Last year, NYC’s bloodsports’ released a great debut album, Anything Can Be A Hammer, and became one of Best New Artists of 2025. Turns out, one of the band’s guitarists, Jeremy Mock, has his own project called face of ancient gallery and is gearing up to release a new album Like Kites on May 1 via Good English. Like Kites is the follow-up to face of ancient gallery’s self-titled 2024 debut album, and the first preview we’re hearing is the title track.
“Like Kites” is a delicate thing. Mock’s hushed vocals tiptoe around acoustic guitar plucks. Then a violin stretches its limbs into track. Electronic twinkles follow close behind. In the press release, Mock explained that this was the last song written for the album, coming together nearly “by accident.” He continued:
I am a pretty obsessive editor with my music generally, but this track was an experiment in immediacy. There were almost no edits to the lyrics, and the whole thing came together in only a few sittings. I feel as though lyrically it tows the line of being cliched, but increasingly that is where I am trying to land with my lyrics. To me, the biggest risk you can take as an artist in 2026 is towing that line, because that is the place from which you can face genuine ridicule. When it came time to record, I had Dan Poppa from People I Love (who I was living with at the time) write an electric guitar part for the chorus. I don’t remember us even tuning the guitar, we just went for it and it turned out exactly how I wanted it. We later tried to record it with a better tone and an amp, but it just didn’t have the same magic, and we stuck with the original.
Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Curtain“
02 “Yellow Hats“
03 “Wet the bed“
04 “Columbine Street“
05 “House Show“
06 “Like Kites“
07 “Green Wood“
08 “Rings“
Like Kites is out 5/1 on Good English. Pre-order here.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
