Written by Gabriel Bagahansol When you live through cold weather all the time, you’re always going to find ways to make the warmth you get linger within you. That’s why it makes sense that some of the artists we turn to for moody expressions of emotions, be it through words or music, come all the way from frigid Canada. And somewhere up in Montreal, Johann Mendoza committed to tape sounds that would allow his feelings to circulate through the dense winds of a Quebec autumn. On the self-titled debut album of this project, marcel explores melancholia through slowcore textures and melodies—combine that with its grayscale cover art of clouds and chain-link, and you get a collection of songs that chronicles the doomed fate of young love and its complex phases. This theme is set in motion with the album opener “journal entry,” which acts as a prologue for a story of heartbreak told across seven tracks. On “just one of those days,” marcel recalls the first memory of a past lover. His lyrics on partaking in the reckless abandon of a night out are elevated by the delicate drone of a string quartet – or, at least, a guitar resembling a string quartet, which brings an organic feeling within an otherwise processed soundscape. It’s like catching the cool breeze and falling leaves while walking wasted in downtown Montreal, although the textures do overstay their welcome, to the point where it could leave you wanting to take shelter, lest you get hypothermia. But on “these rotten nails,” we’re taken away from the streets and into the rooms of two individuals processing heartbreak in dim lighting. The chemistry between marcel and guest vocalist kelly elizabeth is palpable as they sing about their perspectives on a failed relationship, though any hope of reconciliation between the two characters is nowhere to be seen: the acoustic guitar-driven half of the song dissolves into a slower, gloomier instrumental as the two singers wonder where things went wrong. It’s fascinating to hear a story being told through the contrast between two guitars that sound completely different from one another. This creative use of slowcore drones and the drama laced within the lyrics are two things that make “these rotten nails” a highlight within the project. “parc hang,” like “just one of those days,” is a song that sees marcel reminiscing about a night out, but with the context of the track that immediately precedes it, “parc hang” becomes the sound of a memory slipping away from the mind of someone who’s ready to move on. The guitars make you feel like you’re watching a videotape of a park while it’s being demagnetized – to the point where all you can see is static, and this is about the only time on this album where you’ll hear them be this distorted. The intro of “end of the line” greets us with the most ornate blend of sounds in the album. Listening to the mix of acoustic and electric guitars and a violin is like stepping into the woods for soul-searching before letting out your frustrations through a chamber-emo song. Like in “these rotten nails,” the dichotomy of sounds within this song adds another level of storytelling, and kelly elizabeth’s backing vocals – which mixes so well with marcel’s lead vocals – is the icing on the cake for another satisfying number. Because marcel mashed together sounds and genres so frequently and so well on the first part of this album, the last two songs, “porch” and “when it’s time to leave,” can be a bit middle-of-the-road by comparison. These songs play their genres straight: the twang of the guitars in “porch” more strongly suggests country-tinged Americana that is well outside the frosty sonic palette you’ve been hearing so far, and the instrumentation in “when it’s time to leave” is the clearest and barest out of all the tracks on the album. But perhaps the cleaner, less hazy state these songs are in, along with their more cautiously optimistic lyrics, represent marcel actually fulfilling his promise of moving on from heartbreak – or, at least, doing so while hoping he and his lover can rekindle the flame someday soon. Nevertheless, these are both decent performances, and it’s still nice to see the snow thaw out for the grass of spring. Though some of the slowcore drones feel like they’re holding on for too long, marcel still showed some strength as a budding singer-songwriter in the indie space with this album. It’s clear that he has an ear for making films out of the sounds he’s working with, a pen that easily captures the catharsis of a broken heart, and hands that let these two elements live in symbiosis, one track at a time. While the final stretch of songs do come off sonically inconsistent with the rest of the album, they’re still good enough to show marcel’s potential in branching out towards other genres of music, and with the core of this album being in a genre that can feel constrained within one particular sound, he might stand a chance to tell his stories well as the seasons slowly change in Montreal. Support the art and the artist:
