Read my FLOOD review of Pile’s Hot Air Balloon, which exudes a cozy feel that favors a comfortable, even homespun-sounding, experience.
Pile’s ‘Hot Air Balloon’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Pile on 01/03/2024 by Kurt Orzeck2024 New Releases Calendar
Posted in Latest New Releases Schedule, New Releases with tags Children's Hour, Cock Sparrer, Escuela Grind, Eye Flys, Grandaddy, Hulder, J Mascis, Jesus and Mary Chain, Mary Timony, Sleater-Kinney on 12/31/2023 by Kurt OrzeckExcited about the new year? Dreading it? Either way, a litany of new releases confirmed for 2024 should delight you at least a little bit. Pay extra attention to the entries in bold — those are the releases that The Bad Penny is most looking forward to hearing.
January 5
Babys – Live at the Bottom Line, 1979 (Omnivore)
Children’s Hour – Going Home (Drag City)
Jordsjuk – Siste Skanse single (Indie)
Kevin Burt & Big Medicine – Thank You, Brother Bill; Tribute to Bill Withers (Gulf Coast)
Morgue Terror – s/t (self-release)
Oddeven – Darkness (Eclipse)
Pile – Hot Air Balloon EP (Exploding in Sound)
Sprints – Letter to Self (City Slang)
Umbrellas – Fairweather Friend (Slumberland)
Sweeping Promises: Promise Keepers
Posted in Interviews with tags Sweeping Promises on 12/23/2023 by Kurt OrzeckPick up the latest issue of The Big Takeover, which features my interview with Sub Pop indie-rock duo Sweeping Promises.
Best Albums of 2023: Cloak, Insomnium, Horrendous, Jeromes Dream
Posted in Lists with tags Armed, Cloak, Fen, Great Falls, Horrendous, Insomnium, Jeromes Dream, Svalbard, Thy Catafalque, Warcrab on 12/20/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
- Cloak – Black Flame Eternal (Season of Mist)
- Insomnium – Anno 1696 and Songs of the Dusk EP (Nuclear Blast)
- Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium (Season of Mist)
- Jeromes Dream – Gray in Between (Iodine)
- Warcrab – The Howling Silence (Transcending Obscurity)
- The Armed – Perfect Saviors (Sargent House)
- Svalbard – Weight of the Mask (Nuclear Blast)
- Fen – Monuments to Absence (Prophecy Productions)
- Thy Catafalque – Alföld (Season of Mist)
- Great Falls – Objects Without Pain (Neurot)
Exclusive: Cloak Part Ways With Season of Mist; New Label Deal Imminent
Posted in Exclusives with tags Cloak, Scott Taysom, Season of Mist on 12/04/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
Cloak, Atlanta’s hottest black-metal band and the quartet responsible of one of the year’s highest quality rock records, Black Flame Eternal, has parted ways with Season of Mist, Cloak confirmed to The Bad Penny on Monday.
The midnight marauders told disclosed in a conversation Monday morning that their deal with Season of Mist recently ended but that they are already ready to ink a new deal. The furious — and, surprisingly, hoodless — quartet said it expects to announce its new label home by year’s end.
Season of Mist signed Cloak in October 2016, and the label released the fiery foursome’s debut, To Venomous Depths, the following year. Season of Mist also released 2019’s The Burning Dawn and, last May, the teeth-gnashing Black Flame Eternal.
[Go here to read Cloak frontman Scott Taysom’s breakdown of Black Flame Eternal with the Bad Penny.]
Cloak continues to tour heavily behind the well-received record, having started the band’s current trek in late August.
Perhaps as a farewell gift, Season of Mist just released Cloak’s covering of “Black Dream” by Samhain on Halloween Day.
Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’: The Heart-Shaped Album That Married Mainstream and Indie Rock
Posted in Essays with tags Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, Steve Albini on 11/09/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
With Nirvana’s In Utero celebrating its 30-year anniversary, check out my argument — itself three decades in the making — on why the band’s best record changed rock music forever. Read the treatise, accompanied by Anton Corbijn photos, on FLOOD.
Joe Steinhardt Talks 20 Years of Don Giovanni Records
Posted in Interviews with tags Don Giovanni, Joe Steinhardt, Screaming Females on 10/27/2023 by Kurt OrzeckGet to know the history of Don Giovanni Records and its orange-loving owner, Joe Steinhardt, in my recent New Noise interview with the man himself.
Sal Ellington of Rebuilder Talks ‘Local Support’
Posted in Interviews with tags Rebuilder on 10/25/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
The Breeders’ ‘Last Splash’ (30th Anniversary Edition): Two Cent Review
Posted in Interviews with tags Breeders, Dave Grohl, Frank Black, Kim Deal, Pixies on 09/25/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
Read my FLOOD review of the latest reissue of the Breeders’ Last Splash, in which the flood of anniversary reissue albums is also discussed.
Trauma Kit: Flipside Fest Pick of the Day
Posted in Interviews on 09/23/2023 by Kurt Orzeck
The second annual Flipside Fest, staged just outside Boise, began in magnificent form on Friday, with an afternoon wave of cool air giving way to an evening filled with clear skies and music courtesy of Australian rockers Babe Rainbow and Virginia-based electronic musician George Clanton. Saturday’s forecast — a welcome relief from the muddy start to Treefort Music Fest in late March — calls for even more beautiful weather … with a touch of gnarly experimental-hardcore-rock courtesy of Boise’s own Trauma Kit.
One of the city’s strongest young bands regardless of genre, Trauma Kit are slated for a plum time slot at 8 p.m. at Push & Pour, after which Flipside Fest 2023 headliners the Walkmen will grace the main stage. Trauma Kit’s latest close-up comes mere weeks after they opened for red-hot metal band Portrayal of Guilt and then Seattle punks So Pitted.
“We were like kinds in a candy store,” Trauma Kit bassist Shadrach Tuck recently told The Bad Penny about the shows.
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