Welcome to my weekly column “What I’ve Been Listening To,” where I publish a post every Sunday with my 5×5 collage of most-listened releases (which is sourced by my Last.fm account and made into a collage via this site). I do not intend these to be lengthy write-ups, but I like to include notes on my listening habits, discoveries, etc.
- As promised last week, we have a fourth week that includes a road trip! This leg included Relient K‘s Forget and Not Slow Down, Paramore’s s/t, Jail Socks’ Coming Down, Beloved’s Failure On, Terminal’s How the Lonely Keep, Goodbye Tomorrow’s s/t EP (not pictured), and (also not pictured) portions of a few different Hoobastank albums. The main M.O. of these choices was preparing for the upcoming Furnace Fest (yes…yet another road trip!), which will feature the long-awaited reunions of Beloved and Terminal. Beloved has become a regular staple of what Paige and I listen to, but she didn’t know Terminal very well, so I was privileged to introduce her to the band’s sole album on this trip. I also showed her the Goodbye Tomorrow EP because that’s the band which lead singer Travis Bryant joined after Terminal originally broke up.
- I was shocked that I filled this week’s 5×5 so thoroughly, seeing how two weekdays were filled up almost entirely by me listening to Spotify official playlists. One day was spent listening to its “New Rock” playlist, and the following day was split between more of the same before switching over to a K-Pop playlist. My favorite discoveries are represented toward the bottom of the image above: from rock, I found a band called Ellevator, whose single “Easy” is absolutely amazing (as long as you’re listening with good headphones, or else it sounds confusingly cluttered); from K-Pop, my favorite find was Kwon Eun-bi, whose relatively new EP titled Open was a fun listen.
- Listen to cinema staff already! (The twelve plays listed above come from four listens, nearly back-to-back, of their 2021 EP.)
- Mastodon announced a new album this week. I don’t have much history with the band, so I decided to check out a few of their famous albums, and they were incredible. They live up to the hype quite nicely, and it’s exciting to see that their music is just about as awesome as their album artwork.
- I had a good time with some new and new-ish albums from Homesafe, Hawthorne Heights, and We Were Promised Jetpacks, but I don’t see myself returning regularly to any of them. I also listened in full (somewhat regrettably) to the overlong new self-titled album from The Band CAMINO, which was a slog despite having a few crazy-good highlights hidden within its 15-track set. For an album this long, where some of the worst songs were released as singles, it makes me wonder if it’s purely by accident or by luck when CAMINO actually write something great.
- I went down a slightly nostalgic heavy route for portions of the week, revisiting last year’s album from Sylosis and checking out the debut album from Underminded for the first time in over a decade — it’s still an absolute blast of a hardcore gem.
- Lastly, I once again show up on my own 5×5. I think I logged those 13 track plays not from listening to my whole album but rather from listening to one song over and over again while trying to write some new guitar parts to fancy it up. If you haven’t already heard the news, I’m currently in the process of remaking and re-releasing my sophomore album. So if you haven’t listened to Development & Compromise yet — there’s no rush! The new version is going to be a brand new experience, and I can’t wait to get it in front of your ears later this year. Be sure to sign up for my mailing list to keep up with the latest details and to hear exclusive sneak peaks.
Author’s Note: The reason I created this website and write these articles stems from my belief that artists should support other artists, in the same way that art inspires art. My debut album Unfall is available now and I’d love for you to hear it. You can click here to Spotify pre-save “I Don’t,” the first single for my upcoming sophomore album.
Chase Tremaine 