Tiny Engines HHV Records 44 Items

Philadelphia’s So Totally are a portrait of utmost devotion, and how longevity in any kind of relationship can’t occur without it. Since 2015, the band originally called So Totally In Love has humbly studied their surroundings and themselves, perfecting a sound that from inception was present. So Totally’s shimmering guitars and melodies typically sit underneath lush vocals that concurrently embed themselves in a listener’s subconscious, haunting them with heavy mood and nostalgia for 90’s rock groups like Swirlies, Pixies, and The Breeders. Previous releases, and their dedication to spending years playing regionally, brought So Totally to the point of singular focus on drafting a third album, entitled Double Your Relaxation, while in quarantine in 2020.

Upon formation, So Totally collectively bonded over an admiration of Land of Talk. While the influence is certainly present in vocalist/guitarist Roya Weidman’s sugary vocals, the band's love of comfortably resolving melodies, and auxiliary percussion, So Totally sonically have more in common with bands like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Spirit of the Beehive…creating massive walls of sound on each record that plainly implies the quartets towering live experience. Such huge tones aren’t only because of Weidman and guitarist/vocalist Matt Arbiz playing, but the collective effort of the band, which is rounded out by bassist Ryan Wildsmith and drummer Joe McLaughlin.

Lyrically and thematically, Double Your Relaxation explores where influence and “hypnosis” exist in life, specifically in environment, media, relationships, and self (via mental illness), bouncing between perspectives of witnessing, interacting with, and contributing to illusion and how that ultimately affects our idea of identity. The moody and, at times, surreal nature of the songs lends itself very appropriately to the shoegaze and heavy indie style So Totally plays, making them a perfect addition to the canon of the genre.

With Yolk In The Fur, Wild Pink's much-anticipated follow-up to its eponymous 2017 debut full-length, the three piece again takes its listeners to a place of sonic placidity. Frontman John Ross and his bandmates trade what sparing crunch they did use on the self-titled LP for lush, balmy synths that lift their sound upwards and out, rather than forward and down. Any traces of slowcore and grunge are gone here, replaced by the angelic airiness of Cocteau Twins and Red House Painters, but with the modern crispness of LAKE or Japanese Breakfast. Sporadic splashes of electronic drums and emphasized basslines add fascinating new dimensions to their already-diverse palette, but no instrument or tone ever feels shoehorned in. Each part is stitched seamlessly into the other, and the band's aptitude for unexpected changeups is only heightened with the ability to shift from artificial to natural instrumentation.
Although it's both the shortest and most straightforward cut in the tracklist, closer 'All Some Frenchman's Joke' is a satisfying thematic knot for what Ross says is an album about protecting something vulnerable. Letting go of youth after the time is due/feels like relief/like when something stuck is freed, he sings. To call this album a maturation for Wild Pink is to not only recycle a long-frayed cliche, but to neglect the musical and lyrical wiseness they already possessed on their debut. But if Ross really did quell an existential crisis during the making of Yolk In The Fur, and managed to finally scrub the gunk clean, the fresh coat that grew back took form as one of the purest, fleeciest, most lavish rock albums of 2018. (bio by Eli Enis)

Despite the pluralized nom de guerre, illuminati hotties is the
creative outlet of Sarah Tudzin - a producer and engineer hailing
from the sprawl of Los Angeles. The band has been lighting up
stages across SoCal since the Fall of 2016 with playfully interweaving
guitar lines, relentless rhythmic momentum and strikingly selfaware
vocals. Lauded as local tenderpunk pioneers, illuminati hotties
has perfected the blend of sweetness and ferocity, of celebration and despondency,
in its upcoming debut album, Kiss Yr Frenemies. At first listen,
these 11 sparkling tracks are a sun-drenched, irreverent volley with
the onset of adulthood, but as the listener dives deeper, they will find
an earnest consideration of musical phrasing and deliberately crafted
wordplay regarding the complexity of love, loss and skateboarding.

If Somos was a pop punk band when it formed in 2012, then the Boston-based trio is now a full-blown guitar pop band by comparison. For singer and bassist Michael Fiorentino, guitarist Phil Haggerty, and guitarist Justin Hahn, that evolution came naturally. On their third album, Prison On A Hill, Somos sound like the mellifluous intersection of The 1975 and Alkaline Trio. Gleaming synths and '80s-style percussion steer songs like 'Absent and Lost' and 'Young Believers.' Yet despite that, the album still carries the energetic spirit of their breakout debut full-length, 2014's Temple of Plenty. Just listen to the blissfully anthemic 'Untraceable Past.' Fundamentally, Somos are writing pop songs; they just happen to be intertwining guitar-driven rock as they do so.

