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Music update, November 2023.

November is usually the last big month for new music, and this year’s didn’t disappoint, between some of the year’s best albums and a lot of songs teasing 2024 releases. This month’s playlist probably has the most genres of any I’ve posted, which I think speaks to how strong the month was for new tracks. As always, if you can’t see the Spotify widget below you can access the playlist here.

Billy Porter – Children. Billy Porter’s a Broadway superstar and an Emmy winner for his portrayal of Pray Tell on the groundbreaking show Pose, but his fifth album, Black Mona Lisa, is his first full-length foray into any part of popular music – and it’s a blast. This track is my favorite so far for the incredible earworm in the chorus, “Gotta let these children know what time it is,” but so much of the album is so ebullient that even when Porter’s lyrics turn serious you’re still glued to the music. The LP closes with another version of this song that also features Lady Blackbird.

Megan Thee Stallion – Cobra. The lead single from her upcoming third album has MTS rapping about depression, betrayal, and the hangers-on who didn’t seem to care or notice when she was struggling. It also concludes with a brief guitar solo that’s one of the best of the year. Just listen for that one half-note change in the riff and hear how it changes the entire tenor of the solo.

Consensus feat. Moses Boyd – Out of this World. Consensus is a British rapper who’s obsessed with physics, especially particle physics; his 2017 debut album, ConCERNED, was inspired by a trip to the CERN laboratory on the Swiss-French border, with songs like “Antimatter,” “Higgs,” and “Standard Model.” His second album, Original Conscience, is more inspired by the origins of the universe and its lyrics are a little more metaphorical, although he does have a track about the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment just called “D.U.N.E. (Deep Underground).” This track includes the incredible jazz drummer Moses Boyd, giving it the best beat on the record.

BEAM – FU. A cover, sort of, of “True Fu-Schnick” – BEAM, a Jamaican-American rapper, loved the fast-rap style of The Fu-Schnickens, and here drops new verses over the same beat along with the original chorus. It’s part of an upcoming EP to celebrate hip-hop’s 50th anniversary where artists will reimagine tracks from rap’s golden era.

Brittany Howard – Red Flags. Two singles in and I can’t wait for Howard’s sophomore album, What Now, due out on February 2nd. This track is all over the place, from psychedelic rock to gospel to electronica, all anchored by Howard’s powerful vocals.

CVC – The Remortgage Anthem. This Welsh band reworked their own track “The Mortgage Anthem” with a disco influence and a hint of ‘70s funk, and it works extremely well for an upbeat working-class anthem that gets you moving while the anticapitalist lyrics seep into your head.

Egyptian Blue – A Living Commodity. The title track from this English post-punk band’s debut album is both one of the LP’s best and also shows that they’re a good bit more than the post-punk label might apply, combining some of the abrasiveness of early Gang of Four or Television with very early new wave sounds like U2 circa Boy or October. They’re definitely a band to watch.

Weakened Friends – Awkward. I absolutely thought this was Sleater-Kinney or at least Corin Tucker when I first heard it, but it’s this Maine trio, with their first new single since 2021’s Quitter. It’s probably more like Sleater-Kinney meets jangle-pop, now that I know who’s actually behind the track.

Cloud Nothings – Final Summer. This was Cloud Nothings’ first new track since their EP titled July 2021, the release date of which I’ll let you work out, and their first for Pure Noise Records, so I presume it’s a harbinger of a new album at some point next year. Their production values have improved over time but their sound really hasn’t changed and I for one am very happy with that.

Peace – Happy Cars. Peace have been around for over a decade, so I’m a bit ashamed to admit this was the first track I’d ever heard from the band, who are now a duo after releasing three albums as a quartet. Their fourth record, Utopia, got a full release in November and features this shimmering Britpop-like track that reminded me a ton of the ‘90s act Geneva.

Heartworms – May I Comply. Heartworms is Jojo Orme, although it’s more than just a one-woman show here – it’s a whole character, named for The Shins’ 2017 album, replete with military imagery and gothic styling, melding post-punk, hard rock, and darkwave.

Pip Blom – Not Tonight. A Dutch pop band who first came to my attention with their collaboration with Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, “Is This Love,” Pip Blom have another banger here with this bouncy pop-rock track with what seem to be nonsense lyrics. (At least, I hope they are.)

Kid Kapichi – Tamagotchi. I’m not a big fan of rock singers trying to rap, and I don’t think it goes especially well here, but there’s a great guitar riff here and both the bridge and chorus – which have actual singing – are up to the high Kid Kapichi standard, so I’ll tolerate a little cringe to get to it.

Courting – Throw. Courting’s second album, New Last Name, comes out January 26th, and based on the first two singles (this and “Flex”) it’ll be more guitar-focused but every bit as raucous.

Momma – Sunday. Momma and Narrow Head, a post-hardcore band from Texas, trade covers on this split single, with Momma covering Narrow Head’s “Sunday” while Narrow Head took on Momma’s “Medicine.” I’m not wild about Narrow Head’s vocals, so I prefer Momma’s versions of both songs.

Suede – The Sadness in You, the Sadness in Me. Suede (yes, the London Suede, sue me) are planning a massive deluxe edition of last year’s LP Autofiction, including this track, which really should have been on the record because it’s pretty much peak Suede for me. The song also previously appeared on the 2022 EP She Still Leads Me On, which was only available for a week, so don’t feel bad if you missed it.

flowerovlove – a girl like me. flowerovlove might be the next Griff, who first burst on the scene as a teenager with a sophisticated take on modern pop music. flowerovlove’s sound is different, a little more light with vocals that recall beabadoobee (and who also eschews capitalization), but with the same sense of “how does someone so young have such a strong grasp on pop history?”

