(Cover art by Wilson Zellar) After hearing Precursor , the new EP from Minneapolis's Dad Bod , it's immediately apparent what the best "quarantine album" is (sorry, Taylor Swift). Unexpectedly prevented from recording their forthcoming debut record, the band decided to take advantage of the time they were given. Callie Marino, the band's songwriting mastermind, vocalist, and one of three (!) guitarists, partnered with Wilson Zellar, multi-instrumentalist and engineering wizard, to compose a simple, minimal EP of mostly new songs. The sound of Precursor  will likely come as a shock to anyone who's spent time with Dad Bod's prior singles (" Rot " and " Spirits ") or managed to catch them live in their full-band glory. The haunted emotions of Marino's work provides a throughline from oceanic shoegaze to stripped back dreamscapes. While the contributions of guitarist Noah Topliff and drummer Alex Gray are missed, Zellar and Marino find ...

(Cover design by Erica Eisenberg) The title hurts a little bit. It has been months since any of us have been able to embrace a great deal of our friends and loved ones. The wonderful new EP from Minneapolis' Nat Harvie and Chicago's Brent Penny doesn't so much aim to recapture the lost feeling of arms wrapping around another human being as it does to gently evoke the warmth of those tender moments through music. 4 embraces  was composed and recorded long before separation set in, so I would be remiss to claim that it's some sort of "socially distanced" EP. Harvie and Penny simply understood the necessity of connection - physical, emotional, spiritual - well before anyone realized how much we take it for granted. Their collective understanding isn't presented with lyrics, or even much melody. The duo has created a miniature rumination consisting almost entirely of synthesizers and piano. "first embrace" sets the mood, never rising above an elect...

(Artwork by Sara Legel) When Wrister put out their debut record in December of last year, it affirmed my opinion that anything over three minutes is prog rock. "Flowers On The Fault" is a raucous, unabashed ode to feeling complacent and looking for an out. It is two minutes of thrashing drums and jangly guitars that felt like a drop-out anthem. While Wrister's debut album Different Teeth feels like a party record with its loud instrumentation, it's more like a heartfelt conversation in the kitchen while the party goes on around. The record has the band looking for a place to connect, to relate, and to belong, beer-cracking sound effects and all. The album's second single "Lack of Truth" is an earnest look at trying to cut through the noise and uneasiness and find their base. As it progresses, Different Teeth gives way to subtler moments on songs like "Driver" or "Headlights" — the brashness opens up to allow for honesty. I pe...

In early 2017, the trans indie rock trio 4th Curtis put out their debut record I Won the Pageant , an album that veiled its angst and cynicism behind a thin veneer of energetic pop-rock. The band is now back with their follow up,  Invisible Ax - an EP that has stripped that facade away, leaving the band's dark sense of humor on full display. Invisible Ax  goes from 1 to 100 right off the bat with the intense imagery contained in the opening track, "Nonstop." Vocalist/guitarist Lex Noens sings about blood on their guitar strings, a theme that continues throughout the song. In the lead up to the EP release, the band referenced a French showman from the 1700s who'd eat anything and everything as an inspiration for this song, and this theme of insatiability compels the band. Historical figures don't seem to influence only "Nonstop," but most (if not all) of the songs on the EP. The middle two tracks are quite upfront with whom they pull from. "...

Coyote Kid  (formerly Marah in the Mainsail) has been slowly crafting an expansive universe that could easily rival most blockbuster movie franchises. Starting with 2015's debut  Thaumatrope , the band has grown from an indie folk/folk-rock group with a gothic tinge and a healthy respect for murder ballads to the cinematic alt-rock juggernaut we have before us. If you aren't up-to-date on the current Coyote Kid cannon,  Bone Crown   left us standing in a wasteland of a former forest that was burnt by a tyrannical king. Now several years after that apocalyptic event, The Skeleton Man  tells the story of a group assembling to reclaim a dark world that is overrun by these monstrous, flesh-eating creatures. The band wastes no time throwing you into the world with the album's opening monologue, "The New Dark Age." Instantly, you can feel the upgrade in production and vision from previous works. This is now a world you are stepping into and living within ins...

For many, the image of the traveling folk singer is one that evokes a level of romanticism in your mind, a road-worn troubadour that tells you stories of love, loss, and what's beyond your small worldview. For  David Huss , his time abroad in college playing gigs in Australian bars, and working as a fisherman in Alaska have set him up to be that ideal 21st-century folk troubadour, and this is all reflected into his debut album  Intuition . The album, at its core, tackles the feelings surrounding the life decisions you have to make in your 20s. The album's triumphant opening "Shelikof" has David asking if he belongs or not. This hesitation and search for affirmation pop up again in songs like "Critic," "Wings," and "Horizon." That unease makes figuring what's next in life difficult. Whether it's an inner critical monologue or anxiety over an important decision, David always seems to find a place in each song that gives a sense...

