metal

→ November 1, 2024
→ By keith
→ 1 Comment

Music update, October 2024.

After all of that – by which I mean all the new tracks I listened to in the past month – October was one of the weakest months of the year for good new music. We did get two very strong albums that I’ve already featured on previous playlists in Katie Gavin’s What a Relief and Japandroids’ swan song Fate & Alcohol, and I’ve got a few left to work through. In the meantime, here are 24 songs that made the cut; as always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Waxahatchee – Much Ado About Nothing. A brand-new track from Katie Crutchfield just seven months after she released her latest album Tigers Blood … and this might be better than anything on the LP, which is really saying something.

Humdrum – There and Back Again. This is about as perfect a jangle-pop track as you’re going to find in this decade. Holy cow. I haven’t gotten to their debut album, Every Heaven, yet, but it’s next up in my queue.

Royel Otis – If Our Love Is Dead. The algorithms have been trying to convince me to like Royel Otis for a year, at least, but I just haven’t liked any of their songs all that much, or even remembered them. This track has a great little hook in the chorus, though. This indie pop due is huge in their native Australia, earning 8 ARIA nominations for their debut album PRATTS & PAIN; this song comes off the deluxe edition, retitled PRATTS & PAIN – It Ain’t Over Til It Ends.

The Tubs – Freak Mode. The Tubs are led by the former guitarist from Joanna Gruesome; Pitchfork’s review of their 2023 debut album Dead Meat referred to the “chiming sound of 80s college rock,” and it definitely has a lot of that sound – jangle-pop is back, baby – but this song has an incredible urgency to it that goes beyond those college-radio staples that didn’t stick except for their nostalgia value. It reminds me a little of The Dead Milkmen’s “Punk Rock Girl,” but more melodic and less annoying.

Momma – Ohio All the Time. Momma broke out a little in 2022 with “Speeding ’72,” which made my top 20 of that year, but it’s just been a few scattered singles since then. This new track is pretty solid, with a great hook in the chorus and a similar contrast between the sweet-sounding vocals and the ‘70s-style distortion of the crunchy guitars.

The Smile – Eyes & Mouth. The Smile’s third album, Cutouts, includes some tracks recorded during the sessions for their last LP, but the sound is so different – the three tracks I’ve heard so far are all way jazzier funkier, with much clearer influence from drummer Tom Skinner of Sons of Kemet and less of the mopey sound that Radiohead critics deride.

Black Doldrums – Hideaway. Darkwave trio Black Doldrums released their second album, In Limerence, in October, highlighted by this Bauhaus-y track driven by a twangy guitar line that almost begs for resolution.

Crows – Every Day of Every Year. I’m a huge Crows fan, as they come in somewhere between post-punk and hard rock; they should do a double bill with Kid Kapichi, who I unfortunately missed on their U.S. tour because I was out of town. Crows’ third album, Reason Enough, came out at the very end of September.

Kid Kapichi – Newsnight. Speaking of these lads, they released this track in October, one of four new songs on the deluxe version of this spring’s There Goes the Neighbourhood.

The Murder Capital – Can’t Pretend to Know. Sitting somewhere between punk and post-punk, this Irish group are more true to their style than their more ambitious and expansive countrymates Fontaines D.C. This track comes from the ongoing sessions for their third album, release date unknown.

Corker – Distant Dawn. Corker hail from Cincinnati, and this track sounds like a mash-up of Preoccupations and very early Killing Joke, complete with vocals that sound like they were recorded through a string connected to a coffee can.

Anxious – Counting Sheep. Anxious’s debut album Little Green House was one of my favorites of 2022, but then they dropped completely out of sight for almost two years. I was thinking about how they’d vanished a couple of weeks ago, only for this song to show up on my Spotify Release Radar a few days later. Serendipity, I suppose. Anyway, Anxious gets labelled as emo but they’re sharper and more interesting than just a revival of that subgenre. Their second album is due some time next year.

Sløtface – Quiet on Set. Sløtface’s latest album, Film Buff, is their first as a de facto solo project for vocalist Haley Shea, and the good news is that it’s on par with their previous two releases. If there’s a downside, it’s that there’s nothing new here, either; it’s really catchy pop-punk with witty lyrics.

La Sécurité – Detour. This Montréal-based “art punk” group released its debut album, Stay Safe!, in 2023, and returned last month with this throbbing, dissonant, and very dance-heavy track.

The Cure – A Fragile Thing. I read somewhere that Robert Smith wanted to go back to the Disintegration era of The Cure on this comeback album, and on this track, at least, he has succeeded. I think that’s their best record, so I may be biased in my opinion here.

Pastel – Leave a Light On (Velvet Storm). The last time I included a Pastel song, one of you commented that it was a blatant ripoff of The Verve; I don’t exactly hear that, but I get the criticism, and I think it’s as pronounced a similarity this time – although I hear more Primal Scream on this track.

The Horrors – The Silence that Remains. It’s a little ponderous, maybe a little pretentious, but Faris Badwan has earned at least some benefit of the doubt at this point. The Horrors’ sixth album and their first in nearly six years, Night Life, is due out in March.

Mindy Smith – Quiet Town. Mindy and I met in second grade in 1979, and we happen to share a birthday, although I’m a year younger than she is (I was the youngest person in my class). This is the title track from her latest album, her first one in 12 years, which also features “Jericho” and “The Hour of My Departure” (the latter with Daniel Tashian). I believe we are the only two members of our high school graduating class to have our own Wikipedia pages.

Lucius – Old Tape (feat. Adam Granduciel). A one-off single, for now, featuring the lead singer/guitarist of The War on Drugs; I saw both artists in September at the Mann in Philly, at which point Lucius’s Jess Wolfe was something like 11 months pregnant.

The Wombats – Sorry I’m Late, I DIidn’t Want to Come. This is mid as Wombats songs go, mostly because I think they’re capable of much catchier tracks, but I’ll take a mid Wombats song over a lot of other bands’ singles.

Orla Gartland – Backseat Driver. I wasn’t familiar with Gartland, an Irish singer-songwriter who released her debut album Woman on the Internet (great title) in 2021, until I heard this song, off her new album Everybody Needs a Hero. It’s a bouncy slice of indie-pop, slyly nodding at teen popstars but with lyrics that belie her age (she’s a ripe old 29).

WOOZE – Fantastic Fever. WOOZE is half of a defunct band first called Movie and then called Screaming Peaches; they put out a handful of songs, including the ridiculously fun “Mr. Fist,” then split up. WOOZE’s sound is more trashy glam-rock, although there’s still a danceable beat to all of their tracks. This is the best of the three singles I’ve heard from them this year, over “Sabre Tooth Spider” and “Weapons of Mass Seduction.”

Goat – Goatbrain. One of you suggested I check out the latest album from this anonymous Swedish fusion group, also called Goat; it was a solid tip, as I do like a lot of what they’re doing, blending sounds from various global music styles into a pretty cohesive whole, although the vocalists aren’t very strong and it holds the album back.

Blood Incantation – The Stargate [Tablet II]. Blood Incantation’s latest album Absolute Elsewhere is the most highly acclaimed metal album of 2024, and it is an impressive work of musicianship, comprising two songs, each in three “tablets,” running a total of 43 minutes and running the gamut from spacey 1970s prog-rock to Spiritual Healing-era Death. That latter bit means parts of the album are just unlistenable; the combination of blast beats and death growls just turns into noise to me, and I’m really here for the guitarwork anyway. This is the one track out of the six that is largely free of that nonsense, and despite running just five minutes, it gives you an idea of the stylistic range of the album.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, indie, metal, Music, progressive metal

→ October 2, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, September 2024.

Another month where I thought things started slow but by the turning of the calendar I found myself with 30+ songs saved and had to cut down to the ones I considered the best or most interesting. We also had a few albums come out on the final Friday that I’m still working through, so some tracks may bleed into October’s playlist. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

Michael Kiwanuka – Lowdown (part i). Kiwanuka’s follow-up to his Mercury Prize-winning album KIWANUKA, called Small Changes, comes out on November 15^th. This single, his second this year, is a lo-fi, bluesy track that recalls Jimi Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe.”

clipping. – Run It. The first true new track from Daveed Diggs & company this year, not counting their wide release of 2020’s “Tipsy,” “Run It” has Diggs’s rapping front and center again, as in the best tracks from their last full-length album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned. The noise-rap trio are working on a new LP, possibly for next year.

Ezra Collective feat. Olivia Dean – No One’s Watching Me. Ezra Collective won the Mercury Prize last year for their 2022 album Where I’m Meant to Be, an album I hadn’t heard before but didn’t find that catchy. This spring, they started releasing singles from their new album, Dance, No One’s Watching, which just came out on Friday, and they’ve pretty much all been bangers. There’s definitely more emphasis here on melody, and they go well beyond modern jazz into 1970s soul, funk, Afrobeat, and more. It’s almost a full hour of music across 19 tracks.

flowerovlove – erase u. This 18-year-old bedroom pop artist had one of my top 20 songs of last year with her song “Next Best Exit,” and this song is another sunny pop gem in a similar vein. Her latest EP, ache in my tooth, comes out October 11^th.

