→ December 1, 2024
→ By
→ 3 Comments

Music update, November 2024.

November was a big month for new music, including three albums that should show up on a lot of best-of-2024 lists and several singles I didn’t anticipate from artists I love. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the Spotify playlist here.

Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes. Kiwanuka’s self-titled 2019 album was my #2 album of that year and won the Mercury Prize the following September; his follow-up, Small Changes, came out in November and represents a big stylistic shift away from the previous record’s rock/soul hybrid with a lot of guitar towards a much slower, folk-influenced, bass-heavy sound. I prefer the previous album, but Kiwanuka is such a great songwriter that I still enjoyed Small Changes even though I almost always go for more uptempo stuff.

Jorja Smith – Don’t Let Me Go/Loving You. Smith wrote these two songs over a decade ago, but just recorded and released them, with guest vocals from Maverick Sabre on the second track.

Kendrick Lamar – reincarnated. Kendrick’s new album GNX omitted his biggest hit of the year, “Not Like Us,” instead delivering a motley collection of songs that vary widely in style, tone, and tempo; it’s a mixed bag, led by this track (which Pitchfork’s review called “unlistenable”) with a fascinating call-and-response bit towards the end, “Gloria” (with SZA), and “squabble up.”

Tunde Adebimpe – Magnetic. Adebimpe is the lead singer of TV on the Radio, and will release his first solo LP at some point in 2025; this single has a lot of the energy of TVotR’s best tracks like “Wolf Like Me” and “Mercy.”

Doves – Renegade. I didn’t expect to hear anything further from Doves after a middling response to their comeback album The Universal Want and lead singer/bassist Jimi Goodwin’s mental health struggles, which led the band to cancel the end of their 2021 tour and will have him sit out their upcoming UK tour this winter. Goodwin is on this single and their upcoming album, Constellations for the Lonely, due out on Valentine’s Day.

Sam Fender – People Watching. This title track from Fender’s third album, due out on February 21st, sounds like a great new song from the Killers, and I mean that as a compliment. I’m flummoxed at the lack of attention or popularity Fender has here in the U.S.

The Lathums – Stellar Cast. The Lathums have always earned comparisons to the Arctic Monkeys, but this might be the most overt reference to their main influence yet; singer Alex Moore sounds more like Alex Turner than ever before, and the whole enterprise could have come off Favourite Worst Nightmare. Their third album, Matter Does Not Define, comes out on March 7th.

The Rills – I Don’t Wanna Be. Another band heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, the Rills tend a little more towards the punk-pop side – and I can pretty easily see them getting lumped in with the ‘landfill indie’ subgenre of the late aughts and early teens. The Rills’ debut album Don’t Be a Stranger came out on November 1st; I found it a little flat overall, with this by far the best track.

Elbow – Adriana Again. I’m becoming an Elbow fan, very late in the game, as I really enjoyed their album Audio Vertigo from earlier this year, and this new single – ahead of an EP to come out in early 2025 – is a pulsing, driving banger with a tremendous hook in the chorus.

WOOZE – Good Old Fashioned Fun. WOOZE’s self-titled debut album comes out on February 14th, although it follows a slew of singles and EPs; their sound is over-the-top dance-pop with plenty of guitars underpinning it, and they’ve got a great ear for a good hook.

Courting – Pause at You. Courting’s second album New Last Name came out in January and will be on my ranking of the top albums of the year, but they’re back already with another single ahead of the release of their third album, Lust for Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story, due out on March 14th. I love their just off-center take on indie pop, sometimes called “hyperpop,” and I find their best songs really infectiously happy.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island. King Gizzard only put out one album this year, August’s Flight b741, which is a light year for them. This track was recorded in the same sessions but didn’t make the cut; I can’t even tell you if it should have made the album because they put out so much music that I find I often don’t remember their albums or individual songs beyond maybe recalling the style they went after on a particular record.

Nice Biscuit – Desolation. This Australian psych-rock band released their sophomore album, SOS, on October 4th, with “The Rain” the best track by far and this one probably my second favorite.

Inhaler – Your House. The new album from this Irish pop/rock band, OpenWide, comes out on February 7th; I feel obligated to mention that lead singer/guitarist Elijah Hewson is Bono’s son, if only because otherwise someone would say, “hey, that guy sounds a ton like Bono.” He does, though.

Allie X – Weird World. I didn’t love Girl With No Face, the latest album from this Canadian electro-pop artist, when it came out in February, and I still don’t really – a lot of it is too deliberately weird and offputting – but on revisiting it with the release last month of the deluxe edition, I do like this opening track, which is probably the most straightforward dance/new wave track on the album.

Lucius – Take a Picture. I don’t include many covers on these lists, but I’m putting two on this month because they are so interesting. This cover of the crossover hit by Filter from 1999 is amazing, because the harmonies in the vocals take the song somewhere completely different than Richard Patrick’s flat singing.

White Denim – Connection. White Denim are fairly experimental to begin with, so their cover of Elastica’s “Connection,” which was itself so derivative of Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba” that Wire sued and won, is anything but faithful.

Manic Street Preachers – Hiding in Plain Sight. The Manics’ 15th album, Critical Thinking, comes out on January 31st, with this the second single off the record. I’ve been listening to their biggest hit, “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next,” quite a it in the last four weeks.

Griff – Last Night’s Mascara. This one-off single has existed in demo and live forms before, but Griff chose to record a proper studio version after getting a strong response from fans as she opened for Sabrina Carpenter on part of the latter’s U.S. tour in October. (I would argue Carpenter should be opening for Griff, but alas.)

The Weather Station – Window. This track comes off the Weather Station’s upcoming seventh album, Humanhood, and gives me a strong School of Seven Bells vibe, especially from their final record, SVIIB.

The Wombats – Blood on the Hospital Floor. This is a bit more like the core Wombats sound than the prior single, “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come,” with more energy and wittier lyrics. Their seventh album, Oh! The Ocean, is due out February 21st. I feel like they’ve settled into a predictable groove of producing solid indie-pop tracks without really ever approaching the highs of Glitterbug.

Phantogram – Jealousy. I had no idea Phantogram had a new album coming out until Memory of a Day dropped on October 18th; it’s very much their classic sound, although by the end of the record I’d kind of lost track of individual songs. This opener is the standout, I think, although there may be some primacy bias at work here too.

Mogwai – Lion Rumpus. This isthe third single from the Scottish band’s eleventh album, The Bad Fire, due out January 24th.I’ve never really gotten Mogwai, although I concede it’s probably the kind of music that rewards repeat listening. This particular track is almost metal in its use of distortion and walls of sound.

Opeth – §6. The Last Will and Testament is Opeth’s first album in five years and their first to feature death-metal vocals since 2008, although I’d argue they’re used judiciously here, and singer Mikael Åkerfeldt has said in many interviews that he brought the growls back because they fit the lyrics. It’s a concept album about the reading of a will and the drama that ensues, and as a result highlighting individual tracks is difficult – they do blend one into another, for sure. If pressed, I’d say “§3” and “§1” are my favorites, but the whole thing is mesmerizing, and has some surprising cameos by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and Europe’s Joey Tempest.

Tribulation – Poison Pages. This Swedish band went from boring death metal to more traditional heavy or gothic metal with death growls to something that’s barely even metal on their new album, Sub Rosa In Æternum, which features very little of those death-metal vocals and sounds a lot more like Sisters of Mercy than any of their forebears in Swedish metal. (I’m not the only person to notice that.)

Tungsten – Falling Apart. Tungsten is a Swedish band founded by the former drummer of HammerFall along with two of his sons; this song is heavier than HammerFall’s typical throwback metal style, although the soaring vocals are there (with some screaming too). But if they’re from Sweden, shouldn’t they be called Wolfram?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
→ November 1, 2024
→ By

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: , , , , ,
→ October 26, 2024
→ By

Stick to baseball, 10/26/24.

I spent last week in the Arizona Fall League and filed three scouting notebooks, one with some initial observations, a second was all about pitching, and a last one that wrapped up a bunch of additional position players.

I sent out another issue of my free email newsletter this week; with Twitter increasingly overrun with misinformation and white nationalists, I’m there less and less, and the newsletter or one of the Twitter alternatives (Threads, Bluesky) are better ways to keep up with my work.

I appeared on All Things Considered’s Weekend Edition on NPR to preview the World Series (before the LCS actually ended!) and then did the same on NBC Morning News yesterday. One of my tweets made this SI roundup of people mocking former Reds infielder Zack Cozart’s incredible ignorance.

And now, the links…

  • Two stories from ProPublica: Arizona’s school voucher program is supposed to help low-income families, but they’re not the ones using the vouchers – it’s wealthy parents doing so. A claimed lack of prosecutors in Anchorage is leading to dozens of cases, some involving serious crimes like domestic violence or child abuse, being dismissed without trial. Other dismissed cases include 270 people arrested for suspected DUI.
  • Thanks to Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban, a pregnant woman who learned at 18 weeks that her fetus had a very high likelihood of spina bifida had to travel to Las Vegas for an abortion and ended up recovering in a casino hotel room. Abortion is health care.
  • This week in Bad Decisions: a doctor leading a large study on transgender youth said she didn’t publish her research findings because the results might be weaponized by anti-trans forces – which, of course, got out, and was promptly weaponized by anti-trans forces, even though the key quote here is this: “Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, (the doctor) said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began.” It’s also news that the children on puberty blockers didn’t get worse. Regardless of the results, her decision to withhold the results hasn’t helped anyone at all.
  • Israel threatened a Palestinian teen reporter, telling him to stop filming in Gaza, and when he didn’t, they killed him.
  • The hypothesis that Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star to our own, might have a planet orbiting it dates back at least to when I was a little kid. Now there might actually be some proof.
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ October 2, 2024
→ By

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 15th. 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 11th.

FKA Twigs – Eusexua. FKA Twigs’ third album, also called Eusexua, is due out on January 24th, 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 18th, 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 30th, 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 4th.

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 25th 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 1st.

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 2nd 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 22nd, 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: , , , , , , , ,
→ September 5, 2024
→ By

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 11th; 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 26th (!) 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 4th.

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 20th 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 27th; 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 25th, 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 8th.

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 20th, 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 27th. 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 4th.

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 11th.  

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: , , , , , , ,
→ August 2, 2024
→ By

Music update, July 2024.

July finished with a bit of a bang, from a music perspective, at least, as this playlist doubled in size over the final week of the month. It also had two of my favorite new albums of the year so far, from Griff and Childish Gambino, as well as new singles from three contemporary artists I really like – from three entirely different genres, too. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here.

Griff – Tears For Fun. Griff’s full-length debut, Vertigo, came out this month and was a huge success in her native UK, coming in at #3 on their album charts in its first week. It’s an incredible record of lush pop tracks, replete with sophisticated melodies, the sort of record that should appeal to fans of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, etc. if American fans even hear any of her music.

Lotte Gallagher – This Room. I assume I won’t be the last person to wonder if she’s related to the Oasis boys, but she’s not; she’s a singer/songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, which seems to be producing as much great indie pop/rock music per capita as any country in the world right now. I wish I’d come up with the comparison to Sam Fender, but I saw it in a fluffy profile of Ms. Gallagher and I can’t find a better one.

Michael Kiwanuka – Floating Parade. The first new track from the 2020 Mercury Prize winner since the 2021 single “Beautiful Life” is a gorgeous, bass-forward track with meditative lyrics about the struggles of daily life and how we seek out ways to escape it.

Sampha & Little Simz – Satellite Business 2.0. Theoriginal “Satellite Business”was an 84-second filler track with no percussion on Sampha’s 2023 album “Lahai,” but this version is blown out to 4:53 with a drum machine and a bangin’ guest verse from Little Simz. It completely reimagines the track with a big, frenetic energy that makes it one of Sampha’s best songs to date.

