hip-hop

→ February 8, 2026
→ By keith
→ 7 Comments

Music update, January 2026.

This playlist includes a handful of tracks from December 2025 that I heard after I compiled my top 100 tracks of the year or that didn’t make the cut, plus songs from this January, through songs released on the final Friday (the 30^th), but not anything released this month. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below you can access it on Apple Music or Spotify.

Courtney Barnett feat. Waxahatchee – Site Unseen. This second single off Barnett’s upcoming album Creature of Habit features Katie Crutchfield, so it couldn’t be more in my personal wheelhouse.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Slumber Party. BCMB’s sophomore album, Irreversible, is due out on March 13^th; they do one of the best new wave-revival sounds out there, honoring the genre without sounding overly derivative of it. It’s catnip for me.

Arlo Parks – 2SIDED. Parks will release her third album, Ambiguous Desire, on April 3^rd; she has yet to miss for me, with this song leaning more into a dance sound beneath her unmistakable voice.

Daughter – Not Enough. This Irish trio’s album Not to Disappear turns ten this year, so they re-recorded one of the tracks that didn’t make the cut, “Not Enough,” which showcases Elena Tonra’s haunting voice over a typically sparse backing track that hints at electronica, folk, and shoegaze.

Makthaverskan – Pity Party. I’d never heard of this rock band from Gothenberg (a town best known for producing melodic death metal), but I love this song, which has some dreamgaze and post-punk elements, and is the lead single from their upcoming album Glass and Bones, which will be their first new album in five years.

Ratboys – What’s Right. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Ratboys, in part because of Julia Steiner’s warbly, sometimes off-key vocals, but their best stuff can be pretty catchy folk-tinged alt-rock. Their latest album Singin’ to an Empty Chair came out on Friday.

DEADLETTER – It Comes Creeping. I loved DEADLETTER’s very Madness-like 2024 track “Mere Mortal;” and this song is in a very similar vein. Their second album Existence is Bliss comes out on February 27^th.

Flea – A Plea. Flea, best known as the bassist who replaced Derf Scratch in Fear, is about to release his first solo album, Honora, in March; it’s a jazz album, featuring six original tracks and four covers, and the two singles to date – this one and “Traffic Lights” – are both fantastic, featuring Flea on bass and trumpet, with Thom Yorke providing vocals on the latter song.

Whitelands – Blankspace. Whitelands is a shoegaze band from London – aren’t they all – who just released their fifth album, but second on a proper label, at the end of January. Sunlight Echoes also includes an appearance from Lush’s Emma Anderson on “Sparklebaby.”

Tigers Jaw – Head is Like a Sinking Stone. Another new-to-me artist, Tigers Jaw hails from Scranton and they’re also about to put out their first album in five years, Lost on You.

The Cribs – Never the Same. I think the main thing I knew about the Cribs was that they’re one of the eighty-nine bands Johnny Marr has joined since the end of the Smiths. They’ve been around for over 20 years now, with their ninth album Selling a Vibe coming out last month; this is the best track I’ve heard, while the album as a whole gets a little one-note.

The Twilight Sad – Designed to Lose. It’s the Long Goodbye, The Twilight Sad’s first album since three members left the band, leaving only founding members James Graham and Andy MacFarlane, will be out on March 27^th, a big day for new albums, as it turns out. This song is pretty vintage Twilight Sad, dark and a little gothic-new wave but also still informed by pop.

Butler, Blake & Grant – Lonely Night. That would be Bernard Butler (Suede), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), and James Grant (Love and Money). They released a self-titled album last March, while this is a folk-rock reworking of a song Blake wrote for Teenage Fanclub that that band recorded as “Dark & Lonely Night.”

Billy Bragg – City of Heroes. “When they came for the immigrants/I got in their face/When they came for the refugees/I got in their face/When they came for the five-year-olds/I got in their face/When they came to my neighborhood/I just got in their face.”

Arctic Monkeys – Opening Night. A midtier Arctic Monkeys track off the upcoming Help(2) charity album to benefit War Child, featuring other tracks from Olivia Rodrigo, The Last Dinner Party, Damon Albarn, Fontaines DC, and more.

The Format – Boycott Heaven. The Format just released their first new album in 20 years; they were Nate Ruess’ original band, before he and Jack Antonoff formed fun., which released that one album (note: and one before that, which I missed) and then broke up. I’ve always liked Ruess’ voice, even when they got stupid with autotuning it, and this track showcases it well in a great indie-pop vein.

SAULT – Chapter 1. SAULT’s latest album is full of … salt. It’s clearly a response to Little Simz’ Lotus, which was her album about how SAULT leader Inflo borrowed a seven-figure sum from her and didn’t repay it; here Inflo leans further into his religious act, with songs like “God, Protect Me From My Enemies” and “Lord Have Mercy,” along with hackneyed lyrics like “They’re jealous of what’s in your brain” and “Must go higher. I refuse to fight with fire.” But damn, nobody does ‘70s soul/funk revival like SAULT does.

TIGRA & SPNCR – Do It Like This. If you’re old enough to remember the 1980s rap duo L’Trimm, which had a couple of minor hits in “Grab It” and “Cars with the Boom,” Tigra was half of that group (as The Lady Tigra), and she’s back with an EP called Black Rice. Bunny appears on a different track, “Guillotine.”

Home Star – Come To. This track, by Evan Lescallette of the band Marietta, is perfectly fine punk-pop-emo whatever, but I couldn’t ignore an artist named Home Star.

Blackwater Holylight – Bodies. Metal in general is a male-dominated genre, and doom metal even more so, with the occasional female vocalist but very few all-women bands. Blackwater Holylight is three women, from Oregon, who put out three albums from 2018-21 and then took five years off before their fourth album, Not Here Not Gone, came out at the end of January. This track blends heavy, crunchy guitar lines with ghostly vocals to make it all much creepier than just some guy doing the Cookie Monster voice.

Maria BC – Marathon. Maria BC is an experimental singer/guitarist from Oakland whose music starts out as ambient but often goes in unexpected directions; here, their vocals sound like Alejandra Deheza of School of Seven Bells, set over dark guitar sounds like some of Alcest’s best work.

The Hu – The Real You. The Hu are a Mongolian folk-metal band that incorporates native instruments and throat singing into their music; they’ve toured with Iron Maiden and even covered “The Trooper.” Their third album will be out later this year, and yes, it’s pronounced like “the Who.”

Port Noir – Noir. Port Noir is a progressive rock band that has always at least toyed with metal, but their upcoming album The Dark We Keep seems to lean all the way into the heavy stuff – they’ve actually said on their Instagram that it’s the heaviest album they’ve ever made. Also in the metal space, The Ruins of Beverast has some great guitarwork on their newest album, but the death growls here are way too prominent for me; Kreator’s Krushers of the World had some solid stuff but also got a little clownish, as on the title track; and Sylosis’s “Erased” had some strong thrash riffs but got too metalcore for me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2026 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music

→ December 4, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, November 2025.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to making this playlist. I listen to my Release Radar playlist on Spotify every Friday, as I think the algorithm does a great job of identifying songs I might like while also presenting me with the newest tracks from artists I like, whether I follow them on the platform or not. One such track in November was a surprise to me, a song by Charly Bliss, who put out a tremendous album in 2024 and then hadn’t released anything – or even posted to their Instagram account – in over a year. I added it to the temporary playlist I use to stash songs for the monthly ones I publish without even listening to the song first, because my default assumption with Charly Bliss was that I’d probably like the song, and would just listen to it later on.

When it came time to curate and write up the playlist, I listened to the song in full, and it didn’t sound like Charly Bliss, not least because their primary vocalist is a woman, and this was sung, apparently, by a man. The song was sort of reggae-tinged, in kind of an anodyne way that sounded like nothing in specific. Since I was already suspicious, I checked Charly Bliss’s social media accounts and found no mention of the song. The video is posted to a Youtube account that isn’t theirs, with comments disabled. When I clicked on the artist name on Spotify, it takes me to a different page for a “Charly Bliss” that’s not the band’s verified one. Obviously, this is AI slop. I reported it to Spotify and Youtube three days ago and it’s still up on both sites. We’re losing this fight. Maybe it’ll kill the current streaming model, which wouldn’t be the worst thing given how much it has taken from artists’ ability to support themselves, but maybe people won’t care enough and they’ll just bop along to the AI garbage instead. I don’t matter in the broader music ecosystem, but I could see these lists becoming more difficult to compile and curate because I have to check everything to see what’s real.

Anyway, for now, I’m still posting to Spotify (here’s this month’s playlist) but also to Apple Music, which I’ve embedded below as well.

De la Soul feat. Q-Tip & Yummy Bingham – Day in the Sun (Gettin’ Wit U). Produced by Pete Rock, this track is one of the standouts from what I assume will be the final De la Soul album, since founding member Trugoy died in 2023. Cabin in the Sky is peak post-3 Feet High De la Soul, as they really veered away from the most commercial aspects of their debut and more into their lyrics and offbeat samples. “The Package” is outstanding as well.

Obongjayar – Give Me More. The best of the five new tracks on the deluxe edition of Paradise Now, called Paradise Now & Later. “Lipdance” isn’t too shabby, either.

Sampa the Great & Mwanjé – Can’t Hold Us. Two of the leading Zambian artists teamed up for this track from the soundtrack to the video game FC 26. Part rap, part Zamrock, the whole thing feels like a stadium anthem in the best possible way.

Tame Impala – No Reply. Deadbeat was a letdown; “Dracula” is one of Kevin Parker’s best songs ever, but the rest of the album is a mediocre techno record. This is one of the few songs on the LP that stood out at all. I miss the Tame Impala that rocked a little.

Hatchie – Sage. Hatchie’s third album, Liquorice, came out on November 7^th; while her sound is still firmly in the dream-pop space, I think the record is a small step backwards, less ambitious than Giving the World Away, less immediately catchy than Sugar & Spice or Keepsake.

Portugal. the Man – Knik. So it appears that Portugal. the Man is mostly a John Gourley project, although I see various listings of Zoe Manville and Kyle O’Quin as band members; their latest album, Shish, is a return to their psychedelic and somewhat experimental rock roots prior to Evil Friends, and a big step up from their post-Woodstock album that seemed like a rejection of their sudden commercial success.

Allie X – 7^th Floor. Allie X’s fourth album, Happiness is Going to Get You, came out on November 7^th, and is a little more mainstream in sound and production than some of her previous work – not that there’s anything wrong with that, as long as the hooks are still there. In a previous era, this would have been a big radio hit, maybe crossing over from alternative to pop stations, but I’m not even sure what constitutes a ‘hit’ at this point.

The Itch – Space in the Cab. Just the fourth single so far from this British dance/new-wave revival duo, with a great hook that got stuck in my head on first listen.

Demob Happy – No Man Left Behind. This British alternative band, now a trio after their lead guitarist departed, will put out their fourth LP The Grown-Ups Are Talking on January 30^th. This song is the second single from the record, with lyrics discussing the alienation of young men over an insistent bass & guitar line.

Nothing – cannibal world. This Ameircan shoegaze-revival band’s new album A Short History of Decay comes out on February 27^th; I like a lot of shoegaze, both the revival and the original movements, but I’ve found a lot of Nothing’s prior output to be too cold, even for a genre that thrives on frigidity. This song has a little more energy to it than their previous tracks, enough to separate it from their back catalog and the flood of shoegaze-adjacent music out there right now.

The Mynabirds – Labor Day Love Letter. Laura Burhenn removed all of her music from Spotify and replace it with this spoken-word track, damning Spotify for its failure to police AI slop on the site, for its industry-worst payment rates to artists, and for the CEO’s investment in an AI military-tech startup. (Note: This song does not appear on the Apple Music version of the playlist.)

White Lies – Nothing On Me. New wavers White Lies’ newest album Night Light was a mild disappointment to me, lacking the melodies or the energy of As I Try Not to Fall Apart or Big TV. This was easily the best song on the album, a pulsing, uptempo song that seems perfect for the highway.

SPRINTS – Pieces. All That is Over, the latest album from this Irish punk quartet, came out last month; it’s definitely a more polished effort than their previous LP, but also louder and bigger to balance out the loss of that garage-rock sound.

Picture Parlour – 24 Hr Open. I hadn’t heard of this British indie band before this track, which has a killer guitar riff throughout the song, but apparently there were some conspiracy theories around them in 2023 when they first broke out, with people claiming they were nepo babies or industry plants or something. That all appears to be nonsense, for what it’s worth. Also, the song is good, and that’s more important.

Aleksiah – Faker. There’s a sequence of chord changes in the bridge of this Aussie popster’s latest single that elevates it beyond the typical pop fare, echoed slightly in the chorus as well; I’m stereotyping a little, but American pop artists, run through the major-label machine, just don’t play around with chord or key changes like this.

PLOSIVS – Metacine. PLOSIVS is Pinback’s Rob Crow with two members of Rocket from the Crypt and the bassist from Mrs. Magician; they released an album in 2022, which I missed entirely, and now they’re back with this track and a new album, Yell at Cloud, that came out the day after Thanksgiving, which seems like a good way to make the entire U.S. miss it too.

Flight to London – No One’s Forgiven. I’ve said a zillion times that I’m a sucker for any band that channels the early ‘80s new wave that made up so much of my listening during my most formative years as a music fan; Flight to London (not an SEO-friendly name, unless you’re heading to LHR as well) is a brand-new duo who sound a ton like Heaven 17 and early Spandau Ballet and other bands of that niche, with this first single off their just-released album Instructions for Losing Control.

Ella Eyre w/Tiggs da Author – head in the ground. Eyre had a number of hits in the UK the 2010s, including her 2015 debut album Feline, which reached the British top 10, but her second album only just appeared last month. everything, in time includes this modern R&B banger, which first appeared in some form in 2023 and includes the Tanzanian-born rapper Tiggs.

Ashes and Diamonds – On a Rocka. Ashes and Diamonds is Daniel Ash of Bauhaus & Love and Rockets, Bruce Smith of PiL, and Paul Denman of Sade; they just released their first album, Are Forever, and this is the best song of the first half (that’s as far as I’ve gotten).

The Dead Betties – Whatever Anyway. So apparently The Dead Betties have been around for 25 years, and I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of this queerpunk trio. They’ve put out three singles this year after releasing an album last October, then dropped an EP, Whitey, last month, with this bass-heavy mid-tempo punk track.

Kreator – Seven Serpents. Kreator’s sixteenth album Krushers of the World comes out on January 16^th, featuring this track along with “Tränenpalast,” the latter a collaboration with Britta Görtz of the melodic death metal band Hiraes. I’m amazed how many of the giants of 1980s thrash still sound just as good today, as long as they stick to their original sound. It may not be “Betrayer” or “Toxic Trace,” but this rocks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, Music, thrash

→ November 6, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, October 2025.

Three great albums and a whole host of other good releases in October, so this month’s playlist is overstuffed, clocking in at just over two hours. You can access the playlist on Spotify or, now, Apple Music.

Sudan Archives – A Bug’s Life. Brittney Denise Parks’s latest album The BPM is tremendous, easily one of the year’s best, with just one skip for me (“Ms. Pac Man”) and some absolute bangers like this track. The album is fundamentally a dance record, with influences from house music to techno to EDM to classic R&B. There’s even some string accompaniments on the album. It’s going to end up near the top of my year-end list.

Creeper – Mistress of Death. The sort-of title track from their latest album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, is one of the best songs on it, although “Prey for the Night” is the easy leader. They’re such an anachronism: in the 1980s, they would have been lumped in with American hair metal bands, but now they stand out because almost no one is making music like this at all.

Just Mustard – Endless Deathless. This Irish shoegaze band just put out their latest album We Were Just Here – they capitalize everything, I’m too tired for all that yelling – and it’s excellent, although I’m undecided if it’s better than 2022’s Heart Under, which was one of the best shoegaze albums of this current revival period. They’ve got a lot of Slowdive to them, especially with a female vocalist whose voice softens the harshness of the walls of distorted guitars.

Courtney Barnett – Stay in Your Lane. Barnett hasn’t released a proper album of her own since 2021, although in 2023 she did an instrumental soundtrack for a film called Anonymous Club, and she hadn’t released any original music at all in the last two years. Then this lands, and it’s … almost a pop song? It’s really upbeat, catchy, more guitar-driven and a little less powered by Barnett’s idiosyncratic vocals and brilliant lyrics. Perhaps this is a new phase, and I’m into it.

Momma – Cross Your Heart. Momma is the Veruca Salt of the 2020s, and I’m fine with that. They’re not breaking any ground here, but they have a good ear for melodies, and the sound is so similar to Veruca Salt – who had a couple of absolute bangers, even though they burned out quick – that they strike a familiar chord in my brain.

Rocket – Crazy. Speaking of which, Rocket is named for the Smashing Pumpkins song, and they do sound quite a bit like their idols, although it’s not as overt, more like a similar vibe, and their vocalist is miles better than Billy Corgan anyway.

World News – Everything’s Coming Up Roses. The second great track this year from this British jangle-pop band, with a very U2-like guitar sound (including the use of a digital delay, more evident on their last single “Don’t Want to Know”). They’ve put out a few EPs, but there’s no album yet. They did tease an album in progress in an interview in July.

Automatic – Black Box. This LA-based trio does a very post-modern sort of synthesizer-driven rock, unusual in that it doesn’t call back much to the heyday of synthpop in the early 1980s. Their third album, Is It Now?, dropped in September, and it’s a strong listen that doesn’t truly have a standout single. It’s dark and moody, more of a vibe than a collection of hits.

Thrice – Gnash. One of the best songs off Thrice’s Horizons/West. I saw their live show at TLA in Philly on Sunday, and they sounded incredible, even though there are a lot of mixed feelings about that venue. I think the last time I saw them was at the Franklin Music Hall and I remember it being louder but less clear. Anyway, I’m a fan, not just because their drummer is half of Productive Outs.

Doves – Spirit of Your Friend. This track will appear on the upcoming best-of compilation So, Here We Are, but the song apparently is about twenty years old, and the band ‘unearthed’ it and pared it from seven minutes to 3:39. It’s quite good but I have a hard time placing it somewhere in their sound chronology; it’s definitely post-The Last Broadcast, but I guess before Kingdom of Rust?

Weird Nightmare – Forever Elsewhere. This is METZ guitarist Alex Edkins indulging his poppier inclinations – I actually like his solo work here more than I like METZ’s harder sound. If you like Cloud Nothings, you’ll love Weird Nightmare.

dust – Drawbacks. Wikipedia tells me there was a band called Dust in the 1970s that released two albums; this is not that band. The new dust is an Australian post-punk band that sounds a lot like early Fontaines D.C. with a little darker edge. This is the lead track from their latest album Sky is Falling.

Dear Boy – After All. It’s the chorus. I was lukewarm on the song, but that line, “are you close enough to change me,” absolutely stuck in my head for days. I’ve read some reviews that try to place them with Britpop or new wave, but none of that fits for me; it’s California indie-pop, with strong harmonies and a great hook in that chorus.

Massage – Daffy Duck. I can’t help but say this band’s name like that scene from one of The Pink Panther movies, where Clouseau asks if they have a message for him but says it like “massage.” Anyway, Massage is a five-piece indie-pop band from LA who just released their first LP, Coaster, and I found this on some playlist somewhere, after which I couldn’t get it out of my head. They have a clear pop inclination, with a guitar sound that’s much more college radio than OMGHITZ!

Portugal. the Man – Angoon. So far I’ve liked the singles from their upcoming album Shish, due out on Friday, more than most of their last album Chris Black Changed My Life, which felt very much like a reaction to the huge commercial success of Woodstock. This sounds much more like their true sound, based on their pre-Woodstock output.

Orchestra Gold – Baye Ass N’Diaye. Orchestra Gold is based in Oakland, while their sound draws heavily on Malian music – not too dissimilar to the Touareg music of Mdou Moctar – while combining it with psychedelic rock and a dash of early funk. I bet they give a hell of a live show.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought feat. Rag’n’Bone Man – UP. For now, it’s a one-off single, but after the outstanding collaboration Cheat Codes in 2022 I’ll take anything Danger Mouse and Black Thought do together.

Noname feat. Devin Morrison – Hundred Acres. This is the first single from an upcoming album from Noname, whose last album Sundial was one of my favorites of 2023, called Cartoon Radio; it’s spare, mostly just Noname spitting rhymes over a synthetic piano loop. She’s one of the best MCs going.

keiyaA – k.i.s.s. Did I put this jazzy, gritty R&B song on my list because the album is called Hooke’s Law? You’re damn right I did.

Cœur de Pirate – Les enfants des temps derniers. One of the most upbeat tracks from Cœur de Pirate’s latest album Cavale, “Les enfants” sounds like a celebration throughout, even though it’s about being “a child of these last times,” facing the possible end of the world.

Weakened Friends – Weightless. I loved their track “Awkward” from 2023, which this Portland, Maine-based trio chose not to include on their new album Feels Like Hell, which does however include a cover of Ednaswap’s “Torn” (the same one Natalie Imbruglia covered). Sonia Sturino’s wobbly vocals work in small doses, but the more she invokes that trait the worse it gets; it’s only there in spurts on this track, so it gets the seal of approval.

Mourn – Dormir Tarde. I’ve been a fan of Mourn’s for probably a decade now, boosting them when fellow Spaniards Hinds were getting all the love from the indie music press. This indie-rock trio put out an album last year, but this is their second new single of 2025, so perhaps there’s another album or EP in the offing.

The Twilight Sad – Waiting for the Phone Call. The Twilight Sad were a five-piece but are now just a duo, featuring singer James Graham and guitarist Andy MacFarlane; The Cure’s Robert Smith joins them here on guitar. They haven’t released an album since 2019, so I’m assuming this is the lead track from something due out next year. It’s a little more energetic than what I typically expect from this band (whose name is, as it turns out, accurate).

Miles Kane – Sunlight in the Shadows. Kane, who is also half of The Last Shadow Puppets with Alex Turner, comes up with some serious guitar earworms, although he doesn’t have Turner’s voice or charisma.

Sports Team – Medium Machine. This is one of the seven bonus tracks from the deluxe edition of Sports Team’s latest album Boys These Days, which is out now. I didn’t love the album, at least not as much as their previous record, the more raucous Gulp!

Yowie – Skrimshander. I don’t even know what to call this beyond “experimental,” but it grabbed me anyway, probably because of the inventive guitarwork at the forefront. They’re a trio from St. Louis whose drummer is the only original member still in the band. It’s weird, don’t be fooled, but I dig it.

Glass Tides – Failure. Glass Tides are a post-hardcore band from Adelaide, Australia, who’ve toured with Thrice, which gives you some idea of their sound, although their vocalist doesn’t have the power of Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue.

Litania – Ghunghru. Psychedelic doom from Italy and Serbia. I found this track buried on the Spotify All New Metal list and it stood out immediately, not least because the vocals aren’t screamed or growled. There’s a real groove to this track that I dig.

Friendship Commanders – FOUND. Sludge metal with vocal harmonies? Sign me up. They’re duo, with incredible vocals from Buick Audra, and just released their fourth album, BEAR. This is the first track I’ve heard from them; I like that combination of heavy, perhaps drop-tuned guitars and beautiful vocals.

Coroner – Consequence. Dissonance Theory, this Swiss thrash trio’s first album in 32 years, did not disappoint; it is as good as their final two records, 1991’s Mental Vortex and 1993’s more experimental Grin. The lyrics are a little trite, as on this song’s refrain “at least you’re having fun,” but man can these guys churn out some powerful riffs. I’ve always preferred them to Celtic Frost, who are generally regarded as the pioneers of the Swiss thrash sound and progenitors of European death metal (and for whom Coroner started out as roadies), and this album is a good example of why – it’s more accessible without sacrificing the power of the thrash riffs.

Testament – Shadow People. Para Bellum, the fourteenth album from these Bay Area thrash stalwarts, dropped last month, and it includes straight-on thrash tracks like this one as well as more death metal-inclined songs like “For the Love of Pain,” which has an outstanding riff but wears out its welcome between the vocals and the blast beats. Alex Skolnick can still shred, even at age 57. I guess there’s hope for me yet.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, metal, Music, thrash

→ October 3, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, September 2025.

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 7^th.

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 5^th, 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 7^th; “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 14^th album, Based on the Best Seller, dropped on September 26^th, 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 3^rd, 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 17^th.

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 16^th; 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 10^th.

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.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, doom metal, hip-hop, indie, jazz, Music, progressive metal, thrash

→ August 10, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, July 2025.

July may have been the weakest month of the year for new music … or it might be that I was busier than ever between the day job and Gen Con, so I didn’t find as many new tracks or artists as I would in a typical month. Regardless of the reason, my playlist is shorter than usual, but August’s is already about to surpass this one in number of tracks. As usual, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Cerrone & Christine and the Queens – Catching Feelings. Cerrone was an Italo-French disco pioneer in the late 1970s; this new track is from a four-song EP with Rahim Redcar, who resurrected his Christine and the Queens moniker for this project after releasing two albums last year under other names. If you’re looking for a “song of the summer” that’s worthy of the title, this is it.

Jay Som feat. Jim Adkins – Float. Som’s new album Belong comes out on October 10^th; Adkins is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Jimmy Eat World, and you can definitely hear his influence on the rhythm lines in this pulsating indie rock track.

SENSES – call me out. This Britpop revival band put out their latest album all the heavens last month, one of the few bright spots among July albums.

Geese – Taxes. This inventive post-punk band from Brooklyn is set to release its fourth album, Getting Killed, in September, and I don’t think any of the members is older than about 22.

Rocket – Wide Awake. Named for the Smashing Pumpkins song, this LA-based band sounds a lot like their idols, but with better vocals that also serve as a softer contrast to the darker riffs on this track. Their debut album, R is for Rocket, comes out on October 3^rd.

Black Honey – Shallow. This Brighton band’s shiny take on indie-rock hooked me from the start almost ten years ago, and they’re still churning out catchy tracks that highlight singer Izzy Phillips’s sultry voice. Their fourth album, Soak, comes out on the 15^th.

Iron & Wine feat. I’m With Her – Robin’s Egg. It bothers me a little that Iron & Wine is one guy, not two, or a full band, but I’ll have to get over it. He’s put out two collaborations this summer, including this track with the trio I’m With Her, a supergroup that includes former members of Nickel Creek and Crooked Still.

Wet Leg – mangetout. Once again, everyone seems to be falling all over themselves to praise Wet Leg’s new album, Moisturizer, and I think it’s more style than substance with a couple of decent tracks, including this one. I don’t find their lyrics as humorous as the majority of critics do, so their appeal comes down to the quality of their hooks – and this is one of the best on the record, but not up to “Angelica” from their debut.

Kassa Overall – Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat). Jazz drummer and occasional rapper Overall is releasing an album of jazz covers of hip-hop classics called C.R.E.A.M. on September 12^th, featuring this Digable Planets cover and the titular one from the Wu-Tang Clan, along with Tribe’s “Check the Rhime” and Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang.”

Sudan Archives – My Type. I loved Sudan Archives’ 2022 album Natural Brown Prom Queen, naming it my #2 album of that year. This is her second single this year, more of a straight rap song with an electronic backing track, without quite the same experimentalist bent of NBPQ. Both are from her upcoming third album BPM.

Jorja Smith – With You. I’ll probably include every single Smith releases on my playlists, now and forever, but I do wish she leaned more into jazz and funk and less into this sort of EDM, which I just don’t think does her voice justice.

Luke Haines & Peter Buck – 56 Nervous Breakdowns. Haines was the leader of the Auteurs, a Britpop band who somehow get blamed for the downfall of the entire genre, and Buck was in some ‘80s alternative band before becoming best known as one of the guitarists in The Baseball Project. The two have collaborated here on an album called Going Down to the River to Blow My Mind; this song sounds much more like Haines’ prior work than Buck’s.

(The London) Suede – Dancing with the Europeans. I’d rank this third among the three singles Suede have released so far this year ahead of their upcoming album Antidepressants, just because I think it has the weakest hook of the troika. It’s still strong enough to make me more excited for the full-length record.

The Charlatans – We Are Love. One of my favorite bands of all time, The Charlatans came from the Madchester scene of the early 1990s and thrived right on through Britpop, even surviving the bizarre death of one of the founding members, but they ran out of steam around the turn of the millennium, and singer Tim Burgess’s voice, never the strongest, grew increasingly thin. That last part hasn’t improved any here, but this guitar riff is one of their best in 25 years. I saw them in concert in 2001, with Starsailor opening, and they were one of the most disappointing live bands I’ve ever seen because Burgess really can’t sing.

Wytch Hazel – The Citadel. Doom metal in the earliest sense – this song wouldn’t be out of place on a late ‘70s British hard-rock album. It’s from Lamentations, the fifth album from this relatively new band (they started up in 2011), released in July.

Blanco Teta – Perdida. This trio from Buenos Aires blends punk, noise, and experimental rock together in a frenetic blend that has some of the abrasiveness of extreme metal and the edge of early post-punk experimentalists like Art of Noise.

Forbidden – Divided by Zero. Thrash metal and math references – two great tastes that taste great together. Forbidden came up in the Bay Area along with some of their better-known contemporaries, never getting their due during their original run in the late 1980s, but I think they’re underrated. This is their first new song in 15 years, and first with new vocalist Norman Skinner, as their original vocalist Russ Anderson retired entirely from music.

Void – Apparition. This Lafayette, Louisiana, band is churning out old-school thrash in the Bay Area style, with crunchy guitars, abrupt tempo shifts, and vocals that you can still understand, mostly.

Sodom – Battle of Harvest Moon. Sodom are one of the pioneers of German thrash metal, and one fo the most prolific; this track comes from their 17^th album, The Arsonist, released in June. As with their compatriots Kreator, their sound has always included elements that would later become hallmarks of death metal, without the worst of the vocals or the blast beats.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music, thrash

→ July 2, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, June 2025.

I don’t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music – I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month’s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year’s best albums released in June as well.

As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here. And if you have a streaming service beyond the majors that you like, throw it in the comments.

Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka – Lotus. The title track from Little Simz’s latest album is the jewel in this particular crown, an eclectic, ambitious record that seethes with indignation. The rapper loaned $2.2 million to her longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Inflo for the first-ever live SAULT concert, but he didn’t pay her back, causing her to be late on her taxes that year; she’s now suing him, and nearly every song and lyric on Lotus is in some way about her feelings of betrayal and hurt over the experience. Other standout tracks include “Lion” (feat. Obongjayar), “Blood,” “Thief,” and “Blue” (feat. Sampha). Remind me never to piss her off.

Kate Nash – GERM. Nash’s new single is a spoken-word affair that attacks transphobes like J.K. Rowling by pointing out that there’s no actual evidence that trans women pose any risk to cis women, while these so-called ‘feminists’ ignore the actual harm done to all women by cis men.

Creeper – Headstones. The British goth-metal throwbacks released this thrashy lead single ahead of their next album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, which is due out in late October.

Hotline TNT – The Scene. Hotline TNT’s Raspberry Moon was the second-best new album I heard in June, a big step forward for this rock band – I hate when they’re called shoegaze, that’s flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the term – with stronger melodies from their heavily-distorted guitars. Other standout tracks include “Julia’s War” and “Candle.”

Lord Huron – Bag of Bones. The fourth single released ahead of Lord Huron’s newest album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, is the strongest one yet; the record comes out on July 18^th.

Elbow – Timber. The four-song EP Audio Vertigo Echo is also part of the deluxe edition of Audio Vertigo, the album released last year that featured “Lover’s Leap.” All four tracks on the EP are solid, with “Adriana Again” the best of the set.

Calibro 35 – Reptile Strut. Thistrack from the Italian band funk-rock band sounds like Jethro Tull recorded the score for a 1960s spy film.

TAKAAT – Amidinin. TAKAAT is the band that backs up Mdou Moctar, and on their first EP as an independent act, they sound … well, a lot like Mdou Moctar’s music, just with a little less of the shredding. It’s still excellent.

WITCH – Queenless King. WITCH is one of the original Zamrock acts and returned in 2023 with their first album in 39 years, re-forming with a new lineup; they’re back again with Sogolo, released last month, with the same ebullient sound that melds 1970s psychedelic rock with traditional Zambian music. Only singer Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda remains from the original band, as the others all died from AIDS-related causes by 2001.

Sudan Archives – DEAD. Sudan Archives’ last LP Natural Brown Prom Queen was my #2 album of 2022; this is her first new music since then, although I can’t find any word of a new LP.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s latest album, also called Weirdo, is largely a reflection on and document of her grief when her partner, producer Matthew Gordon, died unexpectedly in 2023. The record is similar in style to her last full-length, 2021’s Yellow, and despite the somber subject matter includes a lot of upbeat jazz/funk tracks, including this one and “Wanna Die.” I feel like Laufey gets a lot of the attention that should go to Thackray, whose music is more authentic to jazz but less poppy.

Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt). Salsburg’s latest album, Ipsa Corpora, is just one 40-odd minute track of him playing acoustic guitar, with nothing else, and it’s mesmerizing. I wasn’t familiar with him at all before finding this on the NPR new music playlist. This is just a two-minute excerpt from the back half of the album, and it includes one of my favorite sequences.

Suede – Trance State. The second track from Suede’s upcoming album Antidepressants continues in the dark post-punk vein of the previous single, “Disintegrate,” and I couldn’t be more excited for the full record. It feels like it’s squarely aimed at my age cohort, anyone who came of age as a music fan in the early 1980s.

Just Mustard – Pollyanna. Okay, this is real shoegaze. The Irish band’s last album, Heart Under, was also in my top 10 for 2022, as one of the purest distillations of the original shoegaze sound of the early 1990s, including some of its harsher elements. This track softens some of that, so vocalist Katie Ball is a little easier to hear above the music, but the result is that they sound a little more like Lush and less like MBV.

Steve Queralt feat. Emma Anderson – Lonely Town. Speaking of Lush, here’s their guitarist Anderson on another track from Ride bassist Queralt’s first solo album, Swallow,and it turns out when you mix Lush and Ride together you get a song that sounds like both bands. Weird.

World News – Don’t Want to Know. Dreamy jangle-rock from London. These guys look too young to be making music like this.

Lake Ruth – An Offering. Lake Ruth’s new album Hawking Radiation was inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novel Children of Time, the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, and the art of Paul Klee, a diversity of sources that shows up in the music, which draws on psychedelic rock, electronica, and even some pop elements.

Sophia Stel – Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time. Stel is a singer and electronic musician who released one EP last fall and is back with this single; it reminds me of Beth Orton, the better aspects of Sarah McLachlan’s music, even a little Tasmin Archer’s “Sleeping Satellite.”

Rocket – Crossing Fingers. This LA-based band took its name from the Smashing Pumpkins song, perhaps influenced by a desire to find the least SEO-friendly name possible, and their sound reflects that vein of early-90s alternative, guitar-driven rock. Think early Weezer, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr.

Mike Bankhead – Something that I Can’t Explain. Mike’s a longtime friend of the dish, long enough that I couldn’t even put a finger on when he started reading and commenting. He’s also a singer and bassist, and this alt-rock song is his first new track since 2023’s EP I Am Experienced.

flowerovlove – new friends. One of the weirder comments I’ve gotten on my music posts over the almost fifteen years that I’ve been writing them has been the claim that I dislike pop music. Like a lot of people, maybe most, I started out as a fan of pop music, and that’s still reflected in my playlists in music that reminds me of that era of pop. It has also made me wary of contemporary, big-label pop, because it’s so overproduced, but there’s plenty of good pop music out there if you’re willing to look a little harder for it. flowerovlove is a perfect example – she started out releasing her own music in the pandemic, and although she’s now signed to a major label, so far she hasn’t compromised her bedroom-pop sound.

Obongjayar – Gasoline. This song is from the soundtrack to F1, and continues the year of Obongjayar, as he released his second album Paradise Now in May and appears on two of the best tracks on Little Simz’s new LP. (Her appearance on his record, however, is its worst track. This song isn’t on his album but would fit quite well there with its mix of Afrobeat, electronic, and western pop traditions.

Young Fathers – Promised Land. Young Fathers did the entire soundtrack to 28 Years Later, most of which is background music rather than full-fledged songs. It also includes a reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots.” “Promised Land” is its most traditional track, at least in line with the Mercury Prize winners’ typical output.

SPRINTS – Descartes. This Irish punk band’s second album, All That Is Over, is due outon September 26^th, and this first single is one of their best tracks to date.

The Minus 5 – We Shall Not Be Released. Another friend of the dish, so to speak, as I interviewed Scott McGaughey on my old podcast and have met him and the other members of The Baseball Project. The two bands are touring together this fall.

Arc de Soleil – Sunchaser. Arc de Soleil is composer/producer Daniel Kadawatha, who does a pretty solid Khruangbin impression – as does Balthvs, who I nearly included on a playlist earlier this year. I don’t think any of these knockoffs are as good as Khruangbin, but they’re good enough to listen to in their own right, and the guitar melody here reminds of some of the better stuff from the brief heyday of guitar instrumental albums from when I was in high school/college.

Wavves – Spun. The riff at the start of this track reminds me a ton of Superdrag’s “Sucked Out the Feeling,” a song that I love until the chorus until it seems to try too hard to be edgy; then Nathan Williams shifts gears slightly for the second half of the song without losing that core melody. This is the title track from Wavves’ latest album, their first of new material since 2021.

The Beths – No Joy. The second single from the Beths’ upcoming album Straight Line was a Lie, due out on August 29^th, isn’t one of my favorites from them, actually. The hook isn’t as good as those on their best singles, and I think the super-short lines in the verses take away from the wordplay in Elizabeth Stokes’ lyrics.

Jehnny Beth – Obsession. Jehnny Beth’s latest single is pure madness – cacophonous, disjointed, just glorious – and an excellent sign ahead of her new album You Heartbreaker, due out August 29^th.