FKA Twigs – Eusexua. FKA Twigs’ third album, also called Eusexua, is due out on January 24^th, which will be her first full-length LP since 2019’s Magdalene. In interviews, she’s promised a greater techno influence, and that’s certainly evident here in the backing music, but it’s not a techno song, or even much of a dance track, and her feathery vocals are by far the most prominent part.

Divorce – All My Freaks. This Nottingham quartet are suddenly everywhere, with this track getting quite a bit of media coverage for a band that won’t release its first album until March. It’s undeniably catchy, though, in a sort of alt-pop way. Also, the bassist/singer is a former actress named Tiger Cohen-Towell, which might be the most English name I’ve ever heard in my life. P.G. Wodehouse would have rejected it as too much.

Sløtface – Leading Man. Sløtface’s first album as a solo project for singer Haley Shea, called Film Buff, came out on Friday, but their sound is pretty similar to what it was before the other three band members departed: it’s witty punk-pop with strong hooks and a ton of cultural references. I’m glad she didn’t retool their sound.

Japandroids – All Bets Are Off. I just could not get into Celebration Rock, Japandroids’ big breakthrough album, but liked their 2017 follow-up Near to the Wild Heart of Life, and now I’m enjoying all of the singles from their upcoming album, Fate & Alcohol, except that they’ve announced this is their swan song. Good stuff.

Sunflower Bean – Lucky Number. Sunflower Bean’s new EP, Shake, has five songs that are mostly heavier guitar-driven stuff than what they’d been releasing, although I think if you go back to their first album and songs like “Wall Watcher” you can hear the seeds of this sound in there. “Moment in the Sun” is a great pop single, but I don’t think it’s representative of the band’s typical output.

High Vis – Drop Me Out. This British punk band’s third album Guided Tour will come out on October 18^th, and this is the third single from the record, but this was actually the first track of theirs I’ve heard. There’s at least some melody lurking here beneath the shouted vocals, which at least superficially nod to singer Graham Sayle’s working-class roots.

Lambrini Girls – Company Culture. Then there’s Lambrini Girls, a straight-up punk duo from Brighton with very progressive politics and a great ear for melody even within the strict confines of the genre. They’re coming to the U.S. for just three dates, all in NYC, in early December.

Oceanator – Lullaby. I wasn’t familiar with Elise Okusami, who released her newest album Everything is Love and Death on August 30^th, until hearing this and “Get Out” over the past month. This track opens like a melodic death metal song, but then veers back into more accessible hard rock territory, and you can hear metal influences throughout the album even though at no point would I call her music ‘metal.’

Pale Waves – Glasgow. I’ve never been a big fan of Pale Waves, who seemed to have better publicists than tracks, but this one from the Manchester pop/rock quartet has one of their best hooks.

Franz Ferdinand – Audacious. Franz Ferdinand peaked with their first three albums, but in the last fifteen years they’ve released just two albums – neither particularly good – and a couple of singles from a greatest-hits record, so when I say this is the best song they’ve released since 2009, that’s sort of damning with faint praise. It’s still clearly an FF song but with a song structure and tonal shifts drawn more from 1990s Britpop than their 1970s/early 1980s-influenced early work.

Blossoms – I Like Your Look. Blossoms’ last album was very Lord Huron/Head and the Heart/Ryan Adams, but this new album, Gary, is a big leap for them, a more ambitious medley of sounds that draws on new wave, notably the New York scene (I can’t hear anything but Blondie on this song); and 1970s soul (“What Can I Say After I’m Sorry”), without totally abandoning their previous sound (“Perfect Me,” the title track). I liked a couple of songs off Ribbon Around the Bomb, but this is a welcome swing for the fences, even if they don’t all connect.

Atlas Genius – End of the Tunnel. My daughter alerted me to this new album from the Australian quartet, whose last full-length came out in 2015. The best track on the LP is “Elegant Strangers,” which they released as a single in 2021, and it also includes the one-off tracks from the late 2010s “63 Days” and “Can’t Be Alone Tonight”; this is the second-best song on the album after “Elegant Strangers.”

Temples – Day of Conquest. This track didn’t make the cut for 2014’s Sun Structures, so it’s on their upcoming EP of B-sides Other Structures, due out October 4^th.

Foxing – Barking. Foxing’s new self-titled album was also self-produced and self-released, and it is the sound of a band being completely liberated from any label expectations. Opener “Secret History” starts out so quietly you might be tempted to turn up the volume, which would be a mistake around the two-minute mark when the death metal screaming starts up (is this Deafheaven?). “Hell 99” has guitarist Eric Hudson screaming “Fuck!” repeatedly in the heaviest track on the record. It feels like a window into someone cracking up, an album full of existential dread, angst, repressed anger finding any outlet to release the pressure. It’s a marvel and it’s also, at times, very hard to listen to. I included “Barking” here because it’s one of the most accessible tracks on the record, and in some way the most recognizable to fans of Nearer My God or Draw Down the Moon. Foxing’s interview with Stereogum is worthwhile reading if you’re a fan of the band.

Razorlight – Zombie Love. Razorlight were one of the original “landfill indie” bands, as Andrew Harrison coined the term in 2008 right before the release of their third album, which underperformed and put them into a decade-long hiatus.

Hinds – Mala Vist. Hinds’ fourth album, Viva Hinds, came out last month, their first new music since half the band quit in 2023, and it’s their best album yet.

Katie Gavin – Inconsolable. I couldn’t believe this was Gavin (also of MUNA), as it’s a straight-up country song and features Sara and Sean Watkins of bluegrass icons Nickel Creek. Gavin’s solo debut What a Relief comes out October 25^th and all three singles to date have been outstanding.

The Aces – The Magic. The Aces return with a slightly funky pop track ahead of their upcoming, fourth album. This 2023 BBC profile of the Utah-born members’ journey, with three coming out as queer and all four leaving the Mormon church, explains a lot of the opening up of their sound since their second album came out right as the pandemic hit.

The Cure – Alone. The Guardian called this song “majestically wreathed in misery and despair,” and if I just told you that phrase and asked you to name the band, The Cure would probably be in your first three guesses, right? “Alone” is a clear attempt to bring the band back to its Disintegration peak, and is the first single from their first album since 2008, Songs from a Lost World, due out November 1^st.

Wolfgang Press – Take It Backwards. Wolfgang Press were part of the latter wave of the post-punk movement in the 1980s, but really peaked with their 1991 album Queer, when they ditched most of their funereal goth vibes and went for a dance/funk sound that was unlike almost anything else of that moment because they still ultimately sounded like Wolfgang Press. Their cover of “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” was a modest hit in the U.S., and was followed by the one-off single “A Girl Like You,” which was their biggest hit, but after their next album flopped in 1995 they appeared to be done. They’re back now with their first new album in 29 years, A 2^nd Shape, which came out on Friday; the members are probably about 65 years old at this point, so I’m fascinated to give it a spin.

Flotsam & Jetsam – The Head of the Snake. I Am the Weapon, the fifteenth album from these thrash stalwarts, is more of the same, and I mean that in the best possible way. They still have two members from their 1980s peak, singer Eric Knutson and guitarist Michael Gilbert, so the core sound hasn’t changed much, and I admit I’m just happy to hear anyone still producing that particular strain of thrash.

Opeth – §3. Opeth’s new album The Last Will and Testament will come out on November 22^nd, and is the first Opeth record to include death-metal elements since 2008’s Watershed … but this song is straight prog-metal in line with their last four albums, so it’s clear the death growls and such won’t be present everywhere on the album. I love all Opeth, notably Blackwater Park, which is a progressive death metal album through and through, but sometimes their musicianship can get clouded out by the growled vocals. Blackwater Park is especially strong for its long instrumental passages, often comprising several movements, so that when the vocals return there’s a real tonal shift and a clear demarcation between sections. I’m hopeful based on the first two tracks that The Last Will and Testament will be the same.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music, progressive metal, thrash

→ September 5, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, August 2024.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, indie, melodic death metal, metal, Music, punk, rap

→ July 3, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, June 2024.

June brought three of the best albums of the year so far and a slew of comeback singles from bands I thought weren’t recording any more, so I’d call it a good month even beyond the part where it included my birthday and my daughter graduating from high school. Anyway, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here.

Rakim feat. Kurupt and Masta Killa – Be Ill. The world has been waiting for new music from Rakim for 15 years, and for good new music from him for at least 25 years. We’re getting a new album, modestly titled G.O.D.s NETWORK: REB7RTH, on July 26^th, and this song has Rakim sounding as good as he has since the 1990s.

GIFT – Later. More shoegazey than straight shoegaze, with a heavier dose of ‘80s synths, cleaner guitars, and way more prominent vocals. GIFT’s second album, Illuminator, their first as a full band (rather than a solo project for vocalist/guitarist TJ Freda), comes out on August 23^rd, but the three singles they’ve released so far are all bangers – this one, “Going in Circles,” and my favorite, “Wish Me Away.” There’s definitely some Slowdive/Ride influence here, but Freda is doing more than just mimicking his idols, especially when it comes to building towards a big chorus or other hook.

