Throwaway Style is a monthly column dedicated to spotlighting the artists of the Pacific Northwest music scene through the age-old practice of longform feature writing. Whether it’s an influential (or overlooked) band or solo artist from the past, someone currently making waves in their community (or someone overlooked making great music under everybody’s nose), or a brand new act poised to bring the scene into the future; this space celebrates the community of musicians that makes the Pacific Northwest one of a kind, every month from KEXP.

This month’s column features the Boise, ID power trio Blood Lemon, whose bassist Melanie Radford also plays in Boise legends Built to Spill. The story paints a portrait of the Boise rock scene for the uninitiated, its web of connections, its music scene teeming with young bands. It’s also an in-depth look at a band poised to be what columnist Martin Douglas calls “the next significant band to come out of Boise.” 

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If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to dial the clock back to 2019. 

I was wandering the streets of Boise for the first time in late March of that year as a guest of Treefort Music Fest. (Since then, I’ve attended every subsequent Treefort except for its September 2021 edition.) As a Black American man, I’ve had more than my share of preconceived notions of Idaho, but its state capital—most years at least, especially during that first visit—was lovely and welcoming. The excitement from locals around having so many out-of-towners visiting their city, as well as Boise-via-Seattle transplants showing their pals around, was palpable.

Because so many bands play Treefort, it’s inevitable attendees will poke around the city and discover new bands. Boise’s music scene has exploded in the six years since my first Treefort (in huge part to the festival’s popularity continuing to grow), but back when the community was much smaller, I stumbled upon a trio I thought could become the breakout Boise band—and potentially the most significant band to come out of Idaho since Built to Spill.

I was intrigued by the name Blood Lemon, and went to the Linen Building (which sadly doesn’t host Treefort shows anymore) to check them out. My mind was a clean slate as far as what to expect, but the swirl of the three-piece quickly filled up all its space. I quickly (and endlessly) described them as “L7 covering Black Mountain,” the way they seamlessly blended power trio alt-rock of a certain vintage with trail-stomping psych (with a little proto heavy metal for good measure). 

Even though the songs were in their infancy—and it would be nearly two years before many of them would see a recorded release—it was easy to see that the group of Melanie Radford (bass, vocals), Lisa Simpson (guitar, vocals—and no relation to the prodigious animated saxophonist), and Lindsey Lloyd (drums) had something special. 

In a remote interview with Simpson, we were rhapsodizing over the bountiful opportunities to discover new music at Treefort. She says, “I love that you get to hear these stories. People being like, ‘I walked into this venue and my friend said I had to check out this band, [and now] I found my new favorite band.’”

If you’ve been reading this column long enough, you’re already well-aware of Treefort’s decade-plus-long efforts to introduce the wonders of Boise to the wider world. It’s safe to say Blood Lemon has made good on the prediction from myself and others. They’re in prime position to be the next notable export from Idaho’s capital city. (Alongside Built to Spill and russet potatoes, they’re in excellent company.)

It’s not entirely surprising that none of the members of this great Boise band are actually from Boise, but there was a slight shock when Blood Lemon’s members revealed that in my interviews with them. (For housekeeping purposes, I should note that for a few different logistical reasons, I held three interviews for this feature: The first was with Radford and Lloyd together via video chat, the second was with Radford in person in Seattle, and the third was with Simpson, also via video chat.) Radford grew up in Nampa, ID, which she describes as, “a small, rural town; [about] 40 minutes outside of Boise. It’s surrounded by farms and there’s a cute little downtown. It’s very sweet and the people there are really nice.”

Lloyd grew up in Idaho Falls, later moved to Boise, and now lives in Nampa, where Radford grew up. She explained that her husband got a job there right before the pandemic, and for a while, they didn’t know who their neighbors were because of lockdown. Now her husband commutes to Boise. As for Radford, “Boise was the place I always wanted to be when I was growing up, because Boise was ‘the city’ in Idaho.” 

Simpson had the farthest to travel in her journey to Boise; she grew up in a small town in New Hampshire and ended up moving to Moscow, ID in the fall of 1999, where she pursued a master’s degree from the University of Idaho. She was beginning to date her now-husband Eric Gilbert (for transparency: co-founder and festival director of Treefort), who grew up in Boise and went to U of I as an undergrad.

If you’ve sampled Blood Lemon’s alternative rock-slanted version of first-wave heavy metal, it’s not too far of a reach to consider what they were listening to as kids in their respective hometowns. Radford grew up in a household where her parents didn’t play instruments, but were big-time rock music fans. 