Jorja Smith – High. Smith appeared on Bando Stone and now returns with her first new solo track of 2024, not counting the ‘reimagined’ version of falling or flying she released in May. “High” really showcases her voice over a smooth house beat, with production that puts her vocals front and center, where they belong.

Childish Gambino feat. Foushée – Running Around. If Bando Stone & the New World is indeed the last Childish Gambino album, it’s a real tour de force and a hell of a swan song. Donald Glover bounces across all manner of genres, even going full emo on this track, in a broad, unpredictable, ambitious record by a mad musical genius. I also recommend “Lithonia,” a ballad with a great twist at the chorus; and the instrumental “Happy Survival,” featuring Khruangbin.

Crows – Bored. Crows’ third album, Reason Enough, comes out on September 27th; this lead single seems to lean harder into their punk roots, which I suppose isn’t that surprising for a band on IDLES’s record label.

Japandroids – Chicago. Japandroids released this new single off their upcoming album Fate & Alcohol with anote that this record will be their last. It’s their first new music since 2017’s Near to the Wild Heart of Life.

Pastel – Deeper than Holy. Pastel’s handful of singles so far have shown a deep reverence for the heyday of Britpop, often bridging the gap between that era’s biggest rivals, Blur and Oasis.

Primal Scream – Love Insurrection. Primal Scream’s first new music since 2016 sounds like they paired up with Khruangbin to reimagine late-1970s funk/disco. Their twelfth album, Come Ahead, comes out in November.

Los Bitchos – Kiki, You Complete Me. Los Bitchos play cumbia-influenced rock, mostly instrumental, with this particular song recalling 1960s surf rock and spy-movie soundtracks.

O. – Sugarfish. That’s about as SEO-unfriendly a band name as you can conceive. O. is a duo from London that works with saxophone and drums, but they run the sax through all kinds of effects pedals to make it sound like other instruments, including a distorted guitar. Their debut album, the appropriately titled WeirdOs, dropped in June.

Sunflower Bean – Shake. This title track of an upcoming EP from the Brooklyn trio is probably the heaviest thing they’ve ever done, driven by a single guitar riff, with Julia Cumming ceding most of the lead vocal work to Nick Kivlen.

Hinds – Superstar. This is the fourth single from the duo’s upcoming album, Viva Hinds, which drops in September, and continues a trend of cleaner production and tighter songwriting that preserves the chaotic nature of their overlapping vocals.

Katie Gavin – Aftertaste. Gavin is the lead vocalist for MUNA and will release her first solo album, What a Relief, on October 25th on Phoebe Bridgers’ label. This is unabashed folk-pop and utterly infectious.

GIFT – Light Runner. The fourth single from GIFT’s second album, Illuminator, which is due out August 23rd, is my least favorite so far but does continue in a similar vein of shimmering, layered psychedelic rock, just without as strong of a hook as “Wish Me Away” or “Going in Circles” offered.

Blossoms – Perfect Me. Blossoms’ latest album, Gary, comes out in September, and they’ve released two singles so far, with this upbeat indie-pop number miles ahead of the drab, pretentious title track.

The Beaches – Takes One to Know One. The Beaches had a minor hit last year with their album Blame My Ex and the track “Blame Brett” – I mean, with that big brain on him, who else would you blame? – and now they’re back with what appears to be a one-off single that has a similar sound to the last record, with a sunny pop-rock vibe belied by the cynical lyrics.

Alison Goldfrapp – I Wanna Be Loved (Just a Little Better). I can’t believe Goldfrapp is 58, but, then again, I can’t believe I’m 51. This is her first single on her own record label, coming on the heels of her first solo album, last year’s The Love Invention. The backing music, a new wave/disco blend, sounds like it could have been an outtake from a Yaz record, although the vocal style is obviously quite different from the other Alison’s.