Sampha – Suspended. Lahai, Sampha’s sophomore album, is one of the best new records of the year and I think a step forward from his Mercury Prize-winning debut, with lusher arrangements and better use of his unique higher-register voice.

NIJI – Somewhere in the Middle. The title track from Niji Adeleye’s new EP, his first under the NIJI moniker, is a piano-and-horns jazz piece with a strong hook from the brass section, while the EP as a whole has more influence from the music of Nigeria, where his parents were born.

Arlo Parks – Jasmine. The deluxe edition of Parks’ sophomore album My Soft Machine includes this cover of Jai Paul’s obscure but highly influential single “Jasmine,” starting out with a sparse arrangement of mostly synths and drum machine but building to a layered finish that brings in more guitar and bass while staying authentic to the original’s soft, reverbed vocals. Apparently Jai Paul even gave his approval to the cover.

Mary Timony – Dominoes. Timony, the lead singer and guitarist for Helium back in the 1990s and Ex Hex in the 2010s, returns with her first solo album in 15 years, Untame the Tiger, due out February 23rd. This lead single has none of the dissonance or harder edges from her prior work, but don’t we all mellow out as we get older?

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Impressively Average. This Chicago band’s music would sound like a lot of other alternative acts if singer/songwriter Wes Leavins didn’t have such a distinctive vocal style, which I’ve seen compared to Morrissey, Roy Orbison, and Elvis by various critics. His voice has a real personality, and it’s definitely something you don’t hear much in any genre of music right now; in an earlier era he would have been a crooner, and maybe that’ll be his second act in twenty years. This is the best track from the band’s latest EP, This House Is Made of Corners.

Vince Clarke – White Rabbit. Yep, that Vince Clarke, of Erasure and previously of Depeche Mode and Yaz, releasing his first solo album at age 63. It’s not a synth-pop record, as you might expect, but an experimental electronic one, with each track focused around a single note, often held through the entire song. I would have expected such music to sound monotonous, but “White Rabbit” is anything but – it’s a whole soundscape, with shifting moods and tones that are only held together by that slender core of the original tone.

Floating Points – Birth4000. Dr. Samuel Shepherd returns to his EDM roots after the 2021 album Promises, recorded with saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders not long before the latter died at age 81. This track has a slow build before the main hook comes in around the one-minute mark, and Shepherd layers his sounds beautifully for an immersive track that’s as accessible as anything he’s done.

Sen Morimoto – If the Answer Isn’t Love. Morimoto’s some sort of musical genius, I think, with music that ignores all attempts to categorize it (you could call it jazz, but that’s neither fair to Morimoto or actual jazz) … but I also don’t hear a lot of hooks on his album Diagnosis. This was the most compelling track and I think shows off what he does well as a songwriter and guitarist in particular.

SPRINTS – Shadow of a Doubt. SPRINTS put out an EP in November that includes this track, “Up and Comer,” and “Adore Adore Adore,” the last two of which have appeared on my playlists already this year. “Shadow” actually starts out slow and quiet, but you can hear the tension in Karla Chubb’s vocals, and you know the explosion of punk guitars is just around the bend. When it arrives, it flips the whole track upside down.

Sheer Mag – Playing Favorites. I actually thought Sheer Mag might have called it quits, as they hadn’t released any new music since 2019’s A Distant Call, but they put out a new track in August and then this one, the title track from their upcoming album due out March 1st, which sounds like this punk revival band never left us at all.

Wayfarer – Reaper on the Oilfields. Wayfarer combines death-doom with traditional country music sounds – not modern country, but country music from 70+ years ago – in a sound I have never heard anywhere before. Encyclopedia Metallum calls it “atmospheric black/folk metal,” and, sure, that works too. Their latest album, American Gothic, would easily be my metal album of the year if they didn’t resort so often to deep, guttural death growls that too often overshadow the fascinating musical blend that makes them unique. This track has very little of that, so perhaps you can better appreciate what they’re doing without that distraction.

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→ November 11, 2023
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Stick to baseball, 11/11/23.

Nothing new from me at the Athletic as I wait for some real news, a trade or signing, that I can break down. I’ve also begun the offseason prospect work, although those rankings won’t run until late January or early February.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the wonderful game Fit to Print, which has a real-time aspect like Galaxy Trucker where players grab various tiles, then some tile-laying like Patchwork, as players try to fill out their woodland newspapers – with some hilarious text and art on the tiles – with articles, photos, and ads, playing over three rounds to represent three days of issues.

On the Keith Law Show, I spoke with Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road and The Lost Girls, primarily about the first book, which deals with a family where six of their twelve children developed schizophrenia, although we touched on his update to the latter since the case may have been solved. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I also appeared on NPR’s Marketplace, talking about Moneyball and the data revolution in baseball in the last twenty years. You can catch it on iTunes on the Marketplace Tech podcast.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter last Saturday and will do another this weekend as I try to make this a weekly thing, although I might shift to Monday since that tends to be the slowest day of my week (in more ways than one).

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→ October 31, 2023
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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 1st. 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 7th, 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 1st; 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.

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→ October 7, 2023
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Stick to baseball, 10/7/23.

I’ve had one post up for subscribers to the Athletic since the last roundup, with my hypothetical postseason awards ballots for 2023. I do have another story filed for Sunday, so keep an eye skinned for that.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Votes for Women, a (mostly) two-player, asymmetrical game about the fight for women’s suffrage. It’s fantastic, and I also love that this review went up the week that Glynis Johns turned 100.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was MLB’s Sarah Langs, talking about the season that was, who she would vote for in the various awards, and what excited her about this year’s playoff teams. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

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→ October 4, 2023
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Music update, September 2023.

