The inspiration - or, rather, frustration - for Wax Chattels' cathartic sophomore album, Clot, came from the doomy, gloomy corners of Auckland’s underbelly, and the theme of confrontation is central. The band's capacity for self-awareness is what makes Wax Chattels one of New Zealand’s most treasured independent exports.


After a knock-out entrée with 2018’s self-titled LP, the anticipation surrounding Clot has been immense. Much like Wax Chattels, the writing process for Clot took the best part of a year. While some songs were written on the road, the bulk of the album was workshopped throughout 2019 across bedrooms and storage containers. Wax Chattels maintained the use of only the barest of ingredients — bass guitar, keyboard, and a two-piece drum kit — but the group spent more time experimenting with and finding new sounds. They wanted to maintain the same live element as in their debut, but, this time, heavier — for which they enlisted the help of mixing engineer, and fellow noise-maker, Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Destruction Unit, The Men). A marked step-up, this new record keeps the visceral energy of the debut, only this time they dig deeper into cathartic noise.

It is universally agreed that Wax Chattels are a must-see live act; their hypnotically sinister debut captured this perfectly. Released in 2018 and supported by relentless touring, the album’s success at home and abroad led to the well-deserved nomination of Best Alternative Artist at the 2018 New Zealand Music Awards, as well as the band’s inclusion in the coveted shortlist of finalists for the Taite Music Prize and Auckland Live Best Independent Debut Award.

Release: September 25, 2020, Captured Tracks/Flying Nun
Words: Deathproof PR

A. Swayze & The Ghosts have released their wildly anticipated debut album Paid Salvation - a refreshingly real breath of fresh air, one that restores your faith in the incendiary, uplifting and subversive power of punk rock. 

On the blistering record - recorded in Northcote with producer Dean Tuza (These New South Whales, Stella Donnelly) - Andrew Swayze pulls no punches, using the group’s urgent and tightly wound music as a backdrop against which he can purge himself of the myriad frustrations he has with the world around him. Taking aim at social media (Connect to Consume), ecocide (Beaches), tall poppy syndrome (Rich), mob-rule and herd mentality (Marigold), it seems little escapes his ire, even God and the Bible get a good lashing. It’s safe to say we’re not in standard garage punk territory. 

On first listen, it would be easy to take the album on face value, enjoying it purely for its many musical pleasures: energetic guitar interplay, pummeling rhythms, basslines that groove and an infectious shout-along melodic sensibility that runs throughout. But that’s the real power of Paid Salvation. While it’s a hell of a lot of fun, it’s also deadly serious. 

“It really shits me off when bands have this pedestal and they have the ability to influence so much around them and they waste it by singing about stupid shit. If you’re given this audience, I think you have to have something to say. And I definitely intend on abusing that right.”  Swayze says

“I want people to go, ‘I love that song it makes me dance but I also appreciate the honesty'. I want the melodies and the instrumentals to be accessible for people from all sorts of backgrounds, but I also want everyone to fucking listen to what I’m saying as well. And I especially want young men to hear songs like ‘Suddenly’ and ‘It’s Not Alright’ and think about what they’re saying rather than just listening to them and going, ‘Yeah I’m all jacked up on this rock song!’" he laughs. With AS&TG, the music is the sugar that makes the medicine easier to swallow. 

Release: September 18th, 2020, Ivy League Records
​Words: Mushroom Music Group

Hannah is the full length follow up to Lomelda's critically acclaimed Thx (2017) and 2019 EP M for Empathy. 

Lomelda began in Silsbee, Texas, in 2008, when Read found a few friends to play her songs with her. The project continues to follow this model, songwriting and friendship at the core, studying the distance between "you" and "me" with each release.

The project's first label release came in September 2017 via Double Double Whammy - Thx was received to wide critical acclaim. New album Hannah is Lomelda's most thorough and enthralling work to date - recorded and produced by Hannah Read (Lomelda) and brother Tommy Read in their Silsbee, Texas hometown studio. It features the introspective mood and dynamic range the band is known for with a new gentleness and balance.

Release: September 4, 2020, Double Double Whammy
Words: Redeye International

Banksia is the debut album from new outfit Pop Filter, released via Osborne Again and Spunk! Records.
 
Pop Filter is somewhat of an Australian super group, featuring members of Snowy Band, The Ocean Party and Cool Sounds, and while the six members stretch between cities, their shared history binds them together. The band's number one goal is to nurture their friendship while continuing to make music at an age when children, work, and distance can easily hamper this.
 
Largely written and recorded in a family holiday home in Broulee, NSW, Banksia is a truly collaborative project with each individual member writing the skeleton of two songs before they were fleshed out together through the freeform sextet recording process. “I like that our songs have to go through six different heads before they exist. There’s no one vision,”  guitarist Mark Rogers said while speaking with NME.
 
Recorded over the course of just four days, the album focuses on minimal takes and places an emphasis on spur of the moment performance in order to give a distinctively raw character and encapsulate a very specific time and place.
  
Banksia marks the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the band members, while acknowledging their collective shared history. 
 
"The band was always about friendship," said Rogers.

Release: August 21, 2020, Osborne Again/Spunk! Records
Words: Brain Drain PR

Ernest Ellis returns with his first release in over five years, Be The Pariah; an ode to, well, being a pariah, an outsider, a loner, a freak. There are no negative connotations in this title, rather it encapsulates everything Ellis feels is real and good: "All the best stuff happens on the fringes, in the weird zones of life and the mind. The rest is not real, it's coercion. I've tried to tap into that sense here, believing in it wholeheartedly as I do."

New York based, Australian artist Ernest Ellis has been busy over the past five years. Since the release of his first three albums, Hunting (2010), Kings Canyon (2012), and Cold Desire (2014), all of which received widespread critical acclaim in Australia on release, Ellis moved to NYC, earned a PhD and delved deeper into his creative work as a songwriter and director. 

Spending over four years writing Be The Pariah, Ellis demonstrates that above and beyond all else, he is a storyteller. Whether that be his own or those of others, with some tracks told from the perspective of an eclectic group of outsiders and others from a deeply personal perspective, Ellis has a way of crafting words that are truly meaningful.

Release: August 7, 2020, Heroism/Prospect
​Words: Brain Drain PR