Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Pain Gain Shares Atmospheric “Prizefighter”

Formed back in 2023, Pain Gain — Kilo‘s Chloe Kaul, SWIM’s Hamish Lefevre, and CRUSH3d’s Samuel Cooke — began as a deliberate left turn for its members. Shedding their established electronic identities, Kaul, Lefevre and Cooke retreated to the beachside forests of southern Australia with guitars, modular synths and a tape recorder. What they believed was a temporary and fun moment of escape, quickly evolved into something far more profound for the trio: a thorough recalibration of sound, process and purpose.

Despite each member’s distinct musical paths, Pain Gain is about a shared musical language discovered. Rooted in instinct and play, the project became an immersive, almost familial experience for its members. The result is their self-titled, full-length debut.

Slated for a July 17, 2026 release through Play It Again Sam/PIAS, the forthcoming album reportedly sees the trio trading velocity for gravity while moving fluidly between indie rock melodrama and expansive pop balladry, all while rejecting genre as a fixed idea.

Thematically, the ten-song album traces personal upheaval with unflinchingly honesty. Kaul’s sometimes excoriating lyrics are paired with tactile soundscapes shared by Lefevre and Cooke in which no single voice dominates. Working with an instinctive creative process, the trio embraced single takes, analog experimentation and the beauty of imperfection, allowing songs to emerge organically from their surroundings, Each room of their retreat became a makeshift studio; melodies frequently drifted through kitchen conversations, while lyrics were created from late-night exchanges by the fire.

“We went away together with only the intention of starting something new, we never expected that we would end up not only with an album, but one that feels as cohesive and collectively personal as this,” Pain Gain explains. “It’s a record that looks for beauty in friction, and finding a new start in the wreckage of something past”

The self-titled album’s latests single “Prizefighter,” is an atmospheric bit of synth pop paired with Kaul’s achingly tender delivery. The song which emerged from reversed and replayed tape experiments, sonically recalls ACES and others. But as the song slowly builds up to its crescendo, the song channels the growing exhaustion, frustrations and resentments of staying too long in something that won’t change.

As the trio explain, “‘Prizefighter’ is a centrepiece to the record. Conceptually it’s about being coaxed into a cycle that never breaks. It’s always the same fight.“

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”
@bonsound @bonsoundpromo @corridormtl

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Magi Merlin Shares Shimmering and Defiant “pixxie”

Rising Montréal-based JOVM mainstay Magi (pronounced Mahd-j-eye) Merlin makes music for fellow obsessives. There’s no soft lunch. She sings directly to the listener, face pressed up against the other side of the screen’s glass. With a propulsive, avant-garde inspired take on pop and what she dubs as “broken R&B,” the Canadian artist’s work sees her exploring life’s deep existential truths.

Now, if y’all have been frequenting this site over the past handful of years, Merlin has collaborated with co-writer and producer Funkywhat, building a shared musical language through the release of 2022’s Gone Girl EP, which led to touring with Noga Erez and an electric set opening for Omar Apollo in Mexico City — and last year’s A Weird Little Dog, which helped her establish “broken R&B,” an honest account of how she works, her artistic direction and visual world. The JOVM mainstay supported that effort opening for Nubya Garcia across the US and with festival appearances at Osheaga and Festival d’été de Québec, where she opened for Ty Dolla $ign, And recently, she opened for Yaya Bey during their European tour.

Outside of music, she made her acting debut this year in Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks alongside Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick and Juliette Gariépy. The film screened at this year’s SXSW and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The Montréal-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated full-length debut POWER HOUSE is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Bonsound. The 12-song album is reportedly a slickly produced, infectious and high-energy effort that conceptually is an exploration of the internal architecture we all inhabit, housing the conflicting rooms of anger, fear, vanity, and ultimately, a reclaimed sense of power. The album is very much an ode to the realization that inner work is the only true outer work.

The album also serves as a realist’s manifesto, written from Merlin’s perspective as a bisexual/ENM woman. Throughout the album, the Montréal-based artist’s narrators explores the uneasy contradictions of seeking validation in both platonic and romantic relationships. She deconstructs the plastic confidence used as modern armor, the performative standards of the beauty industry, and the systemic pressures that force women to navigate their lives with hyper-caution.

