BREAKING OUT, VOL. 1: Summer People, Your Skull My Closet, Neur, Wives, Mind Powers, + Dead Wives

Here at Exploding In Sound we get a lot of requests to be featured on the site from independent bands all across the globe. Some are great, others not so much. Combine that with our constant search for up-and-coming new bands (and we do mean constant), and you can rest assured we're listening to an enormous amount of new bands daily. Our inbox has overflowed and our search has provided great rewards, so with that we present "Breaking Out" the first in a series of our favorite new submissions and finds we've come across in the past few months (that we have yet to cover). Some of these bands may not be exactly "new," but they are to Exploding In Sound so we thought we'd spread the word to anyone else who may not be familiar...


Band: Summer People
Location: Binghamton/Syracuse/Ithaca, NY
Listen: Summer People Bandcamp
The Skinny: Summer People are a seven-piece collective from Upstate New York making eerie and expansive indie rock with post-punk, experimental, blues, Americana, and progressive impulses that explode in sonic freakouts lurking around each corner. Impossible to pin down, Summer People keep listeners on their toes with intricate rhythms, sweeping guitars, and stunning counterpoint between gorgeous female vocals and rough male vocals. The band released their sophomore album Teamwork in March, and since we've heard it, we simply can't stop listening. The album is available to stream via their official Bandcamp page, and the band are working on a vinyl release and split 12" with HotChaCha to coincide with their massive 48-date summer/early fall tour.




Band: Your Skull My Closet
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Listen: Your Skull My Closet Facebook (FREE EP DOWNLOAD HERE)
The Skinny: Your Skull My Closet are doing their part in keeping Brooklyn rock music dangerous and interesting. Their blend of post-punk snarls with aggression and oozes with style at the same time, quick to bash you over the head at one moment and make you want to get up and dance the next. The guys draw a great deal of influence from the most unholy combination of Hot Snakes and Queens of the Stone Age on their fantastic new EP We Find One Another, seething with angular blasts of guitar and deep rhythmic grooves. Their rough around the edges brutality is balanced by their hazy desert soul (via the Midwest) and spectacular drumming from Jeff Gensterblum (ex-Small Brown Bike).




Band: Neur
Location: New Brunswick, NJ
Listen: Neur Bandcamp (FREE DOWNLOAD)
The Skinny: We first heard Neur's debut EP Untitled in late April, and haven't looked back since. The New Jersey based quartet play a raw and corrosive blend of math rock and post-hardcore that will rip your face off if you get too close. The music is complex and wildly creative, but Neur are well aware of how to write a good cohesive song, and never let their technicality stand in the way. Fans of Tera Melos, Cinemechanica, Medications, or Grass Is Green will instantly find something to love on Neur's sprawling debut, erupting with shifting time signatures, unpredictable chord progressions, and vocals that find a way to remain catchy amongst the mayhem. This is math rock without the need to over analyze, delivered loose and chaotically, just the way we like it.




Band: Wives
Location: Lansdale, PA
Listen: Wives Bandcamp (FREE DOWNLOAD)
The Skinny: Wives made it onto our most recent compilation Holy Moly before we had ever featured the band on the site. The reason? Their self titled debut EP absolutely blew us away from the moment we first listened, and remains one of our favorite releases this year. Their brash blast of punk rock ferociousness is simply heavy as a ton of bricks and filled with brilliant filthy anthems. The rowdy Philadelphia band has gone the mysterious approach with little to no information available, but the music does all the speaking it needs to. Not to mention the last line of their Facebook page bio, "it's bad for you and it feels so good. it's punk rock." Sounding like the hyperactive and unstable combination of Death From Above 1979, The Bronx, early Young Widows, and a touch of Fugazi for good measure, Wives unleash their fury with infectious adrenaline that stands in a class of its own.




Band: Mind Powers
Location: Columbus, GA
Listen: Mind Powers Soundcloud (FREE DOWNLOAD)
The Skinny: Mind Powers' debut EP Ampeaters: Vol. 1 of 1 is an immediate wrecking ball of destructive force performed with equal parts post-punk aggression and humor. The band fireballs forward with gritty noise rock and demented shouting that can generally be found spiraling its way toward being out of control. Their sound is dense and chaotic, with an often blown out quality to their rowdy punk contusions reminiscent of The Jesus Lizard, Mclusky, The Stooges, and the occasional art-punk dance floor grooves of Les Savy Fav. Their raw sound is certainly loose, but never sloppy. This is unapologetic and well calculated punk seething with heavy riffs and frantic musicianship.

Where Is The Laser? Ask The Police! by Mind Powers


Band: Dead Wives
Location: New Haven, CT
Listen: Dead Wives Bandcamp (FREE DOWNLOAD)
The Skinny: On their official debut Scuzz Bucket, the trio known as Dead Wives have combined elements of all that was glorious about 90s alternative rock. They have elements of catchy grunge melodies, memorable hooks, enormous waves of distortion, and an underlying punk energy. We've been rather obsessed with "Don't Stop Bleeding" for quite some time now, thanks to the infectious overdriven guitar riff and vocals that sound as though you've heard them all your life without recalling anyone in particular. Imagine a combination of Pixies, Nirvana, Fu Manchu, and Local H and you can start to imagine what we're dealing with. After several early demos it seems as though Dead Wives have developed a great sense of their strengths as evident on Scuzz Buckets' all too short four tracks. The band are working on a new EP for late summer/early fall and we can only expect great things to come. Go ahead and follow them on Facebook.