Our regular look at artists worth paying attention to now.
Three acts with new music, growing momentum and a reason to get on your radar before everybody else catches up.
– WORDS BY JAMBALOO EDITORIAL TEAM
Powerplant
Powerplant has spent the better part of a decade making it difficult to explain exactly what Powerplant is. The project started with Ukraine-born, London-based Theo Zhykharyev making lo-fi synth-punk in his bedroom, then wandered through dungeon synth, hardcore, ’80s rock and electronic music without ever sounding particularly concerned about maintaining a recognizable lane.
That restlessness reaches a new extreme on Bridge of Sacrifice. Released in March through Arcane Dynamics, the album takes Powerplant into black metal and gothic territory, with blast beats, distorted guitars and screams sitting alongside the synth melodies and pop instincts that have always made Zhykharyev’s music more approachable than its presentation sometimes suggests. “Running Cross,” “Florida” and “Hall of Wolves” make the shift feel less like Powerplant discovering metal than simply absorbing another genre into the project.
DFW gets an unusually good opportunity to see what that looks like live when Powerplant plays Rubber Gloves in Denton on September 12, with Laughing Matter, Battery Licker and Cries of Agony. Considering how dramatically the project keeps changing between records, this feels like a particularly good time to catch them.
The Braymores
Chicago four-piece The Braymores started in 2022 after vocalist Matt Tilles, guitarist Keegan Melaniphy, drummer Russell Oren and bassist Connor Kohanzo reconnected after knowing one another in high school. Four years later they have arrived at When The Lights Went Out, their second album and the clearest version yet of what they do well.
Released July 24, the ten-song record sits comfortably inside guitar-driven indie rock without sounding particularly interested in whatever version of that genre is currently easiest to market. There are big melodies, slightly ragged edges and songs that feel like they were written to survive being played by four people in a room rather than reconstructed from a production session.
“Thought Control” is a good place to start, but “Puppy Eyes” shows another side of the band just as well. The Braymores are not reinventing guitar music, which is increasingly beside the point. They are getting very good at making the kind of songs that remind you why people keep forming guitar bands in the first place.
Leonce
Leonce is another artist who does not really qualify as new. Born and raised in New Orleans and now based in Brooklyn, he has been part of American club music since the 2010s, co-founded Atlanta’s Club Morph and has released music through labels including fabric and Nervous Records. The reason he belongs here is that another interesting version of the project appears to be taking shape.
New single “Searing Elevation” arrived through Local Action and is the first glimpse of an upcoming EP. Written after Leonce moved to Brooklyn at the end of last year, the track was shaped by a freezing New York winter and a move toward boutique analog synthesizers. The result is hard, propulsive electronic music that feels physical without falling into the increasingly interchangeable version of techno built simply to sound enormous on a festival system.
That balance has always been one of Leonce’s strengths. His music can carry ideas about Black electronic music, geography and club culture without requiring any of that context before it works on a dancefloor. “Searing Elevation” does exactly that. It moves first and explains itself later.
