Metalcore veterans Counterparts brought their latest tour to Boston’s House of Blues last Friday night. The Hamilton, Ontario natives are on tour to celebrate the surprise release of their latest EP Heaven Let Them Die, with help from Pain of Truth, Malevolence and Foreign Hands.
One thing you should know about Counterparts is that they have only gotten heavier and angrier in time. Having been around for over 15 years, the Canadians have always found a way to make their sound cohesive-yet-chaotic, and their efforts have paid off in the past few years. The House of Blues is by far the largest headlining show Counterparts has played in Boston, and the production value was increased tenfold from their previous show at the Paradise. To put it simply, Counterparts have never looked or sounded better than they do now.
The band kicked straight into the first track from their EP without any hesitation, and the crowd wasted no time responding with waves upon waves of bodies making their way up to the front. The combination of red stage lighting and strobe lights pointed directly at the audience created a terrifying atmosphere (in a good way) that complimented the band’s sheer aggression. Vocalist Brendan Murphy has another band, END, with members of notable hardcore bands (The Acacia Strain, Fit For An Autopsy, Reign Supreme and Shai Hulud), and spent his time honing in multiple vocal styles that he has since integrated into Counterparts.
The setlist spanned a solid amount of their recent discography featuring mostly songs that were written by the current iteration of the band’s lineup. Rounded out with founding member Jesse Doreen on guitar, Tyler Williams on guitar, and their secret weapon drummer Kyle Brownlee, the band is tighter than ever, putting all their effort into crafting a live show that spares no expense. The programmed and synced lighting, the stage decoration and well-paced setlist proved that there is a little science involved with making a good show. Counterparts continues on the road through the end of March, wrapping up in Detroit. Their new EP Heaven Let Them Die is available now on Pure Noise Records. Check out the rest of Cam’s photos below.
Check out all of Cam’s photos from the show below.
Nessa Barrett‘s performance at Roadrunner in Boston last Thursday was absolutely electrifying. Ari Abdul kicked off the night, setting the audience in the perfect mood with her otherworldly and dark performance, while preparing them for what was to come next. Nessa emerged on stage to huge applause, bringing with her a setlist that segued naturally from crowd-pleasers like “Die First” to songs from the deluxe album like “LOVE LOOKS PRETTY ON YOU”. Nessa managed to make such a big venue feel intimate amid the stunning visuals and sharp choreography, each lyric pulling the fans in closer and closer. By night’s end she had truly connected with everyone in the crowd, as they watched her every move. Catch Nessa live while she’s on tour!
Check out all of Vika’s photos from the show below.
On February 10th, Phantogram finally returned to Boston for a headlining tour after five years. Though the duo opened for Kings of Leon twice at MGM Music Hall late last year, this time they came back at the helm of their very own tour to play the House of Blues across the street.
The early crowd shuffled in from the winter cold and was warmed by an opening set from Meija, the indie electronic rock project of producer/songwriter Jamie Sierota. After working through some early technical difficulties, Meija delivered a full-throated albeit truncated performance.
Phantogram entered the stage to dramatic strobe lights and began strong with the first song “Jealousy” from their new album, Memory Of A Day, released in late 2024. The new album’s emphasis on evocative retrospection was reflected in the setlist, and the band bounced effortlessly between brand new songs and selections each of from their previous four albums. Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter powered through their set with a synergy borne of nearly eighteen years of collaboration, and the crowd bobbed along as they enjoyed the fruits of Phantogram’s labor.
The new songs from Memory Of A Day translated to live performance excellently, with particular standout moments being the back-and-forth vocals between Barthel and Carter during “Feedback Invisible,” the hard-driving “Attaway,” and a brilliant performance of “Happy Again” highlighted by shifting bursts of color from the lighting setup. That’s not to say that the older material was neglected either, with familiar favorites such as “Don’t Move” from the 2011 Nightlife EP making a setlist appearance. Staple tracks “Black Out Days” and “When I’m Small” signaled the imminent end of the show, even though the energy was still peaking. The Phantogram headline tour may have been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait.
Check out all of Greg’s photos from the show below.
Not enough people know this, but being in a band is hard work. It’s a lot of schlepping shit around, trying to find parking. It’s long hours, late nights, and great personal expense. There’s a lot of self-imposed pressure and your take home pay isn’t that great either. It can wear on you. People wonder why bands break up, I’m amazed they happen at all.
Brendan Wright’s Tiberius has been an active entity since 2017 and in that time has transformed from a bedroom dream-pop project into what Wright calls “farm emo.” Today, we’re thrilled to premiere their new single “sag,” and we even caught up with Wright to get the scoop.
Though the song is named for the Saggitarius season when it was written, Wright has been pronouncing the song’s title with a hard-G to reflect their low-hanging mental state at the time. They describe the personal anguish of professional dissatisfaction with their musical project and weigh a move to New York City. Been there.
“From my perspective, the reason a lot of bands end up leaving town is because Boston lacks the infrastructure to be a big music city,” Wright said. Ambition can be a shackle here. “I think that if you’re in a Boston band and you’re trying to be the next big thing, people have to know you – particularly people in the industry have to know you, and there’s a better chance of that happening in one of those industry cities.”
In “sag” Wright distills the agony of band life–the tantalizing proximity to success, the toll it can take on your psyche–into punchy couplets. There’s a great line about “dragging amps and dragging ass,” and once it’s time to “play a show, play a show, play a show,” they sound utterly exhausted. “My aspiration for Tiberius is to just keep doing it and to keep getting better at it until I’m dead,” they said. While that might sound grim, Wright is a true believer in art for art’s sake. “For those who genuinely love making art, participating in their scene, and continually trying to push themselves to get better at what they do, opportunity will follow.”
The song ends with a question: “Why do I keep on trying?” Wright’s answer: community. “I think something that people don’t realize is how awesome our Boston music scene is. I think it’s a warmer environment than perhaps what people may think of when they think of Boston, which I think has a gruff and colder reputation.”
Oddball jokester and surrealist comedian Tim Heidecker brought his latest album tour to The Sinclair for a cozy night of folksy rock and weird humor. Accompanied by his touring band (The Very Good Band) and comedian DJ Douggpound, the show proved to be all killer and no filler.
Heidecker is known by most as a comedian and host of several talk show/podcasts, including Office Hours, On the Cinema at the Cinema and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! That said, not many people know he is also an avid songwriter, releasing Slipping Away, his eighth studio album as a solo artist last year. Heidecker, known more for his eccentricities and special brand of anti-humor, has taken a much more subtle and genuine approach to his solo music.
Heidecker opted not to tour with an opener, but rather an intermissionary act – DJ Douggpound. “Usually, this is why you have an opening act,” said Heidecker in between songs, joking about how the crowd took about three or four songs to relax and settle into the groove. Longtime fans would probably expect some surrealist aspects of Heidecker’s humor to leak through into his solo work…and they would be correct. Following the band’s performance of “Cleaning Up the Dog Shit,” Heidecker asked the crowd what they thought of the Grateful Dead, welcoming a chorus of cheers and applause before he gave a joking thumbs down and went into a rendition of what he thought the song would sound like if the Dead performed it: slow, cacophonous and lazy.
The jokes kept coming, sandwiched between earnest songs about growing up and fatherhood, including one where Heidecker claimed that the ghost of the late Herman Cain haunted the venue and audience. “Lord Cain” was Heidecker’s attempt to rid the crowd of the “evil spirit” before he and his band took a brief intermission to open the stage to the even more unhinged performance of DJ Douggpound. Tim Heidecker and the Very Good Band continue their tour in celebration of Slipping Away through February, wrapping up in Phoenix, AZ. Check out the rest of Cam’s photos below.
Freezing Boston temperatures couldn’t dampen the mood inside a packed Sinclair this week to see Lauren Mayberry, on tour for her new solo album Vicious Creature. Mayberry did not let that crowd down either, playing all twelve tracks, and throwing in a bonus cover of The Verve’s“Bittersweet Symphony” for good measure. Mayberry presented each song with the same honesty and effusive charm she is known for, telling stories to an adoring audience, some of whom have undoubtedly followed her career since CHVRCHES first played the Paradise in June of 2013.
She lamented on some costuming struggles: the silver minidress she wore on stage was supposed to be beset with a huge bow, (alas it was not to be!) and being candid about her relationship with her mother, as well as anxiety on the road. Her solo performance style may still be something she’s growing accustomed to, but that didn’t stop the folks in the room from hanging off her every word. “Change Shapes” and “Sunday Best” got the crowd chanting along, while “Are you Awake” brought the energy back down as she sang, seated from under a huge mirrorball. Performing “Sorry, etc” complimented all the sweetness well, leaving space for anger and heartbreak (And some hope from this writer for more of her scratchy, screamy music in the future).
Tour support for Mayberry was the mysterious Cult of Venus, who opened the night with a trancy, expansive sound. She performed in shadow, wearing an all-black ensemble including a zipper skirt and curved boots evocative of a 2010s Alexander McQueen runway. Her music is a protest that explores dystopian themes like mass surveillance and climate change through looping tracks and haunted melodies. She closed with her new single “Algorithm” which is about social media’s toxic hold on modern society. It is officially out now on all major streaming platforms, listenable here: https://cov.lnk.to/algorithm
Check out all of Samantha’s photos from the show below.
Boston shoegazers Ohio State Fair headlined a stacked local bill at Somerville’s Warehouse XI this past Saturday. While recordings have yet to materialize from this young group, they have garnered a reputation around town for having an excellent live show, and their set on this night lived up to hype. Featuring three members of other must-see-live-act-without-any-songs-out-yet Pew Pew (who also make time in various other local groups), it comes as no surprise that they bring it on stage. However, it’s fronter Natasha Kafi’s use of the Omnichord (and a distinctive black one at that) that really puts Ohio State Fair in a league of their own. Run through guitar pedals to give it the distinctive glider-feel of shoegaze, the Omni’s symphonic-yet-digitally bit crunched sound carves out a unique slice of sonic real estate besides the heaving rush of their otherwise orthodox guitar/pedals/bass/drums alignment.
It’s not just funky instruments that kept me attention though: this four-piece has a bunch of capital “S” songs in their back pocket that some enterprising local label or another needs to snap up, and quick. Resembling classic 4AD bands like Lush, there’s a taut current cresting just underneath that shimmering guitar and key interplay, lead by a rhythm section that threads the needle of playing forcefully without disrupting the dreamy vibes. Rest assured, this will not be the last time you see Ohio State Fair on these digital pages.
AP faves Winkler batted second, playing tracks off one our favorite local releases of last year as well as a few golden oldies. As we yapped on Bluesky, these indie poppers just have a certain kind of swagger as a live unit that is positively infectious, and it’s almost impossible to stand still while they play. Expecting big things from them in 2025. Tiberius opened, and their sometimes twangy oftentimes explosive indie rock is always a pleasure to catch around town.
Throughout our lives we will always be presented with choices that can radically alter our trajectory. The frightening nature of which these choices exude is matched only by how exciting they can be to consider. Especially when you already have built a life in one universe, but find yourself being relentlessly pulled toward another. The same goes for Lauren Mayberry. Lead singer and front-woman of Scottish synth-pop trio CHVRCHES, as she finally made her choice to release solo material.
However fans of the band need not worry, as the trio promises to reform and release new material in the future. For now, Mayberry will be exploring new worlds and depths inside herself as she tours her new album, Vicious Creature, swinging through Cambridge on February 11th at The Sinclair. In the days before hitting the road, we got to chat with Mayberry about future proofing creativity, being featured in Heartstopper and getting to play Webster Hall.
Allston Pudding: I have to start by saying it’s a privilege to talk to you. I’ve been a fan of yours for years.
Lauren Mayberry: Ah thank you, so you’re the one! [laughs]
AP: Yes! I have a lot of great memories of dancing at festivals to “Clearest Blue” with friends.
LM: That makes me very happy. Yeah, when people don’t dance to that one I’m like, I don’t know what else to give you. That’s the peak, that’s the peak of our creative output!
AP: There’s something really special about that song.
LM: “Clearest Blue”, the little one that could, and I feel like it being in Heartstopper a few years ago…
AP: You gave it a sort of second life.
LM: Yes! I was like, this scene is what I always wanted this song to be for!
AP: It’s the perfect soundtrack for a moment like that.
LM: I knew that it was in the show obviously because we had to sign off on it, but I hadn’t seen the scene. You get sent a one sentence description and that’s it. It’s like “oh, they’re at a party”, cool. But when I was watching it, I’m like *pretends to sob*. I’m not crying about me, I’m crying about the kids, man! [laughs] Yeah, we were very lucky to get on Heartstopper.
Photo Credit: Charlotte Patmore
AP: In regard to your new album, you had said that you needed to make a record that was worth asking questions about, so I’m wondering in the two months since it’s been out, what has the reception been like?
LM: I feel like I was pleasantly surprised. Anything I make is going to be compared to what has come before, which is obviously a privilege, but I knew that. I think the fact that their response to the record has been pleasant, not that I think there’s a lot of people that wanted it to be shit, maybe there was some of that, but it’s really great. For me this whole time, this record is a proof of concept. Do I have the ability or the right to make any music outside of CHVRCHES and I feel like I was trying to prove that to myself. I don’t know if I’m a confident creator in anyway, but I do feel more assured, like if you’ve only ever done one thing one way there is a part of my brain that’s like, “oh what if that’s the only way I can do it.” It’s like I was trying to future proof my creativity. Everything‘s always up and down, nothings certain, but you can always just invest in yourself. I don’t know what my art will look like in five or 10 or 20 years, I hope it still exists but I’m like, “oh you need to figure out what are you like as a creative person within that project but also outside of that.” I was so young when CHVRCHES started so I feel like it’s exercising. If CHVRCHES is like a triathlon then maybe this is the next part of that. [laughs]
AP: Well, I do think you’ve proven what you set out to prove with this record. It’s very fun yet very emotional which must’ve been difficult but also freeing. You’ve said in a couple of interviews, with CHVRCHES you weren’t fully able to express yourself so having this avenue to go down solo is really cool to see.
LM: I think it’s shown me things that I am good at and things that I’m not really good at, and things that the guys [in CHVRCHES] are really good at and things that are incredibly hard to find. I understand why a lot of people get stressed when a singer goes solo because it, in theory, jeopardizes the existence of a band that means a lot to them. To me, I think the strength of what I do in CHVRCHES is the storytelling, and sometimes it’s challenging to figure out where that sits. So I took a two year journey to work on my ability to tell stories and figure those things out, and now I think taking that back to the unit will be a useful thing. At the end of the day, people just have different tastes. The things that those guys have made in the last two years which weren’t with CHVRCHES, that just wouldn’t fit in the band, and there’s certain parts of my music that wouldn’t fit in the band. So yes, I got to be a little more dramatic and emotional in my own time.
AP: Perfect, we all need those outlets.
LM: You know, a little bit of theatrical stuff on the side.
AP: I know it’s sometimes like choosing your favorite kid, but what’s your favorite song on the new album?
LM: I think “Something In The Air” is probably one of my favorite ones because when we wrote that one, we had 3/4 of the album done and I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I wanted that kind of ephemeral something and I think when we got the chorus to that one, it felt different and exciting. It was fun playing that one live for the first time. You don’t get those things very often where you feel people responding organically and when we got to the chorus, I was like, “oh, we’re good. This is gonna be fine.” But I’m most proud of “Oh, Mother”. That one kind of came out of nowhere. It was the last song we wrote for the record. I wasn’t planning on writing something as depressing as that, but it kind of just happened and I think those are the most exciting songs. You have to turn up every day and look for things, but you can’t force it and that must’ve just been buried in the back of our brains because the whole thing was written top-to-bottom in about two hours.
Vicious Creature Artwork
AP: You have also spoken about the sort of awkward uncertainty, or even guilt that surrounds embarking on a solo project after being a part of a band for so long. What kept those feelings at bay and kept you going?
LM: I guess it’s because I knew that I wanted to do it for long enough. At first, I didn’t wanna do it because I wasn’t sure and I was worried what it would do to the band’s dynamic. After literally years of thinking about that, it’s the only part of that that’s left: the worrying about other people part. I think that’s probably not a good enough reason to not do things. But also once you’ve signed on to do something and you have to do it that’s quite helpful in a way. [laughs] You’ve taken the money to make the record so now you have to make it. Otherwise, so many people are gonna be fucked-off at you. Hopefully I’ll do it again. First time is obviously gonna be the hardest, I think. My manager had a weird analogy where he compared it to moving people’s cheese. He was like, “nobody likes it when you move their cheese. They like to know where their cheese is. So for everyone who is involved in or aware of the band, you are moving the cheese a little bit. They don’t know when you’re gonna put the cheese back and they don’t know what the cheese is gonna look like when you put it back or where you’re gonna put it.” I’m like this is silly, but it works.
AP: Well, I hope you continue to move the cheese because I think it has been successful.
LM: And you know many kinds of different cheese are available… like there’s some cheese over there from before!
AP: As you get ready to set out on your solo tour, what’s been going through your mind and how have you been preparing for it?
LM: What am I doing? Um, I’ve been having a lot of phone calls. Everybody’s learning their parts. This week we’re gonna go in and block out some of the staging. I’m not skilled enough to do full choreography, but I do like to plan it a little bit. I’m not fucking Janet Jackson, I understand that. I wish. Over the course of CHVRCHES it became more important to me, and I think the shows got better for having done that. But I have to work on my face, because when I’m concentrating, I look really upset and I can’t sing some of these songs whilst looking like that.
AP: Because you have such a strong vocal, do you have any trusty remedies that you employ either before or after a performance?
LM: We just sent in the most boring tour rider known to man. It’s just different tea’s. But it’s all about the beer and the wine: not good for the voice. I used to think, “oh I can still go out and I just won’t drink”, but it’s being in loud environments too, so sometimes you just have to live like a little monk. But, I did get a new tool, I haven’t used it yet: a singing straw? I don’t know if you know about these, I guess you just do your warm-ups into the straw? For vocal tension or something, it’s my new little pal. Presumably I’ll be singing like Mariah Carey in two weeks.
AP: Lastly, what’s your favorite city to perform in or your favorite food to have on the road?
LM: Let me look at the list. I’m like, where are we going? I always go, if I have time, to this really old sushi place down a few steps in San Francisco. We always have good shows in DC and I’ve always found it interesting how well CHVRCHES does in Texas. I don’t know why I thought Texas wouldn’t like us. And it blows my mind that I get to play Webster Hall in New York, like that’s stupid. I lived there for a few years and I think about the shows that I saw there and I’m just very honored and lucky to be a part of it. Maybe I’ll grab a little spinach dumpling after the show from Xi’an Famous Foods.
Mayberry continues on her Vicious Creature Tour through the end of March, for more information check out her website here. Follow Mayberry on Instagram and TikTok for more!
Festival season started early for New England in 2025 with the inaugural Something in the Way festival taking place this past weekend at Roadrunner in Boston. Waking up hardcore, punk & shoegaze fans from their hibernations, the two-day festival was a welcome distraction from the bone-chilling cold outside.
Hosted by Bowery Boston and Run For Cover, Something In The Way fest follows a recent growing trend of the genre festival taking place across the country. With the mainstream large scale music festival landscape becoming increasingly more volatile, promoters have shifted priorities from welcoming every type of music fan to catering to smaller, but more dedicated communities. We’ve seen this with emo-punk fest When We Were Young in Las Vegas and the indie-queer adjacent All Things Go near Baltimore, both of which have seen success in their endeavors.
Featuring both current and legacy hardcore & punk acts, the weekend proved to be a fantastic crash course in both genres. For the OG fans, legends American Football and Slowdive made highly anticipated appearances, with fresher faces like Mannequin Pussy and Women in Peril rounding out the bill.
For those looking to grab a souvenir, they did not leave empty handed. A booth from Wanna Hear It Records in Watertown sold vinyl all weekend and original SITW merch was available for purchase alongside artists’ offerings.
Taking place at Roadrunner, one of Boston’s newest and most exciting concert halls, the venue had to adapt to fit all of the acts within one weekend. The solution: a second, smaller stage set in the back of the GA floor. Creating a sort of “theatre in the round” vibe, this ended up favoring the hardcore bands on the lineup, allowing an intimate and raucous environment – perfect for a punk show. It was incredible watching a sea of concertgoers flood the stage before launching themselves back into the crowd, arguably the perfect way to watch a Fiddlehead set.
With all first year festivals, there will be issues here and there, but SITW managed to come out relatively unscathed. The B-stage definitely could’ve used a few more speakers pointed at the crowds to the side of and behind the stage, as sound quality varied greatly depending on where you stood. Additionally, many attendees were left with rumbling bellies as the only food option – a single empanada stall taking up residence in a coat-check closet, proved insufficient with long lines and limited choices. However re-entry was allowed until 6pm both nights, giving concertgoers a chance to escape and find food elsewhere on Guest Street.
Something in the Way Festival proved to have something for everyone, as long as you’re a hardcore, punk or shoegaze fan looking to shake off the cold and mosh.
– Andrew Borque
The festivities didn’t end at Roadrunner on Saturday night, as a short jaunt across the river to The Sinclair brought you to the fest’s official afterparty. Keeping with the vague theme of shoegaze and its many tendrils, the late show featured Indianapolis’ Wishy for their first of two Something In The Way sets alongside local heroes Horse Jumper of Love and the (somewhat) recently-reunited legends Drop Nineteens.
Wishy kicked things around quarter to ten with a heads-down no bullshit set pulled almost entirely from last year’s debut LP Triple Seven. Playing behind captured game footage of the 2001 classic video game SSX Tricky, the five-piece swervedrove (ha) between impossibly hooky jangle-pop and hard riffing rockers with confident cool, stopping only briefly to remind the crowd several times that they are indeed from Indianapolis, which they continued to do the following afternoon back at Roadrunner for Day 2. Seeing this band twice in a 16-hour span was a nice treat.
Horse Jumpies followed with a tightly-coiled and very moving set on their own on home turf, their first since a heavy bout of touring throughout 2024. A Horse Jumper set at this point (especially with the beantown crowd behind them, although I’m sure the boys are loved everywhere) is a beautifully composed act of tension and release in which they poke around under the hood of their songs, giving them new life. Some become quieter, slower, more devastating than their recorded counterparts, while others get taken for a brisker walk or a heavier downturn. Drummer Jamie Vadala-Doran sneaks lopsided and lightning-quick extra fills between the margins without ever distracting or disrupting the flow while John Margaris holds down the path with his less-is-more bass, the notes not played hitting harder. Seeing this band open for Drop Nineteens was a special sort of full-circle moment.
Drop Nineteens closed out the night with an elegiac yet blisteringly loud set in front of a tennis-ball yellow and green backdrop that, as we said on Bluesky, begged the question: is shoegaze…brat? The quintet’s surprise return in 2023 begat a short dual coasts run last year that had a sort of finality to it, at least that’s how they left it on stage at the Paradise Rock Club between stories of sneaking in from their BU dorms next door back in the day. However, co-founder Paula Kelley recently moved back east (at least partly) for the band, so we may very well be getting more music from this crew after all. Early tracks like “Winona” and “Delaware” and “My Aquarium” still hit like glittery gut punches, while the queasy “Nausea” remains something of a secret weapon. However, it was the spine-tingling extended drone of “Kick The Tragedy” to close that brought me nearly to tears, partly out of exhaustion, but mostly out of sheer beauty. I love to rock and roll.
– Dillon Riley
Check out our coverage of the fest below! It’s almost like you’re there.
It’s safe to say that Boston self-described “dream-rockers” Paper Lady is a band that values dynamics. A Paper Lady song can be achingly quiet and staid or turbulent like a jet engine (and often both), but never unbalanced in either direction. Well-read indie rock pupils of the more guitar-pedal-centric variety both contemporary and classic, the group also pulls detritus from folk traditions and the sonic world building of electronic music into their practice to create music that feels multi-dimensional and uncannily cinematic in scope. Their live is also terrifically loud, punishing and pleasurable in all the right ways.
Having kicked it around the Allston/Brighton underground for some time, Paper Lady has been road-testing the material that makes up Idle Fate, their debut full length LP, for some time now. We here at Allston Pudding are pleased to be premiering that album’s first single in “Silt”. A treatise of sorts on the restorative powers of dirt (or something artful like that), the Slint-like guitar harmonics and crushingly heavy chorus add some new flourishes to their excellent racket while providing a key entry point into the world of Idle Fate.
Watch the video for “Silt” (which premiered at exactly 3:33pm for those keeping score) below and read on for some more thoughts from all 3 members of Paper Lady.
Allston Pudding: This is a track you’ve been playing out for a bit, when did you originally write it and how much has the live show changed the song since then?
Alli Raina: Rowan really spearheaded this one! I pieced together the lyrics from fragments of journal entries of mine. Everything really came together for this song in the summer of 2023 when we went on a writing retreat in Catskill, New York. We were at a pretty remote cabin without any technology or phone service. I solidified the lyrics and melody for “Silt” while sitting at the bottom of a little waterfall on the property. When I finished writing the lyrics fully, I looked up and realized all of the rocks surrounding me were covered in slugs.
Alex Castile: Actually through the recording process we added all kinds of new elements that we then incorporated into our live sets.
Rowan Martin: I wrote the riff at the beginning of the song a couple years ago right after seeing Ovlov for the first time. It inspired me to write something really heavy which I don’t usually do. I hadn’t intended it to be an idea for Paper Lady, but I played it for Alli on an acoustic guitar and she really glued all the pieces together. Then we just drilled it over and over again in the cabin. It came to its current form pretty quickly.
AP: Why is this the first single from the album? Are there themes here that tie into the rest of it?
AR: It was one of the first songs that really came together for the album. The pre-chorus line, “Bury yourself in the dirt, to feel closer to God,” encapsulates the song’s core theme: the disconnection from oneself, from nature, and the desperate longing to reclaim that lost connection. It’s written as a scathing note to myself. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time and it felt very debilitating. Throughout the song, I’m begging that part of me to see the pain it’s caused. I think that it’s a perfect initial step into the world of this album.
RM: I think sonically all the songs are very different, but “Silt” represents the primary emotional space of the album. A bit dark and intuitive.
AP: What is it about soil that you find inspiring?
AR: Soil is pure life force! Many a beautiful thing sprouts from it, and it is what we are returned to in the end. It’s so magnificent and so underrated.
AC: I feel soil represents a feeling of surrounding, that can be both comforting and claustrophobic at times.
AP: Walk us through the role that nature plays in making Paper Lady music in general.
AR: I’ve always enjoyed using parallels I find in nature to describe my emotions. I find a lot of comfort identifying with the trees, ocean, and wind. I think for this album I really identified that about myself and leaned into it.
RM: Nature is so inspiring. Being in a woodland setting just gets me in the perfect mood for writing music. When we were in the cabin it was super remote, which I think kind of allows you to be really in touch with yourself as well as everyone around you. We have taken audio samples of the wind and ocean before and put them into our songs. I don’t always throw nature samples into our tracks, but I like to try and build a sound biome for all the recordings.
AP: Your music can be very elegiac, but also at times visceral and almost confrontational, how did you arrive at this sound?
AR: I do often find myself writing about loss and the emotional effect it has on me. Same as so many other people, I use music as a way to process my emotions. I’m a pretty nostalgic person, and can lean angry from time to time, so it’s nice to create a space for myself where I can let that out.
RM: In terms of the instrumentals I think we all just bounce off each other and also try to take in the lyrical content that Alli is writing.
AP: Do you see yourselves in the sort of continuum of shoegaze and dreampop? Are there any contemporaries of yours that you feel like are chasing a similar muse?
AR: I can definitely see us sitting somewhere in there. We like to call ourselves a dream-rock band. Like dreampop, but at times a bit heavier. At the end of the day I just love a shimmer reverb. I think there’s also this sort of pleading element to our songs that I’m not really sure how to classify genre-wise. Some bands that come to mind would be Laveda, Wednesday, and Dirt Buyer.
RM: I definitely like to think that we take a lot of influence from those realms though I wouldn’t personally classify us as a shoegaze band or dream pop band, those styles of music definitely hold a huge spot in my heart and brain. Yes tons! A huge influence on writing “Silt” specifically were our friends in Her New Knife.
AP: How does living in Boston play into your band and how did it inform this song/the album?
AR: I’ve found so much inspiration from Boston bands over the years. I think there was a 3 month period when all I listened to was Krill. I used to run a house show venue and was super inspired by so many bands that I saw/booked there too. Boston is special because it’s this ever changing musical climate, that’s constantly having new life breathed into it. I think it’s made us feel very comfortable to try new things, and allow our music to grow and shift.
AC: Our band came up in the Allston DIY scene. I think we’ve found inspiration in a lot of other bands in the scene. Our friends in Clifford actually inspired us to experiment with time signatures a bit, specifically with the intro and verses of “Silt” being in 6/4.
AP: Where did you record the album? What is it about self-recording that you feel plays to your strengths as a band?
AC: We recorded the album at the studio our former keys player worked at called The Record Co. Self recording and self mixing, even though it was a lot of work, enabled us to get the album to sound exactly the way we wanted it to.
RM: I think we all had a very strong vision for what we wanted these songs to be like so recording it just us I think saved us from having to transfer that vision to someone else. I think you also get a ton of time to experiment and add things that if you were in a traditional studio you may be more inclined to just get everything done as fast as possible.
AP: Where and when you film the video for “Silt”? What was the experience like in making it?
AR: The video was shot, directed, and edited by Montréal based artist Maximum Blue. We had a couple of calls planning the video beforehand and discussed how we wanted it to be sort of an art house surrealist/fairytale. He came to Boston for a few days and we shot it! We all actually paper machéd our own masks. Throughout the video I’m running from this cult-like group of monsters that want me to join them. They each represent a different negative emotion (trickery, malaise, shame, apathy).
AC: We filmed the “Silt” video at the end of February last year. We filmed it in our house, Middlesex Fells and Ponyhenge. Maximum was a dream to work with.
AP: What does the rest of 2025 look like for Paper Lady?
AR: More singles, more candlelight, more longing, more laying in the dirt; releasing our album Idle Fate on May 9th, and touring this coming June.
AC: We are planning on moving to Brooklyn later in the year (ed note: tragic, there goes another one).
RM: We just want to play as much as humanly possible! We worked so hard on this album and I’m just so excited to be able to share it with everyone.
Paper Lady play a single release show for “Silt” on Saturday, February 8th at Deep Cuts. Tickets are available here.
