacy of '60s social protest echoed in some of the music of the '80s. But that echo didn't in turn echo with bands in the oughts. Was there anything happening in music a decade ago that relates to the progressive ideals that Hard Left is trying to promote?

Tim: Hmmm, dunno. I am tempted to say that there is no authentic youth culture any more, in the sense that youth subcultures used to at least nominally have some kind of political resistance attached to them. I think the commodification of everything has pretty much won. The very idea of the "hipster" illustrates this. The original "hipster" of the 1950s and '60s was someone who enacted a deep break with bourgeois culture, possibly in a political sense, but certainly in a more broadly cultural and spiritual sense (the Beats and so on). It's hard to see anything in modern so-called hipster culture that is dangerous, subversive, anti-conformist, or in any way breaks with the reign of commodification as first principle of bourgeois society. The problem with boomers and nostalgia for the 1960s is that it leaves out what was really going on in the 1960s. Pretty much the annoying part is all that is remembered -- tie dye or whatever. The multi-generational cross-class anti-authoritarian uprising against state violence (in Vietnam and at home) etc. etc. etc. is largely forgotten. Whose interests does that forgetting serve? The past always comes back as caricature. I'm old enough to remember, for example, that when punk started, it wasn't about mohawks. No one had a fucking mohawk or whatever. It was freaks plus "normal" people. And it was similar to the earlier revolt of the Beat generation. Smart, ironic, NOT buying in. No more heroes.

Mike: Just in terms of making and disseminating music, I might have expected the technological revolution of the late '90s/early '00s (home recording, cheap production, almost-free online distribution) might have had a more progressive resonance on the ideas behind the music as well. But it seems like a lot of the energy behind Internet-enabled arts production seems to head in a libertarian direction rather than one that seeks collective solutions to common problems.

CC: The real travesty is there is now little disagreement among the arts class, the music class, the creator class, whatever you want to call it, that the political system is broken, and that issues like income inequality and climate change must be addressed. One thing we talked about briefly a few weeks ago is that there is a willingness in indie and punk rock to pursue and promote identity politics or personal politics, but not to engage with macro political issues. Looking back, can you pinpoint where this turn away from macro issues toward identify politics could have happened?

Tim: I'll probably catch flack for it, but I think in an era of massive exploitation and take-backs, destruction of the planet, and unending war, there are bigger problems than whether your feelings are hurt because society doesn't recognize your particular flavor. It's too easy. It doesn't challenge capital at all. At THIS moment, I think class struggle needs to be in the foreground. What do I mean by class struggle? Let me be clear that I do NOT mean a too-easy demonization by each of the person just above them on the socioeconomic ladder. And I do not mean some kind of Old Left focus on "the workers" in the sense of factory workers. I DO mean a focus on who is doing the work and who is taking the profit produced by that work. Hard Left stands for a society in which the people who DO the work make the decisions about how the work is to be done, and reap the benefits of the work. Hard Left is about the "we" instead of the "I". A society in which each feels he or she is in a personal war with others for scarce resources is a not a society worth living in. I would add, however, that issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., HAVE to go together with the class struggle. There can't be any separation between them, because they aren't separate in reality.

Mike: I'm reminded of a bit in the DC installment of the Foo Fighters' "Sonic Highways" show, where Rick Rubin talks about US kids not being able to relate to punk because it was too much about class politics, and when US HC started talking about personal politics that it then became something that American kids could relate to. And I think that you can see that shift in emphasis throughout the 80s and 90s. As Tim points out, identity issues do go hand-in-hand and interact with class issues, but I guess one might say that it's easy to get caught up in the trees and lose sight of the forest.

CC: I've got my own theory, and it is spelled g-r-u-n-g-e. I love everything Kurt Cobain did, but I feel like he is standing at a fork in the road. My favorite Youth Of Today song is "Disengage," but thinking about it in this context -- and knowing what we know about where Ray Cappo's head was at at the time -- I almost wish he was more specific: disengage with popular culture, disengage with consumer culture, but please, please, please fight like hell out in the streets against injustice. But instead, the message 20 to 25 years ago wasn't even the '60s' "turn on, tune in, drop out" -- it was just "drop out." Whether or not you agree that underground rock and roll got us into this, can underground rock and roll get us out?

