Tag: albums/eps

[album] Legss – Unreal

acute.pop

Years of sharp EPs and standout singles by Legss only hinted at what was coming. Unreal arrives like something very special—a grand debut in spirit, more a bold new beginning than a continuation. From the first track, it’s clear how much care, hard work and ambition fuel this record: the sound is broader, richer, and more adventurous than anything they’ve attempted before.

Where earlier releases invited comparisons to fellow post-punk and art rock outfits (who started at the same time as Legss), Unreal finds the four-piece stepping fully into a voice that’s clearly their own. The album roams widely, shifting from intricate, almost cinematic textures to bursts of jagged energy, yet it never feels scattered or forced.

Lyrically, it’s clever and piercingly relatable, threading themes of social anxiety, miscommunication, and the uncanny edges of everyday life (“The tragic and the comic. The unreal”, as stated by the group). It’s heavy and personal without turning dour, balancing weighty ideas with sharp wit and memorable phrasing (“Sleepers, Awake” is an easy standout on the record in this sense).

Most striking, though, is just how beautiful the whole thing sounds. The production is lush but never slick; each listen reveals new layers while preserving the raw nerve that has always defined the band. “Eversince” is the best example of this, easily one of the most gorgeous-sounding songs released this year. For a group long marked as promising, Unreal is a true revelation.

Listen below and buy the LP here.

[album] Lathe of Heaven – Aurora

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Listening to Aurora by Lathe of Heaven feels like stepping into a dimly lit goth club, where time no longer matters and the past merges with the present. The post-punk four-piece doesn’t just reference their influences—they reshape them, creating songs that are at once melodic and aggressive, dreamy and dangerous, yet somehow entirely organic.

A strong romantic feel runs throughout the album, amplified by poetic and heavy lyrics that read like fragments of nocturnal dream journals, but the music never drifts into softness; there’s always a volatile edge just beneath the surface. The title track (which is set in a dystopian future where Earth is long abandoned due to nuclear fallout) feels like the record’s beating heart—an expansive, deeply affecting piece that manages to be both urgent and elegiac.

Together, all these qualities make Aurora something really-really special: an album that channels the ghosts of the past while speaking with startling clarity to the present, glowing with a natural intensity and musical beauty from beginning to end. To arrive at a sound this confident, cohesive, and emotionally charged so early on is rare, and it marks Lathe of Heaven as one of the finest bands around.

Stream below and buy the LP here, out now via Sacred Bones Records.

[ep] Sex Week – Upper Mezzanine

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Upper Mezzanine by Sex Week is a striking EP that thrives on contrast, stitching together shadowy atmospheres with bursts of playful, melody-driven energy. It’s the kind of record that feels moody on the surface but quickly reveals itself to be warm, inviting, and surprisingly catchy—a collection you’ll want to revisit as soon as it ends.

The standout, “Coach” (which, as mentioned by the duo, has Romanian popcorn incorporated in it, and God that was a great idea) distils everything the band does best: it’s intimate yet expansive, tinged with nostalgia while still sounding fresh, and easily ranks among the most affecting songs released in recent memory.

Listen below and get the EP here.

[album] Wreck and Reference – Stay Calm

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It doesn’t begin so much as it materialises—Stay Calm by Wreck and Reference arrives like a signal intercepted from somewhere unstable, its shape shifting the moment you think you’ve grasped it. Pressing play feels less like listening to an album and more like opening a strange portal, where unpredictability is the only constant.

Across their catalogue, that volatility has been the band’s signature, but here they refine it into something even sharper. The record folds together post-metal weight, noise rock abrasion, and stretches of drone, all threaded with uncanny, glitchy and weird synths that refuse to sit still or be pinned down. What’s most striking is how seamlessly it all coheres, compact, deliberate, and sculpted with precision.

More than just an experiment in sound, Stay Calm lands like a direct response to the global unravelling of the past five years or so, a soundtrack to collective anxiety, depression and general unease. Its release feels perfectly timed, as though the duo have distilled chaos into a form that both reflects and steadies it. It’s unnerving, cathartic, and oddly reassuring—a record that thrives in the tension between collapse and control.

Stream below and purchase the album here.

[ep] Nuovo Testamento – Trouble

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Nuovo Testamento live in Milan’24

Neon-drenched and heartbreak-ready, Nuovo Testamento’s Trouble is a synth-fueled invitation straight to the goth nightclub floor. The trio lean into the shimmer of classic Italo and 80s new wave nostalgia, but never sound stuck in time, as the production is sleek, sharp, and undeniably modern.

The mini-album thrives on contrast: euphoric hooks laced with just enough shadow, driving beats softened by a bittersweet edge. It’s fun, it’s feverish, and it’s irresistibly physical, as every track feels engineered to keep bodies moving beneath strobe lights and fog.

Trouble doesn’t just revisit the past; it reanimates it, giving familiar sounds a fresh pulse that feels perfectly suited to right now.

Stream below and buy the EP here.