The fact Prison On A Hill exists at all may come as a surprise. In 2016, Somos announced they were going on a hiatus, the result of exhaustion from constant tours. They quietly invested more time in other jobs and local activism efforts. Meanwhile, Fiorentino and Haggerty began writing music for an undefined side-project ' that is, until it became clear those songs were meant to be Somos songs. 'It's funny,' says Fiorentino. 'We didn't think the hiatus would be this short. But once we gave ourselves the space to write music free from a project, we started writing Somos songs again.' Their efforts spawned two standalone singles in 2017, 'Strangers On The Train' and 'Permanently Lost.'

Free from expectations or outside pressures, Somos found themselves doing what they were always drawn to: writing songs, ignoring genre expectations, and, above all else, having fun as friends. You can hear all of this in Prison On A Hill. Recorded with Jay Maas (Defeater, Bane, Title Fight) in Boston this past winter, the tracks seem to come effortlessly, as if Somos fused the youthful energy of Temple of Plenty with the pop creativity of 2016's First Day Back. It should come as no surprise that Somos were influenced by The 1975, Churches, The Japanese House, and the Rock Against Racism movement. Beneath the lush musical scope Somos created are lyrics hoping for political reform. In 'Mediterranean,' the band tackles the rise of the far-right movement in Europe. In 'Iron Heel,' they examine authoritarian rule a post-fascism world, Mad Max-style. Even the album's title'a riff on the phrase 'city on a hill,' an idealized term used to describe Massachusetts Bay Colony and later adapted by Ronald Reagan as a warped American Dream for the U.S. at large'has political roots. As Somos return to Tiny Engines with Prison on a Hill, the trio has a similar eager-eyed look as it did during their breakthrough year. Somos are back to having fun again, though they're plenty serious about what they're singing about, too.
(Bio by Nina Corcoran)

Listening to Peaer is like watching someone solve a complicated math equation with grace. Each moment is executed with precision, care and foresight for how it will serve a later part of the arrangement. Every note - and the space between - is integral to the composition. Comprised of two studio engineers and a guitar teacher, Peaer's music is naturally methodical, but not at all rigid or convoluted. In fact, the Brooklyn trio's new album, A Healthy Earth, is profoundly introspective, genuine and colorful: a sensational balance between meticulous sonic construction and self-analytical lyrics that open up into thought-provoking social commentary.

Summer Cannibals fourth album Cant Tell Me No is a defiant release whose very existence is the result of taking back power. After escaping a manipulative personal and creative relationship, guitarist/vocalist Jessica Boudreaux chose to scrap an entire record that had been finished for over a year and start from scratch. Along with Cassi Blum, Devin Shirley and Ethan Butman, Boudreaux wrote, recorded and mixed many of the new tracks during 14-hour days, emerging with the Portland, OR band's first entirely self-engineered and produced album. The Cannibals formed in 2012 and gained a fervent following on the local Portland scene, eventually playing with some their musical heroes including L7, Mudhoney, Stephen Malkmus and The War on Drugs, and touring with Ted Leo & the Pharmacists and Cursive. Along the way, they released 2013s No Makeup and 2015s Show Us Your Mind on their own label, New Moss Records, and 2016s Full Of It on Kill Rock Stars. Show Us Your Mind appeared on NPRs Sound Opinions Best of list in 2015, and Pitchfork said that on Full Of It, the Cannibals expertly balance flame-belching Mad Max riffage with lyrics frankly exploring questions of co-dependence and need. Cant Tell Me No is, as much as anything, about finding love and acceptance on the other side of pain. On a larger scale, the album stands up not just to a relationship or an industry, but to the people and constructs that have been trying to silence women and hold them down for so long. Its about doing the right thing, says Boudreaux, even when its terrifying.

Clear pressing and gatefold cover.

Onsloow burst onto the Norwegian indie scene in 2022 with their self-titled debut album. They quickly transitioned from obscurity to performing concerts nationwide, garnering rave reviews, playing at festivals, and receiving increasing radio play with each new single. As is the case for many passionate amateurs with families and day jobs, this couldn’t last indefinitely. Vocalist Johanne Rimul became busy with her master’s degree and growing family, Mathias Nylenna returned to his regular job at national radio, and drummer Morten Samdal and bassist Lasse Berg pursued their own musical projects. But Onsloow wasn’t finished. They soon returned to their practice space in Trondheim, working tirelessly on new songs for over two years. The result is their second album, aptly named Full Speed Anywhere Else.

With Rimul’s commitments making further band activity impossible, Onsloow had to search for someone who could continue the band's signature sound—distinctive, melodic vocals atop jangly pop guitars and driving drums. Fortunately, Helene Brunæs, frontwoman of the emo/pop-punk sensation Lille Venn, jumped on board without hesitation. Despite her busy schedule with regular releases, a US tour, and gigs alongside pop stars like Sigrid, she found time to join Onsloow's ambitious plans. Her warm, airy vocals perfectly match Onsloow's universe of catchy power pop, quirky indie rock, and energetic pop-punk. The new album even features hints of country and Americana. Over several sessions with producer Marius Ergo, the album took shape, with the band focusing more on details and arrangements than ever before. The goal was to elevate their music beyond their self-titled debut album. Full Speed Anywhere Else’s ten meticulously crafted tracks form a cohesive unit, allowing the band to explore various directions, moods, and expressions without losing their essence: straightforward, catchy power pop that sticks, with plenty of nuances for those who appreciate the finer points.

Yon Loader is a New Zealand recording project developed over distance and led by James Stuteley (Carb on Carb). Made in numerous sessions in various locations, the project weaves together many elements and talents of Aotearoa indie rock. Stuteley composed the core of the songs before fleshing them out with help from a cast of rotating collaborators and key engineer and producer Harry Lilley. These collaborators (including members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move, and Bad Friend) build Stuteley’s straightforward, candid compositions into an album of weighty, intricate rock songs with melancholic, diaristic emo-punk energy. Interweaving guitar and cello draws on the epic without going into excess. Slipping between thoughtful guitar passages and poignant interludes to expansive uplifting blowouts of repeated vocals and waves of cymbals, Yon Loader's debut album draws you in and holds you tightly.

Translucent Red vinyl. Still in shrink, but opened, with hype sticker

Colored vinyl

Americana - Red/White/Blue Clear Vinyl

Ben Seretan has an album that he’s only ever referred to as his “insane Italy record," but it’s called Allora — an expressive Venetian catchall that translates to "at that time." It’s a fitting banner over a record indelibly tied to the circumstances of its capturing: it’s summer 2019, and Ben and his band (bassist Nico Hedley and drummer Dan Knishkowy) go through with a planned tour to Italy amidst their vivid grief over the recent passing of a close friend. The band flies overseas, the tour falls apart. The band responds by leaning into the country's rose-colored revelry – sweating in the Mediterranean heat, smoking cigarettes on trains, biting into bacchanalian fruit. Instead of playing shows, they head to a stone farmhouse in the hills above Venice with legendary psych-rocker and producer Matt Bordin and burn Allora to tape in three days.

Three days. The furor of this record makes that fact seem appropriate, but the grace notes that fill its corners make it feel impossible. The utter chaos this record exudes is there for a reason. Its borderless color is unsurprising if you know Ben Seretan’s catalog — there's a 24-hour drone record, his weekly project of writing over a thousand words and publishing an accompanying track (My Big Break), and a set of improvisational piano duets with the white-noise roar of Appalachian nature (Cicada Waves). Drop a needle into the middle of any of it and you'll be disarmed. The same goes for Allora, jagged as it may be on its face — but follow the coarse, winding path of any track and you'll be met with the same springs of hymnlike tenderness. Over and again Ben and his band march arm in arm from tearful elegy to dancefloor eulogy — neither cancels the other.

On “We Are Where We Are,” a glimmering mid-tempo highlight from Annabel’s new album, Ben Hendricks sings of “a modern way to fill the empty space.” Worldviews, the band’s fourth LP and first in nine years finds the band reconciling with the ways the world has changed in the decade since they’ve been away. His protagonists are trying to determine the boundaries between what’s real and imagined, navigating their worldviews and the dominant ones around them, fighting for an escape or at least a distraction, wondering where the time goes, “going through the motions, running in a circle.” That could’ve been Annabel’s fate, too. But the core of the Ohio band is brothers Ben and Andy Hendricks, and as long as they’ve got each other, we’ve still got Annabel. In a world that feels so uncertain and so disconnected, where else is there to turn but back to Annabel? Think of Worldviews less like a comeback and more as the product of years spent gestating.

Hendricks spends the chorus of “All Time” promising to “make up for all the lost time,” and Annabel makes good on that promise for the next half hour. Worldviews is the most locked in the band has ever sounded, perfecting and building on their indie-emo sound. The title track and “Dog” are classic Annabel, sprightly and jangly midwestern rock songs, while “Defense Mechanism” is a rougher-edged update; when they go in the opposite direction, it results in some of their best work: “Every Home Needs a Ghost” is spartan and spectral, worthy of its title, and the beautiful “Small Victories” dabbles in downtempo electronics. They don’t sound like a band returning after nearly a decade; they sound at the same time hungry and lively like scrappy upstarts and wizened and seasoned like they never left.

