The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. I’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments. This week, I’m breaking format to cover two new albums that I kind of like.
The differences between bar italia1 and Militarie Gun are myriad and profound.
The former is a chic trio of London singer-songwriters who, across several albums, have cultivated a sense of cool mystique. Any one of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton can assume lead vocal duties on a bar italia track and sound great doing it. The collective comes across as a band that approaches sounding effortless as a serious endeavor, working hard to sound a little mussed up and nonplused about it. However, guitar interplay, tag-teamed verses and an album-per-year average dating back to 2025 betray that this is a band that has put some serious time in.
Militarie Gun is a rough-around-the-edges band that is most often categorized as hardcore. It started as an Ian Shelton solo project in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Gun has grown to be a full five-piece band, it’s still heavily defined by Shelton’s voice — both his literal Tim Armstrong-style rasp and his songwriting style, which blends high-octane sounds with nearly uncomfortably sincere lyrics.
On Oct. 17, these drastically different bands released albums with a surprising amount in common despite sounding almost nothing alike. For Militarie Gun, it was the band’s second long-player, God Save the Gun, a punchy 14-song LP that represents a new peak in ambition for the band.2 Meanwhile, the relatively industrious bar italia uncorked album No.5, Some Like It Hot, which seems about as ambitious as any prior bar italia recording.3 They are united in being albums that I kind of like, but the similarities extend beyond that. These albums are each laudable but imperfect steps forward in each band’s evolution. They’re flawed, fascinating and raise questions about what indie rock is in 2025. They also both sound like LPs that would have been drastically more successful 20 or so years ago.
Some Like It Hot is a largely inoffensive exercise in slick guitar-based pop. Sometimes it legitimately rocks, like on album-opener “Fundraiser,” the Nirvana-biting “rooster,” and/or the not-quite-harmonious “Eyepatch.” There is some light experimentation, “bad reputation” is closer to a waltz or the Beatles classic “Girl” than contemporary rock music, and “I Make My Own Dust,” which seems to be a chimera comprised of slightly better Blur songs, features a spooky vocal loop and spoken-word interjections. But the album is mostly just a slightly more polished take on the cool guitar pop bar italia had already been making. Songs sound crisp, intended hooks are obvious, and voices are now more likely to harmonize than take turns singing. It’s a style that immediately brings to mind a raft of bands who released killer singles and fun albums in the tumultuous half-decade or so that followed the national nightmare that was Y2K.4 Bands like Hot Hot Heat, the Bravery, the Mooney Suzuki, the Pigeon Detectives, the Rakes, the Rifles, the Wombats, the Fratellis, We Are Scientists, among others, could each credibly appear in the pages of NME or Spin, contribute to a wildly popular sports video game soundtrack,5 or maybe even mint something like a classic.6 It’s easy to see how a relatively pleasant album with a few standouts could’ve garnered significant attention in that landscape.
That time period also would have been exceptionally kind to the extremely emotional and no longer especially hardcore rock that is now Militarie Gun’s trade. God Save the Gun is positioned as an album that saved Shelton from a nosedive into addiction. Before recording, Shelton, whose family history prominently features alcohol misuse, found himself circling the drain of excessive drinking. Shelton realized it was time to rein it in, and apparently did so, but it’s a barely averted crisis the album grapples with openly. In fact, God Save the Gun seems to express every emotion with extreme candor, because it is, for all intents and purposes, an emo album. And it’s one with hammy Panic! At the Disco-type impulses, not kind of cool Jawbreaker misanthropy. It is the fullest and brightest Militarie Gun has ever sounded, but it’s still absolutely nowhere near Fall Out Boy’s musical neighborhood. While the pogoing distorted bass and ringing synths on “B A D I D E A” wouldn’t fit in with the sound of the times, its spell-out chorus has that spirit. “Throw Me Away,” which uses an acoustic guitar bridge as a runway for the explosively needy chorus, “Tell me what you need me to be/ I’ll change if you promise just to stay the same/ I’ll even change my face/ If you promise just to stay the same/ (Please don’t throw me away),” would need considerably less retooling. It’s an album that cedes lead vocal duties to Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock for what is essentially a 56-second intro to a song titled “Thought You Were Waving,” as in “I thought you were waving/ Turns out you were drowning.” The album is often fun and occasionally musically bracing, but it’s defining feature is a deep vein of self-excoriating melodrama that used to be paired with a flat iron and eyeliner.
