Shallow Cuts
Empty Beach Town
No Idea Records (2016)
Sometimes I want to add a lot of back story, my own perspective coming into a record. While that certainly shapes the experience, sometimes you have to let it stand for itself. Shallow Cuts tie into a number of other bands: Dan Padilla, Madison Bloodbath, The Gateway District, Dear Landlord, Tiltwheel. Probably the whole of San Diego the way this sentence is shaping up. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been there. I hear the burritos are great and it’s sunny all the time, if the members of Shallow Cuts are to be taken at word.All the bands listed above give context but this is a new band, their first full-length. Empty Beach Town is rough around the edges yet direct in tone and smooth in melody. It’s DIY punk at heart, but it’s a bit cleaner in both melody and production compared to much of that genre, straddling that line between Dear Landlord and Dan Padilla well but nowhere near confined to the overlapping Venn diagram between the two. All three members alternate vocals though it’s mostly guitarist J Wang and bassist Matty Kirkley trading the microphone on Empty Beach Town, bringing notable guitar leads that push the songs along … Read more
Coathangers
Nosebleed Weekend
Suicide Squeeze (2016)
A lot of the bands I listen to have gotten older and slowed their productivity so it’s nice to realize … Read more
American Football
LP2
Polyvinyl (2016)
American Football are the sort of band that shouldn't have attracted so much attention. When they first properly emerged in … Read more
Esben and the Witch
Older Terrors
Season of Mist (2016)
Taking their name from a well-known Danish fairytale, the trio from Brighton entered with confidence the alternative rock world. A … Read more
