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Rising Artist Saint Harison Bares His Soul on New EP ‘ghosted’ and Powerful Single “glass houses”

Eric Alper
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Rising Artist Saint Harison Bares His Soul on New EP ‘ghosted’ and Powerful Single “glass houses”

Saint Harison has been working toward this moment for a long time, and ‘ghosted’ arrives today as the most honest thing he’s ever made. The new EP is out now, anchored by the powerful single “glass houses,” a track that showcases the unmistakable vocal presence he’s been building and the emotional depth that defines this entire project.

“glass houses” was produced by Akeel Henry, Daoud, and D’Mile, currently holding the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for his work on Bruno Mars’ “I Just Might.” The collaboration brings serious creative firepower to a song that Saint wrote right at the end of making the EP, filling a gap he’d sensed in the story but couldn’t name until he walked into the studio that day.

He explains the song’s philosophy directly. “There’s really nothing more freeing than the acceptance of human-ness. I like the quote ‘hurt people, hurt people’ because love, empathy, understanding is so much more powerful than hate and revenge. I’m so happy I was able to put my philosophy of that into this song.”

A stripped-back live performance video for “glass houses” is also out now, directed by Darrin James and produced by Freenjoy, featuring Akeel Henry on piano and Marcus Reddick, known for his work on Beyoncé’s “Desert Eagle” from ‘Cowboy Carter’, on bass. It’s an intimate, quietly stunning piece of film.

‘ghosted’ began taking shape immediately after Saint’s previous release ‘lost a friend’, and the EP carries everything that journey put him through. “I can’t wait for you to hear the late nights, the tears, the overthinking, the healing, the spirals and the growth,” he says. “It’s the most honest I’ve ever been in my music. Every track feels like a piece of a chapter I had to live through in order to write it.”

The collaborators assembled for this project reflect how far Saint has come. “I’ve been able to work with some creatives on this project that 6 years ago I would have cried if they looked in my direction.” That growth is audible throughout ‘ghosted’, an EP built to last.

Boston Rock Veteran The Sheila Divine Delivers His Most Urgent Album Yet With ‘The Middle Ages’

Eric Alper
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Boston Rock Veteran The Sheila Divine Delivers His Most Urgent Album Yet With ‘The Middle Ages’

Aaron Perrino has never made a comfortable record, and ‘The Middle Ages’ is the furthest thing from comfortable he’s ever put his name to. The sixth Sheila Divine album is out now on Trash Casual, arriving alongside new single “I Climbed Inside A Whale,” and it’s a deeply human document of grief, rage, love, and the particular exhaustion of being a thinking person alive in this moment.

Perrino describes the album’s emotional territory without flinching. “All of my pissed off Gen X angst about aging, the failure of capitalism, death, heartbreak and what the future holds in the back half of my life where everything is so grim.” That’s not a selling point, it’s a statement of purpose, and ‘The Middle Ages’ delivers on every word of it.

10 new tracks navigate the full range of lived experience. The wrenching loss of his mother. Parental anxiety about his children’s futures. The strains of congested city life, fractured relationships, and genuine fury at the state of the nation. Album opener “Gods Of War” opens with weighty soundscapes and guttural yells. The title track sustains a tense relentlessness throughout. “We Once Burned” carries embittered fatigue in every bar.

But ‘The Middle Ages’ isn’t without light. “Celebrate The End” finds wonder inside loss. “Hurry Up” builds into something genuinely anthemic. And “The Apocalypse ellell ell” places the refrain “the apocalypse sells, die, die” directly alongside repeated declarations of “Well I have hope,” a collision that captures the album’s entire emotional architecture in a single track.

Perrino has assembled a strong lineup of Boston scene allies for the record. Will Claflin and Steven Lord handle guitars, Paul Buckley plays drums, and Andy Rooney holds down bass. Mixing comes from Wally Gagel, known for his work with Cold War Kids and Superchunk, and mastering from Pete Weiss, whose credits include Morphine and Juliana Hatfield.

Collaboration has always been central to how Perrino works. “The more people that touch it, the more it manifests into something,” he says. The Sheila Divine has spent decades confounding expectations, from breaking out with college radio hit “Hum” on Roadrunner Records to building a cult following in the Belgian indie rock market. ‘The Middle Ages’ is the next chapter from a songwriter who refuses, as he puts it, “to live in a world where people trade empathy for apathy, curiosity for cruelty, humility for hubris.”

