Ryan Dombal

1 week ago | hearingthings.co | Ryan Dombal

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy, which is really awesome,” Justin Vernon said. “If I was bumming out and making some breakup record now, how boring would that be?” It sounds like something the Bon Iver leader may have uttered during his recent interviews for Sable, Fable, which is being billed as a blissful mental and musical about-face after a career of sad-sack songs. But the quote is from 15 years ago.

1 week ago | hearingthings.co | Andy Cush |Ryan Dombal |Julianne Escobedo Shepherd |Dylan Green

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Five Albums, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we recommend you the new records from across genres that you need to hear. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s new and cool. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer. It’s Tax Day, which means many of us are staring down a hefty bill and trying not to freak out about how to pay it.

2 weeks ago | hearingthings.co | Ryan Dombal

Just a few years ago, Jane Remover was an introvert recording alone in their childhood bedroom, trying to sing quietly enough so that their family wouldn’t hear them. Back then, the teenager from suburban New Jersey was a hyperpop prodigy who used digital wizardry to crack open their emo heart. “Go to college, have a shit time,” they predicted on a fuzzed-out early song called “Seventeen.

3 weeks ago | hearingthings.co | Ryan Dombal

I need to know about the horse’s ass. On the title track from Destroyer’s new album, Dan’s Boogie, bandleader Dan Bejar waxes quizzical over a cascading backdrop that sounds like Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham crashing into a cocktail jazz trio. It’s as strange as it is rollicking, a prime example of why this Canadian outfit has become an irregular indie-rock institution across nearly three decades.

1 month ago | hearingthings.co | Andy Cush |Ryan Dombal |Julianne Escobedo Shepherd |Dylan Green

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Five Albums, the feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we recommend you the new records from across genres that you need to hear each week. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s new and cool. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer. We’ve got a quintet of albums this week that couldn’t be more different if we tried.