The Three Times collects the first three EPs from Oslo, Norway's Flight Mode. Led by singer/songwriter Sjur Lyseid, each EP contains four songs referencing a year and place in Lyseid's life. It's a coming-of-age novel across an emo/punk rock trilogy of EPs. From youthful exuberance (TX, '98) to jaded indifference (Torshov, '05) to the overwhelming realities of life (Tøyen, ‘13)... Flight Mode presents twelve songs and The Three Times.

awakebutstillinbed return with chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger, their first new full-length album in five years. From the very first moment, with its warm, opening guitar strum, absib pick up exactly where they left us at the end of their debut album. Produced by Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Beach Bunny) and engineered by Jack Shirley (Joyce Manor, Jeff Rosenstock), the new album is sonically massive, allowing the band to peak higher and swoop to more intimate depths than ever before.

FromtheEyrieisBewilder’sdebutLP,butinalotofways,itfeelsliketheirfirstproperrelease.Theduoof vocalist/guitaristGeorgeBrooksandmulti-instrumentalistThomWilkinsonhavebeenplayingasBewilderforwell overadecadenow.Yet,FromTheEyriefeelsfreshwiththeurgencyofayoungband’sfirstdemotapebalanced withtheprecisionandmaturitythatonlytimetogethercancultivate.Wheretheband'spreviousEPsmighthave beenconsideredpromisingbutperhapsundeveloped,FromTheEyrietakesamoresophisticatedapproachand feelscompleteandfullyformed. TheseedsthatwouldblossomintoFromtheEyrieweresownin2019whenBrooksandWilkinsonbegansendingeachotherdemos–they’dalwaysoperatedthisway,sendingtracks backandforth,sowhenCOVIDhitandeverythinglockeddown,theirprocesswasn’tdisrupted.Infact,thingsbeganspeedingup.“TwinLakes”wasfinishedinMay2020,andboth TheseedsthatwouldblossomintoFromtheEyrieweresownin2019whenBrooksandWilkinsonbegansendingeachotherdemos–they’dalwaysoperatedthisway,sendingtracks backandforth,sowhenCOVIDhitandeverythinglockeddown,theirprocesswasn’tdisrupted.Infact,thingsbeganspeedingup.“TwinLakes”wasfinishedinMay2020,andboth agreedthebarhadbeensetforwhataBewildersongcouldbe.Whentheyheardthefulldemoofthetrack,violinsandall,theysetouttomakearecordasfull-bodiedandlayeredas possible.ForBrooks,who’dgrownuponclassicemobandslikeAmericanFootball,thegoalwastomakesomethingthattappedintothosefeelingswithoutretreadingoldground. Tobesure,therearethosereferencepoints–AmericanFootball,Mineral,Carissa’sWierd–butthewholeisfarmorethanthesumofitsinfluences.Thestringsthatfleshoutthesingle “Breaking”giveitafeelingentirelyitsown,andwhilethecascadingarpeggiosthatopen“HeavySweater”mightcallotherbandstomind,there’sawarmthtothesesongsthatsets themapartfromanythingelseintheemocanon.Maybeit’sWilkinson’sbackgroundinfolkmusicthatdoesit,hisfixationonthepastoralandnaturalistic.Itcolors“Home,”forsure,a songthatmixesthesparseacousticsoftraditionalfolkmusicwiththejanglingandtwinklingofemo.“That’sthesongwiththemostnostalgicfeeling,”thebandnotes,thesongthat bestsumsupthealbum’stwinthemesofnatureandnostalgia.“MychildhoodholidayswereremoteplacesintheUK,”Brooksshares,“somysafestplaceisinnature.”AndFromthe Eyriecapturesthefeelingofbeingawedbyrollinghills,lushfields,andseeminglynever-endingoceansthatsoaccompanieschildhood.Thesearen’tjustsongsaboutchildlike feelingsofwonder;theyembodythosefeelings.“We’remadeupoflittlepartsofeveryonewe’veeverknown,”Brookssingsatthestartoftherecord,“andeverytimewemakeanew friendwere-assesswhatwecanchange.”Rightupfront,hegivesthemissionstatementoftherecord,boththematicallyandmusically.FromtheEyriehasthecomfortofarecord you’velovedyourwholelifeinapackagethatfeelswhollynew

The Spirit of the Beehive have a wide sonic palette within every song, pop rock rhythms and sweet melodies supporting dolefully sung detachment pair with atonal, crushingly heavy noise rock crafted perfectly to necessitate repeat listens. The band often alter their songs live to fit the personal experience of the show itself, and such obsession with mood has proven to be one of their most prevalent strengths.