5 Charms 10.25

Social Cig - Patchwork: A Road Dog Story (Milwaukee, WI; 2025)

She told me yesterday is there standing frozen like a statue
But it could be a part of our tomorrow too

Social Cig's Parker Schultz has a knack for catchy pop tunes, fun guitar riffs, jammy chords, and crowd-friendly, sing-along choruses. It's hard to write songs like that, but on "Patchwork," Schultz stitches together several bedroom pop genres to tell the story of a scrappy musician as he tours his way around the country. You know what it's like: shitty van, shitty venues, sleeping on the floor, no one makes any money. Social Cig puts on a great live show, and you can hear how these songs would translate to a small venue, especially on a bill with a more traditional (read: SAD) indie rock band, and provide a jolt of joy to the listener. Schultz calls his genre "indie skate rock", and the songs have the head-nodding, stoner propulsion of chill genres like folk ("Good to be Home"), reggae ("Midwest Cowboy"), hip-hop ("Lazy/Sunny"), and dream pop ("Graffiti"). "Patchwork" is a sweet, optimistic record for dark times with some great featured artists to compliment Schultz's sunny tunes.

Grain Elevator - The Horse's Name was Friday (Milwaukee, WI; 2025)

Now my true love's no longer alive
And it really gets me goin'

Grain Elevator bills itself as "real country shit," and who am I to argue with that? Multi-instrumentalist Evan Ceman provides most of the country bonifides, switching between pedal-steel, mandolin, fiddle, and more. Band mates Nick Matteson (guitar), Evan Marsalli (bass), Luke Espress (drums) drive the band into more of a rock direction, given their collective pedigree in indie bands Shoobie, North Warren, and Diet Lite. As good as the band is at lo-fi, dirt-road country music, the moment you hear singer Lainey Lou open up on "I'm Gunna Die in Nashville," you will root for Grain Elevator to go on tour with Morgan Wallen (kidding!). Lou is a marvel, with a voice as clear and sonorous as a church bell. She could hold her own in any song fight (if such a thing existed). Her soulful, massive vocals get better with each tune, culminating in the country-punk triumph "Big Jim's Place." On the final track, Lou takes a backseat to Nick Matteson cursing and spitting into the mic for the bonkers "Nashville, pt. 2." There are a ton of Wiscountry and roots-rock bands in Milwaukee and up and down the Fox River Valley, but no one takes the tropes of the music to their ridiculous extremes the way Grain Elevator does. This crazy little EP is available to purchase on iTunes, and although it can be streamed in all of the usual places, I'd love for the Grainies to get some dollars for their damn music. Buy it, spin it, hope to God you can catch them play a show.

New Wrongs - Dead Negative (Madison, WI; 2025)

I was wrong

New Wrongs will hurt your ears. This three-song noise/punk collection is full of digital clipping, wandering notes, crackling fuzz, and the gravely vocals of Milo Randle. "Deep Dreamer" is a great introduction to the possibility of New Wrongs, with its lurching, doomy verses and the sudden jolt into a hooky instrumental chorus. "ESP" continues this, with the addition of an extended jam that shows that the band is not too cool to actually have fun playing music together. Finally, on "Cock," New Wrongs breaks everything. A thin, reverb-bent riff floats above the chaos while drum solos compete with distorted bass. In just three short songs, New Wrongs announces that they are ready to lunge into the Wisco punk scene, play with abandon, and collapse on the floor when finished. Go check them out live, probably at a house show somewhere in Madison. New Wrongs is:

Milo Randle: Vocals, guitar
Ava Antoine: Bass
Ian Johnson: Guitar
Shayfer Huitt: Drums

S. Carey - Watercress (Eau Claire, WI; 2025)

Make me whole again
Make it October

Drive north on I94, and you'll cross over the Wisconsin River, sandy islands floating like clouds in the reflections of sky. You'll pass the marshy floodplains of the Baraboo River and the tombstones of a troubled ocean looming over Camp Douglas. Along this road, you'll be reminded that there is more space than people. There are more trees than concrete. There are more birds than cars. S. Carey's Watercress, a quiet, 4-song EP about the landscapes of heart and home, feels like it was built for this drive. Or any drive out of the artificial and into the real. This is music expertly crafted to evoke the feeling of hope and possibility. The songs are mostly stripped of the overtly electronic elements that Carey has used in the past, relying instead on acoustic guitar, drones, pedal steel, and of course his gorgeously layered vocals. Folks from the Bon Iver-verse have ended up all over the place, and Carey is signed to a national indie label, but the music here feels like Wisconsin woods, water, and fields. Perfect for fall, so pick it up before winter hits and I have to recommend some shoegaze project from Milwaukee or something.

Killer High Life - Killer High Life (Milwaukee, WI, 2025)

We can listen to the same song in different apartments
Across town where my decaying heart lives

If you grew up in the 90s, you likely listened to a lot "alternative rock." It was floating around in the air everywhere, caught by the radios of cigarette smoke-filled cars parked at Best Buy, one last drag before going in to buy CDs. Medium-market bands were getting signed by major labels desperate to find the next Nirvana. Anyone could get a record deal by being a little weird and gritty, leading off with guitars, having a blonde, self-effacing singer. That's the narrative, at least. But there were a ton of bands who never got signed, tons of even smaller-market cities full of artists who released actual albums of music that barely anyone heard. As it was then, so it still is today. Killer High Life is a band like this. And they released an album like this. You like guitar hooks? It's got those. You like screaming? It's got that. You like songs about being sad or angry? That's the whole damn record. On "P.N.S.", singer Brennan Deshotel howls, "Do you listen to the chords / or do you listen to the lyrics?" This is the kind of record that needs you to listen to both. There's a lot of angst and noise, but Deshotel is also listed as an author on a scientific paper with the title "Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm-deficient mutants undergo parallel adaptation during chronic infection", so you know the lyrics are worth digging into. What I'm saying is: we live in an amazing world where Killer High Life exists, makes great indie punk songs, and plays shows. Do they sometimes sing about killing people? Yes. But such is the beautiful messiness of having emotions. Turn on the amps. The show is about to start. Killer High Life is:
Brennan Deshotel: Lead Vox/Rhythm Guitar
Adelaide Light White: Bass Guitar
Adam Belker: Drums