***Even as the primary torchbearers for Detroit’s underrepresented pop factions, Deadbeat Beat remain on a path apart. The band has evolved gradually, growing deeper musically and intellectually around a core of immediate songwriting and always landing outside of standard indie rock parameters. This difference and the growth within it are both in full view on From Here to Ohio, the group’s third album and first substantial work since 2020’s How Far. It’s a powerful wave of songs that hit instantaneously, even as the band takes new risks with composition, instrumentation, and the vulnerability of saying more.The things that have always been great about Deadbeat Beat are still great. Sprouting from a teenage friendship that grew into a musical practice between drummer/vocalist Maria Nuccilli and guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Alex Glendening, the band has long lived in the precarious and holy intersection of garage rock drive and indie pop catchiness. Rounded out by the understated melodic bass playing of Zak Frieling, the songs became their own brand of dualistic excitement; ragged and nervy enough to dance to mindlessly in the basement house show, but never far from the melancholia and neurotic jangle of the most introverted Flying Nun band. Those basic building blocks are still in place here. The guitars are still clean (but not too clean), the rhythms are still snappy and uncluttered, and tight vocal harmonies still beam out like unbroken lines on a freshly repaved highway to somewhere better. Even if heard from a muffled distance, From Here to Ohio would...
LP $27.75
06/12/2026