Through the release of their five-song debut EP, 2020's after something and a handful of standalone singles, Québec City-based indie outfit worry -- creative mastermind and frontman Kerry Samuels, backed by Gaspard Eden's Joey Proteau, Valence's Aubert Gendron Marsolais, Mid Divers' Xavier Beaulieu and l i l a's Marianne Porter -- quickly developed a reputation for pairing lyrics inspired by Samuels' experience and emotions with a hook-driven sound that's heavy yet dreamy. The band describes their sound as "a noisy and emotional wave of sound capturing a warm feeling of nostalgia, like watching childhood home movies on a broken TV." The Québec City-based band has begun to build a profile locally and across the province, with the band making runs of the provincial club and festival circuit, including sold-out shows at L'Imperial Bell with July Talk and SOLIDS. Building upon that growing profile, worry will be releasing their debut album, Positive Memory in the spring. The album's second and latest single "Regret," is one-part 90s grunge, one-part Brit-pop, one-part 2000s emo that showcases that band's knack for pairing vulnerable, lived-in lyrics with rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. The band explains that "the song reflects on memory, death and the moment that linger long after they're gone."

Started back in 2008 as both a side project and creative experiment for the members of Los Angeles-based punk rock outfit The Bronx, Mariachi El Bronx — Matt Caughthran (vocals), Joby J. Ford (guitar, vihuela, accordion), Jared Shavelson (drums), Keith Douglas (trumpet), Ray Suen (violin), Brad Magers (trumpet), Ken Horne (jarana), and Vincent Hidalgo (guitarrón)– have long been deeply rooted in their deep connection to the Hispanic music and culture of their hometown. Although seemingly different, the band doesn’t see punk and mariachi as mutually exclusive. Instead, they view both genres as spiritually entwined forces anchored in resilient storytelling. “Punk rock and mariachi music are very similar in soul,” The Bronx’s and Mariachi El Bronx’s Matt Caughthran says. “It’s working class music. It’s real music.”  Despite almost two decades of success, that has included sharing stages with Foo Fighters and The Killers; sets across the global festival circuit, including Coachella and Glastonbury; performances on Late Show with David Letterman to NPR’s Tiny Desk; and theme songs for shows like Weeds and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the members of Mariachi El Bronx still consider themselves lifelong students of the art form. That reverence carries over to their charro suits, which often attract as much attention as the music itself. The band has long turned to Boyle Heights-based Casa del Mariachi, a historic Los Angeles area landmark, where Jorge “Mr. George” Tello has been handcrafting the traditional suits for over 50 years. “This band has always been about learning and exchanging culture through music and art,” says Caughthran. “That’s what it’s all about! Everything we do comes from the heart and soul.” Mariachi El Bronx’s long-awaited fourth album, the John Avila-produced Mariachi El Bronx IV is slated for a Friday release through ATO Records. The album, which is the first album from the project in a decade, sees the trailblazing alter-egos of The Bronx continuing to embody the same ethos that sparked their creation — honoring the rich Hispanic music and culture that has always surrounded them in their hometown, while pushing creative boundaries.  Clashing emotions of profound loss and overwhelming love shaped the album’s themes. The songwriting “started as a battle between love and death but became a way to process all the chaos of the world,” Caughthtran explains. Throughout the run of the album’s 12-tracks, the band documents the stories of gamblers, former playboys, warriors and lovers — characters that became vessels for the specific pressures of modern life.  Returning after a decade away felt “joyous and familiar from the jump,” the band’s Joby J. Ford says. But the album’s recording process proved to be much more complex than expected. Within the year that he began writing the album’s lyrics, Caughthran contended with the deaths of several loved ones. And as they tracked the album’s material at producer John Avila’s San Gabriel Valley studio, the Eaton Canyon wildfires blazed across East L.A. “We came out of the studio one night, the entire side of the hill was just on fire,” Ford recalls.  While dealing with grief in his personal life and within Los Angeles, Caughthran also got married in the same year. All of these very profoundly human experiences and feelings have informed what may arguably be Mariachi El Bronx’s most emotionally resonate work to date.  Mariachi El Bronx IV will feature the previously singles “Forgive or Forget,” and “RIP Romeo,” both wich, feature acclaimed violinist Ray Suen, "Bandoleros," a Norteño-charged tune that the band describes as the album's "battle cry," and the album's last pre-release single "Songbird." "Songbird" is hard-charging bit of mariachi that tackles a familiar frustration that many writers and artists face at some point: writers block. The song captures the frustration of looking at a blank page or at a blinking cursor for hours with nothing able to come to mind. This is followed by pressure induced desperation. If you know, you know. Mariachi El Bronx's Matt Caughtran was deep in a period of creative exhaustion, when longtime collaborator and friend Vincent Hildago, the son of Los Lobos' David Hildago, hit on a pulse-quickening guitar line in the studio. Caughtran's connection with the Hildago family goes back decades. He first met Vincent and his brother David Jr. in high school, where the three began playing music together, laying the foundation for a creative relationship that's spanned more than 30 years. After decades of collaboration, the spark was instant and to Caughthran, Vincent’s riff sounded like a hummingbird flapping its wings - the same bird he’d been watching outside his writing window as he stared down a blank page. The block faded instantly as lyrics poured out of his brain: “I was staring at another empty page / Feeling every single second of my age.”  Directed by Blaise Cepis, the accompanying video for "Songbird," is a surreal, almost Lynchian-like visual that features the members of the band performing the song in front of a collection of oddballs and freaks, who are wildly talented. Cepis says “whenever I direct a music video, I’m just trying to make something 11-year-old me would’ve stayed up late hoping to catch on 120 Minutes or Headbangers Ball. Thankfully I found 8 kindred spirits in mariachi el Bronx, who were the most incredible collaborators and were down for anything. I had such a great time with the band and the insanely talented gorgeous cast, I think 11-year-old me would approve.”