POWER HOUSE includes the previously released “POPSTAR,” SpiceKick,” and “So Smart,” which have receive attention across a number of international media outlets including Clash Magazine, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, Wonderland Magazine, Libération, Exclaim! and RANGE, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music, France Inter, FIP, CBC and Radio Canada. The album’s latest single “pixxie” continues a run of slickly produced synth pop, anchored around the rising Canadian artist’s self-assured and soulful, pop star delivery and her unerring knack for catchy hooks.

Thematically, the track focuses on the liberation of women from the male gaze but written and sung ironically from the perspective of the manic pixie dream girl, breaking out from a reductive caricature — at all costs.

“Female characters in film are often reduced to this trope, simply a device used to further the plot of the male protagonist,” Magi explains. “This is a role and, at its worst, an expectation many men in real life will cast onto their female counterparts. The only function of women in their eyes is being a sexual object or a tool to aid them in their growth.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 116th Birthday, Howlin’ Wolf!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 116th anniversary of the birth of Howlin’ Wolf.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alex Amor Shares Shimmering “Avalanche”

Over the past handful of years, rising Scottish singer/songwriter and musician Alex Amor haas released three EP’s 2021’s debut, Love Language, 2022’s The Art of Letting Go and 2023’s Super Sonic, all of which have received praise from The Line of Best Fit, DIY Magazine, Clash Magazine, Dork Magazine, Wonderland, Notion, 1883 Magazine, The Skinny, Ones to Watch, The Sunday Mail, and The Scotsman — and she has received airplay from BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Sian Eleri.

The rising Scottish artist has made a run of the UK festival circuit playing sets at TRNSMT, The Great Escape, Liverpool Sound City, Live at Leeds and Dot to Dot. She has also toured extensively across the UK, playing bills with Good Neighbours, Liang Lawrence, Gretta Ray, Swim Deep, VLURE and a list of others.

Amor’s highly anticipated full-length debut Heavenly Bodies is slated for an August 21, 2026 through New York-based label VERO Music. Written and recorded between London and Glasgow with Peter Brien, Baz Kaye and Karma Kid, the album’s material is heavily informed by meditation, rune reading and the work of Swedish mystic Hilma of Klint. Weaving together celestial imagery, spirituality and the vast emotional terrain of human connection, the album’s material reflects Amor’s fascination with cosmic symbolism and the belief that personal experiences mirror the rhythms of the universe. Sonically, the album is a decided evolution from the raw indie charge of the rising Scottish artist’s earlier work as the album features diaristic, intimate and confessional songwriting is paired with shimmering guitars, ethereal synths and slow-burning arrangements.

“Avalanche” Heavenly Bodies‘ latest single is a breathtakingly gorgeous tune features Amor’s plaintive vocal singing intimate, lived-in lyrics detailing a relationship on the brink with an unusual clarity — through the perspective of someone who recognizes the relationship is ending, while the other partner is oblivious. Her vocal is paired with a shimmering, remarkably hook-driven, Laurel Canyon-like arrangement.

Amor wrote and produced the original “Avalanche” demo in her childhood bedroom in Glasgow before bringing it to her trio of collaborators in London — Brien, Kaye and Karma Kid — to complete the song.

“Avalanche is about the unsettling moment in a relationship where something has shifted, but only one of you is willing to see it,” Amor explains. ” While you’re starting to recognise it for what it is, the other person is still holding on, almost wilfully ignoring the cracks. The idea of an avalanche felt like the perfect metaphor. It’s not necessarily about destruction, it’s about release. It’s what happens when pressure has been building for too long and can’t be contained anymore. It’s sudden, overwhelming, and sometimes painful, but it clears everything out. And in that aftermath, there’s a kind of clarity – you can finally see things as they really are.”

Directed by Henry Croston, the accompanying video for “Avalanche” features Amor in a series of mod and 70s country-inspired monochromatic outfits singing and strumming her gorgeous sky blue Fender in some rooms with some decidedly 1970s era decor. A dancing alien in a suit listening to music on a Walkman is frequently off on the side, adding a surreal and playful sense of humor to a song but while also emphasizing the song’s central romantic couple.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Austin’s French Film Shares Bruising “Rabbit Foot”

Formed back in 2013, Austin shoegazer quartet French Film — Ash Keenum (vocals, guitar), Drake Moreno (guitar), Colby Falkner James (bass) and Joshua Harpur (drums) — quickly established a sound that draws inspiration from Blonde Redhead, Sonic Youth, Autolux and Unwound.

