Album Reviews | Music Boats

Ambient Guitar Pedals Under $150: Skip the Strymon, Buy These Five
26
Aug

The most important conclusion first: you do not need a $400 Strymon BigSky or a $350 Eventide Space to build a credible ambient guitar rig. The five pedals below cost between $35 and $149 and cover the three sonic pillars of ambient guitar: long reverb, dotted-eighth delay, and slow modulation. If you are new to ambient playing, start with a reverb and a delay. Everything else is decoration.

This is not legal advice, and it is not a paid endorsement. I have played or heard every pedal listed here in a live or recorded context. Prices reflect major retailer listings as of 2026 and fluctuate by region.

What Actually Makes a Pedal “Ambient”

The term “ambient guitar” gets thrown around loosely. What most players mean is a signal chain that turns single notes into sustained, evolving textures. That requires three things: long decay time, multiple repeats, and movement. A standard overdrive or wah pedal does none of this. A reverb with a 10-second tail does all of it.

Here is the fundamental principle: ambient guitar is about time, not gain. You are stretching a note across seconds, not pushing it into distortion. That means your first purchases should be time-based effects — reverb, delay, and modulation — not another drive pedal.

The good news is that time-based effects are cheap to manufacture digitally. A $50 digital reverb pedal from a Chinese factory often uses the same FV-1 chip as a $250 boutique unit. The enclosure is lighter. The paint is less pretty. The algorithm is nearly identical. This is why budget ambient pedals have exploded in quality since 2026.

One warning before buying anything: buffered bypass matters less than you think for ambient playing. You want your reverb and delay trails to continue after you switch the pedal off. That requires a buffered or “trails” bypass mode. If a budget pedal lacks trails, it will cut your reverb tail abruptly when you disengage it. That is a dealbreaker for ambient music. Check the spec sheet before you buy.

The Five Pedals, Ranked by Usefulness

A beautifully crafted acoustic guitar placed neatly beside a dark wooden cabinet in a dimly lit room.

Pedal	Type	Price (2026)	Best For	Trails Bypass
Flamma FS02 Reverb	Stereo reverb	$75	First ambient reverb	Yes
Joyo R-14 Atmosphere	Multi-reverb	$89	Variety of textures	Yes
Caline CP-26 Snake Bite	Dual reverb	$45	Budget shimmer	No
TC Electronic Echobrain	Analog delay	$49	Warm repeats	No
Behringer DR600	Digital reverb	$35	Absolute minimum cost	No

My pick for the single best starter ambient pedal is the Flamma FS02. It has seven reverb modes, stereo outputs, and a shimmer setting that does not sound like a cheap chorus. At $75, it outperforms pedals three times its price. The spring mode is weak, but nobody buys this pedal for spring reverb.

If you want more texture options, the Joyo R-14 Atmosphere adds modulated reverb, a freeze function, and a dedicated tone control. It costs $89 and feels sturdier than the Flamma. The freeze function alone justifies the extra $14 — it holds a chord indefinitely, which is the foundation of ambient pads.

Mistakes That Kill an Ambient Rig Before It Starts

Most beginners make the same three errors. Avoid them and you save money and frustration.

Buying a delay before a reverb. Delay repeats are rhythmic. Reverb creates space. For ambient guitar, space comes first. A long reverb with a 6-second decay does more for your sound than any delay pedal under $150.
Ignoring power requirements. Digital reverbs draw more current than analog drives. A daisy-chain power supply rated for 100mA per output will starve a Flamma FS02, which draws around 150mA. You will hear a high-pitched whine or the pedal will reboot. Buy an isolated power supply or use the included adapter.
Assuming expensive means better. The Strymon BigSky costs $479 and is genuinely excellent. It is not four times better than a $75 Flamma. For recording at home or playing small gigs, the difference is negligible. Spend the savings on a looper.

One more failure mode: buying too many pedals at once. Two pedals — a reverb and a delay — will keep you busy for months. Adding a third pedal before you understand the first two just complicates your signal chain and your practice time.

When Not to Buy Any of These

Energetic live music performance with crowd cheering under dramatic lighting.

Budget pedals have real limitations. You should not buy any pedal on this list if you meet one of these conditions.

If you play in a touring band and your board gets thrown into a van three times a week, the plastic enclosures on the Behringer DR600 and Caline Snake Bite will not survive. Spend more on a metal-housed pedal like the Joyo R-14 or a used Boss RV-6.

If you need MIDI control or presets, none of these pedals offer it. Ambient players who switch between three different reverb sounds mid-song need a pedal with preset slots. The Flamma FS02 has none. The Joyo R-14 has none. Save for a used Boss RV-500 or a Source Audio Ventris if presets are non-negotiable.

If you are recording an album and need pristine, studio-grade reverb, buy a plugin instead. Valhalla Supermassive is free and sounds better than any hardware pedal under $300. The pedals on this list are for live playing and practice, not for replacing a professional mix engineer’s reverb chain.

Signal Chain and Settings That Work

Guitarist playing electric guitar on stage with vibrant lights, wearing a leather jacket and flat cap.

Here is the exact chain I recommend for a budget ambient board, in order:

Guitar → Tuner → Overdrive (optional) → Delay → Reverb → Amp or interface.

Delay before reverb is the traditional ambient order. The delay repeats feed into the reverb, which smears them into a wash. Reverb before delay creates a different effect — each repeat triggers a new reverb tail, which gets muddy fast. Unless you are intentionally creating chaos, delay goes first.