Months with five Fridays always take me a bit longer to write up, since they have more new releases to work through, and I was away for the weekend as well so I finally caught up after writing this in bits and pieces over several days. Anyway, we got some big new album releases in September from Speedy Ortiz, Jorja Smith, Corinne Bailey Rae, The National, Romy, Olivia Rodrigo, Slowdive, Royal Blood, The Coral, and more, and I’m still working through many of them. Here are some of the best new tracks I found this past month. I’ll also note that the 2023 Mercury Prize went to jazz artists Ezra Collective for their November 2022 album Where I’m Meant to Be, which I hadn’t heard before; it’s cross-over jazz with lots of great guest appearances, but I don’t think it would have made my best albums of the year list. As always, if you can’t see the Spotify widget, you can access the playlist here.

Speedy Ortiz – Ranch vs. Ranch. Rabbit Rabbit, the band’s fourth proper LP, came out appropriately on the first of the month, and finds the band in peak form. The album itself is a little uneven, but has several standout tracks where Sadie Dupuis’ off-kilter vocals and the band’s key changes meld with some heavier riffing to provide what makes them unique, songs where the sense of melody is always teetering on the edge of musical disaster.

Kid Kapichi – Let’s Get to Work. I thought about seeing Kid Kapichi in Philly last month, but I had no interest in the main act (Nothing But Thieves) and couldn’t see spending the coin for an opening act after I’d shelled out for Arctic Monkeys a week earlier. Anyway, this track sounds more like the band’s debut album This Time Next Year than their still strong but slightly lesser second record.

Jorja Smith – Falling or Flying. This is the title track from Smith’s sophomore album, which comes five years after her Mercury Prize-nominated debut Lost and Found, and the fourteen tracks (plus two skits) show tremendous growth in her musical style while her voice remains the greatest attraction. I love this song, “She Feels,” “GO GO GO,” “Try Me,” and “Little Things.”

Slowdive – alife. Slowdive’s second post-hiatus album everything is alive seems destined for a slew of best-of-2023 lists, as the eight-track LP has the band performing at the level of their album Souvlaki, a classic of the original shoegaze movement. Apparently they played here in Philly a few days ago while I was out of town. Alas.

Griff – Vertigo. Griff has released three major singles since her debut album came out, including the collaboration with Sigrid on “Head on Fire,” so I presume we’re getting another album from her at some point. She’s one of the most exciting pop artists recording today and if this isn’t quite up to “Black Hole” and “One Night” it’s still one of the best pure pop tracks of the year.

Susanna Hoffs – I Don’t Know Why. Hoffs, who has been a guest on the Keith Law Show, follows up her latest album of covers The Deep End with this ‘lost’ cover of a 1999 Shawn Colvin track, and it probably belonged on the record because it’s an excellent showcase for her voice.

Lauren Mayberry – Are You Awake? Another Keith Law Show guest, Mayberry released her first solo single early last month and then embarked on a small tour (no Philly show, alas). This is a mournful piano ballad, which is fine but I don’t think is the best vehicle for her voice. I’m hoping we get some more diverse tracks as she releases more material.

Sampha – Only. It’s funny; when Sampha won the 2017 Mercury Prize for Process, I listened to the album and thought it was just okay, with some interesting vocals but nothing all that award-worthy. Since then, the album has grown on me and I’ve loved the two singles so far ahead of his sophomore album Lahai, due out on October 20th.

Romy – She’s on My Mind. Romy Madley Croft of the xx just released her debut solo album Mid Air in September to wide critical acclaim, although I think it’s just a good dance-pop record. “She’s on my mind but I wish she was under me” is one of the lines of the year, though.

flowerovlove – Next Best Exit. flowerovlove is an 18-year-old musician/singer and model from London who produces bedroom pop, here with a great hook and a sound that feels full despite fairly sparse arrangements. She’s released an EP and a few singles so far but this was my first encounter with her music.

Baby Queen – Quarter Life Crisis. This South African singer announced last month that the release of her debut album, also called Quarter Life Crisis, will be pushed back to November 10th. It’s indie-pop with a snarky edge to the lyrics, although I think the words to this particular track are more hackneyed than some of her previous songs – it’s not that novel to hit age 25 and wonder about the direction of your life.

Corinne Bailey Rae – Erasure. I loved Bailey Rae’s first big single, “Put Your Records On,” but lost track of her music after her second album, The Sea, which came after the accidental death of her husband from an overdose of methadone and alcohol in 2008. She recorded just one more album, in 2016, and didn’t release any more music until this year, with the September release of her fourth album, Black Rainbows, a massive departure from her previous work. It’s a loose concept album inspired in large part by artifacts she saw at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, which holds a large collection of “African and African-diaspora materials,” and sees Bailey Rae working through genres she’s never touched before, even flirting with punk-tinged metal, and blending them into a weirdly cohesive whole. I think it’s going to be one of the most acclaimed albums of the year and it’s certainly one of the most interesting and ambitious, which makes it hard to pick any one song to represent it on a playlist.

James BKS feat. Angélique Kidjo & Nomcebo Zikode – Best We Can. James BKS released his second album, Wolves of Africa Part 2, in September, and the top track is this collaboration with legendary Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo, winner of five Grammy Awards, and South African singer Zikode, who also won a Grammy in 2020. James BKS was briefly signed to Idris Elba’s record label but went on his own after a few singles, and both of his albums blend the music of his native Cameroon with broader Afrobeat sounds and some elements of African hip-hop.

The Kills – God Games. This noise/indie-pop duo is set to release their first album since 2016 on October 27th with God Games, which is their first new material of any sort since the 2018 single “List of Demands (Reparations).” I’ll always be partial to “Sour Cherry” from 2008’s Midnight Boom but the first three singles from this album are all pretty solid.