REVIEWS
SABAW SESSIONS: Shanne Dandan
Shanne Dandan Holds No Pedestal for Love Written by Faye Allego Shanne Dandan is for lovers. When talking to her, it feels like you’ve known her forever; almost like a seatmate you never stopped talking to in elementary school and would eventually share school lunches with. In the age of yearning and finding love on a tricky, slippery slope, Dandan possesses a rare trait– she simply loves the way she loves. It’s a privilege to get to connect with artists in the local scene, they’re not to be put on pedestals because the stage itself is level with everyone else most of the time. Talking to them about their artistry can be done anywhere and sounds just like a Facetime call; and that’s exactly how Dandan approached the simplicity of love and how overcomplicating it is bound to happen, but that’s not what love is going to be like forever. It was almost surprising to learn then, that Shanne Dandan’s introduction to music was anything but intimate. Like many children shone onto the spotlights of stardom, Dandan started her career at around eight years old and at thirteen upon joining ABS-CBN’s very first The Voice Kids with immense pressure, however, she later deflated it through her discovery of passionate writing. She began breaking free from the child-star bubble through connecting with the Manila Sound Era of OPM through the love and help from her grandmother, she then began a series of covers and being invited to collaborate on soundtracks from films such as “My Husband, My Lover”, “Breathe Again”, and later “100 Awit Para Kay Stella”. Dandan then explored the music scene and later released her debut album in 2024, “Kung Iyong Mamarapati”, where she dissects her own vulnerability and relationship with everything emotional. Her new single, “Labs Kita”, is a tune to look out for this Valentines season, aiming for a more wholesome approach and homage to lovey-dovey OPM ballads, Dandan gracefully converses on her songwriting process and experiences. **This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. FA: What kinds of music did you grow up listening to, and how did those early influences stay with you? Shanne Dandan: Growing up, I was really a different person, I wouldn’t really say I was an artist because before I was just being a performer. Since I grew up doing competitive singing then joining singing contests, I thought talaga na, ‘Well, it was a different time naman din before.’ Before, the only way for you to make music – or if you’re a singer, is that you have to join singing contests para ma “discover” ka. So, dinaanan ko yung path na ‘yon, bata pa ako as in! Nag start ako parang mga eight years old? Seven years old? Very young. I got exposed sa industry ng ganong ka aga. Pero music-wise, yung listening ko, na-adapt ko siya sa, syempre, kasama ko sa bahay, yung lola ko, my mom, and my dad. We’re all very musically inclined din, my mom is a singer, lola ko also a singer. So every day we were all listening to music palagi. Lola was always blasting yung radio niya. And yun, I grew up listening to that kind of music, yung pinapakinggan ng lola ko which was music from Pilita Corrales, Cely Bautista, Ella del Rosario… Nakalimutan ko yung channel sa radio, pero parang Sunday radio everyday [laughs] may kaunting religious [themed] podcasts… Pero laging ganon, so growing up, na adapt ko talaga siya and ever since, mahilig talaga ako sa mga lumang bagay. Tapos ayun, na dala ko siya and even nung nagkaroon nakong ng idea and ng c-change na yung environment towards the entertainment industry, meron nang, Instagram, Meron nang YouTube, so mas namotivate ako na “ah okay, ‘di lang pala ito yung tanging ‘way’ ko to become who i want to be!” So then I discovered the magic of songwriting nung siguro 15 ako? 14? Very late bloomer ako kasi up until that point in my life nag j-join parin ako sa mga singing contests, tas may na meet akong mga like-minded people na gusto yung mga bagay na gusto ko, dun ko lang na discover na “Ah I like to write pala” pero before songwriting i really liked writing as a journalist, I was in journalism clubs, and I’m a feature writer pero sa Tagalog/Filipino. Pagsulat ng lathalain! Mahilig ako magsulat ng mga short stories, fantasy, all that! When I discovered songwriting, narealize ko na “ah, may ganito pala, na you can blend your words tapos may melody,” parang nag merge yung dalawang hilig ko which is writing and singing! That’s when I also set boundaries sa family ko, sabi ko ayoko na mag join ng singing contests. Hindi nagustuhan ng mom ko kasi very stage mom talaga yung mom ko– di niya naiintindihan! Sabi niya “Huh? Hindi ‘wag ka diyan” tas nung una, sumasama siya sa mga gigs ko, sa mga bars, and hindi niya maintindihan kasi sanay