Hundred Waters – Towers. I had long given up on hearing more music from Hundred Waters, whose sophomore album The Moon Rang Like a Bell was also one of my top albums of the 2010s, but whose last release was 2017’s Communicating. The trio, led by singer Nicole Miglis, released a four-song EP called Towers on June 14^th, and Miglis still sounds incredible, while the band continues to experiment with the electronic sounds that back her up. I’m hoping there’s a full album to come but I’ll take what I can get.

The Mysterines – Hawkmoon. The Mysterines’ sophomore album Afraid of Tomorrows came out on June 21^st, the same day as Pond’s and Alcest’s newest albums, and it’s a huge step forward from Lia Metcalfe’s quartet across the board, but especially in the quality of its hooks. My friends at Paste interviewed Metcalfe and drummer Paul Crilly about the new record.

Pond – So Lo. Stung!, the latest album from these Australian experimental psych-rockers, is all over the place, for better and a bit worse, but I take that as the price of admission given their willingness to jump between genres. This has strong mid-80s Prince vibes, as well as the 1970s funk songs that inspired his Revolution era sound.

The Howl & the Hum – Same Mistake Twice. Imagine a mashup of gang of youths and the Front Bottoms and you get this song from the Yorkshire quartet whose name unfortunately sounds like a discount version of The Head & the Heart.

Sløtface – Ladies of the Fight. This is what I want from Sløtface’s Haley Shea, who is now the only official member, and has a knack for punk-pop hooks and witty, sardonic lyrics. This track is full of movie references, including Fight Club and A League of Their Own, fitting since the upcoming album is titled Film Buff (September 27^th).

Color Green – God in a $. This is just good old-fashioned blues-based rock and roll, maybe with a dash of jam-band sensibility thrown in. I’d love to see them live, although their summer tour doesn’t go anywhere west of Boise.

Good Looks – Broken Body. This Austin jangle-pop band released their second album, Lived Here for a While, in June, featuring this track and the lead single “If It’s Gone,” which showcase their sense of melody and wistful lyrics.

Chime School – Give Your Heart Away. More sunny jangle-pop goodness from San Francisco Giants fan and Seablite drummer Andy Pastalaniec, whose second album, The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel, drops on August 23^rd.

Los Campesinos! – Feast of Tongues. We do love Welsh bands around here, but I have to admit that Los Campesinos! have often missed the mark for me – they’ve often struck me as trying too hard to be snarky or different, or just generally too cool for school. This track, from their upcoming album All Hell (out July 19^th), is something I at least haven’t heard from them before, reminiscent lyrically of Okkervil River and musically of Mercury Rev.

Mercury Rev – Patterns. Oh hey, what a coincidence. I thought Mercury Rev had hung it up after 2015’s The Light in You (which I barely remember), and I can’t say I’ve been into anything they’ve done since 2001’s epic All Is Dream. This song feels like a throwback to that record, with spoken, philosophical (or just) lyrics over a psychedelic space-pop backdrop. Their new album Born Horses drops on September 6^th.

The Jesus Lizard – Hide & Seek. These 1990s noise-rock icons haven’t released an album in 26 years, but Rack drops on September 13^th. They’ve promised a departure from their old sound; this track sounds more like the clean punk sound of the Descendents than Goat or Liar.

Amyl and the Sniffers – Facts. Seth Meyers’ favorite band put out two singles at the end of May, this one and “U Should Not Be Doing That,” and they haven’t changed their fast-driving throwback punk sound a bit.

Fontaines D.C. – Favourite. Fontaines D.C. go Britpop on the closing track from their forthcoming album Romance, due out in August. I saw this Irish post-punk band open for Arctic Monkeys last September and they were unbelievable live, so much so that I would have said I wasn’t a fan before seeing them but definitely became one after.

Hayden Thorpe – They. Thorpe was the lead singer of Wild Beasts, whose final album Boy King ranked 5^th on my list of the best albums of the 2010s, but his solo output since their breakup has lacked some of the urgency and verve of Wild Beasts’ best material. I’m cautiously optimistic about his next album, Ness, out September 27^th, given the more ambitious music on this track.

One True Pairing – Mid-Life Crisis. So Hayden Thorpe’s return sent me down a Wild Beasts rabbit hole that led me to One True Pairing, the nom de chanson of their bassist Tom Fleming, who put out a self-titled album under that moniker in 2019 and has put out three singles in the last eight months. He also doesn’t sound quite like Wild Beasts did, but there’s a sweeping, lush texture to this song that kept me coming back to listen to it again. (It’s not a cover of the Faith No More track. Sorry.)

Griff – Anything. Griff’s full-length debut Vertigo comes out on July 12^th and includes a bunch of the singles she’s already released, including this banger, the title track, “Astronaut,” and “Pillow in My Arms.” She’s playing Philly in September … on a Monday when I’ll be in Chicago for Stadium.

Soccer Mommy – Lost. A lovely acoustic ballad from Sophia Allison, her second single (along with last year’s “Lose You,” with Bully) since her 2022 album Sometimes, Forever.

Hinds – En Forma. Hinds began as a duo, became a quartet, went dark after a one-off single in 2021, lost two members, and now are about to release their first album with their original lineup of Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote, Viva Hinds, on September 6^th. They’ve released three singles so far, and it sounds like they’ve cleaned up their sound and production enough that they no longer sound like they recorded the record in a subway bathroom or are just learning to play their instruments.

METTE – MUSCLE. I had no idea who METTE was when I heard this song, and while I don’t generally go for this kind of commercially-oriented electro-pop, this damn thing would not let go of my ears for days. Then I found out METTE is actress Mette Towley, who was in Hustlers and The Old Guard and briefly in Barbie, and she’s opening some of Taylor Swift’s shows in the UK, so, uh, good job me finding out about the famous person.

Nubya Garcia – The Seer. Garcia is an English jazz saxophonist who released albums in 2017 and 2020 but nothing since; this track, which caught my ear for the obvious John Coltrane influence on her playing, is her first in four years and the lead single from her forthcoming album Odyssey, due out September 20^th.

NIJI – A13 Fuji. Nigerian-British jazz pianist Niji Adeleye released his first proper LP Somewhere in the Middle in January and is already back with another track that blends western jazz styles with Afrobeat sounds. The main horn riff here is quite an earworm.

Ezra Collective feat. Yazmin Lacey. Ezra Collective won last year’s Mercury Prize for their 2022 album Where I’m Meant to Be, and have now released a pair of singles from their follow-up record Dance, No One’s Watching, due out September 27^th. I think they’ve embraced a more pop-oriented sound, going more for strong melodies in either their music or in the guest vocals. I didn’t quite get the acclaim for the last record, at least compared to other candidates for the Mercury Prize, but I’ve liked both this and “Ajala” quite a bit more.

Jamie xx – Treat Each Other Right. Jamie xx put out two singles in June, this and “Life” featuring Robyn, leading up to the release of his second solo album In Waves on September 20^th. So far, I haven’t heard anything as strong as “Loud Places” or “SeeSaw,” both featuring his bandmate Romy from the xx; it’s been more tracks like this, big house beats but without the same hooks or cross-genre experimentation.

Alcest – Komorebi. Alcest’s new album Les Chants de l’Aurore is the best metal album of the year so far by a mile, and one of the best albums of the year, period. It’s at least the best thing they’ve done since 2016’s Kodama, and I think represents the perfect balance of progressive metal, shoegaze, and extreme/death metal, three genres with which guitarist/singer Neige has experimented for his entire career, varying his use of all three. This album is a journey and I have already taken it many times.

Crypt Sermon – Thunder (Perfect Mind). Crypt Sermon does a souped-up take on doom metal, with a little more groove to it than typical adherents of that genre, with a very polished but still heavy, crunchy take on the style on their new album The Stygian Rose, which came out in June.

Flotsam & Jetsam – Primal. Props to Flotsam & Jetsam, who just keep churning out thrash tracks like it’s 1986. I’ll always be a sucker for this style of metal even though its moment was short and it’s hopelessly outdated now.

Dark Tranquility – Not Nothing. Dark Tranquility are one of the leaders of the Gothenburg style of metal, often called melodic death metal, here mixing clean and growled vocals with a heavy, proggy guitar riff through the chorus.

Tribulation – Saturn Coming Down. Tribulation gets labelled as “black metal” or “death metal” because their vocals are growled and they wear silly corpse paint, but their music isn’t actually that extreme – it’s straight metal and often wouldn’t be out of place on a compilation of ‘80s metal. On this new track they switch to clean vocals with a very goth sound in the chorus and it really elevates the whole endeavor; I know the death growls are part of their schtick but they’re leaving money on the table because the music is way more accessible than the labels indicate.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, doom metal, hip hop, indie, jazz, melodic death metal, metal, Music, rap, thrash

→ April 30, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, April 2024.

