The Coathangers’ Julia Kugel treats each note of her second solo album as a delicate item to be savored and appreciated from a state of mindfulness. Read my FLOOD review here.
Julia, Julia’s ‘Sugaring a Strawberry’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Julia & the Squeezettes, Julia Julia, Julia Kugel, Soft Palms, The Coathangers on 09/23/2025 by Kurt OrzeckPet Sounds #64: Emo Musician Andrea Neuenfeldt Derives Emotional Support From Her Kitties
Posted in Features, Interviews, Pet Sounds with tags Andrea Neuenfeld, MK Naomi, Unseemlier on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
On a cool, mid-May evening in Malden, Massachusetts, all seems calm in the quaint city located about 15 outside Boston (when rush-hour traffic isn’t choking Route 99, that is). But vocalist/bassist Andrea Neuenfeldt is stressed out, finding it impossible to be patient as new releases from her two principal projects are about to be released. In one month, soft pop-punks Unseemlier will unveil their debut LP, I Have a Screw Loose, Somewhere, two years after the Boston quartet joined forces. Exactly one week later, Neuenfeldt’s other band, emo-pop trio MK Naomi, will release their first EP, Dream Hiss. (That band describes itself as an “emo-pop hallucination … named for the covert CIA bioweapons program that ran from the 1950s-‘70s.)
While many musicians often know each other well enough to lower the temperature when one of them spazzes out, Neuenfeldt is at a disadvantage. For one thing, she’s just starting to get to know her new collaborators in the two projects. She’s even more of an odd-woman-out in Unseemlier, as her three bandmates are childhood friends who know how to talk one other off the proverbial ledge when their anxiety level skyrockets.
“It’s like sitting on pins and needles,” Neuenfeldt tells The Bad Penny, noting that Unseemlier is also booked to play FEST 23 in Gainesville, Florida, in October. “I’m very impatient — but I also like wanting to be super-respectful, because other people have [to deal with real] life shit.”
Fortunately, Neuenfeldt has special companions to scratch her itch while she longs to get onstage at this very moment. Those sources of emotional support for the musician are her three cats: Rufus, Wolfgang and Arnold.
Continue readingFrom the Vault: Previews of LPs From Taken by Trees, Black Heart Procession, Suckers
Posted in News with tags Ben Neill, eyehategod, Suckers, Taken by Trees on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
This’d make a strong episode of “Frontline” or “Now”: Victoria Bergsman, who records under the name Taken by Trees, journeyed all the way to Pakistan to record her new album, East of Eden. Her goal was to find artistic inspiration in a challenging, unusual area, and she seems to have pulled it off, becoming one of the few Western women to record in the region. Look for the album via Rough Trade on September 8. …
Major bummer: New Black Heart Procession album coming October 6 on Temporary Residence Ltd. We love these San Diegans, which means we’ll be having to suffer gladly through another slate of their lovely, dreary death marches. “Rats,” the first single from Six, is already crushing our spirits; talk about a band you hate to love. …
Continue readingShame’s ‘Cutthroat’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Shame on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
UK rockers Shame don’t mince words on their fourth studio album, pairing their infectious proto-punk grooves with nakedly hedonistic lyrics. Read my FLOOD review.
Shallowater’s ‘God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Shallowater on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Houston “dirtgaze” trio Shallowater ruminate on our intolerable times with some of the quietest and slowest music—as well as the most deafening, distortion-filled cacophony—you’ll hear in 2025. Read my FLOOD review.
From the Vault: Deafheaven’s 2017 Tour Setlists and First-Ever Show in Boise – An Analysis
Posted in Concert Reviews, Essays, Reviews with tags Bosse-de-Nage, Deafheaven, George Clarke, Mogwai, Shiv Mehra, Treefort, Treefort Music Fest on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Deafheaven’s setlist from their show at Mardi Gras in Boise on 3.25.17
When Deafheaven played their first show in Boise on March 25 – at Mardi Gras, a venue typically reserved for wedding functions – they provided the five-day Treefort Music Fest with its only dose of shoe-gazing black metal. Continue reading
Death-Metal Word Search
Posted in Fun And Games with tags death metal, puzzle on 09/21/2025 by Kurt OrzeckTwenty death-metal bands. One puzzle. All you need is your sword (pencil) and shield (eraser).
Confused? Peruse an issue of Highlights for Children or check out The Bad Penny‘s previous Extreme Metal Word Search from 15 years ago. Man, was it really that long ago? Time flies when you’re having fun. And if you don’t have fun with this puzzle, you lack a soul. Which is fitting for a death-metal game, we suppose.
Anyhoodles, happy hunting.
Answer key here.
Pet Sounds #63: Kinsella & Pulse, LLC’s Most Prized Employee Is Bomba the Cat
Posted in Features, Interviews, Pet Sounds with tags Cap', Cap'n Jazz, Jenny Pulse, Joan of Arc, Kinsella and Pulse LLC, Tim Kinsella on 09/21/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
When The Bad Penny caught up with Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse earlier this year, they were living the high life. Fresh off the release of their third collaborative album, the deliberately misspelled Open ing Night, the musicians previously of Joan of Arc and Spa Moans, respectively, were taking a break between tours with Karate by staying at Kinsella’s cousin’s 400-year-old apartment in Italy. The indie-rockers, whose new project is called Kinsella and Pulse, LLC, had just eaten a five-course lunch by the ocean and seemed to be wanting for nothing.
Well, except one thing – of the furry variety.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: Jesus Lizard Vocalist David Yow Ditches US for Portugal
Posted in Essays, Features, News, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags authoritarianism, David Yow, Eugene S. Robinson, the Jesus Lizard, trump, tyranny on 09/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
As our nation rapidly transforms into Authoritarian America, artists – who are typically among the first to be targeted when a dictatorship takes control of a country – are relocating to countries where their right to free speech is still protected.
One of the more prominent indie-rock artists to make the move is Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow, who relocated to Portugal earlier this year, according to multiple sources who recently confirmed the news to The Bad Penny. None of the sources said outright that Trump’s reclaiming of the presidency was their motivating factor for Yow fleeing the U.S., however.
When yours truly interviewed Yow and Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison last year for a feature on FLOOD, the vocalist whose lyrics were historically apolitical admitted that he felt boxed in by the inexorable partisan strife in America and said he was compelled to address current events on the band’s comeback record, Rack.
“A larger percentage of the lyrics than I wished were based on the political climate in the U.S. for the last seven or eight years,” he confided in a video conference call.
Continue reading
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