Baker's Dozen: Justin Bieber, Greet Death, Omar Apollo

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

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Now, for the uninitiated, a brief explanation of what the "Baker's Dozen" actually is: Once or twice a week, I send out a playlist of stuff I've recently spent some time with that came out over the last five or six years, along with critical observations made about said stuff. If you want a slightly more involved explanation of the methodology that goes into putting the Baker's Dozens together, you can head right here. In the meantime—if you like what you see here, make sure to grab that subscription sale so you can keep seeing it when it goes back to being for paid subscribers only. OK, on with the show:

Astrel K, "Maybe It All Comes At Once"

I've written a bit about UK space cadets Ulrika Spacek before, who are one of a few bands forcefully keeping the post-Deerhunter-slash-post-Broadcast psych-pop-indie-rock flame alive; that band's Rhy Edwards has a side project called Astrel K, and I thought his first record under the name—2022's Flickering i—was a suitably Atlas Sound-ish compliment to his main act (tell me this song doesn't sound like it'd fit perfectly on Parallax). He put out another record in 2024 that I'm looking forward to checking out as well.

Loney Dear, "Habibi (A clear black line)"

I loved Swedish singer-songwriter Loney Dear's Loney Noir when it dropped in 2007, it fit right in with the abundance of excellent and sweater-y Swedish indie-pop that was flowing straight from the tap around that time period. I did a poor job of keeping up with his output afterwards (I seemingly remember enjoying 2011's Hall Music well enough), apparently he put out a few records on Phil Collin's Real World label over the past decade including the one this track came from, 2021's A Lantern and a Bell...the Vince Guaraldi-ness is strong with the piano figure on this one.

Northlane, "Dark Solitaire"

These Aussies have been around for a while but I've had zero knowledge because I only started paying attention to most metalcore stuff post-COVID, I swear Knocked Loose had nothing to do with it (would it be any less cred-y if I admitted that Loathe did, though?). I like all the electronic textures on their 2022 album Obsidian, at times they sound like a malfunctioning printer...they put out a record this year, we'll see if they kept the light weirdness flowing.

Justin Bieber, "Afraid to Say" [ft. Lauren Walters]

I recently wrote about Justin Bieber's 2021 Benny Blanco collab "Lonely" as evidence of just how fucking miserable this sensitive dope with a beautiful voice has been for most of his life—but let's not forget that this guy is also a easily-taken idiot (remember this?) who also spent at least part of this decade falling prey to moneyed megachurch shenanigans. (Why are the ultra-rich always seeking some sort of spiritual validation? That's what the money is for!) A strong case to be made that this song is one of the worst pop cuts of the decade, you really haven't lived until you've heard Bieber croon and keen about the perils of being cancelled alongside his own big-guy-upstairs testimonials...there is quite literally nothing funnier than a celebrity preaching, "We can't write people off, God never writes us off" about, what, mean tweets? Imagine hitting the blunt while listening to this with Selena Gomez...

Shilpa Ray, "Same Sociopath"

Shilpa Ray was one of those artists that I'd always hear a lot about from older rock critics in the 2010s, but I can't actually remember listening to any of her music...her most recent record, 2022's Portrait of a Lady, sounded exactly what I'd expect it to be in that sense, this cut stood out to me because it builds to a satisfying conclusion, in general she's not necessarily my thing and that's fine.

Brett Kissel, "Make a Life, Not a Living"

Brett Kissel (who also collaborated with 98 fucking Degrees a few years ago) is fresh off of providing Canada's Conservative Party with its theme song last year...Canadian country guys should really be none of my business, but similar to suicidal ideation and the American gambling epidemic, they're as unavoidable as breathing oxygen. This song got stuck in my head, from 2021's hilariously titled What Is Life?...don't hurt yourself with the big questions there, Brett!

