Last Updated on February 15, 2023, 1:01 PM | Published: February 15, 2023
Normally, you might expect the beginning of the year to be a dead zone for musical releases, with everyone still sleeping off the year-end parties and waiting for audiences’ energies to get back to show-going levels.
So far, 2023 has seen no such lull.
Our cup runneth over with a slew of hot new tracks in an unseasonably warm January, and that trend has clearly kept its momentum this month, as some of the OKC metro’s brightest acts and rising stars dropped some majorly energetic tracks for February.
Bee & the Hive – ‘Malapropism’
One of the buzziest (pun intended) recent bands to pop up on the scene, Bee & the Hive belong to the unexpected – but consistently exciting – recent trend of young musicians layering jazz, horns, and classical training into what might otherwise be easily categorized as pop-punk.
The additional instrumentation, and the skill and straight-up fun with which they’re included, take “Malapropism” to another level, creating something lush and heady and perfectly matched to the self-conscious intellectualism in the lyrics.
As Bee croons about her worries of seeming pretentious, the band casts off any such self-doubt and just rips into the song with abandon, culminating in a pitch-perfect sax solo that bypasses all the recent 80s-style saxing and shoots straight for old school, E Street Band level rock ‘n’ roll.
Interestingly, the most apt comparison for the Hive’s sound is very probably their own OKC contemporaries Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards. If you’ve been a fan of those hometown heroes, then bee (pun intended again) on the lookout for this single when it hits streamers.
“Malapropism” releases to all streaming services February 17th.
Follow Bee & the Hive on Instagram at @beeandthehiveband.
Big Weather – ‘Family Name’
When this super-trio dropped their debut single “Breakfast Club” back in September, it blew up my radar and burst onto the scene with a heavily 80s-inspired new wave sound and a romantic wistfulness that felt tailored to its filmic namesake.
“Family Name,” on the other hand, isn’t playing so nice.
Barreling right out of the gate with a wash of feedback and a confident, aggressive bass riff, the track announces itself as something wholly different and decidedly more in-your-face than the band’s previous release.
What follows is an all-too-short two-and-a-half minutes of white-hot energy, with a tight, gut-punching backbeat, surprisingly textural guitar atmospherics, and Chase Kerby’s fuzzed-out vocal delivery showcasing his impressive pipes even beneath a veil of broken transistor-style distortion.
“Family Name” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow Big Weather on Instagram at @bigweatherokc.
terrible thieves – ‘Hell or High Water’
Proudly flying the “emo” flag, terrible thieves crash onto the scene here with nary an intro, diving headlong into a track of constantly shifting intensity and heart-on-sleeve sentiment.
Rather than the theatrical affectations and woe-is-me wailing that emo can often fall victim to, there’s a raspy skate-punk sneer and a believable anger behind the requisite tale of romantic betrayal.
Knee-jerk tempo changes, half-time drops, and sharp, distorted guitars giving way to creeping, melancholy piano lines all serve the manic-depressive implications of the track, with lyrics alternating between seething, self-righteous demands and pleading cries for help.
Hard-driving emo has been making a major national resurgence of late, and that’s been especially true among young OKC artists that seem to be embracing the style’s potential for screaming into the void as a way to process the heightened emotions of the pandemic era.
Whatever their inspirations, terrible thieves are looking like one of the local emo scene’s most interesting acts to watch.
“Hell or High Water” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow terrible thieves on Instagram at @terriblethievesokc.
Plain Speak – ‘Personal Best’
Hot on the heels of last month’s “I Was a Flame,” Plain Speak wasted no time dropping this second peek at their upcoming full-length album.
“Personal Best” makes another strong case for that album being the most anticipated in OKC rock this year, with a post-punk riff opening up to stabbing-synth chaos and a floating, almost hauntingly detached vocal.
But it’s the moment when everything tightens up and focuses around the chorus that “Personal Best” becomes, honestly, one of the best local tracks in a long while.
It’s rare to land on a vocal melody that pulls off sad, hopeful, and relentlessly catchy all at the same time, but the refrain that accompanies the line “I know a time, a place where it changes a little bit less each year over year” nails it.
It’s difficult to hear a track so early in the year and be so sure that it’ll show up on some best-ofs at year’s end, but I’ll be expecting to see “Personal Best” popping up again in December for sure.
“Personal Best” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow Plain Speak on Instagram at @plainspeakmusic.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