YouTube video by Roberta Flack - Topic

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Formed back in 2020, Seattle-based quartet Filth Is Eternal — Lis DiAngelo (vocals), Brian McClelland (guitar), Logan Miller (bass) and Josh Pehrson (drums) — was initially inspired by the raw, impulsive ethos of punk. The Seattle-based quartet quickly developed a reputation for a frenetic live set, which they brought to DIY venues across the country. “Filth has always been about energy at the heart of things since the earliest recordings,” the band’s Lis DiAngelo says. “We wanted to leave our blood and guts out on the floor,” Brian McClelland adds.  Filth Is Eternal’s third album, Impossible World is slated for a March 17, 2026 release through MNRK Heavy. The highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 sophomore effort Find Out was written against a backdrop of accelerating gentrification, unchecked technology and the slow — but quickening — creep of authoritarianism and fascism. So the album thematically confronts life in our present dystopian hellscape. And yet, rather than surrendering to despair and hopelessness, the band push forward with a defiant clarity, while asking difficult questions about survival, humanity and resistance in a world increasingly shaped without anyone’s consent.  Despite the album’s overall heavy subject matter, Impossible World has many soaring moments throughout — flashes of light that give fans a sense of possibility midst the brutal toils of contemporary life. The album is a salve in hard times, reminding the listener that art has the radical potential to enliven us, to connect us with others and to keep us holding on, as we wait out and plan through the darkest hours.  Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band balancing hardcore urgency with a sharpened melodic sensibility. The result is an effort that draws from punk’s immediacy while seeing the band push their sound towards something much more deliberate and expansive. “I think the biggest changes from LP1 to now is that we’ve upped the intention by using more melody, harmony, and singing in general. We’re working with aggression, but moving toward something beautiful and true,” DiAngelo says.  The album also features collaborations with The Blood Brothers‘ Johnny Whitney, Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman, Gina Gleason and Lauren Lavin, alongside their use of the FILTH EQ+, a pedal they crafted that helped shaped the album’s overall sound.  .The album will feature "Stay Melted," which I wrote about last month, and the album's second and latest single "Long Way." Featuring d a bruising and driving riff and backing harmonies from Lauren Lavin, "Long Way" sees the band pushing their sound into a grungier, subtly pop leaning direction while still being urgent. The song is also the first track that they recorded with the FILTH EQ+ pedal. The band's Lis DiAngelo says of the new single, “We live in a time saturated by consumer culture; we are hyper-focused on acquisition and consumption as means to happiness. ‘Long Way’ is about finding ourselves at the center of that, then finding our way OUT."  Directed by Che Hise-Gattone, the accompanying video for "Long Way" employs a mix of public access TV and 120 Minutes-era MTV aesthetics.