The Austin-based quartet supported last year’s debut ep, Yours sharing stages with Drook, Courting, Unwed Sailor, We Are Scientists and a list of others, while developing a profile in their hometown’s underground shoegaze and post-hardcore scenes for a visceral and intense live show. And adding to a growing profile, they were a standout band at this year’s SXSW.

French Film signed to Los Angeles-based label Solid Brass Records, who will be releasing the compilation album, Yours + Five on August 21, 2026 digitally and on limited-edition Ruby Red and Opaque White vinyl. Recorded with Kevin Butler at Test Tube Audio, the ten song album is full of atmospheric melodies paired with abrasive and jarring tension. Thematically, the effort explores the juxtaposition of the horrors and hopes of modern society — and matters of the heart.

Yours + Five’s first single “Rabbit Foot” is a breakneck and bruising blend of shoegaze, post-hardcore and alt rock that showcases the band’s ability to craft rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses within a classic grunge song structure. The song captures a swooning and desperate longing for someone who has slipped out between the narrator’s fingers.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Allegories Shares Broodingly Atmospheric and Introspective “Honesty, that’s enough honesty”

Since the release of 2022’s Endless, the Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays  Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — have released a growing collection of standalone singles. The duo’s forthcoming album, By accident, On purpose is slated for an October 16, 2026 release.

By accident, On purpose‘s first official single “Honestly, that’s enough honesty” is a broodingly atmospheric, slow-burning and introspective tune featuring shifting shoegazer-like textures. The song feels dreamily laid back yet uneasy and unsettled.

Thematically, “Honestly, that’s enough honesty” sees the JOVM mainstays questioning the very idea of authenticity. Written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, the song reflects on how even our most honest expressions are shaped by distortion, memory and self-mythology. Fittingly, the song sees the leaning hard into contradiction: the idea that deception isn’t unavoidable, but foundational to how we move and operate through the world. “People often assume I’m a confessional songwriter,” Allegories’ Adam Bentley explains. “We’re all deceiving each other in the way we perform in public, and probably deceiving ourselves in private too,” the duo add. “Otherwise, how the hell would we keep living?”

“Honestly, that’s enough honestly” showcases the creative framework for the Canadian duo’s new album: Each track emerges from layered process of rewriting, reconstruction and transformation. What initially began as a simple sketch has been continually reshaped until it becomes something unanticipated yet instinctively right.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Penelope Isles Shares Shimmering “Thinking Seat”

Today, Isle-of-Man-born, Brighton-based JOVM mainstays Penelope Isles — siblings Jack and Lily Wolter — announced that they’ll be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated third album, the aptly titled 3 on September 25, 2026 through Bella Union. Three years have passed since their last live show. Somewhere in between, life happened: Lily Wolters spent six months in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, stepping back from music for the first time years and spending the bulk of her time surfing. Jack Wolters hit the road as a guitarist in rising country star CMAT‘s touring band. And over the past year, Jack and Lily have released acclaimed solo album as Cuboza and My Precious Bunny respectively.

Written on a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal, 3‘s songs have sandy feet, beach hair and sunburn shoulders with shimmering hooks and aching harmonies. A year later, the band went to the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast to record the album live at Black Bay Studio.

Interestingly, 3 marks a couple of firsts for the JOVM mainstays: The album is the first as a true trio with their close friend Joe Taylor (drums) joining the band, and the first album that they’ve ever recorded live. Jack and Lily Wolter trade shimmering guitars and sunlit harmonies and aching falsetto ethereally floating above while Taylor’s drumming anchoring everything. While the album’s material is carefully constructed, the songs read a bit like the pages of someone’s diary ripped out and slipped under someone’s door while evoking a perfectly built sandcastle on summer vacation that’s flattened in an instant by a loved one’s passing cruelty.

