Chasing Fridays: Dead Calm, Total Wife live, Cusp Q&A more

A lot happened this week! I saw four shows in seven days for the third week in a row. Slide Away announced the absolutely incredible lineup for their 2026 shoegaze festival – and I'll be attending every date (more on that later). I also wrote about Emmure frontman Frankie Palmeri going mask-off Nazi, the ideological void of deathcore, and the reactionary conclusion of all terminal edgelords. It was one of those articles that I didn't expect too many people to read, but it ended up being the most popular thing I've published on Chasing Sundays all year, which is truly heartening. Thanks to everyone who read/reached out to tell me they liked it. I plan to do more 'core-related deep dives in the near future.

Emmure, deathcore extremism, and hitting the edgelord dead-end

Why Emmure -- nihilistic, violent, extreme -- are the 21st century’s most prescient band.

Chasing SundaysEli Enis

Meanwhile, I wrote exclusively about indie-rock for this week's Chasing Fridays roundup. I plugged some new releases by Mila Culpa, This House Is Creaking, Dead Calm, and bugcatcher; I wrote a stream-of-conscious report about Total Wife's mind-blowing show in Pittsburgh last week; and I interviewed Cusp singer Jen Bender about a bunch of things, including her band's great new record.

Mila Culpa - Face Off

Mila Culpa is a songwriter from Philly who I saw open for Total Wife last week (more on that below). This was her first ever tour (under this moniker at least) and her live show was understandably a little sloppy, but the songs are there. Face Off, her debut album self-released late last month, is a grab-bag of gloomy indie-rock that runs the gamut from Ovlovian shoegaze to Elliot Smith-indebted acoustica. A song like "Die" has some emo yawpiness peeking through its gales of abrasive fuzz (think Oso Oso via LVL Up), while "Cruelty" dribbles some Trick-era Alex G screeches atop its breezy hook. While I can usually take or leave movie samples weaved into songs, the way Mila Culpa stitches non-musical ephemera into Face Off gives the whole project a collagist eccentricity that I find very endearing.

This House Is Creaking - "2 LAMP (lava lamp)"

There's no shortage of dark, discordant indie-rock being made right now. What compels me about This House Is Creaking is that the Chicago duo's music is unabashedly bright and convoluted. Take the title-track from their July album I Want to Feel at Home Here: a barrage of noodly emo leads, baking soda 'n' vinegar fuzz riffs, whimsical drum machine beats, and lint-clogged dubstep drops. If a chemical product warning says "do not mix with x," then This House Is Creaking are going to don their safety goggles and whip up an inadvisable solution with defiant glee.

Even when the results sound more like impractical lab experiments than durable songs (most of I Want to Feel at Home Here, sadly), I find the band's kookiness compulsively likeable. When This House Is Creaking turn down the zaniness a few notches ("Talk to Me," "BubbleGuts") my passive like turns to active love. Their new single "2 Lamp (lava lamp)" reminds me of what I adore about that new Aunt Katrina album: snappy, fizzy, casually addicting indie-rock that sounds homemade but not lo-fi, playful yet rigorous. I'm gazing into the crystal ball in the Chasing Sundays logo and I'm seeing...This House Is Creaking blowing up.

bugcatcher - "Hurry"

If you're still rocking with that Kitchen album from earlier this year – and you should be – then you need to hear the new single from fellow Rochester indie-rockers bugcatcher. Their 2023 album, Go!, was mixed by Kitchen's James Keegan, and their music – woodsy in an autumnal, crunchy way, not in a sticky, summery way – wanders through the same slowcore-folk bramble. I saw bugcatcher play an absolutely mesmerizing set of unreleased material in Pittsburgh earlier this year, and I'm pretty sure "Hurry" was in the setlist. It really reminds me of one of my favorite 2010s indie-rockers, Spencer Radcliffe, but also feels in-line with a more contemporary Ohioan indie-folker like villagerrr. "Hurry" is a great tune, but the other songs I saw bugcatcher play earlier this year were even better. bugcatcher have me in their net.

Dead Calm - Keep Moving

Dead Calm is one of many names that Irish musician Liam McCay records under, the most notable being the slowcore streaming sensation Sign Crushes Motorist. McCay also makes even smudgier slowcore as hold, ambient as manta, post-rock as Take Care, and goofy internet rap as Carson Clay. The 20-year-old posts like a meme-damaged SoundCloud rapper on Instagram, recently did a song with the cloud-trapper sniper2004, and was just interviewed on the rap-centric Masked Gorilla podcast. All of this is happening while Sign Crushes Motorist – a virtual Duster tribute band – hovers at two million monthly Spotify listeners, which is roughly quadruple MJ Lenderman's streams at the time of this writing. It's very trippy to be a millennial living in a Gen-Z music world, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Last week, the prolific McCay dropped Keep Moving, a stripped-down emo album that follows Dead Calm's 2023 debut, Accept. Like most of his other projects, nothing about Keep Moving aims to revamp its rather glaring influences (Carissa's Wierd, mostly), but it's all so neatly arranged and youthfully earnest that I find the pastiche charming. The weepy violin strokes, supple acoustic strums, and warbly yelps of "Grow" sounds like TWIABP circa Whenever, If Ever. The jaunty "Mountain" is a bit more Modern Baseball, and also sort of like Onsind without the punk moxie. My favorites are "Turn Around," a duet with Detroit slowcore artist roseville sucks, and "Chance," which features the vocalist of Southern Cali screamo band widowdusk. Keep Moving is far from a masterpiece, but it's a serious refinement of McCay's craft.