For the Flamma FS02, start with these settings: Mode = Church, Decay = 3 o’clock, Tone = 11 o’clock, Mix = 1 o’clock. Play a single note and let it ring. You should hear a tail that lasts roughly 8 seconds without overwhelming the dry signal.

For the TC Electronic Echobrain, set Time = 10 o’clock, Feedback = 2 o’clock, Mix = noon. This gives you a warm, slightly dark repeat that sits behind your playing. It is not a pristine digital delay, and that is the point. Analog delay degrades on each repeat, which sounds more organic under heavy reverb.

If you can only buy one pedal today, buy the Flamma FS02. It is the most versatile reverb under $100, it has stereo outputs for future expansion, and its shimmer mode is usable without sounding like a church organ falling down a staircase. Add a delay later. Add modulation last.

The single most important takeaway: a $75 reverb pedal with a long decay time will get you 90% of the ambient guitar sound you hear on records, and the remaining 10% is practice, not gear.

Squier Vs Epiphone Les Paul Beginner Guitar: Squier vs Epiphone Les Paul: The Beginner Guitar That Actually Fits Your Music
22
Aug

Most buyers walk into a guitar shop and pick the one that looks like the album cover they love. That is not a bad instinct. But the hardware underneath the finish will decide whether you keep playing or quit by March. The two most common first guitars—the Fender Squier Stratocaster and the Epiphone Les Paul—solve two different problems. One is built for comfort and clarity. The other is built for weight and sustain. This is not legal advice, and it is not a sales pitch. It is a breakdown of what these instruments actually do to your fingers and your ears.

What the Records Tell You About the Sound

Before touching a knob, understand the sonic territory. The Squier Stratocaster is the sound of glassy clean tones, surf records, and the rhythmic chop of Nile Rodgers. The Epiphone Les Paul is the sound of thick overdrive, long solos, and the dark crunch of early punk and hard rock.

The single-coil pickups in a Squier are bright. They cut through a mix but they hum. The humbuckers in an Epiphone are quiet and fat. They push an amplifier harder, which is why a Les Paul feels easier to make sound “big” on a cheap practice amp.

If you are learning songs by The Smiths, The Police, or early U2, the Squier gets you closer. If you are learning Green Day, Led Zeppelin, or Slash-era Guns N’ Roses, the Epiphone gets you there faster. Neither is wrong. They are just different tools for different records.

The Physical Reality: Weight, Neck, and Why Beginners Quit

Indie band performing live on a street with guitarists and drummer entertaining the crowd.

Here is the failure mode nobody tells you about. Beginners quit because the guitar hurts. Not because they lack talent. Because the instrument is physically uncomfortable. The Epiphone Les Paul is a slab of mahogany. A standard Epiphone Les Paul Special weighs around 8 to 9 pounds. A Squier Affinity Stratocaster weighs closer to 6.5 pounds. That two-pound difference matters when you are sitting on the edge of a bed for forty-five minutes.

The neck is the other variable. Squier necks are typically thinner and have a flatter radius. Your hand wraps around them easily. Epiphone necks are chunkier. Some players love that. Beginners with smaller hands often do not.

One specific mistake to avoid: buying a Les Paul because it looks cool, then discovering you cannot reach the upper frets because the cutaway is not as deep as a Strat. The Squier’s double-cutaway body gives you access to the 17th fret and beyond without dislocating your thumb. The Les Paul requires a different hand position. It is not impossible. It is just more work.

Spec Comparison: Squier Affinity vs Epiphone Les Paul Special

Feature	Squier Affinity Stratocaster	Epiphone Les Paul Special
Body Wood	Poplar	Mahogany
Neck Wood	Maple	Mahogany
Pickups	3 Single-coil	2 Humbucker
Weight	~6.5 lbs	~8.5 lbs
Scale Length	25.5 inches	24.75 inches
Typical Price (2026)	$249	$199
Best For	Clean tones, funk, indie	Distortion, rock, punk

The scale length is the hidden spec. The Squier’s longer 25.5-inch scale makes the strings feel tighter. Bending strings requires more finger strength. The Epiphone’s shorter 24.75-inch scale feels slinkier. Bends are easier. That is why blues and rock players often prefer the Les Paul feel. But the tighter Squier strings stay in tune better when you hit them hard.

When Not to Buy Either One

Detailed close-up of a guitar headstock showcasing strings and tuning pegs.

If you have a budget under $150, do not buy a new Squier or Epiphone. Buy a used Yamaha Pacifica 112V. The Pacifica is the most underrated beginner guitar on the used market. It has a humbucker in the bridge and single-coils in the neck and middle. It splits the difference between the two sounds. And it costs less than a night out.

If you have back pain or you are buying for a child under 12, skip the Epiphone Les Paul entirely. The weight is a real problem. A Squier Mini Strat or an Ibanez GRGM21 Mikro is a better fit. Small hands need small necks. The Epiphone is not a small guitar.

If you already own a guitar and you are upgrading, neither of these is the right purchase. Save for a Fender Player Series or an Epiphone Standard. The beginner models have cheaper tuners and cheaper electronics. They work. But they need more frequent tuning and setup work.

The Setup Problem Nobody Fixes

Every beginner guitar ships with high action. The strings sit too far from the fretboard. This makes pressing notes harder than it needs to be. It causes buzzing. It causes finger pain. It causes people to quit.

