WITLW: October 26, 2025
A great slowcore band out of SF, an indie darling swinging mainstream and deplorable tribal house from the most unexpected of places. Plus everything else I listened to last week!
What I Listened To Last Week:
Darkside @ Lodge Room 🎤
Song of the Week: Poor Image - “Planting Weeds” 🎵
Poor Image - Poor Image
This might be the album that gets me into slowcore. SF-based Poor Image turn in a stunningly crooked rock record full of forlorn grooves and rambling shadow play. Sometimes this style of music can be too disjointed for me, angular to the point of being obtuse, but Poor Image keep a trim sense of composure throughout, their melodies connect and layer into wonderfully roughshod singalongs about teetering on the edge of being out of it all. Part of that beauty is owed to the depth of sound brought about by the addition of violin and cello across various tracks, good to know that stuff isn’t just reserved for bands playing the Windmill.
Highlights: “Planting Weeds”; “Museum Feet”
bar italia - Some Like It Hot
Maybe I’m becoming more of a normie with age, or maybe I’m just not familiar enough with bar italia’s back catalogue, but I actually liked this record. It’s like indie sleaze with a britpop twist, y’know, the type of stuff the Arctic Monkey’s used to make. I’m trying not to romanticize the past, if a band wants to move on from a sound then by all means go for it, I don’t think we should make artists beholden to what they’ve done before. I’m also trying not to overthink things as much; the riffs are sharp, the hooks are catchy, the energy is pumping, do we also need it to be esoteric and edgy? There’s no shame in playing wide.
Highlights: “rooster”; “Marble Arch”
Darkside @ Lodge Room
Unfortunately this was not good. In fact it was pretty bad. And I like Darkside! Nothing’s a top 20 record for me this year, maybe higher. I also love Nicolas Jaar, I wrote a whole essay analyzing his discography for a narrative arc. But I couldn’t stand this show. It consisted of two roughly 30 minute movements that began as fiddly rhythm play (fine) and eventually morphed into a weird sort of tribal house I could imagine the crowd at Burning Man going gaga for. The crowd at Lodge Room was going gaga, it was a roomful of mostly late-30-to-40-somethings (older than I expected) and every time Jaar brought the bass back in off the low pass filter they threw their hands in the air and shouted “Woooo!” I was cringing hard the entire set. Still, not the worst way to spend a Monday night.
SOTW: Poor Image - “Planting Weeds”
There comes a point in life, or several points really, where you must pause to look around and reap what you’ve sown. Sometimes the crop isn’t pretty, often it’s not what you imagined would grow at all. But whatever it is, the point is to not despair. I watched Magnolia for the first time yesterday and this quote from Earl Partridge, an old TV mogul dying of cancer, struck me: “Don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t regret anything, you fuckin’ regret anything you want, use that regret any way you want.” The past is the past, it was written, it is so. Don’t deny it, perhaps you can plant something new in it’s place.