Tim: Probably not. But we do what we can.

Mike: I hope so!

CC: Comrade Mike, purely from a practical perspective, it seems like singing these songs must be pretty physically demanding, at least on your throat?

Mike: It is, but I suppose I'm getting more and more used to it and it bothers me a bit less. What's kind of odd is that I wasn't really sure what was going to come out when I opened up my mouth to yell. That gravelly yell wasn't intentional, it just sort of happened and has now become part of the our style.

CC: You've been giving away one song a week from the new record, and will have given away the whole thing by the time of the official release. Hard Left's music is definitely for the proletariat, and it feels right to make it directly available to the people. But, of course, that's no way to sell a bunch of records. Or is it? Was the decision to give the music away a reflection of the band's politics, or an acknowledgement of the problems the music industry has found itself in since the turn of the century?

Mike: Both, really. We don't look at that band as any sort of money-earner, and really the goal is to get people to listen to the music. If they want to and can afford to buy an LP, that's great too, and we made the LP to be as high-quality and as affordable as possible so that people who do buy it get something nice for their money. I don't have any problem with people being compensated for their artistic work and so I don't have the opinion that all music should be free, or that downloads are necessarily inherently worthless, it just felt right to us. Giving away the download removes a lot of friction from getting the music out there, and once we decided to do that, then I just wanted to think of a way to get the most value out of it for the band. The song-a-week thing seemed like a nice way to get people excited about the record and loop-in as many blogs and music sites as possible, in hopes of spreading the music as widely as possible.

We Are Hard Left is available now as a 45RPM LP or digital download via the act's Bandcamp page right here. The LP comes packaged with a lyric insert and sticker, and its vivid cover art is our favorite of the year so far. A special bundle includes an iron-on patch bearing the slogan "All Power To The Imagination." Hard Left is contemplating a run of East Coast dates for mid-August, so keep an eye out for possible news on that front. Hard Left rules, OK? OK.

Hard Left: Bandcamp | Facebook | Soundcloud

Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Fashoda Crisis

>> A new release from Clicky Clicky top-faves Johnny Foreigner turns any day into Christmas, and when the release is dropped on us as a total surprise, well, it is that much more enjoyable. So imagine the glee we felt Monday morning heading back to work/drudgery after a delightful holiday at the beach when an email from Bandcamp announced the arrival of AlwaysTheBarmaidNeverTheBar -- Live Recordings 2013-14, a new live album from the Birmingham, England-based noise-pop titans. The title of the 19-song set is self-explanatory: the collection indeed does contain live recordings captured during the last 18 months, a period of time during which Johnny Foreigner gestated and released its triumphant fourth LP You Can Do Better [review/postscript]. AlwaysTheBarmaidNeverTheBar features recordings of a number of tracks from that LP and its precedent, the 2012 Names EP, but if anything the collection is remarkable because of how well it covers the quartet's 10-year career. Sure, there's nothing from the band's "lost" first full-length WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow, but there is a cracking version of the early, early tune "Candles," which was part of the Every Day Is A Constant Battle compilation that was, along with the rest of the band's rarities, gussied and put on Bandcamp back in 2010. The legendary "The Coast Was Always Clear" is included, as are cracking versions of older singles "Dark Harbourz," "With Who, Who, And What I've Got" and "Eyes Wide Terrified." Perhaps even more exciting than the breadth and depth of AlwaysTheBarmaidNeverTheBar are the blazing and tight performances. The pulsing live version of the terrifically affecting "Riff Glitchard" may in fact be definitive, and the dynamic and seemingly effortlessly great iteration of "To The Death," fronter Alexei Berrow's chronicling of living in the wake of a friend's suicide, is also a marvel. The band's personality shines in smatterings of hilarious stage banter. And the whole damn set is available as a pay-what-you-like download, which is totally amaze considering the quality and quantity here. That said, Johnny Foreigner do have something new for sale, in the form of a new You Can Do Better T-shirt, the purchase of which also entitles the buyer to a download of the new, four-song Candyland session, which was recorded live in the band's studio in Birmingham. Details on the shirt/session deal are right here; listen to all of AlwaysTheBarmaidNeverTheBar -- Live Recordings 2013-14 via the Bandcamp embed below and click through to give the band some money for it. Our highest recommendation.