siya sa mga gigs na ang dami nanonood kasi I used to sing in hotels and events talaga. I would always sing covers lang. So nung nakita niya na ang konti nanonood sakin, ang didilim ng mga bars… pero eventually naging supportive naman siya! Ayun mas naempower ako when I started going to communities that appreciate my craft. But to answer your question, I am very much influenced by my Lola and nag rereflect ‘yun to who I am today and what kind of music I write. FA: I had a conversation with my friends, and nasabi ko na parang harana na reversed roles yung mga songs mo, kasi with harana, yung audience or yung muse ang highlight kasi sa kanila nadedeclare yung pag-ibig, but with your songwriting, it highlights your own love for your muse. Shanne Dandan: [Laughs] I feel like nag rereflect din sa craft ko, yung music ko, yung sarili ko! Na I have so much love to give. As in, when you meet my family we
ALBUM REVIEW: Parti. – High Action
Written by Adrian Jade Francisco Anchored in experimental math rock, parti.’s debut album ‘High Action’ is the equivalent of a cat chasing a laser pointer—you never quite catch what comes next. Across its 43 minute runtime, it thrives on a buffet of instrumental twists and turns. There’s a kind of beauty in disorder that presents itself throughout the tracks. The first half of ‘High Action’ delivers abrasive riffs and aggressive percussion that refuses to let you settle in. From the metal track “Hullabaloo” to the subsequent math rock “Milo Dinosaur Jr.,” the album already established its ability to be unpredictable. ‘High Action’ levels up its game with a barrage of Japanese-style rock guitar akin to POLKADOT STINGRAY and A Crow Is White, particularly in “Mirage” and “Antigua.” featuring snappy fretwork from Justine Tan and Pio Perez. The production lets the intricacy of the compositions without smoothing out their rough edges, packing the hooks for constant earworm. “Breach” and “High Action” serve as microcosms, concentrating the album’s spectrum of sounds on full display. “Breach” was just an appetizer—Parti. had already carved out a sound. A mix of alternative, experimental math, and progressive rock keeps you on edge. ‘High Action’ serves up the full feast of their sonic arsenal unapologetically. SUPPORT THE ART & THE ARTIST:
TRACK REVIEW: Past Forward – Hell
Written by Nikolai Dineros Identifying Laguna-based hardcore punk from its heavily populated pack of contemporaries is like sensing a food’s quality from afar with just the olfactory. Following up on the band’s electrifying, long-awaited ‘Streetwise’ EP, ‘Hell’ checks every box of the Laguna hardcore handbook. Drawing from the deep roots of the region’s hardcore punk scene, the thundering bellows of distortion, two-step-primed rhythms and breakdowns, and the protesting wails into the microphone—all qualities that are unmistakably Laguna hardcore, bred by the subculture’s founding fathers in time not-so-immemorial as well as those that remain active at present—have become par for the course in this field. On one hand, Past Forward’s latest “Hell” carries Laguna hardcore in its DNA, and on the other, it is bound to it. While these shared attributes in the genre have been staples used by and elevated many astute punk acts of similar acclaim, ‘Hell’ packages them with not as much concern for cohesion, unlike past Past Forward releases. ‘Full Disclosure’ comes to mind, the 2017 EP that put the band into the spotlight. A counterpoint to which, however, can also be seen in ‘Full Disclosure’. The EP’s closing track, aptly titled ‘Closure’, leaves the record to an abrupt—almost trip-hop levels of mellow—beat switch; and interestingly placed track in an otherwise straightforward hardcore project. But it is more of a complementary footnote than anything, and it does not demand one’s full attention the same way ‘Hell’ does, or attempts to do. Put simply, ‘Hell’ relies more on safe conventions than a focused direction. Such a deterministic approach is not the most appropriate for “Hell”, though, as its faults more harken to culture bleeding into an artist’s songwriting that a guidelines-based, objective critique just would not cover. Laguna hardcore is one subculture with a history and influence that stretches beyond its territory’s borders into the larger Filipino hardcore punk mythos, with evolutions that led to what are now scene staples shared among artists. But it is also one mired with tumultuous principle-based infightings (more internal and collective-oriented) that, unfortunately, led to its creative stasis. San Pablo’s Past Forward—formed as recently as the mid-2010s—is one of the descendants of this respected but equally tainted movement whose creative deadlock has carried over to bands as esteemed as Past Forward. And while these ties are not indicative of the band’s dispositions and quality of work, the cultural or historical factors are more suggestions that may explain certain trends rather than cast judgment. Fortunately for them, theirs is not an isolated case. But for all the missed points in ‘Hell’, more output from Laguna’s finest only benefits Filipino hardcore in the long run, despite its dire history and current state of affairs. Its background does not discredit the wave of new and exciting Laguna-based hardcore-adjacent artists steadily rippling through our spaces. Among them, Past Forward maintains their steadily growing momentum, driven by the release of ‘Streetwise’ and whatever is to come after “Hell”. If anything, Laguna hardcore needs more Past Forwards—the resolve to move forward, carrying and learning from its past. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST:
ALBUM REVIEW: PRAY – THANKGOD4ALLDIS$WAG
Written by Elijah P. PRAY is one of those Manila rap outliers who know how to play the game from the very beginning. On his debut project ‘THANKGOD4ALLDIS$WAG,’ he walks in already dressed for the role: “gangway” street styling, flex-first instincts, and a slightly pitched-up delivery that turns his nasal cadence into its own signature. The tape runs under 20 minutes and barely lets any track breathe past the two-minute mark, which is part of the point. This isn’t a rap “album” in the old sense. It moves like an Instagram timeline refresh: fast, glossy, and prepped for replay. For all its iced-out production luster, PRAY’s strength isn’t merely identifiable trap aesthetics. He understands how to sit inside production and steer it. His ear works like a DJ’s. The beats across “MONEY COUNTER,” “RA$TA,” “F*CK AGAIN,” and “$YRUP TSAKA DOPE” hit that sweet spot where rage energy and cloud-rap drift start bleeding into each other; Trap hi-hats flare up, melodies blur into neon haze, then PRAY slides through with a calm, almost smug control. He raps like he’s narrating a lifestyle he’s already living, pitching into his dreams he hopes to buy into. He even plays a Kodak Black sample of “counting money” as one of the “freakiest things” he’s ever done. Lyrically, he plays the expected cards: money, lust, lean syrup-soaked bravado. Still, the project doesn’t collapse under cliché, because PRAY knows how to sell a line. His hooks land, his timing stays sharp, and his vocal tone has enough character to keep the tape from feeling like another copy-paste flex mission.With all its charismatic end result, THANKGOD4ALLDIS$WAG won’t convert the experimental rap purists, and PRAY isn’t aiming for that crowd anyway. This is music for the city’s wired-up nights, for kids who treat Instagram as a moodboard and ground zero for the come-up. PRAY enters 2026 with real potential, and this debut proves he can get ahead of the game. Support the art and the artist:
ALBUM REVIEW: Darla Biana – Iridescent
Written by Noelle Alarcon House music is always a danceable delight; an air of familiarity is constantly present in the candy-colored soundscapes. It just invites your body to move and let the bouncing vibrations thud through your veins and lead you to the dance floor. A rapid attack on all your senses at once, the genre is a vessel for enthusiasm, accented by the occasional syncopated beats and punchy synths. Darla Biana’s debut passion project, ‘Iridescent,’ flickers between the realm of house and the adjacent classifications its wide panorama encompasses; described as the artist’s challenge to herself, created in just three months, it’s an ambitious, headfirst dive into the creativity a deck and a few beats can afford. There’s a template to the genre Biana pursues throughout the album, which makes her vision easy to audibly sketch out–like the minutiae pleasures of driving across cubed, 3D streets in video games from the early aughts or even the trance-inducing techno horns that are emitted from the complex insides of holographic CDs. ‘Iridescent’ is frank and straight to the point, with Biana’s invitations for romance coated in the relaxed lilt of her voice. The record doesn’t need a million ways, nor words, to express self-confidence and infatuation; Biana merely uses the music to punctuate what she means and to begin her sentences. In “Love You Down,” she says it like she means it–she will love you down. Plain and simple. The relaxed harmonies that follow the utterance of her promise and the four-on-the-floor beats are enough signs of the commitment she offers to the table. In accordance with commitment, it’s praiseworthy to note this album’s commitment to pushing Biana’s incredibly specific vibe. There are two interludes in its 33-minute runtime: “Make You Mine,” an appetizing opening that kicks off the album with hypnotizing vocals and pulsing D&B percussion, and “One Day,” a similar, 58-second break that signifies the transition of the album’s subject matter from falling in love to being in love with yourself. For a debut project, ‘Iridescent’ is like a