Greet Death, "Die In Love"

Now here's a band that keeps outrageously leveling up! I loved Flint heavy-lifters Greet Death's 2019 record New Hell as well as their excellent 2022 EP New Low, and last year's Die In Love felt like the most pitch-perfect encapsulation of their approach to date...I'm constantly impressed by how they balance shoegaze's swarm, spacey alt-country vibes, and a dash or two of good ol' fashioned emo without a single moment ever feeling too au courant or overly forced. If they sound current in any way, it's seemingly by accident, and that's exactly what you'd want from a band like this.

Briston Maroney, "Freeway"

This guy's got a country-guy name but he's not a country guy at all, so don't worry about it...some more notable things about Briston Maroney is that he appeared on American Idol in 2014 but didn't get far (for the best, I suppose) and that he was-slash-maybe-is dating indie nepo-baby Samia. (Sidebar: Last Halloween at BuzzFeed, we had a morning-long office event where we all gathered in a conference room to eat candy and watch Hocus Pocus along with several Disney Channel Halloween-themed TV episodes—I told you this job was strange!—and during the Kathy Najimy-starring main event, I asked my female Gen Z coworkers if they'd ever heard of her daughter Samia; I received blank stares for a second or two, before one of them suddenly started belting one of her songs that she'd seen the Tiny Desk Session of. A Samia fan in the flesh—who knew I'd ever encounter such a thing!) Anyway, much of Briston's 2021 record Sunflower sounds like the type of post-Auerbach-and-Carney radio rock that's always popular whether or not it's playing on the radio; he's put out three records on Atlantic, which shouldn't be surprising even though it kinda is.

Omar Apollo, "Against Me"

Despite the fact that I've generally enjoyed his music, Omar Apollo continues to be mostly known by me for his sex scene in Queer, as well as for this hilarious video of Kali Uchis talking about his sex scene in Queer. His music, much like most of his peers, is almost astoundingly genre-resistant to the point where you have to ask yourself whether he has any sort of sonic style to identify him by at all; in the wake of Frank Ocean's ongoing musical absence, he also seems like the one most willing to take advantage of the open goal and try his hand at something resembling Frank Ocean's sound, as is very clearly apparent on this track from 2024's God Said No. Honestly, I find the soundalike-ness a little offensive, blame it on millennial sensitivity perhaps; the style on blonde is so sui generis that every time someone tries to rip it off—and, to Omar's credit, he's far from the first to take a shot—it feels overly presumptuous as to one's actual artistic soulfulness. So it goes!

Merk, "Something New"

So often I dig through years past and come across a record that seemingly ended up being someone's last release, and that certainly seems like the case with New Zealander Mark Perkins' 2021 record as Merk, the just-fine Infinite Youth. This highlight is, on a level, another entry in what I've been referring to on here more frequently as "Chamber of Reflection"-core...funny to think about how for the first few years of this decade the industry was chasing some variant of this sound before giving up on it entirely (remember, like, Gus Dapperton?).

Storefront Church, "Burn the Roses"

My guy Lukas Frank has a new record as Storefront Church on the way later this year, I really enjoyed 2024's Ink & Oil which took the surprisingly peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination of pre-Tilt Scott Walker and Father John Misty and ran with it to very satisfying effect...I also really enjoyed his quite different and way more indie rock-y debut As We Pass from 2021, if you're looking to dig a little deeper. I had Lukas on the newsletter a few years back and we had an excellent time chatting, you can read that right here.

Escape the Fate, "Lightning Strike"

In case whether you were wondering if that Northlane track was a pure taste anomaly...these guys are most notable (to me, anyway) for giving Ronnie Radke another sentence or two in his Wikipedia before you get to the "Legal Issues" section, a lot of this stuff is way too Hot Topic for my taste (and I say that as someone who literally shops at Hot Topic) but I enjoyed the trashy operatics of this cut from 2021's Chemical Warfare, sounds like dumb Coheed to me (and heads know that I say that with love and respect for Coheed).

Dirty Three, "Love changes everything VI"

It is actually crazy how good Dirty Three's first record in 12 years, 2024's Love Changes Everything, was...for starters, great title. Love really does change everything! It feels so funny to share a song from this album because it really is an entire piece that's meant to be taken in all at once, but I do love how the final track really brings it all together, what a band.