Envy – Beyond the Raindrops. I was completely unfamiliar with Envy before I heard this track, even though they’ve been recording since 1998. They’re a Japanese post-hardcore/post-rock band who started out in the ridiculously-named “screamo” scene, a term that seems to mean nothing at all at this point other than that I generally don’t dig bands lumped under that umbrella. This track, from Envy’s upcoming album Eunoia, is somewhere between post-hardcore and shoegaze, with a darkly atmospheric vibe and spare vocals.

Glass Animals – A Tear in Space (Airlock). Glass Animals’ latest album, I Love You So Fucking Much, is their first since the global success of “Heat Waves,” which now holds the records for the longest stay on the Billboard Hot 100 and the longest time on the chart before hitting #1. There’s nothing on this album to rival that track or “Life Itself;” it’s consistently good, without any huge standouts. If you like Glass Animals in general, you’ll like the album.

Flotsam & Jetsam – Burning My Bridges. The second track from their fifteenth album, I Am the Weapon, due out on September 13th, finds these 1980s thrash icons just a little bit mellowed, but still thrashing away, with just two members remaining from their debut album. I prefer the previous single, “Primal,” but this is still a solid throwback to the Bay Area thrash sound that marked their first couple of LPs.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ July 6, 2024
→ By

Stick to baseball, 7/6/24.

One piece for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, wrapping up some minor league games I went to over the past week, including notes on Orioles, Rangers, Phillies, and Pirates prospects. Oddly enough, there’s nothing worth going to this holiday weekend, even though I’m home and available. I’m working up the top 100 draft prospects instead, and then will write my next mock, both to run in the Tuesday-Thursday window. I’ll also try to work in a Klawchat this week – the holiday messed up my schedule this past week. I also owe you a newsletter, which is somewhere on the to-do list.

And now, the links…

  • While working up my post with my top ten albums of 2024 so far, I was listening again to the new High on Fire record, which didn’t make the cut. That sent me down a rabbit hole that led me to this 2022 NPR piece on HoF’s Matt Pike, and his embrace of some insane conspiracy theories – and the antisemitic wack job David Icke. It’s a fantastic piece of writing.
  • The Guardian’s Marina Hyde turns her wicked wit on the morbid Tories in the wake of their electoral defeat. Few writers are as deft with the language, or as willing to deploy their extensive vocabularies, as Hyde is: “Farage is the horror version of Inside Out, where Mendacity is only just holding off Racism at the control console.”
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ July 5, 2024
→ By

The ten best albums of 2024 so far.

I don’t think I’ve done one of these midyear album updates since 2020, but given how many solid or better albums there have already been this year, I had plenty of choices for this post, and I know from experience it helps me do the year-end wrap-up if I’ve at least gotten a head start and summarized the first six months. This list is in alphabetical order by artist, although I do identify my favorite album of the year in the text. (No spoilers.)

Alcest, Les chantes de l’aurore

Alcest started out as a death-metal project for the musician who goes by Neige, then incorporated shoegaze sounds to create something called “blackgaze” that was later co-opted by Deafheaven (with whom Neige has worked), after which Alcest added a second member and released an album that was all shoegaze with no metal. They’ve varied their mix of genres on subsequent albums, but this latest one gets the balance right, as they did on 2016’s incredible Kodama. The album is primarily heavy shoegaze, with some very infrequent screamed vocals deeper in the mix, so the wall-of-guitars sound is really the emphasis. Other strong metal albums this year include Wheel’s Charismatic Leaders, Pallbearer’s The Mind Burns Alive, and Crypt Sermon’s The Stygian Rose.

Courting, New Last Name

Quirky pop music with a post-punk edge, New Last Name grabs you right away with the 2023 single “Throw,” followed by the poppiest track on the record, “We Look Good Together (Big Words),” both of which are anchored by infectious, clean guitar riffs. They show their post-punk influences more on “Flex,” which has some clear Buzzcocks influence and lyrically references “Mr. Brightside,” because that song is over 20 years old. You’re welcome.

Kid Kapichi, There Goes the Neighborhood

They’re probably never quite going to match their incredible, no-skips debut album, but Kid Kapichi keeps churning out angry yet catchy working-class anthems with a touch of Alex Turner in the lyrics but a heavier, crunchier backdrop of guitars more inspired by punk and pub-rock. Highlights here include “Let’s Get to Work,” “Can EU Hear Me?,” and the wonderfully weird “Tamagotchi.”

The Libertines, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade

This is my most listened-to album of the year so far, as the likely lads came back better than ever, with a slew of intoxicating and surprisingly upbeat tracks – ”Oh Shit,” “Run Run Run,” “Shiver,” and “Night of the Hunter” – that still bear that clear Doherty/Barât sound, just with better production and less breaking and entering.

Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice

This is my album of the year so far, and it’ll be hard to top. Hailing from Niger, a country that has been torn by political strife including a military coup this time last year, Moctar blends Tuareg music with western rock styles, particularly psychedelic rock and blues rock, crafting indelible guitar riffs and furious solos beneath the protest lyrics (sung in his native language, Tamasheq) that have boosted his popularity in the Sahel. I caught the last show of Moctar’s U.S. tour, at Union Transfer in Philly, and he blew the doors off the place, with incredible shredding and extended jams for several of the songs he played, including jumping into the crowd for his final guitar solo.

The Mysterines, Afraid of Tomorrows

I loved the Mysterines’ early output, fun, punchy, uptempo tracks like “Gasoline,” “I Win Every Time,” “Bet Your Pretty Face,” and more, but their debut album Reeling didn’t include any of those, and saw Lia Metcalfe & co. wallowing a bit more in slower and less catchy territory. This album, released last month, is far more in line with what I want from the Mysterines, because it puts the rock part front and center, and then Metcalfe’s smoky voice is that much more potent. Highlights include “Sink Ya Teeth,” “Stray,” and “The Last Dance.”

Pond – Stung!

Pond are all over the place yet again, and I’m good with it because the highs are high enough. They’re an experimental rock band from Australia with a heavy emphasis on psychedelic rock, but are comfortable veering into funk-pop (“So Lo”) or a mélange of 1970s hard rock and 1960s Motown rhythms (“(I’m) Stung”), or just straight-up psychedelic rock that your parents might have heard at Woodstock (“Neon River”). The album is 14 songs and 54+ minutes long, so it does wear out its welcome a bit as it goes on, but I put it on this list over some other albums I liked, such as Ride’s Interplay and Parsnip’s Behold, because it’s more ambitious.

Sprints, Letter to Self

The long-awaited debut full-length from this Dublin punk-rock band did not disappoint, and it’s one of the most true-to-form punk albums of the last few years, with spare lyrics and repeated lines over fast-paced guitar lines that mostly get out in under 3½ minutes. (Unfortunately, lead guitarist Colm O’Reilly left the band abruptly in mid-May.) Highlights include “Heavy,” “Adore Adore Adore,” “Literary Mind,” and “Up and Comer.”

Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood

While I loved Katie Crutchfield’s 2020 album Saint Cloud, I think I respect this album more than I love it, as it’s a slower, more tenebrous affair than the previous record, and I like her music when she incorporates a little more rock or folk and works less in the traditional country lane. Highlights include “3 Sisters,” “Evil Spawn,” “Bored,” and “Crimes of the Heart.”

Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?

This wasn’t quite up to the level of their debut album The Overload, but Yard Act are always messing around with styles and genres, and “Dream Job” might be their mostly overtly poppy song yet, even with their typical offbeat lyrics – how many pop hits can you name that use the word “kowtow?” Vocalist James Smith has cited his love of hip-hop in interviews, and that’s more evident in the words and his delivery across this album, and he moves seamlessly between rapping, talk-singing, and outright singing across the record. Other highlights include “We Make Hits,” “Petroleum,” and “When the Laughter Stops.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,
→ July 3, 2024
→ By

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 26th, 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 23rd, 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 14th, 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 21st, 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 27th).