Whew; April was loaded, and took me more time than usual because I had to sort through so many songs I’d saved and listened to a bunch of albums from April and from my March backlog. I also have had the Libertines’ All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade on repeat for much of the month. Anyway, here’s my April playlist, and you can access the Spotify list here if you can’t see the widget below.

The Mysterines – Sink Ya Teeth. I’ve been a Mysterines fan since some of their earliest singles, including “Gasoline,” “Bet Your Pretty Face,” and “I Win Every Time,” but their debut album, Reeling, left me a little disappointed, as they eschewed some of their uptempo hard-rock sound for slower, broodier material. This is their best song since 2021, at the very least, ahead of that debut album and their other singles “Stray” and “Begin Again.” Their second album, Afraid of Tomorrows, comes out on June 7^th.

Geese – The Bonecracker Acetates. What a great opening guitar riff from one of my favorite bands going. These NYC experimental rockers love to play with genres and forms, and they aren’t afraid to stretch a song out to play with its structure, but this time around they play it straight, maintaining the blues-rock vibe throughout its nearly 5-minute run time.

Fontaines D.C. – Starburster. I became a much bigger Fontaines D.C. after seeing them open up for the Arctic Monkeys in September; they’re incredible live, and despite being just as loud as you’d expect, the music came across as more textured and melodic, while lead singer Grian Chatten had great presence. This song is pretty accessible as their stuff goes, although I’m not sure if we needed to hear Chatten inhaling like some sort of inverted death-metal growl, though.

RINSE & Hatchie – Kiss Me (Kill Me). RINSE is Joe Agius, and he’s also Hatchie’s husband; they’ve collaborated before on “Back Into Your Arms.” This song has some of the dream-pop stylings of Hatchie’s solo work, but there’s more shoegazey guitars in the background here, and I think it complements Hatchie’s voice – which I’ve always thought was a bit thin to be mixed in the front of her songs – extremely well. I assume the B-side is called “Hold Me (Thrill Me).”

GIFT – Wish Me Away. I loved “Gumball Garden” from this NYC-based psychedelic-rock band in 2022, and they’ve returned now with what appears to be their first new song since that last album Momentary Presence.

Swim Deep – First Song. I don’t think I’d heard anything from Swim Deep before, but the shoegaze revival brought them to my ears and is probably a good thing for their pockets – this is straight-up shoegaze right out of my college years.

Pond – (I’m) Stung. So many bands draw from rock of the 1970s, particularly the psychedelic rock of the early part of that decade, but Pond manages to sound like they’re in the 1970s and just dropped by our era via the Tardis.

Mdou Moctar – Imouhar. Funeral for Justice will be out on Friday, May 3^rd, his long-awaited follow-up to Afrique Victime, which put the Tuareg guitarist/singer on the global map.

Altin Gün – Vallahi Yok. The Anatolian rock stars return with a two-sided single, along with “Kirik Cam.” Their signature sound blends psychedelia with traditional Turkish music; if I didn’t know who the band was, I’d say this sounds like a perfect song to get stoned to, if you’re into that sort of thing.

STONE – My Feelings Go. This might be STONE’s most melodic track yet, which cuts both ways – it’s bordering on emo, without the harder punk edge of some of their previous tracks.

Phosphorescent – Revelator. First Kacey Musgraves, now Phosphorescent? Am I going soft in my old age? This song is just gorgeous, a lush alt-country number that reminds me of the better Jason Isbell stuff.

Parsnip – The Babble. Behold is now out, and it’s full of little pop gems with a subtle edge to them, like this, “The Light,” “Duality,” and “Turn to Love.”

Griff – Pillow in My Arms. Griff released her latest EP, ver2igo vol. 2, earlier this month, and will be touring the U.S. in the fall. “Miss Me Too” is definitely the best song of the four on the record, but I’m really waiting for a full-length release from the British singer-songwriter, who has put out some of my favorite pop songs of the last five years (“One Night,” “Black Hole,” “Head on Fire”).

Sløtface – Tired Old Dog. Sløtface has been a solo project of Haley Shea since June of 2022, after which she put out an EP and a few singles that sounded like she’d changed the band’s sound or just kind of lost interest; their earliest work was funny, edgy, and rooted in classic punk. Her first album since the lineup change, Film Buff, is due out in September, and this second single is definitely her best work since at least 2020’s Sorry for the Late Reply.

Spiritual Cramp feat. White Reaper – Whatever You Say Man. This is apparently one half of a split 7” between White Reaper, the world’s greatest American band, and the San Francisco punk band Spiritual Cramp. It doesn’t sound exactly like either of their sounds, but it leans more towards Spiritual Cramp.

Bob Vylan – Reign. Vylan’s latest album, Humble as the Sun, is a righteously angry affair that blends alternative rock and traditional hip-hop in a way that makes them into a single sound, rather than, say, the rap-metal hybrid that terrorized the populace in the early aughts.

Les Savy Fav – Limo Scene. Oui, LSF, this Chicago noise-rock band’s first new album in 14 years, will be out on May 10^th, with this the second single from the record.

BODEGA – Cultural Consumer III. So there are indeed three tracks by this name on BODEGA’s latest album, Our Brand Could Be Yr Life, but the other two suck. This one’s chorus is really catchy, and the lyrics paint an interesting picture of consumerism run amok.

Jamie xx & Honey Dijon – Baddy on the Floor. It’s an average track for Jamie xx, not his best, but I’d say better than “Kill Dem,” which I assume will also be on whatever album he’s planning. I wasn’t familiar with Honey Dijon (the DC, not the salad dressing), but she’s apparently pretty well-regarded in American DJ circles.

Belle & Sebastian – What Happened to You, Son? Another new track from the Scottish indie popsters, this one left on the cutting floor from their Late Developers sessions.

The Folk Implosion – Moonlit Kind. They’re never going to match “Natural One,” but I’m glad Barlow & Davis are back at all. They returned after a 19-year hiatus in 2022, put out a four-song EP last April, and now we have this new track, heralding Walk Thru Me, their first full-length album with John Davis since 1999’s One Part Lullaby. It’s due out on June 28^th.

A Certain Ratio – Keep It Real. ACR were part of the first wave of post-punk bands in the UK, contemporaries of Wire, Gang of Four, Siouxie & the Banshees, and PiL, but never achieved the commercial or critical success of those bands. Their earliest sound incorporated more funk and dance influences than their peers, but not enough to latch on to the second, new wave that followed, where they were overshadowed by Joy Division and the Cure (and inferior to other commercially unsuccessful bands like The Sound or Josef K). ACR reunited in 2020 after a twelve-year hiatus, and they sound quite a bit like they did in their 1978-1982 peak.

Lionlimb feat. Angel Olson – Dream of You. Lionlimb is Stewart Bronaugh, who has also played in Olsen’s backing band, along with Joshua Jaeger, and their newest album Limbo comes out on the 24^th. I’m not a huge fan of Olsen’s solo work, but this track has a trippy Portishead vibe that grabbed me on first listen.

Ezra Collective – Ajala. Ezra Collective won last year’s Mercury Prize, which, to be honest, was the first I’d heard of them, but they remind me quite a bit of Ozomatli and that’s good enough to put them here, even if that represents a pretty low bar for my taste in jazz.

Yannis & the Yaw feat. Tony Allen – Walk Through Fire. That’s Yannis Phillippakis of Foals, and Tony Allen was a legendary Nigerian drummer who’d worked as Fela Kuti’s musical director for over a decade. The two recorded some material in the late 2010s, but Allen died in 2020 before they could finish the project; Phillippakis completed the few tracks they had begun and is releasing this five-song EP, Lagos Paris London, due out August 30^th.

Wheel – Disciple. Charismatic Leaders, the third album from this Finnish-American prog-metal band, drops on Friday the third; despite numerous lineup changes, their sound has been pretty consistent over the last five-odd years.

Alcest – Flamme Jumelle. Alcest will release Les Chants de l’aurore, their first new album in five years, on June 21^st; based on the two tracks we’ve heard so far, it sounds like they’ve gone back towards the straight shoegaze sound of Shelter, or at least most of the way there, with no sign of the black-metal trappings of their earliest work or the blackgaze sound of Spiritual Instinct. For the record, I like pretty much all of it.

Crypt Sermon – Heavy is the Crown of Bone. The latest LP from these Philly-based doom metal artists, The Stygian Rose, drops on June 14^th; I love this track, which is heavy and crunchy and draws heavily on classic doom acts (Sabbath, Candlemass, Cathedral) but also some NWOBHM as well.

High on Fire – Lamsbread. High on Fire dropped their ninth album, Cometh the Storm, on April 19^th; everyone describes them as sludge metal or stoner metal (including Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Metallum), but there’s too much thrash in here to lump them into those groups. I assume it’s just because Matt Pike is a co-founder of actual stoner metal band Sleep.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, indie, jazz, metal, Music, progressive metal, shoegaze

→ April 4, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, March 2024.

