Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table (2025)

Smooth vocals meeting harsh, grunge-like guitars, this is Cloakroom, a band "hailing from the harsh realms of Northwest Indiana" to show us their new, fourth in general, album called Last Leg of the Human Table. 

This is the kind of music that if it wasn't for the airy vocals, would certainly be classified in another genre than I do it. And I think of it as dream pop that went mad and started a noisy brawl in a guitar shop. The guitars sounds in various combinations: sometimes more melodic, sometimes more nerve-wrecking, are the main line of attack on the audience's ears. This lasts until the band suddenly steps on the brakes and delivers a rather soothing ballad or a indie pop singer/songwriter piece. Who knows what the next track will bring? I think it's rather a plus of the release, even if the band sounds best when the brake pedal is never touched.

Last Leg of the Human Table costs 9.99 USD.

Check: Clover Looper

Country: Indiana, US

Genre: (various kinds of) dreamy

Label: Closed Casket Activities

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Teen Tapes (for Performing Your Own Stunts) 2022

There's very few vocals I find as ethereal and utterly melancholic as Lucy Kruger's one. It's almost unbelievable how tear-jerking the compositions from the South African artist are, but, at the same time, it's difficult not to join her in her fascinating music. As it is the case on Kruger's fourth album released with The Lost Boys, Teen Tapes (for Performing Your Own Stunts).

On this album, there's much talking about love. But as Kruger's vocals are either melancholy- or anger-sounding, the message gets twisted around. But it also makes a lot of sense, no emotion, let alone love, is simple. There's pain, there's depression hidden within and this should be articulated too. So the artist's lyrics are very pictoresque in a gore way ("And now my scaled skin/ Is soft as milk and sure of bleeding" in Risk) and touchingly straightforward ("Will you come to me/ When the lights go out/ I’ll be the mess/ Who screams with sweat" in Hold You Back) and it all makes sense. Especially that, when you take the album's title into consideration, this all is only escalated when you are a teenager.

It's all accompanied by very grunge and very minimal rock arrangements. The slow pace is filled with guitar riffs that do not overwhelm the soft vocals but quite the opposite - make them sound even more poignant. Just like the use of noisy finishes (known from  the band's previous album) and the same can be said about the drums that in some places get pretty atmospheric and grandeur-sparking but, still, Kruger's vocals are what drives the whole album. And they can be admired live now as the band is currently touring (coming also to Kraków at the end of May).

Teen Tapes (for Performing Your Own Stunts) costs 10 EUR.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Transit Tapes (For Women Who Move Furniture Around) (2021)

Medicine Boy - Take Me with You When You Disappear (2020)

Medicine Boy - Lower (2018)

Check: Iscariot

Country: South Africa/Germany

Genre: dreamy grunge

Label: Unique Records

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

DEAD HORSE ONE - WHEN LOVE RUNS DRY (2022)

"Shoegaze on steroids" from the French Dead Horse One is having a great time and doesn't seem to slow down. After their fantastic album The West Is the Best from 2019, they are topping it with the crunchy and overwhelming sound of their new EP called WHEN LOVE RUNS DRY.

What I love about the Frenchmen is definitely their heavier approach to, let's say, dream pop. The vocals are perfectly dispersed and heavenly airy but apart from that, it's very much a heavy kind of guitar rock bordering with shoegaze and post-rock. It's Nothing, it's Asteroid, it's SOM but with this indie rock meets stoner metal and grunge twist. You can feel in your bones how crushing the guitars are; never mind the Slowdive-like vocals, it's a real avalanche of loud guitar-focused noise with clear and show-stealing drums on top of that.

The short EP, however, has also slower, moodier fragments. It's not only the lyrical ballad Mentally Homeless but also the piano version of the album's biggest banger, Static King. Whatever they do, the artists are so much on fire that everything works for them and I can't wait for more music coming from their direction.

WHEN LOVE RUNS DRY costs 6 EUR.

