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DaBanzWay and Trofye Lit Up the Ledger in Their Hip-Hop Earworm, Count It Up

Posted on 10 April 2025

Like two pyres of fire smouldering together, DaBanzWay and Trofye created an inferno of high-octane heat with Count It Up—a track that proves the currency isn’t cash, it’s cadence. Produced by Versa and released with an official video by Worm on March 28th, Count It Up shatters the illusion that resilience can’t hit harder than flexing.

Raised side-by-side in the inner city of Franklin, TN, the two artists built their chemistry long before stepping into the booth. Even with DaBanzWay now based in Columbia, TN, they still reconnect with enough force to raise the temperature on any track they touch. With Trofye laying down the hook and first verse, DaBanzWay steps in with the knockout on the second—creating a hardline contrast that only strengthens the track’s grip.

The solid rattle of the 808s is riled by the adrenaline and tensile conviction in the dualistic rap bars. With a cadence that bounces as much as the beats, Count It Up is a hip-hop anthem that shows stripes of fortitude instead of flashing symbols of surplus. The two artists show their teeth as much as their talent in the radio-ready earworm, which has the anatomy to thrive beyond the hip-hop underground and echo through scenes built on authenticity, not ostentation.

Count It Up is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Venom in the Reverb: Offworld Narcotics Lace Trip-Hop with Lynchian Limerance in ‘Siren Serpent’

Posted on 9 April 2025

As harbingering, serpentine, and seductive as the title would suggest, Siren Serpent by Offworld Narcotics is a salacious cocktail aimed at intoxicating your mind as much as the rhythmic pulses. The juxtapositions between the dark reverberant effects, chilling tones and timbres, and spectral shadows cast across the illuminated motifs and the ethereally diaphanous vocal lines as they refract light through the alchemised darkened corridors in the mix results in a hypnotic effect; you’ll be fully at the mercy of Offworld Narcotics as they build to a crescendo of Lynchian Avant-Garde beguile.

The trio behind the track – multi-instrumentalist Bryan Drummond, vocalist and producer William Fyke, and drummer-engineer Brandon Bera – have already laid down a reputation for sonic subversion. Their debut single Mariana earned spins on WFMU, and with their 2025 dual drop Siren Serpent and Chained (The Descent), they’ve proven their dedication to pushing their trip-hop sound further into the abyss.

Rooted in the rhythmic tension of artists like Portishead and Massive Attack, Siren Serpent flirts with electronica and alternative rock while keeping a firm focus on subjugating the listener through sound.

Siren Serpent is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

XXLTARIK dragged RnB into the shadows of pop funk with his ahead of the curve hit, RUNAWAY

Posted on 4 April 2025

Moroccan-American artist XXLTARIK is storming through Jersey’s music scene with his spectral and darkly sultry approach to RnB, creatively spliced with alt-pop sensibilities and contemporary funk grooves. His latest single, ‘RUNAWAY’, sidesteps the usual pitfalls of superficial hooks, pulling listeners instead into a deeper, emotionally raw narrative that feels hauntingly personal despite the slick, polished production.

XXLTARIK’s ability to alchemise genuine emotive candour with melodies flooded with unflinching momentum turns ‘RUNAWAY’ into an infectiously arresting anthem—guaranteed to hype any listener, whatever their backdrop. His vocals refuse pretence, showcasing flawless command as authenticity surges through each note, effortlessly oscillating between gritty vulnerability and smooth sophistication.

The track confronts the human tendency to expose our vulnerabilities to those least worthy of them. Through this emotional transparency, XXLTARIK makes ‘RUNAWAY’ resonate as both confession and cautionary tale, exploring the shadows we willingly inhabit for fleeting connections.

With funk-driven rhythms underpinning his dark wave alt-RnB textures, XXLTARIK ensures ‘RUNAWAY’ is a tour-de-force, defined by its depth and cross-over appeal.

‘RUNAWAY’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Byron Ciotter used lo-fi melodic rock as a confession booth through his latest single, Impossibilities

Posted on 3 April 2025
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=xIoxuYgJ1Ws&si=Hk5o4XXhIdFne8oz

There’s something arrestingly primal in the way Byron Ciotter strips his soul bare in Impossibilities. While most artists polish pain until it sparkles, Ciotter lets it crack and creak through every chord in this lo-fi melodic rock elegy that aches with the weight of unprocessed loss, love, and the universal pull of unanswered questions.

Drawing from two decades of eclecticism that started in Southern Maryland’s metal scene in 2005, Ciotter’s path to Impossibilities was paved through the wreckage of trauma, the solace of connection, and the quiet contemplation of death, divorce, and fleeting affection. It’s a long way from distorted riffs and high-octane catharsis—now the weight is carried by pared-back progressions that resound like intimate confessions. There’s no filter between the listener and the flood of reflection. Every note feels lived in, every lyric sounds like it was torn from the back page of a notebook too private to publish.

