By: Renee Zon

To cut to the chase, Bruiser consists of lyrical, diverse, and emotionally poignant folk/singer-songwriter music and was submitted to us from Grief Group Records, an interesting small DIY label out of CT.

Bruiser starts with a very peaceful anthem titled “Little Devils”, which seems to be a commentary on how we all sacrifice ourselves to make a deal with our personal tormenters. Extremely warm and pleasant, the song had a droning sort of quality with light strumming and repetitive melody. Great start. The lyrics clearly have thought behind them, as well as meaning.

The next song, titled “Year Two”, leaves behind a peaceful songwriter aesthetic in order to make way for an interesting folk punk inspired song. The lyrics throughout the project so far are interesting. Great rhyme alongside well crafted songs. A chorus of Kazoo’s makes this song lots of fun.

We then return to a more peaceful vibe, the next song titled “Hotel June Malibu”, which is a longing melody with pleasant accordion and more catchy melody. The lyrics call for someone who left the singer behind for better things. Dynamically, another great song with lots of meaning. Being able to fit so much emotion into a piece which is very minimal instrumentally is impressive.

Next song is a mouthful, but the title itself paints a picture, “This Song Is For The Girl Who Covered Dodie’s ‘She’ On My Borrowed Ukulele Outside The Union…”An almost lullaby, the author is comforting himself over missed opportunities. More of a droning musical backing, nice rhythmic strumming which uses minimalism to put a focal point on fantastic lyrical content. Calvin (assuming that isn’t a pseudonym) tells the listener to revel in taking risks, because the messiness of life is a privilege.

The final song is titled, “Stress Dreams” and man can I relate to that. It picks up the pace a bit with some mid-tempo strumming backed by the richly-textured drone of a harmonica and some visually-stimulating lyrics. I can’t help but laugh at the idea of experiencing  a dream where your high school teacher pulls a fast one and tests you on “double secret calculus”

Overall, this project is great. It is humorous, meaningful, and the concept is well formed, including smirk-worthy lyrical highlights such as “transcendental filters on your story posts, snack time in the bathroom with the holy ghost” and “I used to run a much much tighter ship, well lately I’ve been sailing on the USS ‘who gives a shit”.

Most prominently, Calvin writes songs about the sacrifice of self care, how sometimes we need to cut people we love out of our life if we ever want to grow or heal.  I find myself relating to the lyrics significantly, and I think anyone would. Calvin is creating some fantastic art, reaching into your soul and showing your own heart on his sleeve.

I’m certain that whoever’s running Grief Group Records has fantastic taste and I look forward to hearing more. This is the sort of stuff CT needs more of, I applaud the label for making me aware of this musician. I am confident that if they keep putting out music of this caliber, they’ll manage to find a wider audience and bring this sense of thoughtfulness to a greater swath of people.

Calvin Pineda and the Antacids have a new release titled, “…And What Shall We Wear?”, out on September 8th