A bunch of poppy punk stalwarts (Soviettes, Banner Pilot, Dear Landlord, Gateway District, Rivethead…) got together and made something rad and decidedly different from all those bands. Glass Beach delivers song after song of dark, thoughtful post-punk, more taut and dissonant than gruff and anthemic. That’s not to say these songwriters let their pop sensibilities fall by the wayside—the melodies are on point at every turn, vocals and shimmering guitar lines interweaving and mounting to emotional crescendos. “Dashi Bay” and “Blank State” evoke that haunted heartland feeling I haven’t felt this much since the last Divers album. “Vacancies” is like the amped up New Order song I didn’t know I needed. I’ve been trying not to compare this to Interpol, a band I have been aggressively ignoring for fifteen years, but it’s very possible that Partial Traces sound kind of like a much punker, more interesting version of Interpol that I really like. Super into this. –Indiana Laub (Salinas, [email protected], salinasrecords.com)