UK Post-Punk Outfit NOVABLOOD Commit Fully to Instinct on New Single “Fake It”

Eric Alper
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UK Post-Punk Outfit NOVABLOOD Commit Fully to Instinct on New Single “Fake It”

NOVABLOOD don’t labour over their songs. They build them fast, leave them alone, and trust what comes out. “Fake It,” the new single from the Carlisle, UK post-punk outfit, is a direct product of that philosophy, assembled within 24 hours and left largely untouched, and it’s one of the most immediate things the band has released.

The track triggered itself into existence from a single synth line. “It was literally completed within 24 hours and one of many tracks which pinpoint the essence of the album,” the band explains. “Raw, stripped, big attitude and Paul’s guitar just brings it all together.”

That description captures the track precisely. Synth and guitar move alongside each other without resolving, the rhythm section stays fixed underneath, and nothing is added for decoration. The tension holds without release, a deliberate structural choice that gives “Fake It” its particular kind of grip.

The single is taken from ‘You’re New To This Aren’t You?’, NOVABLOOD’s new album out now via Mint 400 Records. Written between July and October 2025 in vocalist and producer Mark Zowie’s home studio across brief, concentrated sessions, the record commits fully to a stripped post-punk framework where vocals arrive as presence rather than performance, guitars cut across the rhythm rather than reinforcing it, and space and repetition carry the load.

Following 2023’s ‘Destroy The Magic’, which moved across a broader electronic spectrum, the new album deliberately narrows its focus. The band documents a persistent sense of unease across its runtime, fractured communication, emotional distance, and the disorientation of existing inside systems that never fully settle.

Even the title carries a deliberate edge. “It’s difficult not to read that title without it coming over in a condescending manner,” Zowie says. “Which I absolutely love about it.”

NOVABLOOD aren’t refining their sound. They’re committing to it completely.

The Aislers Set, Tony Molina, and Dear Nora Head Up the Inaugural SF Bay Popfest This August

Eric Alper
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The Aislers Set, Tony Molina, and Dear Nora Head Up the Inaugural SF Bay Popfest This August

San Francisco is getting its own indie pop festival, and the inaugural lineup is a genuine statement of intent. SF Bay Popfest runs August 20-23 at Bottom of the Hill, presented by Oakland Weekender in partnership with Speakeasy Studios SF and Slumberland Records, bringing together 16 bands and DJs across 4 nights of pure pop songcraft and indie ethos.

The headliners alone make this worth the trip. The Aislers Set return to San Francisco with the full band for what’s being billed as one last hurrah at the soon-to-close Bottom of the Hill, a genuinely significant moment for anyone who knows what that venue and that band mean to the Bay Area scene. Dear Nora comes back to the Bay with a classic lineup. Tony Molina, West Bay legend and Slumberland pioneer, brings his gift for melody distilled to its purest form. And local favorites The Umbrellas round out the headliners with their shambolic guitars, rich songwriting, and duet vocals that nod toward the Pastels side of anorak indie.

The full lineup stretches across the country and into Canada, with Jeanines traveling from Massachusetts, Lightheaded from New Jersey, WUT from Vancouver, Paper Jam from Denton, TX, and Pillow Fight from Los Angeles joining Bay Area acts Galore, Wifey, The Kitchenettes, Monster Treasure, and Slumberland artists Artsick and Kids On A Crime Spree. Remedy & Wren and DJs Kid Frostbite, Jessica B, Poindexter, and Wam Bam Ashleyanne complete the bill.

The weekend pass at $110 includes an exclusive Teenage Fanclub tribute CD featuring tracks from the SF Bay Popfest bands, making it one of the better festival value propositions around. Individual night tickets are $30. Daily lineups drop August 20-22 for evening shows, with a matinee closing things out on August 23.

SF Bay Popfest 2026:

August 20, 21, 22 – Evening Shows, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA

August 23 – Matinee, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA

Mr Billy Fitzgerald Strips It All Back on Tiny Desk-Inspired Live EP ‘Little Gestures’

Eric Alper
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Mr Billy Fitzgerald Strips It All Back on Tiny Desk-Inspired Live EP ‘Little Gestures’

A year on from his debut album ‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’, Mr Billy Fitzgerald returns not with something bigger, but with something more intimate. ‘Little Gestures’ is a 4-track live EP out now, taking songs from the album and reimagining them in stripped-back form, inspired by NPR’s celebrated Tiny Desk series and recorded guerilla-style across bedrooms, rehearsal studios, and secret spaces.