A $50 setup from a local tech fixes this. Lower the action. Adjust the truss rod. Set the intonation. A cheap guitar with a good setup plays better than an expensive guitar without one. The Squier Affinity and the Epiphone Special both benefit enormously from this. Do not skip it.

One more failure mode: the stock strings on both guitars are usually 9-gauge for Squier and 10-gauge for Epiphone. Swap them for a fresh set of Ernie Ball Super Slinky (9s) or D’Addario EXL110. Old strings sound dead. New strings make a $200 guitar sound alive.

The Verdict for 2026

Musician with tattoos playing an electric guitar on stage in a dark, moody setting.

For most beginners, the Squier Affinity Stratocaster is the better first guitar. It is lighter, more comfortable, and more versatile for clean and edge-of-breakup tones. The Epiphone Les Paul Special is the better choice only if you already know you want to play distorted rock and you do not mind the weight. If you are unsure, buy the Squier. If you are sure you want to sound like a wall of amps, buy the Epiphone.

Home Studio Setup Under $500: The No-BS 2026 Gear List
20
Aug

You have $500 and a room that is not acoustically treated. You want to record a song that does not sound like it was recorded inside a tin can. This is the exact list I would hand a friend who just asked me that question.

I have recorded in bedrooms, closets, and one very questionable basement. The gear below is what actually matters. Everything else is noise.

The Real Problem Is Not Your Gear

Most first home studios fail because people buy the wrong thing first. They buy a fancy microphone and plug it into a $20 USB adapter. Then they wonder why the recording hums like a refrigerator.

The signal chain matters more than any single piece. A $100 microphone through a proper audio interface will beat a $400 USB microphone every time. USB microphones combine the preamp, converter, and mic into one cheap box. You cannot upgrade any part of it later.

Start with an audio interface. It is the foundation. Everything plugs into it. If you buy nothing else on this list, buy the interface first.

The Interface That Actually Works

The Focusrite Scarlett Solo costs $119 new in 2026. It has one XLR input with phantom power, one instrument input, and a headphone output. The preamp is clean enough that you will not hear hiss on a quiet vocal take. Focusrite has been making these for over a decade. Drivers are stable on Windows and Mac.

The cheaper Behringer UM2 ($49) exists. I do not recommend it for vocals. The preamp gets noisy when you push the gain past about 60%. If you only record loud sources like electric guitar cabs or drums, it works. For anything quiet, spend the extra $70 on the Scarlett.

Microphone Choice: Stop Overthinking This

A cozy home studio with professional lighting equipment for a photo session.

Buy a dynamic microphone. Not a condenser. Dynamic mics reject room noise better, which matters because your room is untreated. Condensers pick up everything: the refrigerator, the neighbor’s dog, the sound of your chair creaking.

The Shure SM57 ($99) is the answer for most people. It records vocals, guitar amps, snare drums, acoustic guitar, and pretty much anything else you put in front of it. Is it the best vocal mic? No. Does it work well enough to make a record? Yes. Bruce Springsteen recorded vocals on Nebraska with an SM57. You will be fine.

If you only record vocals and want something slightly warmer, the Shure SM58 ($109) is the same mic with a built-in pop filter. The difference is small. Pick whichever is cheaper at the time.

Do not buy a cheap condenser like the Neewer NW-700. It will pick up the hum from your laptop fan and you will spend hours trying to edit it out.

Headphones: Closed-Back Only

You need closed-back headphones for tracking. Open-back headphones leak sound into the microphone. You will get bleed on every vocal take and then wonder why there is a ghost of the instrumental in your vocal track.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M40x ($99) is the best value in 2026. Flat enough to mix on, durable enough to survive being stepped on, and the cable detaches when you inevitably roll your chair over it. The M50x ($149) adds more bass but the M40x is actually flatter for mixing. Save the $50.

For a cheaper option, the Sony MDR-7506 ($89) has been the studio standard for 30 years. They are bright. You will hear every mistake. That is the point.

Do not mix on earbuds. Do not mix on Beats. Do not mix on anything that colors the sound.

The $60 Software That Runs Everything

Young black men filming a casual video with laptop and camera in a home studio setting.

You do not need Pro Tools. You do not need Ableton. You need a DAW that records audio, supports VST plugins, and does not crash.

Reaper costs $60 for a personal license. It is not a trial. It is the full program. Reaper runs on any computer made in the last decade and supports every plugin format that matters. The learning curve is real but there are thousands of free tutorials.

Free alternatives exist. GarageBand is free on Mac and genuinely good for songwriting demos. Audacity is free but it is a destructive editor, not a real DAW. You cannot run proper plugin chains in Audacity. You will outgrow it in a month.

Spend the $60 on Reaper. It is the last DAW you will need to buy for years.

What the $500 Budget Actually Looks Like

Item	Product	Price	Why It Matters
Audio Interface	Focusrite Scarlett Solo	$119	Clean preamp, stable drivers
Microphone	Shure SM57	$99	Rejects room noise, works on everything
Headphones	Audio-Technica ATH-M40x	$99	Closed-back, flat response
XLR Cable	Hosa HMIC-010	$15	Do not buy the cheapest cable
Mic Stand	On-Stage MS7701B	$25	Boom arm saves desk space
Pop Filter	Aokeo Professional	$12	Stops plosives on vocals
DAW	Reaper	$60	Full-featured, one-time purchase
Total		$429	Leaves $71 for cables or a second mic

The remaining $71 should go to a second XLR cable and maybe a used Shure SM58 if you can find one under $80. Two mics open up stereo recording and drum overheads.

