Nightswimming #19: 10/17/24-10/24/24
St. Louis emo/punk darlings! Red Dirt from Oklahoma! And MORE!
Highly Recommend! (best of the week)
Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor - Lobby Boxer (Lobby Boxer)
One could pontificate for weeks about the genres and sub-genres (and sub-sub-genres) that make up modern rock music. I’m not speaking, of course, about arena “rock n’ roll” bands, which barely exist anymore (thanks Imagine Dragons!). I’m talking about the sometimes-heavy-sometimes-melodic crusty gutter punk rock bands that grace the grime of DIY clubs across America. Call it emo, call it punk, call it hardcore (if the singer is pissed). Eggpunk, Midwest Emo, Crust punk, post-hardcore, pop-punk...
None of it matters with a band like Lobby Boxer.
For over a decade, Lobby Boxer has been the greater St. Louis area’s DIY punk darlings. From the very first track (A Perfect Future) on their very first EP, Lobby Boxer has played a sound unlike any other. Sure, it absolutely is a blend of punk, emo, hardcore, and everything in that world. But their focus on strong melodies, upbeat choruses, devastating lyrics, and airtight production puts Lobby Boxer in a league of their own. The guitars are a leafblower, pointed right at your mug, blowing your hair back. The drums are a cinder block on the gas pedal. The vocals are an absolute triumph—80 feet tall and towering, but remarkably tender and full of heart. Sometimes a synth or a MIDI sample takes us to space, or under the ocean. The riffs are insane, sometimes Smashing Pumpkins and sometimes Doobie Brothers. It is an immense album.
Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor feels like both a culmination of effort over a decade, and a real evolution in the band’s sound. The melodies are as catchy as anything Lobby Boxer has ever written. The lyrics are their most mature yet, but are also a return to form from a thematic standpoint.
It’s also St. Louis as hell! Lobby Boxer used local engineers, producers, and artists all over the album, from the cover to the tunes. And if this is the best we’ve got as a City, I’m damn proud!
At 10 tracks and 40 minutes, Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor is slick and efficient, with not a moment wasted. It’s an extremely fun listen, full of surprises, and a benchmark for what rock bands should be doing right now.
Highlights: Where I’m Going, Lifeline, Careful Smokin’
Welcome to the Plains - Wyatt Flores (OEG Records)
Classic Red Dirt Country sounds and lyrics from Oklahoma, with all the pedal steel flair of the modern alt-country movement.
Country singers, like Soundcloud rappers, are a dime a dozen these days. Ranging from the most gorgeous Country voices you’ve ever heard to the most Plain Wayne created-in-a-lab boring bullshit—it seems the ones who deserve it in Country never get the recognition. And the ones with nothing to say fill arenas (looking at you Zach Bryan, you square-jawed fuck).
Wyatt Flores is about the 4,000th Country singer to strike gold on TikTok, but unlike the others he’s got lasting talent in his voice and his songwriting. Welcome to the Plains includes rip-roarin’ beer-soaked saloon tunes, gorgeous and sweet starlit cricket-chirping pastoral ballads, and every type of bouncy Grand Ole Opry foot-tapper in between. Flores’s strong voice is the highlight of most tracks (and that’s saying something, because the instrumentals are strong). He delivers the lyrics with both an intensity and a tenderness, and his voice is elevated by the music around him.
Welcome to the Plains feels like something an industry veteran would put out as their 4th or 5th album. That it is Wyatt Flores’s debut is a real testament to the maturity in his songwriting, and the focused passion of the performances. “I just wanna lay here in this bed and dream of someone that ain’t you” from “The Truth” feels like a Merle Haggard lyric from the 80’s!
It’s not an album that necessarily blazes new trails in Country music, but it’s an extremely cohesive effort, a fun listen that begs several revisits, and a proof of concept for what promises to become a successful new career.
Highlights: Welcome to the Plains, The Truth, Oh Susannah
Worth a Listen! (good to very good)
SABLE, - Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)
Shame that it’s only an EP, but thrilled to the gills to have vintage Bon Iver back! S P E Y S I D E and Awards Season are as For Emma, Forever Ago as Vernon has been in years. Can only hope this means more classic Bon Iver is on the way, but in the meantime these 3 tracks are great to stick in your ears as the leaves crunch under your feet.
Hot Singles in Your Area!
Here are some great singles that dropped in the last week:
X-Ray Eyes - LCD Soundsystem (how thrilling it is to be a 30 year old white man writing about a brand new LCD Soundsystem single! Along with an announcement of a new album in 2025! I suck and I’m so happy about it! The single starts at around 19:40 in the link.)
Hocus Pocus - Mallrat (dancey clubby hip-shaker with 4 dozen hooks.)
Damage Control / Chase Your Demons Out - Good Looks (2 new singles from Austin, TX indie rockers who put out one of the best rock albums of the year earlier! Prolific Good Looks!)
Music Moment of the Week
Ezra Koenig got Conan O’Brien hooked on White Claws