“My mom was a diehard classic rock fan,” she says. “She would quiz me with whoever was on the radio, like, ‘Who’s this band and what’s the song?’”

Lloyd says, “My dad had—still has—these huge speakers; they’re like furniture. We would just blast [music from those speakers]. There were a lot of musicals, a lot of ABBA; my dad was a big Anne Murray fan.” 

Simpson shared one of her earliest memories with me: listening to records in the living room with her older sister. She also remembers listening to Gordon Lightfoot and REO Speedwagon with her father. By junior high, she was listening to her older siblings’ collection of heavy metal records and, a point of discovery for many people of a certain age (present company included), Nirvana’s watershed second full-length, Nevermind. Simpson says, “I hadn’t really heard anything that was more in the underground at that point, so that unlocked a door for me and started my own journey of what I like versus what I had just been exposed to.” 

In middle school, a few years after Simpson, Radford discovered newer bands that she describes as “branches of classic rock,” groups like the White Stripes, the Kills, and the Shins. “That was interesting because I would [end up] teaching my parents [about] these bands, like reverse roles [from being quizzed as a child,” she says.

“I was really into Ani DiFranco,” says Lloyd. “That’s when I found out I was an angsty teenager; ‘I have feelings and I don’t know what to do with them and I relate to this, I think!’” 

As the wildly divergent paths of Blood Lemon’s members came ever so closer to converging, the three lifelong music fans also had different ways of becoming musicians. Lloyd, a self-professed introvert, wanted to play music but was far too shy to step onto center stage. 

“My sisters were all singers,” she says. “They acted in musicals and I didn’t want to go that route.” A family friend owned a drum set and let her play it, which felt natural and fun for her. 

“I saved all my babysitting money to buy [my first] drum set,” she says. “And I never really thought about anything else, I guess.” Lloyd also notes being a “tomboy” and the feeling of rebellion from learning drums, a male-dominated instrument at the time.

Obsession was also at the root of Radford’s entry; she mentions that when she was in middle and high school, music and English literature were the only things she found interesting as a student. “To play in bands, that was my end goal,” she says. “And the only way to do that in a small town is to join music programs in school. So that’s what I did. And I started meeting other kids through that.” 

After being asked when she picked up her first instrument, Simpson responds by saying, “I do consider voice to be my first instrument. I’ve been singing since probably before I could speak; I’ve always been a singer.” Though she first and foremost considers herself a vocalist, Simpson is far from a stranger to playing instruments made by human hands. Her mother taught her how to read music and she taught herself a little piano around the time she was in fifth grade (she ended up playing piano through her early college years). And although she was given a guitar for her “eighth or ninth” birthday, she ended up not learning how to play it until she was 16, because no one she knew had a good enough grasp on the instrument to be able to teach her. But, she says, “Once I learned it, I never put it down.”

If you’ve taken the time to read this feature or any of my previous dispatches centered around Boise’s music scene, you’re very likely aware that outside of the aforementioned Built to Spill—and its now-iconic guitarist/singer Doug Martsch’s previous band, Treepeople—Idaho’s music community is a severe blind spot for even the most seasoned and expert-level music fans. And although it would be easy to tout myself as having an extensive knowledge of the state—since it is, after all, considered part of the Northwest region and thus part of my purview of coverage for this column—I had no firsthand knowledge of local music coming from Idaho before sharing an elevator with the bassist for Hurdy Gurdy Girls back in 2019, during my first Treefort. 

In our interview, Simpson speaks fondly of the musicians she’s made friends with during her time in the kitchen-sink-alt-pop trio she formed in college, Finn Riggins, alongside her partner Eric Gilbert (keyboards/vocals) and drummer Cameron Bouiss. For instance, Justin Ringle, most famously of the Portland folk outfit Horse Feathers, shared a French class with Simpson. 

“It was a great time to move to Boise in 2009 because there was so much germinating in the music scene,” she says. “And it’s a music scene that’s had highs and lows, like probably any place, right?” 

Simpson notes that there are still a ton of people all around Idaho that are still playing in bands, running music venues, and working at record and instrument shops. She herself is involved in teaching music to an up-and-coming generation of rockers at Boise Rock School, where she absconded to a conference room to do our interview while helping run the school’s Girls Rock Camp for the week. Our conversation was heavily punctuated with snare hits and cymbal crashes.

