What started as a pandemic-era side project for Undying Mynd has since mutated into something stranger and more audacious. Originally released in 2023, Personal Dystopia was a raw and emotionally turbulent collision of Aggrotech and Industrial Pop, angry, scrappy, and deeply personal. Now re-emerging as Our Dystopia in 2025, the project feels like it has stepped into its final form, heavier, messier, and more committed to the chaos.

The opener “Into The Now” sets the tone with a piano loop and a brooding spoken word passage that feels like it’s begging to be taken seriously. Words like “perpetuity” and “evolution” are delivered with such solemnity that I wasn’t sure whether to nod in agreement or crack a grin.

The title track “Our Dystopia” doubles down on that energy, weaving chopped-up vocal samples into a patchwork of synthetic dread. It’s theatrical in a way that reminded me of Nine Inch Nails at their most operatic, though less refined. “Divine Roleplay” practically short circuits itself trying to hold everything together, flinging distortion and synth chaos in all directions. When I got to “The Gods We Wear,” I felt like I was listening to five different tracks stitched into one. Ambient techno bleeds into industrial glitch with a cyber gospel finale. It’s confusing, occasionally grating, but never dull.

There’s something oddly compelling about tracks like “The Capital Divine” and “Do It For Content.” They teeter between satire and sincerity, poking at digital life and our hollow need for validation. I couldn’t always tell when I was supposed to laugh, but that ambiguity became part of the experience. “The Storm Within” keeps that tension alive, sounding like a lost transmission from some future nightclub that only plays corrupted data.

Listening to Our Dystopia is like watching someone throw themselves at the wall just to see what sticks. It’s messy, emotionally naked, and completely uninterested in genre boundaries. There are moments that feel unpolished or overreaching, but that’s also what gives it its edge. The sincerity is undeniable, and sometimes that’s enough to make the noise worth hearing.

Post Death Soundtrack, the Calgary-based project from Stephen Moore, doesn’t play by anyone’s rules. In All My Nightmares I Am Alone is ambitious, occasionally exhausting, and unconcerned with conventional structure. It spills over with distortion, sharp turns, and emotional extremes. Moore builds his world piece by piece, often leaning into abstraction rather than cohesion, making the album feel like a descent into a fractured psyche rather than a clean narrative.

The opener “Tremens” feels more like a transmission than a song. Whispers, fragmented vocals, and murky textures dominate, creating a mood that’s eerie and unsettled. There’s no real melody here, just unease. Things start to take shape with “Good Time Slow Jam (In All My Nightmares I Am Alone),” which introduces a slow, menacing beat and a shadowy mood that recalls the darker corners of industrial rock. I immediately thought of early Nine Inch Nails, not in sound exactly, but in tone.

“A Monolith of Alarms” is one of the more approachable tracks. The vocals are washed in delay, the guitars cut through cleanly, and when Moore lets the intensity build, it delivers. His cover of “Venus in Furs” keeps the spirit of the original intact but drags it deeper into the void. “When the World is Burning Bright” stood out for its clarity. The structure is more refined, and the vocal performance lands in a way that feels earned. “Fast Approaching Radiant Light” rides one of the best grooves on the album. It’s angular and strange, blending jazzy rhythms with mechanical energy. It felt both foreign and inviting.

Then things shift. “Start This Over” breaks away from the industrial and electronic elements and heads into acoustic territory. It feels like a different artist entirely, but somehow it still works. From that point forward, the album becomes harder to pin down. Styles change rapidly, and while it can feel scattered, I found myself appreciating Moore’s restlessness. He’s not chasing trends or algorithms. He’s following impulse.

“Hypnotizer” was another track that pulled me in. It doesn’t force itself on you. It just lingers, drifting in and out like a half-remembered dream. That’s the tension at the heart of this record. It wants to disorient you, but not push you away.

​This is not an album for casual listening. At thirty tracks, it challenges attention spans and expectations. But when taken as a full body of work, it reveals something more than just experimentation. In All My Nightmares I Am Alone is messy, overwhelming, and occasionally brilliant. Moore isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. He’s trying to figure something out in real time, and I was glad to be along for the ride.

Rosetta West has been orbiting the outer edges of the blues rock universe for decades now, and on Gravity Sessions, they sound as grounded and alive as ever. The Illinois trio, led by songwriter and guitarist Joseph Demagore, has long pulled from an eclectic well that mixes psychedelia, world folk, and a particular kind of barroom mysticism. This time around, they hunkered down for a few quick days at Chicago’s Gravity Studios with engineer Doug McBride, laying down mostly live cuts that revisit fan favorites with a sense of gritty immediacy.

