Some albums arrive with the force of a revelation, yet their power is not found in grandiosity or spectacle. Instead it lives in the quiet permissions they give. Permission to pause. Permission to listen closely. Permission to acknowledge internal conflicts that daily life encourages us to overlook. Arlie’s Someone You Can Believe In is that kind of album. It invites the listener into a world where spiritual longing, relational fracture, and renewed creative intuition coexist in a single delicate fabric.

The record marks a significant turning point for Nathaniel Banks, the creative force behind Arlie. After years of navigating the churn of expectation and approval within the major label ecosystem, Banks returns to a space that feels unmistakably his own. The album takes shape within the intimacy of a restored bedroom studio. Familiar instruments return to his hands. The acoustic guitar. The sunburst Strat. The layered harmonies he once built alone in the quiet hours of night. These elements do not operate as nostalgia. Instead they function as anchors that reconnect him with the artistic instincts that first drew listeners into his orbit.

At its heart, Someone You Can Believe In is a concept record that unfolds through a series of narrative chapters. These scenes are fully produced and operate like fragments of an old radio play. They stitch the songs into a continuous emotional journey and give the album a sense of cinematic progression. The central tension within this story is the search for meaning at a time when clarity feels impossible. Banks examines the silence he perceives from the Divine, a silence that deepens the ache of human suffering, heartbreak, and uncertainty. The narrative structure amplifies this search by positioning each song as a response to unspoken questions.

One of the most compelling elements of the album is its willingness to blend humor with despair. This mix of tones mirrors the unpredictability of real emotional experience. A particularly striking moment occurs late in the record when a child repeats his father’s mistaken assumption about Arlie’s gender. The scene is both awkward and revealing. Instead of confronting the misunderstanding or responding with frustration, Arlie turns to music. He answers the tension with a gentle acoustic reprise. This response becomes one of the album’s most poignant gestures. It suggests that sometimes the only honest answer to pain is a return to the inner voice that survives beneath judgment and noise.

The song “is it okay if i love you” stands out as one of the album’s purest offerings. Banks wrote it during a period of emotional urgency after newly replacing a stolen laptop. The creative break forced him into a more tactile form of writing. He spent months with guitar and keyboard, writing lyrics by hand. When he resumed digital recording he did so with limited resources and intense focus. The track took shape quickly and originated as a personal gesture of affection. Even without knowing that background the song carries a vulnerability and melodic grace that feels immediate and sincere.

Throughout the record Banks leans into Biblical imagery. He uses this language not as religious instruction but as a method of expressing longing, confusion, and yearning for direction. It is rare to encounter such earnest spiritual vocabulary within the indie landscape. Here it feels organic. It becomes a means of articulating questions that do not offer easy answers.

What makes Someone You Can Believe In particularly resonant is its insistence that music can still function as a vessel for deep emotional and spiritual inquiry. In a culture that prioritizes quick consumption, Banks creates a work that rewards patience and careful attention. The record challenges listeners to slow down, follow its narrative arcs, and allow its quiet revelations to take root.

Arlie emerges from this project not as an artist chasing relevance but as one who has rediscovered the courage to trust his own voice. The result is an album of rare sincerity and depth, one that feels destined to linger in the lives of those who spend time with it. If the title suggests a search for someone trustworthy, the music itself becomes evidence that the journey inward is often the most faithful guide.

Toronto pop-rock singer-songwriter Jenny Palacios returns with “IYKYK,” an honest, nostalgic, and playfully self-deprecating anthem for anyone who’s grown up without ever truly “growing into” themselves. Packed with 2000s rock-ballad guitar tones, wry humour, and the soft ache of arrested development, “IYKYK” is an ode to the awkward kids who turned into equally awkward adults – the ones who never quite figured out the script everyone else seems to know by heart.

“I’ve always wanted to write a song called ‘IYKYK‘ — I just really like the phrase, but funny enough, this song didn’t start with that in mind,” says Palacios. “I had written a lot of lines about constantly feeling so awkward and out of place – just stuff that you’re kind of meant to figure out before you’re a grown adult. I’m always in places where everyone else knows exactly what to say or do next. I started asking myself, ‘Is this a unique experience?’ I knew I couldn’t be the only one with this kind of arrested development, so ‘IYKYK‘ felt fitting. It’s like a plea to the weird kids who are now weird adults.”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

I had many, many directions as time went on with IYKYK. Initially, even before I brought it to the studio, the demo for it was a lot slower in tempo, and some of those riffs at that bpm I found it gave like, Perks of Being a Wallflower, school dance scene, 80’s slow dancing, maybe no one’s asking you. Later as the song became more developed, I thought it’d be fun as a training montage. I really liked an underdog story for it, so I was thinking maybe it’s my band and I starting out as the losing bet for an upcoming fight or something, and at the end maybe it’s my big fight and the climax is that I actually lose it. Eventually, I think I just decided I thought this song deserves the full band, in everyday spaces, where one might expect to act business as usual, so we went with Sam’s (Samuel Mejia, Drummer) kitchen, which feels a little cramped, a little home-y, it’s not show-y or perfect by any means, which felt just so right.  Thomas, Sam’s roommate, walked in at some point and we thought it was just so perfect and like the touch of awkwardness that we needed, so it’s in the final cut. The other half of the music video, I really wanted this feeling of loneliness, which kind of shows the other side of feeling alone in a crowded room or the odd one out and nothing like a huge empty park to get the feeling of being alone across. 

