Golomb

Molded in the fertile rock crescent of Columbus, Ohio, three-piece Golomb (rhymes with Column) channel Midwest friction into an album that seeks to find a genuine connection. The band boasts not one, but two bonded dynamics, something of an aberration among most trios. Siblings Xenia (bass) and Hawken (drums) tie down the rhythm section with songwriter/guitarist Mickey Shuman and Xenia turning their tags to spouse after years of dating. The close bonds between the members have fed into the band’s process — family and friends first and band second, leveraging years of trust to turn The Beat Goes On into an album that never wavers in its sincerity.

Bounding through bluster like Loop one minute and hunkered down like Pixies pummeling pop’s soft spots at Fort Apache the next. The underlying buzz on “Real Power” dips a few miles south of Columbus to channel Dayton’s favorite sons, stitching together some clear-eyed clamor from the GBV playbook. The band lays it bare on “Dog” with a slow slink that builds toward the singed elegance of Spiritualized and a lyrical labyrinth that’s cut and pasted into a Burroughs-esque blur of rock motifs. The song peaks in pure maelstrom with a glorious glut of feedback foaming out of the speakers. The familiar specter of The Velvets rears its head in the shambolic beat of the title track, and “Other Side Of The Earth” gets gooey with dub, but never loses the band’s ability to feed the fray. Then, they wind guitar around their rhythms with the grace of early Built To Spill on “Be Here Now,” letting the sax twirls of Henry Ross send the song into the ether.

Golomb was formed in 2019 by Mickey and Xenia. The couple briefly moved out of Ohio, before coming back in 2020 and settling into Xenia’s folks house. Hawken joined the fold and the trio began a working relationship with engineer Keith Hanlon, capping off a series of self-released recordings with the 3-song Love EP in 2024. Hanlon is behind the board for The Beat Goes On, recorded at Musicol and Secret Studio in Columbus, showcasing a bigger, bolder dynamic that captured the band’s live energy to tape. The album was then mixed by Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park Transductions in Athens, Georgia.