goldenstar
Chamber Music
OST
According to a quick Google search, there’s a Seattle band called Kids on Fire who at one point branded their melodic punk rock as “bummercore,” and just last week, a Kansas outfit, FRACTVRED, laid claim to the same term, applying it to their “alternative metal” stylings.
If you ask me, however, “bummercore” is a much better descriptor for goldenstar, a Montreal group who’ve filled their new Chamber Music EP with a collection of spellbindingly mopey tunes. Funnily enough, the record was engineered by Patrick Holland, who then mixed and mastered it alongside his Jump Source companion Francis Latreille (a.k.a. Priori), but goldenstar themselves go nowhere near the dancefloor. Deeply indebted to the ’90s, Chamber Music takes cues from a myriad of indie, slowcore and post-hardcore acts; the official promo blurb mentions Heatmiser, Sonic Youth and Sparklehorse, but comparisons could just as easily be made to bands like Slint and Failure, not to mention the more zoned-out offerings of Thingy, Heavy Vegetable, Pinback and what might be described as the entire Rob Crow extended universe.
In simpler terms, this is moody, meditative music, and though it technically resides within the rock canon, goldenstar are far more interested in slacker melancholy than guitar heroics. (The slow-burning “Belemen” is the only track on the EP with a significant amount of squall, and even there, it’s presented as more of a side dish than a main course.) That lack of bravado gives Chamber Music a sort of charming vulnerability, a quality that’s only enhanced by the band’s sluggishly half-sung, half-spoken vocals. On standout cuts “Forget” and “Thread,” those vocals take the form of a boy-girl back and forth, unfolding with the nervous energy of a first date—one that’s quietly going well, despite the fact that both people involved are far too shy and introverted to take things to the next level.
Dropping Chamber Music during a time when norms are crumbling, everything feels unstable and merely picking up your phone and scrolling through your newsfeed can trigger bouts of existential dread, goldenstar have managed to capture the sense of permanent exhaustion that comes with moving through the modern world. They’re not alone in that—Chicago quartet Cancer House, whose The Moth is another one of 2026’s standout releases, occupy a similar (albeit somewhat murkier) zone—but what makes their music so bewitching is the way they’re not only refused to succumb to the darkness, but have found small pockets of beauty within it.