I've spent my whole life speeding through the yellow lights that I probably should’ve stopped at

Sometimes I wait and wait and wait until these things are juuust right before sending them out. It’s early in the year, and there’s already some good stuff that’s been on repeat through my speakers, so here you go. Three records and two songs. Spotify link featuring all of it is below.

Palette Knife - New Game+

(Bandcamp | Spotify)

They were my most listened to band in 2022. The first single “Jelly Boi” technically came out in 2021 and then all three of the singles they dropped in 2022 were great and now the whole thing just plain rocks. It’s a video game themed record so it would be easy to say the band has leveled up, but that's not enough to do this justice. They’ve hacked the game and found a new hidden level, no cheat code needed. There isn’t enough room on the screen to display this new high score. The console is hot to the touch and needs to be reset. Play again? Play again.

Stress Fractures - Stress Fractures

(Bandcamp | Spotify)

Martin Hacker-Mullen has tapped into the sweet spot of the emo reservoir that has been flowing for decades. Catchy tunes with chunky riffs, pop-punky emo in the vein of Modern Baseball, Latterman, Touché, New Found Glory, and Set Yours Goals. They also namedrop Brian Sella and John Darnielle, so if those bands or any of the ones I listed are your jam, I think you’ll find a lot to like in this record.

saturdays at your place - always cloudy EP

(Bandcamp | Spotify)

I mentioned in my end of year song list that “tarot cards” was one of my absolute favorite songs of last year, and this EP features that plus five other great tunes. This also seems to be one of the bands that everyone I show them to digs it. We love a high success rate.

Scarlet Street - “Mazda Miata & Clinical Depression”

(Bandcamp | Spotify)

This band rules. This song rules. You should pre-order their record. I did. I love the raw energy of their lyrics and music. They write songs that are simultaneously contemporary and a throwback, like they’ve taken the best parts of their influences and channeled them through their own vision.

boygenius - “$20”

(Bandcamp | Spotify)

They’re baaaaaaack. These three incredible artists (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus) put out an incredible EP in 2018 and have a full length record coming out at the end of March. The three songs they released are, of course, fantastic.

And here are all those songs on one playlist.

A story about anxiety (new brain, please)

I saw a tweet recently that was like “people who say they don’t like small talk are just uninteresting and bad conversationalists” and I felt attacked. Last week was the holiday party for my school and I had anxiety all day about going. After school I couldn’t decide so I told myself if the liquor store didn’t have the wine I wanted already chilled I was not going to go. (They didn’t, but a bunch of the other teachers were there so I felt like I had to go at that point.) I really like the people I work with but that anxiety was crippling anyway. It’s just that most of the things I want to talk about are just not the things that most people want to talk about and I just cannot manage to fake interest in things I just don’t care about, and I don’t care about the things that most other people care about. This is one of those things that makes me feel like I’m insane. Like I’m not An Actual Adult. Like I’m the only one who truly is just that boring. Like just the thought of being in a social setting and having nothing to say is terrifying. Like that’s a big me problem. But I’m working on it.

I did end up being asked “so what IS emo exactly? It’s electronic music, right?” which sounds like it might be annoying, but as hard as it can be to describe, I did my best. That conversation went on a journey, but one I was willing to take. I talked about emo, Brand New, the My Chem renaissance, tattoos, the ramifications of the Ticketmaster/LiveNation merger, the new Boston venues, the lack of smaller venues in Boston that will inevitably lead to bands just skipping us when plotting their tours, Phoebe Bridgers, and Taylor Swift. (If you’d also like to talk about those things, invite me to your parties. I will bring the rosé.) Pretty good. I even got to make some people I don’t know super well laugh and that felt good. But even still I felt such a relief when leaving. I’m glad I went. I even forgive the guy who asked “is Radiohead considered emo?” Somehow that is an insult to both Radiohead and emo.

And then I came home to a simple gift that made everything okay: a bag of peanut M&Ms. Peanut M&Ms fix everything.