Vanyaland

New Sounds: Each song on the EP has its own distinct vibe and personality, filtered through the London duo's cauldron of rock and rave.

It’s weird how, after Barbieheimer, we can’t help but notice the bizarre box-office bouts scheduled for this year. Sure, the strikes had something to do with it, but we wonder if the fight-like narrative finally breached the walls of the public consciousness, and now everything is a contest. Last weekend was the equivalent of the Tyson vs. Paul fight —

Twenty-two years ago, Spencer Albee was both performing as a musician and booking a small venue in Portland, Maine. One week, needing a solid Saturday night draw, he and his bandmates of similar mind decided to do a show where they covered songs by The Beatles. “And it went bonkers… and then that went awesome,” Albee tells Vanyaland. “So now we’re up to three nights at the State Theatre.”

Someone get Molchat Doma on the phone — we have the perfect opening act for their February gig at Roadrunner. You can’t tell us that the ghostly post-punk of Opera’s new song “Forget” wouldn’t blend perfectly with a little darkwave, or the layer of ice that will glaze our homes any day now. The Boston band released the single and video last month (October 29), marking Opera’s first tune with lyricist, guitarist, and singer Liudmila Garmashova. With a new voice in the mix, “Forget” cradles the trancelike chorus “You shoot in the air but forget one thing” within a spiral of synths. The single plays like an eerily beautiful omen, primed for inky New England nights. Tune in below.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland ‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.

Photo Credit: Christopher Searles

As if the greater Boston area needed any additional issues involving trains, Wolves Of Glendale are pulling back into the station for the second time in less than a year, and this time, they have a full locomotive of stinging hilarity in tow.

Disney’s Moana 2 might be a pretty mid sequel, but it is an intelligent course correction to what nearly sank the House of Mouse in the early ‘20s. The pandemic had an obvious effect on most of the company’s operations, of course, but faced with the closure of their two most relevant revenue streams, then-CEO Bob Chapek followed the carrot-on-a-string of streaming, never mind that there was a box waiting for him at its end, propped up by a single stick. Who in the industry can forget that lengthy shareholders-meeting stream in the late fall of 2020, where one could only describe the presentation as a show of algorithmic-outsourced content force? A live-action Pinocchio remake, a

The cover art for MonaVeli ‘s new single “BLUE FLAME” is…intense. A skeleton, shrouded in blue, faces the listener against a backdrop of teal and magenta flames, potentially signaling that the Brockton artist has penned another hip-hop scorcher. Instead, “BLUE FLAME” channels a balmy atmosphere plucked straight from the tropics. The new song and video — which follow MonaVeli’s summer “Block Party” — show a different side of the emcee, as she swaps brazen bars for dewy R&B. Think of it as a sauna for your ears and mind, delivered before the chaos of the holidays. Dip in below.

If all sunlight is going to evaporate at 4:15 p.m. for the next few weeks, you might as well double down on the darkness and surrender to the murky beats of Loman’s new EP Notturno. After collaborating with Lynn artist Nyeusi Loe for the 15-track opus THE BALLAD OF LOESPERADO