The Drums – Isolette. The chorus to this song has to be the earworm of the month, for better or worse. Good luck getting it out of your head. The sixth album from this solo project of Jonathan Pierce, Jonny, drops on October 13th.

Soft Science – Stuck. The fourth album from this California post-shoegaze band, titled Lines, came out last month, and there’s a lot of early Lush or Slowdive to their sound. Their debut album Maps made my top ten of 2018. I wasn’t a shoegaze fan when the genre first emerged in the early 1990s, but got more into it when file-sharing opened a whole world of new tracks to me at the end of that decade, and it’s only grown on me since.

Pastel – Your Day. Credit to MLB.com’s Matthew Leach for posting about Pastel on social media, which is how I found them. This is the sound I loved from the DMA’s on their first two albums or even on some early Arctic Monkeys tracks – big, anthemic rock that isn’t afraid to be a little bombastic.

SPRINTS – Up and Comer. This Irish punk act announced that their second album, Letter to Self, will arrive on January 5th, with this (I presume) third single off the record my favorite so far.

Van William – Getaway Car. Another former podcast guest of mine, this one going back to my ESPN days, William is also the lead singer/guitarist for the band Waters, although he’s only released music as a solo artist since 2015. This is his first new track of any sort since 2018 and definitely more in line with his EP The Revolution than his work with Waters or Port O’Brien.

Del Water Gap – Quilt of Steam. Del Water Gap is Holden Jaffe, and I have to credit my daughter here, as she introduced me to his music. This catchy indie/dream-pop single comes off his second album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet, which came out on September 29th.

Cory Wong feat. Brasstracks – Flamingo. Wong’s latest album The Lucky One is just a blast, a fun ride through various funk, jazz, and pop styles with a great roster of guest artists. “Call Me Wild” is still my favorite track from the LP but this instrumental might be the runner-up.

Kojaque feat. Biig Piig – WOOF. Kojaque is an Irish rapper who teams up with the Irish singer Jessica Smyth, aka Biig Piig, which is how I ended up finding this track; her vocals and the ‘80s R&B music are the highlights here, more so than his rhymes.

Sundara Karma – Wishing Well. Very glad to have this British band, who are very much descendants of U2 and similar to Australia’s Gang of Youths, back on the scene, even with a song as melancholy as this one. Their newest album Better Luck Next Time drops on October 27th.

milk. – I Think I Lost My Number Can I Have Yours? This Dublin band delivers despite the ridiculous pickup line in the song’s title, with great harmonies in the chorus and a lush pop sound. They’ve released about a dozen singles over the last four-plus years, but there appears to be an album called London in the offing.

Roosevelt – Fall Right In. I was fairly sure I’d had a Roosevelt track on a previous playlist, but I appear to have misremembered, or just confused him with another artist. He’s a German synth-pop artist with some strong new wave influences, and this track especially reminds me of one of my favorite albums of this century, St. Lucia’s When the Night.

Bombino – Alwane. Omara Moctar, who records as Bombino, is a Tuareg singer/guitarist from Niger and a political activist, no relation to the great Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar but working in a similar genre with less Western influence to his music. Bombino’s latest album Sahel came out last month, shortly after his family was evacuated from Niger’s capital Niamey during the military coup there.

Geese – Jesse. The Brooklyn indie quintet followed up their sophomore album 3D Country with an EP called 4D Country that includes tracks from the same sessions, including this single, which very much fits with the same faux-country post-punk vibe of the album.

Anxious – Down, Down. The first new single from this Connecticut emo band since last year’s Little Green House, which was one of my top 22 albums of 2022, finds the quintet mining similar musical territory, with the same contrast between sung and screamed lyrics, with highly melodic guitarwork behind the vocals.

Royal Blood – Shiner in the Dark. This duo’s fourth album, Stuck in the Water Below, finds them … stuck in neutral, really. The album has garnered mostly positive reviews, but I think it’s their least inventive and least compelling record to date, with nothing like “Out of the Black” or “Lights Out” anywhere on the album. This track is probably the best one, but it’s weirdly poppy for a band whose best moments were grounded in hard rock – as bassist/vocalist Mike Kerr will gladly tell you.

Ratboys – Making Noise for the Ones You Love. Singer Julia Steiner sounds a lot like Waxahatchee, which I mean as a compliment, while this thumping track harkens back to some early Arcade Fire and has less of the alt-country trappings of a lot of Ratboys’ other songs.

Rival Sons – Sweet Life. If you like Greta Van Fleet, and I don’t really know why you would, Rival Sons does it better, without trying so hard to sound like Led Zeppelin.

Wheel – Blood Drinker (Instrumental). This Anglo-Finnish progressive metal group put out a three-track EP called Rumination last November, and just released instrumental versions of the same three songs last month. I prefer this with the vocals, but I also find Wheel to be one of the most interesting metal acts recording right now so I appreciate the instrumental versions.

Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Empire. This group is new to me but they’ve been around for ten years, with their seventh album, Data Doom, dropping on September 1st. This track has a heavy King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard vibe, from the psychedelic rock aspects to the massive tonal and stylistic shifts through the song’s seven minutes.

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→ September 3, 2023
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Music update, August 2023.

Back on schedule as I crawl out of my writing hole (by which I mean a place where I have not done much writing). August saw quite a few album releases of note, including Blur, Genesis Owusu, Burna Boy, Ratboys, Be Your Own Pet, Slowdive, Noname, and more, but I think it was a little lighter on singles. Friday saw another big batch of albums and singles, but since that was the first day of September I’ve pushed all of those songs to a new playlist for that month. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Speedy Ortiz – Ghostwriter. Sadie Dupuis & company released their fourth album, Rabbit Rabbit, on her own label on Friday, and the album seems to have a slightly harder edge to the music without losing the off-kilter melodies and perhaps even amping up some of the harmonies in the choruses across the record.

