March has been a month less defined by wild emotional swings and big life events, and more by a sense of stability as the first quarter of 2023 rolls into the second and everyone is sort of coming to grips with how this year is going to Feel.
As for me personally, I’ve finally wrapped up my own mini-project of catching up on 2022 releases and have fully entered my “listening to a mixture of new releases and old favorites, and finally catching up on things I’ve had on my to-listen list for what feels like a decade” era. My biggest surprise upon finally listening to acclaimed albums like Negative Plane’s The Pact has been to discover that, actually, the last Negative Plane album was much much stronger.
My two favorite discoveries this month, surprisingly, had nothing to do with my project, and were two completely random albums I decided to listen to based on a casual recommendation from a friend and a total whim, respectively. These records couldn’t be further removed in terms of vibe, but Bang to Rights by Heavy Sentence and WASTEISOLATION by Black Dresses have ended up becoming two of my very favorite contemporary LPs, and I’m personally offended that I wasn’t directly told to to listen to them long ago.
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-xoxo, Ellie
March Sadness
That Heavy Sentence LP rocks!! So so good. I would also recommend checking out a Montreal punk band called Puffer. Their demo, Live and Die in the City, was easily one of my fav releases of last year. Highly recommended!!