Unreal City

TWIN RAINS – Fantasizing Dream Pop Duo Wanders Around In An ‘UNREAL CITY’

Posted on by JL

28 November 2021

Band: TWIN RAINS
Who: Dream pop duo – Jay Merrow and Mary Christine Stoesser – from Toronto,
Canada. The pair met as roommates in 2009 and within weeks were making music together, forming/breaking up an inde band and relesaing their duo debut album
Automatic Hand in 2016.

New album: UNREAL CITY

“The Unreal City. Its infrastructure is built on the backs of malnourished synapses, unable to make the distinction between impulse and conditioned response. Its streets are paved with all that glitters so that walking them hypnotizes and distracts. Its buildings are doomed, eternally reaching out of insecure origins raised up from shaky foundations and briefly held aloft by high ideals before succumbing to the pressures from the weather.

Turn Up The Volume: This Canadian pop duo invites you into their wondrous world.
A kind of Shangri-la place where glistering synths, sugary pop melodies, and Stoesser‘s wistful near-whispering voice create a hazy soundtrack for romantics, stargazers, wishful thinkers, and fantasizers with meditative moments (The Garden / Believe It All / Strawberry Moon), ambient and amplified compositions (Body Of Water / Unreal City / Nothing In My Purse) and trippy thrills (Anymore / All That You Know).

As we all know reality turned into surreality these past two pandemic years, so I’m sure
it’s pretty safe to join Twin Rains and explore the heart and soul of their unreal city.

Single/clip: All Of The Saints

Stream/buy UNREAL CITY here…


.
TWIN RAINS: Facebook

10 Best Hardcore LPs Of 2020 According To STEREOGUM

Posted on by JL

21 December 2020

American Music website STEREOGUM (founded in 2002 – 320.000 followers on Facebook) has published its 2020 list of best Hardcore Albums. Here’s the deafening top 10…

1. Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress by GULCH (Wichita, Kansas)

Released: 24 July 2020
Stereogum: “There is so much happening in this wild 16-minute ride of an album. Mysterious Santa Cruz berserkers Gulch bring the icy grandeur of Mayhem, the erratic bloodthirst of Nails, the adrenalized speed of Infest, and a whole lot else.”

Yeaaaaahhhhhhh…


.
2. World House by MIL-SPEC (San Jose, California)

Released: 25 September 2020
Stereogum: “The band draws inspiration from ’90s bands that combined fury with melody — Turning Point, Quicksand, Moss Icon. But Mil-Spec also have a way of taking those influences, twisting them into new shapes, and transforming them into something urgent and vital and new.”

Wham bloody bam…


.
3. Ronin by ROTTING OUT (Pasadena, California)

Released: 17 April 2020
Stereogum: “The Los Angeles band that Delgado has led for a decade-plus, has a whole lot of Californian surf-punk in its sound; they’re the rare modern hardcore band who sounds as much like Pennywise as they do Madball.”

Go nuts…


.
4. ’27 Miles Under Water’ by HIGHER POWER (Leeds, UK)

Released: 24 January 2020
Stereogum: “The line between populist riffage and hardcore stomp isn’t an easy one to walk, but Higher Power do it better than anyone this side of Turnstile.”

Hell this way…

.
5. Cruelty Of Heaven by

Released: 21 August 2020
Stereogum: “Sometimes, when hardcore bands slow things down for the mosh pit, it feels obligatory, a clockwork part of a long-established format. When Unreal City do it, it sounds like the sky turning ash-grey before blood rains down.”

Here’s the mosh-pit…


.
6. California Cursed by DRAIN

7. Black Line by RESPIRE

8. Rather Be Alone by POWER ALONE

9. Punishment Park by BIG CHEESE

10. Flesh, Steel, Victory… by SEED OF PAIN