The opener, “Dora Lee,” kicks in with a fuzzy jolt. It’s not reinventing any wheels, but it doesn’t need to. The tune hits that sweet spot between classic rock and early alt, riding a steady 4/4 groove that’s built to rattle the walls of whatever basement or dive you happen to be in. “Suzie” ups the emotional ante a bit with grungier textures and a vocal line that lingers just long enough to stick. I found myself nodding along before I even realized it.

“Broken Glass” is where the band starts to really lock in. The hook is big, raw, and unpretentious. Then things get weirder in the best way with “Deeper Than Magic,” which slows down into a more psychedelic swirl, complete with spoken word passages that feel like dispatches from a dream you only half-remember. It’s a nice tonal shift, even if it teeters on the edge of indulgence.

“Save Me” is made for long summer afternoons. There’s a looseness here that feels natural and unforced. “Baby Doll” returns to the grit and fuzz, and “Venous Blue” closes the record with a swampy blues groove that leans heavily into the band’s roots.

​Having spent most of my life in Chicago, I’ve heard this kind of music seeping through the walls of neighborhood bars and unassuming venues for years. Rosetta West may not be chasing trends or pushing the envelope, but they know exactly what they’re doing. They’ve carved out a corner for themselves, and Gravity Sessions feels like a tight, no-frills reminder of why they’ve lasted this long. It’s raw, honest, and built for the stage.

Synthonic’s Lampin’ feels like a secret I’m glad someone let me in on. Hailing from the coastal town of Sidmouth, England, the group dives into a groove-heavy blend of '90s acid jazz and modern production with a kind of understated confidence. The album plays like it’s already familiar, not in a derivative way, but in the way that something well-worn becomes a favorite. Featuring contributions from musicians like Vasilis Xenopoulos, Jack Birchwood, Valere Speranza, and Jeremy Dunning, this is a record that leans into collaboration and vibe more than any big statement.

“All Day, Every Day” sets the tone immediately. With its syrupy bass and rich saxophone lines, the track lives somewhere between a vintage hip-hop instrumental and something the Gorillaz might sample. It’s sultry and loose, with enough room for the instruments to stretch and sink into the pocket. There’s no rush to get anywhere, and that’s part of the appeal.

“Chameleons” lands somewhere between Thundercat’s bounce and Beck’s off-kilter funk, while “Tonight” adds vocals that slide comfortably into the mix. That one caught me off guard in a good way. The vocals feel understated but expressive, meshing easily with the rhythmic undercurrent. “The Quirk” brings Jeremy Dunning into the fold and it’s deep, rubbery, and undeniably playful. I loved how “Big Fat Funk” felt like a mutated cousin of it, a slight variation with its own swagger.

“El Paseo” shifts the mood into something more elegant. Valere Speranza’s touch adds a cool, glassy smoothness that contrasts nicely with the previous tracks. The title track gives the piano room to breathe, which lends it a kind of evening sophistication I didn’t expect. By the time we get to “I Said I'm Sorry,” the percussion is doing most of the emotional lifting. “Spiral,” the closer, picks up the pace and ends the record on a more animated note without breaking the spell.

There’s not a lot of dramatic arc to Lampin’. The tracks flow into one another and occasionally blend too closely, but I didn’t mind. The grooves are deep, the musicianship is dialed in, and the overall vibe is warm and self-assured. I kept coming back for how it made me feel more than what it made me think. Some albums are built for analysis, but this one is built for movement.

Based in the small Italian town of Castelcucco, the artist known as _Shoe tends to work more like a worldbuilder than a traditional songwriter. His new track “Lace Entanglement” offers a preview of what he's calling Season 2 of the Devisal Story, a cryptic multi-media project that blends electronic music with narrative art. Sung by longtime collaborator Stefano Francescato, the track presents a kind of emotional untangling inside a synthetic world, blurring the lines between character and creator, fiction and confession.

From the opening seconds, “Lace Entanglement” sets its tone with shadowy synth layers and a pulse that feels pulled from some haunted corner of the future. It reminded me of Blade Runner but not just in sound. There’s a sense of unease threaded through every moment, like you’ve stepped into a place where everything is slightly wrong in a beautiful way. The beat doesn’t settle for a single groove but shifts subtly, injecting momentum in all the right places.

Francescato’s vocal delivery is turbulent and deeply human. I could hear flashes of anger and vulnerability working in tandem, which brought Trent Reznor to mind, not in style exactly but in emotional volatility. Toward the end of the track, the energy turns kinetic. The walls close in. The final moments feel like an escape attempt. I found myself leaning forward, waiting for the resolution that never quite comes.

“Lace Entanglement” works as a standalone, but it clearly hints at something bigger. It’s cinematic and strange and entirely its own thing. I’m not sure where _Shoe is taking this project, but wherever it leads, I want to see what happens next.

