Way back in ancient Honey on the Knife times, probably 2020, I compiled a list of releases that I’d been enjoying into an article titled What’s Good. I’m bring it back and turning it into a reoccurring series with the slightly different name of What’s Really Good. I think it’s an improvement because as a blogger/curator/connoisseur it is of everyone’s benefit here that I put you to what is gooder than good because there are plenty of other spots to find to good music.
Without future ado, here’s what I’ve been really digging as of late.
Juno – This Is The Way It Goes And Goes And Goes
I saw this album pop up on several RateYourMusic lists, and had been aware of its existence for at least two years. It languished in my now unfortunately 37 page long list of albums I learned about through the site and planned to listen to later. In the first song, I realized that this is gonna be a good album. By the third song, I already had the feeling that this album could become an all-timer for me. This is an album of wide old space, golden fields stretching out into oblivion, in the same way your mind does when contemplating where you are on the path from who you are and have been, to the destination of where you’d think you’d like to be but aren’t sure of. For me, this wide open space looks like the prairie skyline that surrounding me in the town where I grew up in. Rather than being from some faceless small town, Juno hail from Seattle. Maybe their endless prairie is the Pacific Ocean. Maybe the endless prairie doesn’t lie in a physical place, as I type this here in the mountains of France. It feels real nonetheless. The band sinks into patient slowcore passages that soak in the setting sun as it fades, while at other times racing towards the horizon in a propulsive post-hardcore sprint. Arlie Carstens’ dynamic and incredibly passionate vocal performance is the icing on the cake of a record with an eclectic, explosive, and emotionally potent sound. Having been released in March of 1999, and being meandering but driven, quiet and loud, evasive and sincere, and triumphant and melancholic, this might as well be the end credits soundtrack/synthesis of the winding story of 90s indie/alternative rock.
drive your plow over the bones of the dead – demo
Frantic and desperate, this Vancouver-based emoviolence band plays urgently and unhinged as throat-shredding screams, jagged guitar lines and punishing drums hammer confrontationally with incessant force. The low fidelity production works to its advantage because the performances are so raw and so real that studio trickery would only hamper the impact that is brought forward. “when what once worked” feels like the centre-piece, as its extended middle passage is the first point at which there is any point to catch your breath and recover from the record’s feverish first five minutes. Its not so easy to make out what is expressed in the vocals or in the samples used, but what is conveyed so powerfully here is a feel of harrowing bleakness and anger. I’m not dead, but consider me driven over by the crushing plow of this band.
Strictly Ballroom – Hide Here Forever
It wouldn’t be proper to call Strictly Ballroom a forgotten gem of 90s midwest emo, but I do think they are a group that falls under the radar more often than some of their contemporaries. Here I will stake my claim that their single album, 1997’s Hide Here Forever, deserves a similar status in the canon to midwest emo albums as widely known and acclaimed as Texas is the Reason’s Do You Know Who You Are?, Mineral’s The Power of Failing, and American Football’s first LP. One thing that those albums lack, but Hide Here Forever has, is a song about pants that don’t fit because “they’re too tight, they’re too long, THEY’RE FADEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!” The pants in question are more likely a metaphor for reluctantly trying to conform to a mold that doesn’t suit oneself. While they know they don’t fit there, neither have they figured out where they do fit in. It’s a relatable sentiment, with the existential questioning made light by the powerful emotion with which the trivial pants dilemma is expressed. This pants-trying vocalist only appears on two songs, whereas Chris Gunst more often carries the duties with a traditional yet uniquely distinct emo wail that is occasionally twisted into shrill and mangled shrieks more often heard in emotional hardcore rather than the dynamic slowcore and post-rock influenced sound that the group explores on the album. The member who went on to achieve the most recognition after the end of the group is bassist Jimmy Tamborello, known for his work as DNTEL and one-half of The Postal Service. Tastes of Tamborelllo’s future explorations in electronic music can be heard on the record, making the record an interesting little teaser of the aesthetics of early 2000s indietronica, which is not the type of influence you’d usually expect an emo record to have. In its raw, potent, melodic, and sonically ambitious glory, Hide Here Forever and the band’s Collected Recordings 1994-1999 compilation position Strictly Ballroom as yet another group in the post-hardcore milieu that was short lived but long on creative compositions and impactful songwriting.
Futureheaven – Colourwaves
Futureheaven’s “tides” blew me away when I first heard it back in January, and still remains one of favourite songs of 2023. It is a masterpiece in dream pop/shoegaze that combines all the best elements of the genre in a beautiful way. The lush atmosphere is enveloping and transcendent, the jangly guitarwork is incredibly catchy and demonstrates expertly how vocals aren’t the only instrument that can be used to write a killer hook. My tides-stanning aside, the two other songs, “azuka” and “coldgaze” are also delightful. The vocals are a huge highlight, as gorgeous ethereal melodies pour out in spades all over the EP. It’s an impressive debut from the Sydney-based group.