From Here To Ohio

Deadbeat Beat — 2026

“The ringing guitars, stacked harmonies, and sharp songwriting make From Here To Ohio feel like the band’s arrival.”

Deadbeat Beat have not released much music since 2020, so it is great to hear the Detroit band back with their third album, From Here To Ohio. From those earlier releases, the band has grown and widened the space from their previous sound, which had a touch more garage rock to it. Now we have a record that feels all in on the indie jangle sound, and it creates their best release to date. The core of Maria Nuccilli, Alex Glendening, and Zak Frieling still keeps the guitars crisp, with snappy drums and stacked harmonies that lock in and pull each song forward. Pete Steffy is now aboard on keys, and his glowy synth pads and organ open little trapdoors under songs that used to run on guitar alone.

What gets me is how much heavy feeling can hide inside these 10 bright songs. A worn-out Midwestern dread drifts through the album, scrolling past wildfires on your phone, feeling past your prime while basic survival looks shaky, but the band treats all of it like a party they refuse to leave early. I have listened to this album multiple times, and that darker side stays just out of focus while the ringing chords and interwoven voices do the real work of carrying you somewhere better. The vocal interplay from Deadbeat Beat is the winner here. Plenty of great bands will come to mind as you tap your foot through each track, but From Here To Ohio still feels like Deadbeat Beat’s own next step.

“Peach Sprite” stares down a collapse in front of a touchscreen soda machine and somehow turns it into the cheeriest singalong the apocalypse is likely to produce. The melody is so easy you barely notice it slipping in hostile takeovers and police sound cannons. “Heaven” has a classic indie vibe as it floats with the additional synth pads and lands on a simple idea: other people are the whole point. The vocal melody drifts and stretches until it feels weightless and holds as one of the most upbeat pivotal tracks on the album. “Straight Friends” has a similar beat as Alex drives the tempo with his voice, while the song includes this crazy little cool, almost ambient moment in its last third before it returns to its original chords. “Dying On That Hill” rides a warm combo organ and a title that started as a Kate Bush joke, then settles into a quiet lament about hesitation that earns its slow-burn outro.

If you like the way Alvvays wrap heartache in jangle and shimmer, Deadbeat Beat scratch the same chord with a little more grit under the fingernails. The clean guitars and unhurried melodies share some space with the now defunct Ultimate Painting, along with some R.E.M. The brisk strum and homemade charm point straight back to The Clean and the early Flying Nun catalog the band clearly grew up on, as well as a little Beat Happening. The interweaving vocal harmonies and jangly, fuzzed-out guitar layers connect for me to the latest Prism Shores record, while the towering group harmonies have the same impact as The New Pornographers or a little Cincy band I always liked called The Seedy Seeds. Chris Cohen also came to mind, as he was always really good at slipping unsettled lyrics under pretty arrangements without ever tipping the balance. What ties all of these together is the belief that a good hook lands best when the song, not the volume, does the talking.

Records this comfortable can only be made with some life experience. You can hear all those years folded into every turn here. Deadbeat Beat have figured out how to sound bigger and braver while still acting like they have a very “indie” nothing to prove.