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Darynka’s body.404 is the kind of release that doesn’t just ask to be listened to. It demands to be decoded. A Ukrainian born producer and visual artist with a background in curation and digital storytelling, she brings an aesthetic sensibility that feels as much about conceptual design as it is about sound.

Now orbiting between San Francisco, Dubai, and Bangkok, her work carries the unease and constant mutation of a life lived across borders. The EP’s central focus, the fragmentation of the body in a hyper digitized world, feels urgent and unsettling but never forced. The whole thing put me in the headspace of artists like Björk or Zola Jesus, where form is fluid and identity is rendered unstable by design.

“Uploaded Body” kicks things off with direct narration, making no attempt to obscure its intent. It drops you into the thesis immediately, then whips into a beat that flirts with The Knife’s colder textures. The vocals don’t function as melody so much as texture. They're processed, mangled, and scattered across the stereo field. It’s not something you hum along with. It’s something you absorb or maybe surrender to.

“Extended Body” builds on that framework. Vocals are glitched and fragmented beyond recognition, and the beat pulses with late night club energy. There’s a seductive chaos to it, a sense of disorientation that feels fully intentional. “Real Body” was the one that hit me hardest. It plays with structure in a way that reminded me of Aphex Twin’s more tactile 90s output. Nothing is held too long. Rhythms rise and vanish like shifting tectonics. “Sensual Body” closes the set with the most radical abstraction. It’s less a song than an art installation in sonic form. A splatter of synthetic tones, vocal slivers, and rhythmic stabs.

This is not an EP for casual listening. body.404 is less interested in melody than it is in sensory dislocation. But when taken as a whole, it coheres in a way that feels both intentional and immersive. Darynka has crafted something that blurs the line between audio and performance art. It’s disembodied and hyperreal. Take a listen.

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Where This Leads Us is credited to Al Sharp, but it plays less like the work of a singular artist and more like an elaborate studio experiment. Sharp wrote every track, but the performances are carried by a revolving cast of session players known as The SKBs, with Leon Cave on drums and vocal turns from Si Marx and Sara Davey. It’s a record built on collaboration, and that spirit is clear from the jump.

“Welcome To My Life” opens the album like a lost reel from a 1970s dance floor. The bassline struts, the strings shimmer, and the whole thing channels Bee Gees theatrics in a way that feels deliberate. It’s catchy and full of life, even if it never fully surprises. Then comes “Nothing To Me” and suddenly the lights cut out and you’re somewhere else entirely. The funk disappears, and we’re dropped into a different band with a different sound. It’s not a transition so much as a hard reset.

This becomes the album’s defining rhythm. “Room In My Heart” dips into synth-heavy 80s balladry with all the emotional push of a prom slow dance. “Dust In The Light” holds on to the same decade but arrives with more bite. I liked “Hold On To The Moon” for its warmth. It sounds like the kind of track that belongs at the end of a film where someone looks out over a skyline and tries to make peace with their life.

Then things swerve again. “The Whale Edge” turns up the BPMs and leans into power pop with punk edges and classic rock chops. “Everything Must Change” feels like a nod to alt-country, and “Understanding” veers into full cinematic mode. It’s drenched in atmosphere and sounds like something you’d expect from Enya if she had grown up listening to goth ballads.

​Sharp’s vision for Where This Leads Us seems clear. This is a genre-sampling project. Each track feels like it was built to inhabit a distinct world defined by criteria of a genre. In that sense, it’s more like a guided tour through pop music’s many offshoots than a unified album. The presence of multiple vocalists only makes the mixtape feeling stronger. While I never quite found the connective tissue that might have brought the songs into conversation with one another, I did admire the craft. If nothing else, the album functions as a kind of time capsule. A stylized collection of reference points for anyone curious to trace the emotional and aesthetic threads of the past fifty years.

J.J. Chamberlain’s A Year With The Ghosts plays like a personal sketchbook passed quietly between friends. He describes it as an honest reflection on grief, loss, and personal difficulties, but the album isn’t weighed down by sorrow. There’s a resilience in its lo-fi textures and a scrappy confidence in the songwriting that suggests someone pushing through the fog, not succumbing to it.

The opener “Eyeballs” drops you into a fuzzed-out, 90s-style alt-rock haze. It’s raw and unvarnished in a way that works, like something built in a bedroom but with a pulse strong enough to carry it. “Dance The Other Way” starts in a more subdued place with acoustic guitar and vocals before shifting into a bright, power pop groove. When the rhythm section kicks in, it transforms the track from soft reflection to something more insistent.