The Mistakes That Ruin First Recordings

A close-up of a hand adjusting controls on a red audio interface, emphasizing technology use.

Here is what actually goes wrong, in order of frequency:

Recording too hot. Keep your input level peaking around -12dB to -6dB. Digital clipping is permanent. You cannot fix it later.
Ignoring room echo. Record in the room with the most soft surfaces. Closets with clothes work surprisingly well. Bathrooms do not.
Buying monitors before treatment. Studio monitors in an untreated room lie to you. Headphones are more honest in a bad room.
Over-processing. A raw SM57 recording through a Scarlett sounds decent. Adding 15 plugins makes it sound worse. Start with EQ and compression. Stop there.
Not backing up. Save your Reaper project to two places. Hard drives die. This is not optional.

When You Should Spend More (And When You Should Not)

If you are recording acoustic guitar and quiet vocals in a room with no treatment, add a Shure SM58 ($109) and skip the SM57. The built-in pop filter helps with plosives and the slightly warmer top end flatters acoustic sources.

If you are only making beats and never recording audio, skip the microphone entirely. Put that $99 toward a MIDI controller like the Arturia MiniLab 3 ($109). The Scarlett Solo still matters for headphone output.

If you have $700 instead of $500, the single best upgrade is acoustic treatment. Four ATS Acoustic panels ($180 for a 4-pack) will do more for your recordings than any microphone upgrade. Untreated rooms make every mic sound cheap.

The gear list above is not the ceiling. It is the floor. It is the minimum that produces a recording you would not be embarrassed to share. Everything above this is incremental improvement.

The home studio market in 2026 is flooded with cheap gear that promises professional results. Most of it is bad. The list above is boring on purpose. Boring gear works. Boring gear does not break. Boring gear lets you focus on the song instead of troubleshooting a $30 USB microphone that hums every time you move the cable.

Record the song. That is the point.

Electronic Albums That Sound Better After Midnight
20
Jul

Electronic Albums That Sound Better After Midnight looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For late-night electronic albums, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Look for albums with patient builds rather than constant drops.
Headphones reveal small details that speakers can blur.
A good late-night record should feel immersive without becoming background noise.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Electronic Albums That Reward a Second Listen
12
May

Abstract electronic album artwork with synth textures

The best electronic albums rarely explain themselves in the first ten minutes. They invite you in with texture, rhythm and movement, then reveal their real shape after the second or third listen. That is part of what keeps the format alive in a playlist-heavy era: a single track can introduce a mood, but an album lets that mood develop, fracture and return with more meaning.

Why patience matters

Electronic music is often judged by immediate impact. A bass line either hits or it does not; a hook either sticks or disappears. Albums ask for a slightly different kind of attention. The opener sets the palette, the middle stretch tests how far the artist can bend it, and the closing track usually tells you whether the idea had enough emotional weight to justify the journey.

That is especially true for records built around minimal percussion, ambient passages or slow harmonic shifts. On first listen, they can seem restrained. On repeat listens, small choices become central: a synth line that returns in a lower register, a kick pattern that disappears for a whole verse, a vocal sample that stops sounding decorative and starts sounding like the point of the song.

The album as a room

A strong electronic album feels less like a queue of tracks and more like a room you learn how to move through. The best ones create contrast without breaking their own atmosphere. They know when to make the floor shake, but also when to let the air thin out. That sense of space is what separates a good release from a collection of useful tracks.

For listeners, the reward is simple: give the record time before deciding what it is. Let the quieter transitions do their work. Let the repeated motifs become familiar. If the album is built well, the second listen will not simply confirm the first. It will change it.

“They’ll definitely blow your mind”: five of the best female rock bands on the rise
28
Apr

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Alex Walden takes a deep dive into the world of alternate rock music to showcase some new female groups on the rise who are definitely worth keeping an eye on.

It’s safe to say that the genre of rock is way out of its golden era. Long gone are the days of kids wanting to be rockstars after being completely in awe at the appeal of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. However, if you think that means that rock has simply vanished, you’d be dead wrong. While the days of mass media constantly gazing upon the culture of rock gods have passed, it can be argued that the uniqueness diversity and overall creativity of rock music as a whole is on a completely different level to that of the 80s as these female acts prove. So, strap yourselves in because while artists such as Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks and Pat Benatar are iconic women who paved the way for female rock, they’ve got nothing on these girls.

Honourable mention: Christina Michelle of Gouge Away

Ok, I know what you’re thinking, and yes I know that Gouge Away are not an all-female band. However, I felt that they just had to be mentioned. It was on a complete whim that I discovered gouge away. Usually, I have a story of how I discover artists but, as weird as it is to say, I just sort of found them one day, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Gouge Away have a sound that’s a blend of shoegaze and hardcore punk which works really well. It gives you that classic punch of that hardcore sound mixed with the sombre tones of shoegaze, giving their songs a slightly unsettling nature.

I remember showing Gouge Away to a friend of mine who said to me something along the lines of “you can tell that they really attack those instruments”. Considering this, it makes an undoubtably difficult task for vocalist Christina Michelle to essentially match the chaotic energy of her bandmates and essentially fight for her vocals to be heard over the thrashing of her bandmates and boy can you tell she goes for it.

Her vocals are so powerful and intense that it just brings something out of you

I think a commenter on a video one of Gouge Away’s live performances described it best with the quote, “this singer’s voice is mesmerizing. So unique and she doesn’t give in.” It can be difficult to bring the ferocity required to make a good hardcore track but rest assured that whatever it takes, Michelle’s got it.