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 23rd.

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 19th), 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 6th.

The Jesus Lizard – Hide & Seek. These 1990s noise-rock icons haven’t released an album in 26 years, but Rack drops on September 13th. 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 5th 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 27th, 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 12th 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 6th. 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 20th.

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 27th. 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 20th. 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: , , , , , , , , , ,
→ June 4, 2024
→ By

Music update, May 2024.

This list was pretty thin until the last eight days of May, when I think it doubled in length, with a bunch of new/surprise releases, including a couple of tracks from bands that were popular when I was still in grade school. May also included what is probably my #1 album of 2024 so far, two tracks from a band whose next album might be their big breakthrough, a posthumous release from Steve Albini, a fantastic cover I didn’t expect, some great new metal tracks, and more. You can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Mdou Moctar – Oh France. Moctar’s latest album, Funeral for Justice, is one of the best albums of the year, fighting for my top spot so far with the Libertines’ latest. His guitar work is so strong that even without the typical aural anchor of the lyrics I still find his tracks running through my head, including this one, the title track, and “Imouhar.”

milk. – Don’t Miss It. I’m probably better at predicting success (or failure) for baseball prospects than I am for bands, but this Irish quartet with the SEO-unfriendly name would be a top ten prospect for me right now. Maybe I should do some sort of rankings like that for fun. Anyway, they’ve got a great knack for indie-pop melodies, and this is their best single yet.

Charly Bliss – Nineteen. One of two great singles from Charly Bliss to come out in May in advance of their new album Forever, due out on August 16th. This is a powerhouse ballad with clever lyrics and a great vocal turn by Eva Hendricks, while the second single, “Calling You Out,” is more in their typical indie-pop vein. I’ve loved all three tracks from the record so far although I was disappointed to hear their single from last year, “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore,” isn’t on it.r

Blushing – Silver Teeth. Straight-up American shoegaze, from Texas but descended directly from the original shoegaze sound – you could definitely drop this on a mix from 1992 and no one would blink.

Nice Biscuit – Rain. Psychedelic rock from Brisbane, here with a big crunchy guitar riff right from the outset before the dreamy vocals come in.

Miles Kane – Fingerless Gloves. The other half of the Last Shadow Puppets and the lead singer/guitarist of the so-called “landfill indie” band the Rascals (who put out one album in 2008 and disbanded when Kane left) has just dropped a new instrumental five-song EP, featuring this banger that doesn’t need any vocals at all.

Color Green – Four Leaf Clover. Spacey, psychedelic guitar rock that 100% could be the opening band at a Phish show, if Phish weren’t also their own opening act. Color Green put out a full-length album in 2022, but this was the first track I’d heard by them.

DEADLETTER – Mere Mortal. Post-punk with horns, like Madness but definitely edgier and angrier. I’m not surprised to read they’re fans of Yard Act – you can hear some shared DNA between the two.

Bad Omens feat. Bob Vylan – Terms and Conditions. I sent this to a friend who shares my fandom of old-school hip hop, and not only did he love it, he said it’d be a great walkup song because it’s fast and loud and no one else would have it. Also, how many rappers can drop a coltan reference in their rhymes?

GIFT – Going in Circles. More psychedelia, from the band whose 2022 track “Gumball Garden” made my top 100 from that year, with their second album Illuminator due out on August 23rd.

Marble feat. Foxing – the monster. Marble is a six-piece band from the Pacific Northwest, calling their music “shoegaze/dreamo,” although this track, with Conor Murphy of Foxing taking the second verse, is neither – it’s bigger, clearer, more majestic, growing to a huge crescendo before a downshift in tempo at the finish.

STONE – Save Me. This hard rock/punk quartet from Liverpool announced their first full-length LP, Fear Life for a Lifetime, will be out on July 12th.

The Lemon Twigs – Rock On (Over and Over). The Lemon Twigs can get overly twee and their whole affect seems … well, affected, but when they lean hard into that 1960s pop sound, they produce Barrels. This seems like the kind of song Susanna Hoffs would cover.