During my interview with Radford and Lloyd, Radford talks about the period during which Blood Lemon had formed. “I dunno, there was an infancy to it,” she says about the Boise music scene. “A lot of new bands, a lot of young musicians forming bands. It was really encouraging and nurturing. Everyone would go to each other’s shows. [There was] a lot of community-building in it.” 

Before the infrastructure of the Boise scene was fully established, touring bands would play house shows in the city and surrounding areas, or skip Idaho altogether. “I think, overall, it has been a really vibrant scene that often gets overlooked,” Simpson laments. But now, thanks to venues spread across Downtown Boise like the Shredder or the Shrine Social Club, groups from all over can make Boise a legitimate tour stop. For instance, the great Agadez, Niger band Etran de L’Air can play a show at the 1000-capacity Treefort Music Hall without disrupting their routing. 

Years ago, Radford was in a band called Marshall Poole, which she joined when she was 16; she describes the group as being hungry to play and write as much as possible. 

“We would play four-hour gigs with 15-minute breaks and mostly covers,” she says. “But we would sneak in little originals; it was a very blues-rock kind of band [which] got more psychedelic as we got older.”

After several years, Radford was looking to play a different style of music, but also hoping to play and collaborate more with other women. That’s when she heard of a very popular group of locals that primarily played covers for regional benefit shows. They were, very appropriately, called Mostly Muff (the name a tribute to the legendary pop-punk band the Muffs). 

Radford says, “It was just women in the Boise scene coming together to play a set of covers. They would choose a non-profit [to throw a benefit show for]. It used to be on New Year’s Eve and then they moved it to Valentine’s Day weekend. They would raise so much money, and it became a big event that loads of musicians in Boise would love to go to.” 

Radford herself would use the Mostly Muff events to meet more femme artists based in Boise. That’s where she met Simpson and Lloyd, who had met years ago at a Finn Riggins gig in Pocatello, ID. Says Simpson: “I think it’s still legal to smoke inside at the bar we played. And [Lindsey and her husband James] stood outside for almost the entire show. And we were like, ‘Do you wanna come inside? Are you okay?’”

When Lloyd and her husband moved to Boise, Simpson and Gilbert established a friendship with them. Which led to Lloyd joining Mostly Muff. Ivy Merrell of Boise fuzz rock/garage band the French Tips was also in Mostly Muff (and many other groups), and Radford had reached out to her about playing in a band together. Merrell had too many existing commitments and suggested Simpson, who agreed to meet with Radford. Lloyd was suggested by Simpson to potentially play drums for this new project, and that set the stage for Blood Lemon’s formation in the final weeks of 2018.

Simpson says the band’s process began by tinkering with songs they had brought in, written for other bands, with the other members of the newly-minted band adding suggestions. “There was something about this project [where] there wasn’t a lot of defensiveness for me,” she says. “I never felt like I had to prove myself in this group. It was a space of willingness, openness, and acceptance. It was just… easy.” 

When the band’s self-titled debut dropped in the spring of 2021, an alt-rock renaissance of sorts was brewing in the Northwest and beyond. I could name nearly a dozen bands during this period doing great things with the format, but one power trio (that has actually shared stages with Blood Lemon) that made waves around the same time was Seattle’s Wild Powwers. Here’s an interesting stat: Wild Powwers’ 2021 opus What You Wanted and Blood Lemon’s self-titled debut not only make for perfect sonic bedfellows in their widescreen, panoramic version of heavy rock music, but both albums were also released on the very same day. 

In a vibe-heavy global music scene, one overflowing with artists considering playlist placement and fitting in with algorithmic trends, the great thing about Blood Lemon is that while the LP has a distinguishable archetype, it is also jam-packed with great songwriting. That can feel like an anachronism is the 2020s, but from the simple riff that kicks off album opener “Bruise” to the refrain of “We will never forgive you” on closer “Keep the Gaslight On,” Blood Lemon logs 40 minutes of peaks and valleys, of trauma and retribution, of making sure whoever the unnamed “you” in their songs is never shows their face again.

The band also splits the sides with “The Stone Castle,” heavy enough to live up to its namesake without having to resort to prog-rock portentousness. 

“We started writing and it came about pretty quickly,” says Radford about the making of Blood Lemon. The album was recorded with Z.V. House in the back room of a home with a mixing desk in the basement. House and Blood Lemon share the production credits on the album, and Radford gives House (who also engineered and mixed it) a lot of credit for encouraging an environment where the band could try different things. One particular reference for the massive, glacial single “Black-Capped Cry” was another heavy band fundamentally inspired by Black Sabbath (a key lodestar for Blood Lemon themselves): Washington legends Earth—particularly their 2008 masterpiece The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull. 