2.What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

There were really specific angles I wanted for the band shots that I collected and sent to Matt (Matt Guarrasi, NAKEDBURN), my friend and director of photography. A lot of the references were from videos like, Good Charlotte’s Unpredictable, Pale Waves Television Romance, The Aces’ Girls Make Me Wanna Die, Green Day’s Redundant, The 1975 You & Me Together Song and more. We kept pretty close to this deck I made, describing look and feel. To pull from it directly, I wrote:

The video is built around emotional vignettes and less a clear story.

“IYKYK” is about feeling like you’re late to every version of yourself. Late to confidence, conviction, femininity, certainty and being observational of who you actually are and ultimately, the comfort in admitting it.

The video explores the awkward adulthood of being both aware and lost, of wanting to be cool and composed but constantly tripping over your own humanness.
Key emotions: restless, bare, self-deprecating, awkward, honest.

Visual shorthand: a life and movement that looks fine, but feels slightly off.

The video loops between detached performance and quiet observation.

3.What was the process of making this video?

I’m really lucky to have the talented friends I do, it’s pretty easy to call Matt up on the drop of a dime and put together a quick game plan in a burst of inspiration. This time around, I had started the art direction deck I mentioned to really get specific and sent it to him. As far as shooting goes, we met up one night and got the park shots, Rob (Rob Licandro, Guitarist) on lighting which was key. Everyone was a little busy so we couldn’t really get together to rehearse, but luckily Sam and I squeezed a quick drum rehearsal in and a week later when the rest of the band was free, we got the shots at Sam’s place. Deck open on my iPad to reference haha. We got a little nervous about the sound, getting drums in a tiny Toronto kitchen, where your neighbours can probably hear and feel everything you do. It got a little freaky since it was so loud but we wrapped up pretty quick.

For the edit, Matt sent me all the footage and I kind of lived with it for a week. Once I had the video where I wanted it, I sent it back to Matt for colour and in a day or two the final product was up on Youtube and out in the world! 

The way I work, I feel like I definitely always just set a deadline and like, figure it out. This time, the video was finished and uploaded within like 3 hours of the release date, it was a close one!

A long stretch of years slipped by between Last Relapse’s farewell and the moment they decided to step back into the light. Plenty of bands walk away and stay gone, but this Atlanta group let their old sessions sit quietly, almost forgotten, until the pull of unfinished ideas finally became impossible to ignore.

During that time, drummer Justin Canada and the rest of the band built entirely different lives. The noise and momentum that once carried them through crowded rooms across the Southeast faded as work, distance, and family shifted their priorities. They scattered, settled, and changed. Yet some rhythms have a way of lingering in the background, waiting for the right moment to rise again.

Their new self-titled EP owes its existence to that feeling. The band revisited stray files, half-formed sketches, and raw early takes not out of nostalgia but because those fragments still had something to say. With fresh ears and a lot of years behind them, they reshaped those pieces into something that feels current, forceful, and surprisingly clear.

What comes next explores how Last Relapse found their footing again. It’s a look at rediscovery, at the stubborn pull of songs that don’t let go, and at how a band can reconnect with work they thought they’d left behind for good.

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically?
With “Rats in a Cage,” we were trying to capture that feeling of being swallowed up by work, noise, and constant distraction while larger systems and powers are quietly preying on you in the background. It’s about feeling like you’re running on a wheel that never stops, knowing something’s off but not quite being able to step outside of it.

We chose to visualize this one because it felt both immediate and relatable; it’s one of the catchier songs on the EP, but underneath the hook there’s this tension and frustration that a lot of people are carrying around right now. The contrast between the upbeat energy and the heavier subject matter made it feel really cinematic to us, like it was asking to live beyond just the audio.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?
We felt like a busy city captures the meaning of the song better than anything else. There’s this constant buzz—cars, lights, people moving in every direction—that mirrors the mental clutter the song is talking about. At the same time, when you’re up high looking over it all, you get this strange mix of power and insignificance, like you’re both part of the machine and slightly outside of it.

