Hannah Blanchette

A A A Esteemed guitarist Alan Licht returns to the VDSQ label almost a decade after his instrumental acoustic record, Currents (2015), bringing his mesmerizing style of droning and driven minimalism back to the electric guitar on Havens. Combining electric and acoustic guitars, Havens embodies stasis and motion all at once as each piece gradually unfurls, in flux between rapture and contemplation.

A A A Becoming swept away by Mucho Mistrust, the second studio album by the Bay Area post-punks Fake Fruit, was my most delightful musical surprise of this calendar year. Mucho Mistrust is so densely packed withunmatched levels of energy, intrigue, and idiosyncrasy that every listen uncovers new nuggets of riffs and lyrics, skids and detours, to admire.

A A A With Sleater-Kinney guitarists and vocalists Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker at the helm, Little Rope finds the esteemed punk and indie outfit of 30 years returning to a massive, distorted sound reminiscent of their early 2000s records such as The Woods (2005), while continuing synth elements that were introduced on The Center Won’t Hold (2019).The album’s standout tracks are those which harken back to their signature angularity, such as “Hunt You Down.” Starting with swaggering...