Puffer – Jimmy. Puffer are a Montréal-based punk band who seem to have a DIY ethos, recording and releasing their debut album, Street Hassle, themselves. They don’t have much of a previous footprint, just two EPs to their name prior to this record, but it’s great if you’re a fan of classic, old-school punk.

Lowen – Waging War Against God. This track is actually from Lowen’s 2024 album Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran, a superb blend of doom and extreme metal with Persian music. It would have made my list of the best albums of the year had I heard it in time.

Tulip – Arabella. I linked to the Texas Monthly story on Tulip’s origins in a Saturday roundup earlier this month; they blend symphonic metal and death metal elements, slightly overproduced in my view, and I’ll give anyone who escapes from the sort of controlling religious environment they escaped some extra points.

Unleashed – Hold Your Hammers High. Unleashed is one of the pioneers of Swedish death metal, before the ‘melodic’ death metal movement that grew out of the Gothenburg scene … but this track, from Unleashed’s upcoming album Fire Upon Your Lands, sounds a lot like late-80s thrash with vocals that are more shouted than growled.

DRAIN – Nights Like These. DRAIN is a crossover thrash (meaning a blend of traditional thrash and hardcore punk) revival band from Santa Cruz, which makes sense given that sound’s deep roots in the San Francisco area (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel all came from that scene). The vocals are a bit death-growly for me, but the riffage behind them should satisfy fans of the genre.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music

→ June 1, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, May 2025.

I believe this is my longest-ever monthly playlist, at 42 songs and 205 minutes, and I even cut a few tracks (like one from Nilüfer Yanya) before settling on this set. We had a ridiculous number of new albums of note come out last month, along with some big announcements of new records and/or tours, plus any month with five Fridays is going to have more new music by default. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

The Beths – Metal. For now, it’s a one-off single from The Beths ahead of a big tour this fall – and yes, I bought a ticket – with no word of a follow-up LP to their grade-80 album Expert in a Dying Field.

Suede – Disintegrate. Singer Brett Anderson (not the left-handed pitcher) has said Suede’s upcoming record will be their most post-punk album, and this lead single clearly leans that way. It’s amazing to me when a band can produce one of their best singles thirty years into their careers.

Wolf Alice – Bloom Baby Bloom. The Mercury Prize-winning London rockers are back, with this lead single ahead of their fourth album’s release on August 29^th. The piano riff that drives this song is almost smooth-jazz, channeling Jethro Tull’s “Bourée” or something similar, before drifting into hard rock and back again, Wolf Alice at their unpredictable, imaginative selves just as they were on their last album, the magnificent Blue Weekend.

Obongjayar – Not In Surrender. Obongjayar’s latest album Paradise Now is about as genre-spanning an album as you’re likely to hear all year, which means it’s pretty inconsistent but has some incredible high points like this pulsing Afrobeat/rock track and the earlier single “Sweet Danger.” I actually can’t stand the collaboration with his frequent musical partner Little Simz, “Talk Olympics,” because … well, listen to the intro and you can probably guess why I find it so annoying.

Elbow – Sober. Elbow is releasing a five-song EP, Audio Vertigo Echo elbow EP5, including this track and last fall’s tremendous “Adrianna Again,” on June 6^th; I believe this track is from the Audio Vertigo sessions, unlike the previous single, but whatever, it’s all great and I think Elbow is peaking.

The Itch – The Influencer. One side of a new single from this Georgia duo who’d previously released just a single track, last year’s “Ursula,” which is about one of my all-time favorite novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. This is straight-up ‘80s new wave with some goth influences – think Bauhaus, Heaven 17, mid-80s Depeche Mode – and as such couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse.

Peter Murphy – Hot Roy. “Cuts You Up” is Murphy’s peak; when I did a list of the best songs of the 1990s back in (gulp) 2010, it was at #118; I might have it higher now, honestly. This is the first thing he’s done in probably 20 years that recaptured even some of the glory of that song for me.

Sunday (1994) – Doomsday. It’s a bad commando name, I admit, but if you like dream pop at all, especially the 1990s version, this band and their new EP Devotion are for you.

Indigo de Souza – Heartthrob. I can’t figure out if I’d heard de Souza’s music before and didn’t care for it, or if this was the first track by the Asheville singer/songwriter I’d heard. I thought it was a new song by Weakened Friends given de Souza’s warbly delivery and overly earnest lyrics, but the hook won me over. Her fourth album, Precipice, comes out on July 25^th.

Deep Sea Diver – Emergency. I’ve hadat least one Deep Sea Diver song on a previous playlist, and reader Brian in SoCal recommended I check out their newest LP; I found the album kind of uneven but when they let ‘er rip, as they do on this song, it’s fantastic, with a great pop hook in the chorus but enough roughness around the edges to keep a more authentic, almost college-radio sound.

TURNSTILE – BIRDS. I’m not sure what’s going on with TURNSTILE; they were a great punk band, and some of that is still evident on the new record, but they’ve gone well beyond that genre on this album, Never Enough, due out on June 6^th, and the experimentation doesn’t work as well as it did for the comparable record from Fontaines D.C. “SEEIN’ STARS” is almost a pop song; “LOOK OUT FOR ME” is a six-minute opus where the first half sounds too much like early Helmet. Also please stop writing everything in all caps, I feel like you’re yelling at me.

Black Honey – Insulin. I’ve been a Black Honey fan since their first handful of singles in 2015-16, which is hard to believe now. They started out as more power-pop but they’ve had a harder edge between their last album and this single. Their fourth album, Soak, is due out in August.

Hotline TNT – Candle. This noise-rock band’s last single, “Julia’s War,” was my favorite track from them to date … and this might be my second-favorite. Their third album, Raspberry Moon, comes out on June 20^th. I actually don’t like the third single, “Break Right.”

Jehnny Beth – Broken Rib. Beth was the lead singer of the short-lived post-punk band Savages, whose debut album Silence Yourself was #18 on my ranking of the best albums of the 2010s; she released a solo album in 2020, but has mostly appeared as a guest vocalist on other artists’ works, and even appeared in the film Anatomy of a Fall in a significant supporting role. Her second album, You Heartbreaker, You, is due out in August, and this lead single is a welcome return to that Silence Yourself form of raging feminist post-punk.

Preoccupations – Panic. Ill at Ease, the latest record from one of the most authentic post-punk bands out there, is solid if a little familiar, very much in that Joy Division/The Sound/Bauhaus vein.

Siracuse – Chase the Morning. Kind of Oasis meets psychedelic rock, a little less Madchester-y than their 2023 song “Saviour,” which made my top 100 for that year, more like the music I hoped the DMA’s were going to keep making until they threw up their hands and started making electronica instead of rock.

Sleigh Bells – Badly. Another band that seems to be good for one great song per album, although I think there’s a bit of gimmickry in their lyrics and sometimes videos (“Comeback Kid”) that I think takes away from the music. This isn’t quite up to “Rill Rill” or “True Seekers” but it’s in my top 5.

We Are Scientists – Please Don’t Say It. This song sounds like someone merged Sparks with a math-rock band, so it’s catchy but also has this intensity that I find grabs me early in the track and doesn’t let up.

The Supernaturals – Don’t let the past catch up with you. The Supernaturals hung around the fringe of the Britpop movement without quite breaking through to commercial success, splitting up in 2002 after their third album came out. They returned in 2015 and have now put out four albums post-hiatus, with this latest one, Show Tunes, coming out in May. I was and still am a big fan of Britpop’s original era, but I’d never heard of these guys until this record.

Sports Team – Boys These Days. The title track from their follow-up to the tremendous Gulp! is a good indicator of their downshift in style; the record has plenty of solid tracks but doesn’t hit as hard as the last record did, still playful and snarky, just lacking the huge hooks this time around. I also liked “Bonnie” and “Bang Bang Bang.”

The Head and the Heart – After the Setting Sun. I like when they stomp. That’s really it – when their songs build to a big stompin’ finish, like “Shake” does, I’m in. This one does that.

The Minus 5 – Let the Rope Hold, Cassie Lee. That is Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows and, more importantly, The Baseball Project, along with his TBP bandmates Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon. The two bands will be touring together this September.

Peter Doherty – Felt Better Alive. Fresh off the triumphant return last year of his band The Libertines, Doherty followed it up with his first solo album in nine years last month. This is the title track from the record, which is a more subdued experience than the last Libertines record and which I at least interpreted as the work of a more mature, sober Doherty.

Natalie Bergman – Gunslinger. Bergman is a folk-pop singer from LA who is also half of the duo Wild Belle with her brother Elliot, and her second album, My Home Is Not in This World, is due out in July. Her previous record leaned towards some very religious material, but this song is secular and, I think not coincidentally, a real banger. Wikipedia says she’s the late Anne Heche’s niece.

Ty Segall – Possession. When Segall’s good, he’s very good – he crafts some really great rhythm-guitar hooks. He’s good for about one of them an album, which I guess is better than some artists.

Ezra Furman – Power of the Moon. Never been a fan of Furman’s music but this song is the best of hers I’ve heard, reminding me a lot of the Waterboys; I need to listen to the full abum, Goodbye Small Head, which came out on May 16^th.

Blondshell – Thumbtack. As I feared, “Two Times” turned out to be far and away the best song on Blondshell’s new album If You Asked for a Picture, and the album overall is a mixed bag. Sabrina Teitelbaum’s earnest lyrics and delivery wear pretty thin for me, unfortunately.