Visually, we wanted something that felt raw, direct, and performance-driven rather than a literal storyline. Letting the city itself be the backdrop and “character” gave us that sense of pressure, motion, and chaos without spelling everything out. The idea was: plug the band into that environment and let the song do most of the storytelling.

What was the process of making this video?
We found a rooftop location in Atlanta that immediately felt perfect for the song — it gave us the skyline, the movement, and that feeling of being suspended above all the chaos. Once we locked that in, we built the whole concept around letting the band perform in that space and capturing as many dynamic angles as we could within a tight window of time.

We produced it ourselves in one day, which gave the shoot a very DIY, scrappy energy that actually fits the band and the track. It was a small team, a lot of pre-planning, and then just committing to the performance once we were up there. Because it was self-produced, every decision was very intentional: no big budget tricks, just us, the city, and the song.

If you think you know what symphonic metal sounds like, Kelsey Dower’s new single “Rage” is here to rewrite the rules. Massive choirs? Check. Cinematic orchestration? Absolutely. But underneath all that power is a surprising level of emotional precision that hits harder than any blast beat ever could.

Dower builds this track like a one-woman film score: huge choral moments, harp lines that slice through the mix, and orchestral layers stacked with the intensity of someone who understands exactly why each sound is there. Nothing is there for drama alone.

And then there’s her voice. It lands somewhere between alternative-metal nostalgia and something far more intimate—closer to a diary entry than a battle cry. She never pushes for volume when vulnerability does more work. You hear the storm, but you also hear the person standing in the middle of it.

“Rage” is the lead single from her upcoming album Rebirth, and it sets up an emotional arc about transformation and internal upheaval. The cool part is how she frames rage itself—not as a meltdown, but as a moment of clarity. It’s anger as truth, anger as power, anger as direction.

Dower’s background is as layered as her arrangements: a pianist since 18 months old, a performer at Carnegie Hall, a composer pulling inspiration from Nobuo Uematsu, Nightwish, Epica, Evanescence, and Within Temptation. Her debut single “Ma’afa” tackled generational trauma and earned international radio play. Now, she’s shifting the spotlight inward for something more personal—and equally massive.

With “Rage,” Dower isn’t just entering the symphonic metal landscape. She’s shaping a new corner of it. And Rebirth can’t come soon enough.

Following the September 2025 release of her debut EP I Kill Spiders, Montreal singer-songwriter Libby Ember returns with “To Her,” a tender, nostalgic single that captures the delicate push and pull of trying to reach someone who won’t let you in. Mellow, introspective, and intimate, the track merges indie-folk storytelling with dreamy indie-pop production, offering a vulnerable portrait of self-awareness and emotional release.

Inspired by the frustration of wanting to connect while realizing the need to let go, Libby reflects on what it means to care deeply for someone emotionally unavailable. “This song was inspired by my own emotions and experiences when trying to get through to someone who just wasn’t opening up to me,” she says. “I was overworking myself and putting too much pressure on myself to be seen, so I just needed to let it go.”

The title itself positions the track as an open letter. “The title ‘To Her’ is meant to make the song feel like a message or a letter to this person,” Libby explains. “I’m speaking directly to her and opening up about feelings I would never say in person so instead I say them in this written form.”

Distinctive for its organic storytelling and production, “To Her” begins with sparse, raw guitar before gradually building into a textured, emotional climax. “I wanted the song to start off very raw – just me and the guitar – to create a sense of tension that the song itself is about,” she shares. “In the second verse, everything opens up on the word ‘fall’ because everything is now falling into place as the narrative continues.”

The song’s bridge adds an especially personal touch: a collage of real-life voice recordings featuring Libby and her friends. “It really helps drive my story forward and makes this song feel like a recollection of memories,” she says.

Hamilton, Ontario’s The Dirty Nil are following up on their recently released album, The Lash (July 25, 2025), with a new live record Live At The Dine Alone Store. Featuring 13 tracks that span the band’s discography, the LP features The Dirty Nil in their element.

Live At The Dine Alone Store is available to purchase featuring two variants: DA Exclusive (ltd to 100) / Standard(ltd to 200). Remaining vinyl copies will be available online at dinealonestore.com the following day (November 29th) followed by the digital release this past Friday.

Taken from The Lash, “Fail In Time” is the first cut to be spotlighted from the session. A perfect example of the album’s stripped down, black-and-white approach, “Fail In Time” is raw, loud, and refreshingly bleak.

“We played more shows this year than any other, by far,” The Dirty Nil elaborates. “2025 was a blur, but this show stands out as the day we got to celebrate The Lash with our friends, family and fans. We had some of our favourite local bands play and it nearly brought us to tears seeing all the work that Dine Alone had put into NIL-ifying their headquarters in our honour. The Lash themed cookies were delicious.”