I’ve been a fan of Miranda Taylor since I did a reading with her band Black Wine in 2012. Since then, I backtracked and found her old group Full Of Fancy, and I dig her current concern Exmaid. Seeing these cats play this summer, though, convinced me that they’d jumped to another level. Exmaid is Miranda playing with the dudes from Philly band Psychic Teens—and in the past, their stuff was good but sometimes sounded like I just billed ’em: Miranda with another band. But in a packed, sweaty room in August—and here, on wax—Exmaid has made the leap. Cohesion is at the band’s fore, and the effect is staggering. On Sorcery, Exmaid effortlessly blend punk, shoegaze, and the sludgy best of grunge (think Mudhoney and Tad) into a relentless and dazzlingly inventive long-player. It’s barely February and I’m convinced that this one will be on my best-of list for 2020. What are you waiting for? –Michael T. Fournier (Bangs And Burns, exmaid.bandcamp.com)