By Maddox Lowe, Sophia Sciulli, Piper Turri, and Jonathan Sackett

---

:: WDCE’s MDs celebrate spooky season the only way they know how… with another weekly recap. Enjoy!!

:: October 26, 2025

:: Scarlet Street — NO ALTERNATIVE

Genre: Post-Hardcore

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: “WARNING SOUNDS,” “BEARS & SHARKS: NATURE’S BEST FRIENDS,” “PALO ALTO,” “CORPORATE MEPHIS”

Scarlet Street formed nearly a decade after post-hardcore fell off, but that shouldn’t dissuade any pop-punk or emo enjoyers. NO ALTERNATIVE is no alternative to the classics, but it slots itself in there among them. It’s an ALL CAPS almost in your face project that blends heavier, chaotic guitars with potent melodies. It feels like a logical extension of where post-hardcore and alternative rock bands should have gone in the 2010s. Instead, we got stuck with Imagine Dragons and MGK. 

— Jonathan Sackett 

girlfriends — THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Genre: Shit

Release: Unfortunate  

Recommended Tracks: none; do yourself a favor and avoid this album like the plague 

If Scarlet Street was the direction that alternative rock should have gone in, girlfriends shows us the direction it should never go in. THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD is every negative idea that my mom has about rock shoved into one complete shitstain of a project. It’s so irreverent and tries so hard that it makes MGK look like Jello Biafra. There is nothing genuine about this project. It’s corporate slop masquerading as punk. When the second track, “BETTER THAN EVER,” opened with the lines: 

I’m here for a good time, not a long time

Maybe both if I’m playing my cards right

But last night, it felt just like 

That one time I cried when my dog died

I had to take out my earbuds and just sit there for a second. What could compel someone to write that? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Travis Mills and Nick Gross peaked in high school. 

— Jonathan Sackett

Spiritual Cramp — RUDE

Genre: Punk Rock

Release: Album 

Recommended Tracks: “Automatic,” “You’ve Got My Number,” “Violence In The Supermarket,” “New Religion”

Never thought I’d see the day that ska, garage rock, and classic punk would come together in a perfectly London sort of way, and the group to do it would be from San Francisco. Deceivingly bright, 70s-esque guitar lines are contrasted with dark, gothic vocals, creating a lovely sonic frontier. Rude is just a fun listen. 

— Jonathan Sackett 

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown — SCARING THE HOES: DIRECTOR’S CUT

Genre: Alt Hip-hop

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: SCARING THE HOES (2023)

Don’t waste your time, just listen to the original. 

— Jonathan Sackett 

Foo Fighters — Asking For A Friend

Genre: Rock

Release: Single

Recommended Tracks: “Asking For A Friend”

The single feels current. While simultaneously incorporating the authentic angst of the 90s: screeching, quick drum solos, and consistent guitar riffs, the lyrics coincide with the current complexities of today. Foo Fighters are no longer discussing the heartache of relationships through a grunge lens, they are instead discussing the current turmoil of the current music scene. The lyrics, “What is real?” and “Or is this the end” encompasses their current uncertainty in conjunction with future worries, regarding music…but also the state of society. But, then again, that is purely my reading of the song. And can we ever exist in a state in which anything is entirely blissful? When we are not participating in existentialism? I think not.

— Sophia Sciulli

Cigarettes After Sex — Anna Karenina 

Genre: Indie Rock

Release: Single

Recommended Tracks: “Crystal Ship,” “Anna Karenina”

The word, idyllic, encapsulates the single. Per usual — listening to Cigarettes After Sex— puts me in a trance. Someone casts a spell on me— and mind, body, and soul I am entirely engrossed in the song. Nothing else exists outside of the lyrics. The two songs, on the single, are vastly different. “Crystal Ship” exudes a fainter hypnotic quality on a boat perchance, while “Anna Karenina” almost sounds like slam poetry at times. Nevertheless, I appreciate the poetic quality of “Anna Karenina,” as the stylistic choices are emblematic of the literary nature of Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina.

— Sophia Sciulli

After — After EP 2

Genre: Alternative indie

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: “deep diving,” “close your eyes,”

This album is pretty good, but some people won’t like it. However, everyone will tolerate it because the album is so condensed and swallowable. It’s only 20 minutes! Anyone can survive 20 minutes! This album feels like what Taylor Swift’s new album should have sounded like. Except Tay Tay’s instrumentals are not nearly as unique and synthy as the ones on this EP. Throw this album on for your next solo Dhall excursion and you won’t regret it. 

— Maddox Lowe

The Barr Brothers — Let It Hiss

Genre: Alternative 

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: “take it from me,” “let it hiss,” “moonbeam,” “she doesn’t sleep with the covers on,” “naturally,”

This album feels much older than last Friday. It feels like the type of thing I’d find on a random cassette stuck to the coffee-stained carpet of my dad’s car. I mean this in a good way. The album feels too cool to be new if that makes sense. The vocals are soulful, and the instrumentals are diverse and grungy. The vibes change really quickly on this album. We start grungy and almost country, and then the third song is SOFT. And the vibe stays pretty soft, to be honest. I wish they carried the vibe of the first couple of songs through the whole album. Still really good though. “Naturally” is one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard in a long time— highly recommend rescuing this number from the dadmobile. 

— Maddox Lowe

Alice Phoebe Lou — Oblivion

Genre: Alternative/Indie

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: “Pretender,” “Mind Reader,” “Oblivion,” “Darling”

Alice Phoebe Lou strips everything down on Oblivion, an intimate, tape-warmed collection that feels like a diary cracked open in real time. Inspired by poetry, her grandmother’s art, and a few lingering half-written songs she couldn’t shake, it plays like a quiet exorcism — fragile and raw. I do wish the tracks had a bit more variety to keep me on my toes, but there’s something hypnotic about their sameness. It’s a late-night listen that seeps under your skin, and “Mind Reader” hits especially hard.

— Piper Turri

Kieran Campbell — OK Buddy

Genre: Folk

Release: Album

Recommended Tracks: “Ohio,” “Act Your Age,” “Broken”

OK Buddy is exactly what it sounds like: a heartfelt, slightly scruffy hangout of an album. Built on the bones of classic folk and fleshed out with harmonica, jangly guitars, and gentle percussion, it’s tender without being precious. Campbell digs into growing pains, messy love, and the weird beauty of getting older with an easy charm that makes it all go down smooth. “Ohio,” “Act Your Age,” and “Broken” are standouts — the kind of songs that make you want to pack up and move to the Pacific Northwest.

— Piper Turri

::