Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (2022)

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Here's another album I'm looking forward to based off the teaser tracks on their respective bandcamp page, Cloakroom's third full-length, Dissolution Wave. I can deduce, by unpacking what I'm hearing in these three songs that this shit is going to be a scintillating coast down sonic highways traversing shoegaze, drone, bits of sludge and indie with helpings of stoner rock and post-punk (just to namedrop a few more genres into the fray).

I would be jumping to conclusions to speak any more factually without actually hearing the full album first, but it sounds like it's the bands most cohesive effort yet, which is saying something for me because I was never really gung-ho about the two previous albums fully. Again, speaking preemptively, it sounds as if everything has come to full bloom on Dissolution Wave. The songs are robust and the production is right on the fucking money—when it needs to pack a hammer, it does so with force, when it needs to float in suspended animation, it gently sways along beautifully, when we ask it to marry the two forces, it answers with complete fluidity.

I find it tiring to read about music in an overly-intellectualized way, so I'll try to say this succinctly. The overall tone is a shifting one. Unfurling riffs and tone that hit like a megaton hammer towards gradually cascading into ephemeral shoegaze and drone that inevitably sputter into moments of dream-pop. Which is only to be cut back into a vast doom like territory filled with more crunching lo-fi guitars and reverb. Highly recommended!

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (bandcamp)

Michael Beach - Dream Violence (2021)

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Australia is an absolute uncontested hotbed in the realm of toothy rock and roll and Michael Beach is just yet another fish in the pond of energetic and woollen post-punk from Melbourne. Angular guitars pervade through a post-punk sentimentality that isn't at all afraid to traverse the sonic highways of a multitude of different genres and ideas, experimenting between tracks that harken to The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, Solid Space, Nick Cave and even a track in 'You Know Life Is Cheap' that sounds like something Timber Timbre would write with its wobbly bayou dirge. 

Michael Beach - Dream Violence (bandcamp)

HIDE - Interior Terror (2021)

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HIDE are a noise based duo from Chicago that are carving their way into the fray with a reeking blend of hypnotic electronic wrapped in a thick wall of pulsating noise which serves to unearth sounds that make the listener feel supremely uncomfortable. Much like how The Body use driving bass and drums to evoke discomfort, HIDE take it in a multitude of different directions that range from the fetid industrial dirge of early Pansonic to the post-punk noise of the perfectly executed Daughters record from 2018. This won't be for everyone, this won't even be for most, but a small amount of you masochistic sycophants will somehow for some reason derive a sick pleasure in the sounds from Interior Terror. I'll listen to anything coming out of the Dais Records library, I guess.

HIDE - Interior Terror (bandcamp)

Sunset Images - Centro de la Ciudad [single] (2020)

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I've talked about these guys a while back on here, and I still find myself returning to Obscure Daze for a listen though pretty often due to the potency of its sound – Which to be sure is completely mired in noise and shoegaze psychedelia, but still manages to capture a lot of beautiful sounding passages throughout the ensuing chaos, which as a juxtaposition in sound, works very, very well.

I check on these guys from time to time to see if anything new has been put out but unfortunately there hasn't been anything other than two songs in the last three years… This tune came out this year though and if it's a teaser for anything new to come, I'm all ears. Get some reverb into ya!

Centro de la Ciudad (bandcamp)

Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross 002 (2019)

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Congratulations to August for being a month in where I didn't make a single contribution to SHOM. Evidentially all that August brings - The sun is singing, the birds are shining, the people are filled with sidewalks and parks are marinating in cheap lager - doesn't bode well for my writing commitments. But cut me some slack, I'm a one-man team, a single mother in the arena of bedroom bloggers and this whole things is and will always be a thankless gig. But I love it like a son (or daughter) and will carry on as best as I know how. I don't know how.

Starting September off will be the enigmatic Jorge Elbrecht and his newest offering to reverb-soaked black metal in all of its warm, lo-fi angular glory. Coral Cross 002 is something to be consumed slowly, with no distractions, probably with lots of cancer inducing incense burning so the nuances can be appreciated as a whole. Blink your ears and you just might miss it…

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I was turned onto Jorge Elbrecht by Harassor/Vorpal Sword/Moonknight/Pray For Snow music machine James Brown III aka Horus aka Roach (and mind behind the infallible Rising Beast label) during a slow burn interview him and I had over the course of July/August - The dude is well versed in the underground musical scene and we're all forever in his debt for his contribution to the international reverb society. * I'll be posting up that interview soon as well as digging a bit deeper into his other projects

Coral Cross 002 paints unknown landscapes, of worlds ethereal and dripping with a weird colourful muck, and a undecipherable stench pervades amidst the wonky wall of music. I am hard-pressed to pinpoint this to any specific genre nor would I like to. It sounds the way it sounds and you will either like it or hate it. As for me, I'm lapping up this weird soup.

Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross 002 (bandcamp)

Bleach Birth - Hatching Inside The Womb (2018)

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Bleach Birth have released their second full-length and it's some incredibly feral and filthy punk rife with feedback, grime, and scummy snotty vocal delivery… Think a mix of The Daily Void, Soupcans, Helta Skelta and The Functional Blackouts with flourishes of forward thinking song structures that push passed inebriated simplicity. I'm very much into everything about this… and this has me thinking, when are Strange Attractor going to finally release another LP? Frig. Fans of the aforementioned will find joy here, and if not, your ears are not working correctly.

Bleach Birth - Hatching Inside The Womb (bandcamp)

Milk Music - Mystic 100's (2017)

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"And you can smoke a mystic 100 with him..."are the last words that can be heard piercing through the reverb laden downward spiral of the intro song, sounding muddy and discordant as all hell, Coxen's vocals howling on like weird recounts from a bad trip... It's weird that this track flows into the second track 'Twists & Turns & Headtrips' because even through sheer contrast and complimentary juxtaposition it sounds like two different songs from two different albums from two different bands especially when the second song is jerked to start out of a sample of game show clapping... It's really weird and it shouldn't work. But it does. And I like it.

I only bring all that up to point out one thing. I have been almost completely bored with most music lately, in particular new music coming out this year. Continuously listening through Mystic 100's has been a temporary anecdote to my sonic banality. It's one of those rabbit hole listens, where the ending is nowhere close to the start, everything is wonky and your perspective hangs by a thread.

Milk Music are special. Not like special olympics special but unique special. Their musical cloth is woven from many threads; Weaving in late 60's psych rock, post-punk drone, a grimy edge from side alley punk and an undeniable ooze of catchy pop hooks. Sometimes sounding poignant and nostalgic like early Replacements or Royal Headache and non-sensical and punchy like Destruction Unit or early Pissed Jeans.

I don't know what it's all about and I like it.

Mystic 100's (bandcamp)

Cindy Lee - Act of Tenderness (2018)

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Haunting. Forlorn. Beautiful. Cindy Lee's musical landscape has always been all of these things, a sonic network woven from a wrenching guitar tone, a bleak synth backdrop and an atmosphere soaking heavily in its own folly, stewing in its sadness, marinating in a maddening pond of dismal thoughts and past hurts. This is what it feels like, mostly. There is always this undeniable undertone of warmth and something comforting about it all though, like any good artist or any good fatalist, it's up to the author to conjure up a feeling of hope, even if it's wishful thinking. Nobody likes a total Nihilist.

Act of Tenderness is just that, tender, but it's also everything above and everything below the heart, sitting in the gut and living in the hippocampus. You didn't even know it was there until now, as you sip from your black coffee you realize that. Look at me now, one moment I was listening to Moonknight's Ligeia feeling absolutely nothing in-particular and now only two songs in on this album I'm my most primordial and pensive self. Form your own opinion and stop caring about what other people think, anyway.

Take a listen.

Act of Tenderness

Also definitely listening to her 2017 release, Malenkost. It's grim as black metal and soft as cashmere.

JC Satàn- Centaur Desire (2018)

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Man, just listen to the song Erika one time. Just once. Through the onset of the fuzz cathedral intro it dips into a psychedelic fetichism lead by a Yellow Submarine THC fuzed pop hook chorus into perfectly recorded drums - You haven't heard toms sound that good since System of A Down released Toxicity - and you're just a fucking want stain if you can't get 6-inches deep into that guitar solo halfway through the song. It has everything. Everything you need and don't need. If you're anything like me, you're just happy to have another thing to overplay. The time has come for each and every one of you to decide, whether you are going to be a part of the problem, or a part of the solution.

Centaur Desire (bandcamp)

Half Goon - TERRORIZER EP (2013)

Listening to TERRORIZER will be your personal reminder that you're fucking 10-ply bud. But don't worry, you can harden that over exfoliated sun sheltered skin just by listening to this album.


Half Goon play an infectious blend of noisy post-punk/hardcore with some other musical shit in there for you to nit-pick at. It's hard not to draw comparisons to acts such as METZ and Pissed Jeans for the almost industrial like noise drone, the gritty and THC soaked biker riffs of The Coltranes and the feral attack of old Ceremony – But Half Goon bring something entirely unique to their sound, a potent energy and a unabashed sense of experimentation.

It's short, spanning only 14 minutes over 7 songs, but it packs enough clenched-fist hate to justify using that repeat button. Stop being soft. I'll tell you what, I wouldn't dare fucking miss these dudes play if they came around to Toronto.

It would be righteous if you picked the EP on the bandcamp for a name your price option, but if you're a truly broke bastard just input an amount of $0.

TERRORIZER EP