While Ciotter may never claim a crown for innovation, he’s reached the epitome of emotive expression. His unembellished approach to songwriting serves as a raw conduit of connection, one forged in the fires of personal experience and cooled in the lo-fi tones of acoustic melancholy.

Impossibilities is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Amanda Gabriel Crystallises Nostalgia into Sentimentality’s Sharpest Edge in Her Indie-Pop Single, Always Better

Posted on 3 April 2025

With her theatre roots, New Jersey-bred vulnerability, and a self-diagnosed tendency to feel too much, Amanda Gabriel builds entire sonic topographies from emotion. In Always Better, her girl-next-door demureness sharpens the blow of her emotional candour. The single pulls you under with infectiously seraphic progressions, tinged with a gentle nod to 90s and 00s pop, while keeping one eye fixed on the horizon.

The production elevates the songwriting to stratospheric heights. What begins with a dreamy, cloudlike atmosphere slowly tightens its grip as jangly guitar chops carve through the softness. It’s delicate without being breakable, with Gabriel’s dynamic vocal range gliding over the instrumental with glassy, diaphanous harmonies that feel fragile and unshakable.

Lyrically, Always Better distils emotional chaos into clarity, moving through beauty, confusion, pain, and longing without over-explaining or overstating. From the first verse, the sentimental pull is inescapable, and by the final note, you’ll know precisely what she meant—even if she never told you outright.

Her debut EP, also titled Always Better, made a strong first mark in early summer 2024, with the title track climbing to #16 on the aBreak58 chart and earning a slot on their radio station and playlist.

Always Better is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

No Die by Master Splinter: A Grimm Fairground for the Morbidly Curious

Posted on 2 April 2025

With No Die, Master Splinter unveiled their first single of 2025, cracked open a pit of sonic carnage and dared us all to crawl in. Portland’s prodigal sons’ grotesquely theatrical take on hard rock hit a new stride with this track. They’ve always melted faces with monolithic riffs and psychedelic fretwork, but now they’ve stitched those foundations to a grimmer, more vehement guise—without forgoing the tongue-in-cheek Machiavellian mischief that’s always simmered beneath the madness.

Master Splinter didn’t throw out the rulebook. They rewrote it with charred ink. From the first chug of the bass to the last chaotic breakdown, No Die is a warped mirror to our obsession with death, with catastrophe, with the void. It lurches and prowls with snarling vocals, scuzzy rhythms, and frenetic percussion. The track’s lyrical backbone—sung with visceral theatricality—confronts the magnetic pull of the morbid, the inexplicably compelling urge to peer into the abyss.

Mick Arrell’s songwriting, along with Jason Schauer’s bass work and Aaron Bree’s percussive force, keeps the absurdity of modern existence firmly in the firing line. The drama and politics are stripped away; what’s left is raw energy, dark humour, and warped unity delivered through a warped fairground ride of hard rock.

No Die is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Afton Wolfe – So Purple (feat. Brian Brown, Jack Vinoy Remix): A Blues-Rinsed Trip Through Psychedelic Hip-Hop Alchemy

Posted on 2 April 2025

Afton Wolfe’s latest single, So Purple, was never made for the skimmers, the distracted, or the easily satisfied. It’s a track built to grip your brainstem and hold it under a hazy, hallucinogenic spell. In the Jack Vinoy remix, Wolfe, alongside Brian Brown, brings a soul-soaked, genre-scrambling opiate for the audiophiles who don’t want their boundaries respected.

Wolfe’s vocal delivery alone is enough to trigger an inner chemical reaction. Gruff and thick with Southern blues nuance, his timbre never fights for dominance. It lounges. It drips. It carves through the synth-drenched backdrop like molasses sliding off a neon-lit glass. The production doesn’t bow to any one style—hip-hop is the main artery, but the heartbeat throbs with experimental jazz-blues fusion, swirls of soul, and psychotropic layers that wouldn’t feel out of place in a track built for a Lynchian lounge.

When Brian Brown’s rap bars slide in, they don’t disrupt the equilibrium—they challenge it. The cadence is sharp, the diction is clean, but it’s never ornamental. Brown brings the punch while Wolfe bathes you in smoke.

Vinoy doesn’t phone in his role either. His touch is the hallucinogen. Every snare, warped synth swell, and backmasked flourish is precision-placed to hypnotise. This isn’t your standard producer flex—this is a psych-laced sermon served on a vinyl platter made for the hedonistic and the heartbroken alike.

