No items found.
Geography is important, so here's a rundown: Signals Midwest is an indie-rock-tinged punk band from Cleveland, Ohio. Members currently reside in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. Since forming in 2008, they have released five full-length albums and a slew of split 7"s and EPs. "Siggies", as one particularly eloquent fan dubbed the group somewhere along the line, has played just shy of 500 shows in North America, Europe, the UK, Australia and Japan. “Layovers”, due out in July 2025 via their longtime collaborator Lauren Records, is a career-spanning collection of previously unreleased songs, B-sides, 7” tracks and covers that span the band’s nearly two decades of existence.
Five Hundred Bucks is a filthy, beautiful punk rock fever dream clawing its way out of Philadelphia, featuring members of The Holy Mess, Captain, We’re Sinking, Teen Agers, and Seagulls—stitched together by Jeff Riddle: songwriter, guitarist, accidental philosopher. The bastard child of burned-out idealism and a four-month songwriting bender in a garage, their latest record Pest Sounds sounds like someone set their old dreams on fire and recorded the screams. These songs are full of ghosts: generational addiction, dead friends, southern doom, and the kind of youthful rot you can only write about once it’s already eaten half your soul. It’s punk rock with a bleeding heart and a busted compass, stumbling toward meaning in the wreckage.
Downhaul's third record How to Begin is not the work of a new band, but it does feel like the start of something. The Richmond, VA-based group expertly blend college rock jangle, emo urgency, and alt-country twang into an instantly satisfying strain of indie rock that manages to be both welcoming and unencumbered by anything but the desire to write the best songs possible. The result is Downhaul’s most flat out accessible output yet, combining the loquacious catchiness of songwriters like John K. Samson or Blake Schwartzenbach with the vitality and idiosyncrasies of bands like Piebald or The Wrens, and it's sure to catch the ears of longtime fans and new listeners alike.