Lupo Città

For their second record, Boston trio Lupo Città crashes the gates with an acerbic growl, but the record’s not built entirely on grit and grievance. The band, featuring Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Come) alongside Jenn Gori and Sarah Black (both of Bleeding Hickey) entered into the album with a raw nerve, turning isolation into invective and anxiety into introspection. There are moments on Inverno that rattle hunched and hollow, as cold at the heart of the title (Italian for Winter) might imply. A song or two later the band is twisting riff into wire sculptures and running the results through scarred amp wires with a cathartic sneer. The record plays on the brittle legacies of Chris’ indie past; hackled hooks that don’t sit pretty among their indie peers. They feel a natural fit for 12xU’s always inspiring roster, though; continually one of the most fertile wellsprings going.

The record is a rebuff to a world disordered, a system stacked and seemingly more sinister at every turn. It’s a shield in the storm, a light under gathered clouds, a beacon, a mantra, a shoulder and a shove in the right direction. The last few years have left even the most assured shaken and Lupo Città turn the doubt in dire times into dented riffs and a desire for connection. A more varied set than their debut, and all the better for the chances they take. Inverno is rusted and rutted, but its aversion to polish makes it all the more potent. Clean cuts don’t agitate the way the rusty ones do, so here’s to a little grit in the gash. The friction forces it’s riffs into the bloodstream, coursing through like an infection set to boil. A perfect fit for the itch of 2026.

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