If the aggression of that hardcore sound isn’t really your style, or you’re just discovering the genre and want something a bit more on the side of shoegaze, then Gouge Away have got you covered too. I recommend the songs Dallas and Stray/Burnt Sugar for the easy-going fans and the songs Fed Up, Can’t Relate and Ghost for those who want that bit of extra oomph in their ears.

5.Dream Nails

Up next we travel back to England as we look at the punk band Dream Nails. Originating from mutual friends as well as run-ins at drag shows, Dream Nails are slowly attracting their target audience with their feminist anthems. I first discovered Dream Nails after I heard through word of mouth that they were performing near me. Being down for anything music related I decided to check them out and upon reading the title of their most streamed song, Vagina Police, I immediately thought to myself “ok, these girls clearly have a message they want to send… I’m in.” After conducting some more research, I became hooked to their songs such as Good Guy, Joke Choke and DIY which are these incredibly fast-paced thrash punk tracks containing messages about completely destroying patriarchal values and throwing classic social societal values completely out the window and to that I say power to them.

4.Dream Wife

Staying in the UK, next up we have Dream Wife the London based punk trio who combine punk, pop and indie all in one. Considering the similarity to the name of the previous act, you’d be surprised to know that I discovered Dream Wife the same way I discovered Dream Nails. After hearing they’d be performing nearby I decided to check them out through their KEXP live performance and I’ve got to say, after just two songs (Social Lubrication and Love You More) I was hooked on the high-pitched screeches of the guitar that clash against those smooth bass lines and vocals. I could clearly see their indie and pop influence on just their first two songs. However, after discovering their song Let’s Make Out I was completely dumbfounded. Alice Go had transformed her role on guitar by switching to these filling chords that practically swallow the whole song if it wasn’t for the lead vocalist Rakel Mjöll fighting back with her amazing screams for the chorus.

Whether it’s a nice relaxing indie sound, some feedback heavy punk or just a cool image to follow, this band have something for you.

3.L.A. Witch

For my next entry we head to California for rock trio L.A. Witch. If I had to bet on any of the bands mentioned in this article obtaining a substantial amount of popularity in the near future, I can comfortably say I’d put my money on LA. Witch.

Originally founded in 2011 by guitarist and lead vocalist Sade Sanchez and bassist Irita Pai due to an ex-boyfriend forbidding Sanchez from playing in bands with other men, L.A. Witch has taken its feminine identity and kept it at the forefront of their band’s image.

The word ‘witch’ to us is like a cool way for us to hint that it was our feminine-type energy

Sade Sanchez
L.A. Witch have a very woozy-sounding garage/punk rock sound witch I think has great potential. While I think that punk is an awesome genre, having every single song go at over 200 bpm with blaring loud instrumentals and intense screaming can get not only repetitive, but also tiring on the ears. Not everyone wants to thrash all the time. Sometimes people want to listen to punk in a relaxed manner. Producing songs sounds with sound while also staying within the punk genre is a difficult task, however, L.A. Witch in my opinion are one of the few bands who have properly mastered it. They still have overdriven guitars that give off feedback and fast drums, but it still has a slightly relaxing feel to it, especially within their latest album Play With Fire. Ever since I discovered it, I’ve not been able to stop listening to it. Due to its well roundedness as a rock project, it’s become one of my essential albums for every occasion.

As with most bands, L.A. Witch’s sound has improved incredibly, and you can hear it throughout their discography. Granted it’s probably through years of practice finally paying off, but it feels like you can hear them becoming more confident in their sound and playing ability as you work your way from beginning to end. All I can say is that I’m super excited for what they’ve got planed for the future.

2.Otoboke Beaver

Next up we take a trip even further across the pond to the Japan for punk rock group Otoboke Beaver. You know that classic cartoon troupe where they give a kid coffee, or some other highly caffeinated drink and they just go absolutely wild? Yeah, Otoboke Beaver is the musical personification of that exact scene.

Best described by rock legend Dave Grohl who said “it’ll blow your mind, dude. It’s the most fucking intense shit you’ve ever seen,” Otoboke Beaver are quickly on the rise due to their ability to blend fury and finesse to construct a fast paced, high intensity punk rock that sounds the musical version of a perfectly executed boot to the face. I first discovered the band after hearing S’il vous plaît and I was instantly hooked to it’s extremity of the sound, yet it had such a high degree of delicacy to it, it almost felt cute somehow; it was a well-made song but it also had that degree of aggression and rebellion that that came with punk and it kept me interested. I decided to look further into their discography to which at this point I discovered the video for Don’t light my fire, which completely blew my mind.

It’s been about a year since I first watched that video and I still think that I haven’t seen a music video with as much authenticity and raw energy as that. The almost hostile levels of power in their songs can be heard to the point where if they don’t blow your speakers, they’ll definitely blow your mind.

The almost hostile levels of power in their songs can be heard to the point where if they don’t blow your speakers, they’ll definitely blow your mind.

At the time of this article being published, Otoboke Beaver are embarking on a US tour on which I’m sure they’re making a name for themselves, however I can’t wait for their next project. After nearly 15 years of music, I think that the band have finally mastered that perfection combination of fun and absolute carnage (especially within their last album Super Champon) and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.