“I really like simplicity,” says Radford. “And it’s hard to use simplicity to your advantage. So when it happens naturally, it can feel so good.”

Although this isn’t my first time having an interview temporarily interrupted by a talking, animatronic bird—in fact, it isn’t the first time such a thing has happened in this establishment—the experience can still be jarring if you’re not prepared for it. In what was supposed to be the second of two interviews, I met Radford for lunch at the choice eatery for Seattle rockers, Lupe’s Situ Tacos. Radford is a Seattle resident of fairly recent vintage, having moved here from Boise several months ago for reasons both personal and professional. 

“I had a lot of really big life changes,” says Radford. “And I kind of got to a point where I wanted to explore other options for myself professionally. I always had a good feeling about Seattle, from other bands that I’ve played with and friends that I’ve made. And I’m just deeply inspired by a lot of things coming out of Seattle; not just the ‘90s, but now. I had a good intuition that just told me this is the place where I needed to live for a while.”

After lunch in the restaurant, we moved to Tilda’s Lounge (the back bar at Lupe’s Situ), unable to resist having a cocktail along with this conversation, and Radford’s voice palpably emits joy when she talks about living in Seattle. That joy (along with a twinge of incredulousness) stays in her voice when she talks about becoming a member of Built to Spill in 2019, about six months after Blood Lemon was formed.

Radford says Doug Martsch—the founding and sole constant member of Built to Spill—had seen her play in Marshall Poole. “I don’t think he was a fan of the music,” she says. “I mean, I was barely a fan of the music, but he liked the way I played. And the thing [about] Boise, again, [is that] it was very nurturing and people would go to each other’s shows. And Doug is one of ‘em. He goes out and sees local Boise shows all the time, and he still does to this day.” 

A firsthand example from yours truly of Martsch checking out Boise music was at Treefort 2024, when I saw him in the crowd (alongside Radford) during a well-attended set starring young and up-and-coming Boise punk-ish alt-rock trio Plum Vision. Radford says this isn’t uncommon, noting she had met Martsch through the scene even before the time she noticed him at her show. He “very randomly” sent an email to Radford, asking her to meet over lunch to talk some things over. At that lunch, Martsch formally invited her to play bass for Built to Spill. 

Radford says with a little chuckle, “He’s like, ‘Do you want time to think about it?’ And I [immediately responded], ‘No, no time. Yes. I will do that for you, sir.’” We both had a laugh at hypothetically blowing off the great Doug Martsch regarding the opportunity of a lifetime to join his renowned band. There are just some occasions where you, in fact, do not need to weigh your options. 

Simpson was one of the people who knew Radford was going to be asked. She and Gilbert have been friends with Martsch since their days in Finn Riggins. “I think it’s fantastic, because Mel is unbelievably talented,” says Simpson. She also notes her respect for Radford after joining Built to Spill, because she’s played tour dates and festival gigs with both bands (back-to-back on a couple full tours, as a matter of fact). “It presents some challenges,” Simpson says. “My preference is [to] leave it up to her because she’s the one who has to do the hard work [in that situation].” 

Radford recalls first joining Built to Spill: “I remember when I first joined the band, many people coming up to me being like, ‘How the fuck did this happen?’ And it bothered me at first, dudes coming up to me and being like, ‘How did you get in the band?’ It’s like, ‘Oh, maybe because I’m a good bass player.’” 

She lauds Martsch’s instinct when it comes to recruiting new members for his rotating cast of players, and is still a little befuddled that she didn’t even have to audition. 

“My first show with Built to Spill was at Austin City Limits,” Radford says. Talk about pressure. “That was my first show and we were playing with the Flaming Lips and Yo La Tengo and the Black Angels and Bob Mould. And I was just shitting my pants. And feeling that impostor syndrome entirely. Like, “What am I doing here? I’m a totally new member.’ But I remember [playing] the first song; it was [2006’s] ‘Goin’ Against Your Mind’ and it was so much fun. I just got this really good feeling that I was among supportive people.”

Radford wanted her experience to mirror that of the drummer who joined Built to Spill not too long after, Teresa Esguerra, who also plays drums in indie rock trio Prism Bitch. “I really lucked out, finding Teresa,” Radford says. “They’re a great, high-energy band and Teresa’s just an incredible technical drummer. And both of us became fast friends very quickly. And that’s what you need with the bassist and the drummer; the relationship between the two has to be good.” 

