Chasing Fridays: Loathe, Sin Against Sin, Magdalena Bay live, more
Eight reviews that run the gamut from severely underwhelmed to sufficiently whelmed.
After a flurry of shoegaze coverage – a Slide Away 2025 recap and an interview with Nothing frontman Domenic Palermo – I'm returning to business as usual over at Chasing Sundays HQ. Which of course means writing about a grab-bag of unrelated genres – hardcore, garage-rock, alt-pop, dream-pop, metal-gaze, bedroom-pop, a different type of hardcore, and fuckit, a little bit of shoegaze – for this week's edition of Chasing Fridays. It's a pretty even split between music I'm underwhelmed by and music that enthuses me, including a nuanced gig review and a reflection on a little-known EP that meant a lot to me in college.
Eli Enis
As always, that final portion of Chasing Fridays, in which I go in on an older record I've been spending time with, is for paying subscribers only. You can toss me $5/month to read that and any other paywalled content on my site – including the juiciest sections of my interviews with Nothing, Whirr, Spiritbox, and every Q&A I publish here going forward. Thanks to everyone who supports me monetarily, as I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time as I do to this site without your generosity.
Loathe - "Gifted Every Strength"
I genuinely can't believe how long it took, but a new Loathe song is finally here. The U.K. band are a big deal to a certain type of Heavy Rock Music Fan in the 2020s, and I'm curious to see if they actually blow up the way people have been predicting, or if their ceiling has already been hit. They're one of those weird bands who're straddling Deftonesy nu-gaze and djenty metalcore. Their 2020 song "Is It Really You?" – basically a Team Sleep song – had a moment on shoegaze TikTok in 2023, which plunked them into playlists with Wisp and Whirr, earning them quite a bit of cache in the Fleshwater & Friends nu-gaze milieu. On the other hand, they've been covered by Sleep Token –one of the worst bands in the world – and have recently toured with Knocked Loose and Spiritbox, so they're just as entrenched in metalcore as they are in gauzy alt-rock.
"Gifted Every Strength" is their first new song since their 2020 album, I Let it in and it Took Everything, and I'm a little shocked at how much of a clusterfuck it is. Every 45 seconds of its daunting, six-minute runtime, a new motif is introduced that completely swerves from whatever was happening during the previous minute. Gurgling djent breakdowns and manic screams flick into atmospheric noodling and sultry crooning with the abruptness of someone leaning back on the remote and accidentally changing the channel. At their best, the heavy parts sound genuinely cataclysmic, and the two-minute prog solo that carries the song to its closure is resplendently pretty in a way I didn't expect. Sadly, I have no desire to go back and sit through the traffic jam of bumbling metalcore tropes and forgettable alt-gaze snores to get to that final payoff.
Even though their older stuff isn't my thing, songs like "Is It Really You?" and "Two-Way Mirror" proved that Loathe have the means to write a coherent song. I thought their set opening for Knocked Loose in Pittsburgh last spring was entertaining for what it was, and there are moments on "Gifted Every Strength" (that closing section, especially) that I find a million times more interesting than anything Loathe's big-room metalcore peers are doing. But as a song, as in a series of musical ideas condensed to a single composition, "Gifted Every Strength" is a wreck. Maybe it'll do well in snippet form, but I don't foresee how shoegaze fans and/or Sleep Token normies could find a way in with this jumbled whiff. Then again, virtually every Sleep Token song is as painfully eclectic as this is, so maybe the kids yearn for this breed of disordered genre-jumping. Frank Ocean voice "I ain't a kid no more..."
Bulls Shitt - Bulls Shitt
Sometimes, the dumber the hardcore band name, the better the hardcore music. Bulls Shitt is a horrible band name. It's so stupid that I couldn't even bring myself to buy a shirt of theirs when I saw them at FYA last year because I don't want to walk around with a poorly spelled cowpatty pun across my chest. However, I bought the Gothenburg group's 2022 seven-inch cause it fuckin rocked, and I need to pick up their newly-released LP as soon as I can get my hands on it. It rocks even harder.
Maybe it's because they're Swedish, but I expected this to be more d-beat – or at least faster – than it actually is. There are fast parts, but most of this is mid-tempo hardcore for stomping from side to side with your arms outstretched like Frankenstein's monster. The riff in "Hedonist Lullaby" is a straight-up War Hungry (or, ya know, Black Sabbath) ode, and the song "P.O.S." (from their 2023 promo) is a fiery blitzkrieg that's like 2000s Boston via Tied Down. There're also some amazing guitar leads that remind me of Step Forward, except with a singer who sounds more like Dwid most of the time. This is the best hardcore LP I've heard all year.