Over the course of his career, JOVM mainstay and acclaimed Aussie singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jay Watson has developed a reputation as one of his homeland's most prolific and exploratory artists, and as arguably one of the country's busiest musicians: He currently splits his time between JOVM mainstay acts, Tame Impala, POND and his own project GUM. Watson recently signed to King Gizz's p(doom) records, who will be releasing his self-produced seventh album Blue Gum Way. The album's title reference Australia's blue gum eucalyptus trees, while subtly nodding to melancholy, place and atmosphere. Slated for a March 6, 2022 release, Blue Gum Way follows 2023's GUM effort Saturnia and his 2024 collaboration with King Gizz's and The Murlocs' Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Ill Times. The JOVM mainstay's seventh album reportedly marks a deliberate shift in approach. While his previous releases embraced restless experimentation and stylistic left turns, Blue Gum Way finds Watson focusing on a singular mood and sonic identity, allowing atmosphere, emotion and restraint to take center stage. The nine-song album inhabits a widescreen, jazz-influenced psychedelic soundscape, drawing from Talk Talk, John Martyn and Radiohead. Elegant, patient and quietly melancholy, the album showcases an artist comfortable with vulnerability and clarity of expression, unburdened by the desire to prove anything. Interestingly, the album emerged in complete contrast to his concurrent work with POND and his collaboration with Kenny-Smith, and sees him favoring harmonic density and unhurried ambience over immediacy or roots-driven simplicity. Written largely in insolation, the album allowed Watson to lean into deeply personal thoughts and emotions. Lyrics, which were one secondary in his creative process, now play a much more central role, exploring anxiety, adaptation and life's pivotal moments with an impressionistic touch. Blue Gum Way will feature the previously released "Expanding Blue" and the album's second and latest single "Celluloid." Beginning with a lush and dreamy string arrangement and quivering feedback, "Celluloid" quickly turns into a broodingly cinematic tune that captures the creeping unease and dread of our seemingly unending techno-fascist hellscape, fueled by doom scrolling and rage-bait. "Everything feels worse in the middle of the night, it’s where peak worry and catastrophizing happens," Watson says. "Exacerbated by a slow death from blue screen light and brain rot.  Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying cinematically shot video for "Celluloid," was filmed in a lush park just outside what appears to be Melbourne. The camera slowly zooms in on a figure on a hill in the horizon playing guitar.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Siga​l said he and others plan to raise the flag back up at the monument on Thursday.​​

Organ trio Parlor Greens features a collection of grizzled veterans and incredibly accomplished musicians:  Tim Carman (drums): Arguably best known for his lengthy stint in acclaimed, Boston-based blues outfit GA-20, Carman showcases his ability to start steady, heavy and downright funky pockets for his bandmates.  Jimmy James (guitar): Through his work with The True Loves and the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, James has firmly established a signature and readily recognizable funky approach that has won him fans across the world.  Adam Scone (organ): Scone is a soul revival scene stalwart, playing on many Daptone Records sessions since their inception, including with Scone Cash Players and The Sugarman 3. He has learned from some of the beloved lends of soul jazz, including Melvin Sparks and the iconic Dr. Lonnie Smith. The trio’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Emeralds is slated a March 27, 2026 release through Colemine Records. Their sophomore album reportedly sees the acclaimed trio upping the ante while capturing the band in top form: tour tight and more confident than ever in who they are and where they’re going. Though the results are stronger than ever, the overall mood of the recording sessions was much different.  The first time the trio met in Colemine’s Loveland, OH-based Portage Lounge Studio, the meeting was marked by a certain sense of freshness: It was the first time they had all played together. Understandably, it was exciting and unknown territory. But the sessions were underlined by the heaviness each of the individual members were going through at the time. With each member dealing with personal tragedies in their individual lives, the sessions serves as a genuine moment of joy. Just three talented musicians, writing and playing music, now as friends, in a familiar environment.  Emeralds will feature the previously released, album opening "Eat Your Greens," a strutting and rollicking groover of a tune, and the album's latest single "Drop Top." "Drop Top" is anchored around a slow-burning, sultry Quiet Storm-like strut of a tune completed by Scone's shimmering bass organ and James' bluesy guitar melody. While arguably being one of the more mellow soul jazz compositions of their growing catalog together, "Drop Top" continues to showcase both their seemingly effortless simpatico and their unerring knack for pairing tight groove with improvisation and old-fashioned songcraft.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and the 89th anniversary of the birth of Roberta Flack.

Melbourne-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jimmy Kirra, who started writing songs when he was 12. Since then his work has been rooted in the sounds of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s rock and pop. Although he has only recently been releasing his work on the major DSPs, his songs have amassed over 500,000 streams in the past 18 months. His latest album, The Magic Cloud was released last month, and the album reflects his evolution into a serious and mature artist, further establishing himself as a self-driven creator, who writes, sings and produces his own music while showcasing an artist who can effortlessly bounce between and blend modern pop and rock., classic rock and alternative influences.

