{"id":10369,"date":"2024-09-05T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10369"},"modified":"2024-09-04T22:34:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T02:34:11","slug":"music-update-august-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/05\/music-update-august-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, August 2024."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>August brought a bunch of contenders for my year-end albums list, with LPs from Jack White, Fontaines D.C., Zeal &amp; Ardor, Tank and the Bangas, and others, plus a surprise return from Opeth, a welcome single from Olympic stars Gojira, a farewell track from one of the most influential American punk bands, and a return from a band I was afraid had called it quits. As always, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/66iDmMdo8EWf3GUw3B8lFs?si=8c77471f9f4846db\">access the playlist here<\/a> if you can\u2019t see the widget below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s August 2024 music update\" 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\/66iDmMdo8EWf3GUw3B8lFs?si=34878af500db4dbf&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gojira feat. Marina Viotti and Victor Le Masne \u2013 Mea Culpa (Ah! \u00c7a ira!).<\/strong> You know this song already, as it was the highlight of the stunning Opening Ceremonies to the Paris Olympics; now we get a studio version that packs the same punch, albeit without the visual impact of Gojira playing on the balconies of an old castle along the Seine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jack White \u2013 Old Scratch Blues.<\/strong> White\u2019s new album <em>No Name <\/em>is his best solo LP to date, a return to his roots in classic rock and blues sounds from the 1940s through the 1970s, highlighted by this track, \u201cBless Yourself,\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s Rough on Rats (If You\u2019re Asking).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fontaines D.C. \u2013 Here\u2019s the Thing. <\/strong>Fontaines\u2019 new album, <em>Romance<\/em>, is one of the big surprises of the year; the Dublin-based rockers have largely abandoned their punk sound in favor of a more ambitious array of influences that have them dancing around the edges of pop-rock without fully giving in to the sound. You can hear the punk roots in the background of songs like this one, but they\u2019re in their post-punk\/new wave phase now, and it\u2019s fascinating. I still think \u201cFavourite\u201d is my \u2026 uh, favorite track on the record, but this and \u201cStarburster\u201d are also highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Goat \u2013 Ouroboros.<\/strong> These Swedish psychedelic\/fusion rockers return with their third album in three years, titled <em>Goat<\/em>, on October 11<sup>th<\/sup>; this is the radio edit of the album\u2019s lengthy closing track, with a guitar riff that Nile Rodgers would approve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>King Gizzard &amp; the Lizard Wizard \u2013 Hog Calling Contest.<\/strong> The Aussie band\u2019s 26<sup>th<\/sup> (!) album, <em>Flight b741<\/em>, came out in August, with an unusually long gap of ten months between records, and it\u2019s more in the vein of their bluesy jam-band stuff than some of their heavier (and, to my ears, better) works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nice Biscuit \u2013 Fade Away.<\/strong> Not quite as good as \u201cThe Rain,\u201d but we still get another strong guitar riff from this Australian indie-rock band, which marries some psychedelia with the pulsing beats of post-punk. Their new album <em>SOS<\/em> comes out on October 4<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Killers \u2013 Bright Lights.<\/strong> This one-off (for now) single dropped just a few weeks before the Killers started their residency in Vegas to celebrate the 20<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of <em>Hot Fuss<\/em>, with all four original members playing the entire album start to finish as part of the shows. The track bridges the gap between their earliest synth-pop leanings and the more country-tinged sound of 2021\u2019s <em>Pressure Machine<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chime School \u2013 The End.<\/strong> <em>The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel<\/em>, the second album from Andy Pastalaniec (also of Seablite), continues with the project\u2019s 1980s jangle-pop sound, which in itself derives from 1960s pop bands like the Byrds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sunflower Bean \u2013 Teach Me to Be Bad.