An adaptive sense of ‘post-punk’ may be the most ‘way’ to file Chicago’s Axis: Sova, the trio of Brett Sova, Jeremy Freeze, and Josh Johannpeter, who’ve been expanding listener’s lids, and their own, for over a decade. The broad definitions of rock and its branches are rich krovvy that froths in Axis: Sova’s veins, and they enjoy progressive tactics when spilling it. Today, they announce their sharpest-sounding recording to date, Flowerage, with the aptly titled lead single, “Blow Up”, accompanied by a music video directed by Sean Pierce and Karen Schmitz.
“Blow Up” builds out a garage riff in iced-rock supreme – a staccato chorus chant of “No flash, no flash! Photography! Trigger trigger! Warning warning!” sets it off, with fuzzed-and-phased out guitar melodies complemented by a righteously dynamic drum and bass dialogue. Earworm hooks stay omnipresent throughout, with metronomic rhythms moving flexibly into a breathing frame, and exquisite electric guitar settings rivaling late-period Zep (if they were on Factory Records) on a pair of mighty breaks.
Ever since Blinded By Oblivion knocked listeners out back in 2023, the band has spent ample time on Chicago’s Northwest side looking for fresh shocks and patterns in sound, aided in no small part to the extensive touring done across the USA and Europe since its release. In August of last year, fresh off an east coast run with new songs in tow, the band went into Electrical Audio with Cooper Crain to start laying things down, before mixing at Crain’s Sweat Loge studio in January 2026, wherein the Flowerage bouquet was fully dialed in- energetic and IN COLOR.
Indeed, Flowerage is an expansive record, in wide-screen with a visceral pull and elegant bloom. It gets the blood back out the rock, to focus an eye in the world’s chaos. Urgent and weird, Flowerage is also soul music: the mental and the physical, themes of growth and change, a tradition and a calling. What else are bands for? Flowerage is out via GOD? Records on October 23, 2026.
Axis: Sova On Tour:
11/5 Minneapolis, MN @ Cloudland Theater
11/6 Chicago, IL @ The Hideout
11/11 Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s*
11/12 Brooklyn, NY @ Hart Bar*
* w/ Upper Wilds
(More dates to come!)