The contrast with the source material is deliberate and striking. ‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’ was a maximalist production, 10 years in the making, with multiple guitars, pianos, layers of percussion, and 16-part vocal harmonies built up almost entirely alone in the studio. ‘Little Gestures’ pulls all of that back to its raw elements, shakers, drum machines, melodicas, acoustic guitars, and voices in a room together.

The EP was recorded as Fitzgerald recovered from long-covid, and he considers it his most honest vocal performance captured on tape. With nowhere to hide behind production, he had to commit fully to each take. The result is vocals that feel full, present, and completely unguarded.

The 4 tracks were chosen using live performance as the litmus test, songs that consistently drew a reaction from audiences over a year of touring. Each one carries that energy into its alternate version. “Gimme Love” opens with an En Vogue-inspired vocal arrangement featuring wife and live backing vocalist Aoife Mulqueen, longtime collaborator Sam Jackson, and Dave Power of The Dead Flags, before hand claps, shouts, and a melodica solo take over. “Give Me A Chance” was reshaped by live drummer Dennis, whose reimagining of the groove fed directly into this version. “You Had Your Chance” is reduced to a delicate piano and Aoife’s harmonies, the keyboard keys audible in the recording, adding a layer of intimacy that the album version couldn’t achieve. And closer “All Fucked Up Now,” featuring Shaool of Sligo hip-hop group This Side Up, closes the EP with a full choir joining in on the final reprise.

‘A Grand Romantic Gesture’ drew praise from XSNoize, Hot Press, Turn Up The Volume, and RTE2XM on its release, drawing comparisons across Curtis Mayfield, Destiny’s Child, Robert Palmer, and Beck. ‘Little Gestures’ serves as both a worthy companion piece for fans of the album and a genuinely compelling entry point for anyone new to the world of Mr Billy Fitzgerald.

Transatlantic Indie Duo The Astronauts Get Fuzzed Up and Lovesick on New Single “More Than Friends”

Eric Alper
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Transatlantic Indie Duo The Astronauts Get Fuzzed Up and Lovesick on New Single “More Than Friends”

The Astronauts are back with something warm, fuzzy, and emotionally direct. “More Than Friends,” the new single from the transatlantic duo of Benjamin Fox and Gordon Cooper, is out now on Flip Flop Records, and it captures the overwhelming, slightly terrifying moment when a friendship tips into something deeper and more consuming. Listen here.

The band frames the song with real clarity. “‘More Than Friends’ is a song about falling deeply into someone, moving beyond the innocent phase and into something more intense and consuming. It captures that overwhelming moment when emotions hit you all at once, bringing both panic and ecstasy. It’s about finding the confidence within yourself to take that leap.”

That combination of panic and ecstasy is exactly what the track delivers, a fuzzed-up, loved-up piece of indie songwriting that understands young love not as a simple thing but as something that demands genuine courage to pursue.

Fox operates out of Detroit, Cooper out of Ireland, and the transatlantic collaboration has been a defining part of The Astronauts’ creative identity since the project began. The 2 also work together under the name Irish Lights, an ambient instrumental project inspired by the timeless beauty and solitude of Ireland’s lighthouses, and run Sleeping in Space LLC, a boutique Detroit-based label dedicated to independent and forward-thinking music.

“More Than Friends” follows earlier single “Ease Up” and arrives with a new album promised later in 2026. Two musicians building something across an ocean, one carefully crafted song at a time.

London Post-Punk Newcomers Mouth Ulcers Sign to LAB Records and Drop Atmospheric Single “Prevail”

Eric Alper
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London Post-Punk Newcomers Mouth Ulcers Sign to LAB Records and Drop Atmospheric Single “Prevail”

Mouth Ulcers have arrived with a signing, a single, and a sound that makes an immediate impression. The London quartet have joined LAB Records and released “Prevail,” a dark, atmospheric post-punk track accompanied by an official video, and it’s a confident statement from a band that clearly knows exactly who they are.

The sound has been described as “music for vampires to dance to,” and that framing is accurate. Atmospheric guitars, tribal percussion, and Zak Watson’s cavernous baritone vocals create something moody, physical, and irresistibly cool, drawing from the classic post-punk darkness of The Cure, Bauhaus, and Twin Tribes while injecting a freshness and urgency that feels entirely current.

