Now Playing: Megumi Acorda, Dilaw, The Brockas, U2, Fall Out Boy and Lana Del Rey

FILIPINA guitarist Megumi Acorda carved out a name in the local shoegaze scene. On this her debut full-length album, Megumi uses shoegaze as props for her voice which warbles beautifully to a batch of slow ballads. Opening track “Dream Sequence” starts with piano riffs that sound like tolling bells and for every other song thereafter, that bell tone resonates through the sprightly pop of “Borrowed” and the rocking “Nothing Forgotten.” Ms. Acorda appears to be stretching her musical muscle that should delight her hardcore fans.

THERE’S something refreshing and vital in the way 6-piece indie band Dilaw draw their listeners. The first two songs off their new EP are love songs laced with Ace of Spades sideways influences. By the third canto, the group steps on the gas to showcase “3109” with its unmistakable socio-political snipes, “Kakoy” that rocks in its ode apparently to the travails of jeepney drivers, and “Maskara” (not the Juan dela Cruz song) that concludes the whole thing with the flourish of a quirky pop opera. As the press release goes, the band is truly building their sound towards exciting new directions.

So Much (For) Stardust

EMOCORE, at least the side the loves hair metal, is back. It’s there in Paramore’s 2023 album. It’s here in Paramore contemporaries Fall Out Boy who are crafting some of the most attractive pop rockers so far this year, and they just don’t rock. “So Good Right Now” is destined to rock all parties from here to Timbuktu. Opener “‘Love From The Other Side” and the funky ‘I Am My Own Muse’” are close second. The warm ballads are just as bracing though they move up to bold dance-friendly rhythms by the second half. The new Fall Out Boy gives a drug-free high from start to finish.

THE BROCKAS Manila by Night

THISalbum does not in any way refer to Ishmael Bernal’s classic film but it may as well be. On their latest release, uber-indie band The Brockas live up to their billing as “a mess of contradictions” which Is what night-time Manila brings to mind: brightly lit karaoke bars bookended by unlit barong barongs, for instance. In The Brockas, there’s a kind of “contradiction” too when this group of artists pairs singer songwriter portions with loud psychedelic jam and singing that evokes Lou Reed as much as Bob Dylan. They’d rather call it “Dadaist” punk though in my book, it’s just filmmakers Lav Diaz and Rox Lee spewing out the noise and distress in their creative heads.

U2 Songs of Surrender

I’LL get personal here. I may the one of the first to get a copy of U2’s “War” album which was a gift to me by my then gf now wife who bought it during her short stay in Germany in ’82. Thing is, it’s the U2 album that to me personally, is their best album ever; Like, first impressions last. So listening to the Irish band’s newest, the stripped-down “Songs of Surrender,” I had my fist pumping on “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” on side 4. But as remembrances usually go, I got goose pimples by the simple treatment (i.e. not arena blasting roar) of “11 O’clock Tick Tock,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” “Every Breaking Wave,” and “Until The End of the World.” Bono’s voice and the melody make all the difference.

LANA DEL REY Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

DESPITE the overlong rather pretentious title, the introspective songs on Lana Del Rey’s new album are splashed with impending doom and gloom. It’s a stylized mood aiming for Goth in a pure pop packaging. Nonetheless, Lana del Rey’s aim is true firstly, in lyrics that deal double entendre like “. “Fuck me to death, love me till I love myself” in the title track. Secondly, in the glorious “A&W,” she bathes in the warm glow of a redemptive ballad till she blurts out, “This is the experience of being an American whore.” Such duality makes “Do You Know..? an engaging even adventurous body of work. Check out digital musical platforms especially spotify for the music reviewed here.