5 Charms 04.26

Hottt Probs – Cream Rinse (Madison, WI; 2025)

You're hungry for a savior
I’m starving for a sign

Another Madison punk band, this time with all of the joy, snot, and guitar heroics of Illuminati Hotties. A short, 4-song ep, Hottt Probs just comes right out and kicks you in the head with noise and speed. They don't care if you need some kind of acoustic break or want a keyboard. They play guitars. And they add layers of dissonance and feedback in just the right places. At only 4 songs, it would be shame to skip any of them, but behold the raw power of album closer "CCBOOK". Opening tune "Pity Party" is a harsher delight, swinging between pop and distorted gutter punk. The bandcamp listing calls this a "demo," but it's as energetic and live-sounding a collection of songs as I have heard. Download a copy now, then check them out at a live show coming up in Madison, or in a venue near you. Just bring earplugs.

in shining armour – spirit hound (Milwaukee, WI; 2026)

will this save me?
i don't have that long to live
but I gave it all that i can give

I could write a whole thinkpiece about all of the emo in the Wisconsin scene, but then I'd be neglecting all of the punk and Wiscountry stuff. And the experimental stuff. The singer/songwriters. And I generally don't even touch on hard music or electronic, not to mention the hip-hop scene(s). Yet here we are, another young Milwaukee emo band. in shining armour is a two-piece (drums and guitar) band that put out a really great ep earlier this year. "spirit hound" is 5 songs of heart on sleeve, loud quiet loud, drum fills and distortion pedal music. Hovering somewhere between late-90s Sunny Day Real Estate and early 00s midwest emo, these songs have some chunky, confident guitar work and really great interplay between drums and guitar. "Crummy Cradle" shows off the work the two of them put in to build a complex song with just vocals, guitar, and drums. in shining armour is:

Seth Kaplan: guitars/vocals
Aidan Hoppens: drums

Dead Buddhas – Sludge Americana (Oshkosh, WI; 2026)

Eliminate the naysayers
Thanks for the thoughts and the prayers

It's always fun to hear what is coming out of Oshkosh. It might be some underrated midwest emo, it might be some beautiful indie folk, and it might be Dead Buddhas, a sort of grungecore, post-metal act that just released a devastatingly loud album called Sludge Americana. And that's a pretty good descriptor of what they are doing--songwriterly tunes like "Camp 15" and "Firmament" sit alongside the crushing noise of "Mirrored Lake" and the cosmic heaviness and drones of "Dusk in the Wilderness." Mid-tempo dark rock with occasional yelling is not as common these days as it used to be, and it definitely doesn't need to be as compelling as the way Dead Buddhas do it. As a bonus, the album closes with spacey instrumental "Infinite Baseball." If you love hard music, there are a ton of creative ideas to experience with Sludge Americana. Dead Buddhas is:

Connor: vocals/guitar
JT: vocals/bass
Kevin: vocals/guitar

Hush Now, Sweet Halo – Sundial/The Fear (Madison, WI; 2026)

The sun bleeds through my window
And I'm struck by light
Like a needle sliding sideways
It's tearing in my side

A crushing new 2-song single from Madison shoegaze band Hush Now, Sweet Halo. "Sundial" starts right out with the bonefides: sunken vocals, smooth and heavy distortion. It lulls you into thinking Hush Now is a mid-tempo band, then "The Fear" comes in with massive drum fills and distant yelling. It's still vibe music, designed to get you in a place to stare at the stars, the waves on Lake Monona, white magnolia flowers bursting in the wind. Hush Now is another young band in the ever-expanding heavy shoegaze/indie scene in Madison, alongside Interlay and Cult of Lip. As far as I know, there is no post-metal/alternative metal scene in Wisconsin per se, but bands like Hush Now, Sweet Halo, Dead Buddhas, Interlay, Dead Ringers, Wooden Ducks, and Lunar Moth are all making music that could fit onto a label like Flenser. Beautiful noisy stuff. Hush Now's previous single, Lust Enclosure, is also available from their bandcamp.

Blake & Yeekeng - 1991 (Madison, WI; 2025)

I ain't the best at talkin
But I sure know how to sing

Blake & Yeekeng make Wiscountry from the hollers and creeks of Dane County. Except there aren't really any hollers around here. And many of the creeks just disappear into drainage ditches somewhere around the Amazon fulfillment center by the freeway. But press play on this album, and you'll find yourself longing for those quieter days of the 1970s when deep-voiced outlaw country ballads wrung the emotion out of gentle fiddle solos and weeping pedal steel. As sepia-toned as the album cover, Blake & Yeekeng songs grapple with a certain kind of nostalgia for a certain kind of small town, middlewestern upbringing. Is it really about 1991, the actual year? Even the song 1991 isn't really about 1991 (not a single reference to Sonic the Hedgehog, for example). These songs go deeper than literal years. "These memories they'll stick with you forever," Blake sings in Arctic Cat, "It's all because the good times had to end." Country songs about growing up, learning to look back at your past with wisdom, looking forward to your future. Along with their previous EP, 2023's Midwestern, these young songwriter/producers have released two collections of sincere country/folk songs that harness the raw beauty of storytelling in country music. Grab a cd copy at their annual music fest, coming up this June!