To say the least, it’s daunting to be asked to join Built to Spill. Radford knew this firsthand and with a very fresh memory, and so she did whatever she could to make Esguerra feel comfortable. When I suggest that, as long as he’s been playing in bands, Martsch probably has a sixth sense for who would be good to play with, Radford offers her perspective: “I think he’s really inspired by people who are passionate about what they do, and it inspires him in return. I think he just tries to lean into that as much as he can.”

When it came time to record Petite Deaths—a perfect example of how an EP can be a bold step forward for a band—Blood Lemon’s manager suggested they work with journeyman producer Dave Catching. Simpson compliments the “chill, relaxed” atmosphere of recording, while also “trying not to lose my mind and fangirl” over the fact that Catching has worked with luminaries like Iggy Pop, PJ Harvey, and Mark Lanegan. 

“It was kinda like a dream,” says Simpson. “You’re in the middle of the desert, you’re listening to coyotes howl when you fall asleep, and then you come into this historic space that’s filled with all this cool ephemera, and [you get to] hang out and record some music.” She pointedly observes that working with Catching was far from the typical “male producer/all-woman band” dynamic; it was very collaborative. Catching even made dinner for his guests. “It was a very special moment in time,” Simpson says.

In every conceivable category, Blood Lemon are even better on Petite Deaths, even with the self-titled LP being such a tough act to follow. You want a would-be hit beamed in from the bygone glory days of alternative rock radio? Opener “High Tide” certainly scratches that itch. How about a stirring ballad? “Her Shadow” and closer “Mudlark” smolder and simmer until the former explodes into a Latin-inspired groove and the latter turns into a steady flame until it burns out.

And the highlights of the five-song EP signify the band’s best foot forward to date. Their cover of Jessica Pratt’s “Mountain’r Lower” is transformed into, well, a Blood Lemon song; a great, heavy riff, pitch-perfect harmonies, and the widescreen lilt the band will surely one day be famous for. And “Perfect Too”—the band’s longest song at over seven-and-a-half minutes—begins as a flawless iteration of mid-period Sabbath-esque heavy metal and after the dust clears, sprint through the final three minutes as the uptempo grunge banger you never knew you needed.

Radford cites the band’s maturity over the past handful of years as the difference between the songs on Blood Lemon versus Petite Deaths. “I feel like we go into different genres and just find ways to make it work,” she says. Lloyd adds, “Yeah, you just kinda let it flow and things come more easily.”

Now that Radford is fully settled in Seattle, it’s safe to say she’s been keeping herself busy. Built to Spill tours frequently, Blood Lemon will shortly embark on a tour of the Midwest and East Coast this fall, and Radford has been quietly working on some solo material.

“Touring is really intense,” she says. “Two-ish years ago, me having my life fall apart a bit, and going on tour and traveling so much, I was having a really hard time feeling grounded and I wanted to make music for myself that made me feel grounded. I was listening to a lot of Grouper, Gia Margaret, just a lot of artists that were doing ambient work, but still [were] rooted in songwriting. And I’m a bass player, so I wanted to do that same kind of ting, with the bass [as a central instrument] and have it very minimalist. Just vocals, bass, and field recordings.” 

After soundcheck for Built to Spill shows, Radford worked on music that felt calming to her to beat the stress of touring and her life in general, and then made field recordings while she was traveling. Her objective was to make something simple and centered around bass, since she feels bass is wildly overlooked as a central, melodic instrument. These recordings, and the forthcoming solo album that is their direct result, were sprung from Radford wanting to explore the capabilities of her primary instrument. 

She says, “I just love that shit right now and it’s been grounding me on tours. I feel like everyone needs more of that. I think people need to have little contemplative moments in their life more, ‘cause we’re being bombarded by so much shit all the time. And depressing news all the time.”

So far, Blood Lemon has made the long-distance band dynamic work. They’re not the first and certainly will not be the last band to work with hundreds of miles of distance between them. (For example, for the decades that they’ve been the Softies, Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia only lived in the same city for about a year.) It may not last forever, but no band does. And there were no hard feelings between the Idaho-based members of Blood Lemon when Radford made the trek west to Seattle. 

“Well, it’s not without its challenges,” SImpson says when I broached the topic. “We can’t practice every week [anymore] and [Melanie’s] had long stretches of touring where she’s not available. When I was first touring around, I was close to Melanie’s age [now]. I can’t pour 180 days a year touring right now unless I’m actually making a decent amount of money; enough to replace [my current] salary. We’re trying our best to work around [Melanie’s commitments and home in Seattle] and staying committed to what we’re doing.” 

