September turned out to be a monster of a month with new albums and tracks ahead of album releases for the next two months; as it was I had a hard time keeping this list to 33 tracks. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.
Geese – Cobra. One reader-friend who’s very into music mentioned that Geese’s latest, Getting Killed, is his album of the year so far; it’s going to end up high on my list, although Cameron Winter’s vocals sometimes come across like he’s not trying, even when the music behind him is experimental and ambitious. Regardless of where the album ends up on my rankings, Geese are one of the most interesting bands around, and the members aren’t even 25 yet.
SPRINTS – Need. The first ten songs on SPRINTS’ second full-length LP All That Is Over run 32 minutes in total, and then there’s the six-minute closer “Desire,” is a strange, slow-burning, gothic/post-punk track that stands in stark contrast to the straight-on punk of the rest of the record – such as this song, where singer Karla Chubb describes the desperation of being in a one-sided relationship.
Paris Paloma – Good Boy. The song is fine, but the intro, taken from a video where Emma Thompson dramatically reads the tremendous title of this Rebecca Shaw editorial from January, is a hell of a way to get me to put your song on a playlist.
Public Circuit – Samson. Is this Heaven 17? Bronski Beat? Early New Order? Rarely does a song take me back to such a specific time period, but this is straight out of 1982, a musical era that will always be central to my existence. And there’s a sample of Monty Python and the Holy Grail too.
Kid Kapichi – Stainless Steel. Maybe not as strong as most of their past singles but I do love the driving bass & drum line that provides the foundation for this track, their first since two of the four members left the band in May.
Portugal. the Man – Tanana. Not sure if this is about Frank, but it’s got the sweeping, psycheledic-inspired feel of their 2011 album In the Mountain in the Cloud. They also put out another single, “Denali,” that I didn’t like as much as this one. Their next album, Shish, comes out November 7th.
Maruja – Saoirse. If you like Geese, you might enjoy the debut album from Maruja, Pain to Power, which also reminded me a ton of the (probably) defunct band black midi and even a little of Swans. This track is probably the most accessible, combining free jazz, punk, and even hints of chamber pop.
Die Spitz – Riding with My Girls. Something to Consume, the debut album from this Austin-based punk/metal band, came out in September, and veers between those two genres, with some straight-ahead hard-rock numbers mixed in with more punk tracks like this one and a few that call back the crossover thrash era, like “Throw Yourself to the Sword.” (Speaking of crossover, Agnostic Front put out a new song in September. It was a big month for metal bands from the ‘80s, as you’ll see below.)
Creeper – Prey for the Night. The third single from the band’s upcoming Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, due out on Halloween, is more in line with their previous stuff and less hair-metal than the last single, “Blood Magick.”
Sunflower Bean – Crashing Highs. A bonus track from the deluxe edition of Mortal Primetime, and a pretty strong indie-pop track – maybe a little too sunny for the album proper.
shame – After Party. Shame’s latest album Cutthroat, released on September 5th, is their most expansive and ambitious yet, although I have to admit this very Yard Act-ish track is one of my favorites.
flowerovlove – I’m your first. This 20-year-old DIY pop artist from London has released at least twenty singles already, so at some point I assume there will be an album. She’s got a great ear for creating catchy pop hooks that would fit in – and improve – any pop radio station’s playlists.
Hatchie – Lose It Again. This Australian singer-songwriter’s third album, Liquourice, comes out on November 7th; “Lose It Again” is yet another catchy-as-hell dream pop number from her, as she seems to have an endless supply of them.
St. Lucia – Lights Off. I know St. Lucia is never going to get back to the heights of his debut album When the Night, but this song, off the upcoming Fata Morgana: Dusk, is the closest he’s come since 2015’s “Dancing on Glass.”
Emma-Jean Thackray – Save Me (Radio Edit). A reworking by Thackray herself of one of the better tracks on her now Mercury Prize-nominated album Weirdo, one of the best albums of the year. Other notable nominees include the latest from Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., and, for some reason, Pulp.
Cœur de Pirate – Mélancolie. Béatrice Martin is having a moment, as “Corbeau,” from her 2008 eponymous album, was featured on The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final season, and Martin just released her seventh album, Cavale, last month, featuring this lush electro-pop track.
Tame Impala – Dracula. Best use of the name Pablo Escobar in a song yet. This is my favorite of the three singles released in advance of this month’s Deadbeat, by far.
Prides – Dynamite. This Scottish indiepop act had one of my favorite songs of 2014 in “The Seeds You Sow,” then disappeared after 2018 other than a few scattered guest appearances. They’re back this year with several singles, all of which have been pretty promising. They rose up during the peak of “landfill indie,” but I thought they were stronger musically and melodically than most of those groups.
