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Smirk<\/a>, the power-pop-meets-punk-rock brainchild of Portland musician Nick Vicario, has a knack for turning tropes inside out. On his latest effort, Speculative Fiction<\/em>, he reinvents suburban anhedonia with an unexpectedly meticulous, pop-forward sensibility. With help from friends like Ceremony\u2019s Ross Farrar, Advertisement\u2019s Ryan Mangione-Smith, and members of the Hotline TNT crew (who play in Smirk\u2019s live band), Vicario recasts an archetypal narrator\u2014the disaffected high schooler\u2014as a grown-up trying to veer out of the fast lane and back to the familiarity of their constricting youth. Smirk\u2019s first official album since 2022, Speculative Fiction<\/em> is one hell of a reintroduction.<\/p>\n Listen on Apple Music<\/a> Low Cut Connie<\/a> is \u201cdisgusted to see our country descend into an authoritarian hell, a moral vacuum, a place where art does not lead the cultural conversation,\u201d he said in a statement<\/a> announcing his new protest album, Livin in the USA<\/em>. The Philadelphia rock\u2019n\u2019roller reckons with this desperate state of affairs in timeworn rock\u2019n\u2019roll fashion, with a parade of theatrical, bluesy anthems designed to challenge the nation\u2019s decaying political institutions, if not its musical ones. \u201cRock\u2019n\u2019roll is a table flipping artform,\u201d he added in the statement. \u201cIt\u2019s time to flip the table again.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen on Apple Music<\/a>
Listen on Spotify<\/a>
Listen on Tidal<\/a>
Listen on Amazon Music<\/a>
Listen\/Buy at Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\nLow Cut Connie:\u00a0Livin in the USA<\/em>\u00a0[Contender]<\/h2>\n
Listen on Spotify<\/a>
Listen on Tidal<\/a>
Listen on Amazon Music<\/a>
Buy at Rough Trade<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n