March had a slew of big album releases, even just limiting them to artists whose work I’ve liked at some point in the past: Ride, Everything Everything, Liam Gallagher/John Squire, Waxahatchee, Elbow, Kacey Musgraves, Judas Priest, Sheer Mag, Yard Act, and more. There are a few I liked, but several were just okay – not bad, but nothing that special. There were a lot of songs from upcoming albums that I’m excited for, and this playlist has tracks from four different albums due out on May 3^rd, so I guess that’ll be a busy listening weekend for me. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the Spotify widget below.

Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice. Moctar became a global phenomenon with 2021’s Afrique Victime, bringing his blend of Touareg music and Western guitar to a much broader audience as the English-language music press began to sing his praises. (It was #5 on my top albums of 2021.) This is the title track from his follow-up album, due out May 3^rd, and it’s very heavy on Moctar’s mesmerizing guitar work.

Elbow – Good Blood Mexico City. This banger from Elbow’s latest album, AUDIO VERTIGO, feels like the best song Doves never recorded. It’s fast and loud and intense, with a great hook at its heart. The album is solid and I think it’s the best new album from last month, at least of the ones I’ve listened to all the way through.

The Libertines – Oh Shit. The lads’ fourth album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, is due out on Friday, a week later than originally scheduled, and the singles so far have still been rough-and-ready but definitely show a mellower side of Barât and Doherty.

Kaiser Chiefs – Reasons to Stay Alive.The Kaisers may be approaching 30 years together as a band, and their most popular record, Employment, may turn 20 next year, but their new album has two absolute bangers in this and “Beautiful Girl.” I doubt it’ll get much play outside of the U.K., given the way we dispose of bands in the U.S. music scene, but they’ve had more than a few winners even post-“Ruby.”

Kid Kapichi – Can EU Hear Me? Angry Kid Kapichi is the best Kid Kapichi, and I wish the whole album – There Goes the Neighborhood – maintained this level of righteous rage throughout. This is obviously an anti-Brexit track (“I don’t wanna live alone on this island/But they put it to a vote, and they just kept lyin’”) but like all of the best Kapichi tracks it has some incredible hooks and the indignation shows up in the furious rhythm guitar.

Liam Gallagher/John Squire – You’re Not the Only One. Yeah, well, the anticipation was fun, but the album is kind of a snoozer. I think everyone – myself included – was so excited at the potential for some real John Squire material on par with his Stone Roses output that perhaps we ignored two key facts: Squire is a terrible lyricist, and Liam hasn’t seemed engaged with any music he’s put out since Oasis’s 2005 album Don’t Believe the Truth. One track on the album is called “I’m So Bored,” and when Liam sings it, I believe him.

Mourn – Endless Looping. I thought Mourn had disbanded after 2021’s Self Worth, as they seemed to vanish from the internet, but they returned in March with The Avoider, which feels oddly muted for a trio whose songs usually burst with energy that helped power them through even when songs weren’t polished or their vocals were (deliberately) a little off key. This opening track is the best on the record, although “Could Be Friends” is solid too.

White Reaper – I Can’t Escape Myself. White Reaper released this one-off single, a cover of the opening track from UK post-punk icons The Sound’s debut album Jeopardy!, to tide fans over until there’s a new Reaper album on the way. It’s a faithful cover translated through the White Reaper sound, with more polished production than the original but still the same haunting quality.

Yard Act – A Vineyard for the North. Where’s My Utopia?, the second album from these UK post-punks, didn’t quite hit as hard as their debut album did, although I applaud the band for experimenting further with their sound rather than just resting on the plaudits from the first record. This is maybe the fifth-best song on the record, but I’ve already included “We Make Hits,” “Dream Job,” “Petroleum,” and “When the Laughter Stops” on previous playlists.

Sheer Mag – Golden Hour. Sheer Mag were lo-fi critical darlings in their early EP stages, when they were harder-edged and leaned more into garage rock and punk, even flirting with metal at times, but their new album Playing Favorites – which started out as a disco EP during the pandemic that grew into a full-length album seems to dispense with punk influences entirely. There’s a lot of 12-bar blues here and some rockabilly sounds (“Golden Hour”), with some great melodies (“Moonstruck”) but not a ton of experimentation – except on this track, which features a killer guitar solo from none other than Mdou Moctar.

Lauren Mayberry – Change Shapes. I’ve been surprised by Mayberry’s solo output so far, including this sugar-sweet pop track about how to survive in a relationship with a manipulative partner; if the lyrics didn’t have a dark edge I’d call it twee and leave it off the playlist entirely.

Richard Hawley – Two For His Heels. Hawley, formerly of the shortlived Britpop band Longpigs and then briefly of Pulp, hasn’t released anything since his 2019 album Further, but he’s back with this single (taking its title from a cribbage rule, so, hey, boardgames!) ahead of the May release of his latest album In This City They Call You Love. This track is very noirish, suiting its lyrics about a deal gone wrong.

La Luz – Strange World. Speaking of noir, La Luz doesn’t do anything other than that, and that’s fine with me. The quartet has changed by 50% since their last album in 2021, but leader Shana Cleveland is still on board. They’ll release News of the Universe on May 24^th, featuring this track and the lugubrious “Poppies.”

Khruangbin – Pon Pón. A LA SALA, their first album of new material since 2020’s Mordechai, arrives this Friday; I loved Mordechai but it didn’t land with critics the way their earlier work had. This and “A Love International” are both standouts already, ahead of the slower (and non-instrumental) “May Ninth” of the three singles they’ve released from the album.

Kamasi Washington – Prologue. The acclaimed jazz saxophonist will release his latest album, Fearless Movement, on May 3^rd, and this track is actually the last one on the record, despite the title. Nobody is the new John Coltrane, but Washington’s work does remind me a bit of the GOAT.

Kacey Musgraves – Cardinal. I guess I’m a Kacey Musgraves fan now.

Waxahatchee – 3 Sisters. I still haven’t listened all the way through Tigers Blood, and I think part of it is that I thought Saint Cloud (her last album, released almost exactly four years before this one) was so good that I can’t imagine this will live up to it. I don’t think there’s a “Lilacs” or an “Under the Rock” here, at least not yet, but this song is quite lovely, especially the harmonies in the chorus.

Parsnip – Turn to Love. I wouldn’t rate this above the Aussie’ quartet’s previous single, the incredible power-pop gem “The Light,” but if you hang on here until the chorus you’ll hear what they’re capable of. Their sophomore album Behold drops on April 26^th.

Love Fame Tragedy – My Head’s in a Hurricane. LFT is Matthew Murphy, lead singer-songwriter for the Wombats, and his second solo album under that moniker, Life is a Killer, actually feels like a really good Wombats album – more than his solo debut did, certainly.

Courting – Battle. Courting’s New Last Name might be my top album of 2024 so far, and this extra track from those recording sessions has the same jangly, alt-poppy vibe as much of the LP did.

Blushing – Tamagotchi. The second song with this title to appear on one of my playlists this year, oddly enough, this “Tamagotchi” comes from a shoegaze band from Austin who’ve released two albums already, one co-produced by Mark Gardener of Ride. Their sound is very similar to early Lush, and indeed they covered “Out of Control” on an early release. Blushing’s third full-length album Sugarcoat comes out May 3^rd.

Ride – Portland Rocks. Speaking of Ride, their latest album Interplay came out last month, and it’s a solid grade-B record: exactly what you would want and expect from Ride, nothing more, nothing too novel, but nothing amiss, either. They came back from hiatus at the same time as slowdive, so the comparisons are a little too easy, but where slowdive has leaned more into their shoegaze roots and are riding the wave of the genre’s revival, Ride have reemerged in a softer form, closer to dream-pop than shoegaze, with Interplay harkening back more to British new wave than the original shoegaze movement that Ride helped pioneer.

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Venal Eyes. The Guardian called the Reid brothers’ second comeback album “three-quarters of a good record” by way of praise; I might put the ratio closer to half. (Their real comeback album was 2017’s Damage and Joy, coming after a 19-year layoff; the wait this time was just seven years.) TJ&MC were always more shoegaze-adjacent to me, with more noise-rock elements and I think a pretty clear intent to create some chaos on record. This song does all of that, and does it well.

Drop Nineteens – Nest. Concluding the shoegaze portion of the playlist we have perhaps the only American band associated with the genre’s original heyday. Drop Nineteens put out a new album, Hard Light, in November of 2023, their first album in 30 years; this song didn’t make the album but came out of the same sessions.

Wheel – Empire. One of my favorite progressive metal bands going, Wheel has put out two singles from their forthcoming album Charismatic Leaders, this and the seven-minute “Porcelain.” The new album drops May 3^rd and will be their first as a trio after bassist Aki Virta left the band amicably last July.

Ministry – New Religion. Al Jourgensen is 65 years old now and as pissed-off as ever, with Ministry’s new album HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, which he’s hinted might be their last, a furious tirade against incels, white nationalists, right-wing grifters, and Trump himself.

Judas Priest – Invincible Shield. Then we have Judas Priest, with three members in their 1970s, still shredding like in their peak, but definitely with a way more uplifting message than I’d expect from the folks behind “Breaking the Law” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.”

