Archive: 2025

The engines have been cleaned and fueled as the old Caustic Factory prepares for an action-packed New Music Friday. Our assembly lines have been tireless, turning out collections of fresh releases all year long, but we had to call in the heavy artillery for this week. September has been phenomenal for the music-obsessed, and it […]

Being able to adjust rapidly is the most important quality of a good company in marketplaces that change quickly. Companies that can quickly change their goals, change their route, and stay focused when things go tough are the ones who do well. You need more than just being adaptable; you need tools that make things […]

College sports, as we know them, are over. In a shift, the NCAA and its top conferences agreed to a legal settlement that will send nearly $2.8 billion to former athletes and, more importantly, create a system for schools to directly pay current players. This decision effectively ends the century-old model of amateurism and turns […]

Are The Hives the greatest living rock band? That question might seem cliché, but I can assure you that the answer is at least somewhat close to a resounding yes. Even the band seems confident of their royal status, posing as kings on the cover of their humbly titled new album The Hives Forever Forever […]

The NYC-based singer/songwriter Kendra Morris stripped down her sound for her newest record, Next. The ten-song collection delivers a cool slice of minimalist indie-soul on Colemine Records.  Morris worked with her band, guitarist Supremo “Premo” Massiv, bassist Monti Miramonti, and drummer Chauncey Yearwood, and co-produced the album with Leroi Conroy, recording in Loveland, Ohio, and […]

JayWood is Jeremy Haywood-Smith from Winnipeg, MB. The project started as sad jangle pop songs, just singing about how sad or miserable he was, but things slowly began to change as time went on (both style and direction-wise) into the more “psych funk” sound that is shown today. JayWood carries a unique sound that has […]

Brian K & The Parkway play earnest and expressive Rock & Roll that’s drawn comparisons to Tom Petty, ‘70s Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, and The Replacements. Their 2024 debut album, Killing The Bear, is a musical and lyrical journey from the Gulf Shores of the American South to the Green Mountains of Vermont; from […]

Ten years have passed since Motion City Soundtrack — a band that helped define the late-’90s/early-’00s pop-punk/emo hybrid — last released an album. But between the revival of the Vans Warped Tour, the Millennial catnip of the When We Were Young fest, and “emo nights” that pop up at local clubs across the country, now […]

On September 18th, 2025, we celebrate the birthday of an artist who needs no introduction. His name alone evokes memories of punk rock’s heyday, brings to mind the youthful angst we all faced, and continues to stand as a testament to the artistry that always seems to be written off by those outside of punk […]

Golden Apples, the expansive, folksy project from Philadelphia, centered around Russell Edling, is entering an exciting transition period. What started as a lone venture from Edling has flourished into a whole collective that is slowly becoming one of their city’s brightest young stars, cloaking the jagged, sprawling music culture with a blanket quilted from warm […]

T.S.O.L., like any memorable punk band, has gone through its fair share of controversies. From frontman Jack Grisham’s addiction issues plaguing the earlier days of the band, and a lineup that shifted several times throughout their career, especially during their run in the 80s, The Sounds of Liberty’s legacy has survived through inner turmoil and […]

My Life Matters is the third Blue Note album from drummer and composer Johnathan Blake. A commission from The Jazz Gallery in 2017 inspired Blake to pursue a path of social justice through his music, as the title alludes to. While the album may not be as direct as Max Roach’s iconic We Insist! Freedom […]

The Altered Hours are a 5-piece alt-rock group from Cork, Ireland. The band made their full-length debut, In Heat Not Sorry, in 2016, introducing the world to their sprawling approach that can range from moody, atmospheric balladry to blistering distortion. 2021 saw The Altered Hours return with Convertible, a more honed effort that proved this […]

Kisu Min (Esperanto: Kiss Me) is a band founded in Łódź, Poland, at the end of 2016. They play a form of alternative rock of the new pre-war era with the line-up of Basia Ciupińska (vocals, guitar, synths), Ola Sobańska (lead guitar, backing vocals), Agata Pyziak (drums, percussion), and Michał Szafarz (bass guitar, backing vocals). […]

David Byrne is the type of artist we should all be grateful to witness, and we should all be even more thankful that the legendary lead still has the passion and creativity to continue gracing us with new ideas. Byrne turned 73 this year and celebrated with the release of Who Is The Sky?, a […]

In one of the year’s most surprising and electrifying collaborations, Scott and Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers have teamed up with Mike Patton, legendary frontman of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, to form AVTT/PTTN. Their new album of original songs, written by the three artists together and produced by Patton, Scott Avett, and Grammy-winning engineer Dana Nielsen (Metallica, Rihanna), […]

Atmosphere, the Hip-hop duo of producer Ant and vocalist/writer Slug, has reached yet another milestone in their illustrious career. After not only establishing themselves, but also their now-iconic independent label Rhymesayers Entertainment, as pivotal and forward-thinking members of the early 2000s Hip-hop scene, a gritty movement to juxtapose the artsy flash that was compiling in […]