When they emerged in the late 2010s, Soccer Mommy and Snail Mail not only piled up a wealth of great music, they helped to define an era of this very website. I will always mentally lump them together, so it makes perfect sense to me that, about a decade into their careers, they’re heading out on a co-headlining tour.
The post Soccer Mommy – “Rings Of Saturn” appeared first on Stereogum.
The Pineapple Thief launch ‘God Knows’; third single from forthcoming new album ‘Far and Wide’
Progressive art-rockers The Pineapple Thief are set to release their new studio album ‘Far and Wide’ on the 9th October 2026 (InsideOutMusic). With just under a month to go, the band are pleased to reveal the anthemic new single ‘God Knows’. Watch the video, directed by longtime collaborator George Laycock, here: https://youtu.be/Kw5Fw-eS4qY
Bruce Soord comments: “The reckoning. Lying there, with my infinite stare. Through the shadows. I guess it’s autobiographical. We all have regrets. I certainly do. I’ve made mistakes, did people wrong. The (metaphorical) god knows. And those ghosts are coming out…”
Stream the track and pre-order the album here: https://thepineapplethief.lnk.to/FarAndWide-Album
The band recently announced a UK & European headline tour for 2027. See the full list of dates below:
4th March – The Garage, Glasgow, UK
5th March – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, UK
6th March – O2 Academy, Sheffield, UK
7th March – The 1865, Southampton, UK
9th March – Antipode, Rennes, France
10th March – Metronum, Toulouse, France
12th March – Sala Apolo, Barcelona, Spain
13th March – Teatro Eslava, Madrid, Spain
14th March – Republica de Musica, Lisbon, Portugal
16th March – Casa de Musica, Porto, Portugal
17th March – Santana 27, Bilbao, Spain
19th March – La Rayonne, Lyon, France
20th March – Le Trianon, Paris, France
21st March – Rockhal, Esc-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
1st April – Batschkapp, Frankfurt, Germany
2nd April – Markthalle, Hamburg, Germany
3rd April – Carlswerk Victoria, Cologne, Germany
4th April – Metropol, Berlin, Germany
6th April – Stary Manez, Gdansk, Poland
7th April – Palladium, Warsaw, Poland
9th April – Klub Studio, Krakow, Poland
10th April – Alter Schlachthof, Dresden, Germany
11th April – Roxy Hall, Prague, Czech Republic
13th April – W.U.K., Vienna, Austria
14th April – Muffathalle, Munich, Germany
15th April – Boogaloo, Zagreb, Croatia
17th April – Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy
18th April – Alcatraz, Milan, Italy
20th April – Dynamo, Zurich, Switzerland
22nd April – La Laiterie, Strasbourg, France
23rd April – La Madeleine, Brussels, Belgium
24th April – O13, Tilburg, Netherlands
21st May – Posten, Odense, Denmark
22nd May – Amager Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark
23rd May – Train, Aarhus, Denmark
25th May – USF Sardinen, Bergen, Norway
26th May – Rockefeller, Oslo, Norway
28th May – Pustervik, Gothenburg, Sweden
29th May – Nya Cirkus, Stockholm, Sweden
31st May – Logomo Teatro, Turku, Finland
1st June – Tavastia, Helsinki, Finland
2nd June -Tavara-Asema, Tampere, Finland
The band will also hit the road in North America in November 2026. Find the full list of upcoming shows here: https://www.pineapplethief.com/tour/
On ‘Far and Wide’ The Pineapple Thief feel more like a rock band than ever. Still progressive. Still masters of spine-tingling atmosphere. Still attuned to the strange, troubled world around us. And now, a decade and seven albums on from the arrival of Gavin Harrison on drums – and newly signed to InsideOutMusic – they capture the chemistry, road miles and bigger stages of the last few years.
Far and Wide is the sound of a group with dreamlike complexity at their fingertips, channelling it into hard-hitting, incisive songs.
“We realised, for instance, that you don’t need more than two guitar parts at any one time,” frontman/founder Bruce Soord says. “You know, ’why have we got four or five guitars? Why have we got six-part harmonies when there’s only three of us singing?’ We deliberately created those constraints, because we thought, ‘we’re a rock band, there’s five of us on stage, this is what we should be about in the studio.’”
“You do start to imagine what a song would look like on a stage, and sometimes that does influence the arrangement,” Harrison adds. “Like, ‘this would be amazing live when we do this, if this section just went into this other thing’, and you can picture it with the lights and the atmosphere on stage.”
Far and Wide will arrive on several formats, including a Ltd 2CD & Blu-ray artbook which includes the bonus track ‘Daylight’, as well as a second CD of instrumentals and a blu-ray featuring Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD 5.1 Surround Sound & 24/48 Stereo Mixes. The album will also be available as a Special Edition CD Digipak, Gatefold LP (in several colour variants) & digitally as both stereo & Dolby Atmos. All formats feature the striking cover image of an abstract sculpture by the late Michael Schoenholtz, father of Harrison’s longtime partner Hannah.
