{"id":6189,"date":"2017-12-01T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T22:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=6189"},"modified":"2017-12-01T17:47:10","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T22:47:10","slug":"music-update-november-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/01\/music-update-november-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, November 2017."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Solid enough month for new tracks, including a bunch of early releases from albums due out in the first two months of next year (which might presage a poor December for new releases). I\u2019ll do my annual music rankings, songs and albums, after the winter meetings, so we do get a few more weeks in for new songs to appear. <\/p>\n<p>If you can\u2019t see the Spotify widget below, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/3rXDymZJZvrw1WztsqKEBV\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">access the playlist directly here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/3rXDymZJZvrw1WztsqKEBV\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Wombats \u2013 Lemon to a Knife Fight<\/strong>. A new Wombats song is an automatic inclusion for me. I loved <em>Glitterbug<\/em> and am thoroughly excited for the new album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hatchie \u2013 Sure<\/strong>. Noisey called Hatchie\u2019s music \u201cshoegaze with a dream pop edge;\u201d I think there\u2019s more dream pop here, with a very strong early Cranberries vibe. She has released two singles so far, this song (my favorite of the two) and \u201cTry.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>Shy Technology \u2013 D\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu<\/strong>. Shy Technology made <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1NzuUp3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">my top 100 in 2015<\/a> with \u201cHigh Strung,\u201d and this lead single from their next album provides more of what I liked from that earlier single, which has a singer-songwriter vibe with the fuller arrangement of a large band. They remind me of tons of bands I liked in the early mid-90s, including James, Ben Folds Five, Better than Ezra, and Our Lady Peace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Django Django \u2013 In Your Beat<\/strong>. We have a release date \u2013 January 26th \u2013 for the Mercury Prize-nominated British act\u2019s third album. <em>Marble Skies<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Van William \u2013 The Country<\/strong>. Dodgers fan &#038; WATERS lead singer\/songwriter Van Pierszalowski \u2013 yep, still have to check that spelling every single time, because of AJ Pierzynski \u2013 will release his first solo album, <em>Countries<\/em>, on January 19th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gillbanks \u2013 A Walk in the Park<\/strong>. A new London-based quintet with just four one-off singles to their name, Gillbanks reminds me a bit of Gardens &#038; Villa if they\u2019d gotten stoned and listened to <em>Disintegration<\/em> on repeat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ride \u2013 Pulsar<\/strong>. Ride went 21 years between albums, released <em>Weather Diaries<\/em> in June, and now are already back with a new, non-album track, this one in a similar vein, shoegaze but with clear vocals mixed more towards the front. The lads are aging quite nicely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thrice \u2013 Red Telephone<\/strong>. Not technically a new song, \u201cRed Telephone\u201d is a B-side from their 2009 album <em>Beggars<\/em> and was just re-released ahead of their mini-tour with Circa Survive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Fratellis \u2013 The Next Time We Wed<\/strong>. It\u2019s no \u201cChelsea Dagger,\u201d but it\u2019s certainly catchy in more of a pop\/rock way and less of a \u201cwe\u2019re all drunk at 1:30 am\u201d fashion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Black Honey \u2013 Dig<\/strong>. Black Honey, an indie quartet from Brighton, England, showed up <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/top-100-songs-of-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\">twice on my top 100 last year<\/a> with poppy tracks that reminded me of vintage Velocity Girl; this song is slower, almost mournful, although it sneaks up on you with a heavy guitar riff about 2\/3 of the way through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WAVVES with Culture Abuse \u2013 Up and Down<\/strong>. WAVVES\u2019 Nathan Williams is one of the most prolific writers in music today; I swear he releases a new song somewhere every couple of weeks. This new track, with Bay Area punksters Culture Abuse (of whom I\u2019d never heard of until this song appeared), sounds quite a bit like WAVVES\u2019 most recent album, <em>You\u2019re Welcome<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HAERTS \u2013 No Love for the Wild<\/strong>. HAERTS put out a great EP in 2013, a strong album with those same four songs in 2014, and