{"id":10290,"date":"2024-06-04T17:17:28","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T21:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10290"},"modified":"2024-06-04T17:17:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T21:17:29","slug":"music-update-may-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/04\/music-update-may-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, May 2024."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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\u2019t expect, some great new metal tracks, and more. You <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/7pV7XSBPDr7FRvzeBJ2bUd?si=8b29e94455034d1b\">can access the playlist here<\/a> if you can\u2019t see the widget below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: May 2024\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/7pV7XSBPDr7FRvzeBJ2bUd?si=8b29e94455034d1b&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mdou Moctar \u2013 Oh France.<\/strong> Moctar\u2019s latest album, <em>Funeral for Justice<\/em>, is one of the best albums of the year, fighting for my top spot so far with the Libertines\u2019 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 \u201cImouhar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>milk. \u2013 Don\u2019t Miss It. <\/strong>I\u2019m 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\u2019ve got a great knack for indie-pop melodies, and this is their best single yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Charly Bliss \u2013 Nineteen.<\/strong> One of two great singles from Charly Bliss to come out in May in advance of their new album <em>Forever<\/em>, due out on August 16<sup>th<\/sup>. This is a powerhouse ballad with clever lyrics and a great vocal turn by Eva Hendricks, while the second single, \u201cCalling You Out,\u201d is more in their typical indie-pop vein. I\u2019ve loved all three tracks from the record so far although I was disappointed to hear their single from last year, \u201cYou Don\u2019t Even Know Me Anymore,\u201d isn\u2019t on it.r<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blushing \u2013 Silver Teeth.<\/strong> Straight-up American shoegaze, from Texas but descended directly from the original shoegaze sound \u2013 you could definitely drop this on a mix from 1992 and no one would blink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nice Biscuit \u2013 Rain.<\/strong> Psychedelic rock from Brisbane, here with a big crunchy guitar riff right from the outset before the dreamy vocals come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Miles Kane \u2013 Fingerless Gloves. <\/strong>The other half of the Last Shadow Puppets and the lead singer\/guitarist of the so-called \u201clandfill indie\u201d 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\u2019t need any vocals at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Color Green \u2013 Four Leaf Clover.<\/strong> Spacey, psychedelic guitar rock that 100% could be the opening band at a Phish show, if Phish weren\u2019t also their own opening act. Color Green put out a full-length album in 2022, but this was the first track I\u2019d heard by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DEADLETTER \u2013 Mere Mortal.<\/strong> Post-punk with horns, like Madness but definitely edgier and angrier. I\u2019m not surprised to read <a href=\"https:\/\/diymag.com\/feature\/get-to-know-deadletter\">they\u2019re fans of Yard Act<\/a> \u2013 you can hear some shared DNA between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bad Omens feat. Bob Vylan \u2013 Terms and Conditions.<\/strong> 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\u2019d be a great walkup song because it\u2019s fast and loud and no one else would have it. Also, how many rappers can drop a coltan reference in their rhymes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>GIFT \u2013 Going in Circles.<\/strong> More psychedelia, from the band whose 2022 track \u201cGumball Garden\u201d made my top 100 from that year, with their second album <em>Illuminator <\/em>due out on August 23<sup>rd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Marble feat. Foxing \u2013 the monster.<\/strong> Marble is a six-piece band from the Pacific Northwest, calling their music \u201cshoegaze\/dreamo,\u201d although this track, with Conor Murphy of Foxing taking the second verse, is neither \u2013 it\u2019s bigger, clearer, more majestic, growing to a huge crescendo before a downshift in tempo at the finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>STONE \u2013 Save Me.<\/strong> This hard rock\/punk quartet from Liverpool announced their first full-length LP, <em>Fear Life for a Lifetime<\/em>, will be out on July 12<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Lemon Twigs \u2013 Rock On (Over and Over). <\/strong>The Lemon Twigs can get overly twee and their whole affect seems \u2026 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The The \u2013 Cognitive Dissident.<\/strong> Yep, that\u2019s 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\u2019s his voice that defines so much of their sound \u2013 and he sounds great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Chameleons \u2013 Where Are You? <\/strong>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, <em>Arctic Moon<\/em>, will be out later this year, with two of the four original members on board, including vocalist\/bassist Mark Burgess. I didn\u2019t end up including it on the list, but another band who were big in the 1980s, Redd Kross, put out a new track, \u201cBorn Innocent,\u201d which was the name of their debut LP from 1982.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ducks Ltd. \u2013 When You\u2019re Outside.<\/strong> This is a bonus track from the <em>Harm\u2019s Way<\/em> sessions that didn\u2019t make the cut, but I might like it more than anything on the record. Their jangle-pop sound is pretty much in my wheelhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hinds feat. Beck \u2013 Boom Boom Back.<\/strong> I thought Hinds were done, with nothing since their 2020 album <em>The Prettiest Curse<\/em>, but they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Idaho \u2013 On Fire.<\/strong> I know Idaho\u2019s stuff from their 1990s heyday as leaders of the \u2018slowcore\u2019 movement, but totally lost track of them after either <em>Three Sheets to the Wind <\/em>or <em>Alas<\/em>, and had no idea they\u2019d 1) kept going until 2013 or 2) reunited this year for their first new album, <em>Lapse<\/em>, in eleven years. I don\u2019t know if I could sit through a whole album of this lugubrious sound, but the main guitar riff here is hypnotic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Strand of Oaks \u2013 Future Temple.<\/strong> A spacier, synth-laden single from Timothy Showalter, his first new music since 2021\u2019s <em>In Heaven<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>RM feat. Little Simz \u2013 Domodachi.<\/strong> RM\u2019s second solo album, <em>Right Place, Wrong Person<\/em>, came out to rave reviews on May 24<sup>th<\/sup>, and since I\u2019m not exactly a BTS stan, you can imagine I found this track because the great Little Simz is on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mach-Hommy feat. Black Thought \u2013 COPY COLD. <\/strong>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\u2019m here for Black Thought\u2019s verse, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Slash feat. Chris Stapleton \u2013 Oh Well. <\/strong>A faithful, rollicking cover of one of the earliest Fleetwood Mac hits, written and sung by Peter Green. Stapleton\u2019s vocals are desultory but I\u2019m here for Slash\u2019s soloing anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Head Automatica \u2013 Bear the Cross.<\/strong> Head Automatica is a side project for Glassjaw lead singer Daryl Palumbo, but they\u2019d been idle since 2012 and hadn\u2019t released any new music since 2006 before this new single. There\u2019s a mid-period Depeche Mode vibe to it, with that vaguely industrial sound from the <em>Some Great Reward<\/em> era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Shellac \u2013 WSOD.<\/strong> Shellac\u2019s final album came out just ten days after the death of guitarist\/vocalist Steve Albini, which, from the reviews I\u2019ve 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\u2019s Mike Doughty-esque lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cemetery Skyline \u2013 In Darkness.<\/strong> 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 \u2013 the vocals are clean, the tempo is moderate, and the whole thing has a NWOBHM\/Sabbath-y vibe. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wheel \u2013 Submission.<\/strong> A sprawling ten-minute progfest from one of the best prog-metal bands on the planet right now, from their latest album <em>Charismatic Leaders<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pallbearer \u2013 Mind Burns Alive.<\/strong> The title track from the American doom masters\u2019 latest album, which dropped on May 17<sup>th<\/sup> and features six tracks, none shorter than six and a half minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[359,1096,1191,167,852,787],"class_list":["post-10290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alternative","tag-doom-metal","tag-hip-hop-2","tag-indie","tag-music","tag-progressive-metal","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10291,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10290\/revisions\/10291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}