{"id":10777,"date":"2025-05-02T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10777"},"modified":"2025-05-01T19:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T23:21:19","slug":"music-update-april-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/02\/music-update-april-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, April 2025."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple of hotly-anticipated albums (by me!) dropped in April, along with one surprise release, although I\u2019m not sure any of those albums truly lived up to expectations. As always, if you can\u2019t see the widget below you can access the playlist here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAULT \u2013 K.T.Y.W.S.<\/strong> SAULT returns with 10<\/em>, their tenth album, as usual with no fanfare or advance publicity. It\u2019s better than Acts of Faith<\/em>, the religious album they released in December, and probably ahead of any of the five individual albums they released on one day in November 2022. The album as a whole goes back to the \u201870s funk and R&B sound that characterized their first couple of albums, although there\u2019s nothing quite as hard-edged, and much of the political songwriting is still absent here. All of the songs have initials as song titles, with this one standing for \u201cknow that you will survive,\u201d which is kind of a gimmick and not a great one, in this case underscoring that the lyrics aren\u2019t as strong as they were on SAULT\u2019s earliest work. So my quick review of 10 <\/em>is that the music is better and the lyrics are just meh when they\u2019re there at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obongjayar \u2013 Sweet Danger.<\/strong> Obongjayar first came to my attention with his appearance on Little Simz\u2019s \u201cPoint and Kill,\u201d fitting here as Simz has worked with SAULT\u2019s Inflo multiple times. His music is a sort of crossover Afrobeat mashup, with some pop and electronic elements. This is the fourth song he\u2019s released from his second album, Paradise Now<\/em>, due out on May 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel Chinouriri \u2013 Can we talk about Isaac? <\/strong>Chinouriri put out an album last year that made Paste\u2019s top 100 list for the year, although I missed it completely. She\u2019s an English singer-songwriter who has cited two of my favorite bands, Oasis and the Libertines, as influences, along with Daughter, who\u2019ve made a bunch of appearances on my lists here \u2026 and Coldplay, which can cut different ways depending on what part of their discography she likes. You can definitely hear the pop influences on this track, which comes off her new EP Little House<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tunde Adebimpe \u2013 Ate the Moon.<\/strong> The lead singer of TV on the Radio released his first solo album, Thee Black Boltz<\/em>, in April, and it was surprisingly tepid. I figured after this many years in the industry, with no new music since 2014, Adebimpe\u2019s first LP would be bursting with ideas and ambition, but it\u2019s not. There are two great songs in \u201cMagnetic\u201d and \u201cDrop,\u201d and a couple of decent tracks like this one, but I was hoping for a big swing and instead he just sort of went the other way for a soft single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hotline TNT \u2013 Julia\u2019s War.<\/strong> My favorite track yet from this NYC rock act who are often miscategorized (in my view) as \u201cshoegaze\u201d just because they use a lot of distortion. It\u2019s rock, definitely the sort you\u2019d have heard on college radio 20 or 30 years ago, and this track has their best hook to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say Sue Me \u2013 In This Mess. <\/strong>Say Sue Me are from Busan, South Korea, and have released three albums going back to 2014, but this was the first track of theirs I\u2019d heard. It\u2019s powered by a huge guitar sound that powers the track through six and a half minutes, veering a little into My Bloody Valentine territory near the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turnstile \u2013 Never Enough. <\/strong>It doesn\u2019t sound like a Turnstile song at the beginning, but be patient \u2013 the punk sound is still here. This is the title track from their next album, due out June 6th<\/sup>, and they\u2019ve already dropped two more songs from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

swim school \u2013 Alone With You.<\/strong> Not to get too deep in the weeds here, but I think swim school\u2019s sound contains far more shoegaze than Hotline TNT\u2019s does \u2013 which makes sense, as swim school, who hail from Edinburgh, have mentioned Slowdive as a major influence. Their self-titled debut album is due out on October 3rd<\/sup>, after a \u201cmixtape\u201d and three EPs so far in their short career to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunflower Bean \u2013 There\u2019s a Part I Can\u2019t Get Back. <\/strong>I thought Sunflower Bean might be running away from the hit, \u201cMoment in the Sun,\u201d when the first few singles from their new album Mortal Primetime<\/em> all seemed heavier and more rock-oriented, but the album is pretty balanced between that and some more pop sounds. The best tracks are the singles they released ahead of the LP \u2013 this, \u201cNothing Romantic,\u201d and \u201cChampagne Taste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momma \u2013 Rodeo.