Pallbearer – Where the Light Fades. The kings of American doom metal will release their fifth album Mind Burns Alive on May 17^th, their first new music since 2020’s Forgotten Days.

Ufomammut – Leeched. An Italian doom metal band who’ve been around for almost a quarter-century now, Ufomammut just crossed my radar for the first time about a week ago; this is some seriously heavy stuff, with menacing vocals to go along with it.

Messiah – Sikhote Alin. Messiah were part of the Swiss metal vanguard in the 1980s along with Celtic Frost and Coroner, then broke up in the mid-1990s and, as far as I knew, were done for good. They actually returned in 2020 with their first new album in 26 years, and just released their second post-reunion album, Christus Hypercubus, last month. Their music is still heavily rooted in thrash, with shouted vocals that are a little less abrasive than the typical death-metal style. This isn’t totally my cup of tea, but old-school thrash riffing will always appeal to me on some level.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, doom metal, folk music, indie, jazz, metal, Music, progressive metal, shoegaze, thrash

→ 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

→ October 31, 2023
→ By keith

Music update, October 2023.

It’s weird – ten days ago this list was horribly short, maybe nine songs, and not for a lack of effort, but the last Friday of the month brought a torrent of new stuff, and suddenly the list was approaching 35 tracks. I settled on 31, which you can see below or find here if the Spotify widget doesn’t work for you.

Brittany Howard – What Now. Howard was the lead singer/guitarist for the Alabama Shakes, then released a solo album when they broke up, winning a Grammy for the track “Stay High” and taking six other nominations. I’ll take this over any song from her debut album Jaime, though. This thing fucking rocks, and also it funking rocks, like she slipped her hand through a wormhole and pulled this out of 1978.

The Libertines – Run Run Run. Apparently Pete Doherty has been clean for nearly four years now, which has the side benefit of giving us new Libertines music, with this song teasing the March release of their fourth album and first in nine years, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade. It’s a touch melodic for the louche lads, but hey, we all get a little softer in our old age, innit?

Creeper – Sacred Blasphemy. Creeper had my #2 album of 2020 with Sex, Death, and the Infinite Void, anover-the-top mélange of glam rock, post-punk, new wave, and even some metal, and their follow-up, Sanguivore, is even more ambitious and experimental, the sort of album I’m going to have sit with and listen to several times to fully digest. I don’t know if it’ll match the prior one for me, but I always respect artists trying to push out of their comfort zones, even if it doesn’t work (with at least one track here where it definitely doesn’t).

The Joy Formidable – Share My Heat. The full-length version of this song is 15 minutes, so I give you the radio edit instead, which has the pounding guitar riff that makes this my favorite song yet from this Welsh rock trio. It’s the third new song this year from them, so I imagine a follow-up to 2021’s Into the Blue is in the offing.

Yard Act – Dream Job. Yard Act’s debut album was one of my favorites of 2022, coming in at #3 on the year, and they’re back with the first single from their next album, Where’s My Utopia?, which is due out on March 1^st. It’s got the same sly vocals, sardonic lyrics, and post-punk stylings, but this time with more of a late 70s disco feel.

Bob Vylan – He’s a Man. “Just another day in the life of a big dumb man.” This duo, who blend punk, grime, and hip-hop, among other genres, have such a great knack for satire, as on this send-up of toxic masculinity and the Tory-voting couch potato.

STONE – Am I Even a Man. Last year’s EP punkadonk didn’t slow down these British neo-punks, who’ve continued churning out singles that adhere to their core punk ethos while expanding their horizons just a little – enough to make them more than just punk revivalists, at least.

Egyptian Blue – To Be Felt. I’m a sucker for British post-punk bands, clearly, so here’s another one; Egyptian Blue have been around for almost a decade but just released their debut album, A Living Commodity, this past month, which is when they crossed my radar. They keep it to straightforward post-punk, rather than trying to do too uch to stand out, which I appreciate as someone who’s a fan of the original genre from the early 1980s (although, to be honest, I came to it later).

English Teacher – Nearly Daffodils. There’s a debut album coming … soon, it sounds like, from this Leeds quartet of post-punk upstarts, with this the second single teasing it after “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab.”

Folly Group – Big Ground. This London quartet sounds a lot like early Everything Everything to me in the best possible way, perhaps with less production but the same chaotic energy.

milk. – London. This is the title track from the Dublin indie-pop band’s latest EP, a four-track affair that also has the great “I Think I Lost My Number Can I Have Yours?” It’s pretty sleek and catchy, definitely not the sound I associate with Dublin or Ireland’s rock scenes.

Griff – Into the Walls. More sultry, sophisticated pop from the 22-year-old Sarah Griffiths, who just released a three-track EP called vert1go vol. 1. She toured with Dua Lipa in 2022, and Taylor Swift bumped Griff’s previous single “Vertigo,” so I’m expecting her to break out in a huge way very soon.

Girl Ray – Hurt So Bad. This song actually predates their 2023 album Prestige but ended up missing the cut for the album, so this British electro-pop trio released it as a one-off single this month. It’s a great example of their general sound and ability to craft a great synth hook.

Sampha – Suspended. Lahai, Sampha’s long-awaited follow-up to his Mercury Prize-winning debut from 2017 just dropped to very positive reviews, featuring this track, “Spirit 2.0,” and “Only.”

Black Pumas – More than a Love Song. Black Pumas earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist for their 2019 debut album Black Pumas; I enjoyed their psychedelic soul sound but thought the album lacked strong hooks. This song, from their just-released second album Chronicles of a Diamond, has two giant hooks, the vocals in the chorus and the fuzzed-out guitar riff that follows it, and has me far more interested in their new album than I was two weeks ago.

NIJI & Moses Boyd – Sounds of the City. This is the debut single from Niji Adeleye, a jazz pianist from London who has played in Harry Styles’s backing band, with help from the superstar jazz drummer Moses Boyd. This track has no lyrics but his second single, “Love Will Find It’s [sic] Way,” does have vocals from Adeleye.

Uriel Herman – MJ. Herman is an Israeli jazz pianist who just released his fourth album, Different Eyes, which also includes a cover of Nirvana’s “Polly” that I found unrecognizable – not in a negative way, just in that it sounds nothing like the original. Neither did his earlier covers of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” though, so this is just how he rolls.

HEALTH – Ashamed. This LA-based noise-rock trio’s seventh album, Rat Wars, is due out on December 7^th, and the video for this track – which has the subtitle “(Of Being Born)” there but not on streaming sites – was partially filmed at the DragonCon science fiction, fantasy, and gaming convention in Atlanta, which is awesome.

Black Honey – Lemonade. Black Honey skillfully melds power pop with the trashier sounds of bands that have tried to subvert indie’s pop leanings, like the Pixies and Modest Mouse, but somehow also sound like early Smashing Pumpkins. I’ve liked almost everything they’ve ever released, to varying degrees, and this stand-alone track is up there.

Charly Bliss – I Need a New Boyfriend. Not quite as good as “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore,” but I’ll take this to mean that this power-pop band’s third album, and first since 2019, is coming soon. Their guitarist, Spencer Fox, voiced Dash in the original The Incredibles.

TORRES – Collect. Mackenzie Scott’s sixth album, What an Enormous Room, is due out in January; I admit I’ve been pretty lukewarm on their music to date, but this song has a different vibe for me, darker, grimier, almost a little angry.

Sundara Karma – Better Luck Next Time. This British band’s third album is barely long enough to qualify, just nine songs and 30 minutes, but they do deliver the goods again – to me they’ll probably always sound like descendants of U2. They’re certainly better than whatever that Irish band is producing right now.

A. Savage – David’s Dead. That’s Andrew Savage, lead singer/guitarist of Parquet Courts, in case the voice wasn’t a giveaway. His second solo album, Several Songs About Fire, features this track and “Elvis in the Army,” with his jangle-pop style and laconic vocals on full display.

Slow Pulp – MUD. Yard was a mixed bag for me, maybe more towards the side of ‘disappointing,’ although I suppose my complaint that the songs are kind of sluggish would be an example of me forgetting to read the label. Anyway, I do like the way the big guitars come in on the chorus here, very ‘90s alt-rock while giving some texture to a languorous track.

Everything Everything – Cold Reactor. EE announced their seventh album, Mountainhead, will arrive on March 1^st; this lead single has a lot of Jonathan Higgs’s acrobatic vocals, but I was hoping for some more madness in the music.

Shed Seven feat. Rowetta – In Ecstasy. So I had no idea Shed Seven were still together, although the minor Britpop band re-formed in 2007 for live shows and eventually put out a proper album in 2017. Their sixth album, A Matter of Time, is due out some time next year. If you don’t remember them from their ‘90s heyday, check out “Dolphin” and “Getting Better.” Rowetta, by the way, was a member of the Happy Mondays for their peak years, and appeared as herself in 24 Hour Party People.

Wild Nothing – Dial Tone. This sounds like every other Wild Nothing song, which is to say it’s good, but Jack Tatum is kind of stuck in neutral here. At least he’s not ripping off Talk Talk songs any more.

