Big Bliss is the Brooklyn-based brainchild of brothers Cory and Tim Race, and friend/collaborator Wallace May. Formed in late 2015, the trio melds harmonic post-punk grooves with art-rock sensibilities all propped up on the pillars and hooks of pop structure. Their sound is at once melancholic, tense, noisy, and ultimately uplifting, laced with lyricism that ruminates on anxiety, grief, addiction, recovery, devotion, and heartache. Framing these themes is the social ennui unique to generations brought up in our technologically ravaged and increasingly fragile world.

Their 2018 debut LP, At Middle Distance, was released to acclaim from Billboard, The Big Takeover, Aquarium Drunkard and more. (It was one of our favorite albums released that year too – link) Several years of heavy show schedules and relentless touring led to the band being recognized by Oh My Rockness as “NYC’s Hardest Working Band” in 2017, as well as regular appearances at SXSW through 2019.

The band was originally scheduled to begin production on their sophomore album, Vital Return, in April of 2020 with Jonathan Schenke (Parquet Courts, Liars, The Drums), but that plan was soon delayed indeterminably in parallel with the rest of the world. Once it was moderately safe to convene in a room together again, equipped with heavy PPE and wide open windows in the January air, the band re-demoed the entire slew of album-contending songs. By the summer of 2021, Schenke and the band were recording in full swing. That summer, May decamped to California, and the brothers assembled a rotating lineup to return to regular live performances the following November. The album was wrapped in the first weeks of 2022, followed shortly by fellow Brooklyn musicians Rose Blanshei and Dan Peskin joining on bass and guitar, respectively.

Vital Return captures the band channeling their love for R.E.M., New Order, Yo La Tengo, and C86 in addition to the twilight of classic post-punk acts like The Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen. However, the album decidedly looks ahead; its themes document a fight for sobriety, moving through the loss of the brothers’ father, coping with collective and generational trauma, and finally seeking out the emotional/spiritual tools needed for us all to rebuild in our current moment in time.

The album comes out Aug. 13th and is available now at popmarket

Do Nothing, a new band out of Nottingham, UK.

Recommended if you like: The Fall, Arctic Monkeys, Ought

“Pop culture is cyclical, and every now and then a generation of bands coagulates around a particular strain of influences, whether it was Blur and Oasis channeling The Kinks, Wire and The Beatles to create Britpop, or The Strokes and co dusting down Television, Modern Lovers and Velvet Underground” [NME]

Do Nothing is playing SXSW 2020.

They have released 4 tracks and, so far, only a single 7″. Here is their latest, ‘Lebron James’.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S-5yDNPFeA

Alternapop favs The Twilight Sad are releasing their new album, the band’s 5th full-length, It Won’t Be Like This All The Time, on January 19th. It was announced last fall and they’ve been slowly releasing tracks from the upcoming album.

This will be their first album on Mogwai’s Rock Action Records out of Glasgow.

Guitarist Andy MacFarlane stated, via an NME interview, “It all came together really well. To me, it’s like a different band almost. I did a stupid thing of writing loads of music, then giving it to James to write stuff over, then I deleted all the music. So then I wrote another album under it… I think we just needed to shake up the routine. One of our mates bought us those Brian Eno Oblique Strategy cards. I picked one out and it was like ‘delete everything, must try harder, don’t tell James’. The aim was to try and do stuff that we’d enjoy playing live, to make it more interesting for ourselves as well as everyone else.”

Singer James Graham says, “It’s all pretty full on but there’s some lighter shades and some hope on there. The first song that we’re going to come back with epitomizes the record. It’s got really noisy guitars but it’s pretty melodic. I think it’s the next stage of who we’re meant to be.”

The album is a welcome progression. It’s definitely a TSS album but they obviously experiment enough to keep it fresh. It’s a little more keyboard heavy than previous albums while maintaining a rock feel. Andy utilizes an E-Bow (electronic string driver) which moves the sound a bit away from the shoegaze sound of prior albums and the result, along with the overall production, is likely a somewhat more accessible sound.

The album’s strong computer generated, fractured artwork is “to represent fractured memories”, per Graham.

The have consistently been one of our more favorite bands to see live due to their genuine passion and appreciation for both music and their fans.

1. [10 Good Reasons for Modern Drugs]
2. Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting
3. The Arbor
4. VTr
5. Sunday Day13
6. I/m Not Here [missing face]
7. Auge_Maschine
8. Keep It All to Myself
9. Girl Chewing Gum
10. Let/s Get Lost
11. Videograms

The new album is available for pre-order from:

Big Bliss, a post-punk trio from Brooklyn, has released their debut full-length, At Middle Distance.

They released a 5-track EP, Keep Near, in 2016 which was available on cassette only. (Anyone have one available?)

Recommended if you like: Wolf Parade, Pixies, Modest Mouse, Interpol, Echo and the Bunnymen

It’s available on CD, black vinyl, and digitally on Bandcamp.

Brooklyn based post-punk band Big Bliss has released their debut album, At Middle Distance.

At times they remind me of modern bands like Wolf Parade, but also classics like The Sound, The Church, Bauhaus, and Joy Division.

Order from Bandcamp

The Chameleons UK, an 80s alternative/post-punk band, who influenced modern bands like Interpol, The Editors, Oasis, and The Verve, are playing at San Francisco’s Elbo Room​ on Sept. 21. (Mark Burgess, the original singer, with a backing band.)

event info: The ChameleonsVox w/ Soft Kill & All Your Sisters​

(similar to The Psychedelic Furs, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Stone Roses, Peter Murphy, The Smiths, Kitchens of Distinction, The Church)

See them in your town: LA, Portland, Seattle, Columbus, etc:
http://chameleonsv.com/tour.html