Photo by Juliette Boulay 

Did someone say there was a resurgence of the 2010s Massachusetts DIY indie rock scene? Because the O.G.’s never really left and are doing just fine. Devon McKnight, frontman of Boston underground greats Grass Is Green and former Speedy Ortiz guitarist, is one of them, and he hasn’t dulled the edges of his axe in all these years under his own solo work with his genre-transcendent indie rock outfit MANEKA. It’s been three years since he delved into the Darker Matter of being a musician of color in traditionally white spaces and this world in general, and solidifying his own identity within it remains at the forefront of “shallowing” and “dimelo”, the two opening tracks and early highlight singles from his new album, bathes and listens.

These two turn up the emotive violence on the soundboard in dichotomy form, with “shallowing” being an obsession of Pinback-esque codas thrown into a turmoil blender rife with McKnight’s internal monologues and nightmares. You think there’s a way out of it, but then “dimelo” gets you in a choke hold with every anxiety repressed now flooding toward the surface through a whelming distortion storm and basketball metaphors. To say this is an elder millennial scene vet in a midst of an existential life crisis would be sonically correct, but don’t mistake it for him losing that magic touch in the indie rock game. The Philly DIY lifer is proving he’s got a lot of gas left in the tank here, even when he’s hitting new adulting lows.

Directed by: Juliette Boulay 

MANEKA’s bathes and listens will be released October 29th on Topshelf Records.