First of all, props to whoever engineered this live session because all of the details are positively popping through. That level of clarity in a live room recording is harder to pull off than it sounds, and it pays off across the whole EP. “Fine Time” is a genuinely great anti-war song – the harmony and rhythm section do what’s needed, but the lyrics are the real story. They could easily be commenting on current events in 2026, when the song was actually written back in 2014. The live version sounds more mature for it, like a song that got to marinate with the band long enough that the performance has become more nuanced and settled.

“Desire” pops more in a live setting because, by design, it leans heavily on the lyrics, so when the instruments are naturally more present in a room recording, everything feels more balanced. Thematically, it sits with adult responsibilities pushing against what we actually want, and how difficult it is to break the pattern of routine long enough to explore our own instincts – getting out of the box is hard when the box is what keeps the lights on.

Musically, “Day After Day” is the most interesting track on the EP, with a lot more rhythmic variation than the other songs in the session. The bass riffs have a Primus-inspired quality, and the evolving synth sounds push it toward 70s prog rock territory – a combination that shouldn’t work as cleanly as it does. The band executes it live in a way that doesn’t just honor the original composition but takes it somewhere further.

A live EP from a band this deep into their catalog could easily feel like a stopgap, but Live From The Attic earns its place in the discography. The Wheel Workers have shared stages with The Flaming Lips and Phantogram, toured nationally, and spent time on the NACC charts with Harbor – they know how to perform. With the full-length still months away, this is a worthwhile entry point for anyone who hasn’t caught up with them yet.

Musically, the band delivers this stoner-rock style of grime and grit to create a true psychedelic atmosphere. Door d’Or achieves this with their choice of tones and texture: a fuzzy, hairy guitar tone and a wide bass sound, and sizzling hot drums that fill up every crevice of the vast stereo image of this huge-sounding song. The visuals on the music video deserve a special shoutout as well – they perfectly accompany the song’s themes and are in perfect sync with the music.

Geddes’ quote on the track is worth sitting with: “Fibre optics connect us at the speed of light, both unifying and redefining the economics of my generation.” A song written in 2001 about the internet age landing in 2026, mid-AI revolution is the kind of timing that makes a debut album feel like it was worth the wait. “The Exquisite Dream” is shaping up to be something to pay attention to.

The first thing that hits you in this song is the powerful, distorted bass sound right off the bat; it instantly sets a great, grimy mood. It’s so heavy in how it locks in with the drums and how it’s played and executed; it just sounds so big, which works in the song’s favor because the bass here is carrying all the harmonic information to support the vocals ,which I did not know on my first listen actually I thought there was a guitar on top of the bass parts, but nope there are no keyboards, no guitar, no additional layers. It’s just drums and bass with the vocals on top, and somehow it manages to sound like a huge wall of sound.

Anthony’s quote about the track is pretty straightforward: “This one gets us going.” Hard to argue with that. “Against All Odds” is a blunt, kinetic rock song that does exactly what it promises.

Immediately you feel a quiet friction running through the song. The guitars don’t simply roar, they breathe, swell, hesitate, then surge again. The movement mirrors lived cycles rather than dramatized breakdowns, allowing the soundscape to reflect tension without forcing release.

Gehl’s musical path makes this intimacy feel earned. Beginning with classical and flamenco guitar before stepping into metal bands in his youth, and later returning to songwriting after a career-altering injury, his relationship with the instrument feels less like performance and more like reclamation. That persistence is audible here: every progression feels intentional, almost protective.

Influences from the heavy rock canon echo faintly in the background, but Devils and Demons resists imitation. Instead, it constructs its weight through honesty. Written, recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely by Gehl, the track operates as a self-contained emotional architecture, one where control and vulnerability coexist.

What ultimately lingers is the balance. The song doesn’t dramatize struggle, nor does it dilute it. It translates it. In Gehl’s world, the loudest sounds aren’t always external. Sometimes, they’re the roars that never touch the amp!

Musically, the band and their vocalist sound like a more modern and in-your-face version of Joan Jett and Heart. It sounds like a re-imagining of that classic rock sound with polished performances across the board. The song’s power is carried by the rhythm section locking it down. It’s the reason why this song works; the drums keep the dynamics high and vary it up to make this song stand out and not just be another rock song, and the bassline, while simple, does its job at supporting the vocal melody.

Annie Davis leads the group with a rebellious spirit that comes through clearly on “The Games We Play”. For someone who picked up guitar in her mid-40s, she’s built a sound that holds its own against bands who’ve been at it for decades. Trashy Annie‘s carved out a reputation for electrifying performances, and this track shows why people keep showing up.