>> Early this month we had an editorial powwow with Mr. Charlton about the then-new Hard Left single and the discussion turned to our increasing disappointment with the lack of political engagement in contemporary indie rock. During the exchange we grasped for examples of bands doing such work these days (in addition to Hard Left, of course, which has since announced a second, equally potent single). We did come up with a couple of course, but for some reason we didn't recollect at the time one of the strongest exemplars: the mighty Southend-on-Sea, England-based agit-punk concern Fashoda Crisis. The trio Monday released its third long-player, a brawling yet sophisticated 11-song set of filth and fury titled Almost Everyone is Entirely Average at Almost Everything. We recall an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the surprising popularity of Jane's Addiction (this was around the time of the release of Nothing's Shocking), and that the article included a fan quote dubbing Jane's "thinking man's metal" or some (gender-insensitive) such. Well, Fashoda Crisis certainly qualifies as "thinking man's punk." Its thrilling collection commences with the incisive line "amnesiac electorate you have relapsed and left us with a system that worships television politicians," and proceeds from there scooping out satire, manifesto and social criticism to any takers. Fronter Sim Ralph characteristically berates the objects of his white-hot ire in a vitriolic voice not unlike that of Black Francis at the Pixies-man's most unhinged. Mr. Ralph is no slouch when it comes to "unhinged," either: Fashoda Crisis' "Everything: The Musical," a highlight of the new album, features the comically bizarre, syncopated lyric "don't question my version of events, I'm wearing pajamas." Underpinning the anger and weirdness of Almost Everyone is Entirely Average at Almost Everything are tight, dynamic performances and intelligent songwriting. It makes the set indelibly refreshing, not only because it dares to rouse some rabble, but because it is so well-executed and well-conceived. Almost Everyone is Entirely Average at Almost Everything was released digitally by Fashoda Crisis Monday, and will be issued on vinyl later this year; fans who purchase the digital download receive a £7 discount on the LP when it is ready to ship. The set is on offer now in various bundles via Bandcamp, with added inducements coming in the form of t-shirts and posters and badges for the discerning punk fan. Fashoda Crisis are slated to perform July 5 at The Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, London, and Aug. 28 at Gwidhw, Cardiff, for those of you reading these words from the opposite side of the Atlantic. In the meantime, soothe your savage breast with the sounds of Almost Everyone is Entirely Average at Almost Everything via the embed below. We last wrote about Fashoda Crisis here in late 2012.

Today's Hotness: Auburn Lull, Jawbreaker Reunion, Gingerlys, Hard Left

>> We have not yet familiarized ourselves with the ample back catalog (it stretches back to 1999) of the perfectly monikered, Lansing, Mich.-based ambient drone outfit Auburn Lull. But if the magnificence of the quintet's latest cassette is any indication, such an exploration will be well worth the time. New release Hiber is the act's first in six years and it is out now on the immaculately conceived Geographic Northern label -- whose products are as gorgeous and special on the outside as the sounds contained therein. And praise be to Eno, what sounds they are! Hiber contains five mostly instrumental tracks (a Will-o'-the-wisp female vocal occasionally appears), two of which are shorter pieces that bridge between three protracted drone suites. Opener "Moterm" melds guitars and synths into the round, sustained tones of a woodblock, mapping the general approach of Hiber as impressively calibrated guitar pedals create masterful texture, depth and space in refreshing ways with each new song. The opener leads into "CA1," wherein a gentle, alien motif iterates across a bed of icy, echoed guitar leads and warm hums. The track evokes the delicate silence of a winter's first snow, gentle reflections of a crisp, sunny day, or caverns of warmth in a freshly made bed. Later, the title track introduces a screwy piano to the mix, unfolding a complicated pattern of single left-hand notes that arguably resemble some section of a solo rendition of a Debussy number -- if ole' Claude had been a shoegazer. Auburn Lull save the best for last, as "Static Partition" makes for fascinating, stereo-panned ear candy. Bizarre, tremolo effects pitch over backwards while a bright, siren-like lead dances between the strange rhythms. White noises and found sounds creep in through the gaps and valleys of the arrangement -- specks of detail that come and go as each song awakens, breathes, and dies. You can hear the entire new collection via the Soundcloud embed below. Buy the tape, limited to 100 copies encased in blueberry-colored plastic, from Geographic North right here. -- Edward Charlton