Neither of these albums is perfect, but they’re fun to listen and think about. They sound nothing alike, and the bands behind them come from significantly different backgrounds, but they both ostensibly belong to the same indie rock middle class. The convergence of disparate scenes and sounds under a single nominal umbrella is not a new phenomenon, but it’s always interesting that two things can be roughly the same level of good in totally different ways in service of completely distinct goals. The album’s idiosyncrasies also make for great temporal hypotheticals. Is there a single edit of Some Like It Hot‘s title track that omits about 70 seconds of intermittent piano and ambient noise to zoom in on the song’s delightful lilting trot that could’ve been a minor hit in 2004? I think so. Would I have heard a censored version of Militarie Gun’s anti-suicide song, “I Won’t Murder Your Friend,” at a very special school assembly? It seems like a near certainty.7 It’s a shame these songs weren’t around to capitalize on those bygone moments, but it’s nice to have them now, too.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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Year of the Month
A new Iceage album is now treated like a Capital-E Event. That wouldn't be the case without Plowing into the Field of Love.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
Quite like bar italia but had missed that this new album was out, so thanks! I saw them live a few years back and they pushed the “nonplussed” vibe a bit too far, I struggle with bands who just look bored by their own music. But they did still sound good, haha.
Heh, I think I saw Pitchfork review the new album maybe over the weekend (it was one of my Chrome recommended articles, so things like “the actual date” and “the actual website” are a little fuzzy). But I already knew there will be a bar italia song on our year-end countdown.
What Did We Watch?
After the Hunt – the new Luca Guadagnino film about a sexual harrassment scandal in a university philosophy department. Great cast, good performances, not quite decided if the plot worked or not. It was kinda more interesting to talk about afterwards than it was to actually sit through, although there are some really great moments along the way – notably from Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloe Sevigny in supporting roles, although it was also really nice to see Julia Roberts in a big, interesting role for the first time in a while. Kinda felt like the result of a phone call to her agent going “Tár was good, can you get me a Tár?” – I support this becoming a genre for actors above a certain age, so they don’t all have to do a Taken.
I’m interested in this after being surprised by how much I liked Challengers. Also, does Stuhlbarg have any roles other than out upon college professor? Ehn, not needed.
General consensus seems to be considerably less positive than Challengers but I liked them roughly equally I think. Challengers has a better ending though for sure, this one does something similarly cheeky at the very end but in a way I found slightly annoying rather than exhilarating.
Stuhlbarg definitely has a niche! Although in this one he’s the put upon husband of a college professor which I suppose demonstrates range.
He’s fantastic as Arnold Rothstein in Boardwalk Empire, who I suppose is the college professor of the criminal underworld (though he’s not put upon at all, instead playing incredibly confident and even careful).
The Kids In The Hall, Season Four, Episode Seven
“They shoved food under the door so I had to eat pancakes and pizzas.”
“I’m gonna kill him. I mean, that’s understood, right?”
“I’m not allowed to play with these.”
“May God have mercy on your soul!” / “Yeah, you too, eh?”
“Listen, I hate to get heavy, but you’re fired.”
“Hey, if I can’t trust her with the water, what’s my lunch gonna look like?”
“Okay, you just knocked over an old lady. Keep moving! You got seven things to do.”
“Alright, you’re being held hostage, add it to the list.”
I wonder if Bruce McCullough brought back his hip, cool, 45-year-old character in the 2022 reboot, given he was 61 at the time.
“We feminists have to stick together.”
“No, Fran, no one in this neighbourhood has been supportive of anything.”
“27 years of burping, farting, and football.”
“I am a recovering spousaholic, Fran.”
I like that Scott Thompson’s middle aged women tend to lecture other people, not realising they’re not really being listened to. Sort of like how Bruce McCullough’s women tend to be naive and self-aware of that.
“Things to Do” is an instant classic.
I don’t think “He’s Hip, He’s Cool, He’s 45” guy came back in season 6.
Frasier, “Morning Becomes Entertainment” – Frasier’s agent Bebe makes her annual appearance and for some reason gets him booked as the substitute host for a “Live with Kathy Lee” sort of show, and ends up his on air partner. A fair number of good gags but this follows the obvious path of “Frasier is tempted, Frasier resists.” Except this might have been a trial balloon for moving the good doctor off the radio since that is where we end up. Were the writers getting bored?
A weekend update, since I was at a work event all yesterday morning. Unfortunately, I’m going to be pretty slammed for a few weeks, so all of these notes will be fairly brief.
