January 2026 AOTM

Feels Like Heaven - Within Dreams

Tracks 10

Runtime 24mins

Favorite Tracks Volvo (On The Road), Sandra Bullock, Snow Dunes, Take The Rain


If someone had put a gun to my head and told me to guess where this album is from in three tries, ten tries, hell even fifty tries, I would be a very dead woman. Sounding like all the best parts of Bad Religion, Rise Against, Kvelertak, and Mötorhead, Feels Like Heaven hails from Stockholm, Sweden. Which is insane because the blend of Emocore, melodic hardcore, and skate punk on this album combines into a genre I could only describe as “HELL YEAH”. This album sounds like this image:


 

Everything about this album just goes fuckin crazy. The distorted guitar tones are endless endorphin factories, the riffs are fast paced and catchy, and the vocals are screamable, singable, and everything in between. Every hook on this album is so addicting. If you check out one song from this album please make it Sandra Bullock. It features one of the softer riffs on the album for the verse. An almost clean guitar tone plays sustained arpeggios over lyric delivery that sounds almost blink-182-esque. But the chorus brings back those bright fuzzy power chords, and lead singer Emanuel Wildung comes in with a full chested delivery of the line “I’ll be yours in every single corner of the earth”. It feels like being hooked up to a car battery. 

The mixing is treble heavy and slightly tinny, which is usually something I hate but it really enhances and completes Feels Like Heaven's sound. It gives it an unpolished vibe that feels so much more personal. It radiates energy. You can feel the pulse of some dimly lit basement full to bursting with people screaming every word. 

At only 24 minutes long for its runtime it’s easily one of the shortest albums I’ve reviewed, and not a second is wasted. The track list is incredibly tight, songs hit back to back to back with explosive catchy intros, and even the slower songs are used not as contrast to the energy of the album, but as reinforcement. Feels Like Heaven lets final power chords ring just enough to end songs in a satisfying way, but never lets silence hang for more than a second. Endings on this album are commas, never periods. Even the last song, Take The Rain, ends in a comma. It’s abrupt, with a sound like someone stopping a record with the needle still on the record. Conceptually I almost take issue with it. Let an ending be an ending right? But so many streaming services these days have some sort of auto play feature, something that queues a bunch of similar songs after an album ends, and it feels like this is a gift for people who have that feature turned on. It’s a transition that works well into just about every song that’s been auto played after. Me personally I get bands like Spite House, Title Fight, Turnstile, just about anything hardcore adjacent, but I’m curious to see if this works out with other people’s algorithms, so if you end up checking this album out with auto play on please let me know!

It’s a bite sized album, but it’s such a delicious, well balanced bite. It’s the perfect appetizer to what I expect will be a very good year for music. 

 

Other Albums from this month I enjoyed

By Storm & Injury Reserve - My Ghosts Go Ghost

  • The passing of Stepa J. Groggs forever changed Arizona experimental Hip-Hop group Injury Reserve. In the throes of grief they made By The Time I Get To Phoenix, a metaphysically shattered album and one of the most devastating art peices about grief I have ever experienced. 5 years later they have returned as By Storm. This album is metaphysically disjointed, not broken, like something that is learning how to put itself back together but isn’t quite there yet. Definitely not an album for everyone, but I can almost guarantee this will be one of the most unique releases this year.

Manderley - You Come in Seasons and Depart Through Windy Gusts and Blowing Leaves 

  • Listening to the new album by Manderley, project of 19 year old singer songwriter Tyler Gray, feels how I can only imagine it felt to discover Car Seat Headrest’s music while Will Toledo was still making music in his car. It’s raw, unpolished, harsh, direct, and a bit off key sometimes, but somehow that only adds to its charm. It’s 69 minutes (nice) of super specific incredibly emo hyper-confessional lyrics over instrumental arrangements artists twice his age have been unable to come even close to.

Yumi Zouma - No Love Lost to Kindness

  • Super fun indie pop rock album, fans of Japanese Breakfast will be right at home here. The sound design on this is amazing everything is perfectly tuned. Layered vocals, super crisp drums, and a jangley guitar just barely floating above everything. I feel like summer will be ideal for listening to this album. 

Blanket - True Blue

  • I admit at times I grow weary of this new wave of shoegaze. This is not one of those times. It's not necessarily anything we haven't heard already from the likes of Glare, trauma ray, and Wisp, but not everything needs to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes you can just build a really good wheel. And if that wheel has perfect mixing, perfect guitar tones, and enough reverb to make it feel like it surrounds you? I'm sold. 

Ellende - Zerfall

  • God I love atmospheric black metal so fucking much. The composition is gorgeous, there's a fuckin accordion solo, it's just so well made.