Total Wife live @ The Government Center

I saw Total Wife live last week and wasn't planning to write about it, but I can't stop thinking about it so now I'm writing about it. The Nashville shoegaze band just released one of the best albums of the year, come back down, which is also one of the decade's best shoegaze albums (I interviewed them about it here). Only about 20 people turned out to their show in Pittsburgh, which is a shame, but that's OK because Total Wife weren't really there to perform for other people. They were on that stage to work something out internally and among themselves that all 20 of us in the crowd were just lucky enough to witness.

For the first half of their set, Total Wife played a bunch of songs, as bands are wont to do. Guitarist-songwriter-sometimes singer Luna Kupper wore her long neon pink hair in pigtails that matched all of the neon pink pedals on her board. Whenever she put her boot on one of them to click it on or off, it was like watching her step on a children's toy with a merciless crunch. I didn't see her smile once, and her tall, slender frame was almost always turned away from the audience while she stared down their drummer.

Nearly half of Total Wife's songs were played off the sampler, and during those songs the other guitarist and bassist onstage just stood there sedentarily while Kupper puttered around swiftly, her eyes darting intently from knob to switch to string to ear, where she whispered commands to her bandmates that usually made them laugh or nod in approval. Kupper never laughed. Her lips were always pursed in a feint scowl. A perfectionist never approves.

Singer-sampler Ash Richter, the other half of Total Wife's brain trust, had the complete opposite demeanor. She made prolonged eye contact with the crowd. She smiled frequently, gazing up at Kupper and her other bandmates and grinning warmly and knowingly, visibly cherishing each moment. Shoegaze singers don't usually feel themselves, but Richter was feeling herself. During the clattering jungle breaks and hard techno pulsations, she planted her feet and bent her knees and raised her elbows above her chest while she bounced tautly along to the beat. She looked so blissful then. So different from how she looked when the music finally ended.

The second half of Total Wife's set began with their closing song, "make it last," which is the final and best song on come back down. Total Wife played three quarters of the song the way they played all the other songs that night – loudly, accurately, with the exact amount of gusto you'd expect from a shoegaze band playing to 20 people at a record store on a Wednesday night. Then, they stopped playing the song and started doing something else. I'm still not quite sure what it is I saw. Or felt. Or heard. But I think, maybe, that everyone else in that room saw and felt and heard it, too. Though I'm still not quite sure. It might've just been me.

My Bloody Valentine famously torture (or bless, depending on the night) their audiences with an extended noise jam in the middle of "You Made Me Realise." Back in the late 80s, MBV began referring to that moment in their show – which has notoriously dragged on for as long as 45 minutes – as the "holocaust part." Because it's so viciously cacophonous that it practically sounds like a war crime. Total Wife added their own "holocaust part" to "make it last." Except this was different than the mutual sadism of My Bloody Valentine. Total Wife's "holocaust part" felt like some kind of sado-masochistic ritual, and everyone but Kupper appeared to be the victims.

Chasing Fridays: The Hives, forever ☆, Total Wife Q&A, more

Four album reviews -- shoegaze, garage-rock, “cloud-rock,” etc. -- and an interview with a genre-quaking band.

Chasing SundaysEli Enis

All three string players onstage struck the same mangled chords again and again. The drummer, huffing and puffing like a marathon runner, banged the same pattern again and again, the sweat spreading across their white shirt and the moisture dripping from their brow. Richter yowled the same lines again and again. I don't remember exactly what she was singing. Something like, "I'm with you" or "I see you." She said it so many times and I couldn't recall it even 24 hours later because I think I was in some kind of hypnotic trance while it was happening.

But she yelled those words again and again while she bent over the sampler and went from eyeball to eyeball in the crowd, burning a hole into each one. She yelled those words again and again while slumping over the monitors. While sprawling out on the floor. While lumbering back to the drum kit. While hobbling back to the front of the stage and crouching into a child's pose and then slowly craning her head upward until she was looking at us once again. Her face was beet red and sweaty, her eyes exhausted, as vacant and useless as a slasher movie victim who's made every escape she can muster and has now given up.

Her hunter showed no compassion. Kupper kept striking those chords. She was turned toward her drummer the whole time. I say her drummer because they were no longer Total Wife's drummer. They were Kupper's plaything. Kupper struck those chords for 20 minutes and her drummer banged away for 20 minutes. For 20 minutes, Kupper ruled like a monarch. Sometimes, she'd turn to look at the guitarists flanking her on the stage, as if to test their loyalty. They'd look back at her while dutifully striking their chords. Their eyes didn't wince. The corners of their mouths didn't flinch. There was no use. They had no say in the matter.

