Music update, August 2024.

August brought a bunch of contenders for my year-end albums list, with LPs from Jack White, Fontaines D.C., Zeal & Ardor, Tank and the Bangas, and others, plus a surprise return from Opeth, a welcome single from Olympic stars Gojira, a farewell track from one of the most influential American punk bands, and a return from a band I was afraid had called it quits. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Gojira feat. Marina Viotti and Victor Le Masne – Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!). You know this song already, as it was the highlight of the stunning Opening Ceremonies to the Paris Olympics; now we get a studio version that packs the same punch, albeit without the visual impact of Gojira playing on the balconies of an old castle along the Seine.

Jack White – Old Scratch Blues. White’s new album No Name is his best solo LP to date, a return to his roots in classic rock and blues sounds from the 1940s through the 1970s, highlighted by this track, “Bless Yourself,” and “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking).”

Fontaines D.C. – Here’s the Thing. Fontaines’ new album, Romance, is one of the big surprises of the year; the Dublin-based rockers have largely abandoned their punk sound in favor of a more ambitious array of influences that have them dancing around the edges of pop-rock without fully giving in to the sound. You can hear the punk roots in the background of songs like this one, but they’re in their post-punk/new wave phase now, and it’s fascinating. I still think “Favourite” is my … uh, favorite track on the record, but this and “Starburster” are also highlights.

Goat – Ouroboros. These Swedish psychedelic/fusion rockers return with their third album in three years, titled Goat, on October 11^th; this is the radio edit of the album’s lengthy closing track, with a guitar riff that Nile Rodgers would approve.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Hog Calling Contest. The Aussie band’s 26^th (!) album, Flight b741, came out in August, with an unusually long gap of ten months between records, and it’s more in the vein of their bluesy jam-band stuff than some of their heavier (and, to my ears, better) works.

Nice Biscuit – Fade Away. Not quite as good as “The Rain,” but we still get another strong guitar riff from this Australian indie-rock band, which marries some psychedelia with the pulsing beats of post-punk. Their new album SOS comes out on October 4^th.

The Killers – Bright Lights. This one-off (for now) single dropped just a few weeks before the Killers started their residency in Vegas to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Hot Fuss, with all four original members playing the entire album start to finish as part of the shows. The track bridges the gap between their earliest synth-pop leanings and the more country-tinged sound of 2021’s Pressure Machine.

Chime School – The End. The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, the second album from Andy Pastalaniec (also of Seablite), continues with the project’s 1980s jangle-pop sound, which in itself derives from 1960s pop bands like the Byrds.

Sunflower Bean – Teach Me to Be Bad. Another heavier song from Sunflower Bean, and I’m into it. “Moment in the Sun” was a huge hit, and deservedly so, but the last thing I wanted from the band was an album full of attempts to re-create it.

X – Ruby Church. X announced that Smoke & Fiction will be their farewell album, accompanied by a final tour, four years after their comeback LP Alphabetland marked their return from 27 years away from the studio. I’ve never been a huge fan of X’s music, and am certainly not a fan of Exene Cervenka’s conspiracy theory-mongering, but I acknowledge the band’s huge influence on American music from the 1980s and 1990s.

Manic Street Preachers – Decline & Fall. The Welsh trio has said this track was inspired by several artists, including the War on Drugs, and that couldn’t be any clearer. I’m also stunned that James Dean Bradfield still sounds this good at age 55. The BBC has a story on some recently unearthed photographs of the band taken shortly before lyricist/guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared.

Hayden Thorpe – They. The former lead singer of Wild Beasts will drop his third solo album, Ness, on September 27^th; it’s just a different sound than that of his former band, and I’m still kind of getting used to his individual style, which has some of the art rock leanings of Wild Beasts but in a quieter mode. He released two singles in August, this one and “He.”

Katie Gavin – Casual Drug Use. The second single from the MUNA singer’s upcoming debut solo album, What a Relief, due out on October 25^th, is another smooth indie-pop track that borrows as much from alternative country singers like Kacey Musgraves and Brandi Carlile as it does from MUNA’s college-rock influences.