Shamir – I Love My Friends. Almost every Shamir song leaves me wondering why I don’t like his music more, but more often than not there’s just one thing that turns me off a song. This is the best track from his latest album, Ten, and an example of how good he can be when everything clicks … if you can live with his creaky delivery on the verses that belies his strong singing voice.

Wu-Tang & Mathematics – Mandingo. I suppose it’s a matter of semantics whether Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman is a proper Wu-Tang release, but I would vote yes, as it features every living member of the Wu-Tang Clan on at least one track. It’s also pretty old-school, not exactly 36 Chambers level but in with similar music and, of course, a lot of snippets from kung fu movies.

Kae Tempest – Know Yourself. I still think of Tempest’s style as spoken word rather than hip-hop, although the chorus on this new track is at least more derived from the traditions of the Golden Age of the latter. I don’t think this is his strongest work lyrically – “I Saw Light” remains his best in my opinion – but it’s one of the best backing tracks he’s used to date.

Tune-Yards – How Big is the Rainbow. I used to hate “Water Fountain,” which I think is probably still Tune-Yards’ biggest hit, but it’s grown on me over time, probably because I’ve just become more open-minded about music that veers from what’s expected. Anyway, Tune-Yards’ latest album Better Dreaming dropped in May and I completely agree with Pitchfork’s comment that it’s their most melodic and accessible album to date. It’s almost poppy, at least within their typical framework of drum loops and globally-inspired beats.

Steve Queralt feat. Verity Susman – Messengers. Queralt is the bassist for Ride, the pioneering British shoegaze band, and here he teams up with Susman, the vocalist in Electrelane, for a spacey, time-out-of-joint sort of electronic rock track. It definitely seems like the sort of music you’d listen to while high, and I mean that in a good way.

deary – I Still Think About You. This dreampop duo has a couple of EPs under its belt, but this song, which reminds me a ton of early Lush (pre-“Ladykillers”), was my first exposure to them.

Nation of Language – Inept Apollo. This track is the new wave/synthpop trio’s first since signing with Sub Pop, and one of my favorite songs from them. No word yet on a new album, which would be their first since 2023’s Strange Disciple.

SENSES – Already Part of the Problem. I liked this Coventry-based quartet’s atmospheric rock track “Drifting” a couple of years ago; this one has a bit more energy and some more prominent synths, reminiscent of 1990s college radio rock.

The Chameleons – Saviours Are a Dangerous Thing. The Chameleons straddled the line between post-punk and new wave in the early 1980s but never found commercial success, even in their native UK, before breaking up for the first time in 1987. They reunited for one album in 2001, then broke up again, re-forming a second time in 2021 with two original members, singer/bassist Mark Burgess and lead guitarist Reg Smithies. They’re set to release their first new LP in 24 years, Arctic Moon, on September 12^th.

Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You. Idon’t love the frenzied techno beat behind Smith’s vocals, but I love her voice enough that I put the song on here anyway.

James BKS – Assia. TheFrench-Cameroonian musician/producer and son of legendary Afrofunk saxophonist Manu Dibango released his latest EP See Us Rise last month, including this midtempo, lite-jazzy number.

Suzanne Vega – Witch. I’ve never been a huge fan of Vega’s and this is the first song of hers I’ve put on a playlist, although that’s probably because Flying with Angels is her first full-length album in eleven years. Her lyrics can still get a little wobbly but I attribute that to her trying to be more ambitious in her storytelling. This song really rocks in a way I don’t totally associate with her, although she certainly has flashed that in her career (including on my favorite song of hers, “Blood Makes Noise,” covered surprisingly well by British thrashers Acid Reign).

The Budos Band – Overlander. So I’d never heard of the Budos Band until now, even though VII is, as you might have guessed, their seventh album, and their first came out 20 years ago. The whole album is like this, although this track has the best riff, and every song sounds like it belongs in a trailer for a movie you will be 30% more likely to go see because of the music.

Pelican – Cascading Crescent. How have I not heard of Pelican before? It’s mostly instrumental doom and sludge metal, and it’s awesome. This is one of several great tracks on their latest album Flickering Resonance. There is just too much music out there, dammit.

Witchcraft – Idag. The title track from this longstanding Swedish doom metal band’s latest album, their first rock album in nine years, is also its strongest, although the tempo is a little faster than typical doom – and that’s indicative of the album as a whole, which bounces around various styles, including some 1970s-ish blues metal, and has tracks in Swedish and in English. Some of the English lyrics are really silly (“Burning Cross”), but there’s some fantastic riffing across most of the LP.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, doom, hip-hop, indie, metal, Music

→ February 11, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, January 2025.

This playlist is a bit late as I was finishing up the last of the team rankings, but it includes songs released between when I published my top 100 songs of 2024 and January 31^st, so anything that’s come out in the last eleven days will go on the next playlist. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

SAULT – The Lesson. SAULT dropped an album with no warning, as they typically do, right before Christmas, the religious-themed Acts of Faith. It’s a more subdued effort and has less of the over social activism of their previous albums, still with several really compelling tracks even though much of the lyrical content is foreign to me.

Little Simz – Hello, Hi. A surprise drop from the Mercury Prize-winning British rapper, her first new music since the too-brief Drop 7 EP came out this time last year, although there’s no word on a new album.

Goat feat. MC Yallah – Nimerudi. I knew Goat, but not MC Yallah, a Kenyan-born rapper now based in Uganda who rhymes in four languages. She’s great, combining technical skill and a really easy flow, so I was into it even when I didn’t get the language she was using. I feel like she must have grown up listening to a lot of Queen Latifah and Native Tongues.

Skunk Anansie – An Artist is an Artist. Definitely didn’t know Skunk Anansie was a going concern, or that Skin was 1) the chancellor of a British university and 2) awarded an OBE, but I don’t know a lot of things, so there’s that. Anyway, this is the first new music from Skunk Anansie since 2022 and they’ve hinted that there might be an album coming in 2025, which would be their first in nearly a decade. I know their ‘90s output more than anything from the last 20 years, but this song is one of their most accessible – without losing any of the rage and fire that made them icons in the first place.

Doves – Cold Dreaming. Musically, this is one of their best tracks post-Last Broadcast. I wish Jimi had handled the vocals, and the opening line of “God knows, it ain’t easy” is hackneyed, taking the song down a peg, but it’s still a great sign for Constellations For The Lonely, which comes out on Valentine’s Day.

Courting – After You. Courting’s last album, New Last Name, made my list of the top albums of 2024, and they’re already back with another LP, Lust for Life, Or; ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’, dropping March 14^th with this track and last fall’s “Pause at You.” I’m just a fan of their angular art-rock sound, and they seem to have an endless supply of melodies to throw on top. Plus they just always sound like they’re having fun.

Swervedriver – Volume Control. Swervedriver often get lumped in with the Britpop and/or shoegaze movements because they were contemporaries of those bands and sometimes had some similarities in the production style, but they had a harder rock edge and more blues influence. I believe this is their first new song in six years, since their last album, Spiked Flower, came out in January of 2019, and once again it has that heavier rhythm guitar and bass presence that I think brings almost a metal influence to their alternative rock vibe.

WOOZE – Running Outside with Heather. Every time this song comes on, I think it’s from one of my playlists of 1970s rock, but then it shifts gears into a sort of dance riot – which is WOOZE’s specialty.

The Darkness – Rock and Roll Party Cowboy. Not their strongest, I admit, but “I’m a rock and roll party cowboy/and I ain’t gonna read no Tolstoy” is a hell of a couplet. The guitar solo’s appropriately ridiculous as well. Dreams on Toast comes out March 28^th.

Sunflower Bean – Champagne Taste. I find it fascinating that Sunflower Bean had a hit with “Moment in the Sun” and immediately changed their sound to a harder-edged, almost glam rock circa 1978 vibe, rather than leaning into the song that made them somewhat popular. Good for them.

Lambrini Girls – Nothing Tastes as Good as It Feels. This punk duo’s debut album Who Let the Dogs Out? has 11 tracks and runs just 29½ minutes, but it’s packed with witty, incisive lyrics about misogyny and gender politics. “Company Culture” is still my favorite from the record.

Heartworms – Extraordinary Wings. Jojo Orme released her debut album Glutton for Punishment in January, and it’s packed with tracks like this one that blend industrial, new wave, and goth elements but that still end up with memorable hooks.

Mourn – Verdura y Sentimientos. Mourn’s garage-rock sound hasn’t changed much over the last decade, since the early single “Gertrudis (Get Through This)” hit my radar, and I’m good with that – it’s raw, emotional, tinged with post-punk, and never overproduced. This was one of two songs they released together, with the other titled “Alegre y Jovial.”

Momma – I Want You (Fever). I like Momma, and I like this song a lot, but my God is this derivative of … well, listen to the track and sing it with me: “I want you/Fever/Can’t fight/the seether.”

Tunde Adembimpe – Drop. The singer of TV on the Radio gave his debut solo album a name, Thee Black Boltz, and a release date, April 18^th, along with this second single, not quite as strong as “Magnetic” but still pretty good if, like me, you like some of TVotR’s more rockin’ stuff.

Bartees Strange – Wants Needs. Strange had my #1 song of 2022 with “Heavy Heart” off his sophomore album Farm to Table, but since then he’s just had a few scattered singles, nothing with the same energy – until this one, the first single ahead of the release of his third album, Horror, this Friday.

Lord Huron feat. Kristen Stewart – Who Laughs Last? I mean, is it a gimmick? It kind of feels like one to have Stewart read some pretentious lines over what is otherwise a strong backing track with a pounding electronic beat and a solid hook in the chorus.

