Review: Glass Garden – Desperate Little Messages

Style: Jazz pop, alternative hip-hop (clean vocals, rap)
Recommended for fans of: Thank You Scientist, daoud
Country: United States (NJ)
Release date: 13 June 2025

Being trapped here in the vast below-ground network of the Progressive Subway has its perks. Sure, sometimes there are rats, slime, and tyrannic brow-beatings to write our album reviews faster¹, but there’s also the priceless opportunity to exchange and deepen my love of the underground music scene by sharing recommendations with my fellow authors. When my colleague Dylan told me to check out Glass Garden a few months ago, their experimental jazz pop sound quickly sold me on the band’s debut album. With several current and former members of Thank You Scientist² on the band’s core and guest roster, the two bands are unmistakably part of the same family tree. 

However, you’ll notice one key difference about four seconds into the opening track of Desperate Little Messages, the band’s second album: namely, the rapping. Though many instrumental snippets on this album would fit right in on a TYS track, there’s far too much originality and eclecticism on display here to make “Thank You Scientist plus rap” a worthy comparison. Glass Garden’s sound is more restrained, and the absence of guitar in the main lineup³ or any real heaviness means that we’re miles away from any pesky debates about whether this is metal. Into this negative space, a rich instrumental array blooms luxuriantly into the forefront. Piano-leaning keyboard tones occasionally skew electronic, and bass, violin, and brass root a danceable groove. The two vocalists—one singer, one rapper—gambol over, under, and around the instrumentations, never quite overlapping one another.

The resulting energy is sprightly and spunky, but frontman John Kadian’s lyrics and vocal delivery don’t carry the same gravitas that I’d expect from a heavier proggy band like TYS or Coheed and Cambria. Rather, Kadian’s singing is youthful, guileless. “Crown of the Seafaring” and “Lighthouse” are prime examples: even as the lyrics are sometimes oblique and non-literal, it feels like Kadian could be sending us a late-night voice memo, talking through some loss or win or just trying to pin down the shape of a feeling before it slips away. While his vocals could benefit from more power at some points, the overall effect is charming. 

And of course, there’s the rapping. Idris Hoffman’s style is rhythmic and wordy but still casual and conversational, as it strays close to spoken word poetry. Some of the literality of a rapper like Aesop Rock is present, not exactly breaking the fourth wall but lightly knocking against it with a twinkle in the eye. In the midst of a flurry of f-bombs on “Making Space”, Hoffman lampshades the barrage by throwing in the words “expletive expletive expletive”. On tracks like “Kind Hand”, the instrumentals pull back to and allow the rap verses to expand and resonate, while elsewhere, Hoffman fades behind the instrumental cacophony. In the outro of “Wax & Wane”, the feeling of flooding overwhelm is more prominent than any individual lyric. Both vocalists tread a careful line that keeps their capricious whimsy from turning into a cudgel of zaniness. Some moments playfully colour outside the lines, as with the glitching distortion on Hoffman’s voice in “Will-of-Whispers” that evokes clipping.’s Dead Channel Sky, or Kadian’s delivery of his own hazy rap verse in “Wax & Wane”. But crucially, it’s never wacky enough to diminish the emotional sincerity. 

Not to be outdone by the dual vocalists, Glass Garden’s rhythm section round out the band’s core lineup with nuanced, apposite deliveries. Cody McCorry’s bass is deliciously prominent throughout the mix, capturing a sprightly yet effortless energy: those bass lines hustle underneath the action on tracks like “Wax & Wane”. Rather than destabilizing the rhythmic foundation, though, they pair elegantly with Faye Fadem’s drumming, which is comparatively understated where it needs to be while still seizing a few chances to dazzle (“Lighthouse”).

As on Glass Garden’s debut self-titled album, Desperate Little Messages also features a host of guest musicians. This includes a brass section of trumpet, sax, and trombone, whose luscious arrangements help to nudge the jazz dial up a couple notches. But in a key evolution from 2021’s Glass Garden, all the instruments are integrated seamlessly. Occasionally, this coalescence strays towards sameness; the final stretch of the album’s closer “Lighthouse”, in particular, feel more like a gentle fade than a final statement. On the whole the cohesion works, thanks to a lack of interludes or abrupt transitions. Ultimately, the direction is clear, and the ride is smooth. 

In “Sleepy, Hollow”, Idris Hoffman tells us: “I’m currently being wowed by how I got from here to there to here to where I want to be”. For their part, Glass Garden is exactly where I want them to be, as Desperate Little Messages is at once vulnerable and self-assured, with performances that are as musically tight as they are emotionally open. If Glass Garden can continue to iterate on their fresh, surprising sound, I’ll be on the platform waiting to embark on whatever journey they have in store for us next.

Recommended tracks: Making Space, Sleepy, Hollow, Will-of-Whispers
You may also like: The Psycodelics, Hard Maybe
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

Glass Garden is:
– John Kadian (vocals, keyboard)
– Idris Hoffman (vocals)
– Faye Fadem (drums)
– Cody McCorry (bass)
With guests:
– Joey Gullace (trumpet)
– Patrick Higgins (saxophone)
– Ian Gray (trombone)
– Ben Karas (violin)
– Jacob Lawson (violin)
– Jenn Fantaccione (viola, cello)
– Angel Marcloid (guitar)

1. Just kidding! (blinks twice) ↩︎
2. One of my favourite bands, full stop. ↩︎
3. Angel Marcloid is credited as a guest on guitar. ↩︎