Based near Tomintoul, a small whiskey village in the Scottish Highlands, rising punk duo Bratakus -- sisters Brègha Cuinn (guitar, vocals) and Onnagh Cuinn (bass, vocals) -- formed back in 2015. And since their formation, they've been fiercely DIY. The duo ran their own label Screaming Babies Records and with no music on streaming services and no booking agent, they landed airplay on BBC Scotland and elsewhere, opened for The Hives and toured as far as Japan. Last year, the band caught the attention of Venn Records, who signed the band and will be releasing their Johan Gustafsson co-produced album Hagridden, which is slated for a Friday release. Recorded at Stockholm-based Studio Gröndahl, the album, which will feature previously released tracks "Final Girls," "Tokened," and "Turnstile," is ten tracks of screaming and cathartic punk. "Tonight," Hagridden's latest single is a bruising, old school punk ripper anchored around some incendiary guitar work and the duo's howled lyrics., which focus on the timely subject of media manipulation. "It's about how everyone is angry about the state of the world, but we are being thrown distractions to get us to hate the wrong people,” Bratakus' Brègha Cuinn says. “The fact that some people are happy to just look the other way and let it happen if they perceive that it's not going to affect them, but in reality, we're all on this planet together, and if we don't have compassion for each other, and help each other out, we'll be left with nothing." Directed by Alice Black, the accompanying video for "Tonight" is split between the pair performing the song in a grungy, dungeon-like space and the duo walking about their town with creepy baby masks -- the same baby masks the are featured on the album's cover art. This is informed by the fact that the album thematically touches on the uneasy fact that life often feels like a waking nightmare. “I'm an avid listener of the Blindboy podcast and one of the things he talks about that I find really interesting is how most adults nowadays aren't really being offered the opportunity to actually grow up due to the current state of the world,” the band's Onnagh Cuinn says. “The cost of living is so high that a lot of millennials aren't even able to move out of their parents' house, so it feels like a lot of the milestones that used to define adulthood are becoming more unattainable, so we're left in this weird "in between" where technically we're adults, but we still feel like kids. It's something I think about a lot, and I think it ties in with the meaning of the song, so I wanted to try and create a kind of visual for that by going around doing a lot of regular day to day things while wearing the baby faces."

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Tracy Chapman.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Carole King's 84th birthday.

Monølo is a French classically trained pianist and electronic music artist, who has built a career exploring the intersection of acoustic piano and contemporary techno. Throughout his career, his work has seen him crafting a sound where minimalism, rhythmic tension and club-focused energy -- with an emphasis on live performance, organic recording method and a raw production aesthetic. The result is a distinct and modern take on techno that's equally suited to deeply focused listening and the dance floor. The French artist's latest single "The Bells Tribute (Piano Techno Mix)" was originally conceived a free, solo piano reinterpretation of Jeff Mills' iconic 1996 track "The Bells." The Monølo re-interpretation turns the original into a percussive and hypnotic tune that's one-part techno with a decidedly industrial leaning. It's a club banger but at its core, the song explores an uneasy yet irresistible tension between hypnotic repetition and interpretative freedom.

Deriving their name from one of the most barren and foreboding locations on Earth, a huge, dry valley in Antartica, the Wiesbaden, Germany-based doom metal outfit The Wright Valley Trio -- Dominque Fricker (vocals, guitar), Robert Krause (bass, synths)_ and Matthias Rodig (drums) -- was founded back in 2013, but can actually trace their origins to working together in different projects over the years. In their decade-plus history, the trio have released two albums, 2023's Bitter Alter, a collaborative effort with Blackstaff; and 2021's Der Wag, as well as three EPs 2017's Shackleton, 2018's Submarine Funeral and 2022's Metal Doom. And through these releases, the German doom trio have developed a sound that seamlessly meshes elements of doom, sludge and post-black metal, anchored around extremely long songs that range from cultivated boredom to heavy riffs and massive walls of sound. The German trio's recently released album Leben ist Schmerz is a two-song album that the band explains tells the story of a life with bipolar disorder, exploring the extremes of that condition -- and the struggles it brings. Clocking in at a little under 27.30, the album's first single, album title track "Leben ist Schmerz" is an expansive, slow-burning and downright bruising bit of sludgy doom that captures the album's central concept with a seemingly lived-in accuracy.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month -- and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's 52nd birthday.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Motley Crüe frontman Vince Neil's 65th birthday.

