Russian Circles: Nine
On their latest album, Nine, the band triangulates their relative positions into singular seismic long-form album-oriented soundtracks to the trials and tragedies of life in the modern age.
For Nine, Russian Circles adhered to their strategy from Blood Year (2019) and Gnosis (2022) by teaming up with engineer Kurt Ballou (Converge, Mastodon, High on Fire). Basic tracking took place at Electrical Audio in Chicago while the finishing touches occurred at Ballou’s GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts. Recording at Electrical Audio allowed the band to retain a thread to their earliest endeavors, with the band having recorded at Steve Albini’s exalted studio as far back as their debut album Enter (2006). The relationship with Ballou is a more recent development stemming back to the band’s sixth album Guidance (2016), owing to his ability to highlight the weight and entropy of metal and hardcore bands in their natural environment while enhancing the clarity and articulation often lost in walls of distortion.
Reinvention is unnecessary when the path forward has always been an open horizon. When it comes to Russian Circles, you can go back through their catalog and find a vast array of moods, stylistic shifts, and timbral experiments across any given album, yet there has been a noticeable progression in the overall experience of taking in any one of their albums as a whole. Whereas earlier albums were almost playful in their traversing of territories, Nine is a document of a band that knows the lay of the land and is fortifying their dominion over the varied terrain.
Don’t miss Russian Circles at HI-FI on October 13th. GET TICKETS.
Laci Kaye Booth: Love Ain’t For The Faint of Heart
Texas native Laci Kaye Booth, who is opening arena shows on Ella Langley’s Dandelion Tour. just released her newest album Love Ain’t For The Faint of Heart, on Friday (Sept. 18) on Lost Highway Records.
The dozen-song set, produced by Ben West (Langley, Stephen Wilson Jr.) finds Booth further expanding on her brand of “dreamy country,” while the song’s lyrics center on reckoning with various facets of relationships. The unraveling of a previous romantic relationship and the beginnings of her current love story with boyfriend and fellow country music artist Morgan Evans, inform her latest album.
The project also follows her previous viral hits including “George F****** Strait” and “Daddy’s Mugshot,” the latter of which draws from her relationship with and lessons learned from her father Jody Booth, a musician who was often on the road for long stretches when she was a child.
Booth wraps her velvety, dusky voice around a range of sounds, from hazy country ballads to churning rock-inspired numbers that gather inspiration from Stevie Nicks and Lana Del Rey. Booth teams with Lukas Nelson on “The Illusion of Love” and serves up a languid, haunting rendition of an older song from her writing catalog, “Ethereal Redneck Shit,” filled with vivid imagery such as “I wanna levitate, dance on your Escalade.”
“I thought this was such a representation of who I am to my core,” Booth says. “I love a dive bar. On my last album, I wrote the song ‘Damn Good in a Dive Bar,’ and I thought this is such a good representation of who I am at my core,” Booth says. “I thought, ‘I can’t write another song like that, but I can at least explain that song in another way. I got in the room with Luke Laird and Ben West. I had two ideas on my phone, one was ‘Ethereal Redneck Shit,’ and the other was a verse about, ‘I’ve been cooking and cleaning all up in my feelings.’ And I really was in that moment, trying to juggle music and life.”
Don’t miss Laci Kaye Booth at HI-FI on October 6th. GET TICKETS.
Porch Light: Hush
Coming off of a jam-packed summer of festival performances, Minneapolis band Porch Light are excited to share their debut album, Hush, available now via Mom + Pop. Recorded at Pachyderm Studios with producer Caleb Wright (Samia, Hippo Campus), the 11-track record was built on the road-tested chemistry of a band that’s spent the past two years touring behind their debut EPs. Hush moves between riff-driven rock anthems and stripped-back ballads, anchored throughout by vocalist Jackie Uhas’s rangy, unfiltered delivery. Hush is the sound of a band translating their explosive live show onto record for the first time. “Arctic” and “Under” kicked off a wild summer for Porch Light. “Arctic” finds the band at their most unfiltered, pulling at the tension between commitment and longing — the pull toward something deeper even inside a relationship you’re already all in on. Wiry guitars underscore Jackie Uhas’s vocal as the song builds to a cathartic release. “Under” takes the opposite approach: a mosh pit-ready anthem built on heavy riffs and Jackie’s most powerful vocal takeyet, churning forward with rhythmic heft and the group’s signature angst-and-melody combination.
Last month’s double single, “Paranoia” and “James,” pushed into new territory; the two tracks sit on opposite ends of the same nervous system, one spiraling, one finally steady. “Paranoia” is built from public unraveling, tracing a relationship that blurs manipulation and intoxication until the narrator can’t keep it together. “James” answers from the other side: a love song written by someone convinced they’d already had their one shot, only to find love again after deciding it was off the table for good. The response to the new music has been overwhelming, and fans’ gravitation to “Paranoia” was immediate. The track has pulled in 3.5M+ views across the band’s TikTok alone in its first three weeks, with fans pushing nine of fifteen posts using the song past 100K views and three past 500K. On streaming, “Paranoia” has logged 2M plays in under three weeks, running 150K+ a day on Spotify alone. The single has added 22K TikTok followers and 8K Instagram followers since its first post, and pushed Porch Light’s upcoming headline tour to 60% sold out.
Since their debut, Porch Light have played sold-out shows across North America and supported bands like Arcy Drive, Spacey Jane, Goth Babe, and more. This summer, they appeared at a variety of major festivals, from Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL, and Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI, to this weekend’s performance at Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, GA. Their first headlining tour of North America begins September 22 in Dallas, TX, bringing the rising five-piece through major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. For more information on upcoming appearances, see below and follow the band on Instagram at @porchlighttheband.
Don’t miss Porch Light at HI-FI on November 12th. GET TICKETS.
The Bends: If You Insist
Breakout alt-rock band The Bends have released their anticipated debut album, If You Insist, out now via Warner Records.
If You Insist captures the band at a pivotal moment in their rise—from a Louisiana college bar band to a full-fledged touring act building a life around music. The title reflects the unexpected momentum that followed their early releases and live shows as opportunities began to unfold in ways they had once only imagined. At its core, If You Insist is a snapshot of The Bends embracing the uncertainty, excitement and possibility of stepping into the next chapter together.
”If You Insist’ is a lyric from the first track of the album, ‘Off My Chest,” shares lead singer and guitarist Hayden Field. ‘This line encapsulated what we feel our journey as a band has been thus far. We started the band in college for the fun of playing at our local bar. But after releasing music and beginning to tour the Southeast, the chance to commit to being a band as our livelihood became a reality. Everything had fallen into place in a way we’d only dreamed of, and so we replied, ‘If You Insist.”
The album includes acclaimed singles ‘Sticking To The Plan,’ ‘Hanging Around,’ ‘Seasons Change’ and ‘Smoking In Bed,’ the latter of which broke the Alternative Airplay Top 100. Additionally, the band recently appeared on Track Star and Zach Bryan’s Belting Bronco series.
Electric live performers, The Bends are currently on their first-ever North American ‘If You Insist’ Tour. The tour has been a mixture of headline dates and major supporting dates with The Killers, Inhaler, Ole 60, The Red Clay Strays, as well as appearances at major festivals including Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and Summerfest. It kicked off on April 16th in New Orleans and is set to hit several major cities across the U.S. including sold-out shows in New York City, Philadelphia, Austin, Toronto and more.
Don’t miss The Bends at HI-FI on Sunday, November 1st. GET TICKETS.