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Hey there!! This is a list I've compiled of all of my favorite music releaases (LPs, EPs, and a few singles) from January in no particular order. Long before I had even began to exercise the idea of starting my own blog, I had always wanted to write something like this; a paragraph (or two) each list of music releases I felt deserved a monthly spotlight. I have spent more time than I'd like to admit scrolling through these lists on more established music publications, scouring dozens of pages to see what I possibly could've missed on my music radar. And the more obscure/underground the blog, the better!! I think these lists can be one of the best ways to draw attention to artists with remarkable bodies of work that might not get the recognition their fans likely think they deserve, and while I don't think anything I come up with will have a substantial amount of traffic, I still wanna share all my favorite music nonetheless! With that out of the way, here's a summary of what the first 31 days of this year brought us:

If there's one thing 2024 has shown us in its brief existence thus far, it's that there's no better time to be a screamo fan than right now. Labels like Zegema Beach Records and the relatively new BSDJ wasted absolutely no time pumping out releases, (the former dropping their 22nd ZAMPLER compilation on New Year's Day, featuring brand new songs by the likes of Burial Etiquette, Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow, and Pittsburgh's own Edhochuli) from the blistering "LP" from Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow to the bitterly endearing second self-titled full-length from poorly wrote suicide note. Many other DIY labels have taken initiative as well, from Persistent Vision Records' Massa Nera/Quiet Fear split, or the Jeremy Bolm-headed Secret Voice's latest release from blackened screamo band Infant Island.

While I mainly only keep up with the hardcore side of things when there's anything new, there was certainly no shortage of stuff from other corners of the current music space as well. From the deep corners of the terminally online, yet extremely self-aware SoundCloud scene, to the large circles of the indie realm, there was plenty to go around. The Smile's second album left me hypnotized, while the new Acid Souljah and Christ Dillinger mixtape had me desperately struggling to contain huge bouts of laughter during long bus rides. But most of all, WE FINALLY GOT A NEW GLASS BEACH ALBUM AFTER ALMOST FIVE YEARS!!! If this is how we're starting the year off, then I'm thrilled to see what the following seasons have in store for us. But enough of that, here's a handful of what kept my ears busy this past month.

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For as unrelenting and grindy as this Virginia blackened screamo band is, Infant Island flawlessly dial things back at crucial times, so that the listener can truly take in the brooding atmosphere that Obsidian Wreath conjures up. Tortured screeches, pummeling blast beats, and soul-crushing riffs leave very little space in the room, but that room will oftentimes explode into an endless realm, accompanied by lush, shoegazey melodies and pillowy soft acoustic leads. This results in an ever-shifting, ever-changing landscape that is equal parts capable of being engulfed in flames as it is displaying a shimmering star-dotted night sky, much like the album cover depicts. Ebbs and flows litter throughout, such as the hammering breakdown toward the end of 'Fulfilled', contrasted by the quiet, gentle strings at the beginning of 'Amaranthine'. Infant Island even go as far as to bring Flint, MI shoegazers Greet Death along for 'Kindling', the album's third and final single, which pits both of these bands' biggest strengths in sheer juxtaposition as a softly sung fuzz explodes into a screaming flame. In conclusion, Obsidian Wreath is a masterful display of push and pull, taking the listener on a rollercoaster that rises as high as the stars, and drops as low as the depths of hell.

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As I was writing this, I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be hilarious if, after that absolute word salad of a review of the last album, I started singing praises for THIS of all things?" While it probably sounded better in my head to start off with, I'm sure voicing it out loud just made it annoying. Either way, this is going in here.

Look, I'm an absolute sucker for projects like this. Where everybody involved didn't take a damn thing seriously going into it, and yet the end result somehow comes out sounding like anything but total garbage, unlike the dogshit me and my buddies would upload on SoundCloud seven years ago, in the midst of ten-hour long Minecraft binges on the PS4. All I'm going to say is that the production and Christ Dillinger's bars carried this whole thing; Acid Souljah, Xhris2Eazy, BRUHMANEGOD, and the dozens of other features on this all range from pretty good to downright awful. I'm not even gonna try to justify why this is on here, so instead I'll just list some of my favorite Dillinger bars from this tape:

"I talk more shit than white people do about other people that aren't white"
- Track 3, 'Hate'

"Fuck GG Allin, I'm glad he died"
- Track 4, 'I Hate My Dad'

"Look at my wrist, all Louis V-ington
I'm in the club, I'm getting drunkington
...playing with me, he gonna get shottington"
- Track 11, 'trippin'

"I need a paramedic to come suck my dick
I'm tryna get head in the back of the ambulance
Start overdosing, go call the ambulance
If I'm tweakin', bitch just let me tweak
Don't touch me bitch, you gon' fuck up my high
I been selling percs since junior high"
- Track 12, 'Drug Twitter'

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poorly wrote suicide note is a solo screamo project by Ashley P. of Rochester, NY, and I wouldn't be lying if I said I initially thought it was a full band at first. I must say, it's been forever since I've heard someone totally nail a lo-fi sound like this, so long that I can't even come up with any examples at the moment. But holy shit, what a winding journey this album is; it feels like a callback to several eras at once, most of which I likely wasn't even born in. With its whirlwind blend of chiptune, emo (just about every kind of it), and bedroom pop, sprinkled with random bouts of sudden harsh noise, this feels like popping in an old, forgotten VHS tape filled with random, disconnected home videos made for fun in a much simpler time. With said tape being neglected for so long, everything fades in and out of static, various fragments being courrupted and lost to time. While I'm sure the music isn't meant to be looked into so deeply, this album reached directly into me into a way that I was starting to think could never happen again. From the shimmering synths on 'secrets you died with', to the blanket-like embrace of 'all goes falling', there's an odd sense of bliss and longing, in which the harsh noise (the 'corruption') serves as a reminder of stagnation, or the feeling that everything is falling apart. I could go on and on about how much I adore this album, but maybe that'll be saved for a standalone post. For now, I BEG YOU to check it out down below:

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This one was LONG overdue. Nearly everybody I knew who was remotely into music (internet-wise, at least) adored glass beach, and while they were a bit of ways out of my usual scope, I had been looking forward to this ever since 'the first glass beach album' came out nearly five years ago (time flies, huh). And I am absolutely THRILLED to say that this was worth the entire wait, every second of it. With a whole 63 minutes to chew on, glass beach made the absolute most of the enormous time gap, resulting in a psychedelic adventure through the entire musical landscape. Ranging from weedly-weedly math rock to anthemic power pop, earnest and passionate emo to ever-shifting post-punk, 'plastic death' is a cornucopic display of a wide variety of genres and sounds. And yeah, while I damn near used an encyclopedia's worth of labels to describe this, I truly feel this is a body of work you can't label. Sophomore releases are occasionally considered the "experimental phase" for a band (assuming they don't immediately fall into the infamous 'sophomore slump'), but glass beach pull it off so flawlessly it almost feels like they were going at it for entire lifetimes. From the bubbly pop sensibilities of 'rare animal', to the slow rise of 'coelacanth' from a soft piano backing to an explosion of mathy guitar-noodling, or most surprising for me, the full-blown breakdown at the end of 'slip under the floor', complete with blackened screams, there is never a dull moment despite the lengthy runtime. Overall, with the sky-high expectations glass beach were carrying with their sophomore release, they aimed for the stars and stuck the landing spectacularly.

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I can't quite put my finger on it, but Italian screamo just hits different, and this band is certainly no exception. While I know next to nothing about these guys (no amount of Google searching brings up remotely anything about them, not even Not Just a Phase, whose 2024 playlist I discovered this on), I can say without a doubt that they took the screamo guidebook (not to say there's any rules besides 'scream your heart out') and made the absolute most of it. Quick note: I don't know a single lick of Italian, so most of my observations are going to be based on instrumentation and vocal qualities; shallow as that may be, I'd rather stick to what I know rather than rely on Google Translate and totally disrespect their songwriting. Frenetic, antagonistic, and anguished, 'Del nostro scontento' relentlessly thrashes in every direction with fiery guitarwork, spastic drumming, and an army of screams that, while uncompromising, know exactly when to pull back to let the cold air settle in. Despite the madness, the music retains a vaguely melodic quality that is an evident trait of screamo in this region. 'Un centinado di infelicità' is a prime example of the spastic quality of this album, furious drumming making way for a soft sung breather, before a borderline metallic breakdown kicks the door in, bringing in with it an endless flame that slowly erases everything except vocalist Andrea Pezzotta's inextinguishable voice. I do hope this band gets more attention as time goes on, and I highly recommend you check them out down below.

I'd also like to note that they dedicated this album to Irma Bandiera, nom de guerre 'Mimma', a Bolognese woman who had fought tooth and nail against the Nazi Germany regime as a member of the Italian Communist Party. Her unwavering courage, even in the face of the wretched Nazi occupation of her home country, served as a vessel for her bulletproof willpower that had carried her till the very end. Here is a fully-fleshed biography of her life, detailing her upbringing all the way until her untimely death to the Nazis.

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Cybergrind continues to be by far one of the most ambitious, era-defining (and defying) genres to come out of the current hardcore zeitgeist, taking cues from any and all eras, scenes, niches and soundscapes, present and past, and completely rewriting the hardcore textbook. falingwithscissors is no exception, with their seamless blend of metalcore, drum and bass, breakcore, post-hardcore/emo, etc., resulting in a glitchy cacophony that, while seemingly prone to total corruption at any moment, keeps on chugging for its entire 18 minute runtime. Immediate comparisons to Errorzone-era Vein.fm and .gif from god come to mind for me, but with an extra dash of internet-centric imagery that's common for recent cybergrind bands. 'Atrophy:Angel' is a manic song that vaguely sounds straight out of the 2000s, complete with clean sung vocals and eardrum-rupturing feedback. 'blissful' is a drum and bass-flavored glitchfest that I'd argue sounds nu-metal-ish, with blast beats and melodic sections sprinkled throughout. The closing track, 'D.I.T.B.' is a personal highlight for me, containing an echoey piano break that eventually gets layered on a fucking killer breakdown, combining panic chords and electronics that BEGS for some spinkicks in the moshpit. This is likely to stay in constant rotation for me, as this perfectly scratches that "electronic-steeped metalcore" itch.

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This right here is a prime example of everything I love about screamo. Overtly verbose band and song names, soft melodies engineered to extract deep-rooted feelings from the heart so they can immediately be eviscerated in double-time, and vocals that are so in-your-face that it feels like it could melt off at any second. With the amount of different ideas at play here, and more than half of the tracks not even reaching the two-minute mark, the various intricacies can very easily blaze by the first time around, but that in and of itself warrants repeated listens. The intro track, 'Mimitwo', starts things off with an oddly hypnotising melody that barely lasts 45 seconds before being violently impaled by sharp, distorted guitars, serving as the backbone for ghostly wails. On 'Adrian vs. Thai Chili Pepper', (that song title sounds like an inside joke) the background is reserved for clean vocals that serve as a short relief from the rapid nature of the music, with similar tactics being employed on 'Strike Zone Pro Set Box Set' with spoken sighs of exhaustion in their place instead. 'Perpetual Vertigo' is by far the most violent track on here, employing both shrieks and growls alike amidst the darkest instrumentation, all encapsulated within a sparse 48 seconds. 'The French Say "Brobaire"' sounds almost resolute, with its outro being a gorgeous, spacey synth piece. Just about every track on here is a different idea, and it's an absolute miracle that as varied as this 14-track, 23-minute (appropriately titled) LP is, it retains its cohesion and progresses without feeling disjointed as it goes on. It leaves a lot to take in without feeling overwhelming, and this will likely also stay in regular rotation for me in the coming months.

