5 Charms 11.24

Brief Candles - Unfinished Nature (Milwaukee, WI; 2024)

[lyrics unknown/unknowable]

Brief Candles is unafraid of the glitter-in-your-ears noise that is classic shoegaze. Distorted bass. Sheer, icy guitar solos. Buried vocals. They started playing in the early 2000s, during the dormant era of shoegaze, when the first wave had disappeared into the ether, and we had little hope of Kevin Shields ever doing anything again that wasn't a movie soundtrack. Now, everyone is a dream-pop band. Whether that is good or not for Brief Candles doesn't really matter. Here they are, re-materialized into our timeline, guitars drifting and dripping and offering us some new songs. Vocalists Jen Boniger and Kevin Dixon trade off from song to song, as you would expect of the genre, their shrouded voices drifting through the songs like jellyfish. "I Thought I Would Remember" throbs on fuzzed-out bass guitar and redlined drums. "Rewards" and "Daylight Savers" lean more into the post-punk side of shoegaze, heavy on melody and drums. "I Will Follow U2" builds into a shimmering cascade of treble, while "Murky" stays down in the mud. While new dream and gaze bands abound, it's nice to know that Milwaukee's Brief Candles have been neither brief nor candles and are still making their mark on the scene. Pick up the record when you can, and stream the music somewhere dark. Brief Candles are:

Jen Boniger - Guitar, Vocals
Drew Calvetti - Bass
Kevin Dixon - Guitar, Vocals
Radishbeat - Drums

Red Pants - Pale Shadows (Madison, WI; 2024)

Hang the laundry out to dry
Piece by piece, and line by line

Mysterious Madison duo Red Pants has had busy year. They released a full length in October, 2023 on Spanish label Meritorio Records (US albums ship from Portland), got a spot in the coveted Shitty Barn performance series in Spring Green, and released a zine/cd side-project called Purple Pants. They return now with Pale Shadows, a 5-song EP that shows off their lo-fi bonifides and is a great companion to Not Quite There Yet. Album highlights include lead single "Proto Punk" a snarled little traffic jam of a song, and "One More Ghost," with swirls of feedback haunting the background. "Underneath the Sun" is Low-esque, building off of a keyboard drone and minimalist drum loop. The instrumental tracks that bookend the EP make for a short and sweet listen--the sun rising, glowing, and setting, its movement casting the pale shadows of the title. Red Pants are:

Jason Lambeth: guitars, vocals, etc.
Elsa Nekola: drums, vocals, etc.

Caley Conway - Partner (Milwaukee, WI; 2024)

You appear in periwinkle and oxygen
Mid-negotiation

Milwaukee songwriter Caley Conway has produced an incredibly diverse collection of songs, from the post-rock of 2019's Surrounded Middle to the deconstructed pop of Only a Dark Cocoon to her work as guitarist and singer with Field Report, Julia Blair, and Ellie Jackson, Conway is that rare musician who can write and perform in many styles, while still sounding like her authentic self. Partner, her new full-length album, is impeccably produced, beautifully sung, and full of revelatory songs. Every song is worth your energy and effort to unspool and tangle yourself in. "Singing Never" is a towering achievement of melody, breath, creative line breaks, deft lyrical rhythm. "Love is Sex" and "Hours in the Day" are complex pop songs ("Sex" slinks along in 7/8) that translate perfectly to her live band setting. This record combines the pop sensibility and instrumentation of her recent work with the more rock-oriented Surrounded Middle – late album track "Mazzy" stabs and tumbles forward, packing dense themes lyrically and musically into a 2:33 rock song. Lyrically, the songs read like puzzle pieces, fitting ordinary observations neatly alongside twisting imagery. In "Sky Blue," she notes "I've been trying with all my might to write this / Yellow finch on the fence, bring me patience / V's of geese, bring me the needle / of the clear compass." You should definitely get this album, go see her on tour this fall, and even support her Patreon, which will get you access to lyrics, demos, and other stuff. Full credits on her Bandcamp page, but you can start here:

Caley Conway: vocals, guitars, omnichord, piano, synths, bass, recording, mixing
Devin Drobka: drums
Bryan Rogers: piano, keyboard, synths
John Larkin: bass, trumpet
Ellie Jackson: vocals

Heavy Looks - Apathy (Madison, WI; 2022)

Break my heart into a million pieces
Break the mirror hanging on the wall

Heavy Looks was recently awarded "Pop Performer of the Year" from the Madison Area Music Awards. (Full disclosure: I've purposefully gone to three shows with Heavy Looks on the bill, with the intent of seeing them live, but each time I've had to leave before they play.) So is this pop music? Sure, in the broad sense of "verse-chorus-verse" songs. Musically somewhere between local bands Gentle Brontosaurus and Lunar Moth, Heavy Looks plays a distortion-forward brand of garage rock, sweet and poppy and crisply produced. The songs on Apathy are full of guitar and vocal hooks, loud choruses about love and longing. They are happy to get you dancing, even as they sing about sad things. But not too sad! This is sincere music that captures the joys of both kissing and telling someone to kiss off. Heavy Looks recently entered the studio, so look forward to more new music in the coming year. Heavy Looks is:

Roz Greiert: Vocals and guitars
Dirk Gunderson: Vocals and guitars
Jess Nowaczyk: Drums
Tricia DiPiazza: Bass

The Spine Stealers - If The Sky Falls Beyond The Sidewalks (Madison, WI; 2024)

let's not pretend that we don't see the dawn
I'll be gone before you get the lights on

The Spine Stealers are a folk duo from Madison that have had what could legitimately be called a meteoric rise from "never having written a song" to "playing festival stages" in less than 4 years. They have released a few singles and an EP, and "Sky Falls," their debut full-length, compliments their spare sound with the presence of studio musicians and friends adding banjo, drums, pedal steel, and more. Most prominent on the album are the vocals of Emma O'Shea (vocals, acoustic guitar), whose soft, lilting tonality works well to convey the world-weariness of the lyrics. There is also an increased instrumental presence of Kate Ruland (vocals, electric guitar), whose electric guitar work has grown stronger through the duo's constant gigging.

There is a Mazzy Star-esque quality to O'Shea's melodies--hazy and slow. The pedal steel is a great fit with their songs, it whines through quiet tunes like "Bar Light," "Tired," and "Feelings of Floating," giving them the "spooky" quality that the Spine Stealers are known for. Banjo, jumping and bouncing over the drone of the pedal steel, transforms "Void" and "Quitting" into lighter tunes that help to balance out the darkness of "Is it Even Love" and "Frozen Flies." The simple addition of harmonica on the instrumental portions of "Brain Fog" lift the song out of the murky feel of the title. Singles "Tired" and "To Emma (Lord Byron)" showcase the quiet power of the Spine Stealers, unassuming and begging for a closer listen.

You can stream the record in all of the regular places, or pick up the record at a live show sometime. The Spine Stealers are:

Emma O'Shea - vocals, acoustic guitar
Kate Ruland - vocals, electric guitar