The inspiration behind “Prevail” runs deep. The band looked to Andrei Tarkovsky’s film ‘Stalker’ for its conceptual foundation. “The meaning behind Prevail was inspired by the film ‘Stalker’ by Tarkovsky. The mental and physical struggle of surviving ‘The Zone’, a hostile and reality warping environment which threatens to erase one’s sanity.”

That sense of psychological tension runs through the track’s entire architecture, a menacing, momentum-driven piece of music that balances atmosphere with drive in a way many bands in this space never quite manage.

Mouth Ulcers, rounded out by Josephine Rose on guitar and vocals, Jamie-Lee Culver on bass, and David Zbirka on drums, have already made their live presence known with sold-out shows in the UK and the Netherlands. A debut EP is on the way, with a summer live plot set to be announced. The underground is already paying attention.

50-Plus Punk Bands Unite for a Massive Community-Driven Green Day Tribute Benefiting No-Kill Animal Shelters

Eric Alper
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50-Plus Punk Bands Unite for a Massive Community-Driven Green Day Tribute Benefiting No-Kill Animal Shelters

This is punk rock doing exactly what it does best. Punk Rock Radar and Coffin Curse Records have joined forces for the first installment of their Tribute to Green Day series, a massive community-driven compilation featuring more than 50 bands across the punk and alternative spectrum, with every dollar of proceeds going directly to no-kill animal shelters. Get it here.

The project is built on 2 simple ideas: celebrate one of punk rock’s most influential catalogs, and do some genuine good in the process. 100% of all proceeds benefit Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville, Tennessee and CARE of DC in Wappingers Falls, New York. It’s a rare compilation with a real purpose behind it.

The release arrives as 2 volumes on double LP vinyl, with each color variant designed to match the look and feel of Green Day’s most iconic albums. Volume 1 carries Dookie artwork and covers the band’s early catalog extensively. Volume 2 moves through Insomniac and American Idiot territory, with bands tackling everything from “Basket Case” and “Longview” to “American Idiot” and “Good Riddance.”

The lineup is stacked with names that punk fans will recognize immediately. Audio Karate, Ballyhoo!, Krang, and Rabies are among the standouts, joined by dozens of bands each bringing their own distinct take to songs that have been part of the punk conversation for 3 decades. As a discovery tool alone, the compilation earns its place, but the charitable foundation makes it something worth actively supporting.

Select copies are available in the UK and EU via Cats Claw Records.

Volume 1 – Dookie Art:

Side A

  1. Smacked – 2000 Light Years Away
  2. Gone Stereo – One For The Razorbacks
  3. Mortars – 80
  4. Hell Beach – Android
  5. Lesser Rockstars – No One Knows
  6. Popeless & the Apostates – The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink

Side B

  1. Enemy Proof – Disappearing Boy
  2. Stay Out – Green Day
  3. Making Friends – Going To Pasalacqua
  4. Regal Beagle – Why Do You Want Him?
  5. Random Heroes – Cigarettes & Valentines
  6. Jukebox Romantics – J.A.R.
  7. Raincheck – Sick Of Me
  8. All Ages – Don’t Wanna Fall In Love

Side C

  1. Krang – Burnout
  2. Divide By Zero – Having A Blast
  3. Nowhere Fast – Longview
  4. Borderlines – Pulling Teeth
  5. Common Perry – Basket Case
  6. 88Bunkface – She
  7. Brutal Youth – Sassafras Roots
  8. Moral Less Right – When I Come Around
  9. Agent 51 – Emenius Sleepus

Side D

  1. Phineas Gage – In The End
  2. Ballyhoo – Armatage Shanks
  3. Punchline13 – Brat
  4. American Television – Geek Stink Breath
  5. Fat Heaven – Babs Uvula Who
  6. Rough Dreams – 86
  7. Dead Alright – Stuart And The Avenue
  8. Warn The Duke – Brain Stew
  9. Lola – Jaded
  10. Fight Back Mountain – Westbound Sign
  11. Hot Alice – Walking Contradiction

Volume 2 – Insomniac Art:

Side A

  1. The Enthused – Nice Guys Finish Last
  2. Senor Dinosaur – Hitchin A Ride
  3. The Bad Ups – The Grouch
  4. Virginity – Redundant
  5. Too Bad Eugene – Scattered
  6. One Reason To Rise – All The Time
  7. Audio Karate – Worry Rock
  8. The Remote Controls – Platypus (I Hate You)

Side B

  1. Brain Soup – Jinx
  2. Game Time – Haushinka
  3. No Quarter – King For A Day
  4. Casper Flip – Good Riddance
  5. Rabies – American Idiot
  6. Misconduct – Holiday
  7. Goin’ Places – Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Side C

  1. Paper Lanterns – St. Jimmy
  2. Heavy Dose – Letterbomb
  3. The Crease Rule – Blood, Sex & Booze
  4. The Upshot – Church On Sunday

Side D

  1. Pat Decline – Castaway
  2. The Overjoyed – Misery
  3. Old Cross – Deadbeat Holiday
  4. Goldenboy – Waiting
  5. No Guidance – Minority
  6. GDCP – Bobby Sox

Swiss Gothic Quartet Lone Assembly Arrive Fully Formed on Debut Album “Knots & Chains”

Eric Alper
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Swiss Gothic Quartet Lone Assembly Arrive Fully Formed on Debut Album “Knots & Chains”

Lone Assembly have been building toward this, and “Knots & Chains” delivers on every promise the Swiss quartet has made. The debut album is out now, arriving alongside a new video for “You’re Pulling at the Same Strings,” and it’s a richly crafted, emotionally complex record that announces a genuinely distinctive new voice in gothic new wave and synth-pop.

The album is thematically unified around a single, multifaceted idea: control. Control exerted by others, cultivated within ourselves, and imposed by the places we inhabit. Each track approaches that theme from a different angle, creating a record that moves like a cycle, from suffocation to openness, from closed spaces to something more fragile and breathable.

Vocalist Raphaël Bressler frames the album’s arc directly. “The album takes shape like a cycle, moving from suffocation to openness, from closed spaces to greater, albeit fragile, breathing space.”

“You’re Pulling at the Same Strings” examines the control others exert, the narrator wrestling with the evil that dwells within another person. “The Pain Keeper” and “My Life’s Solid” turn inward, exploring self-imposed control. “The City Works Like This” expands the lens further, treating the city itself as a living organism that absorbs, rejects, and distorts those who inhabit it. And “In the Open” provides the record’s vital exhale, a genuine banger amid the darkness.

Musically, “Knots & Chains” leans into an ’80s coldness polished with magnificently modern production. The influence of Factory Records’ golden years is audible throughout, balanced against the pop directness of bands like Editors. Bressler’s voice carries real depth and gravity, Glenn Le Meur’s soaring guitars push the sound wide open, and Jim Bodeman and Romain Segu form a rhythm section with genuine power.

The band first emerged with debut EP ‘That Never Happened’ in early 2024, a tribute to a lost loved one that quickly transformed the project into something beyond music, a space for healing and closeness. That urgency is amplified across every track on “Knots & Chains,” a debut album of high aesthetic standards and remarkable pop appeal in equal measure.

Toronto Singer-Songwriter Katie Dauson Brings Rockabilly Back to Life on New Single “Will You Won’t You”

Eric Alper
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Toronto Singer-Songwriter Katie Dauson Brings Rockabilly Back to Life on New Single “Will You Won’t You”

Katie Dauson writes early in the morning, when her mind is fresh and ideas arrive without resistance, and “Will You Won’t You” has that spontaneous spark embedded in its DNA. The Toronto singer-songwriter’s new single is out now, produced by James Nickle, and it’s a toe-tapping, grin-inducing slice of rockabilly rock and roll that feels both vintage and completely alive.

Drawing from 1950s rockabilly, particularly The Crickets, and the ’70s revivalists who modernized the style, including Blondie and George Thorogood, Dauson blends retro swing with a contemporary edge that makes the track sit comfortably across rockabilly, rock and roll, and country all at once.

Her enthusiasm for the source material is genuine and specific. “I love George Thorogood’s guitar playing, and the fact that he added a saxophone player to his band in 1980. Saxophone is such an important instrument in rock and roll and rockabilly, it really elevated his music. I love how some of the ’70s groups took that ’50s style and modernised it with more instrumentation and a different vibe.”

The recording approach reflects that same attention to detail. Dauson tracked the rhythm guitar on a left-handed G&L Comanche in Shoreline Gold, choosing the instrument specifically for its distinctive Z-coil pickups and their unique tonal character. A fuzz pedal was added to inject a touch of modern dirt and grit into the mix, bridging the vintage feel with something harder-edged and current.

“Will You Won’t You” follows previous single “Get Ready” and continues to build the case for Dauson as one of Toronto’s most genre-savvy and fearlessly individual voices. Playful, gritty, and irresistibly catchy, it honours the roots of rock and roll while sounding entirely like its own thing.

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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