designer’s first sketch that’s come to life–a piece that knows which elements to take from the avant-garde, and what its limitations can bring to life instead of restricting. However, there are instances when the production overpowers Biana’s vocal color, leaving her vocals floating, wandering across the track instead of becoming one with the music. There’s an admirable devotion to staying musically cohesive, yet it could have touched on the adjacent possibilities of exploring dance aside from sticking to similar beats. You can never go wrong with the glitzy, bouncy glamour of house–it just so happens that as versatile as the genre is, it’s also one that needs to embrace its malleability and constantly be kept up with. Darla Biana shows in her debut that she can–she just needs that extra boost, that liveliness brought upon by variety to continue. ‘Iridescent’ is house, definitely–but it’s a “house” that’s a little more lived in, a bunch of tracks to dance in your bedroom to. Support the art and the artist:
EP REVIEW: Cream Flower – Orbital Wound
Written by Faye Allego There’s a certain adrenaline rush that emanates from the psyche whenever one is en route; it’s a rush that can capture anxiety, urgency, or even the sense of ‘gigil.’ Cream Flower’s ‘Orbital Wound’ EP is exactly what should be queued during moments of movement, whether it’s commuting, traveling, or simply walking down a footbridge. On their third EP release, Celina Viray and Jam Lasin step into a wider sonic terrain, loosening their grip on shoegaze familiarity to explore something louder, stranger, and more expansive. They blend riot grrrl rage with explosive urban paranoia, crafting songs that feel perpetually in motion and perfectly suited for city wandering. Even amid the chaos and noise, the duo injects an unexpected motif: if a stray cat crosses your path, this EP insists you bring it to the vet. The first three tracks form ‘Orbital Wound’’s most immediate stretch, buoyed by an upbeat momentum and Viray’s vocal effects that sound like it’s being broadcast through an airport PA system. “Cat Distribution System” and “Fever Dream” have a distant, metallic, and half-instructional tinge to them. The choice of turning the voice into the form of a public announcement rather than a private confession shows a sense of urgency that isn’t found in the typical dreampop soliloquy. The sense of radio transmission becomes even sharper on the second track, “Dahas,” where radio static and intergalactic textures are lured in, giving the impression that the band is trying to communicate across impossible distances. The song is displayed like a broadcast meant for extraterrestrials, only to reveal itself as a message addressed directly to us as the listener. The lyrics cut through the noise to confront the realities, inconsistencies, and outright outlandish absurdities of the Philippine zeitgeist under the government’s rule. It initially sounds alien, but the repetitions gradually sound something more familiar: uncomfortable truths hidden within signal distortion. Chillingly, the EP turns subtle and dreamy with its fourth track, “Orbs.” There, Viray and Lasin introduce acoustics that were absent from the beginning tracks, and lyrically, they tap into more introspective lyrics. In “Orbs”, Viray warps time and perspective as she describes being “engulfed in a fever dream.” The lyrics suggest a fractured sense of self, as if the speaker is watching their own thoughts from a distance and turning into never-before-seen shapes and geometric patterns. What’s interesting is that the last track of the album, “A Violent Cry”, beheads all forms of stillness from the previous track, and the listener is put right back in that state of adrenaline that was introduced in “Cat Distribution System”. It’s loud in every sense of the word, but not flashy or indulgent, where it becomes an earache. By the time the EP moves beyond its opening run, it’s clear that ‘Orbital Wound’ is both an experiment in sounds and a tool in communication through noise, humor, and paranoia. The urge of wanting to hear more after the last track is ever-present, but in the meantime, aggressively slamming the repeat button will suffice. Support the art and the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: orteus – Deersong
Written by Louis Pelingen After their mixtape last year, orteus isn’t yet done crafting more music. “Deersong” lands on the very first day of January 2026, serving as the lead single for their upcoming debut album, which is charged with delightful experimentation. The drums gallop rhythmically over sweet vocals, soothing soundscapes, and rumbling bass notes that create a whirring experience, yet keep the overall melodies clear enough to be heard, gratifyingly landing the explosive bombast that comes up at the end of the song. The overwhelming nature still persists within its structure, taking more time to simmer before it finally clicks. But through the refinement in mixing balance and expanded curiosity in sound textures, ‘Deersong’ lays down a path that is worth following down the line. Potentially having more surprises that end up with us becoming like deer in the headlights. Support the art and the artist:
TRACK REVIEW: maki! – popout
Written by Elijah P. “Lahat sabog/ fuck it, we get lit,” maki! declares on “popout,” a year-opener single that wastes zero time pretending it’s anything deeper than adrenaline and appetite. But that’s the trick: what sounds like disposable turn-up rap is also a tight little mission statement. maki! opens the track greeting the listener like he’s clocking into a shift, then asks for love with the kind of hunger that most rappers like him wouldn’t barely achieve. maki! does it effortlessly. “popout” runs under two minutes, and it moves at the speed of an online reel. The beat leans into bitcrushed, 8-bit textures, turning trap into something glitchy and pixelated. maki! slides across it with melodic autotune warps and chopped-up vocal flickers, tossing newly heated ad-libs. The parking-lot setting in the song’s music video feels right: fluorescent, chaotic, nocturnal, and ready for trouble. What separates him from the usual mumble haze is that he actually commits to a slightly tilted rise of momentum. He gets from point A to point B cleanly, no dead air, no lazy hook crutch, no filler bars pretending to be vibes. With the internet pushing this slayr/CHE-adjacent strain of pixel-trap forward, maki! sounds tapped into the mutation early, proving local rap gets to catch up, sharpening their skillset into something truly their own. Support the art and the artist:
SOUNDS OF THE SEA: Wisp (Thailand)
In the middle of the vast ethernet lies a genre that has been stretched, flattened, recycled, and reborn more times than anyone can reasonably count. Shoegaze, once tied to distortion pedals, rehearsal rooms, and subcultural isolation, has since found a second life online, where riffs circulate as presets, moods become templates, and entire scenes form inside comment sections. Out of that churn emerged Wisp, a Thai-Taiwanese American musician whose rise traces how shoegaze slipped from niche fixation into one of the most accessible sounds of the 2020s. Wisp’s earliest material, dating back to 2023, lived where many young artists now begin: alone in a bedroom, posting short instrumental clips online. Her early TikTok uploads leaned into shoegaze “type beat” structures, dense guitar layers looping into themselves, melodies hovering for the majority of the track. These clips spread quickly because her contemporaries understood how it could function in a compressed, scroll-first environment. Shoegaze became texture first, atmosphere before statement, something listeners could step into alongside a rich story that traces back to influences of noise rock and post-punk in the 80s. That clarity carried into her first EP, Pandora released in 2024, which marked a shift from small snippets to fully formed songs. Tracks like “Pandora” and “Mimi” expanded her sound, pairing blown-out guitars with soft, hushed vocals that rarely rose above a whisper. Her voice became one of her defining traits, dreamy and lo-fi, sitting low in the mix as another instrument rather than a focal point. It gave the music a sense of closeness, as if the listener had stumbled into something private. At times, stepping into Wisp’s worldbuilding as the wall of noise envelopes the listeners one at a time. As her audience grew, so did the scale of her work. Wisp’s songwriting eventually sharpened her sensibilities in writing more melodic pieces of music; Her arrangements thickened, and her live presence followed suit. What began as solo bedroom recordings translated into full-band performances capable of filling festival stages, all while keeping the grimy, internet-bred edge intact. Shoegaze, in her hands, did not lose its heaviness as it grew louder. It simply became easier to step into. That evolution continues on her debut album If Not Winter released in 2025, where newer songs like “Black Swan” or “Sword” lean further into contrast. The guitars hit harder, the structures tighten, and the emotional palette darkens without drifting into excess. The whispery vocals remain, floating over walls of sound that feel heavier and more deliberate than before. It is music shaped by online beginnings yet no longer confined to them. Wisp’s career reflects a broader shift in how shoegaze functions today. Detached from strict lineage and carried by platforms that reward immediacy, the genre has opened itself to a new generation. Through texture and a clear sense of mood, Wisp helped make shoegaze feel less like insular and more like a shared space for a wider audience, one that listeners could enter from anywhere and stay as long as they liked.