Abby Jeanne – Stop and Listen

Abby Jeanne’s fuzz, paranoid infused rock belongs sonically to the very first generation of garage rock bands. The carbonated sound of Jeanne’s vocals is matched perfectly by the simplistic, yet passionate instrumentation. 

But, while the original garage-rockers often used their tunes to allude to the topic of illegal chemical consumption, Abby Jeanne attacks the idea head on. “Stop and Listen” is a tune about having all your friends experiment with the joys of LSD and magic mushrooms, and, finally, ending up convincing the protagonist of the benefits of such experiments. 

The tune would merely add up to a funny story about LSD-use were it not for the clever use of vocals and lyrics, the maniacal guitar solo, and the production values carefully replicating music straight out of the 1960s. 

We Carried The Boat – Canned Peaches

Hailing from Japan, the duo of We Carried The Boat, makes post-hardcore music that noisily pulls at the heartstrings. There’s a giddy joy of weaponizing the use of noise that emanates through the performance caught here on tape. 

Yet, We Carried the Boat is a group not content merely with three-chords and a screamed chorus. Clean guitar interludes, a synth dominated section and even a spoken-word piece work together to create a compelling piece of music that sounds like My Chemical Romance and Slint forming an emo-post-hardcore supergroup.