since then it\u2019s been just random singles. This song came out in May, and there\u2019s another one, \u201cThe Way,\u201d due out next Friday (the 8th), so I\u2019m hopeful we\u2019ll get a full record some time early next year. It\u2019s long overdue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Big Moon \u2013 Love in the 4th Dimension<\/strong>. The Big Moon\u2019s album, of which this is the title track, was nominated for the Mercury Prize this year, but lost out to R&#038;B\/electronic singer-songwriter Sampha. I think I like the Big Moon\u2019s sound more than their individual songs, as the album is consistent but could use some stronger hooks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stars \u2013 Hope Avenue<\/strong>. Stars had the #40 song on the first real year-end song ranking I ever posted on this site, my <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/XM4Txp\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">top 40 songs of 2012<\/a>, with \u201cHold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Get It.\u201d Their latest album, <em>There is No Love in Fluorescent Light<\/em>, doesn\u2019t have anything so catchy, but has several \u2026 um, \u201cpleasant\u201d sounds like a backhanded insult, but I don\u2019t mean it that way. This was my favorite song from the record.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quicksand \u2013 Fire this Time<\/strong>. Is this the fifth straight playlist with a Quicksand song on it? Their comeback album <em>Interiors<\/em> feels like a lock to make my ranking of my favorite albums of 2017, however long I choose to make the list this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corrosion of Conformity \u2013 Cast the First Stone<\/strong>. Legit thought these guys had broken up a decade ago \u2026 which they did, and then came back with a different lineup for albums in 2012 and 2014 that I missed entirely. I really remember CoC mostly from their earliest work, which had a stronger hardcore influence, while this is more of an aggressive stoner-metal track, like QotSA with a hint of Pantera.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe Satriani \u2013 Thunder High on the Mountain<\/strong>. I admit to being a guitar geek back in the day; I absolutely wore out Steve Vai\u2019s <em>Passion and Warfare<\/em>. Satriani had his moments too, including \u201cSummer Song,\u201d but that whole subgenre of music fell out of favor pretty quickly with the expansion of extreme metal on one side and of garbage rap-metal demon spawn on the other. This song, which features two distinct movements of great guitar hooks, is a nice throwback to the heyday of instrumental shredder albums, with a nice nod to the heavier style more in vogue today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Godflesh \u2013 Post Self<\/strong>. I have a strong memory of seeing a capsule review of Godflesh\u2019s seminal 1989 debut album, <em>Streetcleaner<\/em>, that borrowed a line from <em>Poltergeist<\/em>: \u201cGodflesh knows what scares you.\u201d Often lumped erroneously in with the contemporaneous grindcore movement, Godflesh is a founder of the subgenre of industrial metal, and if their music brings \u201cteh fear\u201d it\u2019s because of their repetition of droning phrases and harsh percussive sounds. This is the first song and title track from their latest album, released on November 17th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tribulation \u2013 The Lament<\/strong>. This Swedish melodic death-metal band\u2019s 2015 album <em>Children of the Night<\/em> took the group out of the generic extreme-metal sounds of their first two albums and brought far more of a classic-rock vibe, with obvious influences from Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, as well as some thrash riffing and a generally stronger sense of musical proficiency. This song rocks in a way that even a lot of truly melodic songs in this area don\u2019t; it\u2019s like a great driving song that happens to have death growls instead of the high-wire vocals of a Halford or a Dickinson. It\u2019s a good sign for their upcoming fourth album, <em>Down Below<\/em>, due out on January 26th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solid enough month for new tracks, including a bunch of early releases from albums due out in the first two months of next year (which might presage a poor December for new releases). I\u2019ll do my annual music rankings, songs and albums, after the winter meetings, so we do get a few more weeks in [&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":[913,359,780,757,852,787],"class_list":["post-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2017-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-death-metal","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-progressive-metal","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189","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=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6190,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions\/6190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}