“Imposter Syndrome” hits a different nerve. It leans into a tight drum groove and never lets up. It’s about what the title promises circling around doubt, the disconnect between inner turmoil and outer performance. The breakdown was one of the cleanest, most focused moments on the record for me. “Cheat Codes” caught my attention with a hazy blend of shoegaze textures and what felt like a nod to Broken Social Scene’s off-kilter grandeur.

“Stain” is one of the most polished moments here. The mix is crisp, the vocals are intimate, and the guitar lines are subtle but compelling. “Take” feels like a classic indie rock song with a little 1950s pop swagger tucked inside. It reminded me of early Franz Ferdinand in the way it plays with rhythm and tone.

Later tracks like “Thoughts” slow things down, leaning on reflective picking and restrained emotion. “Frequency” dips into pop-rock territory without losing the album’s underlying warmth. Closer “Fawn” doesn’t try to tie everything up with a bow, but instead offers a final exhale—gentle, lingering, and unresolved in a way that feels true to the record’s spirit.

​This album doesn’t try to dazzle. It sticks to its voice and keeps things personal. There are no grand gestures, no production tricks masking the message. Chamberlain’s work here feels like a quiet act of persistence. Take a listen!

“You Can Do Better” is a pop/rock song with a mission. Ian Ward leans in the song like a coach, trying to shake something loose in you. There is a directness to it that makes the whole thing feel like a personal pep talk. Ward clearly draws from his own experiences, but he turns the message outward, speaking to the listener stuck between who they are and who they wanted to be. It is earnest, maybe even a little blunt, but I found myself leaning into it more than I expected.

The song opens on acoustic guitar and a clear vocal line, but it doesn’t stay stripped down for long. When the rest of the instrumentation slides in, including a bass groove that leans slightly funky and some well-placed organ, the whole thing picks up momentum. I was surprised by how much I liked the bongos that show up in the second verse. There is something charming about that choice, like Ward is pulling from a live band energy more than a sleek studio palette.

Structurally, the song plays it straight. It follows a pop format, and the hook does what it is supposed to do. It is not flashy or groundbreaking, but it has a warmth that works. The organ solo adds a nice touch and gives the track a little vintage flavor. Through it all, Ward stays in character as the motivator, circling back to the central refrain like a mantra: you can do better.

It is not trying to be avant garde or overly clever. The message is simple, the execution is clean, and sometimes that is enough. If you're looking for some motivation this might do the trick.

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Elephant Run’s Leftover Land is one of those sophomore albums that feels both wildly unpredictable and fully formed. Recorded in the hills of São Lourenço at Mato Records Studio, the album pulls from a deep well of international sounds, stitching together Nordic cool, Brazilian warmth, and a kind of genre-agnostic curiosity. I heard traces of Björk’s icy introspection, the wild invention of Os Mutantes, and the expansive melancholy of Radiohead, especially in the way the songs shift moods without warning, never bothering to settle into one genre or idea for too long.

The opener, “Hanoi,” sets the tone perfectly. There’s something vintage about it, a ghost of late 60s psychedelia lingering in the guitar tones and organ swells. But it’s the vocals that really cut through, bold, expressive, and unapologetically distinct. The track builds slowly, morphing into something far bigger and more unhinged than I expected. That kind of dynamic motion turns out to be a theme across the whole record.

“Autophobic” hits with a swagger that reminded me of Amy Winehouse at her most confident. It’s slick and soulful, built on deep grooves and a vocal performance that manages to be both commanding and loose. “Make It Real” might be my favorite. It’s deceptively simple, riding on a tight rhythm section and featherlight vocals that feel like they’re hovering just above the mix. The song is intimate without being fragile.

On “We Are Heroes,” the band dives headfirst into more atmospheric territory. The influence of OK Computer era Radiohead is unmistakable, from the melancholy chords to the patient build of textures. At times it even veers toward ambient, with soft, cinematic passages that give the song space to breathe.

“Urubu” is the most instantly catchy track here. It has that Feist-like combination of delicacy and precision, with just enough edge to keep it interesting. The vocals and guitars are perfectly in sync, and the organ adds a nostalgic warmth that grounds the whole thing. Then there’s “Pega Mal,” which leans hard into chaos in the best way. The vocals sound half drunk on purpose, and there’s an actual burp left in the mix that made me laugh out loud. It’s weird, playful, and refreshingly self-aware.

“Your Head First” brings things back down with a shadowy groove that hints at darker corners, and the closer “Utsålt” wraps the album in a swirl of low-end bass and swirling textures. It doesn’t feel like a resolution so much as a final question mark, and that ambiguity suits the record well.

Leftover Land surprised me. It’s quirky, emotionally layered, and never afraid to take detours. Elephant Run sound like a band uninterested in chasing trends and more invested in chasing ideas. I’ll definitely be keeping an ear on whatever they do next.