Simpson acknowledges clearly that the band’s situation is much different from when they started the band, that their lives are different as well. But the intention of creating the art only the three members of Blood Lemon together can make is still there, and so is the friendship. Radford made her intentions of moving to Seattle very clear those months ago, and no one’s feelings were hurt, especially when considering her personal situation.

Blood Lemon plan on having a retreat soon to work on new material, and with Simpson and Lloyd being mothers in addition to Radford living in Seattle, the finite time the band gets to spend together feels that much more important.

“It’s easy now,” Lloyd says about being in the band. “I think it’s because I know I can rely on [Melanie], I know I can rely on Lisa, and I know what to expect from them. I know that if something weird’s happening, we have each other’s back.” 

Throwaway Style’s Pacific Northwest Albums Roundup

Coral Grief - Air Between Us

Lena Farr-Morrissey has been such a fixture in Seattle’s DIY music scene—as well as the band she sings and plays bass for, Coral Grief—it’s almost kind of shocking to stop and realize Air Between Us is the band’s debut album. But it’s no surprise the album sounds like the fully realized product of formidable talent and vision. The joke has been written many times in this column that “dream pop” mostly just stands for “vibes and pedals in place of actually knowing how to write good songs,” but Air Between Us finally gives us the dream pop style done exceptionally well. 

Recorded at lauded Anacortes studio The Unknown, the album’s sound is lush and expansive, while Farr-Morrissey’s songs veer wildly from tastefully rendered shoegaze (“Rockhounds,” “Paint By Number”) and moody indie seemingly pulled from the good parts of 2009 (personal album highlight “Outback”) to alternate-universe pop by way of Mazzy Star (“Latitude”). Couple that with touching odes to a bygone—or, if you will, a vanishing—Seattle (“Avenue You,” “Almost Everyday”), and you’ve got a surefire contender for Seattle Album of the Year. 

Milc & Spinitch - Run for the Arts

“What the fuck you mean what I’ma do if this rap don’t work?” says one of the opening lyrics of the latest project from streetball prodigy turned everybody’s favorite Portland rapper Milc. Thankfully, we don’t yet have to find out the answer to that question, as the NE Alberta stalwart has put out projects of startling quality every year this decade so far—with collaborators like Televangel and Goldenbeets. Given Milc’s formative love for the East Coast rap of the early 2000s, he takes to the chopped up soul of Spinitch’s instrumental offerings like a fish to water, sounding downright reflective and romantic in places (much like one of the enduring classics of early 21st Century NY rap, The Blueprint). In other spots, he hangs with some of the best talents in the rap underground—Wynne on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Blu on “Field Day,” and alongside Open Mike Eagle and Something Something Brax on what is easily one of my favorite rap songs of the year, “Crayons.” 

Rap certainly seems to be working out for Milc, which is a good thing for all of us.

Acapulco Lips - Now

If you’ve been craving the sugar rush of bubblegum garage rock, I’ve got just the thing for you: The near-decade-in-the-making second full-length from Seattle’s Acapulco Lips. Just when you thought the the trio of Maria Elena Herrell, Christopher Garland, and Jordan Adams took their 1960s-inspired sounds as far as they could go back on 2016’s self-titled record, Now adds a couple members (Brady Harvey on keys and Selena Gomez on guitar), fills up the band’s sound, and pushes it a little farther.

The album is rife with songs perfect for dancing around your living room (basically the album’s entire first half), augmented by forays into psychedelic (“Slowly Disappearing”) and a genuine surf rock banger (“Pas d’echaappatoire”). 

Jarv Dee & Bad Colours - BLAKHOUSE 2: TRIAL BY FIRE

You may not know the story by now, but it’s most certainly worth knowing: Seattle rap veteran Jarv Dee found a new lane when he linked up with Brooklyn-via-Maryland-via-London producer Bad Colours and the pair released the great BLAKHOUSE in 2021, revealing a songwriting prowess and musical quality hardly outmatched in the region over the years. BLAKHOUSE 2: TRIAL BY FIRE continues that trajectory, with dancefloor-ready firestarters perfectly melding the worlds of hip-hop and house music (from the pair that arguably preceded that now-wildly-popular trend). And just as the original had sterling guest appearances from Shabazz Palaces and Stas THEE Boss, the sequel features great turns from mainstays like Dave B., Jay Park, Gifted Gab, and Tacoma’s very own Livt. Talk about the sequel matching the energy of the original, BLAKHOUSE 2 is a more than worthy second effort from this pair of hallmark talents.