1.Nova Twins

As far as being patriotic goes, I can’t say I’m really your guy at all. However, when it comes to this next group, I can honestly say that I’m proud to say that England’s own Nova Twins holds the number one spot for my top female groups to look out for. These girls are absolutely crushing everything they do with their heavy instrumentals which are channeled through a complete arsenal of pedals to make sounds that I thought previously to be impossible. It all goes hand in hand with guitarist and lead vocalist Amy Love’s hip-hop/punk vocals.

It may sound like an exaggeration when I say that discovering Nova Twins could be compared to that of a life changing experience however I’m willing to go there for this band. After scrolling through the list of endorsers for Marshall amps, I stumbled upon a picture of two girls dressed like guitar hero characters absolutely rocking out on stage. I was intrigued however it wasn’t until the next day that I decided to look them up. It was by chance that I was wearing headphones the day that I discovered their song Antagonist for the first time. I mention this due to the fact that it made the high-pitched wails of Amy Love’s guitar in the opining riff that much more impacting, however nothing prepared me for the absolutely thunderous bass tone that erupted from Georgia South’s bass into my headphones. It felt as If my headphones were erupting, I had never experienced anything like it. For the whole day it was pretty much the only song I listened to. That’s the joy of Antagonist: you can’t just listen to it once. It requires at least two or three listens to get over the sheer cataclysmic event for your ears that is listening to that song.

It requires at least two or three listens to get over the sheer cataclysmic event for your ears that is listening to Antagonist.

Not only are Nova Twins absolutely rattling your ear drums, they’re also making history through their activism. Whether it’s through their “Voices For the Unheard” playlist highlighting alternative P.O.C. artists or their related limited edition record which all proceeds of record sales went directly to The Black Curriculum, Nova Twins are always using the attention they have for the right reasons. However, neither of these acts compare to their open letter to the MOBO awards calling for them to introduce a new Rock/Alternative category to their award shows. Clearly MOBO had listened as the next year we were given the first ever MOBO Best Alternative Music Act category.

Whether its making absolutely monstrous music or paving the way for future artists. It’s clear that these girls are ready to carry the torch for the alternative music scene and pave the way for artists in years to come and that’s why I think these artists deserve the number one spot.

So there you have it. Whether you like the violent and bashful sound of hardcore band Gouge Away, or the soft garage rock sound of L.A. Witch or even the skull-crushing tone of Nova Twins, there’s something for you in this list to prove that, as the old saying goes, the future is clearly female. With these acts taking the reins, we’re here for it.

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Bass Albums That Make a Workout Feel Cinematic
5
Feb

Bass Albums That Make a Workout Feel Cinematic looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For bass albums and movement, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Choose records with momentum, not just volume.
Look for low-end detail that stays clean on headphones.
A strong album arc can make a routine feel less repetitive.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Ezra Collective: Dance, No One’s Watching review – jazz champions play to their strengths
7
Sep

The jazz group that set the Mercury Prize alight last year return with an album that goes all in on infectious dance grooves. Their knack for melody seems to have been forgotten in the party, but this bloated record does conclude with the most moving track of this band’s career.

The level of study I devote to albums reviewed on this blog varies, but sometimes, like with this latest Ezra Collective album, I take my journalistic duties to give the entire record a fair hearing seriously: I sit down in a darkened room save for a dim desk lamp, scribbling details of every track in a notepad and staring blankly at Spotify as the highlighted song title gradually works its way down the track list. It took about 20 minutes of listening to Dance, No One’s Watching before I properly read the album title writ large across the top of the screen. Alone on a rainy night in my bedroom, it felt like an instruction addressed directly to me. In fact, cowering over a desk is the exact opposite effect of Ezra Collective’s third album which is, unsurprisingly, a heartfelt ode to the power of dancing.

Ezra are labelled a jazz act – and are the most commercially successful act in the nebulous genre of UK jazz by some margin – but anyone who’s seen the five Londoners take to a stage since their emergence five years ago will know compulsive dance grooves have always been an essential part of this band’s appeal. Their performance at last year’s Mercury Prize (fittingly of a song called Victory Dance) had the attendees in the cabaret seating setting aside their glasses of champagne to clap and frug along to the infectious Latin groove like the band members themselves. It was a joyful musical fireworks show that seemed to render the competition a forgone conclusion. Ezra Collective were destined to be the Mercury Prize’s first jazz champions, and they showed up ready to claim the trophy.

Unfortunately their follow-up album, Dance, No One’s Watching lacks a track quite as thrilling as Victory Dance, but there’s no shortage of peppy Afrobeat grooves to move your hips to. The standout is Ajala, named after a legendary Nigerian journalist who was so busy with his travels his name became Yoruba slang for someone who can’t sit still. It is a fittingly up-tempo, restless number, with Ife Ogunjobi and James Mollison’s skipping melodies played in blunt unison – Ezra Collective are a band far more concerned with delivering a straightforward good time than trying any fiddly counterpoint or melodic harmonies. Ajala has groove in buckets, but what it’s lacking is everything else that makes for a good jazz composition, namely an interesting B section (here the melody simply drops out for 16 bars) and a wild solo.

Ajala is far from the only track where Ezra Collective’s tunnel vision on producing a danceable groove leaves the melodies feeling underwritten. N29 is essentially just one (admittedly very funky) bass riff lacking in hardly any musical development at all, let alone a melody to hold on to. Opener The Herald starts promisingly enough, but again it’s as if they’ve forgotten to write half of the chorus, and Ogunjobi’s trumpet solo is given no room to grow. The devotion to a rock solid groove is admirable – and brothers Femi and TJ Koleoso are without a doubt one of the tightest drum and bass duos in the business – but it should be possible for a funky, repetitive groove and interesting harmonic shifts to exist in the same song.