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
For Movie Club. This was my pick, and Sunday’s discussion about it was terrific. I’ve written this up on The Solute before, so I don’t know how much more I have to say about it, except that this time it made me realize an implicit plotting rule that characters cannot bungle tasks that don’t matter to them, unless it’s for comedic purposes; in more dramatic suspense, they must succeed at what doesn’t matter so that the potential for failure is passed on to actions they care about. This makes no sense as a guide for life, but as an implicit rule of thumb in storytelling–let your characters get away with it until it would wreck them not to–it works.
Rituals
A 1977 Deliverance riff starring Hal Holbrook; definite Streaming Shuffle candidate. Grueling, weird, and–at least in places–surprisingly deeply felt. The transfer I saw was so rough that at some points it’s only vaguely movie-shaped and at others, distortions are flickering over the screen like minnows, but it’s still worth watching. Stay out of the fucking woods.
The Wicker Man
For a Year of the Month article that will be up tomorrow. Gorgeous, terrifying classic.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
The mockumentary side of this is definitely stronger than the slasher side, but it did need to take its characters through that transition; the film doesn’t work without the collapse of the observational shield. Nathan Baesel is so charismatic and delightful in the title role–and so good at the moments when the playfulness drops out–that it’s wild he didn’t have more of an on-screen career, but it seems like he does a lot of theater, and I can see that being a great fit. He does reprise the Leslie Vernon role in the Kill Count for this movie, and hot damn, he looks good. A silvering fox.
Paranormal Activity
Some very smart technical decisions here, from putting that empty, dark doorway in the left of the frame–drawing our eyes to it and making us squint to see if shapes are forming in the shadows–to using the time-stamp on the camera footage so that as soon as a sped-up night slows down, the tension ratchets up because something’s about to happen. And then other scares, like Katie’s famous night of standing by the bed, use the fast forwarding for the terror. Nicely constructed scares; good example of what you can do with no budget but good horror filmmaker instincts.
Micah is the worst horror movie boyfriend of all time. (Distinct from the worst horror movie husband of all time. That’s Guy in Rosemary’s Baby.)
Tremors
I love practical creature effects and creative problem-solving, which means that this movie rules. And while horror isn’t its #1 interest, finding a man who died of thirst stranded–seemingly voluntarily–on an electrical tower is an almost classically unsettling, mysterious beat; it’s an incredibly good way to lead into what’s happening.
Another good storytelling rule of thumb I picked up from this: when fighting something more than human, or even a larger-than-life human, the ultimate victory cannot come from a gun alone. You can incorporate a gun–you can shoot an oxygen tank in a shark’s mouth–but you can’t exclusively rely on it. It’s not fun enough, and it doesn’t showcase the character’s resourcefulness and ingenuity enough. So with this, you can have a bullet-riddled graboid in the middle, but at the end, it would just be deflating.
“Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t ya, you bastard!”
Have rarely hated a movie character more than Guy in Rosemary’s Baby, which speaks to Cassavetes’ acting given that he repeatedly stood up to Polanski on set.
Fuck yeah Tremors! A movie with many storytelling rules to impart: https://www.the-solute.com/year-of-the-month-tremors-or-5-things-b-movie-makers-need-to-remember-by-miller/
A fantastic essay with some excellent golden rules for filmmakers (and storytellers in general). I hadn’t thought before about how superbly the rock-paper-scissors games work as characterization–and an overall statement of the movie’s style–and your commentary on that rules.
Thanks! It really is such a well-constructed movie (and screenplay) without ever calling attention to stuff like that.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — This was just lovely. The story is so sweet and melancholy but ultimately with an ending that leaves us happy — if a little wiser. And while it’s all fairly simple, the presentation and the singing allow that simple story to fill the narrative in a way it might not in dialogue. Great performances by Deneuve, Castelnuovo, and Vernon, as well as Danielle Licari as Deneuve’s singing voice.
Conclave — The success of this film is in illustrating that the men (in this case almost exclusively men) involved in these far reaching and weighty matters are just men like the rest of us. The nature of the political battle is rather less nuanced than it is in real life, same as the levers of influence being applied. But if that’s all abstracted a bit for the sake of simplicity that’s ok, as the real meat of the picture is reducing (that’s the wrong word, because it isn’t a reduction) newsworthy figures into people of emotion and desires — and to show that their relationships to each other are no different than our own.
