Hello dear readers. It’s been a long time (at least in terms of blogs and posting), but sometimes as the great Canadian hardcore band Grade once sang, ‘sometimes life gets in the way of living’. How true, even all these years later. But let me tell you friends, just because I haven’t been consistently writing about music doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening to a lot of great music. My promise to you is to try and write more about it in the coming months. How long will that last? Who knows. But there have been a bunch of albums released this year, especially in my backyard of Connecticut, that have made me want to write nice things about them. So let’s start with these four and we’ll go from there. Deal? Deal.
Erik Rabasca – New Scrolls
Summertime, especially in its first few weeks, gives everyone such hope and promises of fun times to be had; promises of summer nights under the stars, tapping your feet to good tunes and sipping on your favorite beverages. June is a month of promises, and whether they come true or not, we keep coming back to them every year. What the start of summer needed was an album to match that vibe, an album filled with toe-tappers and positive vibes. Stamford’s Erik Rabasca delivered en masse back in June. His debut solo album New Scrolls is the sonic equivalent to a massive summertime backyard soiree filled with familiar, loving faces. Each tune, a new friend or relative arriving to the party and gifting their favorite local beer or side dish that everyone’s going to down before the sun sets. A side of Americana, a six pack of pop aesthetics, a big heaping bowl of meaningful lyrics, it’s all here. Dive in because even after summer is long gone its promises remain in the aether and so will the beauty held within this record.
https://erikrabasca.bandcamp.com/album/new-scrolls
Kierstin Sieser – Love’s Poem
I’ve been a huge fan of Kierstin Sieser’s work since her days fronting the mighty Tiny Ocean. Her solo albums – 2020’s Shark Tooth Moon and 2021’s Little Shots of Pepper – were refreshing peaks inside the writer’s room. Where Tiny Ocean could fill the halls with their sound, Sieser’s solo work has always been a more introspective journey. Five years later Love’s Poem carries that tradition of sparse yet meaningful songs that demand the listeners full attention. That’s a dangerous game for an artist to play in this day and age of minimal attention spans, and eternal scroll culture. But Sieser’s writing is captivating enough to break through the facade of it all. Choosing just her voice, her electric guitar, and minimal accompaniment on most songs Sieser relies heavily on emotions and mood to control the musical narrative, eschewing the process of dragging songs into pop-soaked oblivion and instead building small worlds to crawl in and out of. It’s a beautiful journey worth taking at sunset with headphones cranked. By the time the sun sets completely you’ll thank me for the recommendation and Sieser for the trip.
https://kierstinsieser.bandcamp.com/album/love-s-poem
Farewood – In Sunlight Appears the Wraith
I was thinking about the Connecticut music scene the other day and I postulated the idea to myself that I’m not sure there has even been a band that has been so consistently great for as long a period of time as Meriden’s Farewood. In January of this year they, somewhat quietly, dropped the first truly great album of the year with In Sunlight Appears the Wraith, their first full-length album since 2018’s Under Burning Sun. I think what I love most about this band – outside of their overall sound which deftly mixes an alt rock base with dream pop, shoegaze and dark wave aesthetics – is their ability to just completely engulf the listener like an owl engulfing its prey in the cocoon of its silent wings. That owl’s kiss is beautiful, it’s dark, and it’s as steady as time itself, which are all descriptors you could use for Farewood and their massively impressive body of work, of which this album is a standout. The guitar work, the ethereal vocals, the production, everything about it is phenomenal and if you’ve waited eight months to hear this beast you’ve waited eight months too long. Right that ship and put this baby in your ears.
https://farewood.bandcamp.com/album/in-sunlight-appears-the-wraith
Michael Sanford Day – Reason To Stay
All albums are personal, that’s the nature of being an artist. Every artist worth their salt pours their hopes and fears into their music, writing about loss, love, and the ones who’ve caused both. All albums are personal, but this one feels different. Michael Sanford Day has been a staple of the CT music scene going back to his days fronting the band Little Ugly and his work with Among the Acres. Fans of Day’s work though have been waiting what feels like an exponentially long time for this debut solo record. Knowing even pieces of Day’s story at least partly explains the delay, and a deeper dive into his lyrics fills in the gaps. Fatherhood, marriage, serious illness, lost loved ones, and the daily grind of dealing with it all as a working artist built this record and what we are gifted is something so inherently personal that it almost feels voyeuristic in a good way. This is an artist not afraid to lean into the vulnerability of life itself, to share with his listeners everything beautiful and beautifully dark in his world. It’s cathartic for us as much as it is for Day. We aren’t alone in our struggles, or triumphs, or that often times indescribable void in between. Day delivers it all with a world-class backing band deftly creating pop and rock-infused Americana that will ear worm straight to your brain. Yeah, all albums are personal, but this one definitely feels different.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0GDjwIIFFr1wTaNRNw4j9d
