Dig ‘in: Algernon Cadwallader, Sloan, Possible Humans
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not to Have a Thought (Saddle Creek LP)
The reunion of emo-revival forebearers Algernon Cadwallader back in 2022 was a massive deal for a certain type of music fan—the type who prays at the altar of Midwest emo. Algernon started back in 2005 when four Pennsylvania high school friends—bassist/vocalist Peter Helmis, guitarists Joe Reinhart and Colin Mahony, and drummer Nick Tazza started playing their own unique version of Chicago’s own creation—Midwest emo. Before the rise of music streaming, finding a genre like Midwest emo took some serious effort! You can hear the influence in their divergent time signatures and vocals, but this was also cross-pollinated with some math rock and post-hardcore for good measure. All this is to say that Algernon was defiantly underground during their initial run ending in 2012.
Like their influences, Cap’n Jazz and American Football, they built momentum over the ensuing decade, influencing countless emo bands that came after them. What’s the saying? The first Velvet Underground album sold 50,000 copies and started 50,000 bands? That’s what happened with Algernon. They came back in 2022 to headline bigger venues than they could have ever dreamed of during their initial run, but no new music seemed imminent. That all changed back in August when they announced a tour along with their first new album in 14 years—Trying Not to Have a Thought. I was hyped, but nervous because, as they had such a storied history and their past work was so perfect, could this new album be as good?
The short answer is yes, yes, it could. We take for granted that the production is immaculate, as it was spearheaded by Joe Reinhart, who, post-breakup, became a sought-after producer. This is a heavy record subject-wise. There’s the opening song “Hawk,” which is a tribute to a childhood friend who is no longer with us. There is the political “Shameless Faces (even the guy who made the thing was a piece of shit)” with its shimmering guitars talking about the fallacy of the hunky dory founding of our country. The real album highlight for me is “Attn MOVE,” which is about the mayor of Philadelphia actually ordering the bombing of a city neighborhood during an altercation with a black liberation organization called MOVE, an obvious precursor of excessive force by people in power that we see today.
I applaud the band for not resting on their laurels with these reunion shows and pushing themselves to create even more indelible art. This album feels very of the past and sadly of the present with the unease we are all feeling right now with everything going on. This is a statement album; one that proves Algernon is worthy of all the praise they have received over the years. -Mark Joyner
Sloan - Based on the Best Seller (Yep Rock LP)
Long-lived bands often struggle to sound fresh. But Sloan’s Based on the Best Seller—their 14th album in 30+ years—confirms their place in the pantheon of Makers of Reliably Great Music. Sloan’s adult intelligence is fueled by teenage energy—always inventive, critical, and pointed, but loose enough to sound current. They look around, not back. It’s obvious they’re enjoying themselves.
I shake my head in wonder at the consistent ability of the four band members to integrate their disparate personalities and talents as they swap composition duties, vocal roles, and instruments. Their formula is to wittily mix up the formula: Start with a base of classic rock riffs, gleefully mingle wedges of glam (yay!), punk, garage rock, and instant-classic pop melodies; fold in thrilling anthems and thoughtful ballads. (Honestly, Sloan could single-handedly fill a Top 40 radio playlist.) The album abounds with complex chords and clever wordplay; there are unexpected pacing shifts and surprising key changes, as well as scatterings of piano and trumpet. Importantly—as always—their inimitable harmonies tie everything together, lending cohesion to their entire diverse canon.
“Dream Destroyer” is a barn burner, galloping along with handclaps and “yeah-yeah-yeahs.” In contrast, the vintage Kinks music-hall vibe of “Open Up Your Umbrellas” gently points out the dangers of global warming. “I Already Know” wryly narrates a know-it-all’s self-absorption: “In social situations I tend to target the taciturn / I make a monologue and I need nothing in return / ‘Cause I already know (I don’t know).” And “No Damn Fears” is a dark, seething call to sanity and political action: “It’s never been so expensive / To find the time to come to your senses…. This is the time to rise.”
Every Sloan album has at least a few fling-up-your-arms-and-shout-along tracks. (Listening every day to “Spin Our Wheels,” from 12, got me through the pandemic.) Notable here are the jaunty “Congratulations,” the soaring “Live Forever,” and the exhilarating “Here We Go Again.”
Sloan brilliantly demonstrates that longevity doesn’t preclude having fun and making captivating music. -Tina Woelke
Possible Humans - Standing Around Alive (Hobbies Galore LP)
Beyond championing the local indie music scene, Bill and Lisa Roe from Trouble In Mind were instrumental in exposing emerging overseas bands to American audiences. One of those instances was their re-release of Possible Humans’ 2019 album Everybody Split after its initial run on Melbourne-based Hobbies Galore sold out. The Roe’s announcement last month that they were ceasing to operate as an active label have left many of us saddened, but highly appreciative of their sixteen year run of stellar curation.
Possible Humans have remerged for their follow-up album with Alex Macfarlane (previous drummer for Twerps and The Stevens, among others) of Hobbies Galore once again recording and releasing the effort. Whereas Everybody Split elicited a nervous energy and charming twitchiness, Standing Around Alive proceeds with an assuredness in its pursuit of pop craftsmanship. The opening “Slouching Hat” spares no sentimentality in its depiction of a once optimistic life that’s gone off the rails. “Ordinary Agony” and “Feel Shit Hit” are concise compositions that showcase the sharp wit of the band’s collective songwriting. The record concludes with “Claws In” and “Akimbo” striking a reflective tone with intertwining instrumentation that captures the inner turmoil of the subject manner.
Standing Around Alive makes the point that were all spectators in life to various degrees and that we can choose to either mindlessly meander or stay true to our convictions—best not to sleepwalk past the invigorating example laid out to us herein. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
Gina Birch & The Unreasonables at Lincoln Hall - Oct 17, 8:00 PM
During the initial punk era nobody broke down the barriers for female artists quite like the Raincoats did, eschewing conventional musicianship and wholly embracing feminist politics. When co-founder Gina Birch returned for a solo outing in 2021, she led with the single “Feminist Song,” a number that first surfaced when the Raincoats performed a reunion show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2010. Its fervent call to activism is echoed anew on “Causing Trouble Again” from her latest LP, Trouble, that came out this summer on Third Man Records. The song name checks a litany of feminist rabble rousers, some of whom preceded Birch and others who followed. The now septuagenarian shows no signs of slowing down, preferring to amp up to volume in these times where women’s voices are trying to be silenced. -Bruce Novak
Tambourina at Cole’s Bar - Oct 18, 9:00 PM
Having previously attended Oakland Weekender and NYC Popfest, I can attest to the charming nature of these festivals that cater to the indie pop community. Chicago transplants Leigh Kelsey and Emily Hilleren are the organizers behind the inaugural Windy Pop Weekender that will feature a dozen midwest acts over two days at Cole’s Bar in Logan Square.
In addition to artists that have garnered the attention of No Wristbands in the past, like Ratboys’ Julia Steiner and Loren Vanderbilt of Humdrum, there are a slew of newcomers worthy of checking out such as Kalamazoo’s Tambourina. Consisting of siblings April Zimont (vocals, vibraphone) and Mark Andrew Morris (vocals, guitar), and their respective spouses, Adam Zimont (drums, vocals) and Holly Klutts-Morris (bass), Tambourina released their only album, Tambourine Dream, in 2021. The record captures the band’s spectral-soaked pop, wistful overtones and spirited playing that lingers like a refreshing spring downpour. Deep cleansing properties for the mind and soul. -Bruce Novak
The Beta Band at Metro - Oct 23, 8:00 PM
This Scottish outfit undoubtedly received a significant sales boost when John Cusack’s character Rob Gordon spun their song “Dry The Rain” at the fictional Championship Vinyl while proclaiming “I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.’s by The Beta Band.” But it also set the stage for outsized expectations and future declining sales that led to the band’s dissolution after being in considerable debt to their record company following the release of their third LP, Heroes To Zeros in 2004. After twenty years the psychic scars have healed enough for the members to make a return to the stage.
I imagine some of those listeners that purchased The Three E.P.’s back in the day based solely on “Dry The Rain,” might have come away a bit perplexed. While the soothing folktronica of that track is readily present on the compilation, there’s also a whimsical experimentation in play that surfaces in a number of more conceptual compositions that incorporate sampling, field recordings, psychedelia and trip hop. The band will be performing the entirety of The Three E.P.’s along with a few other tracks from their three studio albums. The sold out performance is just validation for a group that always marched to their own beat. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
Shocking Pinks - Dance the Dance Electric (Pinacolada Records / A Low Hum / Bone Idle LP)
On vacation in Utrecht (beautiful college town in the Netherlands, if you get the chance), I found myself in a coffee shop that called itself a record store as well. And sure enough, there were a couple of finely-curated crates of new LPs for sale, mostly from Dutch bands and labels. The morass of private press and vanity project releases gave way to a mysterious album cover of a hand-drawn rose and an oddly-penned tracklist. Looking the record up on my phone, it was from the dance-pop/shoegaze project of a Flying Nun-indebted New Zealander, Nick Marte, who later recorded on DFA. The story reeled me in, and the music caught me.
This is a messy, lo-fi record that begins with the snotty, anti-melodic “Lovehate” that loudly and limply bellows “Gimme some violence!” in the same voice I used to protest the Iraq War in 2003. The anger is there, in proportion to the helplessness and hopelessness. At least we can dance, which is what “Peace Out”, the second track, provides the soundtrack to. It’s a lengthy but tidy jam. If you want an aching pop song, “It’s Hard to Breathe” is here with heart on sleeve and plenty of gorgeous guitar inversions. “Affection” is the album’s centerpiece, a tribute to a failed relationship; and a building, !!!-esque dance-punk anthem that’s one nasally accent away from being an emo mega-anthem. It explodes into a noisy, cacophonous mess that this elder Millennial was 100% relating to in 2004. And this is the core of this album to this particular listener.
Linking an album of the past that one has just discovered to the time it was released can be a powerful, Mandela-effecting drug. Hearing the aching, lamenting tones of “Ice” is that, as well. The final tracks squeak and squonk to a noisy finale. This is a painfully self-conscious, self-deprecating, sarcastic record that still puts its begrudging romanticism and desire to boogie upfront. The RIYLs here are myriad, from Gang of Four and Liquid Liquid to LCD Soundsystem and Guided by Voices. I would not recommend being alive and conscious of the outside world in 2004, but having an album like this as a security blanket certainly ameliorates things. -Austin Harvey
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: