The Lacking Permanence

Mosh pit melodies for Daleks. Aggressive hardcore beats, with theremin, snarky bass, and chanting vocals instead of distorted guitar.

Once a Ramone always a Ramone, one supposes, but this is closer to Southern California chug-core than gritty Queens punk. Nonetheless, a fun time.

The earth rumbled into an appropriate angle of repose as the bucket wheel ground to a halt. On the ground, the sapper raised an arm to signal to the operator, sitting high above in an air-conditioned cab as disproportionately tiny as a brontosaurus brain. The sounds of Taiwanese ragtime could be heard on the earpiece now that the excavator had stopped digging into the hard Upper Peninsula soil. This machine was capable of extracting tons of copper ore in a single hour, but now it was digging for something far more valuable.

This Florida garage-rock combo provides complete party in audio format, featuring regrettable debauchery, frenzied dancing, and a desire to not have the fun ever end.

Having the word “daddy” in your band’s name is a tough bar to clear, and these guys have just the type of delta blues sleaze to make it over easy.

It’s catchy pop punk, and it’s clearly female-powered, but there’s more here than rainbow stickers, glorious hooks and riffs, and big puffy girl handwriting.

The pilot felt the glider’s control surfaces bite into the updraft. The craft smoothly pitched up and right as the surreal Eastern Washington terrain unfolded beneath them. The plucky strains of a Bolivian polka filled the small cockpit, the whistling of the wind no true competition. Facing backward, the specialist peered at the techmapper. Somewhere below, there was something messing with the surveillance satellite and downing any powered aircraft that dared approach. Up ahead, the clouds were bunched up in a way any seasoned traveler of the skies could tell was just. not. right.

Focused on the guitar but not so much in keeping things in normal scale systems, this band punches through some heavy dissonance to make for memorable riffs.

Mysteriously complicated folk music, with the sort of lush guitar arrangements and ethereal vocals that brought 4AD to prominence 30+ years ago.

The mechanical harvestman towered over the fig grove, its spindly arms tucked underneath as it towered over the fruit trees. The cryptobotanist aimed the infrared reader at the edge of the cultivated land, where the real Bhutan took over, hoping for even a quick glimpse. The landscape gave nothing in return. The operator’s headphones leaked the sound of some Turkish reggae, bounced from a satellite to overcome the foreboding mountains that ringed the valley. They both had patience to spare. The beast they were seeking had only one food source, located right here, and everyone’s gotta eat.