ALL AGES
STANDING ROOM ONLY
A far cry from the cool, calculated distance and reserved posture that is all-too-familiar to the indie-rock sphere, Florry, the Philly-bred septet and songwriting vehicle of bandleader Francie Medosch, are marking their territory as a band resolving to do something very different: they are having a really good time out there.
Cutting her teeth in the Philadelphia DIY scene starting in 2019 as a student at Temple University, the early days of Florry found Medosch at the end of her teenage years releasing a slew of singles and EP’s in a familiar idiom of lo-fi bedroom recordings tinged with country melancholy. A lot has changed since then. Most importantly, perhaps, the project snowballed into a barn-burning seven piece rock band in the proceeding years; and without sacrificing any of the emotional immediacy that’s come to define Medosch’s brashly earnest, bleeding-heart lyrical style, you’re unlikely to find her lingering as much on the melancholy these days. Or, as Medosch plainly puts it in regards to Sounds Like… , the band’s forthcoming LP.
The release of their 2023 formal full-length debut The Holey Bible (via Dear Life) found Medosch now flanked by six bandmates and trafficking in a wider, more rock-oriented approach with the bravado of someone with a new lease on life. With Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Colin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culturr) on drums, Florry 2.0 had arrived. The retooled seven-piece embraced a lengthy run of tours dialing in their new kinetic sound and freewheeling chemistry including runs with Fust, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman, and Real Estate. Greeted to critical acclaim upon its release, with positive notices from outlets including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan, the album quickly introduced Florry to an expanded audience and pointed a way forward for Medosch and the band at a time when the future wasn’t so clear.
On the winkingly titled Sounds Like, the band’s second full-length release via Dear Life, Florry is picking up right where they left off in 2023. Again upping the ante with a bigger, brighter, more abrasive sound that resembles something closer to Rolling Thunder Revue-era Bob Dylan than their humble DIY roots. Across ten tracks, the band wear their influences on their sleeve while carving out a space that is distinctly their own, blending raw honky-tonk grit and rich instrumental textures with the disarming sincerity and intimacy of the group’s lo-fi beginnings. It’s a record about searching—searching for home, for love, for meaning, and for a sound that captures it all.
Caelan Burris has a landscape for a voice. A landscape smattered with rocky hills, empty Steel Reserve bottles, and dense Western Carolina forests. A landscape populated by what became of the kids who played Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Game Boy Advance, burnt out cruel rural soccer cliques, and a healthy dose of classic Appalachian hicks. “How Could I Be So In Debt?” takes the living world trapped within Burris’ voice and expands it into a statement. Tombstone Poetry constructs dynamic and distinct auditory images of that world- intentionally and meticulously assembling a blown out sonic diorama with a remarkable level of skill. Strikingly honest and unabashedly of its place, Tombstone Poetry’s long-awaited full length is something to behold.
