Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender: Anxious are a Connecticut band that broke through a few years ago after generating tons of regional buzz with a strong debut album Little Green House . Thanks to publications like Brooklyn Vegan I was a pretty early adopter of the band and their debut lived up to a lot of my expectations and seamlessly blended together styles of hardcore, emo, punk, and pop punk. It's for that reason that I was both excited by and invested in the bands future and what I hoped would be development. Instead, a rough collection of singles gave way to a second effort that robbed the band of nearly everything I once found so interesting about them.  I hate writing negative reviews so let me at least start by sharing what I liked about the record, primarily that it gets off to a strong start. The opener "Never Said" is by far my favorite of the singles and my favorite song on the entire record. It's a raucous pop-punk breakup song with a catchy hook and snarling lyrics f...

This is a special review written by my friend and go-to emo and pop-punk coinnessoir Sasha Prudence. You can check her out on Instagram here. Review by Sasha: Origami Angel is a 5th wave emo band from Washington DC that made their big break on the scene with their acclaimed 2019 album Somewhere City . The album consisted of lyrics ripe with nostalgia for late 2000s childhood delights, blisteringly fast mathy riffs, and themes about a hopeful future full of emotional growth and self-improvement. However, the band’s hopes to tour behind this album were dashed with the arrival of Covid 19. Their tour was canceled, and the momentum the band had gained was all but lost.  They returned with a follow-up album, Gami Gang , which was as unorganized as it was experimental. The album ended up feeling like a mixtape full of wild ideas such as "Bossa Nova Corp," which combines easy listening bossa nova with powerful pop-punk chords, and it’s one of my personal favorites of the band. Thei...

Review by Lav: Okay so I did not expect to be reviewing this album right now. I've been covering Neck Deep ever since their 2015 album Life's Not Out To Get You  really impressed me in my tween years before I even started this blog. I reviewed their two follow-up albums since then and I wasn't particularly impressed by either. After a four-year gap in new material I can't exactly say this self-titled fifth album was high on my list of priorities. But after seeing some positive buzz for the project spread online I decided to give it a shot and ultimately had to cover it. On their self-titled record Neck Deep get right back to basics and deliver their best album since the one that first made me a fan almost 10 years ago. Though this record is better than I expected, it's still firmly entrenched in the predictable sounds of pop-punk and that isn't always a perfect formula. For example, I'm not crazy about the album's lead single and bit hit Heartbreak Of Th...

Anxious is a Connecticut emo band who have been turning heads in the underground for a year or two and signed to Run For Cover records last year. They've released four singles in the past year leading up to this, their debut album. Review by Lav: Last year I was turned on to the music of Anxious by a Brooklyn Vegan article and I've been following them ever since. When they signed to Run For Cover records and started releasing singles for the lead up to their debut album I got increasingly excited for what the band was capable of delivering. While the record is definitely a mixed bag as the band looks for their sound, there are plenty of bright spots along the way.  The record gets off to a solid start but generally the first half is quite a bit weaker than the second half. Your One Way Street  is the opening track and the band wastes no time getting into the thick of things with this up-tempo two minute pop punky opener. It has a tight groove and a short but memorable hook and...