Turn It Up
A musical preview of artists who rawk at In Between Days 2023.
More than a chapter or verse from the Emo Bible, Sunny Day Real Estate gives you a whole book. Who many bands look back in anger and admiration at this screamo contingent from the Pacific northwest? Legends in their own slime, you will still go to clubs hearing bands *trying* to capture the Sunny Day sound in 2023, and feeling decent about coming up short.
Weakened Friends
Chief songwriter Sonia Sturino leans into the uncertainty with fragile and fractured lyrics girded by power pop formations that blur the line between inner strength and pure posturing. Weakened Friends might not have all the answers, but they’re damn sure they don’t have all the answers. Our highlighted track, the eponymous “Quitter,” trumpets the youthful sense of alienation and turns it into a singalong postpunk anthem. Sing along and make a new friend in Weakened Friends.
Paper Tigers
On our highlighted track Paper Tigers conjure up a melange of post punk, emo, artrock skullduggery. There’s a refreshing minimalism to the approach, a refusal to drown the rhythm section in walls of six-string haze. Instead we get a bright beat suffused with a few electric guitar notes, judiciously deployed… Until you get to the climax, then all bets are off as a wild windstorm of distortion gives the lead vocals suitably high seas of heaving tumult to shout over.
Dutch Tulips
An uptempo indie rawk burner from Dutch Tulips. Shades of The Hives with a kind of caffeinated chord progression attack. Watch for the chorus to land like a thrumming volcano of sound around the :45 second mark, and just keep building. This is guitar music for people that are good and goddamn certain that guitar music is a living art form. But hey, the next album from this band might be all jaw harp. What do we know anyway? Off the full-length Double Visions.
Illiterate Light
Here’s a slogan that Boston can really get behind. It's not clear that it has anything to do with basketball. Illiterate Light also “fucks” New York, Nashville, and Baltimore (not Charm City!)... I don’t think the sentiments impact their touring schedule too much. But it should be a relief to roll into Quincy for In Between Days knowing that you haven’t told the locals to go fuck themselves. But you might as well say it before they say it to you – Quincy can be a little rough!
A profound analysis of the top vinyl at In Between Days 2023.