Founded in 1999 by Bruce Soord, the band has long been one of the genre’s most successful and accomplished outfits, releasing 16 studio albums and touring worldwide. The band consisting of Soord (vocals, guitars), Jon Sykes (bass), Steve Kitch (keyboards), and Gavin Harrison (drums).
The Pineapple Thief online:
https://www.pineapplethief.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thepineapplethief
https://www.instagram.com/thepineapplethief/
https://www.youtube.com/@ThePineappleThiefTV
INSIDEOUTMUSIC online:
www.insideoutmusic.com
www.youtube.com/InsideOutMusicTV
www.facebook.com/InsideOutMusic
www.twitter.com/insideouteu
www.insideoutshop.de
Japanese Breakfast mastermind Michelle Zauner became an author back in 2021. That’s when she published her memoir Crying In H Mart, an expansion of a New Yorker article about reconnecting with Korean food and culture after losing her immigrant mother. The book became a sensation, earning a ton of critical acclaim and debuting on the bestseller list. Zauner signed on to write and soundtrack a movie adaptation, which sadly got stuck in development hell. While all this was happening, Zauner kept making music with Japanese Breakfast. She also kept writing, and she announces her second memoir today.
The post Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner Announces Second Book <em>Thank You For Your Suffering</em> appeared first on Stereogum.
– September 17th, 2026 –
Texas Progressive Metalcore Crew To Release “Constructs” Full-Length October 16th On Metal Blade Records
Watch/stream FERVENCE’s “Ascension” HERE
“Ascension” is the newest single from Texas-based progressive metalcore practitioners, FERVENCE. The track appears on the band’s impending new full-length, Constructs, set to drop on October 16th through Metal Blade Records.
Photo by Benjamin Zietlow
Comments founding guitarist Trent Odneal, “‘Ascension’ came about because I felt like the album really needed chaos – short, fast, and seemingly out of left field. Kind of like a fever-dream with a fleeting moment of reflection before it slips away, only to be pulled back into the chaos.”
Watch FERVENCE‘s “Ascension” video HERE
Watch FERVENCE‘s previously released video for “Zenith” HERE
Inspired by bands like Deftones, Architects, and Silent Planet, the FERVENCE sound is an ethereal blend of harsh and lush, navigating between moments of sheer aggression and poignant vulnerability. Formed in 2019 in Reno, Nevada as Odneal’s solo project, FERVENCE released its debut full-length, Ghost, in 2020. The recording was called an “emotionally laden and hard-hitting record that contemplates what it is to be human.”
The band reemerged in 2023 with vocalist Stevie B. at the helm, bringing her unique brand of aggression to the project. FERVENCE toured the West Coast, continuing to build their local following in Reno opening for the likes of Otep, Left To Suffer, and Gideon, and releasing four singles that would make up their second offering, an EP titled Realm//One which was praised for “breaking so many rules in metal.“
On Constructs, the quintet’s Metal Blade debut, FERVENCE delivers eleven dynamic songs that explore, both musically and lyrically, deeply personal experiences surrounding life, death, emotion, and relationships. Now based in Austin, Texas, the band spent 2025 crafting their most fully realized songs to date. Writing post-Ghost, Odneal made a conscious effort to leave more space for the vocals to explore melodies and focused on composition, mood, song structure, and building up to big choruses.
“As we have grown together and individually so have our views on existence and the concepts discussed. Constructs,” Odneal explains, “is a refinement of our ability to convey some of these thoughts in a more generally relatable way, while also adding a bit more insight on other tangential topics.”
The title track, for example, is a “concluding thought to a note that I wrote to myself that began when we did the Ghost LP,” says guitarist Austin Bentley, “We all take different paths that shape who we are and who we eventually become. But those paths are just constructs of thought stored in memory. Some good, some terrible, but all of them contribute to the people we are now. Though these things can feel monumental or cosmically important while we’re living through them, they always collapse in the end. We still die. We still disappear. We live, we learn, we die.”