Boo Boo Spoiler - BOO BOO
Look...I know. Trust me, I know. The name is horrific. It might somehow be worse than Bulls Shit. But trust me! You don't want to skip over this. This is some of the best hard-rockin' shoegaze I've heard all year. BOO BOO is Boo Boo Spoiler's (I know, just pretend they're called something else) debut EP, and it actually came out in August 2024. I just heard it for the first time this week, though, and my first listen was one of those situations where I heard one song and loved it. Heard another song – loved it. Arched my eyebrow and thought, "Surely, the next song can't also be this good." And then it was. And the next one. And the one after that.
What I like about this band is that they make heavy shoegaze that isn't grungey or metallic. It's just heavy. The guitars shriek like subway brakes and the songs jostle and thrust with a low-simmering violence. They're catchy as fuck – not just the chorus of "LYSMIGKMS," but the riffs, too. Like the meaty shredding that opens "star 69," and the chunky-lunky chords of "I'm perfect." The instrumental "interlude (1000 nights on a burning island)" is sludgy as fuck, and "fuck punk" successfully affixes a two-step part with Ovlov style surges of wailing distortion. On the whole, the best way I can think to describe BOO BOO is Romantic-era Mannequin Pussy gone shoegaze. If that doesn't pique your curiosity then I guess you don't like loud rock music. Sucks to suck.
Talulah Paisley - "Slink"
Talulah Paisley is the solo project of Lyris Faron, a singer-songwriter who fronted the Jurassic surf-punk band T-Rextasy – a formative act for me during my college journey into indie-rock. Faron is a genuine eccentric who sings in a ridiculous fake British accent and dresses like a Warhol factory character, but always comes across as endearing instead of pretentious. The riot grrrl-inspired T-Rextasy were insanely fun and over the top live, and I'm happy to see that Faron is still making kooky, evocative music today. She's also an even better songwriter.
On "Slink," the latest single from Talulah Paisley's forthcoming LP, Faron sings about the awkward liminal space between desire and detachment. That confusing limbo where you think you want someone until you've got them in your arms, at which point you suddenly need to "put the breaks on the hanky panky," as Faron so colorfully phrases it. Spartan guitar plucks and girl-group finger snaps set the mood for courting, and then the tension froths over during the garagey chorus, only to pare back again once the rosy-cheeked shame sets in. It sounds like Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee without the looming anomie. Or if Vivian Girls were fronted by Ari Up of the Slits. It rules.
Sin Against Sin - Demo
Sin Against Sin were ordained as "your favorite mosher's favorite mosh band" the second their existence was made public. This is going to be one of those bands where footage of their first show gets posted for years to come with the caption "you had to be there." I can't for the life of me figure out all the members in this group, but I know Sin Against Sin are co-fronted by Ethan Wahlberg of Boston hardcore crushers Opposition and Alfredo Carvalho of the defunct Massachusetts metalcore revivalists Adrienne. I can't speak to Wahlberg's style, but I know based on lived experience that Carvalho is one of the scariest, most fearless moshers in hardcore right now. A person you seriously don't want to be standing next to at festivals unless you're ready to take a forearm to the skull.
Naturally, Sin Against Sin's demo is explicitly designed for wreaking havoc on the dancefloor. Lumbering, pulverizing mosh-metal that slots in seamlessly with the Hudson Valley brutalists of yesteryear (All Out War) and today (Fatal Realm, Cross of Disbelief). When Wahlberg's low growls overlap with Carvalho's piercing shrieks, their evil synergy sends shivers down my spine. In the same way that it's pointless to write about techno without acknowledging its utility within the club setting, it's frivolous to engage with Sin Against Sin outside of the context of moshing violently. This isn't general interest hardcore to send your friend who likes Turnstile and Scowl. This is hardcore that's created to serve a very specific subculture – one that's bigger now than ever before, yet increasingly hostile to the corporate pacifism that's been invading hardcore in recent years.
If you've consistently been going to hardcore shows in the 2020s, then you've probably clocked the vibe shift between the post-lockdown "yaayyyyy" period and the colder, tougher, more misanthropic wave of energy we're currently living through. To me, Sin Against Sin are a musical embodiment of this demarcation period. A band who became instantly popular as soon as the demo dropped – guaranteed to draw at least a hundred kids to wherever they play first in the Northeast – but who'd certainly rather break up than play Coachella or open a tour for A Day to Remember. To me, the inherent niche-ness of Sin Against Sin is what makes them interesting. Knowing why they're making this music and who they're making this music for is what makes it feel special. At a time when all music is accessible and so much of it is pining to be enjoyed by everyone, I'm drawn to music that's made for a very specific someone, and indifferent – if not outright antagonistic – toward everyone else.
