“This myth of the ‘suffering artists,’ the myth of Van Gogh and ideas like this—perpetuated by Hollywood—have become abstracted. It guilt-trips us all into thinking that if our art is our job, it lacks purity, and purity is the highest art form. But really, all we’re doing is trying to manifest joy, or insight, or translate the human experience.” Read more of my interview with Mark Mallman on New Noise.
Mark Mallman Says ‘Suffering Artists’ Are a Myth, Making Art Isn’t a ‘Job’
Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny with tags Mark Mallman on 07/09/2025 by Kurt OrzeckCrystal Viper Conjure ‘Pure Magic’ with Live LP
Posted in Interviews with tags Crystal Viper on 07/09/2025 by Kurt OrzeckThe nine tracks featured on The Live Quest provides arbiters who dare distinguish “good metal” from “bad metal” with an ample amount of evidence that Crystal Viper firmly belong in the former bracket. Read my New Noise interview with the band’s leader.
Scratch Acid’s ‘Box Set/Scratch Acid/Berserker’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Brett Radford, David Wm. Sims, David Yow, Scratch Acid on 07/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Touch and Go Records went to the trouble of assembling a Scratch Acid vinyl box set to the tune of $160—as well as individual reissues of their EPs for those in search of a more affordable option. Read my thoughts on Box Set/Scratch Acid/Berserker via Treble.
Ida’s ‘Will You Find Me’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Ida on 07/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Available as a 4xLP and 5xCD box, Ida’s limited-edition Will You Find Me sets have so many cover songs, demos, outtakes and alternative mixes that it’s practically too heavy to carry up a flight of stairs. Read my review of the mammoth reissues for Treble.
The Faint’s ‘Blank Wave Arcade/Wet From Birth (Deluxe Editions)’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Saddle Creek, The Faint on 07/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Now in their 30th year, the Faint is an anomalous Saddle Creek band that never broke up. The gang is now finally putting its two best albums on wax for the first time ever. Read my review of the Blank Wave Arcade/Wet From Birth (Deluxe Editions) for Treble.
Ex-Gram Rabbit Leader Jesika von Rabbit on the Heartache of Losing Her Pet
Posted in Interviews with tags Gram Rabbit, Jesika von Rabbit on 07/07/2025 by Kurt OrzeckJesika von Rabbit recently reached out to New Noise say she enjoys our Pet Sounds series and wanted to pay homage to her recently deceased pet, Buzz (who, for the record, was a cat and not a rabbit).
Sheer Mag Guitarist Sheds Light on Side Project SJB Like Never Before
Posted in Interviews with tags Sheer Mag, SJB on 07/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
It could be argued—hell, let’s have it out right now; why wait for a rainy day?—that there’s actually no better time for a musician to launch a side venture when their primary project is experiencing peak success. Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme pulled it off with Them Crooked Vultures and Eagles of Death Metal. Jack White kept his seat with the White Stripes warm while engaging in extracurricular activities with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. And Chino Moreno put them all to shame by dividing his time between Deftones, Team Sleep, Crosses, Palm s and Saudade. And you have the nerve to call yourself busy?
The latest band to experience the music equivalent of polyamory is Sheer Mag. The Philadelphia punk-rock posse quickly started gaining traction less than a year after congealing in a dilapidated house in which they creatively made room for a studio too. Slipknot started out in a similarly shared dwelling, and it took them about four years of surviving their hellhole before terrestrial radio came a knockin’. Sheer Mag managed to do it in less than half that time, finding themselves transported to Coachella and a late-night TV talk show only two years after they set sail with their band.
Continue readingShearling Frontman: ‘We Didn’t Have Anything Left to Lose’
Posted in Interviews with tags Shearling, Sprain on 07/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
The two principal members of Shearling, a new band formed after the demise of Sprain, recently shed a lot of light on their ambitious, hour-long, single-track debut album, Motherfucker, I am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… Read my recent FLOOD interview, the first one the band gave in support of their debut album, for more.
Wet Leg’s ‘Moisturizer’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Wet Leg on 07/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
From start to finish, Wet Leg’s Moisturizer hits all the right notes, creating the classic conundrum of whether to fade out a song or turn off the music altogether if you’ve got somewhere to be. Read my Music Connection review.
Pretty Rude Wake Up and Smell Their Dreams Coming True
Posted in Interviews with tags Pretty Rude on 07/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
There’s a default word that society uses when it deems someone to be neither pretty nor rude: mediocre. Unlike the gnarly way that the badass villains in Fury Road employ the term as a cutting insult, in real life, the term is—in the common parlance of our times boring. So, while the guys in the band at issue in this feature story might not exactly make hearts go a-twitter when they saunter down sidewalks or even grace stages at music venues, they seemed far more polite than rude when The Bad Penny caught up with them a month ago. “Mediocre” was the one of the last words we’d reach for to describe them.
A far better descriptor for Pretty Rude would be “ballsy.” Brooklynites James Palko and Matt Cook connected less than a year ago to form Pretty Rude, signed with revered, 30-year-old punk label SideOneDummy Records in February. Just a few days later, they introduced themselves and showed their sweet side by presenting their first release—a self-titled EP—on Valentine’s Day. A pretty rude gesture that most certainly was not.
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