Eventually, I saw the drummer crack open. They had fumbled a stick and their breathing was rapid and it hurt the tendons in my forearms just to watch them play. Like me, they were lanky and slight. I could imagine the pain. I watched them beg for mercy. They snickered and mouthed to Kupper, "I'm done." At first, she didn't seem to react. We hadn't seen her face for the length of a Seinfeld episode. For this whole...whatever this was, she was pushing her pedals on and off with the back of her heel.

Eventually, she decided it was time. She turned around and still wasn't smiling. She didn't look satisfied but she didn't look disappointed either. I don't think she decided it was time to end the song out of mercy. I think she just felt that, personally, it was time. She gradually slid her hand back down the fret board and indicated to her bandmates to do the same. The shrieking pitch finally lowered and eventually came to a halt.

I looked across the room at a 19-year-old named Carl who my friend and I had met outside before the set. He had never heard the word "shoegaze" before and said his favorite band was Pierce the Veil. I don't know why he was at this show, but this was his introduction to shoegaze. It was 30 seconds after Total Wife said "thank you" and the cluster of people around me was beginning to break apart, but Carl was just standing there stock still, the stoned daze on his face hardened like dry cement. I don't think Carl was in there anymore. I think Carl had gone somewhere else. I think I joined Carl. And I don't think I'm ever going back.

Chasing Down

JEN BENDER
of
Cusp, Rut

Chasing Down is a Q&A series with artists, friends, and others of good taste.

Cusp are a Chicago indie-rock band who, like bugcatcher, are initially from my hometown of Rochester, NY. I thought their 2021 debut EP, Spill, was a promising grip of fuzzy, knotty indie, and it's been exciting to see Cusp evolve into a more singular and eclectic band on subsequent releases (2023's You Can Do It All LP is great, and last year's Thanks So Much EP rules, too). Their new album, What I Want Doesn't Want Me Back, is out October 17th via Exploding In Sound Records, which is the perfect catalog for Cusp's snappy, guitar-savvy music to reside within. Lead single "Follow Along" is a fucking barn-burner, second preview "Oh Man" is enticingly wiry, and the full record does not disappoint.

For this week's Chasing Down Q&A, I asked Cusp singer-guitarist Jen Bender about her favorite Exploding In Sound releases, coming up in the Rochester indie scene, Cusp's eclectic musical inspirations, their forthcoming record, and more. Read the full interview below.

You guys are on Exploding In Sound now, which is such a good fit for Cusp in my opinion. What're your top three releases in the EIS discography and why? 

I agree! It's a partnership a long time in the making. EIS is my favorite label. I've remarked to friends in the past that their roster has felt almost curated for my personal taste (and I know I'm not alone in that). Dan and Ben love music and bands, and bands love them back.

Number one is Ovlov's Am of course. I heard it for the first time as a Freshman in college. I remember exactly what table I was sitting at in the library. One of the tracks must have come up on shuffle in a suggested playlist. I remember it just blowing me away – I must have played it front to back three times that one day. It checked so many boxes for me (and still does): that wall of sound, the riffs and melodies, and the sense that it lives in this cohesive sonic universe while still managing to stay unique from song to song. I also think Ovlov is a band that keeps getting better and I would put True and Buds in the other two slots, but for the sake of variety I'll drop a few other favorites.

Though Pile's Hairshirt of Purpose my introduction to the band and has a special place in my heart, Dripping has to take the second slot. Pile and Ovlov are both bands who make me feel excited about rock music, but in different ways. Two sonically different worlds that manage to energize me and keep me imagining what rock music can be.

Slot three goes to Philary's I Complain. That's the best bass tone on the market. I think we (Gaelen [Bates, Cusp guitarist] and I) reference that album tonally fairly often when we talk about our inspiration. If someone's like, what do you want the bass to sound like on this loud Cusp song, we're like "Philary please!"

I could go on! It's exciting to be a peer of so many artists I admire.

"Follow Along" is one of the best rock songs I've heard all year. From my perspective, you're kind of exploring both ends of being a "follower" in the lyrics, where you're admitting that you're prone to being socially pressured in some situations, but also speaking to the wholesome act of "following" your friends and how that maybe strengthens your relationship with them. The give and take of that. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you were trying to say, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the lyrical crux of that song and what you wanted to get at with it. 

Thanks for saying that! As for the lyrics, I think you nailed it. This follower/leader dichotomy is something I think about a lot as a musician but also just as a person in the world. Where do I draw the line between being inspired by someone and straight up copying them? I want to be a leader! But I guess I'm not sure what that really means.

I feel like I'm reading a lot of conversation online about "copycats" in music – and yet none of us lives or creates in a vacuum. I think originality is (rightfully) coveted, especially now in the age of AI. But ultimately our tastes and art are constantly being shaped by other people's tastes and art, whether we admit it or not.

Even outside of music, I watch my own personal style and interests evolve alongside my friends and loved ones and I start to wonder how original I or anyone else can really be. The awesome thing is that I'm not sure any of this actually matters and I should get off my phone.