Cory Wong feat. Dodie – Call Me Wild. I’m pretty clearly a Cory Wong fan, although I’m very late to the party. He does funk guitar so effortlessly, unsurprising for someone who grew up in Minneapolis, and you can also hear a ton of Primus (one of his stated influences) on this new album, The Lucky One, which has more famous guest appearances than Asteroid City.

BLOXX – Modern Day. I think this is the best song of the smattering BLOXX has released since their one full-length LP, Lie Out Loud, came out three years ago, and really deserves a lot more attention than it’s received – this is the pinnacle of this sort of indie-pop, and why a song like this gets overlooked while garbage like Imagine Dragons gets played to death is just beyond my limited comprehension.

The Julies – My Heaven is a Dance Floor. So this is an interesting one – the Julies released two EPs in 1994 and 1996, and then … nothing for twenty-seven years, until they released two singles as well as an EP of lost mixes from their earlier work. That’s probably why this band sounds so good to me, as they’re still channeling that early ‘90s alternative vibe, with elements of shoegaze (Ride) and dream-pop (Cocteau Twins).

Slowdive – the slab. Speaking of shoegaze, Slowdive returned on Friday with their second album since they reunited in 2014, the follow-up to 2017’s self-titled LP, and it’s a mix of some classic shoegaze like this pulsating track, “kisses,” and “alife,” and some slower songs like “skin in the game.”

Seablite – Melancholy Molly. If you played this for me and told me it was a lost track from Lush’s 1992 album Spooky, I’d believe you. It’s a spot-on rendition of that strand of early shoegaze with female vocalists, going for airy or dreamy vocals over highly textured guitars and keyboards that made it hard to pick out individual instruments. Seablite’s second album, Lemon Lights, is due out on the 29th.

Jorja Smith – GO GO GO. Smith continues to carve out her own musical path, moving away from R&B and smooth jazz here with an acoustic guitar backing that wouldn’t be out of place on pop radio. She’ll release the long-overdue follow-up to Lost & Found, which made my top 18 albums of 2018, on September 29th with Falling or Flying.

Noname feat. Common & Ayoni – Noname retired from the music industry briefly in 2020, resurfaced last year, and then came back with this surprise sophomore album Sundial last month – and it’s one of the best albums of the year, easily, with strong beats and the kind of smart, well-delivered rhymes we heard on her first album. However, she chose to platform Jay Electronica, a rapper who has a history of antisemitic commentary, even within his songs, with frequent reference to the “Rothschilds,” a popular dogwhistle among antisemites. Even in his contribution here to “Balloon,” he says he needs to “saw the Roth’ family in half to get my clout back” and makes several references to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Noname’s response to the controversy was extremely disappointing, as she took no responsibility, threatened to scrap the album (after she scrapped a previous one, Factory Baby) and then deleted her Twitter account entirely rather than deal with the backlash she created. The real lesson is that you shouldn’t platform an antisemite, and if you do so unknowingly, be accountable for your actions.

Danger Mouse with Jemini the Gifted One – Brooklyn Bazquiat. These two artists worked together on Danger Mouse’s 2003 album Ghetto Pop Life, then recorded a second album Born Again the following year, but that latter LP never saw the light of day until last week. Nineteen years have seen the music scene evolve to the point where this record sounds like a throwback to the alternative hip-hop movement of the 1990s and early 2000s, and it holds up exceptionally well as an example of that style of music.

Jungle – Us Against the World. Volcano dropped last month and I think it’s my least favorite Jungle album, with fewer standout singles than most of their LPs and some nods to more current trends in electronic music that my older ears find kind of annoying. “Candle Flame,” which was on my March playlist, is the best song on the album, and a huge reason why is the guest vocals from rapper Erick the Architect.

Girl Ray – Tell Me. Prestige, the third album from this London-based electropop trio, came out on August 4th, and it’s full of catchy, danceable tracks like this one.

San Cisco – Under the Light. A subtle but still very catchy single from this Australian band, whose first hit single “Awkward” came out eleven years ago. I’m thrilled they’ve still got it, but jesus does that make me feel old.

Genesis Owusu – Stay Blessed. Owusu’s second album, STRUGGLER, came out last month, and the Ghanaian-Australian singer has taken a short story he wrote about a character called the Roach, based on the same existential authors who inspired Chris Cornell thirty-plus years ago, and loosely turned it into a concept album that spans all sorts of genres, with an electronic bass line opening the album on “Leaving the Light,” some R&B/funk on “Tied Up!” and garage-rock inspirations on “Freak Boy.”

The Kills – New York. I assumed the Kills had hung it up, with no new music from the duo since 2016’s Ash & Ice, which had the single “Doing It to Death,” but they released this two-sided single in August and another track on Friday in advance of the October 27th release of their sixth album, God Games. This track is no “Sour Cherry” but otherwise fits in with their better stuff.

Kula Shaker – Waves. I didn’t realize these Britpop stars, who were either twenty years ahead of their time in incorporating Indian music into mainstream rock or guilty of some sort of cultural appropriation for the same thing, had put out a new album last year, which was itself their first album since 2016. This new track, ahead of an untitled seventh album, is full of the same peace and love and good happiness stuff lyrics as their other stuff but has one of the best hooks they’ve found since the 1990s.

English Teacher – The World’s Biggest Paving Slab. It takes some stones – pun intended – to write a song called “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab” and then have that phrase in the very first line, but English Teacher, who’ve gone from very credible post-punk to something harder to pin down, with lyrics that would fit on an Arctic Monkeys album, wry delivery, and elements of dream-pop and indie rock along with those post-punk leanings.

The Hives – Two Kinds of Trouble. The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, the Hives’ first album in eleven years, dropped on August 11th, and to their great credit, they haven’t changed much of anything. This is good-time garage rock, and they’re not sorry.

The Linda Lindas – Resolution/Revolution. I know there was a big novelty factor around this quartet when they first showed up in the 2019 film Moxie, with all the band members at the time aged 15 or younger, but they’re just a good punk-pop band now and everyone, myself included, should probably just stop talking about how young they are except to say that it’s astonishing how good and how polished they are for their ages.

Public Image Ltd – End of the World. PiL released their eleventh album, End of World, in August, a very inconsistent affair highlighted by this track, which has Lu Edmonds (the guitarist from Happy and 9, perhaps their two best albums) delivering a searing guitar riff over which Lydon can caterwaul to his heart’s content.

Horrendous – Aurora Neoterica. An instrumental track off Ontological Mysterium that highlights a lot of what I like about this metal band, with ambitious and weird guitar riffs and some highly technical fretwork. The album as a whole is better than 2018’s Idol and probably on par with Ecdysis, although I still found it uneven and I don’t need to hear the death-metal screeching without the music to sort of drown it out. Anyway, this track feels more like something you might have heard from peak Rush, and it’s good to hear this band stretch out a little bit away from the trappings of their main genre.

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→ August 18, 2023
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Music update, July 2023.

So this playlist has been done for two weeks, but I took PTO right after the deadline to go to Gen Con, rest and recharge, and do some family stuff, and I barely wrote a word while I was off other than my huge Gen Con wrapup. I’m pushing this one out because my August playlist is already at 19 songs and we have two Fridays left. Therefore, enjoy this list of songs released between 18 and roughly 50 days ago. As always, you can click here if you can’t see the Spotify widget below.

The Dinner Party – Sinner. This indie-rock quintet from London seems like they should be based in L.A. in the early 1980s, or maybe Brooklyn in the early aughts, like a blend of Sparks and Lucius.

Charly Bliss – You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore. CB’s first new track in three years, with their sophomore album Young Enough already four years old, is welcome news. I haven’t seen word yet of a new LP from this grunge-pop quartet.

Miles Kane – Wonder. Kane is half of the Last Shadow Puppets (with Alex Turner) and was the lead singer of the Rascals, but he’s recorded under his own name since the latter group broke up in 2009. There’s some Stone Roses to the guitar work here on this new single, released ahead of his latest album One Man Band, out August 4th.

Brad – Hey Now What’s the Problem. A funkier track from Brad’s final album, In the Moment that You’re Born, which features the last vocals from Shawn Smith. Smith died in April of 2019, and you know his work – he was also the lead singer for the band Pigeonhead, whose “Battle Flag” earned one of the great all-time remixes from the Lo-Fidelity All Stars.

Sampha – Spirit 2.0. Mercury Prize winner Sampha has one of the most distinctive voices in music right now – in a good way – and often elevates otherwise uninteresting material, but here he’s got a quick, frenetic track with vocals seem off-balance in a way that keeps your ear tuned in.

Metric – Just the Once. Not their best, far from their worst. I’m okay with Metric dialing it back just to write a fun dance-pop song every now and then.

Courting – Flex. Wikipedia calls them “art punk,” maybe because they have proper British accents. This is definitely poppier than that, but smarter than pop-punk. They feel like a band on the come, maybe one full album away from the big leagues. Also, I think that’s a “Mr. Brightside” reference.

The Front Bottoms – Emotional. Maybe the best call-and-response of the year, although the peculiar nasal thing they do near the chorus is offputting.

Yard Act – The Trench Coat Museum. Yard Act’s debut LP The Overload was my #3 album of 2022, although since it came out early in the year it’s been more like seventeen months since we last had new music from this extremely English art-punk band.

Royal Blood – Pull Me Through. Don’t let the piano intro fool you, there’s some crunchy bass-through-an-octave pedal work coming not too long after.

Tame Impala – Journey to the Real World. I mean, there are catchier songs on the Barbie soundtrack, but the mere fact that they picked Tame Impala to join a roster of explicitly pop acts is itself a reason to recommend the album. (Also, that stupid “Pink” song is still in my head.)

Bob Vylan – Dream Big. Grime rap combined with punk? I definitely hear a lot of Bad Brains in here, although I’m not very familiar with grime as a genre.

beabadoobee – the way things go. It’s a little twee, but it’s pretty catchy, and beabadoobee’s voice does lend itself well to this sort of light chamber-pop. I just don’t want to encourage too much of this.

Baby Queen – We Can Be Anything. Baby Queen is a 25-year-old singer from South Africa whose debut album, Quarter Life Crisis (get it? ugh), comes out on October 6th. It’s sort of avant-pop, with some clear Grimes influence in here.

BLOXX – Weight in Gold. So events have overtaken my playlist as BLOXX’s EP Modern Day is out, and its title track is on my in-progress August list. It’s upbeat, punk-tinged indie rock, kind of if Neon Trees were less overtly poppy with better lyrics, especially with a little more new wave influence on the EP’s five tracks.

Jungle – Back on 74. Volcano, the fifth LP from this British neo-soul duo, came out last Friday, and so far everything I’ve heard is … just fine. I haven’t caught a breakout single like “Busy Earnin,” “Happy Man,” or “The Truth,” just some very 70s sounds without the big hooks I’m used to from these guys.

Slowdive – Skin in the Game. The second single released ahead of next month’s Everything Is Alive, Slowdive’s second album since they returned from a 19-year hiatus in 2014. I also feel obligated to mention that I was in Commissary, a barbershop and café in Indianapolis, and the barista was playing Souvlaki in its entirety.

