Select Frequency #3

Your latest dose of carefully curated chaos

Hello one and all, and welcome back to Select Frequency, the recurring series where the possibly insane writers at gatekeep! craft a 10-song playlist exclusively for you. I’m Ben Rosenberg, and I’ll be leading the charge this week. I am so sorry in advance. I can’t promise that everything I present for you will be to your taste, but I can promise that I’ll make the best possible case for each song. And, hey, if you consider yourself poly-jam-orous like me, maybe you’ll find a new addition for your weekly rotation! With that in mind, let’s not waste anymore time. Start the playlist!

1. Iroha - Meltdown

2. Set it Off - Rotten

3. OCT - Myrtle Beach

4. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Deadstick

5. Adjy - The Festival Grounds

6. Ghost - Watcher in the Sky

7. Deftones - Royal

8. Cryoshell - Gravity Hurts

9. Electric Light Orchestra - Don’t Bring Me Down

10. LEVEREVE - Timid Eyes 

Iroha - “Meltdown”

single // 2008 // j-pop

Recently, Apple Music celebrated its 10th anniversary of operation, and, to commemorate the occasion, released a version of its yearly Replay that covered users’ most streamed songs for the entirety of their time with the service. This, at least for me, was a mistake. I was reacquainted with every cringe song from my youth, plenty of which still do hold up, but are difficult to listen to without wincing at the person I used to be. But there’s exceptions, and “Meltdown” is one of them. If you’re at all familiar with Vocaloid, especially if you got into it in the mid-2010s like I did, then you’ve heard “Meltdown”, or at least heard of it. The single catapulted into the public eye for damn good reason, an upbeat yet melancholic pop track that wheels itself forward with a fantastic piano melody, all while Kagamine Rin belts with all her heart (or, at least, all the heart producer iroha could manage to program). The true showstopper of the track is the bridge, where everything slows for a gorgeous minute, Rin’s robotic vocals shining clear and bright over the pianos, right before iroha and Rin explode into the final chorus to bring it all home.

Set It Off - “Rotten”

from Set It Off // 2025 (Upcoming) // alt metal - hard rock

Set It Off has long been a favorite of mine, going back to my days in middle school when I first discovered “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”. After rediscovering them in college, I’ve gotten to witness the joy of them returning their edgier roots, and sounding as natural as they did way back in 2014. “Rotten” is effectively the final form of this, with Set It Off finally making the full jump to Octane-core-esque metalcore. I would normally decry this as the band losing touch and selling out, but “Rotten” manages to retain much of the band’s DNA: Cody Carson’s infectious vocal melodies, the classic “friends betraying you” lyrics (does Cody need therapy with how many songs he’s written with this angle?), Maxx Danzinger going nuts on the drum kit, and a catchy chorus that will get crowds singing along at every concert. Where “Rotten” excels is the new ground it paves for Set It Off, with Cody breaking out some genuinely decent harsh vocals in the first verse and breakdown, which I can only hope will become a constant in the band’s future.

OCT - “Myrtle Beach”

single // 2025 // comedy pop

Comedy music, by and large, died a while ago. What little remains is good for a few quick laughs, or, in the case of certain artists, shallow parodies that are designed to be cringe, the days of Lonely Island and YouTube comedy music long since left in the dust. But, if I had to pick one artist to carry the torch, it would easily be OCT. Despite only being active since 2023, the trio has proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with. “Myrtle Beach” is a perfect example of this fact, with the trio (and Kyle Gordon) placing emphasis on the melody first, rather than wholly leaning on the lyrics. Said lyrics, an anthem to the #1 vacation spot for divorced dads everywhere, compliment the melody perfectly, and the song is short enough to not wear out its welcome, making this a shockingly enjoyable summer tune in the process.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - “Deadstick”

from Phantom Island // 2025 // psych rock - orchestral rock

Ahh, good old King Gizz, the band that somehow manages to distill the chaos of Australia down to a musical science. The band’s 27th studio album takes the bluesy rock of previous album Flight b741, and wraps it up in an orchestra that gives it the grandest feeling of any Gizz album so far. Second single “Deadstick” feels like the truest successor to b741, a bluesy, bouncy riff that works in perfect harmony with a horn ensemble, complimented by some of the band’s greatest vocal work in the past few years. What stands out to me in this track is just how natural the band sounds, as if they were meant to play music like this their whole lives. It’s futile, but I do wish that they’d continue with this sound for one album more. Ah, oh well, it won’t hurt to spin this one another few times, I suppose.

