Kal Marks with Paper Lady and amiright?

Veterans of Boston DIY return to SPACE with a bruising new rock record on Exploding in Sound.

Kal Marks have never made a record as personal as Wasteland Baby. Though Carl Shane, the band’s vocalist-guitarist, has made a career off of exploring blunt, uncomfortable truths through song, with Wasteland Baby, he steered Kal Marks toward something utterly new. Shane looked inward to stare down a fear that had long plagued him: What would it look like to have a child in a world that looks like this? “The album was driven by the fears I’m having about being a father,” says Shane. “The initial spark was this fear, and I thought that maybe if I could express it, I could overcome it.” 

What started out with this simple premise slowly grew into a sprawling, borderline-concept record. It’s no surprise, then, that Kal Marks went deeper and darker than ever before when writing Wasteland Baby. Though, in order to reach that final product, it required the band—bassist-vocalist John Russell, drummer Adam Berkowitz, and guitarist-vocalist Christina Puerto, who is also Shane’s partner—to interrogate every decision they made with exacting detail. “We really had to be more thoughtful if we really wanted to make a more mature, cohesive record,” says Shane. ”We were really all on the same page in that we wanted to make something really, really special and that was going to require us putting a lot of ego aside and just trying to serve the songs as best as possible.”  

There’s an acerbic feeling running throughout Wasteland Baby but also a willingness to keep pushing forward to find the few patches of sunshine among the looming darkness. It’s a feeling that the members of Kal Marks felt when they listened back to the final version of Wasteland Baby. “When we finished, I remember Christina saying that this is the best piece of work that any of us have ever done,” says Shane. In many ways, Wasteland Baby feels both like an endpoint for the first phase of Kal Marks, and the beginning of a new chapter for its members. The result is that, perhaps, things will look different for Kal Marks in the future. “In an ideal world, Kal Marks will go on forever. But it may be the end of a chapter for a while. I don’t want it to be the end, but there was an element running through the album that maybe could be the end,” says Shane. No matter what the future holds, Wasteland Baby is an emphatic reminder to brush off the things that keep you from truly living and venture into the unknown. You never know what will happen when you do.

Paper Lady is the immortal crone, casting spells and wreaking havoc in Boston, MA. This indie dream-rock outfit, consisting of Alli Raina, Will Davila, Rowan Martin, Kenzo Divic, Alex Castile, and live member Brady Dallas Jones, was formed in the depths of the Northeast DIY scene in 2019. They have been conjuring up noisy freak folk and driving dream rock alike in basements and on stages around the US and Canada.

The project found its beginning as a bedroom recording project of Raina and Pearce Gronek (Lonely Pirate Committee) in 2019, inspired by bands such as Broadcast and The Sundays. The band went on hiatus until 2021, when the current lineup came together. This new iteration of the band has birthed an entirely new sound, and Paper Lady has morphed into the collaborative effort we know today. ​

Their sophomore EP, Traveling Exploding Star, is the first glimpse into the newly formed world of Paper Lady. It was recorded at Ashlawn Farm in August of 2022, by Charlie Dahlke (The Brazen Youth). The band spent four long days in the grass, communing with nature and looking at the stars. Somewhere in between, the EP came to fruition. ​

amiright? is the 3 piece cousin-rock band from Noah, Quinn, and Simi. amiright eats up influence from outsider rock, hardcore, lofi, doom, freak folk, and noise. They belch out frantic punk instrumentation over stories of frogs or getting lost on the bike ride home. amiright’s switching of instruments and song-writing-duty offers multiple unique yet cohesive musical perspectives throughout sets.