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Praise is made up of members Andy Norton, Anthony Dye, Austin Stemper, Chris Bavaria, and Daniel Fang, who have made themselves familiar by their playing in bands like Turnstile, Have Heart, Mindset, Angel Du$t, and many others. Following an LP and a 12” EP that explored their deep passion for classic melodic hardcore, All In A Dream is the band’s most skillful and creative release yet, reaching back to the era of Revolution Summer bands while always looking forward. Recorded throughout the pandemic in Baltimore, Maryland, with Kevin Bernsten and Brian McTernan, these nine tracks find the band artfully channeling their influences while fine-tuning a sound that is totally their own.

Groundbreaking bands typically don't function as stars hanging in the night sky for all to gaze upon. Rare talent functions more accurately like tectonic plates, mutating their surroundings deep underground by bulldozing the pre existing turf. These kinds of musicians who regenerate and evolve our world by forging new creative languages that future artists will liberally borrow from and build upon. Richmond, Virginia may seem like a surprising location for seismic catalysts, but Hard Copy now joins an elite list of RVA bands moving sound in unexpected and earth shaking directions. Destruction! Invention! Rebirth! Once upon a time there was Honor Role who deconstructed midwest hardcore and carved out a path for what eventually would become mathrock. Combining empathy wrapped in anger, a following generation would use this template to birth post-hardcore and a 2nd wave emotional music. A bit later came Labradford who were atmospheric scientists creating pulsating soundscapes bathed in drone. Their music was so devastatingly unique that Kranky willed themselves into existence to release their debut for which this historic label was built upon and continues to lead the way in experimental music. I can't help but to include Hard Copy among this kind of revelatory innovation. They are subtle shapeshifters of synth driven post-punk. At their core, we find unorthodox art rock for which Talking Heads and Pere Ubu belong, but it is stretched taut like taffy into trance-inducing, long form motorik musings. Singular vocals act as a secondary percussion. Bass lines double as a metronome heartbeat. Guitars zigzag inside a monochromatic prism. Linnear drums hammer the band's abstract narrative into a carefully crafted double-helix staircase spiraling up into ambitious avant-garde territory. Cantankerous poetry minus the Mancunian snarl of Mark E Smith behaves as a modern day deadbeat descendant making good. In short, making very very good. Riyl the kind of bands who have no interest in grabbing a spotlight and are more likely to kick out the bulb to avoid it completely."—Tracy Wilson (Courtesy Desk)

Less than twelve months on from the triumphant rock ’n’ roll record that was Stained Glass, Australia’s most tasteful sonic culinary artiste Jake Robertson serves up The Derivative Sounds Of, another platter in his never-ending, ever-extending Alien Nosejob banquet.

Since initially firing out similar flavors on his first offering, Alien Nosejob has conquered the challenges of disco, hardcore, new wave, rock and roll (all drowned in his characteristically sweet sense of humor) before finally returning back to his musical roots: the jangly, adolescent feel of 1960s garage.

After one of Robertson’s first bands, The Frowning Clouds, reunited for a few shows in September 2022, he found himself digging up old songs and riffs from the period, some spanning back to as early as 2006 and up until around 2012. This record features many of those song ideas—some reworked, some rewritten, some exactly the same. All together now as one hot package.

Leaning into his musical tastes from the Clouds’ period of existence, Robertson digs up inspiration in some teenage staples: The Troggs, Mike Furber, the under-appreciated bands that make up the Shutdown ’66 / Back From The Grave compilations, without overdoing the sugar, salt, MSG, whatever one wants to call it. This record was recorded by Robertson all by his lonesome over a weekend in his garage. There’s no paisley shirts, no skinny-ties, no winkle-pickers, no slim-fit suits and no haircuts—just Robertson and his 1964 MacBook Pro.

Garage rock revival is a sound that’s often overdone, drenched in nostalgia and small-minded attitudes, but this album is not just a throwback to the sounds of yesterday. It doesn’t belong with the golden oldies or the usual garage resuscitations. Goner Records is proud to present, The Derivative Sounds Of, the sixth piece of Alien Nosejob’s eternal buffet and the “all you can eat” of record titles.