New Videos from Native Sun and Big Bliss

Native Sun and Big Bliss both have shows at Baby's All Right later this week.

Check These Out

I'd originally intended to use Check This Out as my main space for posting one-off songs and videos that I wanted you to, well, check out. Just a spot where I could leave stuff without boring you with my bloviating. But, sometimes, I can't resist bloviating about stuff, especially when it comes from bands I really really like.

So here are two new vids you should check out.

Native Sun, "Palindrome"

Towards the end of 2017, I came across the debut EP from Brooklyn's Native Sun, Songs Born From Love and Hate. The five-song set combines influences like The Rolling Stones, glam, and psychedelia as it crunches and swaggers along. As much as I enjoyed the EP, Native Sun truly blew me away when I saw them live at the Little Dickman Records / PaperCup Music holiday party in December.

Native Sun just released a video for ...Love and Hate track "Palindrome." The song rolls up all the EP's influences into a three-minute burst. The video is a collage of old-timey and / or seemingly random images interspersed with short glimpses of Native Sun's incendiary live show.



Native Sun play a late show at Baby's All Right this Thursday, February 1st, as part of an amazing bill with Stuyedeyed and a DJ set from The Nude Party.

Songs Born From Love and Hate is out now on PaperCup Music.

Big Bliss, "Contact"

Big Bliss know how to do post-punk. The chimey guitars, prominent bass lines, and cool detachment are all there for anyone (like me) who lives for this stuff. The band's 2016 Keep Near EP was one of my favorites of that year, and it produced a single and video in "High Ideal" that marked Big Bliss for me as a band that should be huge already.

Big Bliss are back with a new single and video, "Contact." Directed by Micah Weisberg & Bill Dvorak, "Contact" is a burst of color that contrasts singer / guitarist Tim Race's pleas for contact with images of the band being separated from the viewer by that fourth wall. Big Bliss know how to do videos, too.



Big Bliss will release "Contact" along with another single, "Override," via Exit Stencil Recordings on Friday, February 2nd.

Oh My Rockness named Big Bliss NYC's Hardest Working Band of 2017. The site is hosting a show on Friday, February 2nd, featuring Big Bliss along with other Hardest Working Bands Fruit & Flowers, Darkwing, Sic Tic, Grim Streaker, and THICK at Baby's All Right. You can pick up "Contact" 7-inches at that show.

You may as well bring a sleeping bag and just stay at Baby's for both nights. Both bills are -- as the kids like to say -- sick.

New Single from Brooklyn's Big Bliss

Big Bliss at Brooklyn's Gutter Bar in March

"Fortune"

I meant to share this one with you in my end-of-week roundup last week, but I lost focus as we approached the holiday weekend. I do want to call your attention to the latest from Big Bliss, though.

Last November, I came across Keep Near, the debut from this Brooklyn trio; and I was really taken by the band's approach to 70s and 80s-influenced post-punk. Single "High Ideal" is a monster of a song and made it onto my year-end favorites list (for whatever that's worth). In their live performances, Big Bliss are similarly enthralling, displaying all the disciplined cool that comes through on their recordings.

"Fortune" is more evidence that Big Bliss are students of their chosen genre. It's jagged, chiming guitars, a prominent bassline, insistent drums, and detached vocals. It slots somewhere between the proto-shoegaze / post-punk of The Cure and more modern indie rock like Interpol or DIIV.

Big Bliss have several dates coming up including June 1st at Brooklyn's Our Wicked Lady with Journalism and Semaphore. That one's a benefit for the Ali Forney Center. They'll also be playing the re-scheduled Signal To Noise benefit for WFDU at Manhattan's Mercury Lounge with Antietam and Honey Radar on June 3rd. Then it's a few shows as part of Color Me Bushwick on June 4th and Northside Festival (official and unofficial) June 8th through 10th.

You can grab "Fortune" over at the Big Bliss Bandcamp page.

New Video from Brooklyn's Big Bliss

"High Ideal"

For the first time in what feels like a long time, I spent a good chunk of today editing pictures. They're from last night's show at House of Independents in Asbury with Brick + Mortar, dollys, and Seaside Caves; and you can check them out by clicking on the "Galleries" tab up top. It felt good to be working on photos again; but, when I'm editing, I can't be posting. I wanted to make sure, though, that I got this one in today.

Back in November, I came across the debut EP from Brooklyn's Big Bliss. Keep Near hit a real post-punk sweet spot for me, especially set-closer "High Ideal" (which made it onto my Favorite Songs of 2016 Playlist, so now I guess Big Bliss can rest easy in the knowledge that they have achieved that in their career). At the time, the song's expansive feel and prominent bassline had me thinking of something like New Order's "Ceremony."

Yesterday, Big Bliss released a video for "High Ideal" that manages to capture the emotion that underpins Big Bliss's buttoned-up sound. Nick Ray McCann directed the clip which stars Darlene Dues (Orange Is the New Black), and it's really a stunner.

Have a look at Big Bliss's video for "High Ideal" below. Keep Near is out now on Exit Stencil Recordings.

You can catch Big Bliss live tomorrow night, March 2nd, at Brooklyn's Gutter Bar when they play with Ritchie White Orchestra, Language, and our good friends Shellshag. Big Bliss come to Asbury Park at the end of this month when they play Langosta Lounge on March 30th with Fruit & Flowers and Joe P of Deal Casino.

Big Bliss, Keep Near, 2016

EP Review

Been digging through the inbox for stuff that my easily-distracted, wildly-disorganized brain may have missed or forgotten. This time, though, I was looking for something specific. Something I'd received in the last couple of weeks and had meant to mention. "That post-punk, Cure-sounding one..." Then I found it.

Big Bliss are a Brooklyn trio comprised of brothers Tim (vocals, guitars) and Cory Race (drums) along with Wallace May (bass, vocals). Prior to recruiting May, the Race brothers set about on their first official project together with an eye toward tapping into the influences of 70s and 80s post-punk. Big Bliss's debut, the five-song Keep Near, is almost like a class on those influences delivered with deadpan, New York cool.

Opener "Old Guard" kicks off with guitar that sounds like a speeded up version of the familiar guitar line from Echo and The Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar." As you might expect, the bass is a driving force here. The guitars alternate between bell-like and fuzzed, and the song is a head-whipping bouncer.

Early single "Ponzi" is another up-tempo track, the drums and guitars bouncing around each other over the words, "You look me in the eye. Are you unsatisfied as I am?" The vocals have that cold affectation similar to Paul Banks of Interpol. Like that band, there's an interesting contrast between the detached style and the emotional content of the music.

Keeping with that Interpol theme, "Command" has the vocals more prominent and up front; and the song has a much more early 21st-century feel than what's preceded it. It's back to danceable shoegaze pop for "Visitant."

Closer "High Ideal" is more expansive and open than the other songs on Keep Near. It has moments when the staccato click of the drums, the shoegazey guitars, and the driving bass line remind me of something like New Order's "Ceremony." Now, for me, that is maybe the greatest song of all time; and I don't presume to say that "High Ideal" is up there with that one. It's a good one, though, that comes close to bridging the post-punk we've heard up to this point with more traditional indie rock (The National?). The "Ceremony" note just popped into my head.

I've been on a bit of a post-punk kick lately, and Keep Near may have just hit me at the right time. Big Bliss aren't doing anything revolutionary here -- see Interpol, DIIV, and others. But what they are doing is a damn fine job with a well-traveled and much-loved (by me, anyway) genre.

Keep Near is out now on Exit Stencil Recordings.