Romy – The Sea. Mid Air, the first solo album from the xx’s Romy Madley Croft, is due out September 8th, and I think it’s more pop-adjacent than her main band’s music or that of bandmate Jamie xx, whose debut album featured some guest vocals from Romy on “Loud Places.”

Lathe of Heaven – Ekpyrosis. You’d think this was some sort of extreme metal track from its name, which refers to the Greek Stoics’ belief that the universe would be destroyed and reborn every 36,000 years, but this is a NYC post-punk band that sounds like Killing Joke or early Ceremony, named after an Ursula K. Le Guin novel.

Horrendous – Preterition Hymn. I almost feel like I have to apologize when I include tracks with death growls, but man that big, swirling guitar riff that opens this song is something else. Horrendous’s first album in five years, Ontological Mysterium, is out today, August 18th, and the songs released ahead of it show a return to the musical ambition of their first two albums, even with some flourishes like the acoustic passage at the close of this song.

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→ July 2, 2023
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Music update, June 2023.

These lists just keep getting longer, and still I feel like I’m probably missing a lot of great tracks. June saw some outstanding new albums – Queens of the Stone Age, Godflesh, Django Django, Protomartyr, Portugal. the Man to name a few – but my favorite was Geese’s 3D Country, the sophomore record from the Brooklyn post-punk band whose Projector was such a surprise back in 2021. So this month’s playlist has 32 songs and runs over two hours, helped by two tracks that run over seven minutes each, but I just couldn’t bear to cut anything else. As always, here’s the link to the playlist.

Pip Blom & Alex Kapranos – Is This Love? I wasn’t familiar with Pip Blom, a Dutch indie-pop band named for its lead singer, before this track; Kapranos is, of course, Franz Ferdinand’s lead singer/guitarist. This collaboration might be the best pure pop song I’ve heard all year, and the chorus is very early FF.

Beck w/Phoenix – Odyssey. A one-off single ahead of the two artists’ joint tour this summer, representing Beck at his most pop and Phoenix continuing the same vibe as last year’s Alpha Zulu. It should be the feel-good hit of the summer.

Speedy Ortiz – You S02. Man I am glad to have Speedy Ortiz back. This is the second straight single that’s peak Speedy, and “Plus One,” which they just released on Friday, is too. Rabbit Rabbit, their first full-length LP in five years, is due out in September.

The Mysterines – Begin Again. I loved most of the Mysterines’ singles and EPs prior to the release of their debut album Reeling in March of 2022, but that record didn’t include any of their best songs to that point; the sound was there, but the hooks were a little lacking. This is the first single from their as-yet untitled and undated second LP, and I like the melody and the sultry vocals, even if it doesn’t quite rock out the way the band can.

Louise Post – What About. Sound familiar? I’ll give you a hint – the seether’s Louise. (One, two, three, four!) That is indeed Veruca Salt lead singer Louise Post, who just released her debut solo album, Sleepwalker, on June 2nd.

Queens of the Stone Age – Paper Machete. I’ll say two things about the new QotSA album, In Times New Roman: I hate all the punny song titles (“Carnavoyeur,” “Obscenery”), and I think it’s a good record that reflects Josh Homme’s age and increasing interest in melding more pop songs with the traditional QotSA crunch and even his stoner-metal roots.

Weird Nightmare – She’s the One. Alex Edkins (METZ) records as Weird Nightmare, and this latest track is more jangle-pop than his last album was, leaning even into late 60’s pop music.

Sprints – Adore Adore Adore. I love how the chorus here channels rage into a great earworm. No word on a new album from these Irish punks, although they’re touring with Suede later this year.

BLOXX – Runaway. The second single this year from this London punk-pop quartet, a step up from “Television Promises,” as we await word on a new album.

Tame Impala – Retina Show. The better of the two unreleased demo tracks from the Lonerism sessions, released now on that album’s tenth anniversary. The breakbeat here behind the music pairs so well with the psycheledia in the guitar and the overall production.

STONE – I Gotta Feeling. STONE put out their first EP Punkadonk in November and keep churning out high-energy singles, this time with spoken-word lyrics – not exactly rapped, thank goodness – in advance of their performance at Glastonbury last weekend.

Ghost of Vroom – Still Getting It Done. Mike Doughty’s new Soul Coughing-ish act has put out two new songs in 2023, this and “Pay the Man,” with this song better both musically and lyrically, with more of that drum-and-bass vibe from his original band.

Jungle feat. Channel Tres – I’ve Been in Love. The London-based neo-soul duo Jungle will release their fourth album, Volcano, on August 11th, with this the third single off the record, featuring guest vocals from American rapper Channel Tres.

Satin Jackets feat. Panama – Alive. I’m a Panama fan going way back to 2013’s “Always,” although now the Australian trio mostly collaborates with other artists, including several tracks with German producer Satin Jackets. This one sounds quite a bit like those early Panama tracks, all electronic pop with a great hook.

Cory Wong feat. Ben Rector – Ready. The ubertalented multi-instrumentalist Wong has lined up a huge collection of collaborators for his upcoming album The Lucky One, due out August 18th, including this soulful track with singer/songwriter Rector, with whom Wong has worked and toured before, as well as another track “Hiding on the Moon” with O.A.R.

Grian Chatten – The Score. Chatten is the lead singer/guitarist for the British punk act Fontaines D.C., but his solo debut Chaos For the Fly is a shocker, a lush, soft, acoustic-driven collection of subtle ballads and folk songs, led by this track, along with the previous singles “Fairlies” and “Last Time Every Time Forever.”

Slowdive – kisses. Slowdive returned in 2017 to release their first new music in 22 years, then went dark again, but they’re back with this new track and another album, Everything Is Alive, due out on September 1st. Slowdive have always found themselves lumped in the shoegaze movement, but at least since their return, they’ve been firmly planted in dream-pop, and this shimmering song is another example of how they create lush textures combining music and voice.

