Institute

How about another post-punk EP, this time a demo 12" from Austin Texas' Institute....I am unfamiliar with them, but listening now, pretty energetic post-punk, reminds one of the classic post-punk sound, sneering vocals and all

DEMO-01 Putrid/02 Dead Sea/03 Bureaucrat/ 04 Diamonds and Pearls/05 Weak Times/06 Narrow and Straight

http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/GdfYbpQe/file.html

Psychic Teens

An EP from Philadelphia post-punkers Psychic Teens......this is quite good, not at all what I was expecting, some unusual song structures, some solid guitar, distorted vocals.......five good tracks here, recommended.

HEX-01 Hex/02 Out 2C/03 Sicko/04 Emily/05 Dust

Look forward to more from these guys.......

http://www21.zippyshare.com/v/ysDVYtN4/file.html

Overlake

Here's a gem from 2014, Overlake's "Sighs" album.......nice indy-alt rock, somewhere between the dreamy
sound and more standard mainstream pop.......a good effort.

SIGHS-01 First/02 Disappearing/03 Not Enough/04 Back to the Water/05 Fell Too Fay/06 Your KS/07 We'll Never Sleep/08 Is This Something

http://www45.zippyshare.com/v/qtYO6Qko/file.html


Noticed I was also sent their new release, "Fall"......spacier and harder rocking than the previous effort, here's a review of the album:
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Shoegaze is alive and well and living in Jersey City, New Jersey, where it has adopted the name Overlake. On the group's second full-length album, 2017's Fall, Overlake have taken the usual tropes of classic shoegaze -- the big, billowy guitar figures, the murmur-y vocals, the thick undertow of bass, and the languid but crashing rhythms -- and transformed them into something that sounds fresh, engaging, and honestly exciting. With a band like this, good tunes usually make all the difference, and Fall shows that Overlake has them to spare. The songcraft on this album isn't complicated, but the band know how to put together melodies and hooks that are spare yet effective, and they execute them with an energetic cool that's subtly powerful and muscular without crushing the frameworks of their songs. Guitarist and vocalist Tom Barrett may seem like the star of this show, and he certainly takes up the most space in the arrangements with his intelligent use of delay and the whammy bar. But the rhythmic punctuation of drummer Nick D'Amore is excellent, as he uses his toms to add texture and tunefulness while keeping time, and bassist Lysa Opfer is inconspicuous but superb, laying down a foundation that holds her bandmates in place but also keeps the melodies astutely buoyant. Overlakedon't sound as if they've reinvented the wheel on this album -- it's not hard to pick out their influences after a spin or two. But at the same time, they're not without imagination and a creative point of view, and on Fall they take the generic boundaries of shoegaze and run with them, ending up with something strong, smart, and occasionally quite beautiful for their troubles. Fall is big music with an intimate heart, and Overlake will give you the contemplative ride you've been looking for with this splendid album.
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FALL-01 Unnamed November/02 Winter Is Why/03 You Don't Know Everything/04 You Can Never Tell/05 Gardeners Bell/06 And Again/07 Pines On a Beach/08 Goodbye

I prefer "Fall" to the 2014 release, JMO........

http://www35.zippyshare.com/v/v6PcSivf/file.html

Monobrow

Up for some instrumental space/doom? Then Canada's Monobrow is for you.......I've said before that instro hard rock can be dicey sometimes IMO, but this one passed the carpet bomb test.

THE NACARAT-01 The First Vague Rumblings of Impending Revolution/02 Capes and Monocles/03 We Can Make It Look Like an Accident/04 Twin Shieks/05 The Decline of the West and Other Small Problems

https://monobrowmanband.bandcamp.com/

Sea Pinks

Some good jangly power pop from Belfast.......very pleasant, radio-ready in my opinion.

Review:
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Watercourse is the new LP from Sea Pinks, Belfast’s finest purveyors of bittersweet guitar pop since 2010. Their sixth album sees them picking up where 2016’s acclaimed Soft Days left off, refining and elaborating on the dream/power pop dynamic of that album, while still managing to sound as fresh as a band making their debut. Each song is a pure outsider pop gem, with effervescent choruses, buoyant drums and a distinctive woozy guitar style, all wrapped in a mischievous sense of humour. 

The now well established line up of Neil Brogan on guitar and vocals, Steven Henry on bass and Davey Agnew on drums convened at Belfast’s Start Together studios with engineer Ben McAuley in summer 2016 with the initial plan of making an EP. “We’re a singles band hellbent on making albums,” says Neil. “We went in for a couple of days. Then it was a couple more and a couple more, and by autumn we had about 16 songs recorded, which we eventually pared down to ten”. Two-thirds of the record was mixed by the band with Ben McAuley, the remaining songs went to Collin Dupuis (whose credits include Angel Olsen’s My Woman) which helped to bring out some light and shade. 

Throughout Watercourse there’s a definite sense of homecoming, with plenty of twists and turns on the way. This is borne out in the contrasting sides of the LP, as the band’s signature dream pop jangle on side one gives way to a harder edged, more brittle punk-inspired power pop on side two. As Neil explains; “The songs on side one are all about movement. They are dreamy and more upbeat. Side two is more about being static, whether it’s a fixed place or a moment in time. They are more urgent sounding and a little more bittersweet.” 