Constructs was produced by Odneal and Bentley and mixed and mastered by Zack Ohren. The record will be released on CD and digital formats as well as vinyl in the following color variants:
Pearl Bone Marble (US)
Shimmer Gold + Black Marble (US)
Royalty Metallic Marbled (EU)
Find pre-orders at: metalblade.com/fervence
Constructs Track Listing:
01. Pathways
02. Oculum
03. Interwoven
04. Miasma
05. Maelstrom
06. The Things We Can’t See
07. Zenith
08. Ghost II
09. Ascension
10. Providence
11. Constructs
FERVENCE w/ Beauty Is Betrayal [remaining dates]:
9/17/2026 Wagon Wheel – Colorado Springs, CO
9/18/2026 The Red Zone – Lubbock, TX
9/19/2026 PT Event Center – Abilene, TX
w/ Enthronement:
10/16/2026 Ruins – Dallas, TX
10/17/2026 The Pit – Lafayette, LA
10/18/2026 Atmosphere – Loganville, GA
10/19/2026 Cannonball – Raleigh, NC
10/20/2026 The Milestone Club – Charlotte, NC
10/21/2026 Banditos – Richmond, VA
10/22/2026 Morsbergers Tavern – Catonsville, MD
10/23/2026 The Parlour- Providence, RI
10/24/2026 Bar Freda – Brooklyn, NY
10/25/2026 The Cantab Underground – Boston, MA
10/28/2026 Photo City Music Hall – Rochester, NY
10/31/2026 Fubar Lounge – St. Louis, MO
11/01/2026 Bricks – Tyler, TX
FERVENCE:
Stevie B. – vocals
Trent Odneal – guitar, programming
Jon Daniels – bass
Austin Bentley – guitar, programming
Chris Tufino – drums
https://www.fervence.net
https://www.instagram.com/fervenceband
https://www.facebook.com/fervenceband
https://x.com/fervenceband
The sun is setting. It’s like a memory. You’re standing on a hillside, with a paper aeroplane. With all your might, you throw it. The plane takes flight, it drifts and sails on the breeze, but it doesn’t exactly soar. Do you have another throw, or do you let the sun set? This is what Summer Wars are asking themselves. Their new EP ‘Closer Than It Seems’ is their first release in six years, a comeback of sorts. It’s hoping to soar.
Arriving at the end of summer, the EP captures the sense of fading sunlight and days closing in. In keeping with their 2018 ‘Borrowed Time’ EP and their biggest song ‘End Of An Era’, these four tracks are about looking back. While the lyrics explore seasons, endings and literally seeing things in ‘The rearview’ what gives them this feel is the tone.
Close your eyes and listen to the music. There’s something familiar about the sound, perhaps a little too familiar. It’s not just the comfort of memory, it’s also the curse of genre. Ultimately though, it’s about choices. Imagine making that paper plane. Each carefully chosen line and fold makes changes its trajectory of flight. The band knows this, they know how to make their songs fly, yet everything, from the melodies, to the drum beats, to the guitar licks driving ‘Stuck In This Moment’ is recognisably pop-punk. This leads to a sound consistent with bands like The Story So Far, State Champs, Roam and so many others. You can even hear it in the genre-specific production choices like the slow, echoy drum fades on ‘Long Gone’, which you’ll recognise as those on the opening of Blink 182’s ‘Feeling This’ – those kinds of choices. It sounds ‘good’ rather than inspired.
Singer, Tripp Rowe has a distinctive style but, amusingly, it’s distinctive in the same way as many other pop punk singers, for example the ‘Oo’ sounds pronounced as ‘ew’ or how ‘gun’ becomes ‘gone’ on ‘Victim Of The Suburbs’. This gives it the comfort of familiarity. Indeed, it’s amusing that ‘Blink Of An Eye’ contains the refrain ‘I’ve got new ideas’ when the presentation harks backward. However, the EP is about the past and nostalgia, and with that, it fits.
Despite looking backwards, what they’re selling is confidence and competence, and the EP bristles with both. The music is energetic, without being too rowdy, and brushed with the honesty of emo. It’s hard not to get caught up in the delightful swing and sway of ‘Stuck In This Moment’ or stop/start singing parts of ‘Blink Of An Eye’ but the final song ‘Long Gone’ is striking. It becomes a gallop during its second half, changing the tone entirely. It’s like they’re actively moving on, and that’s a great place to leave it.
‘Closer Than It Seems’ is carefully crafted but weighted by the past. It’s a solid, enjoyable slice of pop-punk that captures the sound of a fading summer.
IAN KENWORTHY
(This past July Personal Records released a fine debut album [for which we did a premiere] by the Peruvian band Illwind, whose lineup was forged from members of some top South American bands such as Reino Ermitaño, Cobra, Arcada, and Argul. The album provided the impetus for our Comrade Aleks to re-connect with Illwind’s Marcos […]
The post AN NCS INTERVIEW: ILLWIND appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.
Do you ever think about how much money Primus must’ve made for recording their incredibly annoying 30-second South Park theme song all those decades ago? South Park debuted in 1997! I don’t know how all the contracts and residuals must work, but I have to imagine that Les Claypool pretty much turned himself into Scrooge McDuck there. If you were to tell me that Claypool was the second-richest bass wizard on the planet, after Paul McCartney, I would believe you. Right now, South Park is back for its 29th season, but now it’s called South America. It has a new Les Claypool theme song, too.
The post Les Claypool Records New Theme Song For <em>South America</em> (FKA <em>South Park</em>) appeared first on Stereogum.
