#versing

[bandcampsnoop]

11/22/24.

Pool Boys are a Portland, Oregon based quartet, who describe their music in four words, "loud guitars, pretty harmonies." The Bandcamp page then goes on to say that they "live in the space where soft and sensitive gives way to grit and ire. Melodic guitar hooks and oft-spacey, oft-grungy textures are thoroughly supported by weaving bass lines and nonstandard harmonies."

This release has been on repeat all day. And it's made me go back and relisten to other bands we've posted about over the years: Memorials, Les Bicyclettes Blanche, Thibault and Susan. If you haven't guessed that Pool Boys are a band of women, then be sure to listen to each and every one of the previous comps.

This is released on Seattle based label Youth Riot Records (there's an outstanding Versing LP released by them).

[dustedmagazine]

Spiral XP — I Wish I Was a Rat (Danger Collective)

Poised somewhere between, shoegaze, lo-fi indie and grunge, Spiral XP slashes a slow, serrated hole through murky textures. The riffs are monumentally heavy and blurred with dissonance, each surge of guitar bulging with muscular bravado. Still the songs float on a dream-like pillow, their yearning, minor key melodies flitting through diesel fumes and smoke. “Sinner,” one of the early singles, spins out in spirals from a thunderous foundation, the battering power of three heaving guitars leavened by circling, euphoric fluttering. Think MBV but hoarier, or Dinosaur Jr. wrapped in candy-colored rainbows, or Ovlov or Aluminum. It’s an onslaught swathed in tuneful yearning.

Spiral XP was, fittingly enough, birthed out of the pandemic in the Seattle suburb of Bellingham by one Max Keyes, a veteran of the rock band Versing but mostly known as drummer. In those isolation days, he turned to guitar and recorded two quick EPs (Drop Me In and It’s Been a While) and a collaboration with TV Star (TVXP). I Wish I Was a Rat is Spiral XP’s first full-band record, bringing in Lena Farr-Morrissey of Coral Grief on bass and vocals, Jordan Mang and Kyle McCollum to beef up the band’s wall of guitars and Daniel Byington on drums.

Keyes’ evolving partnership with Lena Farr-Morrissey seems especially fruitful. The bassist sings and gets a songwriting credit on the dream pop “Window Room,” which doesn’t so much tamp down the band’s obliterating roar and slather it over with icing. It’s loud as hell, but transporting, its woozy blasts of guitar melting down into static and blare as a haunting, chill-inducing vocals wafts idly by.

Spiral XP’s songs are built out of notes pushed to the bending point. The opening lick from “Awake” boings and recoils, the sounds sliding vertiginously off of true. And yet, the verse is mostly murmured, confided, spoken right into your ear. It’s overwhelming volume feels like it’s been delivered just for you, and aren’t you lucky that way?

Jennifer Kelly

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: Spiral XP Shares "120 Minutes" MTV Alt Rock-like "Window Room"

New Video: Spiral XP Shares "120 Minutes" MTV Alt Rock-like "Window Room" @grandstandhq @DangerCoRecs

Back in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world ground down to a halt, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Max Keyes abandoned a short-lived move to Philadelphia and returned home to Seattle. The false start helped to spark a sort of existential crisis, and he quickly moved back north to Bellingham, WA, where he’d grown up, hoping the sense of home might provide…

[ourladyofomega]

🖌️Jacob Terrell

[deadlypoetacademia]

[vickychendraws]

I don’t usually do crossovers, but a comic idea popped into my head, so i decided to see where it went o/ cw: blood

[guardianjameslight]

I don't know about you, but I really hate mentality that says that we don't get good animated projects anymore, especially when these exist.

And there's more.

[sparebutton]

(Across the Spider-Verse spoiler)

[eggplant-crusader]

[soranatus]

[j0celynh0rr0r]

Ritual

[brown-spider]

Making jokes about Noir being colorblind/not understanding colors is how we cope with how unbelievably powerful his brain is

[vhoudk]

Wanted to draw them!!!! it’s been a while since i rendered faces so it was good practice

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

[katsunaksu]

the gang's all here!!

[alexxuun]

miles is taller than 42-miles because of his spider bite. This is like when your younger brother have a grow spurt and now are slightly taller than you.