Slate – St. Agatha. Another Welsh band, this Cardiff act sounds like Fontaines D.C. suddenly fell in love with classic shoegaze. This is just their second single so far, so I’m basing this on a pretty small sample.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Chang’e. Rocco Baldelli’s second-favorite band (after Phish, I hear) released a double album of sorts this month. The Silver Cord has seven tracks of restrained length, all between 3:24 and 4:40, and then “extended mixes” of those same songs, ranging from 10:18 to 20:41. I prefer the short versions myself.

Tortuga – Lilith. A stoner metal band from Poland? Sure. The band just released their third album, Iterations, on Friday, but this track is the first I’ve heard from them. There’s some definite influence from the New Orleans sludge-metal school as well as classic stoner metal sounds like Kyuss and Sleep.

Wayfarer – A High Plains Eulogy. The new Wayfarer album, American Gothic, is an incredible work of technical death metal, although I found the growled vocals too much to take. This track has clean vocals, so you can appreciate the intricate fretwork without the distraction of a Cookie Monster imitator.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music

→ June 2, 2023
→ By keith

Music update, May 2023.

This might be my longest monthly playlist ever, at 31 songs and and 110 minutes; it was at two hours before a few late cuts as I put this post together. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the Spotify widget below.

The Hives – Bogus Operandi. Yep, early aughts faves the Hives are back, with their first new album in eleven years, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, due out on August 11^th. The Hives have been good for one kickass single per LP, so here we are, with a killer guitar riff and earworm shout-along chorus.

Royal Blood – Mountains at Midnight. This got in just under the wire, coming out last Friday as the lead single from the British duo’s upcoming fourth album Back to the Water Below, coming out on September 8^th. They produced the LP themselves, after sharing those duties with Josh Homme on the previous record, so it’ll be interesting to see if they maintain the slightly funkier sound from Typhoons or go back to more straightforward rock as they do on this single.

Island of Love – I’ve Got the Secret. This London garage-rock band just released their self-titled debut album on Jack White’s Third Man Records label, and the LP is all over the place, drawing from a ton of genres – like the rockabilly sound merged with punk on this track – but with a maddening lack of consistency. They’re still a prospect, I guess.

The Coral – Wild Bird. The Coral have been around for nearly 30 years, but I associate them more with psychedelic rock and as the darlings of the post-Britpop rock scene, but this song sounds like they’re doing their best Lord Huron impression, and it’s great.

Grian Chatten – Fairlies. Chatten is the lead singer of Irish punk band Fontaines D.C., but his debut solo album, Chaos on the Fly, is going to be an entirely different affair based on the two singles he’s released so far. This jangly acoustic number sounds like it should be consumed along with a not-too-cold Guinness in a smoky bar.

Blur – The Narcissist. Another surprising return in a month full of them, Blur gifted us their first new song in eight years this month, and their album The Ballad of Darren, due out in July, will be just their second new LP in the last two decades. It’s not quite peak Britpop Blur, but it ranks among their best tracks post-Blur, which gave us the very un-Blur-like “Song 2.”

BLOXX – Happy Anniversary (To Being Lonely). This is more like it, the sort of straightforward punk-pop that made BLOXX’s debut album Lie Out Loud such a joy. We’re still waiting for news on a sophomore LP.

Queens of the Stone Age – Emotion Sickness. Speaking of Homme, it looks like he produced QotSA’s upcoming album In Times New Roman… rather than Mark Ronson, who was responsible for the tonal shift on 2017’s Villains, with its more uptempo sound and its very funk-influenced hit “The Way You Used to Do.” This sounds much more like the Era Vulgaris QotSA sound, just slightly modernized, which I imagine will please a lot of longtime fans. I’ve liked just about everything they’ve put out, so I’m here for it all.

The Damned – You’re Gonna Realize. I had no idea these guys were still recording, but they put out an album, Darkadelic, at the end of April, their first since 2018’s Evil Spirits (which I missed completely). The Damned were a seminal punk band that eventually morphed into one of the earliest gothic rock acts; this track fits more with the latter tradition, and any trace of their punk origins is absent here, but succeeds on its own merits.

Wombo – Slab. I wasn’t familiar with Wombo, an art-rock trio from Louisville, before hearing this track, which melds some experimental guitarwork with a traditional foundation of bass and drums.

Nation of Language – Stumbling Still. One project I would love to do someday when I have infinite time is to catalog all of the tracks I’ve put on these playlists to see how often certain bands have appeared. I feel like Nation of Language have popped up repeatedly over the years even though I have probably never listened to a full album by the Brooklyn post-punk band. They put out a lot of songs I like, including this one, with its driving bass line and big synth line in the chorus.

Jungle – Dominoes. The British funk/soul duo’s fourth album Volcano is due out August 11^th. They really don’t miss – if anything, they keep improving, although I do miss the horns that were more prevalent on their first album.

Simply Red – Let Your Hair Down. I was unaware Mick Hucknall & company had re-formed and put out an album in 2019, but they did and then released another album, Time, just last Friday. The Mancunians had two #1 hits in the U.S. with “Holding Back the Years” and their cover of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” although they were far more commercially successful in the U.K. with songs beyond those two ballads. This is a better indicator of their blue-eyed soul sound, with some great bass and lead guitar work beyond Hucknall’s vocals.

Jorja Smith – Little Things. Smith’s voice is lovely, and here she almost sounds like she’s scatting over the piano-and-drum jazz lines behind her voice. She finally announced that her sophomore LP, Falling or Flying, will be out in September.

Arlo Parks – Devotion. Parks’s first album Collapsed in Sunbeams was my #2 album of 2021 and won the Mercury Prize that fall; the album I had at #1, Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might be Introvert, won the Mercury Prize in 2022. Anyway, Parks’s second album My Soft Machine came out last Friday and it’s tremendous, with her signature vocals and poetic lyrics, but now with a broader range of music behind her, such as the rock guitar backing on this track or electronic elements interspersed throughout the album. I almost included “Pegasus,” which features vocals from Phoebe Bridgers as well.

Rahill – Futbol. Rahill Jamalifard is, according to her own website, “a multidisciplinary artist working within numerous overlapping musico-poetic traditions.” Those are some words. Anyway, I love this song and its late ‘90s trip-hop feel.

Portugal. the Man featuring Black Thought & Natalia Lafourcade – Thunderdome (W.T.A.) Portugal. the Man’s followup to their breakout album Woodstock, titled Chris Black Changed My Life, will be out on June 23^rd, and it seems like it’s going to be a stylistic free-for-all for the Portland band.

Killer Mike featuring Eryn Allen Kane – MOTHERLESS. I’ve never been a huge Killer Mike fan, but this tribute to his late mother is the best thing he’s ever done. It’s from Michael, his first solo album in eleven years, due out on June 16^th.

James BKS – Celebrate Blessings. Another banger from James BKS, incorporating gospel traditions from several sub-Saharan cultures along with hip-hop and some Bantu rhythms. His album Wolves of Africa Part 2 is due out in September, the follow-up to last year’s Part 1, and will feature a contribution from the legendary Afropop singer Angelique Kidjo.

Sparks – Nothing is as Good as They Say It Is. How the hell are these guys my parents’ age and still churning out pop gems like this one, which comes 51 years after their first-ever hit, “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us.” They’ve changed sounds so many times over the years, but if you listen to that track and this one, it’s clear they’re both from the same songwriters.

Geese – Mysterious Love. From a pair of septugenarians to a group of kids barely out of their teens. Geese’s debut album Projector was like a teenaged love letter to Gang of Four and early Wire. Their second album is going to be an entirely different affair, but no less weird, just more ambitious and bonkers. This is my favorite of the three singles released so far, with the full album, 3D Country, out on June 23^rd.

Brad – In the Moment That You’re Born. Brad’s lead singer Shawn Smith, who also sang vocals on Pigeonhed’s “Battle Flag,” died in 2019 of a torn aorta. The remaining members, including Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, announced that they will release their final album, including the songs they were recording with Smith when he died, on July 28^th, with this epic, sludgy song the title track.

bdrmm – Pulling Stitches. These shoegaze revivalists from Hull will release their second album, I Don’t Know, on June 30^th. They do the My Bloody Valentine wall of distorted guitars exceptionally well here, but the production is so much better and you can distinguish various elements, including the vocals, like you never could with MBV.

Spiritual Cramp – Phone Lines Down. Named for a song by the highly influential goth-rock band Christian Death, this San Francisco sextet delivers pop-edged punk that also shows some of the members’ roots in that city’s hardcore scene.

Girls in Synthesis – I Know No Other Way. This London trio has punk, noise rock, and art-rock influences, and released their second album last October, with this a one-off single ahead of a summer tour in the UK.

Protomartyr – Elimination Dances. This post-punk band from Detroit released its sixth album, Formal Growth in the Desert, today, with this slow-burning track actually released at the end of April.