>> From the same Bard College house show circuit that likely birthed the terrifically original lo-fi rock of the repeatedly Clicky'd Palberta come cohorts Jawbreaker Reunion, whose latest release recently found its way to our inbox. The awesomely titled Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club materialized in late May as a pay-what-you-like download at Bandcamp, and it is filled with warm, surfy, girl-group-referencing rock. It brims with memorable melodies, especially in the vocals of co-fronting Jawbreaker, Lily. Her lyrics regularly focus on humorous and awkward moments of collegiate life, as in party stompers like "Jeggings," "Bear and Loathing," "Straightedge Revenge" and "Friends Theme Song." Every member of the band contributes to songwriting, and each of the aforementioned tunes perfectly pairs carefree instrumentation with snarky lines that must work wonders during a dimly lit house show. It's when the band looks beyond goofball antics, though, that a certain bruised emotional core reveals itself. Album highlight "E.M.O." in particular is terrifically affecting, with innocent, verses transitioning to a great, high-hat filled chorus. The spiraling lead guitars and haunting lyric "I don't want to wait anymore" elevates the band from a fun, party-rocking concern to an act whose melodies melt hearts. As with aforementioned peers Palberta, there is just the right amount of recklessness to Jawbreaker Reunion's tunes to lend a bit of crackling chaos to their characteristically straightforward pop structures. It's the sum of all of that -- the chaos, the accessible emotional payload, the sheer youthful fun of it all -- that ultimately distinguishes Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club and makes it something you will press play on over and over again. Listen to the entire set via the Bandcamp embed below. -- Edward Charlton



>> Shelflife Records will release July 8 Valley Stream, New York indie-pop outfit Gingerlys' debut EP, Jumprope, which features four perfectly realized, fizzy strummers. The opening title track lays the foundation for the entire short programme, but the EP really takes flight during its second song, the beautiful, uptempo "Summer Cramps," which echoes wonderfully the detached dreaminess of Chapterhouse's legendary 1991 album opener "Breather." Gingerlys' high-pitched, simple synth lines run over top electric and acoustic guitars while dynamic drumming steadily pushes the buoyant jangle to the edge of panic. Maria Garnica's lead vocals provide a catchy, sultry counterpoint to the relatively clean-cut, conventional instrumentation. Often, her wordless oohs and ahs are the best hooks on the disc, and they are the source of so much of what lends the quintet's tunes a sensual dimension. Her ever-present pillowy synth lines anchor the songs, and remind this reviewer of The Wake's epic 1985 album Here Comes Everybody. Closer "Set You Off" increases the guitar interplay with colorful, chorused leads, and emphasize the dual vocals of Garnica and songwriter Matt Richards, as well, imbuing the proceedings with even more of a C86-revival feel. Fans of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or Minks take note! Consider grabbing for this great introduction to Gingerlys instead; Jumprope is available in a limited edition of 300 vinyl singles and as a digital download. Pre-order the EP from Shelflife right here and stream it via the Soundcloud embed below. -- Edward Charlton



>> "What's that sound? Boredom!" So goes the refrain of "What's That Sound?," the electrifying debut single from Hard Left, a Slumberland Records supergroup featuring members of Boyracer, Manatee and #1 Smash Hits. The recording sounds as fun as it must have been for this group to conceive. The single, released through the label's Soundcloud account and embedded for your consideration below, is a wonderful throwback to primo early punk, with growled backing vocals a la Gang Of Four, and three chords wrapped in just the right amount of vintage fuzz tone. The band inhabits the retro sound, and leverages its bombast to carry youthful and vibrant political messages to an indie rock community that (in our opinion) collectively could use a lesson in the importance -- nay, necessity -- of protest and politics in music. That said, it's a touch funny to hear these folks in a band like this, as in their youth certain of them were busy providing an alternative to this type of music within the Washington, D.C. -area. But desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Let's hope there is more like this coming, both from Hard Left and others, because -- as the band reminds us -- "Suck-cess is not far away!" Listen via the Soundcloud embed below. -- Edward Charlton