The guitar tone has that very distinctive quality that heft that could only be achieved through playing loudly. That is the first thing that stood out to me. I thought I had put on a Black Sabbath song by accident. That is the highest praise one could give.  The bass guitar works with it beautifully. That thunderous power helps support the song’s message immensely. It’s a defiant anthem against socially embedded ideas of aging. You are not too old, you are not dead, you can still chase your dreams. It’s a powerful message and a much needed one in the digital age, where people in their 20s feel like their life has already ended.

KuF‘s making the case that age doesn’t define you, your spirit does. “I’m Not Dead” backs that up with the kind of guitar work and production that demands to be played loud. For a band pushing against the narrative that rock is for the young, they’re proving the opposite with every riff.

The vocals creep in low and rough, almost as if spoken through a cloud of breath. They carry that wild-calm edge that turns a simple melody into something instinctive. Beneath them, the trio’s trademark blend of grunge, stoner weight, and alternative grit locks into place with a rhythm that feels like it’s pacing around the room, waiting to break into a sprint.

Every riff pushes a little harder, leaning into a groove that’s both heavy and strangely uplifting. And when the chorus erupts, it hits with a controlled chaos; an explosion shaped by intention rather than noise for its own sake. It’s the kind of release that cracks the song open but never lets it spill over.

As the track grows, the vocals begin to sink into the instruments, as though the music is pulling everything inward, consuming it, fusing it into one organism. That density gives the song its weight. It feels engulfing, but not overwhelming; loud, but with purpose; alive in the way only a DIY, garage-built studio can capture.

Knowing the story behind the song: a winter night, a blizzard swallowing footprints, a drunken search for birch bark, and a loyal dog finding his way through the whiteout adds a layer of warmth beneath the grit. Weak Trees’ Animal mirrors that experience: disoriented, instinctive, a little chaotic, but ultimately full of fire and connection..

Rooted in a fusion of psychedelic stoner and blues rock, River carries a kind of molten rhythm that shifts as it unfolds. Guitars stretch and coil with hazy intensity, while the bass anchors the current with warmth and gravity. The drumming flows like heartbeat and thunder all at once, giving the song a pulse that feels alive, unpredictable, and hypnotic. Nothing about it feels staged; the music breathes in its own time, as though following the rhythm of something elemental.

Yet beneath its liquid calm, fire flickers; a quiet force that burns through the haze, hinting at collapse and renewal in equal measure. The song captures that strange balance between letting go and still believing in what’s ahead. It never settles into one mood; it evolves, melts, rebuilds, and rises again.

By its end, River doesn’t offer resolution so much as revelation. It turns the act of drifting into something sacred, a meditation on instability and rebirth. The Blue Marmalades don’t simply play their instruments, they channel them, turning sound into motion, unrest into form, and uncertainty into a kind of peace only found in the flow..

The Whitley Bay six-piece aren’t just covering Girls Aloud’s 2000s hit,  they’re detonating it. The song’s once-pristine pulse is now recast in growling guitars, molten bass, and a haze of synth static that feels both cinematic and claustrophobic. It’s less a rework than a ritual of transformation: they’ve fed the track through a storm of fuzz and fire, letting it emerge scarred, loud, and alive.

There’s a strange beauty in how they handle familiarity: not as nostalgia, but as raw material. Frontmen David Stoker and Connor Pattison lead the charge with vocals that teeter between defiance and delirium, threading the chaos with just enough control to keep it from collapsing entirely. It’s this tension, between frenzy and precision, darkness and glimmer, that makes the track pulse like something dangerous and new.

By dismantling a pop classic and soldering it back together with riffs and rebellion, Decrepit Youths prove they’re not chasing anyone’s approval. They’re too busy bending sound to their will, turning the underground into a place that finally sounds like home..

 

The song immediately starts with almost shoegaze-like layers droning on in the background as the vocals tell a story full of biblical references. The music evolves, and we go through many key changes, and it absolutely delivers that epic feel harmonically. And then at the two-minute mark, we hit a completely unexpected shift towards a heavy riff that feels like the whole world is crashing down like Mount Sinai itself started to walk and stomp around. It’s a super memorable moment and one that has stimulated my imagination with lots of interesting imagery, as any great psychedelic rock song should do.

Tritonic keep changing the dynamics with more of those layers created on homemade fretless guitars that they themselves converted, and a chorus of vocals carry us all the way to a quiet resolution with percussion and a piano. A serene ending to such an intense journey. Even though the runtime of the song is 5 minutes, which is above average for new releases in 2025, it didn’t feel long at all. I wanted more. The pacing and evolution of the track over the 5-minute runtime here is really great.

As a single, “Oh Sinai!” does a really great job of generating intrigue because I am now really interested in seeing what Tritonic has to offer in the full album coming later this year. “Bend the Arc!” will be available only on wax-dipped cassette and not on any streaming service.