Greetings and hallucinations.
Alex’s Blog of Many Things is the newest experiment of Northland News Radio. This blog is, or at least how I’ve described it to others, is that it’s part local interest and part variety. There’s no set schedule, and there may be times where you’ll get three posts a week and none the next. There’s going to be recaps of shows, commentary on local issues, musings on the bizarre, and all sorts of other weird stuff that might pop up.
It’s a hotdish of multitudes.
THE ALBUMS
Lonely People With Power by Deafheaven
Lonely People With Power is a soundscape of extremes where nostalgia, pain, and ferocity all coalesce together. There are songs like “Revelator” which is full of violence and rage from start to finish, while “Amethyst” flows back and forth between periods of quietness and bouts of intensity. Lonely People With Power builds and builds on this duality of intensity versus softness until it arrives at the the final chapter of the album. All the emotional energy that’s been building gets released with a tidal wave of catharsis in “Winona” and “The Marvelous Orange Tree,” bringing the album to a satisfying close. Deafheaven’s latest release stands on its own as one of the best (if not the crown jewel) of the band’s discography.
Two Trees by Breanne Marie and the Front Porch Sinners
Breanne Marie and the Front Porch Sinners perform at Blacklist Brewing during Homegrown 2025
In a true and just world, this album would be played on country radio stations worldwide, because Two Trees is what all good albums should strive to be. There are songs like “Dashboard Dandelion” and “Under the Grove” that make you tap your foot instinctively, with soft ballads like “Most of All” that round out the album’s sound. It’s not country, it’s not folk, but it is something that builds on those into something far greater than the restrictions of genre could allow. “Ida Mae” (which features local hiphop artist C-Silence) is the perfect example of styles blending, where emphasized percussion and rap lyrics turn what would be an already great song into something far beyond any expectation. If I believe in anything, it’s that everyone needs more pedal steel and fiddle in their life, and everyone needs to go out and get a copy of Two Trees.
Imprints of Man (& Goldstar) by Imperial Triumphant
Imperial Triumphant’s bass & keys player Steve Blanco released this album in November 2025, following the band’s Goldstar which came out in March. Imprints of Man features a host of the band’s music arranged for piano, stripping away the harsh vocals and distorted guitars for a clearer & cleaner sound while keeping the disorienting and dissonant melodies intact. If Goldstar is the soundtrack for crowded streets with looming skyscrapers, Imprints of Man is the jazzy film score for the city’s rotted underbelly. For those who don’t have a familiarity with heavy music, Imprints of Man is an incredible introduction to the artistry of Imperial Triumphant.
For the Shop Shelves by Joy and Melancholy
Eli Stanley (Joy and Melancholy) plays at Newest Catch 2025 at River City Records
This debut release from Duluth’s Joy and Melancholy is great example of what the Twin Ports’ musicians can achieve by use of good vibes and the power of DIY. I’ve had the joy of knowing Eli (drums) for a few years, and when he had originally mentioned to me he was getting a band together with his sister Anna (vocals/guitars), I had wrongfully assumed it was going to be MySpace-era deathcore. Instead of chugs and breakdowns, For the Shop Shelves is exactly what you’d imagine when someone tells you “Hey, I saw this band Joy and Melancholy play in someone’s basement” in the best way possible. It even features a song about my favorite niche Instagram micro-celebrity, Cubert the Dog.
I’ll be talking more about Joy and Melancholy, their EP, and our shared love of Weird Al (amongst other things) in a future ABMT.
Fitting In by Ross Thorn
There are plenty of musicians who make folky music with a banjo, but there’s no other Ross Thorn out there. If you feel the need to feel, there are more than a few songs on Fitting In that will tug on your heartstrings. Yearning, longing, and heartache all have their time in the spotlight. Across the album, the central uniting theme seems to be one of human connection, so it feels especially poetic that Fitting In ends with its title track. I do seem to find myself being hopeful when listening to this album, and I’m not sure if that’s the album itself or because of the way Thorn is building that human connection and community through the Twin Ports Artists Collective. Go listen to Fitting In and get inspired for the future.
LOOKING FORWARD
As we look into 2026, I find myself thinking about one album in particular that’s been eluding the good people of the Twin Ports for many years. Much like the fabled Mothman, the second album by Duluth’s Southpaw is believed to be a work of fiction—a storied myth—but last Thursday I was told by the band’s frontman & bass wizard, Dalton Hanson, that “[the band] is pretty confident album 2 will be out before the end of the year.” You can catch Southpaw playing with Sadkin and Mint Vintage at Blacklist Brewing on 2/7.
Dalton Hanson talks to the crowd during Southpaw’s set at the Caddyshack during Homegrown 2025
Happy (belated) 2026. More to come soon.
Comments