{"id":4842,"date":"2016-05-02T15:49:12","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T19:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=4842"},"modified":"2016-05-03T15:37:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T19:37:43","slug":"music-update-april-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/02\/music-update-april-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, April 2016."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Good month for new tracks, with a slew of big alternative album releases coming up this month and next. I was disappointed by the new Last Shadow Puppets record, though, so I have nothing new from them here.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Akeithlaw1%3Aplaylist%3A5SxdIwZKhjlxL3U3feaRUl\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>DMA&#8217;S \u2013 Too Soon<\/strong>. Apparently the British press has compared these guys to Oasis \u2013 although I suspect their goal was just to get Liam and\/or Noel to say &#8220;piss shit bollocks&#8221; or something \u2013 but while I agree the DMA&#8217;s harken back to Britpop, I&#8217;m hearing far more Cast or Blur than Oasis. The song is too sunny and melodic for Oasis to be more than a lazy comp, even with the little nod to Nirvana&#8217;s &#8220;Come As You Are&#8221; coming right out of the chorus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hundred Waters \u2013 Forgive Me For Giving Up<\/strong>. Hundred Waters had my favorite album of 2014, <em>The Moon Rang Like a Bell<\/em>, for their strange mixture of ethereal vocals and sparse electronic backdrops. This one-off single would be somewhere in the middle of the pack compared to tracks from that album, although it&#8217;s far better than the atrocious remix of &#8220;Show Me Love&#8221; that appeared in March.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Hearts \u2013 Lovers Drug<\/strong>. Not to be confused with HAERTS, this Welsh act has a heavy Stone Roses vibe to the vocals and the guitar sound, although the riffs aren&#8217;t quite so big and the song is ultimately more Britpop than Madchester \u2013 although that works just fine for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Kills \u2013 Heart Of A Dog<\/strong>. I thought &#8220;Doing It to Death&#8221; was better but hold out hope that their next album, due out June 3rd, will be more like that track or even their seminal &#8220;Sour Cherry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Coral \u2013 Fear Machine<\/strong>. The longrunning British alt-rock act celebrate their 20th anniversary this year with the album <em>Distance Inbetween<\/em>, a very solid record that brings in a lot of the vaguely eastern percussion patterns of a Band of Skulls, but with less of the latter group&#8217;s bombast and powerful riffs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A. Sinclair \u2013 Let It Go<\/strong>. Aaron Sinclair&#8217;s group is back with a new record, <em>Get Out of the City<\/em>, another hookfest full of their uptempo roots-rock sound, due out next Friday. <\/p>\n<p><strong>KONGOS \u2013 Take It From Me<\/strong>. The South African group&#8217;s hit &#8220;Come With Me Now&#8221; shouldn&#8217;t make them a one-hit wonder given the strength of this lead single from their second album, <em>Egomaniac<\/em>, due out on June 10th. The Brothers K still incorporate the South African musical style called kwaito into their sound, giving them a distinctive edge in a sea of sameness on alternative radio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Temper Trap \u2013 Fall Together<\/strong>. More great pop music from Australia, which has been a fountain of great indie-pop for several years now. This is their best song since their first big hit, &#8220;Sweet Disposition,&#8221; maybe better since I always found the earlier song a little cloying, whereas this track&#8217;s soaring chorus hits just the right note of sweetness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frightened Rabbit \u2013 Get Out<\/strong>. The Scottish group&#8217;s latest album is too quietcore for me, lacking strong hooks or any sort of urgency, but this song&#8217;s drum fill and amped-up chorus provides some much-needed contrast to the yearning, tame verses, something lacking from the rest of the record.