Sudan Archives – Come and Find You. I haven’t loved the Sudan Archives singles this year as much as I did her last album Natural Brown Prom Queen, with this newest one the strongest yet because of the violin solo (as that is Parks’s main instrument).
Emma Swift – The Resurrection Game. The title track from Swift’s first album of original material is a lovely track of sophisticated folk-tinged pop, an impressive debut for anyone but especially someone whose previous output was an album of Bob Dylan covers and some tracks with her partner Robyn Hitchcock (who is 28 years her senior).
Yttling Jazz – Illegal Hit. I found this track on an NPR weekly new-music playlist, and only later discovered that this is Björn Yttling of Peter Bjohn and John, whose song “Young Folks” was a huge (and kind of annoying) hit about 15 years ago.
Lazarus & Rakim – Not to Be Defined. I love Rakim, and I’m warming to Lazarus, a Detroit-born rapper … and physician.
Bartees Strange – DCWDTTY. It’s not a cover of the DC post-hardcore song “DC Will Do That To You” by Smart Went Crazy, just alluding to it in the title.
Sloan – No Damn Fears. Sloan’s 14th album, Based on the Best Seller, dropped on September 26th, and the early reviews seem to be quite positive, although I don’t hear anything to match “Losing California” or “Everything You’ve Done Wrong.”
The Macks – Dually of Man. I don’t even remember where I found this song, from a longstanding Portland rock band that just put out their first proper album in September, but the intro synth riff is hypnotic, and the song just builds from there, passing through jam-band territory without ever drifting off into that direction entirely.
SONS – Do My Thing. This Belgian band has been putting out music since at least 2019 in Europe, although it seems like they’re making a push in the U.S. now with this latest single, which sounds a ton like The Hives (that’s a compliment).
Thrice – Albatross. Thrice’s latest album Horizons/West dropped today, the 3rd, so I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but this was my favorite of the lead singles, with a dark, ominous vibe that recalls their 2016 album To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere.
Castle Rat – Serpent. Castle Rat is full of gimmickry, but this is some excellent Sabbathesque doom metal, reminiscent of The Oath/Lucifer (since both have female vocalists with similar voices).
Coroner – Symmetry. It should be illegal for a band to go away for thirty-plus years and come back sounding this good. Not just good – ferocious. I would have been excited for any new Coroner album, but I cannot wait for Dissonance Theory to drop on the 17th.
Paradox – One Way Ticket to Die. This was a big month for ‘80s metal bands; Paradox put out two albums that decade, including one of the best concept albums in metal with 1989’s Heresy, then went on hiatus for 11 years. Their ninth album, Mysterium, was (possibly) recorded entirely by singer/guitarist Charly Steinhauer, the only remaining founding member, and it’s full of tight old-school Teutonic thrash, à la…
Kreator – Seven Serpents. The sixteenth (!) album from these German thrash icons, Krushers of the World, is due out on January 16th; their first album, Endless Pain, came out forty years ago this month. They proved extremely influential on the development of extreme metal, with their early sound similar to that of Celtic Frost, all of which led to the growth of ‘death metal,’ but by their third album Terrible Certainty they’d transitioned to a variation of thrash that became known as Teutonic thrash. (Old-school metal fans might remember MTV airing “Toxic Trace” and “Betrayer” on Headbanger’s Ball.) They still sound … pretty good, actually, better than any band this old has a right to sound.
Testament – Shadow People. One American thrash band for you, as these pioneers of Bay Area thrash metal are largely back to basics with this track. Their latest album Para Bellum drops on the 10th.
Elder – Liminality. Elder released two songs in September, but they’re a combined 18+ minutes, so isn’t that an EP? This sprawling prog-doom-metal track is a whole journey, full of the stuff that made their last LP Innate Passage one of my favorite albums of 2022.
Picked up the new album by The Minus 5 a few weeks ago, in preparation for seeing them with The Baseball Project in Atlanta the other day. The death motif plays frequently but not too weightily — as a songwriter, Scott McCaughey reminds me of Warren Zevon (beyond their mutual connection to R.E.M.). He knows how to leaven heavy themes with wry lyrics and a backbeat, and you have to have gone through some stuff to write a song like “Blow in My Bag” (a highlight of the show).
Elder is fantastic. Readers of comments, don’t steer clear of them if you’re not into metal — to my ears at least, they’re just a guitar rock band. They’ve got obvious chops but the songs aren’t proggy.