With ten songs in thirty-three minutes, the result is tight, fast paced and emotionally charged. From the vibrant optimism of the title track, through the fatalistic defiance of single “Into Nowhere”, deep sea reveries on “I Don’t Know What I Would Do…” and anthemic contempt on “How Long Must I Be Denied”, to the more reflective uncertainty of “Shock of The New” and the wry euphoria of closer “Pining Away”, the band wends it way, shape shifting as they go. “I do think we are still improving as a band, and this is the best record we’ve made as a three piece,” says Neil. “It may surprise a few people, maybe not. We’re often typecast as being a particular thing, be it surf or jangle-pop or whatever, which can be reductive. The songs are the thing with us.”
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WATERCOURSE-01 Watercourse/02 Places She Goes/03 Into Nowhere/04 I Don't Know What I Would Do (Without You)/05 Gonalong/06 How Long Must I Be Denied/07 Playin For Pride/08 Shock of the New/09 Water Spirit/10 Pining Away

http://www83.zippyshare.com/v/r46YPXgk/file.html

The Wicked Ones

Fabio sends this Bandcamp link for The Wicked Ones, some way cool retro-psych from Mexico......a really cool EP, on which they cover Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" and turn in a good one with "from Lust Till Dawn"......really liked this one!


WICKED ONES-01 Rising Sun/02 From Lust to Dawn/03 Somebody to Love/04 Hypnotized/05 Morning Star



https://thewickedones.bandcamp.com/album/the-wicked-ones

Ulrika Spacek

"Modern English Decoration" is album #2 from UK shoegaze/dream-poppers Ulrika Spacek.....here is a good (somewhat long) review of the album:
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“A living room doesn’t give much natural reverb, and it’s not in our interest to artificially construct it”

Ulrika Spacek return on June 2nd with the release of their second album, Modern English Decoration. Much like their debut album released in early 2016, the band chose to record, produce and mix the entirety of the record in their shared house – a former art gallery called ‘KEN’, so named because of a cryptic inscription found above the front door. Not just a studio and home, KEN is essentially the band’s hub, a space in which the surrounding ephemera of videos, artwork and even band photos are all created.

The relatively short amount of time between their first and second albums is testament to the band’s self-contained creative environment and the productivity it encourages. There’s a tendency to label this degree of self-reliant creativity ‘DIY’ - and the band do certainly feel emboldened by that ethos - yet to consider Modern English Decoration solely in these terms is a disservice. Their craft is considered and purposeful, the means of its production reflecting the band’s overall vision rather than the value system of an often haphazard and accidental DIY culture. “We enjoy listening to music through the album format and want our records to reflect that”, says Rhys Edwards (guitars, vocals, synthesiser). “Though we may explore this in the future, our records are not 'jam' records. We’re fans of collage based art, and create music in the same way“

Ulrika Spacek formed in Berlin in one night, when 14-year-long friends Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams conceptualised ‘Ulrika Spacek’ and came up with The Album Paranoia as their debut album title. Moving back to London with the intention to record it, they were joined by Joseph Stone (guitars, organ, synths, violin), Ben White (bass) and Callum Brown (drums, percussion), ossifying into the five-piece they are now. The album was released soon after with little forewarning but no little fanfare, and was accompanied by a year long, near-monthly club night called Oysterland that the band both curated and performed at. Less than 18 months later, the follow up arrives eerily fully formed, somewhat inevitably according to Edwards: "We started making this record as soon as we finished our first. Like our debut, we started with Track One on the album and went from there. Making a batch of songs then ordering them after they’re all finished isn't something we have much interest in.". Shirking the temptations to write ten three-minute singles, a more open and expansive style is preferred. Writing and arranging as they go, the intention is to let the material find its own place in the set, all the while retaining a sense of direction that avoids the pitfalls of self-indulgence.

Given the lyrics often favour abstraction and the vocals can be more impressionistic than declarative, the album title itself offers perhaps the most telling entry point to the record. In part, it’s a self-effacing play on an interior design cliché that references the meticulous creative processes the band adheres to. There’s also a nod towards the environment in which it was created – a Victorian house turned art gallery turned home studio. "This record was made in various rooms in our house, predominantly in the living room. Every part of the album reflects this, from the title to the setting of the lyrics. Doing everything ourselves is not just necessary: it’s important to us, as it allows us to truly create our own world”. While there’s an element of domesticity to the album’s creation, the themes that drive the songs are anything but, reflecting an all-too-common sense of mid-twenties alienation and anxiety, alongside the comforts/burdens of self-awareness.

Unsurprisingly given the context of its creation, Modern English Decoration might be considered a companion piece of sorts to The Album Paranoia. But there are crucial differences. Most notably, this isn’t the work of the Ulrika Spacek conceptualised by Edwards and Williams in Berlin – Modern English Decoration is the band as five rather than two people, and it shows. Those who have witnessed the intensity of their live show will instantly recognise the merits in this. The bass and drums provide a versatile anchor, at once soft, then aggressive, while the vocals drift woozily in and out, like druggy hindsight or skewed premonition. With three guitarists in the band guitars were always going to be central to the music, but what is less expected is the dynamic interplay between the trio that suggests a three-headed version of the Verlaine-Lloyd axis at the heart of Television. What’s more, the absence of reverb is integral, in part attributable to the ambience of the studio, but also a conscious decision in order to add focus. And focus is the abiding term: this is an album designed to be just so - a 45 minute commitment, a surrender.

MODERN ENGLISH DECORATION-01 Mimi Pretend/02 Silvertonic/03 Dead Museum/04 Ziggy/05 Everything All the Time/06 Modern English Decoration/07 Full of Men/08 Saw a Habit Forming/09 Victorian Acid/10 Protestant Work Slump

http://www79.zippyshare.com/v/ZCsCRaNs/file.html