A shorter playlist this month, although that doesn’t quite reflect the month in music, since a number of artists on this list released new albums in November. The next music posts from me will be my year-end albums and songs rankings, which I’ll probably run the week of December 19th. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.
SAULT – God in Disguise. SAULT released five new albums on November 1st, offering them as a free download for five days through their site, but they’re also now all on streaming platforms. I haven’t even gotten through two of them, but there’s far more of the soul, funk, and R&B influences that were all over their first four albums and absent from this spring’s Air.
Metronomy – It’s Good to Be Back. So this song came out earlier in the year, and I missed it, only hearing it because the cover of the song done by the punk band Panic Shack showed up on my Spotify Release Radar. The cover borrows the basic chord pattern and vocals, but it’s nothing like this shimmering, sunny pop track. When Metronomy stays on the right side of the line, they put out some great pop melodies.
White Reaper – Pages. Just about anything new from White Reaper is an auto-include for me. These Kentucky garage-pop stalwarts will release their fourth album, Asking for a Ride, on January 27th, but it sounds like their core sound hasn’t changed one bit.
Black Honey – Heavy. The third single ahead of their upcoming third album, A Fistful of Peaches, due out in March, this is less abrasive and more melodic than “Charlie Bronson” but still harder-edged than most of their first two albums.
Jamie xx – KILL DEM. Still no official word on a follow-up to 2016’s In Colour, which included two of the best songs of the decade in “Loud Places” and “SeeSaw,” although this is Jamie xx’s second new single of 2022. It’s more EDM than either of those tracks from In Colour, both of which slowed the tempo down for more melody and vocal elements.
Phoenix – All Eyes on Me. Also on my to-do list is Phoenix’s new album, Alpha Zulu, which came out in early November, although every song I’ve heard has brought their Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix heyday of effusive indie-pop to mind, and it feels like a step forward after 2017’s Ti Amo.
Crawlers – Too Soon. Another heavy, grimy track from this Liverpool quartet, who just released their first EP, Loud Without Noise, at the start of November, featuring this track and “I Don’t Want It.”
The Wombats – Good Idea at the Time. Yet another solid track from the leftovers EP Is This What It Feels Like to Feel Like This?, which has songs that didn’t make the cut for February’s Fix Yourself, Not the World.
shame – Fingers of Steel. A post-punk band from south London, shame (stylized in all-lowercase) will release their third album, Food for Worms, in February. The track has clear roots in early post-punk but with more elements of post-hardcore music like that of Quicksand or Thrice.
Weird Nightmare – So Far Gone. The debut album from METZ guitarist Alex Elkins, also called Weird Nightmare, dropped back in June, and he’s already back with another new track, which continues in the same vein of garage-pop that’s more melodic than METZ’s stuff.
Panic Shack – Meal Deal. Remember when I mentioned Panic Shack up top? Here’s their latest single, a raw, wryly comic punk song with some de rigueur commentary on consumerism.
STONE – Money (Hope Ain’t Gone). I exclude EPs from my year-end album lists now, but I will say STONE’s debut EP punkadonk is one of my favorite records of the year. It’s just five tracks, but this one and “Waste” are both excellent, and the Liverpudlians show some range here beyond just pure punk.
Venomous Concept – Voices. I’m not usually into super hardcore punk, but this song is on the accessible side of that genre, and the band is interesting, as it was founded in 2004 by former members of Brutal Truth and Napalm Death and once included Buzz Osborne of the Melvins.
Wheel – Impervious. This Finnish prog-rock act released a three-song EP in November called Rumination, although there’s no word yet on a new album.