<\/strong> Someone, possibly a writer at Paste, described Momma as incredibly derivative of 1990s alternative rock, and yet still somehow really good. I completely agree. They sound a lot like Veruca Salt. I hear Hum in this track. If you remember the Sheila Divine there\u2019s a little of that on the record. It\u2019s all good, just maybe a little too familiar and pleasant to ever be great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wet Leg \u2013 Catch These Fists. <\/strong>I was thelow person on Wet Leg\u2019s debut album, particularly the widely-praised hit \u201cChaise Longue,\u201d but I did like \u201cAngelica\u201d and I think when their melodies show as much effort as their lyrics do, they\u2019re on to something pretty good. This song fits that as well \u2013 the main guitar riff is catchy and the lyrics are smartassy but not obnoxious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yaya Bey \u2013 Dream Girl. <\/strong>Yaya Bey\u2019s 2024 album Ten Fold<\/em> earned widespread praise and made Paste\u2019s top 50 albums of the year; it didn\u2019t land for me at all. This is the first song of hers I\u2019ve really liked, leaning hard into 1970s\/1980s R&B sounds, with a little Prince vibe to the synth lines and vocals. Her next album, Do It Afraid<\/em>, is due out on June 20th<\/sup>. (I only just learned that her father was Grand Daddy I.U. of the Juice Crew, one of the most important hip-hop collectives of the 1980s, where Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap got their starts. You may know their song \u201cThe Symphony,\u201d which samples Otis Redding\u2019s \u201cHard to Handle\u201d and features both of those rappers along with Masta Ace and Craig G.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DaWeirdo & Freddie Gibbs \u2013 Brother$.<\/strong> Here for the Freddie Gibbs verse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat junior & Tecoby Hines \u2013 Nothing to Lose. <\/strong>This is the first song I\u2019ve ever put on a playlist after discovering it on TikTok. That app\u2019s algorithm showed me a slew of mediocre mostly white rappers before this song popped up; Pat Junior, who won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance in 2024, has incredible flow to his vocals, and the music behind him here would make Stetsasonic and Digable Planets proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C\u0153ur de Pirate \u2013 Cavale.<\/strong> I\u2019ll include anything B\u00e9atrice releases; outside of one single in 2023, this is her first new material since 2021\u2019s Impossible \u00e0 aimer<\/em>, and her first since having her second child. There\u2019s a new album coming later this year from the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois pop singer\/pianist, but that\u2019s all the details I could find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK Go \u2013 Once More with Feeling. <\/strong>This is the most classic OK Go-sounding song on their new album And the Adjacent Possible<\/em> by a country mile. It\u2019s their first album since 2014, but unfortunately it\u2019s pretty downtempo for these guys, losing what I liked most about their sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Amazons \u2013 Night After Night.<\/strong> I\u2019ve always appreciated the Amazons\u2019 big guitar sound \u2013 they offer huge, muscular, heavily distorted riffs, so most of their best songs automatically sound anthemic. Their fourth album, 21st<\/sup> Century Fiction<\/em>, comes out in a week, on May 9th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Pornographers \u2013 Ballad of the Last Payphone. <\/strong>This song came out on vinyl earlier this year but just hit digital platforms in April; it\u2019s a mid-tier New Pornographers song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ball Park Music \u2013 Please Don\u2019t Move to Melbourne. <\/strong>I should hate a band called Ball Park Music, but they\u2019re a perfectly delightful indie-pop band with that jangly sound that I think has become distinctly Australian in the last decade or so. This should be the B-side to the Melvins\u2019 song \u201cStop Moving to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hives \u2013 Enough is Enough. <\/strong>Just two years after their comeback album The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons<\/em>, the Hives are back with another new LP, The Hives Forever Forever the Hives<\/em>, and, uh, they\u2019re being really humble about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard \u2013 Deadstick. <\/strong>Are they just taunting us at this point? The Phish\/King Gizzard crossover is pretty big, and now the latter have put out a song with a similar title to one of Phish\u2019s most popular tracks, \u201cMeatstick\u201d (which I think is kind of annoying). I can\u2019t imagine this is a coincidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghost \u2013 Lachryma. <\/strong>The act is a little tired, but beneath the silly Satanic trappings and the masks, this is straight-up \u201880s hard rock, and I suppose their gimmicky isn\u2019t all that much worse than hairspray, is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tropical Fuck Storm \u2013 Dunning Kruger\u2019s Loser Cruiser. <\/strong>It\u2019s not that great of a song, but how could I possibly pass up a title like this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onslaught \u2013 Iron Fist. <\/strong>Wikipedia mentions Onslaught as one of the \u201cbig four\u201d of British thrash metal, but they weren\u2019t all that successful in their original run in the 1980s; the only one of that quartet I\u2019d heard of at the time was Acid Reign, so I suppose the \u201cbig\u201d part is just local to Britain. Anyway, Onslaught re-formed after about a 15-year hiatus, and have released more albums since their return than they did in their first stint, with their eighth overall LP, Origins of Aggression<\/em>, due out on May 23rd<\/sup>. It\u2019s a double album of covers, including this one of a M\u00f6torhead song, and re-recordings of Onslaught songs from the \u201880s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of hotly-anticipated albums (by me!) dropped in April, along with one surprise release, although I\u2019m not sure any of those albums truly lived up to expectations. As always, if you can\u2019t see the widget below you can access the playlist here. SAULT \u2013 K.T.Y.W.S. SAULT returns with 10, their tenth album, as usual […]<\/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":[1433,1191,167,757,852],"class_list":["post-10777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2025-in-music","tag-hip-hop-2","tag-indie","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777","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=10777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10778,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions\/10778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}