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Let me get personal with this one real quick.
This is the spark of joy that I needed in a dull, debilitating season. The fact that this even dropped on New Year's Day felt like a silver lining at a point where it felt like I was nearing my lowest point, once again, in the cold and desolate winter months, giving me an early sneak peak of what I have to look forward to in the coming months in my newfound home of Pittsburgh; primarily in the form of bicycling. You can bet that once I can afford to get myself a mountain bike, this will likely be blasting in my headphones on the trails of Frick Park. To a certain extent, everything I've said thus far can be considered hyperbole, but this is yet another release that gave me a genuine emotional reaction, so can you blame me?

Okay, now for the actual music.
God damn, this is such a bubbly, hypnotic, joyful little fluffball of work. The first track, 'Furry', evokes scenes of a happy lil dog fella, calmly coasting through a tranquil, sun-coated nature park, the sounds of nature accompanied only by the gentle rapid ticking of a bike gliding on the pavement (Maybe one day I can be that dog). The rhythmic clicking over the ambient synthwork and various blips make for a truly blissful experience, perfect for putting on YouTube while going to sleep (which I have several times since I have heard this). 'Boys' is an ethereally noisy, infectiously catchy track that I have caught myself swinging my (sadly nonexistent) tail to, while 'Chipslop' and 'Brotherhood' effortlessly lower me into a trance with various glitches and other curious sounds. I could go on and on about the various feelings and sensations 'Bicycle' gives me, but I can spare a few words by simply calling this my new comfort album. Perfect for when I need a reminder that things will be okay after all.

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I'll spare you the E-40 comparisons that everybody and their siblings have already made, and give you my thoughts right off the bat: Bruiser Wolf is one of the most charismatic rappers I've heard in recent times. His bars are as clever as they are downright fucking hilarious, his choice of producers makes for prime trunk slappers, and his flows are as wild as they are buttery smooth; like a preacher giving sermons on the art of hustling, pimping, and the like. '2 Bad', the big single for this album, brings together the whole dynamic trio with Zelooperz and Danny Brown on board to make poetry out of all of their experiences under the sheets. Curiously, Ejay Beats, the producer for this track, used the same sample featured on A$AP Rocky's legendary '1Train' posse cut that also features Danny Brown, so it's cool to see him hop on that again (even if nothing will top the "bitch pussy smell like a penguin" bar). Songs like the Harry Fraud-produced 'Let The Young Boys Eat' and 'Dope Boy' have Bruiser Wolf seamlessly gliding on silky-smooth soul samples, while 'Skywalkin' and 'Hurry Up & Buy' are much more minimalist, with mere piano chops accompanying his stories of trapping. 'I Was Taught To' with Trinidad James sounds straight off of the West Coast, with a G-funk-esque laid-back beat that begs to be rattling the frame of an old Cadillac or shaking the floor of a strip club. Overall, 'My Story Got Stories' rings true to its name, with bars and punchlines for days and stories of drug-slinging and pimping that hearken back to the East Coast tales of old, with West Coast flair.

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And now, for some honorable mentions!

The Smile - "Wall of Eyes"

The Thom Yorke-led trio takes a trip deeper into the minimal and somber on their sophomore LP.

Abuse Repression - s/t

The Port Huron, MI-based blackened skramz band debuts with an angst-ridden EP, complete with vaguely sassy song titles like 'The Number Thirteen Looks Like Bob' and 'I Feel Like a Jesse Pinkman Shirt'.

LÖRI - s/t

From Lima, Peru, this four-piece leaves a blazing trail in this metallic, distortion-heavy sophomore album, their first release in eight whole years.

Jockey - "time for you to bury me"

This melodic hardcore-tinged emo band from Dallas, Texas sings and screams with youthful longing across six songs, in a similar vein as the long-gone Title Fight.

Humanitarian Deficit / geronimostilton - Split

Humanitarian Deficit cries from a deep, dark pit of sorrow, while geronimostilton rips and tears through a solid wall of compression and distortion. (Also, shoutout to Skweezy Jibbs)

Serling - "The Hempstead Assignments"

A continuation of their very first release, the Bowdoin, ME mathy deathcore band bring legendary scene figures from The Sawtooth Grin and See You Next Tuesday along for a twisted, time-warped journey.