It's the first (and hopefully not last) Local Music Round-up of 2020! The passage of time is meaningless! My first column of the year tends to end up focusing on what I missed from the last couple of months in 2019, whether it was due to a focus on our year-end content or the fact that I can't manage my time properly. I missed a bunch of great music, so now is the time to catch up. Here's some gems of 2019 (plus one from 2018 and also Oftener). Ben Abrahamson - "Fireflies" (self-released) I can say with full confidence that I never expected to be writing about an acoustic Americana instrumental, but here we are! Ben Abrahamson is a local guitarist with a more extensive background than I think anyone has a right to have - I mean, he studied flamenco in Barcelona. His latest song "Fireflies" is a winding, idyllic snapshot of a humid August sunset. Rich chords trade playful blows with a smiling banjo line. Like the slowly-building clouds before a th...

Following in the vein of Joe's introduction from his list, I embraced the fact that I'm totally still an idiot emo kid at heart. Emo and punk were a part of my formative musical experiences (we don't need to talk about the rest), but I was relatively late to the game with virtually anything other than MCR, Panic, and Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle." As time as gone by, I've allowed myself to be enveloped in the raucous emotions that call the genre home. There won't be a ton of local emo on this list, but that mostly seems to be because a lot of the emo bands I love took the year off. That may totally predict my 2020 year-end list, but in lieu of emo, I found a whole lot of other stuff to fall in love with, from piano ballads to country(!) to whatever the Happy Children are were. Albums and EPs (Cover art by Caleb Hinz probably??) The Happy Children - Same Dif  (self-released) This is unsurprisingly my album of the year. Earlier this yea...

2019 has been a year for me to rediscover my love and adoration of all things punk, hardcore, and metal. Now, I wrote about more than just those types of bands this year, so thankfully, my list will be relatively diverse. However, It should be noted that it took at least three revisions until we got to this point, so bear with me. It should also be noted that none of these releases are in any particular order.  Albums and EPs Dirty Junk - On Yr Knees ( Don't Panic Records & Distro ) Dirty Junk is probably the band that first rekindled my love of punk and hardcore with their 2019 EP, On Yr Knees . Its unbridled energy and unchecked rage was the punch to the stomach needed to start the year off right. The band stretches new songwriting muscles with this EP. Unyielding blastbeats and tremolo-picked guitars give way to twinkling interludes and sludgy breakdowns. Renn Fontana and Ace Robbins use their proclivity toward dissonance and chaotic instrumentals to crea...

(Cover art by Jane Borstad) There is an extremely potent tenderness in the music Callie Marino makes as Dad Bod. Nearly everything about the band's debut single "Rot" encourages quiet introspection or an overflow of emotion, whether it's Marino's poetry of emptiness, the twinkling guitar lines, or the depth of her voice. It's a secretly electrified fence, dividing you and an unwanted memory. Things pop up in the daily minutiae (checking the fridge, a grocery list on your phone) and serve as ever-present reminders. The main thing that sets its trajectory slightly off from the Julien Baker-esque ballad it mostly is are the sudden stabs of shoegaze that come in the song's final moments. It never quite reaches the screaming catharsis of a song like "Appointments," but that's because it's not trying to. "Rot" instead lets the noise speak for itself. As Marino sings of hiding and fading away, the waves of squalling guitar spe...

(Cover art by Aiden Joseph James) "Vivre loin de vos peurs n'empêche pas vos peurs de vivre avec vous. "  Living away from your fears does not prevent your fears from living with you. This is definitely not a song about vegetables. Earlier this year, psychedelic quartet Loneliest Ways put out an EP, Crush . Just about six months later, the band is back with a new sound, a slightly altered lineup, and a new name. "Asparagus," Floodwater Angel 's debut single, starts and mostly stays with one chord. From there, lyrics tumble out of Madeline Knorr's mouth like babbling brook of extremely-online internet-kid anxiety. They maintain rhyme schemes to the point of delightful absurdity as they narrate a sequence of over-the-top escapism. Below is selection of my favorite lines: "Bootleggin' Broadway / Gonna have a field day" "I think I hate the Nazis / 'Cept the ones that are furries" "And I'm not thinkin' abo...