Pallbearer — “Endless Place”
Pallbearer’s “Endless Place” — the second single leading up to their fifth album, “Mind Burns Alive,” which comes out on May 17 — lives up to its title. Sure, the song is nearly 11 minutes long, but the feeling of endlessness comes less from the song’s protracted duration and more from its spacious half-time foundation, which leaves ample room for the listener to get lost in lushly distorted guitar tones that beg to be mulled over and sifted through. The track’s most left-field texture comes about seven minutes in, when Funkanites saxophonist Norman Williamson shows up as the Little Rock doom metal band’s first-ever guest feature. “Emotional” and “echo-drenched,” as Stereogum calls it, Williamson’s solo flits around the mix in tense fits and starts, demonstrating once again just how comfortable Pallbearer has become flirting with the peripheries of metal.
Idle Valley — “Pool Party”
On “The First Album Ever” — the delightfully juvenile and chronically fuzzy full-length release from Northwest Arkansas power pop project Idle Valley — singer-songwriter Ben Welborn knows how to commit to the bit. With each track, he zeroes in on a single desire or insecurity of young adulthood and turns it into a whole personality, every other concern falling away. “Pool Party,” for instance, finds him cosplaying as a teenager whose sole wish is to impress the other kids by throwing a rager while his parents are away for the weekend. Hilarious details like how he prepares for the party by buying “SPF 50” and ensuring that the bong is “freshly cleaned” make it a vibrant character study of someone stuck in the throes of overly eager adolescence. It’s also catchy as hell.
Banzai Florist — “David Burn”
Tunes by Banzai Florist — the often-breezy indie pop project of Harry Glaeser, who grew up in Hot Springs and now lives in Los Angeles — are typically too offbeat and fleet-footed to ever scan as sinister, but “David Burn” is up to something entirely different. Beginning with slow, chunky chords and Glaeser singing in a low, monotonous register about how someone named David Burn (not to be mistaken with Talking Heads’ David Byrne) “hit his head on the concrete bed,” the song eventually ends up in a realm that most would call heavy rock, albeit a quirky version of it. The song’s overall narrative is opaque (no shade to awesome lines like “it felt like Jesus banging a gong”), but there’s an undeniable cadence running through the verses that proves that sound, rhythm and rhyme are arguably more important than lyrical clarity. “It’s Over!! U Blew It!!” — released concurrently with “David Burn” — is also worth a listen, and falls more closely in line with what we’ve come to expect from Glaeser.
Terminal Nation — “Merchants of Bloodshed”
I’ve no business writing about a band as monstrously raucous as Terminal Nation, but I can at least point you in the direction of a publication that knows how to talk about why the Little Rock death metal band is getting so much attention. According to Revolver magazine, their latest single, “Merchants of Bloodshed” — an unapologetic rally against war profiteering that features Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach — is “a percussive pounder full of brimstone-scented guitar trilling and a demonic, plasma-dripping, politically-charged vocal trade-off between Terminal Nation frontman Stan Liszewski and bassist Chase Turner.” “Echoes of the Devil’s Den,” the band’s second full-length album, comes out on Friday via 20 Buck Spin and boasts guest appearances by Nails’ Todd Jones, Integrity’s Dwid Hellion, Sex Prisoner’s K. Kennedy and Elysia’s Zak Vargas. Multiple vinyl variants are available for pre-order here.
Chordandjocks — “Skate 4”
Working under the moniker Chordandjocks, North Little Rock hip hop producer Jordan Cox makes music that’s often over in a flash. In fact, dozens of the 100+ sample-based lo-fi instrumentals he’s released since 2019 are bite-sized experiments that last for less than two minutes. By contrast, “Skate 4,” his latest single, is a much longer sonic journey that subtly morphs from one glitchy groove to the next. There’s near-constant cutting, looping, splicing, filtering, layering and God knows what else, with no two moments sounding quite the same — and yet everything belongs.
Kin & Company — “IRLYWNTU”
If you don’t have both earbuds in while you listen to “IRLYWNTU” — my favorite song on Northwest Arkansas indie rock band Kin & Company’s new album, “Mirrorwalking” — you’re missing out. Why? Two successions of delicate harmonic guitar notes right out of the gate — one pushed to the left side and the other to the right — that create a lovely harmony when paired together. It’s a small flourish in the grand scheme, but it lends the track a wondrous levity and makes you pay closer attention to the rest of its musical delights, like the drony swell of the organ at 1:30, or the way the bass and drums get all gleefully tangled at 1:55.