All Eyes On
How Caamp Became the Midwest’s Latest Folk-Rock Sensation
If Caamp ringleader Taylor Meier had to describe the past two years, he’d use two words to describe them: Lavender Days. “It describes the time period that I had just gone through being melancholy, and a lot of things being taken away from us,” he says over the phone from his home in Columbus, Ohio. “But also a lot being given, like, parents who got to work from home and spend those years with their children. Or, maybe you’re in a profession like ours, where you’re on the road, and you don’t get to see your loved ones as much.” That’s why it was a “lightbulb moment” when Caamp landed on Lavender Days as the title of their last month’s album — a riff on their song “Lavender Girl,” which surfaced before the album was made. Somehow it perfectly encompassed what the alt-folk ...
Voice of Baceprot Aim to Cripple the Patriarchy With Hearts and Decibels
When this writer was 15, his passions and obsessions were limited to obscure prog music, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and where to get some of that magical elixir known as beer. When the young women of Indonesian metal band Voice of Baceprot started playing at that age, they honed their abilities and found fans on both sides of the rock ‘n’ roll stage. Now in their early 20s, they’re learning firsthand how having the temerity to play hard rock can be a crash course in having to deal with inequality and patriarchy. It helps that they can throw down a stomping cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” in front of any assembled multitude at a festival like they wrote it themselves. [embedded content][embedded content] Not even the most-polished Magic 8-Ball could have predicted Indonesia as being ...
Kid Bloom Digs Deeper on Debut LP, Highway
It’s a big year for Lennon Kloser, who performs under the moniker Kid Bloom. He’s been making gently psychedelic indie-pop since 2016, but it wasn’t until June 3 that he released his debut album, Highway. Making an LP after years of releasing singles and EPs was new territory for Kloser. Not only was he re-introducing his music to the world, but he was also showing a different side of himself — one that is introspective and vulnerable. He started writing music for the album right before the pandemic hit in 2020. But when faced with the newfound isolation during the lockdown period, the configuration of the LP transformed. “The album sounded completely different from pre-pandemic to after because, during it, I just started letting all this shit fly out of me,” he explains to SPIN over ...
As Baltimore’s Finest DIY Punk Band, Ravagers Get in the Van
When you’re doing a DIY tour, sometimes you’re SOL. Such is the case for Ravagers singer Alex Hagen, pumping gas into a rented box truck, while other band members are somewhere up on the road up ahead. The band’s 2003 Ford Econoline wagon didn’t enjoy the sandstorm between Tempe, Arizona and Austin, and it protested with a cracked head gasket. It’s not exactly what they wanted on the tour supporting their badass Badlands LP on Brooklyn label Spaghetty Town Records — a debut album the band self-describes as “an auditory onslaught of filth and fun, of catchiness and catastrophe.” Stepped in the coolness of the distant punk rock past (Iggy Pop, the Dead Boys) and the more recent past (Turbonegro), but charging into the future with tightly crafted songs, Ravagers even made a concession this to...
Keshi Isn’t Running Anywhere
Keshi is lounging on a couch backstage before his second of two New York City performances, as hundreds of fans line up outside Webster Hall and another hundred-or-so stand by his greenroom following a meet-and-greet with the star. He’s surrounded by admirers on his Hell/Heaven Tour–people who explain to him that his journey means something to them. But in between it all, he tells me about his (occasional) dreams of throwing his phone into the ocean and fleeing fame. “Nobody could find me. I would never respond to anyone. If you guys put trackers on me, I would take them out of my skin,” he tells SPIN, decked out in an all-black ensemble with two large strands of his hair covering his face. “But then I think, ‘Oh, if I go to a restaurant, or go shopping somewhere, would people still recogn...
Doll Spirit Vessel Will Be Your New Favorite Band
When Doll Spirit Vessel played one of its first shows at buzzing Brooklyn DIY venue Rubulad in March, the band quickly captivated the attention of the crowded room. Sandwiched in an eclectic lineup of punk headliners My Son, The Doctor, alt-country band Drug Couple, and glam-folk indie rock act Matthew Danger Lippman, most in the audience had no idea what they were in for. Doll Spirit Vessel stood out with the gentlest set, quickly making new fans who approached them post-set, remarking on that attention-grabbing first impression. Bandleader Kati Malison (rhymes with caddy) has a stunning voice that draws you in immediately, pairing just as well with the gentle instrumentations as it does with the band’s more raucous moments. At the time, the band was billed under Malison’s name, with her ...