Squid – The Blades. Squid’s highly experimental, genre-defying sound has earned them substantial critical acclaim over the last three years, with everything from art rock to jazz to punk to new wave and more thrown into the mix. This track, off their second album O Monolith (out June 9^th), even brings in some shoegaze guitar sounds towards the end below vocalist Ollie Judge’s acrobatic vocals.

Lambrini Girls – Lads Lads Lads. Iggy Pop called this Brighton punk duo his “favourite new band” and has played them extensively on his BBC 6 show this spring. This track is the highlight of their debut EP You’re Welcome, released on May 18^th.

Enforcer – Metal Supremacia. Old-school speed metal from Sweden. These throwbacks are part of the “new wave of traditional heavy metal” movement, the name a nod to the new wave of British Heavy Metal that brought us Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and more (including the Tygers of Pan Tang, who have a new and not that great album out). I have my doubts that this style of music can ever catch on again, but as someone who came of age as a music listener in the ‘80s I’ll always have a soft spot for classic thrash and speed metal.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Gila Monster. This Australian rock band will release their 24^th album in just thirteen years, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, on June 16^th, and their shapeshifting has them returning to the thrash-influenced sound of 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest, at least on this stuttering, pounding guitar track.

Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium. Horrendous’s second and third albums were some of the best progressive death metal records I’d ever heard, showcasing incredible guitar work and musical experimentation, but their most recent album, Idol, seemed to lose steam, with the same intricate fretwork but less sense of melody or songcraft. This title track off their upcoming fifth album sounds more like the style they captured so well on Ecdysis and Anareta, with a great central guitar riff, experimenting with time signatures, and a clear, powerful drum line behind it. The vocals will turn off a lot of listeners – and I completely understand this – but Horrendous tends to mix them further back into the music so it’s easier for me to focus on the music.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023 in music, alternative, death metal, indie, metal, Music, post-punk, progressive metal, rap

→ May 4, 2023
→ By keith

Music update, April 2023.

Whew, that was a very strong month, or maybe I’m just finding more music every time I do this. I actually cut a few tracks (two were from Deeper and Beach Fossils) and we’re still at 26 songs and 100 minutes. Anyway, you know what to do.

Dexys Midnight Runners – I’m Going to Get Free. Yes, that’s the same band that produced “Come On Eileen” forty years ago, and I feel reasonably certain this is the best thing they’ve put out since then, a jaunty, bouncy, incredibly catchy track that recalls the same throwback sound they rode to the top of the charts when I was still in elementary school.

Speedy Ortiz – Scabs. Welcome back to Sadie Dupuis and company, who’ve been gone way too long. This is their first new track since 2018 and has the same sort of dissonant and off-kilter melodies that have made them one of my favorite artists of the last decade.

Pynch – Tin Foil. This British alternative act is about to release its first album, and I love the smartass lyrics within this post-punk envelope that sounds like Wire mixed with the Twerps. The line “I’m saving up for the apocalypse/Because there’s gonna be deals” still makes me laugh every time.

WITCH feat. Sampa the Great – Avalanche of Love. WITCH were pioneers of what is now called Zamrock, but hadn’t released any new material since about 1985. It turns out the band have been recording a new album, with this second single featuring their fellow Zambian Sampa the Great on vocals.

Blondshell – Salad. Sabrina Teitleman, who records as Blondshell, has been tabbed the next big thing by a number of publications, and just released her debut album under this moniker (The Guardian posted a rave review). It’s full of angsty, often indignant tracks about bad relationships and the misogyny of modern society; the lyrics and the melodies are pretty inconsistent in quality, but when she peaks, as she mostly does here on “Salad,” it’s really compelling and separates her from the huge class of female singer-songwriters mining similar thematic territory.

Pinkshift – to me. This Baltimore band released its debut album in October and return now with this one-off single, which sounds like Hole mashed up with some My Chemical Romance and a doom-inspired drum line.

Chappaqua Wrestling – Need You No More. I assumed these guys were from New York when I first heard this track, but they’re from Brighton and do a sort of mashup of Britpop and ‘90s American alternative. The laconic vocals would usually bother me, but they contrast so well with the high-energy guitars behind them I’ll forgive the delivery.

LA Priest – It’s You. I loved Wild Beasts, and when LA Priest first crossed my radar after that band broke up, I was sure it was their former lead singer or perhaps a lost track from one of their last albums. Nope, it’s an entirely different artist, named Sam Dust, who just works in a similar musical vein.

DEADLETTER – The Snitching Hour. A ska-tinged post-punk act from London with a Yard Act-like approach to their vocals. Good luck getting the “Love thy neighbor” chorus out of thy head.

Altin Gün – Su Siziyor. Another great track from this Anatolian rock act, with heavy psychedelic vibes over a strong rock foundation, from their new album Ask (which should have a cedilla under the s). Strongly recommended for fans of Khruangbin.

Jessie Ware – Begin Again. I don’t tend to go in for “sophisti-pop,” and there’s definitely something carefully constructed about this track from Ware’s latest album (the empty lyric “Give me something good that’s even better than it seems” might as well come from ChatGPT), but man does this thing bang.

Arlo Parks – Blades. I can’t wait for Parks’s sophomore album My Soft Machine to drop on the 26^th of this month, as her voice and lyrics sound as strong as they did on her Mercury Prize-winning debut but with a new direction in her music.

Jorja Smith – Try Me. Smith’s debut album Lost and Found made my top albums of 2018, but since then it’s been all EPs, collaborations, and one-off singles like this one, which showcases her incredible, sultry voice over a jazzy drum-and-bass backdrop.

Romy – Enjoy Your Life. That’s Romy of the xx, who also has provided vocals on Jamie xx’s standout track “Loud Places.” She’s been teasing her solo debut album for at least three years now, with no new news about its release, although between this and last year’s “Strong” I have to think a full-length LP is coming soon.

Hatchie – Dream On – Country Girl. Another bonus track from the deluxe edition of last year’s Giving the World Away.

The Beaches – Everything is Boring. This track from the Toronto quartet reminds me a bit of the Aces mixed with the California pop-punk vibe of artists like Bleached.

MUNA – One that Got Away. This trio dropped their third album last year and are already back with this pop gem, which has a little Human League to the music. (I’m old. Sorry.)

The Japanese House – Sad to Breathe. Another lovely track from Amber Mary Bain, with a balladesque beginning that leads into a soft electronic track, all of which shows off her vocals. I’m very here for singer-songwriters who actually let it rip a little on the microphone.

Bloc Party – High Life. Kele Okereke and company appear to be taking a victory lap on this celebratory track, their first since last year’s Alpha Games, which in turn was some of their best work since “Banquet.”

SENSES – Drifting. The debut album from this British band feels very post-Britpop, and while I wish this song had some more lyrics, the one line they repeat does get stuck in my head.

The DMA’s – Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s the Weekend. This Australian band has had quite the career track already, starting out as an Oasis-like rock band, then veering into electronica on their last album, now trying to find a sort of middle ground that’s more towards their rock origins but with some electronic elements and a more mainstream feel. I don’t think they’ll get back to the heights of “For Now” (which was #76 on my top songs of the 2010s), “Too Soon,” or “Dawning,” but the new album is solid enough.

Teenage Wrist – Sunshine. I don’t know what to call the sort of ‘90s alternative music that appeared in the wake of grunge and leaned more into that genre’s noisier elements à la shoegaze – shoegrunge? Okay, that needs work. I especially think of bands like Hum, who seemed like they were going to be huge after “Stars” became a massive alternative radio hit and captured something about that moment in music as pop’s hold on the commercial market was crumbling. Teenage Wrist have been around for about a decade, and this track has just that sound to it.

Siracuse – Saviour. If you played this for me and told me it was from 1993 from a Mancunian band that opened for the Charlatans, I’d believe you. Anyway, Siracuse is from Cheltenham, and I don’t think they were even born when Some Friendly came out. I’m old, in case you didn’t catch that before.

Rival Sons – Guillotine. Rival Sons do an unapologetic riff on ‘70s classic rock, avoiding the straight derivative nature of knockoffs like Greta van Fleet in favor of a broader approach that, here, sounds more like Audioslave covering Led Zeppelin.

Divide and Dissolve – Blood Quantum. Divide and Dissolve – D&D, I suppose, although that acronym may be spoken for – are new to me but have been recording since at least 2017. They’re an Australian-based doom metal duo comprising a saxophone/guitar player from the US who has Tsalagi and Black ancestry and a drummer of M?ori and white heritage, and those diverse backgrounds are reflected in their song titles and their occasional lyrics.

Godflesh – NERO. I’ll never forget the CMJ review of Godflesh’s seminal debut album Streetcleaner, which read in part, “Godflesh knows what scares you.” That LP, released in 1989, defined the genre of industrial metal and remains a landmark in extreme metal in general, with “Christbait Rising” still their best track. They’re still going, even around a seven-year breakup and now a six-year gap since their last album, with number nine, Purge, due to drop next month. Singer/guitarist Justin Broadrick is back to his death growls, but it’s the grinding gears below the vocals that really shine here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023 in music, alternative, metal, Music

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