So Purple is a lucid dream on loop. It welcomes you, intoxicates you, then leaves you wondering if the high came from the sound or the space it created inside you. Wolfe is pushing past what’s comfortable, and it’s about time the rest of us caught up.

The remix is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Holy by Drew Drake: A Hip-Hop Sermon Lighting Fires of Liberation

Posted on 1 April 2025

Drew Drake’s latest single, ‘Holy,‘ blurs the sacred lines between gospel and hip-hop, crafting a lyrically waxed sermon that uplifts as effortlessly as it unsettles preconceptions. The rapper’s smooth, soul-drenched cadence carves an introspective space for listeners to reflect and release the weight of self-imposed restrictions. Drake’s words ignite with sincerity, opening the gates for perceptions to shift and barriers to crumble. ‘Holy’ provides sanctuary, regardless of religious affiliation—offering faith through music for anyone willing to embrace it.

The seminal track pulses with the warmth of gospel’s organ keys, yet Drake injects enough rhythmically smooth RnB echoes to keep it grounded in contemporary resonance. Ethereal backing vocals hover gracefully in the background, adding arcane textures reminiscent of old-school spirituals, crafting an atmosphere that haunts and heals in equal measure.

Drake, a Huntsville, Alabama native now based in Knoxville, Tennessee, uses art to initiate essential dialogue for people of colour. His versatile artistic voice, sharpened through acting roles like Lamar Cordell in Law and Order Season 22 and stage appearances from Bonnaroo Music Festival to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, lends depth to his message.

Holy is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Noah Nordman Constructed an Indie Pop Rock ‘Paradise’ with His Latest Raw Revelation of a Release

Posted on 1 April 2025

Noah Nordman perceptibly shares melodic DNA with Sam Fender, but within his sound lies far more than sonic assimilation; he delivers stridence twined seamlessly with indie sensibility. His latest single, ‘Paradise’, is cultivatedly twee, presenting Nordman as an artist who wears both his heart and his digressions openly on his guitar strings and soaring vocal lines.

As the rhythm section steadily feeds the track’s pulse, all peaks and valleys emerge courtesy of Nordman’s elastic vocal range, contracting and extending to flood the track with endless nuance. This melodic confession bursts with blistering emotion, subverting the stereotypical tranquillity of summery indie-pop-rock into an intimate canvas that vibrantly colours Nordman’s vulnerability and candour.

Based in Indianapolis, Nordman made his initial impact through the 2022 release of his debut, two-part album, SHIPWRECKED!. Following live performances across breweries and distilleries, he transformed his ambition into reality by diving headfirst into home production. With ‘Paradise’—the first of multiple planned 2025 releases—his powerful, clean vocals align effortlessly with impactful lyricism that blends indie-pop immediacy with singer-songwriter introspection.

Nordman’s music invites listeners into a world where emotional sincerity bursts free from indie-pop convention. ‘Paradise’ confidently positions him as an artist unafraid to colour outside the lines, providing listeners with a melodic outpouring as authentic as it is unforgettable.

‘Paradise’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Soundcloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Vanna Pacella Haunts with Her Soul-Steeped Indie Pop Single, ‘Wolf’

Posted on 31 March 2025

With Wolf, Vanna Pacella doesn’t just revisit the time-old tale of naivety and misplaced trust—she reconstructs it through the raw magnetism of her voice and the expressive precision of her songwriting. At 18, the Cape Cod-based singer-songwriter, pianist, and self-taught producer proves that age has no bearing on the depth of emotional insight. Wolf is a soul-stirring excavation of entrapment, emotional dependency, and the slow corrosion of identity in toxic connections that confuse devotion for destruction.

Written and produced by Pacella and her Power Trio bandmates, Tom Davis and Nick Simpson, Wolf holds its weight in every detail. The swanky piano keys drop a moody noir atmosphere over the track, while Tom’s guitar injects bold, bluesy punctuation into the heartbreak. Meanwhile, Nick’s percussive pulse carries the emotional tide with stoic force. Pacella’s voice, equal parts timeless chanteuse and conduit of contemporary soul, weaves between jazz-tinted verses and gut-wrenching admissions, wielded like the most expressive instrument known to man.

The hook, penned on Halloween and later brought to life through obsessive refinement, carves out space for layered interpretations. Lines like “I built you into home” and “I can feel the bleed of time” reflect how easily love becomes confinement, while “Oh, but I am growing cold” closes the curtain with numb finality. The song’s melodic depth is only rivalled by its lyrical scope—Wolf exists as a sobering reminder of how easily we lose ourselves while chasing comfort in chaos.

Wolf is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.