Prince's fingerprints and the "Minneapolis Sound" that he created can easily be spotted within the Minnesota music scene. However, no one has fully embraced that late '70s and '80s funkiness more than  Static Panic . Calling the trio a tribute act would be a complete disservice since the band's 2018 debut EP Chrome  featured dance, electronic, and even dubstep influences. The release of that EP, plus magnetic performances and personalities, landed them spots on First Ave's 2018 Best New Band showcase and at the Basilica Block Party. Even with all that under their belt, Static Panic is back with anthemic new EP Glow . With this new release, the band has really worked to unify their sound and introduced organic elements back into their recorded sound. The band has grown and changed as Ro Lorenzen, Keston Wright, and Eli Kapell come into their own as Static Panic. Where  Chrome  was crystalline and synthetic,  Glow  is warmed up by jazzy guitar flourishe...

For me, instances of discovering a band organically are becoming extremely few and far between. Time and the occupational hazard of working with music make stumbling across an album cover (or in some cases a performance video) that piques your interest a rare occurrence. So imagine my joy when I scroll across the cover of Grogus ' newest record Four Kings , with its necromancer-like figure and illegible typography. I didn't know what I was going to get upon pressing play. I was hoping for crushing riffs, and riffs I did get. The band's 2016 debut  Intuitive Readers and Metaphysical Artisans set the bar high for this new record. Its layered instrumentation and atmospheric additions landed Grogus in the tiny zone in which the circles of sludge, hardcore, and black metal all intersected in this highly specific Venn diagram. The trio pulls pieces from each genre to create something uniquely Grogus. The album's opener "An Oceantomb of Centipedes" knocks you o...

In just a few weeks, the emo-violence quartet Sleep Debt will be no more. Making them the most recent band that I've discovered just before (or slightly after) they break up. Thankfully, Sleep Debt decided that they wouldn't go quietly into the night and released one final agonizing momento with the single "The Stages of Grief." This track is both Sleep Debt's longest (nearly half of their debut EP could fit inside the song) and most experimental track. The opening chords ring like church organs while the words "What we once thought was safe / All the promises that were made" are chanted in the distance. The song is quickly taken over by black metal influenced blast beats, dissonant guitars, and shrieking vocals. Its instability and exposed underbelly lend itself to Sleep Debt's swan song. "The Stages of Grief" plays out like a eulogy to feeling safe and secure. The lyrics speak to a loss of emotional resolve and the erosion of the ca...

(Self-released, 2019) “It’s not over / But I’m getting older / And I just don’t want to be part of the scene anymore.” These are some of the first words on The Happy Children’s second and final album. What a farewell.  The Happy Children are a Minneapolis trio making rock music, working in the punk-adjacent part of the local scene for the last few years. Now, they’re making a hybrid of experimental pop and the math-y sound of prior releases, like if Bon Iver made 22, A Million with electric guitars instead of saxophones. It’s quite the leap of faith. The album sounds like nothing else, even as the band has come to define a certain part of the Twin Cities underground.  The mastermind of the Happy Children is Caleb Gabriel Hinz (who also runs Normal Parents ), the vocalist, guitarist, lyricist, and producer. Can you say polymath? It’s his production that sets Same Dif apart from the band’s debut Self Help Book . That record flourished in complex guitar fireworks, bu...

Changing the name of a band is always a bit of a leap of faith. Depending on fan base and name recognition, there is a very distinct possibility of losing everything the band has built, and yet, Ego Death decided to step away from their moniker and forge ahead as the moodier Double Grave . The name change and subsequent album came with a cleansing of their back catalog, and after some time away from their old material, the band decided to release what they describe as an "awkward gap in their identity" with a new compilation EP, Ego Death Forever . As someone who only recently learned about the band, Ego Death Forever serves as a look into their roots as sunnier, pop grunge trio. Their 2017 album New Year's Daydream  is a slower, more dissonant step forward that shows off Jeremy Warden's progression as a songwriter. The pop hooks are still there, but Double Grave moved from its former sunny disposition to a sonic landscape that better represents a classic Minnes...

7000apart is a project born from the budding relationship of Jon Kresin and Amelie Eiding. The now husband and wife met in high school while Eiding was studying abroad in Wisconsin. A music class was what drew the pair together, and the band 7000apart, named after the distance between Greenbay, Wis. and Sweden, kept Jon and Amelie together during their long-distance relationship. For anyone who has done long distance, whether it be another city or another country, it is difficult to hold a relationship together. Tiny cracks can easily become an impassable crevasse. After a couple of singles and an EP, the duo came together to create their debut full-length,  We Are More . The title sort of says it all when it comes to the album's concept - we are more than just the individual pieces. The duo describes themselves as an "organic pop" band, which feels like a bit of an admirable novelty. 7000apart have almost no room to hide within the minimal instrumentation, so ...

