Smirkthe power-pop-meets-punk-rock brainchild of Portland musician Nick Vicario, has a knack for turning tropes inside out. On his latest effort, Speculative Fiction, he reinvents suburban anhedonia with an unexpectedly meticulous, pop-forward sensibility. With help from friends like Ceremony’s Ross Farrar, Advertisement’s Ryan Mangione-Smith, and members of the Hotline TNT crew (who play in Smirk’s live band), Vicario recasts an archetypal narrator—the disaffected high schooler—as a grown-up trying to veer out of the fast lane and back to the familiarity of their constricting youth. Smirk’s first official album since 2022, Speculative Fiction is one hell of a reintroduction.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Low Cut Connie: Livin in the USA (Contender)
Low Cut Connie is “disgusted to see our country descend into an authoritarian hell, a moral vacuum, a place where art does not lead the cultural conversation,” he said in a statement announcing his new protest album, Livin in the USA. The Philadelphia rock’n’roller reckons with this desperate state of affairs in timeworn rock’n’roll fashion, with a parade of theatrical, bluesy anthems designed to challenge the nation’s decaying political institutions, if not its musical ones. “Rock’n’roll is a table flipping artform,” he added in the statement. “It’s time to flip the table again.”
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Buy at Rough Trade
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings