Rosali (Siltbreeze)

While the collection of songs on Philadelphia/Michigan musician Rosali’s electrifying third LP, No Medium, explores the often dark territory of loss, death, sexuality, self-sabotage, and addiction, there is a surprising lightness to its sonic being. Backed by members of the David Nance Group, Rosali (Long Hots, Wandering Shade, Monocot) wades through the emotional mire with infectious, earworm melodies led by her luminous voice. With their rich, raw instrumentation, these rock ballads sound like the resilience discovered in facing one’s darkest moments, the assurance of the calm and clarity that comes after the storm. The influences for the sound of No Medium reflect a pairing of assured vulnerability, in the stylistic coherence of Bob Dylan’s Desire, the tender delivery in Iain Matthews’ Journey From Gospel Oak, the strut and swagger of Bowie’s Hunky Dory, the ambition and beauty of Gene Clark’s No Other, and the playful catharsis of Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson.

David Nance Group (Trouble in Mind)

Omaha, NE musician David Nance is nothing if not prolific. Over the course of the past six years, he has released three full-length albums for labels Grapefruit and Ba Da Bing, a 7-inch, numerous cassettes, CDRs and unlicensed "cover albums" of artists like Lou Reed, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Doug Sahm. His latest full-length is credited to the "David Nance Group" and features Nance alongside his recent hot-shit live band of fellow Omaha musicians; guitarist Jim Schroeder, bassist Tom May and drummer Kevin Donahue.

Appropriately, the album is called "Peaced and Slightly Pulverized" as the sounds contained therein are alternatingly tender & brusque. Nance has an enviable way of conveying intensity and pathos in his music without necessarily resorting to clicking on a distortion pedal, instead relying on the build-up and tension from the interplay of his bandmates with his cracked, impassioned wail. There's also plenty of fuzz and distortion too, from the anthemic "Poison" with its fuzzed- out guitar riff that leans into a Crazy-Horsian guitar maelstrom and white-hot solo, to "Ham Sandwich"; a blisteringly frantic rant about a lunchtime torment - uncomfortable in its directness. Respite comes with "110 Blues"s languid late- night desert psychedelia, and side one closes with the epic seven and a half minute "Amethyst", expanded & jammed upon from 2017's Richie Records single into an emotional odyssey with Nance & Schroeder strangling their guitars into a twin-guitar, barbed-wire duel.

Spiral Dub

New-ish band from ex-members of Life Stinks, The World, Rays, and Mane, b(r)and names you can trust!