The Symptones  are a band that seems to be doing its damnedest to create the next classic American album, and their debut full-length  Irrational Fears / Overactive Imagination  has definitely given them a springboard toward that goal. The band has a unique blend of funk, soul, and folk filtered through indie rock that allows their music to feel oddly familiar yet different.  From the first triumphant notes of the opening song "Fall Guy," the Springsteen-ian need to take your partner and just run is thrust front and center.  Following "Fall Guy" is the album's single "Rosetta," which is another anthem about the familiar daydream of taking your love and running away. "Rosetta" has one of my favorite moments on this album. The breakdown in the bridge is a Beach Boys-styled vocal line mixed with a punk breakdown that should not work on paper. Drummer Steve George hammers on his kit while the guitars play delicate arpeggios and the bass ...

The combination of vocal harmonies, gentle acoustic melodies, programmed drums, and lo-fi production does not feel like it should work when you put it on paper, yet Laska 's new EP in the blossom of this  seems to have expertly blended all of these elements together into a genre-defying release. The band's 2017 debut album Ceiling Zero gave insight into Laska's genre-bending tendencies, but it is on this EP that the band fully embraced their broader sound palette. Sisters   Hanna, Bex, and Mookie Morton spend  in the blossom of this  reflecting on themselves and their relation to the world. From the opening track "Paralysis," you are instantly captivated. Shimmering guitars and skittering drum loops mixed with organic drums create an expansive landscape for the sister's vocals to float through and give form to. The Morton sisters take time to explore the feelings of disconnect, longing, and depression along with their many facets.  ...

For a state that boasts its reputation as a snow hell fairly proudly, there don't seem to be a whole lot of albums about Minnesota winter. Yeah, there's "Sometimes It Snows In April." But that song is way  too beautiful and sentimental to reflect the depressing heaviness that comes with gallons of snow. Even for people that enjoy snowfall and winter, it just sucks  after a certain point. Minnesotans get used to it, though. They suffer with a wink and joke. I would argue that niiice.'s new EP Never Better  hits the dichotomy of these winters right on the head. The songs may not directly reference the frigid season we pretend to love so much, but the emotions coursing through their veins pay direct respect. Opener "Snowbored" is the thesis statement of the record, if you don't mind me getting all high school English. In an interview with City Pages, frontman/guitarist Roddie Gadeberg summed up the song's sentiments: "The normal depression...

There is something to be said about the resurgence of indie record labels that take the time to curate a specific sound with the bands they work with. You know when you go to listen to a band on that label's roster, you will have an idea of what you are getting into, and  Brace Cove Records is a label that does this impeccably. After writing an article for Ear Coffee about the most recent niiice. single , I found myself perusing other bands on their list and was instantly drawn to the post-hardcore quintet  River Teeth , and their brand new EP Aimless Ghost. River Teeth is a little more post than they are hardcore, meaning they are not afraid to experiment a little in order to drive home their message.  Aimless Ghost 's opening track "False Bottom" begins with a swirling pool of dreamlike guitars and twinkling melodies that when the listener closes their eyes, they can start to feel lost as frontman Sam Halvorson sings the lines "I want so badly to breath...

Alexander Natalie has the ability to put raw emotions into words that are rarely seen among folk artists. Natalie made his powerful debut onto Twin Cities last year with the December release of How Much Could You Ask of Me? which was one of our favorite releases of 2018 . Now Natalie and company are back with their first single of 2019 titled "Nosh." The track opens almost from nothing as a lone acoustic guitar plays a simple chord progression before Natalie's voice makes a haunting appearance with the lyrics "Give it up? I’m old enough/To know it’s not enough/Just to be in love." As those words sink in, the feelings of a relationship that has gone cold begin to wash over you until Natalie closes out the first verse by stating "Enough is enough/And I can't breathe."  Like in much of his work, there are themes of maturity and accepting the future as something you cannot always change in this track. These themes are underscored by incredibly be...

Minneapolis math punk trio Why Not  has a musical output that is slowly approaching the prolific levels of artists like Ty Segall or John Dwyer. This band has put out a record or EP every year since 2017. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you take into consideration that these guys are in their senior year of high school, there is a whole new level of impressiveness. It's amazing that these three friends have found time to start a band, write three releases' worth of material, and still find time for regular day-to-day activities. Their lives feel like a plot to a mid-2000s Disney Channel TV show. With 2019's EP , the band finds themself reflecting over their personal lives and musical career. The single "Ready 4 the World" has the band asking "Are you listening intently/What am I saying on the outside/Is it friendly?" The track echoes sentiments of feeling lost and looking for a foothold to move forward.  Why Not's bassist and fro...

From the first notes of Last Import's self-titled debut full-length, there is a feeling that something different is going on here. The formless and free-flowing nature of "Lunar Rhapsody" acts almost as a palate cleanser for what you, the listener, are going to experience over the next 30 or so minutes. The band's debut EP Songs For Adam was released a year and a day prior to Last Import . Since then, Last Import has been riding a wave of increasing popularity. They received play on radio stations like the Current and Go96, and they've opened for Bastille and Lany at the Palace Theater. Last Import  expands on the ideas explored on their debut EP. To boil down the band's sound, they are a punk-influenced surf rock trio, but this is a gross oversimplification. There is a fire at the musical foundation of Last Import that propels everything that is heaped on top. Staccato guitars, pummeling drums, and fluid bass lines create dynamic performances that add d...