Intriguingly, Yazmin Lacey and Olivia Dean’s featured tracks – two of the very finest voices on the UK jazz scene – offer a relatively restrained take on the dance-focused thesis. Lacey’s smoky tones are a fine match for the tender horn lines on God Gave Me Feet For Dancing, but with no-nonsense lyrics like “Give me bass line / Give me dollar wine” it’s odd the band don’t rise above a muted throb all song. Dean’s track, No One’s Watching Me is slinkier and sexier and features Ogunjobi’s best solo on the record – each note placed with unusual restraint and care – although Dean’s chorus is scant.

Further down a bloated track list, Shaking Body and Expensive offer a purple patch. The former is pure Ezra Collective joy and a natural successor to Victory Dance, with a Latin hook bubbly enough to justify its many repeats. Mastermind of the keyboard Joe Armon-Jones offers luscious jazz voicings typical of his brand of frantic genius, and Femi Koleoso’s hammering of the ride cymbal in the chorus is a joy to behold. Expensive improves on the light-footed Afrobeat of the record’s first half with intelligent, patient sax and trumpet solos that prove Ogunjobi and Mollison have done their jazz homework, moving beyond the crowd-pleasing screeches found on their most raucous party starters.

The penultimate track appears at first to be some surplus jazz musings from Armon-Jones on piano, but the song is called Have Patience for a reason – Everybody immediately follows, a magnificent album closer and one of the most beautiful tunes the band have ever penned. In an album lacking in strong melodies, here is a beauty: an elegant, sighing rise and fall, shimmering within Armon-Jones’ textured piano chords before emerging in a solemn trumpet line and, rousingly, a distant choir. Before long, Obunjobi and Mollison are up to what they do best – rapturous, euphoric improvisations that come together and fall apart again like two birds in flight. It’s a piece ripe for crowd participation and a poignant marker of how far they’ve come: a band with collective in the name, experts at uniting audiences from summer festivals to glamorous awards shows through dance and crowd participation. Dance, No One’s Watching may not go down as their finest record, but that precious Ezra Collective spirit remains alive and well.

‘Every bandmate is infusing their tastes into this album’: seven-strong pop collective Couch on their funky debut record
6
Aug

After years of virtual band meetings and drumming up buzz online, Boston band Couch look set to take over the world with a debut album of polished, meticulously crafted pop bops and a sprawling 36-date tour. They spoke to Undertone about launching a band during the Covid years, their vulnerable new single, and the tricky task of making music with seven songwriters.

The pandemic did strange things to the music industry. On the one hand, we saw a fresh wave of what was giddily termed the 2020s’ “disco revival”. Jessie Ware, Róisín Murphy, Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa all released unequivocally dancefloor-primed records that perversely chimed with listeners trapped indoors all day, pining for a hedonistic escape and a return to the wonderfully unhygienic surroundings of a cramped and sweaty nightclub. On the other hand, the pandemic was a prompt for many artists to return to their roots with homespun, introspective album recorded with minimal equipment from home studios. Paul McCartney’s stripped-back McCartney III had the man himself play all the instruments, Charli xcx was in a reflective mood on how i’m feeling now, and Adrienne Lenker’s understated magnum opus songs was entirely recorded in a cabin in rural Massachusetts. As with seemingly many other aspects of society, such a radical change was only temporary: a few years after releasing her own folksy and minimalist albums folklore and evermore to critical acclaim, Taylor Swift is firmly back to her stadium-filling former self.

Couch, meanwhile, were biding their time, patiently plotting their route to stardom. Purveyors of soulful pop in the vein of Vulfpeck, Sammy Rae and Lake Street Dive, the seven-strong group specialise exactly the kind of free-spirited disco and funk tunes that topped the charts in 2020. For them, however, the pandemic (as well as attending various colleges across the States) meant it was three years of intermittent band meetups and FaceTime calls before the Bostonians finally took to the stage together for the first time.

That may sound tedious, but it was a blessing in disguise, keyboardist Danny Silverston tells me. “Once Covid hit, a lot of bands were like ‘man, what do we do now?’, but for us it was like ‘we actually kind of know what to do now’. We got to spend some really quality time together, and it set us up pretty effectively for our first ever tour, which was pretty much like a slam dunk.” Guitarist Zach Blankstein, who doubles as the band’s manager, agrees. “We had that remote incubation period where we got to share our music with people and start to feel some external excitement. Getting everyone [in the band] to make themselves available to go tour eventually was easy because we were all excited to go do it and felt like was a long time coming by that point.”

Silverston and Blankstein, as well as bassist Will Griffin, speak to me partway through a 16 hour drive back to Boston from Asheville, North Carolina, where they’ve just performed a charity show. The band may still be relatively new, but they’re no strangers to this sort of long-distance touring, and their first trip to the UK – an impressively full-throttle show which Undertone was lucky enough to catch – was over two years ago. For Griffin, touring and songwriting go hand in hand. “Something that feels best for us in the rehearsal space might feel totally different on stage. It opens up different opportunities to explore variations of arrangement styles and grooves.” In fact, Couch’s huge upcoming tour, which starts in November, was booked well before the new record was even fully written. Other times, though, it’s the finished song that comes first. “But they’re definitely very connected processes, no matter which order they happen,” Blankstein adds.

