.What We Like: Ratto’s Mozzarella Salad, Worst Feelings, Bulldog in a Box

MUSIC
I’m annoying, and therefore I like this song off the new Colleen Green album, Sock it to Me, basically eight grungy Best Coast-esque songs about boyfriends and two songs about “heavier shit.” But you guys, I do really love my boyfriend, and sometimes I do want to be as excited as a pre-teen about it. If you’re looking for more substance than that, or if you care about hearing more than three power chords over a shitty drum machine, look elsewhere. Otherwise, sometimes simpler really is better. — Azeen Ghorayshi

The worst part about year-end lists? You inevitably miss albums. In the case of Prince Rama’s Top 10 Hits Of The End Of The World and Liars’ WIXIW, I listened to them once when they came out last year, liked what I heard, but only now have found them on heavy rotation. Prince Rama is a Brooklyn-based duo that shares a label and tribal-psychedelic-art rock aesthetic with Animal Collective, and Top 10 Hits Of The End Of The World is its most pop-forward release to date, a concept album about what Top 40 radio would sound like during the apocalypse. Liars is a band that never made it big despite being part of a Brooklyn scene that catapulted its friends (and lovers) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Making music in relative obscurity has given the band freedom to constantly innovate its sound. WIXIW is dark, ambient space rock that at first seems like background music until you find yourself turning it up and listening closely for all its nuances. — Whitney Phaneuf

It’s always exciting when a musician you like comes out with a new project, but much, much more so when said project is completely unexpected. To wit: Worst Feelings, the latest project from Jesse Hadden (formerly of the Oakland garage-pop duo SAFE), and its brand-new self-titled album of unadorned, unironic, absolutely un-dislikable country music. — Ellen Cushing
Worst Feelings by Worst Feelings

So much dreampop, so little time: Acrylics — Lives and Treasure (“Sparrow Song“)
Fonda — Sell Your Memories (“Seeing Stars“)
Small Black — New Chain (“Camouflage“)
— Kathleen Richards

Acrylics — Sparrow Song (w/ Caroline Polachek) from House Plants on Vimeo.

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