Single Sentence Singles: March spotlights Fullbloods, Sirens In The Suburbs, and more local talent

Photo by Travis Young

In an effort to keep you all abreast of the latest local music that’s not album or music video related, we present the latest installment of our irregular feature, Single Sentence Singles. We take a listen to the latest local singles to hit Soundcloud, Spotify, Bandcamp, et al, and sum them up in one sentence.

Are you a local musician with a new single to share? Email nicholas.spacek@gmail.com

Simple enough? Here we go.

Fullbloods, “Fish in a Bowl” 

The final single release ahead of Fullbloods’s new LP, Playing It Safe, was—like everything else on the album—written, played, recorded, and mixed by Ross Brown resulting in a loose, poppy, joyous celebration of making solo music, seeing how much fun you can have pairing acoustic strumming and some synthy goodness with an electric guitar line and low end that’ll remind you ever-so-slightly of the Dwight Twilley Band’s “Looking for the Magic” in the best possible way.

You can order Fullbloods’ Playing It Safe digitally or on vinyl at Bandcamp.

Flutienastiness, “Tulum In November” 

Amber Underwood’s first new music in four years is worth the wait, seeing the flute player rock a melody which wouldn’t be out of place on a ’70s compilation LP you pulled out of the bargain bin while digging for cool, weird vinyl before a Daft Punk meets Italo disco bass line turns it into the late night track you didn’t know you needed and gets you shaking your ass so hard you scare your pets.

They’re Theirs, “Midland Empire” 

Chase Horseman’s band has been making music for a couple of years now, and with their first recorded output, you can finally listen to them outside of a darkened room at midnight, even though this track is perfectly suited for doing just that, blending the bleaker parts of what was once called college rock and film scores, making it just as suitable for a sad montage wandering the city after dark as it is a slow swayer.

Sirens In The Suburbs, “Van Life” 

Somewhere in the space between punk rock and glam rock lies this new track from Kansas City’s Sirens In The Suburbs, wherein it’s entirely possible to conceive of a world where Motley Crue never left the Sunset Strip and instead started hanging out with the roster of SST, resulting in a song which has all the self-deprecation of a Minutemen b-side, while also acknowledging the power of a well-utilized cowbell.

Til Willis & Erratic Cowboy, “Lost” 

Frontman Til Willis’ Solohawk project recorded its 2023 album, Rio Grande, at The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Colorado, greatly utilizing the reverberative sonic properties of the massive water tank, and that seems to have rubbed off and transferred itself to the new album, Glass Cactus, from his main band, which, in a wonderful bit of synchronicity, sees Solohawk’s Steve Faceman singing backup on this single, which recalls Pearl Jam and Neil Young’s Mirrorball collab—only much more on the Crazy Horse side of things.

Til Willis & Erratic Cowboy’s release party for Glass Cactus is Saturday, April 12, at Lucia.

Lyxe, “All Alone” 

Maybe it’s because I go see them each and every time they play in and around Lawrence, but every new Lyxe song sounds as familiar as a forgotten radio hit from my youth, or maybe a track that’s on a seven-inch single buried somewhere here in the office thanks to the group’s ability to effortlessly distill every band that’s regularly headlined the Replay Lounge over the last decade into the perfect power trio to soundtrack an evening of cheap beer and furtive patio cigarettes.

Lyxe plays Sk8bar on Friday, April 18.

The Freedom Affair, “Get My Share” 

When a band is this good, you don’t care how long you have to wait for a new song, which is why we’re not upset that we have to wait until May 9 for The Freedom Affair to drop their self-titled follow-up to 2020’s Freedom Is Love, with the first single featuring Chris Hazelton’s Wurlitzer and the guitar work of Cole Bales as the thread that ties together groovy low-end, gorgeous three-part harmonies, and, yes, “a horn line that’d make the Memphis Horns blush,” as their publicist puts it.

You can pre-order The Freedom Affair’s self-titled album digitally and on compact disc or 150-gram gold swirl vinyl at Bandcamp.

Nightosphere, “Poverty Policy” 

A month or so ago, Nightosphere dropped a cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon,”  but their new single sees the band leaning into pure Goth territory, courtesy of a bassline that feels like the most ominous thing ever, plodding along in the best possible way before the song explodes in its final minute as though they can’t possibly hold it in any longer, and then returning to the slow march of what was a eulogy, now becoming the funeral.

Dented Zeus, Loose 

Loose sees “Beta Prostate” off of their debut EP Live at McDude’s recorded slightly (SLIGHTLY) cleaner, along with two new songs following, and because it is Mike Tuley in a band again, we will gleefully and gladly listen to anything that man makes without hesitation because we know it will be gold, and while “Beta Prostate” and “Courting Casuals” are sleepy bits of shoegaze, the psychedelic freakout in the middle third of “Pragmatics” comes as a welcome hit of adrenaline.

Chris Hudson & the Cruelest Months, “Sink or Swim” 

Frontman Chris Hudson is a musical chameleon, popping in and out of every possible iteration of folk music without seeming to make the slightest bit of effort, but the country rock of his work with the Cruelest Months is perfectly suited to this dreamy protest song, with guitar work that almost seems as though it’s offering a warning to those listening to heed the singer’s words and keep their heads above water.

Are you a local musician with new music to share? Email nicholas.spacek@gmail.com