“I’m rotting and I’m never coming back the way you knew me then,” Kalmia Traver (Rubblebucket) sings languidly on opener “Red Marker,” setting the radiant, springtime-trippy tone for Max Heart. What began as Traver’s solo side project, Kalbells has bloomed into a band featuring Angelica Bess (Body Language), Zoë Brecher (Hushpuppy, Sad13), and Sarah Pedinotti (Lip Talk), and their collective groove is definitely in the Heart. These 10 tracks are psychedelic in the most mind freeing, soothing, yellow-smiley-face sense of the word—elastic funk and fluid synth-pop blurring the lines between sensual and surreal, complete with hyper-pictorial lyrics delivered so smoothly you might miss lines like: “When I’ve lost the last of my inde-cent thoughts/That’s how I know it’s time to/Hump the beach.” –Emily Nokes
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2021 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!
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