Bananagun – Free Energy. I dug this Australian experimental psych-rock band’s 2020 debut album The True Story of Bananagun – seriously, why is Oz so rife with psychedelic rock music? – but we haven’t had a peep out of the band since. They’re back with this frenetic track, which feels like it’s almost all drum-and-bass with a little vocals sprinkled on top, ahead of their sophomore album, Why is the Colour of the Sky?, due out November 8^th.

Spirit of the Beehive – I’ve Been Evil. I hear a lot of Pinback and even Polvo in this track from Spirit’s newest album, You’ll Have to Lose Something, which, like most of their albums, is interesting but all over the place.

Jamie xx feat. The Avalanches – All You Children. Jamie xx’s second solo album, In Waves, finally comes out on September 20^th, nine years after his debut In Colour, which had two of my favorite tracks of the decade in “See Saw” and “Loud Places.” I haven’t heard anything quite to that level from the five singles already released from the new album, with this one perhaps the best for its more accessible EDM sound.

Tangent feat. Rakim – Get Right, Keep Tight. Rakim put out a short comeback album in July that didn’t feature anywhere enough of him; his verse here as a guest on an otherwise unremarkable track from Tangent might be the best thing Rakim has done this year.

Maxïmo Park – Quiz Show Clue. There are too many bands, part 837: I’d never heard of Maxïmo Park before this spring, only to discover they’ve been around for 20 years and are about to release their eighth album, Stream of Life, on September 27^th. They’re a post-punk revival band often lumped into the “landfill indie” pile, which, to be entirely honest, kind of fits; I actually first heard of them when I went down that rabbit hole (after the Libertines’ new album came out) and found VICE’s list of the 50 greatest landfill indie songs of all time, which has two Maxïmo Park tracks on it.

Ten Fé – Space Invader. I’m thrilled that Ten Fé is back, as they hadn’t released any music since 2019’s Future Perfect, Present Tense, although this song reminds me a little too much of Keane and doesn’t quite have the hook of some of Ten Fé’s best singles to date.

Sports Team – I’m in Love (Subaru). I loved Sports Team’s 2022 album Gulp!, so I’m not sure how I feel about them suddenly deciding they’re going to channel the band ABC.

Geordie Greep – Holy, Holy. So this is a rare case where I’m including a song I don’t particularly like. Greep was the lead singer/guitarist for black midi, which announced its breakup in August (or maybe an indefinite hiatus), with Greep then releasing this single a few days later. It’s kind of a mess, although I wouldn’t expect anything other than that from a black midi member, but the problem here is more in the lyrics, which might have worked for an older singer but just come off as snotty and ridiculous here. His solo album A New Sound comes out on October 4^th.

Satan – Turn the Tide. I can’t believe these guys are still together, with both founding guitarists (Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins) still in the band 45 years on, along with Blitzkrieg vocalist Brian Ross, who sang on their first full-length LP, 1983’s Court in the Act, before leaving the band until their 2011 re-formation.

Zeal & Ardor – Kilònova. Zeal & Ardor, a Swiss/American band that fuses black metal with African-American spiritual music, just released their fourth LP, Greif, in August; from the three singles I’ve heard, they seem to be drifting more towards a mainstream metal sound, with fewer of the more ridiculous trappings of extreme metal like death growls (there’s a little on “Clawing Out”) or blast beats.

Devin Townsend – Power Nerd. Townsend is a virtuoso metal guitarist whose first band, Strapping Young Lad, earned him a following but was way too harsh for my tastes. His post-SYL output, which has basically all been solo material but sometimes under monikers like the Devin Townsend Project, is a mixed bag, but this speed-metal track has a fantastic hook in the chorus.

Opeth – §1. Opeth hasn’t used death growls on any album since 2008’s Watershed, but they did on this track, the opener of their album The Last Will and Testament, a concept album due out on October 11^th.  

Tribulation – Tainted Skies. Tribulation’s music wouldn’t be out of place on a mid-80s episode of Headbanger’s Ball, but they mix in some death growls and wear silly corpse paint. The music is almost comically melodic for the genre – this is metal, but it ain’t heavy other than the vocals, and it hits an almost nostalgic note for me because I listened to so much (admittedly mediocre) metal in the 1980s.