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LUMEN – Excuse Me, Who Are You!?
LUMEN Keeps Identity In Motion On Excuse Me, Who Are You!?
Atlanta artist LUMEN arrives with a debut that treats identity like something alive, shifting, and impossible to pin down. Excuse Me, Who Are You!? unfolds in three parts, using punk, pop-rock, alternative, and R&B as chapters in the same restless conversation. The first installment hits with late-’90s and 2000s guitar energy, but the real charge is in how LUMEN lets emotion steer the arrangement, not the other way around.
Written, recorded, revised, removed, and reimagined over eight months, the project feels built from instinct and self-interrogation. “This project is really about identity. Every part represents a different side of me, a different sound, and a different chapter. I wanted the music to feel unpredictable because life is unpredictable. You may think you know who I am from one song, and then the next one asks you to reconsider.” That tension gives Excuse Me, Who Are You!? its pull: a debut that doesn’t introduce LUMEN so much as keep opening the door.
The Lazz – The Crown
The Lazz Confronts The Mask Of Self-Knowledge On “The Crown”
With “The Crown,” The Lazz opens a psychological fault line between transformation and ego. Syncopated riffs, djent-weighted guitars, thrash aggression, and flashes of power-metal grandeur give the track a volatile architecture, while contrasting male and female vocals sharpen its sense of inner division. The heaviness is only part of the story; melody and groove keep shifting beneath it, giving the song a cinematic unease rather than straightforward impact.
As the opening chapter of Act IV: The Return, “The Crown” asks what happens when hard-won insight begins to resemble self-importance. Composer, guitarist, and visual artist Ben Lazzaro frames The Lazz as a Hybrid-Human world where music, imagery, and myth operate as parts of the same narrative. Here, that mythology narrows into something intimate: a confrontation with the possibility that even self-knowledge can become another disguise.
Gubbe – What could possibly go wrong
Gubbe Chases Trouble With A Grin On “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
Gubbe, led by Norwegian songwriter Bent Olav Olsen, approaches reinvention with a sense of humour and a willingness to make some noise. On “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”, Olsen turns shark diving, bear hugging, storm chasing and base jumping into a catalogue of gloriously questionable decisions, using upbeat alternative rock to frame the gap between caution and curiosity.
Guitars, bass, drums, synth and percussion give the track the warmth of a band playing together rather than something overly polished or programmed. That looseness is central to its character: melodic, slightly ragged and buoyed by the chemistry of friends enjoying the process. Gubbe roughly translates as “old guy”, but there is little resignation in the music. As Olsen puts it, “We had fun recording it. I think you can hear that.”
Evahfar – Evahfar
Evahfar Turns DIY Intimacy Into Something Haunting And Huge
Evahfar feels like a private transmission opened to the outside world. Built entirely in a home studio, the self-titled EP places every instrument in Murray’s hands, giving Evahfar the intimacy of music assembled without intermediaries. Alt-rock guitars, restless rhythms and vocals carrying traces of Jeff Buckley’s spectral ache move through songs that are carefully constructed without sanding away their rougher edges.
“SEER-sha” brings that approach into sharp relief. Hypnotic guitar and bass establish a taut foundation before Murray’s voice enters with a distant, almost ghostlike presence, balancing atmosphere against the track’s underlying drive. That tension runs throughout Evahfar: control meeting vulnerability, polish leaving room for abrasion. Here, DIY is more than a recording method. It becomes part of the EP’s identity. Creative independence made audible.
The Del-Viles – It’s Just a Kiss-Off
The Del-Viles Turn Garage Rock Into A Danceable Act Of Defiance
The Del-Viles’ debut It’s Just a Kiss-Off runs on immediacy. Recorded in a single day, the Minneapolis trio keeps the performances taut and exposed, letting Ethan Robert Ray’s punk instincts, Gabs Semansky’s blues-rooted drive, and Daniel Robert Collins’ jazz-inflected swing rub against one another without sanding down the friction. There’s mod-era snap in the attack and the sweat of the 2000s garage revival in the room, but the band treats those references as fuel rather than costume.
From the chant-like push of “The City” to the swagger of “Two-Tone Dress,” the album moves with a wiry sense of purpose, circling authority, alienation, and “The Man” with equal parts wit and irritation. Even the closing “I Hate You” carries a strange kind of release. It’s Just a Kiss-Off keeps its language blunt, its rhythms physical, and its attitude close to the surface — a debut built to feel immediate rather than overworked.
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