Mogwai – Fanzine Made of Flesh. This Scottish experimental rock band released their eleventh album, The Bad Fire, in January. I’ve never been a huge fan because I don’t find a lot to grab onto in their songs, but I do appreciate that they’re generally pushing boundaries – their songs are interesting even if they’re not catchy.

Population II – Le thé est prêt. Population II does really old-school psychedelic/prog rock, right down to mimicking the production style; it’s an anachronism and I kind of dig their willingness to lean into the quaintness of the sound. They’ve released three albums, the first of which comprised just two songs but ran about 35 minutes; their fourth LP, Maintenant jamais, comes out on March 28^th.

clipping. – Change the Channel. Not quite as strong as “Run It” but still compelling work from Daveed Diggs & company ahead of their more industrial-leaning album Dead Channel Sky, due out March 14.

bdrmm – Infinity Peaking. bdrmm’s third album Microtonic comes out on the 28^th; I keep seeing them described as “shoegaze,” a label that gets slapped on everyone now, but they are way more avant garde than typical shoegaze. It’s just that they have some of that wall of distortion going on around all of the experimentation. This is where I thought black midi was headed before they broke up or went on hiatus. (I’d say that twice over for Squid, whose newest album is once again ambitious and experimental, but the lyrics are often disturbing and the music heads too far afield.)

The Horrors – More than Life. Another single ahead of the release of their sixth album, Night Life, which will be their first full-length record since 2017’s V., their best to date and one of the best albums of that decade. This is a little more downtempo than “The Silence that Remains,” the first single this psychedelic/shoegazey rock band put out from the record late last year.

Pastel – Heroes’ Blood. This British band that blends shoegaze and Britpop elements put out their debut album, Souls in Motion, last month; the best songs are mostly ones we’ve heard already and that I’ve put on previous playlists, including “Your Day” and “Leave a Light On.” This was my favorite of the songs they hadn’t released before.

The Weather Station – Neon Signs. The Tamara Lindeman-led alternative folk project released their seventh album, Humanhood, in January; I found it a mixed bag but there are a couple of standouts, including this and “Window.”

Miki Berenyi Trio – 8^th Deadly Sin. This track from the former lead singer/guitarist of Lush has a similar vibe but lacks the acerbic wit of Lush’s best tracks like “Single Girl” and “Ladykiller.” Her new group will release its first album Tripla on April 4^th.

Japanese Breakfast – Orlando in Love. I really need to read Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner’s acclaimed and best-selling memoir, since I like at least some of her music – although this track leans towards the lighter end of her music. Her stuff is so poppy that she’s often on that line between stuff I find very catchy and stuff that feels a bit twee.

Freckle – Paranoid. Freckle is Ty Segall plus Color Green’s Corey Madden; they put out their self-titled debut album on the last day of January, and a lot of it is mopey and boring, but this song is fantastic – you can hear both artists’ influence here, with the swirling chord changes I associate with Color Green and Segall’s brand of off-kilter melody in the vocals.

The Tubs – Narcissist. A little janglier tune this time from this Welsh band that rose from the ashes of Joanna Gruesome.

The Wombats – Can’t Say No. I’m a little concerned about the upcoming Wombats album Oh! The Ocean, due out on the 21^st, as the singles they’ve released so far have a definite album-tracks feel to them, with neither the big hooks or the clever lyrics of even their last album, 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World.

Brooke Combe – This Town. I had Combe’s “Black is the New Gold” on my top 100 tracks of 2023, then lost track of her (no pun intended) until this ebullient song, from her new album Dancing at the Edge of the World, popped up on a playlist I subscribe to on Spotify. It’s quite different from the earlier song beyond her vocals, still in the intersection of pop and R&B but with more of the former in some of the vocals and the string arrangements.

NIJI – Mo ti délé. I’ve had a few of NIJI’s tracks on playlists over the last year-plus, but just learned that he was the organist for Knicks games at some point. The jazz pianist’s next album, Oríkì, comes out on the 28^th.

Samba Touré – Assouma Kagne. Touré is a Malian desert blues guitarist, no relation (as far as I can tell) to his late mentor, the legendary Ali Farka Touré, or Ali Farka’s son Vieux, sometimes known as “Samba.” This Samba’s style is more acoustic than that of either of those two artists or of the Nigerian superstar Mdou Moctar, which to my ears makes it seem less rooted in the American blues tradition. Samba just released his tenth album, featuring this midtempo track.

Cymande – Chasing an Empty Dream. I had never heard of Cymande before this track, even though the band is older than I am, releasing their self-titled debut album in 1972. They put out four albums in ten years, broke up in 1981, then reunited to play some shows in the early 2000s after their music found a renaissance through sampling and via Spike Lee’s use of one of their tracks in two of his films. They put out an album in 2015, their first in over 40 years, and then just released their next one, Renascence, in January. It’s very old-school 1970s funk with a Caribbean tilt; I hear a lot of Commodores, Ohio Players, even some R&B like Curtis Mayfield in this particular song. Also, bassist/singer Steve Scipio was once Attorney General of Anguilla. How many bands can claim that?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, Music

→ March 1, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, February 2024.

Hey, not too bad for a month of just 29 days, although I think the quantity of songs on a playlist has more to do with how many Fridays a month has than how many days. I’m posting this on March 1^st, which is a strong album release day (Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Everything Everything, Kaiser Chiefs, Ministry, Sheer Mag, Yard Act), leading into what looks like a very promising spring of new LPs from some great artists. As always, if you can’t see the Spotify widget below, you can click here.

Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well. I’m pretty sure this is the first song by Musgraves I’ve ever put on a playlist. It’s just gorgeous, with a hint of darkness in the lyrics to contrast to the lovely guitarwork and harmonies in the chorus.

Khruangbin – May Ninth. A La Sala, their first proper LP since 2020’s Mordechai, comes out on April 5^th, and it seems like it may be a return to their all-instrumental style from their prior work.

Parsnip – The Light. Parsnip is an Australian quartet who released an album in 2019 called When the Tree Bears Fruit, but this was the first track I’d heard by them. It’s jangly, catchy indie-pop with some smart-ass lyrics, loosely descended from a lot of the Britpop stuff I was all about in my 20s. It’s from their upcoming album Behold, due out April 26^th, their first new music of any sort since 2020.

Kaiser Chiefs – Beautiful Girl. Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album comes out on March 1^st, their first LP since 2019, but even with production from Nike Rodgers, this is the only single I’ve heard of five worth listening to. It’s fantastic, though. Lead singer Ricky Wilson wrote a short, interesting retrospective on their sudden rise to fame and the vicissitudes of their career for The Guardian this past week.

Pond – Neon River. More weird psychedelic rock from down under. Stay with it through the lugubrious intro for the muscular, acid-tinged riffs in the chorus.

Elbow – Lovers’ Leap. Elbow came along at the wrong time for me, after Madchester and Britpop, two genres I still come back to all the time, but before I got back into current music again around 2007, thanks in no small part to the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album. I’ve checked in on them here and there, such as when they won the Mercury Prize for The Seldom Seen Kid, but their music has just drifted right on by me. That’s by way of explanation of why this is the first Elbow track to ever appear on one of my playlists: it’s not just that I think it’s good, but I think it’s very different. Frontman Guy Garvey promised the upcoming LP, Audio Vertigo, will be “groove-based,” and this song definitely qualifies.

Yard Act feat. Katy Pearson and David Thewlis – When the Laughter Stops. More post-punk goodness from Yard Act, with an appearance from Thewlis reading the “sound and fury” monologue from Hamlet. Their second album, Where’s My Utopia?, is out today, March 1^st.

English Teacher – R&B. There’s a slow start here but it picks up the pace partway through to sound more like other English Teacher tracks, with their modern take on post-punk; their debut full-length This Could Be Texas comes out on April 12^th.

Omni – Compliment. I seem to be very late to the Omni party, as the Atlanta post-punks have received critical acclaim for at least their last three albums now, including the just-released Souvenir, which has this track as the closer.

Squid – Fugue (Bin Song). I’m not always on Squid’s wavelength, but they’re one of the most innovative bands out there right now, especially in their punk-adjacent space, playing with time signatures and working outside of traditional keys. It’s a bit like black midi with less pretense.

Les Savy Fav – Legendary Tippers. I didn’t think LSF were still a going concern, but they’re about to release their first new album in 14 years, Oui, in May. They’ve dropped two singles so far; this one sounds similar to the sound they

Kid Kapichi – Get Down. Kid Kapichi have always reminded me of a harder-edged version of Arctic Monkeys, leaning more into punk than Alex Turner & company do, but here they go back a few decades with talk-sung lyrics telling a story before the hook in the chorus.

Cast – The Rain That Falls. So I sort of knew Cast were still around, but maybe I’d forgotten? I loved Cast in the 1990s – “Sandstorm,” “Alright,” “Beat Mama,” “Finetime” – as they emerged from the ashes of The La’s, whose Brian Wilson-esque frontman Lee Mavers refused to release any new music after their debut album. Cast’s latest LP Love Is the Call is a mixed bag, at best, but this is the best track on the album and you can hear their earlier Britpoppy sound poking through.

Everything Everything – The End of the Contender. These British art-rockers’ latest album, Mountainhead, drops on March 1^st, featuring this song, “Cold Reactor,” and “The Mad Stone.” Those three singles all have the EE sound, but they’ve also felt more restrained, without the sort of controlled chaos of Arc or A Fever Dream.

Love Fame Tragedy – It’s Ok To Be Shallow. The second single this winter from Matthew Murphy’s side project, after December’s “Don’t You Want To Sleep With Someone Normal,” with both sounding … a lot like the Wombats. I don’t think Murphy can write any other way, but fortunately I love most of what he writes, so we’re all good.