Adjy - “The Festival Grounds”

single // 2025 // folk-indie

Describing Adjy in a concise manner is an impossible task. Not borderline impossible, straight-up impossible. This band has been weaving a complex tragedy throughout their work ever since 2016, a love story anchored by emo-indie-pop that oftentimes feels ripped straight out of a Broadway musical. I cannot sing my praises of their only full length, The Idyll Opus (I-VI), enough, a spellbinding masterpiece of an album that genuinely brought me to tears. And when should the band rear its head once more other than June? That probably makes more sense if you’re familiar with the lore of The Idyll Opus, but you luckily need no prior familiarity with Adjy’s body of work to enjoy latest single “The Festival Grounds”. Just sit back and let your breath be taken away the minute lead singer Christopher Noyes starts shouting the lyrics, a more rock-ish backing instrumental underscoring everything. This is likely the most joyous song Adjy has released since “Where June Meets July III”, the repeated refrain of “We’re gonna make it home” feeling equally like a promise and a rallying cry amidst Noyes’s infamously dense lyricism. It likely isn’t the herald of The Idyll Opus’s grand finale that Adjy fans have been waiting for, but I’m oddly okay with that.

Ghost - “Watcher in the Sky”

from Impera // 2022 // heavy metal

Unpopular opinion, but Impera is far and away Ghost’s best album, especially if you’re the kind of person who prefers Ghost at their highest energy. The album is littered front to back with some of the Swedish band’s most high-octane tracks. And, after seeing them in concert during the Skeletour (with sadly low representation from Impera), I’ve been spinning them an unhealthy amount of times. “Watcher in the Sky” is the song I continuously return to each time, whether it be because of the killer intro riff, the spellbinding harmonies in the chorus, or the many, many Rush-isms that are scattered throughout the song. Seriously, the amount of times Ghost channeled Rush energy on this album should be illegal.

Deftones - “Royal”

from Diamond Eyes // 2010 // alt metal - shoegaze

Certain albums carry reputations that precede them, and Deftones have, by my count, 5. Of the 5, Diamond Eyes is so far the only one I’ve heard in full (which is probably a blasphemous statement, but that’s neither here nor there). And let me tell you, there’s no song on this album that leaves as much of an impact as “Royal”. It’s a feral beast, leaping at you from the onset with fierce jagged riffs, and vocalist Chino Moreno sounding like some sort of unhinged preacher beseeching aliens unknown. But the true highlight of the song doesn’t come until the very end, when the entire band loses it behind Chino’s final maddening shriek, a moment that is sure to send chills up and down your spine.

Cryoshell - “Gravity Hurts”

single // 2008 // alt rock

We return to the halls of cringe nostalgia with this entry. If you were a 2000s kid, and at all interested in Legos or Bionicle, you remember this song with every fiber of your being. Seriously, what business did Lego have making such an incredible soundtrack for a damn toyline about mechanical elemental heroes? Well, I’m not one to question it, especially when “Gravity Hurts” is an addictive slice of late-2000s alternative rock, complete with a sky-high chorus that is sure to get stuck in your head for weeks to come.

Electric Light Orchestra - “Don’t Bring Me Down”

from Discovery // 1979 // pop rock

In most cases, every album in a band’s discography has at least one good song, even the albums that are considered their worst. Case in point, “Don’t Bring Me Down”, one of Electric Light Orchestra’s biggest hits… which just so happened to come from the much maligned, disco-tinged Discovery. But you honestly can easily forget the context surrounding the song, because once those guitars and piano kick in, you won’t be doing anything else other than bopping your head. “Don’t Bring Me Down” has a super simple song structure by comparison to some of ELO’s other big hits, but it makes up for that with a grandiose, massive sound, and some of Jeff Lynne’s best vocal work.

LEVEREVE - “Timid Eyes”

from Somnium // 2022 // j-rock

We end this week’s playlist where we started: returning to the “hallowed” halls of Vocaloid, though with a more recent song than “Meltdown”. LEVEREVE is a criminally underrated producer in the Vocaloid rock scene, their brand of rock being heavily blended with electronics to create a sound that almost feels ripped straight from a sci-fi anime movie. “Timid Eyes” was my introduction to LEVEREVE, and what a stellar introduction it was. Frantic drumming and downtuned riffs assault your ears the minute the song begins, and the energy just doesn’t let up for the entirety of the track. Hatsune Miku’s voice is notably lower in octave than what you normally hear from her, only to surge into the chorus, and that’s not even getting into the spine-tingling bridge that slows everything down in favor of grand orchestral strings and an addicting guitar riff.