Perhaps it’s a sign of Couch’s easy-going, fluid approach to songwriting that, as Blankstein admits, the new album Big Talk isn’t even finished by the time of our interview. The band’s exceptional attention to detail, in particular with their knotty horn sections (see: Still Feeling You‘s wonderfully wiggly breakdown), no doubt slows down the writing process, but their emphasis on collaboration from all band members also partly explains the six year gap between their debut single and Big Talk. Whilst singer Tema Siegal takes the lead lyrically, musically the band takes a more democratic approach, taking turns as bandleaders and voting on creative choices. “On the one hand, I imagine it kind of slows us down,” Silverston says, “but it also means that the final product will really be Couch‘s debut, not like one or three individuals. It really feels like every single person in the band is infusing their tastes and sensibilities into the album.” It’s a key asset, Silverston says, that his bandmates don’t have identical, or even similar, musical tastes. “Jared [Gozinsky, drummer], for example, likes a lot of big band jazz stuff, which gets mixed with a few other band members who like more rock, heavy music. I think that difference is actually what makes songwriting so exciting, and where our growth can be seen the most.”

The first taste of this growth comes via the band’s slick new single What Were You Thinking, which winningly pits a tale of a romantic power imbalance against a sumptuous disco bass line and a silky smooth piano breakdown. The vulnerable lyrics and anthemic melodies make for an interesting contrast, I note to Blankstein. “Jeff [Pinsker-Smith, trumpeter] brought the demo that we all really liked and when Tema heard it she felt like it called for something a little angry,” he explains. “She had this story in her mind for a while […] and the energy she was feeling from the instrumental felt compatible with that story”. The result is a pop song that sounds simultaneously embittered and euphoric, matching Seigel’s snappy takedowns (“What were you thinking / Handling a heart of 20 years like that?”) with a sense that she’s emerged from the relationship with her sense of joy and self-confidence ultimately undimmed.

What Were You Thinking promises to be the highlight of Couch’s latest live offering, which will tour 36 cities across 11 countries from November to March. Fans can expect “most of, if not the entire new catalogue of music, plus some new arrangements of the older tunes that we’re really excited about,” says Blankstein. If it’s anything like their debut UK show in 2023 – which produced an electric atmosphere in Manchester’s Band on the Wall – it should be an memorable night of jubilant funk-pop singalongs. “We’re putting together a proper show to pay tribute to this album,” he concludes and, given the time and energy the whole band have put into Big Talk, there’s no doubt there’ll be plenty to love.

Jeff Rosenstock: HELLMODE review – punk’s golden boy plays it safe
25
Apr

Billed as both his most chaotic and “solid” record so far, Jeff Rosenstock’s seventh full-length is neither, but still provides its fair share of satisfying if familiar punk rock hits.

There are few acts in rock today that can depict this era’s lingering sense of apocalypse (the broken machinations of late-stage capitalism, the corrosion of American democracy, the imminent decay of the whole planet above all) quite as sharply as Jeff Rosenstock. The veteran New York punk who started his career in an unhinged DIY collective called Bomb the Music Industry! (exclamation mark mandatory) has now spent over ten years dissecting his converging personal and global worries in the form of an increasingly lauded and hit-dense discography, peaking perhaps with the smooth-flowing masterpiece of angst WORRY., an album so definitive it deserved a full stop in the title.

This year’s promisingly titled HELLMODE was hailed by promoters and early reviewers as his most chaotic, anarchic and, in Rosenstock’s own words, “solid” record yet, so it’s something of a disappointment that it ends up sounding more or less like the six albums that preceded it. The good news is that any Jeff Rosenstock album is a good one, and his knack for sticky hooks and pithy distillations of a very millennial form of pessimism isn’t going anywhere. HELLMODE is front loaded with tightly written numbers. Exhilarating opener WILL U STILL U is packed with instrumental left turns and belting gang vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place next to the 40-year-old’s very best. Lead single LIKED U BETTER winningly pairs a jaunty keyboard earworm with that sinking feeling of being able to escape your own anxieties. DOUBT follows suit, nurturing a false sense of ease before erupting into a screechy, cathartic polemic. Oftentimes Rosenstock’s dismay at the state of the world – the climate crisis in particular looms over this record – veers towards a relatable defeatism. “The world doesn’t owe you,” he concludes powerfully in standout FUTURE IS DUMB, thus summarising ten years of intense creative output in a single harsh truth.

It’s a shame that Rosenstock couldn’t quite maintain his momentum, especially when it comes to album centrepiece HEALMODE, which does away with the rest of the record’s nuance and undermines the prevailing sense of gloom with the tired, sickly sweet message that love alone can save us from unmitigated disaster. It doesn’t help that the clichéd lyrics are delivered with a cautious softness by Rosenstock, whose voice is much better suited to angry ragers about the constitution than cutesy love songs with an acoustic guitar. Hookless LIFE ADMIN follows, which stands out as one of the limpest tracks Rosenstock has released in years.

As is customary for a Rosenstock album, it all ends in a somewhat theatrical seven minute epic, although there’s very little in 3 SUMMERS that can outdo the much more memorable closing numbers in Rosenstock albums of years gone by. Above all, that’s the key limitation of HELLMODE: with the exception of flawed moment of calm HEALMODE, there’s little invention to be found here, and this distinctive form of volatile rock is better served by most of Rosenstock’s previous releases. True, this is a competently delivered album by an artist who clearly knows how to set a room alight with blaring guitars and verbalised deep-seated dread. It just helps if you don’t know what you’re missing out from the rest of Rosenstock’s oeuvre.