Ride – “Birdman”

The common narrative for the first era of Ride is their early EPs and 1990 debut Nowhere are the hallowed records and shoegaze blueprints, 1992’s Going Blank Again perfecting the balance of noise and pop, but 1996’s Tarantula and their attempts to pivot to Britpop was too late and too bad, putting the band on […]

Cocteau Twins – “Crushed”

One of the great things about a band with the longevity and prolificness as Cocteau Twins is that even 25 years after they disbanded, there is still more of their music to be discovered. The flip side of that is that finding this new music can be maddening. For example, the song “Crushed”, which appears […]

Lush – “Desire Lines”

While I knew that Lush released “Hypocrite” as the first single from their third record Split – a barnburner of a track, it got radio play in those days when bands like Lush got played on the radio – I did not know that they released a second video and single that same day, May […]

mercvrial – “Be That Someone”

Brief Algorithms, the just-released second album from Mexican multi-hyphenate outfit mercvrial comes with an interesting hook for those unfamiliar with them – half the tracks feature guitarwork from twice-former House Of Love guitarist Terry Bickers. And it’s not a “Paul McCartney chewing celery” sort of cameo; his trademark shimmering tones can be heard all over […]