Geese – 3D Country. The title track from what might be my favorite album of the first half of 2023 comes from this group of NYC kids barely out of their teens, whose Projector was my #4 album of 2021. They’ve expanded their sound in myriad ways, maintaining their experimental leanings but incorporating classic rock, country, and jazz with their previous take on post-punk. I see a lot of comparisons to Squid, but Geese’s songs are tighter, still ambitious and even meandering (fitting with the album’s concept) but always with purpose.

Public Image Ltd. – Car Chase. Fresh off their fourth-place finish in Eurovision with their song “Hawaii,” a tribute to John Lydon’s wife, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease at the time and died in April, PiL have this new track that’s much more in line with their traditional sound. Their first new album in eight years, End of World, comes out on August 11th.

Protomartyr – For Tomorrow. I haven’t gotten through all of their newest album Formal Growth in the Desert, but I’ve liked several of the songs I’ve heard already, and the song “3800 Tigers” includes a reference to Lou Whitaker, so how can I not love it?

Portugal. the Man – Plastic Island. Chris Black Changed My Mind is a huge departure from Woodstock, way less poppy and less rock-oriented, this time with a wide array of guest musicians from different genres and even eras (Edgar Winter!). I think it’s going to disappoint a lot of people who only jumped on the band because of “Feel It Still” but it’s thematically in line with their two albums before that one – and I’d guess a little bit of a rejection of mainstream success and airplay too. There’s a lot to like but it’s just a less accessible album.

Christine and the Queens – Big Eye. Chris’s new album Paranoïa, Angels, True Love is a sprawling 20-track record loosely built around the story of the play Angels in America with guest appearances from Madonna on three of the songs, and it can’t help but be uneven in parts. It’s also a broad departure from his prior mature-pop style, meaning there aren’t the immediate ‘hits’ like “Tilted” or “5 dollars,” but the record has some huge, soaring moments where his music matches his ambitions, like this seven-minute track.

Romy – Loveher. Romy (of the xx) sounds incredible here on the latest single ahead of her long-delayed debut solo album, Mid Air, due out in September, although the music below the vocals is a little simple. Her voice just carries the day.

Django Django – Gazelle. The Djangos released an album in four “parts,” effectively EPs, called Off Planet in mid-June, to generally strong reviews that all seem to agree that it’s too long (by length, it’s a double album, although conceptually it’s not). I’ve stuck with the Djangos for a decade even though nothing they’ve done has had the commercial or critical success of “Default” and their Mercury-nominated eponymous debut album in 2012. I just like their general sound of psycheledic-tinged dance-pop, of which this is an especially good example.

D.A. Stern feat. Sarah Chernoff – Lovebird. Chernoff was the singer for the short-lived group Superhumanoids and I’ve followed her solo career since they disbanded because I think she’s one of the best vocalists I’ve ever heard. Here she provides guest vocals for the LA-based songwriter/producer Stern, finding her in more of a rock vein than anything I think she’s done before.

Kyo feat. Coeur de Pirate – Dernière danse. Béatrice provides guest vocals on one verse of this track by French rock band Kyo, who’ve been around for a quarter century but of whom I hadn’t heard before this, probably because they sing in French, and we just don’t cotton to that sort of thing around here.

The Hives – Countdown to Shutdown. These Swedish rockers will release their first album in 11 years, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, on August 11th, and just like the first single from the record (“Bogus Operandi”) this one has a very simple, loud, catchy guitar riff powering the track forward.

Rival Sons – Mirrors. I admit that Rival Sons’ sound isn’t the most original, but they do come up with some great riffs that bridge the gap between 1970s rock like Led Zeppelin (their most obvious influence, I think) and the early 1980s metal bands that at least started out as Zep clones, even if they later asphyxiated on their own hairspray.

Post Animal – Aging Forest. Well this certainly isn’t going to slow the comparisons of Post Animal to Tame Impala. You can hear the Kevin Parker influence in the chorus, while the verses are more doom than psychedelica. As an aside, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery was in Post Animal when they recorded their first album, but left the band as the show took off.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Dragon. Yes, it’s nearly ten minutes long, although most of the songs on the new album, ridiculously titled PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, are on the longer side, as the band goes back to the heavier metal sounds of Infest the Rats’ Nest with a more open, jamband approach to the music.

Horrendous – Cult of Shaad’oah. Horrendous’ highly progessive death metal sound is still here, but the vocals are actually more shouted than growled for large parts of this track, off their upcoming album Ontological Mysterium (August 18th).

Godflesh – LAND LORD. I include Godflesh here as much for their massive importance in the history of metal; they all but created the industrial metal subgenre, merging their now signature non-musical sounds with the detuned guitars and extreme riffing of the grindcore genre that was ascendant at the same time in the U.K. Streetcleaner was such a shock to the metal system, especially given the dominance of hair metal in 1989, and tracks like “Christbait Rising” and “Like Rats” still stand up exceptionally well. Their latest record, PURGE, is less overwhelming than their last two albums – both of which came after their breakup and re-formation – with a more open and, odd as it is to say, brighter sound, with the guitars up front and the bass & drum machine produced a little towards the rear. Highlights include this, “NERO,” and “ARMY OF NON,” which has a sample of a rapper saying “Check it out, y’all” that I think might be Slick Rick.

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→ June 2, 2023
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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 11th. 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 8th. 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 11th. 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 23rd, 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 16th.

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 23rd.

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 28th, 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 30th. 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 9th), 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 18th.

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 24th album in just thirteen years, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, on June 16th, 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.

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→ May 4, 2023
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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 26th 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.

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