New Press (2024-Present)

View the New Poem Rocket Press Kit.

Includes: The Big Takeover, Bandcamp Daily, Stereogum, Chicago Reader, Sun 13, Thought Words Actions, Rosy Overdrive, Yellow Green Red, Uxigned, and more … with more to come.

View an archival press kit Poem Rocket’s first epoch (c. 1994-2007).

New Press Highlights

  • Poem Rocket approached melody with suspicion, noise with delicacy, and emotional disclosure with a strange combination of intimacy and distance. Listening now, the album sounds uncannily contemporary precisely because it never attempted to belong to its own moment.

    —James Broscheid, The Big Takeover

  • This one’s a bit of a cheat because it’s not a proper album, but it plays like one, capturing the unheralded NYC band in all their squalling glory ... carving out gloomy, wind-lashed songs like “Eject” and “Small White Animal.”

    —Erick Bradshaw, Bandcamp Daily

  • The ’90s and 2000s-vintage New York rock band Poem Rocket—self-described “art-noise-indie genre-defiers”—recently reunited for their first live show in decades, and now they’re about to share previously unreleased music. Next week the band will release Lend-Lease, a shelved EP from 1999.

    —Chris Deville, Stereogum

  • Despite its vintage, it sounds fresh and immediate—as though you’ve cracked open a time capsule full of fierce winged creatures furious to have been awakened from their deep hibernation. In just 26 minutes, Lend-Lease cements itself in your soul ...

    —Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader

  • We get a sonic surprise in the form of Lend-Lease, an EP recorded in 1999 and lovingly gifted now. "Depth Charge" is a Mogwai-heavy sludge across noise-rock waves and sharp Throwing Muses vocals, then we head into dreamy but sharp post-punk moods and folk-industrial lullabies, culminating in a superbly electric avant-punk exit. Poem Rocket is now!

    —Dave Franklin, The Big Takeover

  • ... it’s bands like Poem Rocket that remind you of why you fell in love with music in the first place, and their latest release, the Lend-Lease EP, only reaffirms that notion.

    —Simon Kirk, Sun-13

  • Other albums of note out this week: Poem Rocket's Lend-Lease EP.

    —Tom Breihan, Stereogum

  • One of those acts who left me completely slack jawed after a highly inspired set [at Dromfest 2024] was Poem Rocket, the NYC band who deftly married arty post-punk, intelligent lyricism, with high energy psych rock in their initial run ...

    —The Ash Gray Proclamation

  • Lend-Lease offers you four fantastic tracks that combine elements of shoegaze, post-rock and lo-fo and create exciting arrangements. The raw, washed out and direct guitar sound literally gives the listener the feeling of being there live at a gig and feeling the pure energy up close.

    —Berlin on Air

  • Acclaimed for their fusion of dark, conceptually-driven post punk and unpredictable melodic inventiveness, Poem Rocket expressed the indie underground's imagination ...

    —Destroy/Exist

  • With a bold mix of noise, art rock and psychedelic melodies, Poem Rocket returns with the intensity and creativity that earned them acclaim from publications such as Melody Maker, CMJ and Pitchfork.

    —La Caverna

  • Despite being over two decades old, Lend-Lease feels fresh, poised to resonate with dedicated fans and newcomers alike.

    —TunesAround

  • The opening track, "Depth Charge", sets the mood with its haunting imagery and dynamic, shifting sonic textures ... the song evokes a sense of submerged tension, where distorted sounds and muffled explosions mirror a psyche drowning in isolation. The track's sense of urgency anchors the EP's exploration of fascism, ethics, and the tension between the past and the future.

    —Sam Corrazza, Unxigned

  • Atmospheric reverb and guitar work that packs a particular vibe and punch, with a mood-setting quality and spirit that feels like a trip back in time to a different type of time in New York City.

    —Will Oliver, We All Want Something to Shout For

  • The music of Poem Rocket is a bit hard to describe; it’s almost easier to say what they don’t sound like on Lend-Lease. They aren’t low-end-worshipping Unsane-ish cavemen noise rock, nor are they clear-cut Sonic Youth distortion/fuzz architects–and they’re not comparable to any of the main “post-rock” bands either ... Lend-Lease is a marvel of well-orchestrated indie rock made with a utilitarian toolkit–every surprising acoustic bit, every piano accent, every confident step taken forward by the electric guitars feels like the result of much deliberation and mapping.

    —Rosy Overdrive

  • The tension between heaviness and atmosphere is one of Lend-Lease’s defining features. Tracks erupt into walls of noise only to dissolve into moments of eerie calm, a dynamic push-and-pull that keeps the listener on edge. This balance between aggression and introspection mirrors the thematic undercurrents of the EP, which grapples with questions of history, resistance, and the human condition ... This EP isn’t just a rediscovered gem, it’s a call to action ... In an age where so much music feels disposable, Lend-Lease stands as a sheer example of true artistry and the power of perseverance.

    —Djordje Miladinović, Thoughts Words Action

  • The only problem with Lend-Lease is that there isn’t more ....

    —Sun-13’s Top 25 EPs of 2024

  • Embellished with luminous guitar melodies, the soundscape offers a transcendent and transfixing experience that strikes you with awe and frisson alike. Poem Rocket artfully and skillfully fuse the cosmic outer chaos with the chasmic inner expanse in their soundscapes, capturing the essence of both in every note and every line ...

    —Lost in the Manor

  • True story, and just as a little aside: we accidentally played this LP on 45 rpm ... The thing is, it sounded beautiful. That said, as soon as we spun it at the proper 33 rpm, we found ourselves stunned. The fact that something too mind-falteringly beautiful if esoteric was kept under wraps for a quarter of a century seems criminal.

    —Brett Callwood, Music Connection

  • Poem Rocket hit that weird spot where their music seems to come from an emotional place, and is clearly underground, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with any form of emo ... “Black Freighter Contraband” is closer to acoustic Led Zep than American Football or The Hated.

    —Matt Korvette, Yellow Green Red