Horsegirl Are the Chicago Post-Punk Trio Channeling the Power of Youth
The DIY scene in Chicago has always been strong, but Horsegirl – vocalists/guitarists Penelope Lowenstein and Nora Cheng, 18 and 19, and drummer Gigi Reece, 19 – didn’t feel like there was room for young people to be involved while they were growing up. “[We] weren’t getting heard or acknowledged, and we would not be able to play shows at any of the venues ‘cause we were underage,” says Reece. Together with their friends around the city, the trio created their own alternative youth world, where they share music, zines, art, and other creative passions with each other. “We’ve realized the people who do it best are us and our friends,” says Lowenstein. “We’re kids promoting kids’ work primarily, and we’re able to have a voice.” Last year, the band spent their final summer before Cheng and Re...
Friedberg’s Raw Desert Sound Hits the Road
What is the dao of Anna Friedberg? Just start walking. “I don’t even know where I’m walking, and then things happen,” she says via phone from her home in London. Her voice is full of laughter and excitement; her sentences punctuated by laughter. “In my past, sometimes I’ve thought about it too much, but it’s better to just start, and then everything is a bit easier as well. It doesn’t seem like a big, scary rock in front of you.” The Austrian-born singer-songwriter started her latest musical journey with a road trip through the spiritual desert of Joshua Tree and now finds herself opening for synthpop heroes Hot Chip. Her gritty yet expansive brand of sing-along pop-rock is fuzzy around the edges and instantly likable with all the vintage cool of mid-aught indie dance-rock classics, taking...
Meet Lizzy McAlpine, The Genius Songwriter Who Won Over Finneas and Phoebe Bridgers
Dropping out of music school in the middle of a global pandemic might sound like a bad idea, but for Lizzy McAlpine, it was the opposite. After completing two years at Berklee College of Music in Boston, McAlpine decided to leave homework behind and focus on just releasing music instead. Most importantly, she wanted to release songs she wanted to release, not the one her followers on TikTok were obsessing over. “I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with TikTok,” she laughed during a phone conversation. “It’s definitely weird at times and can be hard to navigate or understand. The videos that I post that I think are stupid are the ones that do the best, and that’s really strange.” One example is “You Ruined the 1975 for Me,” a super-viral TikTok video with close to 2 million likes th...
Cola Are Just Starting to Ramp Up
When Canadian post-punk act Ought broke up in November 2021, it was an unlucky loss for rock music. In just three full lengths, an EP, and a remix collection, the Montreal band made a name for themselves as one of the more critically acclaimed indie groups to emerge in the 2010s. Fortunately for Ought fans, the day that the band announced their split, guitarist and vocalist Tim Darcy and bassist Ben Stidworthy launched a new project, called Cola. To complete the lineup, the duo enlisted drummer Evan Cartwright, who had previously played in acts including U.S. Girls and The Weather Station. “The three of us had been friends for a while,” Darcy tells SPIN over Zoom. He’s wearing an understated black hoodie, and calling in from the weathered-looking backstage of the Capitol Theatre in Olympia...
On Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky, Porridge Radio Doesn’t Fear Failure
There are a handful of records released in the spring of 2020 that will always be associated with that time. They’re albums that spoke to widespread isolation and anxiety, but also provided a source of comfort while everyone was stuck indoors. There was Waxahatchee’s striking fifth album, Saint Cloud. There was Charli XCX’s glitchy, yet personal How I’m Feeling Now. There was also Porridge Radio’s splendid sophomore record, Every Bad. The Brighton-based indie rockers’ second LP came out on March 13, 2020, a time when they couldn’t take the album out on the road while they were becoming abundantly more well-known. Live music was a mere husk of itself, and touring was impossible. Still, frontwoman Dana Margolin found relief during her time at home. “I loved being at home,” she tells SPIN ove...
Newcomer Tianna Esperanza Is a Force
Tianna Esperanza may be an artist on the rise, but she’d been holding on to one of her most powerful songs for nearly a decade. In high school, a history teacher recommended she watch The Black Power Mixtape. The documentary, which looks into the history of the Black Power movement from 1967 to 1975, includes footage of the late civil rights activist and owner of the African National Memorial Bookstore, Lewis H. Michaux, whose bookstore focused on Black literature and became a gathering ground for activists of the era. Michaux’s words strongly resonated with Esperanza, and made her examine her relationship with her mixed heritage, as a biracial woman. “I think I was just looking for something that included my Black history as well as my white history. I come from European immigrants, so th...
