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The Balkans were formed in 2008 in Atlanta by Frankie Broyles (guitar/vox), Woodbury Shortridge (bass), Stanley Vergilis (drums), and Brett Miller (guitar). While they were still in high school, they quickly began opening for bands such as Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Jay Reatard, and Atlas Sound. Their early shows were noted for their youthful, frantic energy and also for taking place in clubs that they otherwise would have been too young to get into. It’s on the foundation of this long-standing friendship that Balkans continue to conjure all kinds of infectious pop-weirdness and frenetic punk energy. Their music straddles a delicious and intriguing position somewhere in-between pop and punk rock.

New(-ish) Atlanta indie four-piece Sword II might feel like no big thing at first glance. The band self-released its first EP entitled Between II Gardens — four songs stacked with layers of lo-fi samples and lustrous instrumental textures that are bound to draw oversimplified personifications to My Bloody Valentine, True Widow, and Murray Street-era Sonic Youth — into the vast ether of Spotify on Jan. 9, 2020. But underneath, in the stories of its four members, Carter Sutherland (guitar/vocals), Travis Arnold (guitar/vocals), Maria González (bass/vocals), and José Izaguirre (drums), is something critically relevant to the landscape of Atlanta music and its countless splinters.

For anyone slightly embedded in the local Atlanta music scene, Sword II doesn’t arrive as a total stranger. Izaguirre is the guitarist and vocalist for Latinx punk band Yukons, González plays guitar in Latinx lo-fi garage pop outfit Kibi James, Arnold plays guitar in up-and-coming hardcore outfit Playytime, and Sutherland has been in a slew of Atlanta bands over the years, including Sea Ghost and Trashcan. Both Yukons and Kibi James have received exceedingly positive reviews and reception from Atlanta’s music scene since their inceptions, with their names regularly adorning the bills of the city’s most noteworthy line-ups, seemingly moving them forward at a steady pace for some time.

For a band that wasn’t intended to be much of anything, Sword II represents a lot — it represents the void that exists in Atlanta’s local music scene and culture, the need to further create spaces for people to comfortably exist, and it’s a lethal injection of lush into a scene that tends to be subjected to the same, repetitive dryness that many of us have become overly accustomed to. More importantly, Sword II is part of the ripple effect; the one that says we exist, too, to those who need to hear it most. – Aja Arnold

“Blammo began as a simple idea between friends hanging outside a Lumpy show. With a mutual love for cool contemporaries like Palberta and Grass Widow, members Sarah (bass+vox), Mariam (drums) and Tyler (guitarist, also frontperson of Mutual Jerk) solidified themselves as “a real band” after stuffy neighbors complained and they acquired a practice space. “It is a hat trick: a Repo Man reference, a Ren and Stimpy reference (it’s Log!), and a reference to a zine,” Mariam says of their name. “A Slacker reference too!”, Tyler includes. Sarah describes the band as “bass-driven slacker booty-punk with hyena vocals”, but everyone agrees their influences heavily lean on lady-fronted post-punk of the past such as Delta 5, Kleenex, Suburban Lawns, and The Slits. Having played two shows thus far and with plans to play lots of rad shows with friends, make new songs and demos, and be revivalist P.U.N.K. badasses (while Mariam finishes up their PhD!), Blammo are predicted to be the DIY darlings the ATL music scene definitely needs.” -Wussy