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lust For Youth \u2013 Better Looking Brother<\/strong>. Lust for Youth can&#8217;t seem to decide which classic New Wave band they wish to imitate; their new album&#8217;s first track, &#8220;Stardom,&#8221; is a dead-on Smiths impersonation, but I prefer this seven-minute track, which sounds like a deep cut from a New Order&#8217;s <em>Brotherhood<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fort Frances \u2013 Days Get Heavy<\/strong>. The vocals are a little precious, but the big chorus is the song&#8217; salvation. This Chicago indie act is <a href=\"http:\/\/fortfrancesmusic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">giving away a free mp3<\/a> if you sign up for their mailing list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELEL \u2013 Animal<\/strong>. ELEL&#8217;s &#8220;40 Watt&#8221; made one of my playlists last winter and was a late cut from my top 100 for the year, but I like this new single from Nashville octet, plus <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momandpopmusic.com\/artist\/elel\/\" target=\"_blank\">is that Tim Lincecum in the back row of this band picture<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cellars \u2013 I&#8217;m Feeling<\/strong>. Allene Norton records as Cellars and if you&#8217;re of a certain age, you&#8217;ll flash back to a lot of &#8217;80s synthpop, some good (Men Without Hats, early Tears for Fears) and some not so good (Suzie Q&#8217;s &#8220;Two of Hearts&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Black Honey \u2013 On Your Time<\/strong>. The British group&#8217;s debut EP, <em>Headspin<\/em>, came out last week, with this and &#8220;All My Pride&#8221; (on my last playlist) my two favorite tracks, driven by lead singer Izzy B. Phillips&#8217; charismatic delivery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>White Lung \u2013 Below<\/strong>. The Canadian punk-pop act&#8217;s highly anticipated (by me, at least) album <em>Paradise<\/em> drops this Friday. The singles released in advance of the album have all been tighter and more melodic than their previous work, which was already solid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stone Cold Fox \u2013 Firing Squad<\/strong>. These Brooklyn indie-rockers take their name from the famous line in <em>Footloose<\/em>: &#8220;If you ask me, Ren is a stone cold fox.&#8221; Anyway, &#8220;Firing Squad&#8221; combines a rich, crunchy guitar line with a meandering, aimless vocal line gives the overall song a psychedelic quality not immediately apparent from either element.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Car Seat Headrest \u2013 Fill in the Blank<\/strong>. I love the opening gimmick, where a young woman announces the group but stumbles as if she&#8217;s just reading the name of an unfamiliar group off an index card. TO be fair, it&#8217;s a terrible name, and the group \u2013 originally a solo project by Leesburg, Virginia native Will Toledo (shout-out to King Street Coffee!) but now a four-piece \u2013 will release its first formal, studio-recorded album on May 20th. Also I like this song.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Porches \u2013 Braid<\/strong>. Porches are creepy, but the good kind of creepy, not like Gary Glitter creepy. The electronic drumbeat is hypnotic, and the bass line swirls even when it&#8217;s rudely shoved to the background by the vocals (who asked you to sing anyway? I was zoning out). <\/p>\n<p><strong>Band of Horses \u2013 Casual Party<\/strong>. BOH&#8217;s first album since 2012 is scheduled to drop next month; &#8220;Is There a Ghost?&#8221; ranks among my favorite songs of the decade so far, so I&#8217;m rather looking forward to this record.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Unknown Mortal Orchestra \u2013 Shakedown Street<\/strong>. Another track from the forthcoming Grateful Dead tribute album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thrice \u2013 Black Honey<\/strong>. Hi, Riley!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gojira \u2013 Stranded<\/strong>. Gojira cross a lot of metal subgenres, occasionally veering into death metal territory, sometimes descending into groove metal, but here they go very old-school, with a song that derives just as much from classic Testament or Megadeth as it does from Pantera. The vocals are shouted, but not growled or screamed, making it a bit more accessible than, say, Amon Amarth&#8217;s melodic death metal, but it&#8217;s still an aggressive sound that at least brought me back to the golden age of thrash.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Native Daughters  \u2013 Two Princes<\/strong>. This Denver technical-metal outfit does instrumental stuff that draws on about four decades of metal sounds, with a heavy doom influence to the big drum line here, symphonic inspirations for the keyboard and lead guitar, and thrash riffs to the rhythm guitar. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good month for new tracks, with a slew of big alternative album releases coming up this month and next. I was disappointed by the new Last Shadow Puppets record, though, so I have nothing new from them here. DMA&#8217;S \u2013 Too Soon. Apparently the British press has compared these guys to Oasis \u2013 although I [&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":[876,852],"class_list":["post-4842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2016-in-music","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842","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=4842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4844,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions\/4844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}