Ride – Last Frontier. Ride & Slowdive both making comebacks in the late teens ahead of, or perhaps encouraging, the new peak of shoegaze is a welcome development, given that I liked both bands in their original heydays but definitely did not fully appreciate either.

Brittany Howard – Prove It To You. What Now turned out to be a bit of a disappointment after the title track, the lead single from the record, was so good I named it my #1 track of 2023. I was hoping for more funk, but instead the album bounces all over the place, with a lot of house/electronica and a number of almost dirge-like tracks. Nothing lived up to the first single but this is the second-best song on the LP.

Little Simz – Mood Swings. Little Simz released a surprise EP, Drop 7, with seven tracks and a total run time of just 14:49; it is, as you’d expect, the seventh in a series of EPs that exist in parallel to her more traditional tracks on her albums. It’s weird, in a good way, although it reminds me I need to listen to No Thank You, her December 2022 album, again, as it came out in a dead time for new albums.

Paul Weller – Soul Wandering. Sixty-five and still rocking, Weller, the former leader of The Jam and The Style Council, is back with this soul-influenced track that has some powerful guitar work (I get a little early Tom Cochrane from it) before the Motown-esque backing vocalists come in for the chorus. His latest solo album, 66, will come out on May 24^th, one day before his 66^th birthday.

Waxahatchee – Bored. I can’t believe it’s been four years since Saint Cloud, Waxahatchee’s breakout album, came out, but I guess a fair amount has happened since then. This track is the second from her upcoming album Tiger Blood, due out March 24^th, and both songs seem to lean more into her alt.country side than the roots rock style of the last album.

The Mysterines – Stray. Lia Metcalfe and company will release their second album, Afraid of Tomorrows, on June 7^th. This lead single is more snarling than most of the tracks on their 2022 debut, Reeling, but not quite as fast-paced as their earliest singles, which remains my favorite version of the band. The song’s video definitely leans into Metcalfe’s looks and star power.

Slow Fiction – Apollo. An indie-rock group from Brooklyn – bet you haven’t heard of that before! – Slow Fiction put out an EP last year, followed by this one-off single, which does a tremendous job of building up energy and tension through the bridge and chorus, only releasing it in the final ten seconds or so of the track.

Screaming Females – Swallow the World. The Females announced their breakup in December, but they’ve now released their 2022 EP Clover, previously only available to buy at shows, on streaming sites and on bandcamp.

MAQUINA. – denial. I know very little about this band other than that they’re Portuguese, but this is very Ministry, with a little Death in Vegas thrown in.

Alcest – L’Envol. This French metal band pioneered the awkwardly-named subgenre of “blackgaze,” melding black metal elements with shoegaze, which was later taken over by the American band Deafheaven on their far less interesting album Sunbather. Anyway, Alcest has been putting out some of the best metal albums in the world in the last decade, and their first new LP in five years, Les Chants de l’aurore, will be out in June.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: alternative, hip-hop, indie, metal, Music, post-punk, shoegaze

→ February 3, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, January 2024.

PSA: The top 100 prospects ranking runs on Monday for subscribers to The Athletic, followed by the ten guys who just missed on Tuesday.

January ended up a big month for new music, especially for new albums – it seems like a lot of artists/labels held stuff back from mid-November until after the New Year. Not included were some new tracks from ‘90s faves like the Jesus & Mary Chain, Buffalo Tom, and Black Grape. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Just Another Rainbow. I can’t believe these two British rock icons (of Oasis and Stone Roses, respectively) have gotten together to put out an album, or that either of them sounds this good at their respective ages. The second single, “Mars to Liverpool,” was a bit of a letdown, though, and I’m hoping the record isn’t a bunch of mopers. Also props to Liam for knowing the order of colors in the visible spectrum.

Sprints – Heavy. This Irish punk act’s debut LP Letter to Self is going to end up on my top albums of the year, with this, “Adore Adore Adore,” “Up and Comer,” and “Literary Mind” all standouts.

Courting – We Look Good Together (Big Words). And Courting’s latest album, New Last Name, is also going to end up on my top albums of the year, leading with the poppy banger “Throw” followed by this track, with “Flex” and “The Wedding” also highlights.

Folly Group – Pressure Pad. Will Folly Group’s Down There! also make my top albums of the year list? We’ll have to wait on that one, but I’m a new fan of their experimental art-rock sound.

Bob Vylan – Hunger Games. “What will you win yourself tonight/spin the wheel for a chance at a hot meal.” The righteous anger here harkens back to the earliest days of punk, when working-class angst found its outlet in loud, short bursts of guitars and shouts.

Softcult – Heaven. I wasn’t familiar with Softcult until they popped up on my Spotify Release Radar playlist, which … well, sometimes the algorithm works, as they remind me a ton of early Lush (shoegaze era, not “Ladykillers”).

The Lemon Twigs – My Golden Years. I didn’t love the Lemon Twigs’ 2023 album Everything Harmony, although it made a slew of best-of lists for last year. This track has a way better melody than anything on that LP, with that same ‘60s power-pop sound that has some Beach Boys influence in the harmonies.

Talk Show – Red/White. Talk Show have been on my playlists for a few years now, so I was surprised to hear that their upcoming LP, Effigy, due out on the 16^th, is actually their debut. This last advance single has clearer vocals than in some of their other tracks, but still has that mélange of punk, goth, and industrial.

Waxahatchee & MJ Lenderman – Right Back To It. I’m here for just about anything Waxhatchee does, and it says something that I have a track by Lenderman, whose work as a solo artist and with the band Wednesday does nothing for me, on my playlist.

Ride – Peace Sign. Ride were part of the original shoegaze movement, so it amuses me that they’ve moved into a much different space, more psychedelic dream-pop than the minor-key noise of shoegaze. I like both iterations, for what it’s worth.

Shabazz Palaces feat. Stas THEE Boss & Irene Barber – Angela. Shabazz Palaces is Ishmael Butler, formerly known as Butterfly while he was in the seminal jazz-rap trio Digable Planets. His output under the new moniker, which used to be a duo until Tendai Maraire departed the group, is more experimental, with funk, jazz, and electronic elements, although hip-hop still finds its way into many of their tracks. This song comes off their upcoming album Exotic Birds of Prey, due out March 29^th.

Jamie xx – It’s So Good. Yes, yes it is. Jamie xx – of the xx, of course – had two all-timers from his first true solo effort, “Loud Places” and “SeeSaw,” but this is the first thing he’s released since that 2015 record that’s captured that same ebullient feeling.

Etta Marcus – Girls That Play. Marcus’s second album, The Death of Summer & Other Promises, came out on January 24^th. Her alt-pop style reminds me of Ingrid Michaelson, but less cloying.

Yard Act – We Make Hits. I loved Yard Act’s debut album, and they’ve clearly evolved their sound to incorporate some new elements without losing the sardonic, witty lyrics and offbeat rhythms that made The Overload so good. Where’s My Utopia? comes out March 1^st.

Sheer Mag – Moonstruck. Sheer Mag’s third album, Playing Favorites, comes out March 1^st, and this track might be the poppiest thing the Philly garage-rockers have ever put out.

The Libertines – Shiver. The likely lads are sounding older, wiser, and … sober? Carl Barât’s vocals will always give their music a rougher edge, but the Libertines may actually have grown up a little.

Khruangbin – A Love International. A peak-form instrumental track from the Texas Thai-jazz trio ahead of their new album À la Sala, due out April 5^th.

Bill Ryder-Jones – If Tomorrow Starts Without Me. The best track on Ryder-Jones’s acclaimed new album, Iechyd Da (a Welsh toast meaning “good health”), this is also one of the only ones that doesn’t move at the pace of a funeral dirge.

swim school – Give Me a Reason Why. More shoegazey goodness from this Glaswegian trio ahead of a headlining tour in the UK.

Sunny Day Real Estate – Novum Vetus. I don’t know if it needed to be seven minutes, but hey, any SDRE track is good by me. It’s their first new release in ten years, although the song itself originated in the sessions for the 1997 album How It Feels to Be Something On.

Real Estate – Haunted World. I had to put these two back to back, didn’t I? Otherwise I might have lined this up with the Lemon Twigs, as it’s got a similar vibe, an acoustic track that reminded a lot of the Shins.

GEMZ – Younger. GEMZ is Jen Wood and Ted Chen, and if you’re close to my age, you might remember Jen Wood’s short-lived band Tattle Tale from the early 1990s, or maybe you know her from her contributions to The Postal Service. This is her newest endeavor, but her vocals are the draw no matter the style of music.

TORRES – Happy Man’s Shoes. What an Enormous Room, TORRES’s sixth album, came out on January 26^th, and the tracks I’ve heard seem weirder than their previous output, but in a good way. I saw one review compare the LP to Goldfrapp, which I can definitely hear on this track.

Masta Ace & Marco Polo feat. Coast Contra – Certified. Yes, that is Masta Ace of the Juice Crew, which also featured Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap, and for a man of 57 who’s fighting MS he sounds damn good.

Judas Priest – Crown of Horns. These Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will release their nineteenth LP, Invincible Shield, in March, featuring this oddly upbeat track (which still has some great soloing). Glenn Tipton is credited as appearing on the album, although he’s now 76 and has been dealing with Parkinson’s for over a decade.

Tom McGovern & Cory Wong – Everything Smells Like Salmon. I’m not much for joke songs, either because they’re not funny or because the joke wears thin after one listen, but this one has some staying power. It’s pretty funny, the lyrics are very clever, and Wong’s guitar work is always worth a spin.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, hip-hop, Music, shoegaze