Really need to give Umbrellas another go, it didn’t hit me as hard as some of the other Demy musicals. Although to be fair Young Girls of Rochefort hit me so hard that I’d put it on the shortlist for the greatest movies ever made so it’s all relative.
This was the first Demy I’ve seen.
“Young Girls…” is like the joyful flipside to “Umbrellas…” melancholy. I also really loved his later film “A Room in Town” in the same musical style, which is a little darker – kind of a Romeo & Juliet tragedy thing set against a political uprising.
John Lithgow carries some of the nuance for us; I enjoy how he conveys that this is a guy who sincerely believes in God and His mission, whilst also being a petty ass.
What Did We Listen To?
1001 Albums, etc.:
Echo and the Bunnymen – Crocodiles: not a band that have ever really done it for me, I like the REM-adjacent guitar jangle (feels weird that this pre-dates REM) but the songwriting just doesn’t really grab me.
Motorhead – Ace of Spades: in terms of hard-rockin’ band with basically one song I enjoy Motorhead a little more than AC/DC. Given that this starts with the title track I was worried the rest of the album would struggle to live up to that standard but this is enjoyably full-on riffage and Lemmy is a compelling frontman.
Killing Joke – Killing Joke: didn’t really care for this at all, the abrasive guitar tones and shouty vocals reminded me a little of the first PiL album – just a subsection of post-punk I don’t seem to get on with at all.
Judas Priest – British Steel: never really dug into these at all, there were a few tracks here that I quite enjoyed, others that didn’t grab me at all. “Breaking the Law” is good fun of course, but there are NWOBHM bands that do a lot more for me (see below).
Circle Jerks – Group Sex: can appreciate the influence on hardcore punk to come, but this is scrappy and not particularly appealing to me, I was happy it was very short.
Talking Heads – Remain in Light: pretty incredible, maybe their best album? So many cool, unusual arrangements and grooves.
Joy Division – Closer: a deeply miserable classic, I can’t say I want to hear it often but it’s potent stuff.
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden: aha, now here’s the NWOBHM band for me. I find their harmony guitar solos and atmospheric instrumental breakdowns pretty irresistible, to the extent that I was singing the solo from “Phantom of the Opera” for a day afterwards. The only albums I’ve ever really gotten into are this one and Number of the Beast (which also happen to be the two on this list), I think I slightly prefer Paul Di’Anno’s vocals but it’s all good twiddly fun.
The Undertones – Hypnotised: much as I like the Undertones, I didn’t hear much here to justify them appearing on the list twice. This is a little more pop than punk, solidly enjoyable but the first album was enough.
The Jam – Sound Affects: as I’ve probably said before I don’t care for Paul Weller’s vocals but he’s buried in enough FX and the tunes are good enough to make this a solidly enjoyable and varied album that I suspect is the best thing he ever did.
Tom Waits – Heartattack and Vine: I’ve heard a few Waits albums before and there are others I like more than this one, but it’s pretty strong. I like the drunken epic ballads more than the bluesy workouts. His voice is amazing.
UB40 – Signing Off: only knew the big overplayed hits (i.e. the cover versions) so it was somewhat interesting to hear them as a gritty, authentic reggae band. But this is an hour long including one 13-minute song and that’s too much UB40 for me.
—
Blank Check – the Serious Man episode was great, I only know Marc Maron from his acting work on GLOW but he fit nicely into the dynamic here (no surprise given his long podcasting history I guess) and it’s a fascinating film to discuss, still probably my favourite Coens film which means it’s up there with my best films from anyone. Currently working through True Grit and the guest for this one is fun too, although I’m surprised they’re being so harsh on the original John Wayne version which I thought was pretty great.
“That’s Entertainment” haunts me. “Two lovers kiss against the scream of midnight/two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude.”
Yeah that’s a high point for sure. I like how shamelessly Start borrows from Taxman too.
“That’s Entertainment” is my favorite Jam song, although “A Town Called Malice” seems to be the preference of most people. But also to be honest I’m not as into the Jam as you’d think I would be / as I am some of their peers.
In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy
Favorites were “Hearts on Fire” and “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found.” I eased into the groove of this very quickly and had a good time with it, but these were the two songs that pulled me out of vibing and into more active appreciation; I think almost any album needs a good mix of the sea and the rocks you can cling to.
Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol
Has a dark and gritty quality to it that I appreciate, including the spite in tracks like “PDA.” The swing of “Obstacle 2” really catches me up. “Stella was a diver and she was always down” ebbs and flows, appropriately, giving the sense that it’s transitioned into a new song when it’s actually still going; that’s a quality I’ve seen in several albums on the List, and it’s always interesting to think about how it works. Loved “The New,” too: “I can’t pretend I don’t need to defend / some part of me from you.”
Funeral, The Arcade Fire
“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” is beautiful, achy, and oddly haunting, and I also really love the wistful country sound of “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles).”
The Tyranny of Distance, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
“Biomusicology” is my favorite, as evidenced by the fact that I went around with snatches of it echoing in my head for days afterwards, but I also loved “Timorous Me” and “Stove by a Whale,” with the darker, more guitar-heavy intro and the great instrumental outro. A referentially rich album–that can be a risky approach, but it works here, and it gives this an oddly companionable feel as well, like you and Ted Leo are friends; you know his interests as well as his angst, which is rare.
God I wish I could listen to Arcade Fire again – there was one article that summed it up for me, namely that the band had a communal/collective energy to the fandom, so it’s harder to sing along with Win Butler even if he was a great musician.
Heh, I remember when “Lights and Music” from that Cut Copy album was the free song of the day on iTunes.
Same, I thought they fell off hard after Funeral anyway but it’s a special album and I really wish it hadn’t been so thoroughly tainted.
Loved Neon Bible and The Suburbs too! Reflecktor is where I partly got fed up, a ton of dance beats that aren’t terribly danceable.
Yeah, even Neon Bible didn’t vibe with me and I dropped off quickly after that. I don’t think Funeral had really been in my regular rotation for a long time even when I wrote the column, but man, it was such a well-made and beautiful album.
I’m sure I’m just repeating things I’ve said elsewhere, but Leo is really literate in a way you don’t see from many of his peers, and I wonder if that’s where his appeal to me comes from. At the least, I’m a sucker for a good reference and it helps his songs feel much more specific and alive. “Stove By a Whale,” just in its title itself; “oed’ und leer das meer” in “Biomusicology”… there are probably more. Anyway, I love the whole first half of the album, not to say the second half isn’t good as well. One of my favorite songwriters.
I’ll try to get some comments on the other albums at some point.
Buncha random stuff: Blank Check’s Marc Maron episode on A Serious Man was fantastic and went really insightful and deep on Judaism and assimilation. Weird Studies had a discussion of Michael Jackson that recontextualized him a bit though I remain a Prince head.
Music: Les Miserables the Broadway recording, and as I suspected from childhood, some of the songs here kill, like “The Confrontation” and even the major melody changes in “I Dreamed A Dream”, while “Castle In The Clouds” sucks shit, a trite piece of manipulation. As I said on Ruck’s Discord I’m mildly baffled that anyone could take 80’s keyboard sounds that seriously past a certain point in our timeline.
I’m still stuck on Parade and especially the opener “The Old Red Hills of Home,” a pastiche of Dixie and 19th century marching anthems that becomes increasingly sinister as Leo Frank’s story unfolds. “Let all the blood of the North spill upon them/’Till they’ve paid for what they’ve wrought/Taken back the lies they’ve taught/And there’s peace in Marietta/And we’re safe again in Georgia.” What, the musical asks, if you NEVER feel safe or at peace? Some of the other pastiches don’t work for me (“Picture Show” is annoying without making a real comment on the ragtime and old pop it’s playing with) while “Where Do You Stand When The Flood Comes” is terrifying and reminds me of old Baptist hymns.
The Last Dinner Party – From the Pyre : It’s a better, more consistent album than their debut, but the highs are a little lower with no single song surpassing the obvious anthem “Nothing Matters.” People who like the big, theatrical, maximalist rock will really dig this. Its sensationalistic impulses left me a bit cooler on it than seems to be the conventional wisdom, but it nails its Queen-meets-Steinman-meets-“Yellowjackets” goals, so it’s hard to consider it anything other than a rousing success on its terms.
John Lennon – Mind Games: I’ve been spending a lot of time with this one ahead of a Year of the Month piece. Without spoiling too much, I think it’s a great entry point for solo Lennon.
Spank Rock- YoYoYoYoYo : This weird, often filthy 2006 album is a comfort listen for me. The song “Backyard Betty,” whose subject is not dissimilar from the Betty Too $hort rapped about, was perplexingly on a Madden soundtrack. Bring back bizarrely eclectic video game soundtracks, and I’ll start playing sports games again.