Vancouver-based Mark Jowett, the mastermind behind Plain Mister Smith is a Canadian indie scene veteran who has had stints in Moev and Cinderpop, as well as a stint playing cello with the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra. With Plain Mister Smith, the enigmatic Canadian artist draws influence from an eclectic range of artists including The Beatles, Bryce Dessner, Matt Maltese, Led Zeppelin, The Zombies and 20th-century classical composers like Prokofiev, who subtly influences his string-driven arrangements. The result is a sound that seamlessly blends elements of indie pop, baroque folk and psychedelia. The Vancouver-based artist's new album is slated for an April release. "Dream To Be Free" feat. Jordan Klassen is a lush, gorgeous tune featuring twinkling keys, strummed guitar and the pair's remarkably sonorous harmonies. While sonically reminding me a bit of Forever So-era Husky, the track as the Canadian artist explains is a reflection on a trip to Kyoto that took place during Daimonji, a festival where locals light giant bonfires to guide spirits back home.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and the 52nd anniversary of the birth of J. Dilla.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and the belated anniversary of Natalie Cole's birth.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of Television's Fred Smith.

Currently split between Berlin and Brussels, post punk outfit Golden Hours — Hákon Aõalsteinsson, Wim Janssens, Tobias Humble and Rodrigo Funtealba Palavacino — features a collection of seasoned players, who have performed as part of Gang of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Fuzztones, Tricky‘s backing band and a lengthy list of others.  The post-punk outfit rumbled into the scene with the release of 2023’s self-titled debut. Their sophomore album  Beyond Wires was recently released through The Third Sound/Fuzz Club Records.  The album was knit together in between the tours and other obligations of its four members, written and recorded in rehearsal rooms in Berlin and an old mansion in Brussels. “The latter definitely put its stamp on the record with its noisy electric static bleeding into every song”, Golden Hours' Wim Janssens says. However, Golden Hours never shies away from these things: they boldly learn into it and welcome those ghostly appearances with open arms and then, just try to out-fuzz the buzz with layers of noise and strong melodic elements that can cut through it. The sophomore album is essentially the sound of four musicians gathering in a Berlin rehearsal room, punching oles in a wall and picking up the fallen bits to create something new over the course of a few days. Employing a creative process centered around trial and error, the members of the band swears by a simple rule: "A light shakin’ of the head to the left and right will kill a weak idea in a heartbeat, when no-one says anything the idea is likely accepted. You’ve got to keep the roads clear, to let all the good stuff pass through. You can throw up road blocks in your own time.” “With the new album, the band is stealthily moving closer to a sonic space that we can call our own,” Janssens adds. Beyond Wires features the previously released singles “The Letter,” “Arctic Desert," and the album's latest single "The Same Thing." Anchored around a relentless motorik groove and a shimmering guitar paired with a brooding baritone vocal, "The Same Thing" strikes me as being a bit of a hypnotic synthesis of krautrock and post punk that expresses an existential sense of dread and unease. “'The Same Thing' leans heavily on Tobias deadpan drum groove and shows the band in full repetitive kraut modus," Janssen explains. "The song was the last one added to the long-list for the album. When all tracks were recorded, the question was asked: did anyone still have any gems hidden up their sleeves? Hakon started playing this guitar riff, and we all instantly locked in, and within 15 minutes, a song structure appeared. After 2 takes, the basic track was nailed. The song took a slight turn when vocals and extra layers were added in post-production, away from the obvious and into more atmospheric realms, in sync with the overall sound of the album.” “The song is about the inevitable that comes for you, mostly in moments when you let your guard down. Good things, bad things…The ground beneath your feet can disappear in an instant," Janssen adds. "It’s the stuff you can never prepare for unless you want to live your life in fear, hiding in a bunker somewhere in a desert where the floods can’t reach you. And it hardly ever happens to you alone, even when no one else gets hit, there’s always collateral damage, stuff that pops up and rears its ugly head years after the avalanche turned your world upside down. It’s a cleansing ritual at best if you’re able to get from under the snow. You can’t keep an eye on everything all the time, and you probably won’t see or hear it coming anyway, but as Tom Waits so beautifully put it: 'We’re all gonna be just dirt in the ground,' so no need to go check on your car that fell into that sinking hole before your time is up.”

Scores of live music fans in New York’s hip borough report having their phones stolen during live music shows