<\/strong> Another heavier song from Sunflower Bean, and I\u2019m into it. \u201cMoment in the Sun\u201d was a huge hit, and deservedly so, but the last thing I wanted from the band was an album full of attempts to re-create it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>X \u2013 Ruby Church.<\/strong> X announced that <em>Smoke &amp; Fiction<\/em> will be their farewell album, accompanied by a final tour, four years after their comeback LP <em>Alphabetland<\/em> marked their return from 27 years away from the studio. I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of X\u2019s music, and am certainly not a fan of Exene Cervenka\u2019s conspiracy theory-mongering, but I acknowledge the band\u2019s huge influence on American music from the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Manic Street Preachers \u2013 Decline &amp; Fall.<\/strong> The Welsh trio has said this track was inspired by several artists, including the War on Drugs, and that couldn\u2019t be any clearer. I\u2019m also stunned that James Dean Bradfield still sounds this good at age 55. The BBC has a story on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c80er6r0pz3o\">some recently unearthed photographs of the band<\/a> taken shortly before lyricist\/guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hayden Thorpe \u2013 They.<\/strong> The former lead singer of Wild Beasts will drop his third solo album, <em>Ness<\/em>, on September 27<sup>th<\/sup>; it\u2019s just a different sound than that of his former band, and I\u2019m still kind of getting used to his individual style, which has some of the art rock leanings of Wild Beasts but in a quieter mode. He released two singles in August, this one and \u201cHe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Katie Gavin \u2013 Casual Drug Use.<\/strong> The second single from the MUNA singer\u2019s upcoming debut solo album, <em>What a Relief<\/em>, due out on October 25<sup>th<\/sup>, is another smooth indie-pop track that borrows as much from alternative country singers like Kacey Musgraves and Brandi Carlile as it does from MUNA\u2019s college-rock influences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bananagun \u2013 Free Energy.<\/strong> I dug this Australian experimental psych-rock band\u2019s 2020 debut album <em><a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/top-15-albums-of-2020\/\">The True Story of Bananagun<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;\u2013 seriously, why is Oz so rife with psychedelic rock music? \u2013 but we haven\u2019t had a peep out of the band since. They\u2019re back with this frenetic track, which feels like it\u2019s almost all drum-and-bass with a little vocals sprinkled on top, ahead of their sophomore album, <em>Why is the Colour of the Sky?<\/em>, due out November 8<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Spirit of the Beehive \u2013 I\u2019ve Been Evil. <\/strong>I hear a lot of Pinback and even Polvo in this track from Spirit\u2019s newest album, <em>You\u2019ll Have to Lose Something<\/em>, which, like most of their albums, is interesting but all over the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jamie xx feat. The Avalanches \u2013 All You Children. <\/strong>Jamie xx\u2019s second solo album, <em>In Waves<\/em>, finally comes out on September 20<sup>th<\/sup>, nine years after his debut <em>In Colour<\/em>, which had two of my favorite tracks of the decade in \u201cSee Saw\u201d and \u201cLoud Places.\u201d I haven\u2019t heard anything quite to that level from the five singles already released from the new album, with this one perhaps the best for its more accessible EDM sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tangent feat. Rakim \u2013 Get Right, Keep Tight.<\/strong> Rakim put out a short comeback album in July that didn\u2019t feature anywhere enough of him; his verse here as a guest on an otherwise unremarkable track from Tangent might be the best thing Rakim has done this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Max\u00efmo Park \u2013 Quiz Show Clue. <\/strong>There are too many bands, part 837: I\u2019d never heard of Max\u00efmo Park before this spring, only to discover they\u2019ve been around for 20 years and are about to release their eighth album, <em>Stream of Life<\/em>, on September 27<sup>th<\/sup>. They\u2019re a post-punk revival band often lumped into the \u201clandfill indie\u201d pile, which, to be entirely honest, kind of fits; I actually first heard of them when I went down that rabbit hole (after the Libertines\u2019 new album came out) and found <em>VICE<\/em>\u2019s list of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/the-top-50-greatest-landfill-indie-songs-of-all-time\/\">the 50 greatest landfill indie songs<\/a> of all time, which has two Max\u00efmo Park tracks on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ten F\u00e9 \u2013 Space Invader.