The The – Cognitive Dissident. Yep, that’s the great 1980s alternative band, whose original lineup included Keith Laws, now a neuropsych professor University of Hertfordshire. Matt Johnson is the only original member left, but it’s his voice that defines so much of their sound – and he sounds great.

The Chameleons – Where Are You? The Chameleons were also part of the original post-punk movement but had very little success in the U.S., breaking up in the late 1980s after three albums, reuniting for one LP in 2001, and then breaking up again. Their first album since then, Arctic Moon, will be out later this year, with two of the four original members on board, including vocalist/bassist Mark Burgess. I didn’t end up including it on the list, but another band who were big in the 1980s, Redd Kross, put out a new track, “Born Innocent,” which was the name of their debut LP from 1982.

Ducks Ltd. – When You’re Outside. This is a bonus track from the Harm’s Way sessions that didn’t make the cut, but I might like it more than anything on the record. Their jangle-pop sound is pretty much in my wheelhouse.

Hinds feat. Beck – Boom Boom Back. I thought Hinds were done, with nothing since their 2020 album The Prettiest Curse, but they’re back, back down to their original two members, with a new LP coming in September. This track has the same sort of chaotic feel as just about all of their previous work, but the production level is higher, and the music is tighter, without that sense that the members are all playing to slightly different times.

Idaho – On Fire. I know Idaho’s stuff from their 1990s heyday as leaders of the ‘slowcore’ movement, but totally lost track of them after either Three Sheets to the Wind or Alas, and had no idea they’d 1) kept going until 2013 or 2) reunited this year for their first new album, Lapse, in eleven years. I don’t know if I could sit through a whole album of this lugubrious sound, but the main guitar riff here is hypnotic.

Strand of Oaks – Future Temple. A spacier, synth-laden single from Timothy Showalter, his first new music since 2021’s In Heaven.

RM feat. Little Simz – Domodachi. RM’s second solo album, Right Place, Wrong Person, came out to rave reviews on May 24th, and since I’m not exactly a BTS stan, you can imagine I found this track because the great Little Simz is on it.

Mach-Hommy feat. Black Thought – COPY COLD. Mach-Hommy is a Haitian-American rapper who hides his real identity and has been absurdly prolific, with Wikipedia listing 27 albums, all but two in the last ten years. I’m here for Black Thought’s verse, of course.

Slash feat. Chris Stapleton – Oh Well. A faithful, rollicking cover of one of the earliest Fleetwood Mac hits, written and sung by Peter Green. Stapleton’s vocals are desultory but I’m here for Slash’s soloing anyway.

Head Automatica – Bear the Cross. Head Automatica is a side project for Glassjaw lead singer Daryl Palumbo, but they’d been idle since 2012 and hadn’t released any new music since 2006 before this new single. There’s a mid-period Depeche Mode vibe to it, with that vaguely industrial sound from the Some Great Reward era.

Shellac – WSOD. Shellac’s final album came out just ten days after the death of guitarist/vocalist Steve Albini, which, from the reviews I’ve seen, has meant some less-than-objective commentary on the music itself, but I think this track is pretty great from the opening riff to Albini’s Mike Doughty-esque lyrics.

Cemetery Skyline – In Darkness. Cemetery Skyline is a supergroup of musicians from Nordic metal, including members from two major melodic death metal bands in Dark Tranquility and Omnium Gatherum, but this track is almost an anachronism – the vocals are clean, the tempo is moderate, and the whole thing has a NWOBHM/Sabbath-y vibe. It’s interesting to me to hear guys who lean too heavily on gimmicks like death growls and blast beats show they like and can play more accessible stuff.

Wheel – Submission. A sprawling ten-minute progfest from one of the best prog-metal bands on the planet right now, from their latest album Charismatic Leaders.

Pallbearer – Mind Burns Alive. The title track from the American doom masters’ latest album, which dropped on May 17th and features six tracks, none shorter than six and a half minutes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,