Author Archives: Wendell G. Kensey

Similar to their sisters in sentiment if not genre, Wet Leg shares Florry’s deadpan vocal style that’s less about detachment and more about agency— using restraint as a form of power.  They haven’t abandoned the sarcasm, side-eye, or sing-song taunts that made their 2022 self-titled debut album explode, but this time, they’re wielding those tools […]

Still warm from the afterglow of Boat Songs and that moonlit Neil reverie, we drift into Florry’s world — looser, louder, and lit like a backyard hang that turned into a recording session. They’re a Philadelphia crew that comes across less like a band and more like a chosen family, bonded by late nights, shared […]

Neil Young is one of the very few people on earth who can make a corporate-branded amphitheater feel like a cathedral. Not because he tries to — he doesn’t — but because the gravitational pull of his career, and the stubborn refusal to sand down its jagged edges, turns even a place named after a […]

Coming off “On the Beach,” we now present to you the closest thing Gen Z has to a modern-day Neil:  a slacker poet with a fuzz pedal, a fondness for heartbreak, and a voice that sounds like it’s thinking out loud. MJ Lenderman might not be running from the mainstream, but he sure as hell isn’t […]

First, a quick word about what this column is all about. The big idea here at Common Chords is simple: All music is connected. Over the course of this series, we’re going to try to prove it — not with charts or genre tags, but with vibes, guitar tones, and emotional through-lines that make sense if […]