Thematically, the album’s material sees the band still hopelessly obsessed with love, with heartbreak and what lingers afters, but the band carve out something entirely new: Sonically, the album is reportedly much like a shifting coastline of sound — hazy, luminous and always on the verge of collapse. Essentially, the album is the sound of the songwriting duo finding each other again. “Penny Isles is such a big part of our personalities,” Jack Wolters says. “So it was about time we got back to it.”

3‘s first single “Thinking Seat” is a sun-dappled tune that features Lily Wolter achingly tender delivery ethereally floating over shimmering, shoegazer-like textures and twinkling synths anchored by Taylor’s steady and propulsive time-keeping. Written upon reflection of the countless hours spent behind the wheel of the Wolter siblings splitter tour van, the song is s spiraling sequence of worry, heartache, planning, remembering, forgetting and then remembering again, desperately trying to hold it all together, trying to stay on track and on time, and trying to find a parking space large enough for the van. Sure, there’s a specificity that only tiring musicians and those who know touring musicians would know; but the song is rooted in a deeply universal uncertainty about your life, your place in it and what’s next that will be familiar to just about anyone.

The song features the lyric “U.G.A.K.I.,” an acronym for “You Guys Are Killing It,” a catchphrase that they coined and have used when touring felt especially difficult, dirty, absurd and flat out stupid, as a way of injecting humor and positivity in the constant uphill struggle of being a touring band in the contemporary music industry.

Directed and shot by the duo, the video pulls back the curtain for working bands, as it features the duo desperately trying to create a groundbreaking visual on a shoestring budget. While detailing the absurd difficulties of their lives as touring musicians, they do so with a sense of humor.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 92nd Birthday, Jackie Wilson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Jackie Wilson.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 64th Birthday, Nick Rhodes!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes’ 64th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Shares Pulsing and Uneasy “Time”

New York-based JOVM mainstays  A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released a rarities album Rare and Deadly earlier this year through Dedstrange. 

Following 2024’s Synthesizer, Rare and Deadly sees the band cracking open a decade-long vault of raw nerve and sonic chaos. Spanning 2015-2025, this collection of demos, B-sides, abandoned experiments and forgotten fragments reveals the band at their most unfiltered, frequently caught between breakthrough ideas and beautiful mistakes. 

Pulled from Oliver Ackermann’s personal archive of late-night recordings, blown-out tapes and half-finished sessions, the collection’s tracks pulse with the unruly energy that ATPBS has long been known for, but more dangerous with more jagged edges — on purpose. 

Countless bands have opened up their vaults to fans and others, but Rare and Deadly is truly unprecedented: Every format is different — and as a result, tells a different story. The CD, cassette, vinyl and digital editions each feature their own unique track listing. No single version features the “complete” album. Instead, each format is its own window into Ackermann’s archive, revealing alternate paths, missing links and parallel “what if” versions of the band’s inner life. It’s deliberately unstable with the album shifting depending on how you choose to hear it, mirroring the chaos of its creation. 

Across the collection’s tracks, you can hear the evolution of Ackermann’s restlessly creative mind. Some pieces feel like prototypes for future chaos, seeds that later bloomed on studio albums. Others are dead ends — ideas too volatile, too strange or too personal to ever fit the frame of a proper release. The tracks feature riffs mutated by malfunctioning pedals, songs born from gear pushed past its limits, or delicate melodies overwhelmed by towering walls of feedback. 

Rare and Deadly includes the previously released, “Everyone’s The Same,” “Acid Rain” “Where Are We Now” “Song for Girl From Macedonia” and the album’s final single “Time.” Anchored around a motorik pulse and swirling, feedback and distortion field guitars, “Time” sounds as though it could have been a B-side on Exploding Head. “The song stares down erosion — of belief, of certainty and trust — as faith slips through your fingers, no matter how tightly you grip,” the band explains. “Suspended between hope and collapse, ‘Time’ captures the quiet panic of watching something once solid slowly disappear, and the distorted beauty hat emerges when you keep moving forward even as meaning fractures and reforms.”

Directed by Steve Ward, the accompanying video for “Time” follows a man in a bright white jacket, as he runs around and dances with exploding camera flashes around him. If you or someone you know is photosensitive, this will be a difficult watch for you — but it captures the JOVM mainstay’s long-held live aesthetic.