Maria Somerville - Luster
Luster – not to be confused with the band Luster who I wrote about last week – is easily the most critically revered dream-pop release of 2025. Maria Somerville's first album in six years came out late last month via 4AD and earned a hearty "Best New Music" from Pitchfork, as well as high praise in The FADER and The Guardian. You probably know where I'm going with this: yeah, I don't really like this album very much. I don't get the hype. I don't hear what makes this much more than perfectly fine Grouper worship with a splash of trip-hop groove. The type of spectral, droney, dream-pop Somerville is playing here isn't a far cry from someone like Midwife, one of my favorite working shoegaze-ish artists whose 2024 album, No Depression In Heaven, was one of last year's best records. Midwife writes great songs with unforgettable melodies and smoldering riffs and lyrics that reach out and strangle you with a profound existential sadness.
Granted, Somerville's music isn't as doomy and loop-based as Midwife's, and there's a naturalistic warmth to Luster that distinguishes it from most of the ambient folk-gaze that could lazily be reduced to "Ethel Cain type shit." Luster is more Victorialand-era Cocteau Twins by way of Portishead – and then desaturated enough to be released on Morr Music. Or, to use a more modern collision of references: Gia Margaret and a.s.o. teaming up for a release on kranky. This is undeniably pretty music. There're some beautiful songs on here, especially the Lovesliescrushing-ish closer "October Moon." The auto-tuned murmurings on "Spring" give me tingles. But overall, Somerville's sound is too delicate, too preciously ethereal to snag my ear and pierce my heart. Songs that I want to drown me instead feel like misty splashes from a garden sprinkler. Luster doesn't have the impact I'm seeking from music like this. I don't mean sonic weight, but emotional weight. It's too vague, too coy, too self-assuredly cool, and truthfully, not all that musically interesting. I wish I liked this more than I do. But alas.
Magdalena Bay @ The Roxian Theater
I'm having trouble pinpointing why I feel this way. The band were super tight musically. I didn't hear Mica Tenenbaum miss a single note, and Matt Lewin held down whatever instrument he was playing – guitar, bass, keys – with the precision of a Berklee senior presenting his capstone performance. The visuals were hard to look away from. Giant mirrors projecting colorful videos, whimsical masks, a restless choreography routine that Tenenbaum executed with Olympian stamina, smiling and swooning the whole way through. Their generous 23-song setlist included the majority of last year's Imaginal Disk, a few highlights from 2021's Mercurial World, and a splash of back-catalog standouts for the real ones.
On paper, the show checked all the boxes. They played all of my favorite songs ("You Lose!", "Secrets (Your Fire)," "Top Dog") and reminded me how much I love some of their deeper cuts ("The Beginning" and "Watching T.V."). They looked awesome and inspired half of the sold-out crowd to squeeze into the pit in front of the stage, suffering through sweaty legs and stinky elbows just to be within spitting distance of Tenenbaum's baby-voiced purrs. Many fans dressed like it was a formal event, applying the Bowie-esque streak of makeup across their eyes and forehead to mimic Magbay's recent music videos. The crowd was an enthusiastic mix of alt baddies (of all genders), music dweebs (one dude talked to me about death metal at the water cooler), and recovering theater kids. I'd say the median age was mid-20s. Not too many teenagers, and more people pushing 30 than I anticipated seeing. But a lively bunch. People who go to "concerts" instead of "shows," and are therefore less jaded and self-conscious than the sniveling indie audiences I typically stand amongst.
It was by all means a successful experience. So I'm not sure why I walked away feeling underwhelmed. One thing I can say for sure is that the sound wasn't loud enough. Not all of Magdalena Bay's kaleidoscopic prog-pop songs could be described as "bangers," but some of them definitely are, and I thought tracks like "You Lose!" and "Death and Romance" should've banged harder than they did. I also realized through seeing them perform that Magdalena Bay don't really write sing-alongs. They're a pop duo who operate more like a rock band. There're sticky parts in their music (the "oooohhh, my god" in the chorus of "Image"; the synthetic disco strings in the bridge of "Secrets (Your Fire)"; the sultry hip-holding in the hook of "Death and Romance") but very few lyrics that precipitate chants or yells or shrieks.
To me, the joy of seeing a pop act comes from the communal sing-alongs. The irresistible desire to dance like an idiot. The unbeatable rush of being in a room with hundreds or thousands of other people who've also bleated along to these songs with the car windows down. Who've also thrown themselves around their bedrooms with the music blaring to try and manifest in their minds the most baller house party ever. To me, the ideal pop show makes me feel like that party is actually happening – even if just for one song or one single chorus. And sadly, I never felt that way at this Magdalena Bay show. Some of that was due to the venue being too uncomfortably small to dance. And some of it was the venue monitors being too damn quiet to make me want to dance anyways. And some of that was because Magdalena Bay's chillwavey, Grimes-ian, disco galactica sounds spectacular on record. Looks spectacular onstage. But isn't, sadly, as sonically or physiologically spectacular to hear and feel and sweat through in the live setting as I hoped it would be. Oh well.
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