MINNESOTA SOUND REVIEWS - 10/28/26
Reviews by: Alexandra Haynes, Writer @xalexonlinex
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner/Editor @melodicnoisemedia
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Chance of All Trades “Up to No Good”
Family-friendly and pop-forward raps fall into place over keyboard composed beats (multilayered, with organic keys twinkling around space-filling, atmospheric synth chords and bass lines) on Chance of All Trades’ Halloween release, “Up to No Good.” This song dropped as track one of four on the seasonal compilation EP Toil x Trouble, which also features Small Hounds, Milk Break, and Teleported Man, released in October 2026. If you’re still looking to beef up a party soundtrack before this weekend, throw this one on your playlist for a clean entry.
King Sized Coffin “Smile for the Camera”
“Smile for the Camera” released as track two of eleven on King Sized Coffin’s new LP Midnight in October 2026. Instrumentally, it has a distinctive carnival feel, a folksy, full band evoking the images of a roving trope of musicians entertaining the masses. The narrative structure of the song, a poignant reflection on mortality and permanence, kicks in fast with husky, villainous vocals describing how life is captured forever in photography. The nuances of life are then lost to time but held in memory, on paper, implications of those nuances found or inferred in a frame being observed maybe “hundreds of years” after its subject has passed. The subtle spooks of the mundane and the inevitable are magnified in images of people “having to sit perfectly still,” people “seeming so happy with their lives” that are “all dead now.” While out to dinner with his wife, a "waitress … stopping to fix her hair” after bringing them toast and a jazz band making the protagonist reminisce all bring him back to the present, to the living. The story ends when their own mortality is caught in a photo his wife asks a stranger to take on their way home, tying things up neatly.
Unattractive Giant Monster “Monsters R Real”
The real monsters do indeed roam among us, the bourgeois class that enrich themselves while wage labor consumes the time and spirit of the masses. Unattractive Giant Monster protest these conditions in “Monsters R Real,” a rambunctious punk rock tune centered around the relatable cry, “I don’t wanna work today!” Humorous talking sections are in place of verses, quoting I Think You Should Leave’s most salient yet comedic political commentary to lighten the mood while still keeping its messaging intact atop snarly, looping riffs, (“My next door neighbor put a Richard Nixon mask on a pig and had him go through my doggie door ‘cos we’ve been arguing over a property line…” “What did they do to us?!”) This song is track nine of twelve on the band’s cheekily named Titanic III: The Official Motion Picture Soundtrack album, released in January 2026.
Joe Bartel “Creepy Crawl”
More traditional Halloween vibes rule over us here on Joe Bartel’s “Creepy Crawl,” a folk punk/thoroughly emo-coded jaunt with the warm inclusion of trombone melodies holding down an atmospheric low end. Vivid and, quite frankly, simply good fun, this song from the album American Poison (September 2024) also deserves a spot on your Halloween party playlist. Bartel’s vocals are emphatically playful and precisely enunciated to make you want to bob up and down and swing a dance partner across the floor as he imagines supernatural revenge after a debaucherous run of crimes (“Carving helter-skelter in the forehead of these pigs … Someday we’ll be skeletons and this world won’t seem so scary anymore / Our skulls will be the ones who do the scaring around here / We’ll go creepy crawlin’ through the neighborhoods of our worst enemies.”)
Buckls “3AM on Halloween”
For another pop punk take on the holiday, enter Buckls with the on-theme “3AM on Halloween.” At first, the title provoked in me thoughts of the classic slopTube trend of “Doing X at 3AM!!!!”, a specific genre of low-production influencer horror which was mostly clickbait aimed at kids; that connection says much more about me and my particular flavor of brainrot vs. reflect any on Buckls. Buckls’ “3AM on Halloween” (single, October 2025) instead invokes the witching hour, his pop punk style turned sultry as he quivers over a seductive, loping beat. The nearly five minute song has a terrifically fun bridge with bright, peppy synth tones making solos sing anew, bringing in the track’s final chapter as a more complete, full-figured cacophony.
GUFFERY “Lycanthropy”
Sparkling beats serve as a cinematic backdrop for sing-songing raps from Guffery in “Lycanthropy.” A fully-fledged narrative, “Lycanthropy” has a haunting tone, describing the literal transformation of man into beast. It is delicately peppered with sound effects, completing its theatrical bent. He compares his otherworldly hunger, more specifically “fighting off [its] urge,” to being “an addict in withdrawal.” Leaning into the visceral unpleasantries of having a lust for killing and the fantasy of harnessing a supernatural power that comes with a dangerous price to pay, this subject matter is perfect for your Halloweek and Guffery’s smooth, flawless delivery makes you suspend your disbelief. This song is track eight of twelve on the 2023 album Reclusive.