<\/strong> I\u2019m thrilled that Ten F\u00e9 is back, as they hadn\u2019t released any music since 2019\u2019s <em>Future Perfect, Present Tense<\/em>, although this song reminds me a little too much of Keane and doesn\u2019t quite have the hook of some of Ten F\u00e9\u2019s best singles to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sports Team \u2013 I\u2019m in Love (Subaru).<\/strong> I loved Sports Team\u2019s 2022 album <em>Gulp!<\/em>, so I\u2019m not sure how I feel about them suddenly deciding they\u2019re going to channel the band ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Geordie Greep \u2013 Holy, Holy.<\/strong> So this is a rare case where I\u2019m including a song I don\u2019t particularly like. Greep was the lead singer\/guitarist for black midi, which announced its breakup in August (or maybe an indefinite hiatus), with Greep then releasing this single a few days later. It\u2019s kind of a mess, although I wouldn\u2019t expect anything other than that from a black midi member, but the problem here is more in the lyrics, which might have worked for an older singer but just come off as snotty and ridiculous here. His solo album <em>A New Sound<\/em> comes out on October 4<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Satan \u2013 Turn the Tide.<\/strong> I can\u2019t believe these guys are still together, with both founding guitarists (Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins) still in the band 45 years on, along with Blitzkrieg vocalist Brian Ross, who sang on their first full-length LP, 1983\u2019s <em>Court in the Act<\/em>, before leaving the band until their 2011 re-formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Zeal &amp; Ardor \u2013 Kil\u00f2nova.<\/strong> Zeal &amp; Ardor, a Swiss\/American band that fuses black metal with African-American spiritual music, just released their fourth LP, <em>Greif<\/em>, in August; from the three singles I\u2019ve heard, they seem to be drifting more towards a mainstream metal sound, with fewer of the more ridiculous trappings of extreme metal like death growls (there\u2019s a little on \u201cClawing Out\u201d) or blast beats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Devin Townsend \u2013 Power Nerd.<\/strong> Townsend is a virtuoso metal guitarist whose first band, Strapping Young Lad, earned him a following but was way too harsh for my tastes. His post-SYL output, which has basically all been solo material but sometimes under monikers like the Devin Townsend Project, is a mixed bag, but this speed-metal track has a fantastic hook in the chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Opeth \u2013 \u00a71<\/strong>. Opeth hasn\u2019t used death growls on any album since 2008\u2019s <em>Watershed<\/em>, but they did on this track, the opener of their album <em>The Last Will and Testament<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kerrang.com\/opeth-interview-mikael-akerfeldt-last-will-testament-jethro-tull-prog-metal\">a concept album<\/a> due out on October 11<sup>th<\/sup>. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tribulation \u2013 Tainted Skies.<\/strong> Tribulation\u2019s music wouldn\u2019t be out of place on a mid-80s episode of <em>Headbanger\u2019s Ball<\/em>, but they mix in some death growls and wear silly corpse paint. The music is almost comically melodic for the genre \u2013 this is metal, but it ain\u2019t heavy other than the vocals, and it hits an almost nostalgic note for me because I listened to so much (admittedly mediocre) metal in the 1980s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August brought a bunch of contenders for my year-end albums list, with LPs from Jack White, Fontaines D.C., Zeal &amp; Ardor, Tank and the Bangas, and others, plus a surprise return from Opeth, a welcome single from Olympic stars Gojira, a farewell track from one of the most influential American punk bands, and a return [&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":[1374,359,167,979,757,852,1407,261],"class_list":["post-10369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2024-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-indie","tag-melodic-death-metal","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-punk","tag-rap","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369","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=10369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10370,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions\/10370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}