Golomb

Molded in the fertile rock crescent of Columbus, Ohio, three-piece Golomb channels Midwest friction into an album that seeks to find a genuine connection. The band boasts not one, but two bonded dynamics, something of an aberration among most trios. Siblings Xenia (bass) and Hawken (drums) tie down the rhythm section with songwriter/guitarist Mickey Shuman and Xenia turning their tags to spouse after years of dating. The close bonds between the members have fed into the band’s process — family and friends first and band second, leveraging years of trust to turn The Beat Goes On into an album that never wavers in its sincerity. An early recording session with engineer Keith Hanlon for their EP Love expands as the band returns to record the new album with him at Musicol and Secret Sound with a bigger, bolder dynamic that captures the band’s live energy to tape. Not only the sound, but the studio itself was fuller this time, with embellishments from Henry Ross and Bob Starker on Sax, David Holm and Austin Wyckoff on guitar, and Abi Gray adding violin.

Stripping away artifice, Golomb takes an omnivorous approach to the solid and staid structures of rock in 2025. The band admittedly sets their compass on the classic magnetism of The Stones, letting Mick n’ the boys’ chameleonic nature feed their own urge to not be pinned down by genre expectations. Emerging from the 8-track turbulence of their debut, they slip from psych scorch to power pop with stops through dub and country along the way. Now, on first listen to the band’s sophomore LP, visions of UK rock godfathers might not spring to mind, but much like a quartet from Queens once penned their own ‘teenage symphonies to God’ and found punk in the process, Golomb have a way of fusing the past in unexpected ways with impressive results.

In search of rock’s lost chords, the band smelts the sounds on their stereo into a fuzz-lapped long player that’s bound to bring forth a few ‘90s nods from listeners. The underlying buzz on “Real Power” dips a few miles south of Columbus to channel Dayton’s favorite sons, stitching together some clear-eyed clamor from the GBV playbook. The band lays it bare on “Dog” with a slow slink that builds toward the singed elegance of Spiritualized and a lyrical labyrinth that’s cut and pasted into a Burroughs-esque blur of rock motifs. The song peaks in pure maelstrom with a glorious glut of feedback foaming out of the speakers. The familiar specter of The Velvets rears its head in the shambolic beat of the title track, and “Other Side Of The Earth” gets gooey with dub, but never loses the band’s ability to feed the fray. Then, they wind guitar around their rhythms with the grace of early Built To Spill on “Be Here Now.” The sax twirls of Henry Ross send the song into the ether before scrounging up a few “Wild Horses” on the fatalistic closer “Sweet Release (Ain’t No Devil).”

The album finds the band bounding through bluster like Loop one minute and hunkered down like Pixies pummeling pop’s soft spots at Fort Apache the next. The voracious volume of influences can be chalked up to an eclectic atmosphere for music in the Holm household, an environment that proved welcoming to Mickey as he was brought into the fold, and eventually the family. The album is ultimately about connection; a lifeline from the constant flicker of distractions, horrors, hubris, and duplicity that permeate everyday interactions in modern life. The band knows they may not have all the answers, but there’s little that can’t be solved with a hit, a hi-hat, and a riff that grabs you by the shoulders and shakes.