Dead Horse One - The West Is the Best (2019)

Check: Static King

Country: France

Genre: heavy dream pop

Label: Requiem pour un Twister / Modulor

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify:

seizure sister - witness (2021)

If the Texas-based artist's moniker is a reference to Scissor Sisters, the music doesn't show it in any way. He makes a slow-paced but heavy take on noisy but ethereal music. And shows his creation to the public on his debut EP called witness.

His music is built on the heavy guitars - soft voice opposition. The airiness of the artist's voice soothes the roughness of the backgrounds, creating a really well-shaped dreamy soundscape.  Regarding the guitar music itself, you can more or less hear that it's a one-man project. This sense of minimalism doesn't take anything from this music, quite on the contrary, it's somehow more genuine this way. It also goes along with the feeling of grunge/stoner rock vibes the album gives and, similarly to the last week's Day Aches, this is what is fairly unique and definitely attention-grabbing in his music. Especially when particularly coarse sounds of the guitars are soften by particularly dreamy backing vocals (like in the finish of pinpoint). The album is kept in a rather slow tempo, however, when the artist feels like it, he can create a really involving, fast  but still airy composition (yes, under you is something you can't miss here).

witness costs 5 USD.

Check: Fawn

Country: Texas, US

Genre: dream grunge

:bandcamp:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Day Aches - Promo "21 (2021)

This is only a short promo EP but it is so interesting I couldn't just skip it. Day Aches are from Washington D.C. and create "monolithic, heavy, yet, dreamy sound". There's not much material here but it's juicy enough to give it a try.

What draws me to their music is the opposition: the vocals here are one of the softest in dreamy music while guitars - one of the heaviest. There's something from heavy rock, stoner music here, or, as the artists see it, grunge, mostly in the massive riffs and crushing ambiance. The psychedelic guitars know no rest throughout the three short compositions on the release and have to be balanced by the airy, particularly dreamy vocals. The band have all they need to create ethereal music. Their works exist to remind us of one of the truest things in life, one that is also seen as a cliche but this doesn't mean it's not right: "to truly appreciate the great moments in life, one must come face to face with bad ones". And this sums up the balance between the harsh and heavy and the soft and soothing in their sound.

Promo "21 costs 2 USD.

Check: Shed

Country: Washington D.C., US

Genre: dream grunge

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Imperfect Tree - Roots EP (2017) EN

If you are in search for music that seduces with its nostalgic mood and at the same time forces you to frolic, you couldn't find a better option. The Mexicans from Imperfect Tree show us how to create sublime tracks that are at the same time far from being boring.

The opening "Rhizome" sounds already super exciting with a wonderful melody put on high paced guitars. Similarly in "Roots" where the lyrics are replaced by a moody murmuring which is no obstacle to find it worth experiencing. The lyrical degradation goes further as "Overflow" is lyrics free and Imperfect Tree's music turns into stifling post-rock only to get reborn as rock/grungy and turns back to almost dreampopish "Departure".

Perhaps the tree is not perfect but the music by the Mexicans is almost there.

The EP costs 2 USD.

:bandcamp:

Imperfect Tree - Roots EP (2017) PL

Jeśli szukasz muzyki, która jednocześnie kusi nostalgicznością oraz zmusza do podrygiwania swoim wysokim tempem, nie mogłeś trafić lepiej. Meksykanie z Imperfect Tree pokazują, jak tworzyć kawałki wysublimowane i nienużące jednocześnie.

Super ciekawie brzmi otwierający płytę "Rhizome" ze znakomitą melodią nałożoną na szybkie tempo gitarowego grania. Podobnie w "Roots", gdzie zamiast słów pojawia się typowe mruczando, co jednak nie przeszkadza w jej przeżywaniu. Liryczna degradacja trwa do trzeciego utworu, "Overflow", gdzie tekstu nie ma w ogóle i muzyka Imperfect Tree zamienia się w duszny post-rock by w następnym utworze odrodzić się całkiem na rockowo-grunge'owo by wrócić do niemal dreampopowych klimatów w "Departure".

Może i drzewo doskonałe nie jest ale muzyka Meksykanów brzmi jakby była tego bliska.

EPka kosztuje 8 złotych (2 USD).

:bandcamp: