Five videos. Five completely different worlds. This week we’ve got Nashville metalcore that hits like a court summons, a New York folk-jazz duo building entire conceptual universes from newspaper clippings, Southern California pop-punk with something to prove, one of underground indie’s most quietly influential bands stepping into a proper studio for the first time, and a Jacksonville institution two decades deep with no intention of slowing down. Different tempos, different textures, different reasons to turn it up. That’s the week. Enjoy it.
Chamber, “Without A Trace”
Nashville’s finest merchants of controlled sonic violence, Chamber, are back with “Without A Trace“, the second single from their forthcoming album “This Is Goodbye…“, due March 27th via Pure Noise Records. The track carries the specific weight of a song that nearly opened the record, and you can feel that urgency in the first chord, that wrong, thrilling, dissonant hit that vocalist and guitarist Gabe Manuel openly admits he couldn’t quite let go of. There’s something almost cruel about burying a moment that good at track nine.
The video matches the song’s lyrical subject matter with brutal precision: this is a track about people who grift their way upward, bleeding others dry and sleeping just fine at night. In a political climate where that particular personality type seems to be thriving at alarming altitude, “Without A Trace” lands with the weight of something deeply relevant. The breakdown buildup at the end is a nod to the band’s earliest incarnation, a reminder that Chamber have never been interested in sanding down their edges. “This Is Goodbye…” was produced by Randy LeBoeuf, the man who has become this band’s trusted co-conspirator across records, and it follows 2023’s “A Love To Kill For“, itself a formidable slab of psychotic mosh metal. If that record made the underground sit up, this one is designed to make it flinch.
PRE ORDER “THIS IS GOODBYE” HERE
STREAM “WITHOU TA TRACE” HERE
Lowertown, “Big Thumb”
New York duo Lowertown have always operated in that space where folk, jazz, and underground indie blur into something harder to name than to feel. “Big Thumb“, the latest single from their forthcoming album “Ugly Duckling Union” (out May 22nd via Summer Shade), is their most emotionally articulate statement yet. Avsha Weinberg slurs through verses with palpable heart, while Olivia Osby‘s harmonies and harmonica circle like something both familiar and unsettling. It’s a song that came together in the most beautifully analogue way imaginable: newspaper clippings scattered across the floor, two people playing 12-string guitar and harmonica, pulling words that meant something.
The video, directed by Jack Haven, known for his work on “I Saw The TV Glow“, carries that same unsettling clarity. Weinberg describes the song as a reflection on generational directionlessness, the sense that the paths carved out for previous generations have simply evaporated, leaving people to drift or invent something entirely new. It’s a theme that resonates now with an almost uncomfortable force. “Ugly Duckling Union” arrives as a full conceptual world, including a Minecraft universe, illustrated comics, and a story protagonist named Dale the duckling taking on a tyrannical media corporation. Outlandish? Yes. Completely sincere? Also yes. Lowertown are the real thing.
PRE-SAVE “UGLY DUCKLING UNION” HERE!
Super Sometimes, “Afterthought”
San Diego’s Super Sometimes announce themselves with the kind of lead single that has always defined great pop-punk: a chorus you point at something you regret, a verse that stings quietly, and a production that makes the whole thing feel massive without losing the scrape. “Afterthought“, the first taste of their debut album “Show The World What’s Underneath” (out May 15th via Pure Noise Records), is a song about longing for someone who doesn’t afford you the same urgency. That’s one of the oldest feelings in the genre’s playbook, and the trio of Gabriel Muñoz, Dylan Guzman, and Matthew Ludwig execute it with a confidence that belies their age.
Working with producer Zach Tuch and collaborators including Knuckle Puck’s Nick Casasanto and Hot Mulligan’s Chris Freeman, the band have clearly done their homework on genre lineage, citing influences ranging from State Champs and The Story So Far through to Blink-182 and Green Day. The video captures that sweet spot between youthful recklessness and real emotional stakes. This is a debut that has something to prove, and on “Afterthought“, “Super Sometimes” sound absolutely ready to prove it.
PRE ORDER “SHOW THE WORLD WHAT’S UNDERNEATH” HERE
STREAM “AFTERTHOUGHT” HERE
Teen Suicide, “Spiders”
Here’s where things get genuinely special. Teen Suicide are one of those bands whose fingerprints are all over contemporary underground music, even if casual listeners have never once googled the name. The Baltimore duo of Sam and Kitty Ray, who have released music under an extraordinary constellation of project names, are now preparing their first proper studio album. “Nude Descending Staircase Headless” drops April 17th via Run For Cover Records, produced by Mike Sapone, and it represents a genuine leap into new territory.
“Spiders” is the second single, and it is remarkable. Kitty Ray takes lead vocals for the first time across an entire Teen Suicide track, and her voice howls and claws over the biggest riff the band has ever constructed. The song swings from shimmering verses to fuzz-drenched choruses with real conviction. Kitty has spoken honestly about the terror of performing it live when they first started playing it in 2024, that vulnerability of a voice not yet fully inhabiting a song. It’s the kind of artistic confession that makes you trust a songwriter completely. After years of bedroom recordings and lofi tape experiments, this is Teen Suicide stepping into a professional studio and sounding, against all expectations, even more like themselves.
LISTEN TO “SPIDERS” HERE
PREORDER “NUDE DESCENDING STAIRCASE HEADLESS” HERE
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, “Not Today”
Twenty years into a career that could have calcified at any point, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus continue to operate with the stubbornness of a band that genuinely believes it has more to say. They probably do. The Jacksonville-formed outfit, now a seven-piece, released “X’s For Eyes” via Better Noise Music in 2025, closing out a year that included festival appearances at Aftershock and When We Were Young. Now they expand it with a deluxe edition, and the lyric video for “Not Today” is the centrepiece moment.
The deluxe also features a collaboration with Mayday Parade’s Derek Sanders on “Perfection“, which is the guest appearance they’re being coy about, and it makes complete sense given the label family and the sonic territory. Ronnie Winter has spoken consistently about The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus as an activist band from day one, and “Face Down“, their 5x Platinum 2006 single with over 176 million YouTube views, remains one of the most direct anti-domestic violence statements the mid-2000s mainstream ever allowed through. That thread has continued on “X’s For Eyes“, addressing immigration, racism, and homophobia with the same blunt sincerity that has always defined them. “Not Today” fits that lineage: a refusal, a defiance, a hand outstretched. Whatever else you might say about this band, they have never once stopped meaning it.
Five videos. Five different temperatures. All worth your time.
