{"id":8348,"date":"2020-04-03T13:31:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T17:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8348"},"modified":"2020-04-03T13:31:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T17:31:18","slug":"music-update-april-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/03\/music-update-april-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, April 2020."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Well, we&#8217;re all home now \u2013 or ought to be \u2013 so let&#8217;s listen\nto some new music, nineteen songs this month, most of which just appeared in\nMarch. If you can&#8217;t see the widget below you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/1IdeM4vSRwsMnXZJPvmZb5?si=gesiohj0Twuhcbprbd6IIQ\">access\nthe playlist directly here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-spotify wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s March 2020 new 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\/1IdeM4vSRwsMnXZJPvmZb5?si=SRxjw82SQTSSu4UapO7RMA&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Moses Boyd featuring Poppy Ajudha \u2013 Shades of You<\/strong>. Boyd&#8217;s\nnew album, <em>Dark Matter<\/em>, is the most interesting record I&#8217;ve heard since\nblack midi&#8217;s <em>Schlagenheim<\/em> came out last June, and a lot more accessible\nat that, often evoking the same hypnotic, avant-garde vibe that Radiohead\napproached on <em>Kid A<\/em> and <em>Amnesiac<\/em>. A jazz drummer and producer,\nBoyd mixes pulsating instrumentals with tracks that feature guest vocalists,\nincluding this song, the album&#8217;s best thanks to searing vocal work from the\nsouth London singer Ajudha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Waxahatchee \u2013 Can&#8217;t Do Much<\/strong>. Katie Crutchfield&#8217;s\nlatest album, <em>Saint Cloud<\/em>, dropped last Friday, and is her most complete\nwork yet, with &#8220;Lilacs&#8221; and this song the two standouts for me so\nfar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>MID CITY \u2013 Forget It<\/strong>. An energetic power-pop track\nabout gaslighting from a Melbourne quartet, with a strong flavor of the Killers\ncirca <em>Hot Fuss<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Artificial Pleasure \u2013 Lose Myself Again<\/strong>. I&#8217;m not sure\nexactly what it is about Artificial Pleasure that makes me think I&#8217;m listening\nto Heaven 17 sent forward forty years through a time machine, but I&#8217;m here for\nit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Purity Ring \u2013 peacefall<\/strong>. Purity Ring&#8217;s latest album, <em>WOMB<\/em>,\njust came out this morning, including this single and February&#8217;s\n&#8220;stardew.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Myrkur \u2013 House Carpenter<\/strong>. Myrkur, the nom de chanson\nof Danish musician Amalie Bruun, started out as a bizarre hybrid of dark folk\nmusic and extreme metal, but her latest album, <em>Folkesange<\/em> (<em>Folk Songs<\/em>),\ndispenses with blast beats and heavy guitar work in favor of traditional sounds\nthat wouldn&#8217;t be out of place on an album from the Chieftains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ARCADES featuring Prides \u2013 Stars<\/strong>. ARCADES have\nwritten numerous hits for K-Pop acts BTS and TXT, with just a few singles they&#8217;ve\nrecorded themselves; this latest hit my radar because of the presence of the\nScottish duo Prides, whose indie-pop sound blends quite well with ARCADES&#8217;\nsongwriting here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phantom Planet \u2013 Time Moves On<\/strong>. I remain pleasantly\nsurprised by the return of Phantom Planet, and the fact that their new singles\nhave been pretty good, although I think last year&#8217;s &#8220;BALISONG&#8221; is the\nbest of the lot so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Catholic Action \u2013 Another Name for Loneliness<\/strong>.\nCatholic Action&#8217;s <em>Celebrated by Strangers<\/em> has earned some rave reviews\nfrom independent music press on both sides of the Atlantic, although I found the\nalbum a little light on hooks overall; this is my favorite track from the\nrecord, reminding me a bit of &#8220;Love Vigilantes&#8221; due to the main\nguitar riff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Allie X \u2013 Sarah Come Home<\/strong>. The singer\/model Alexandra\nHughes released her second full-length album, a concept work called <em>Cape God<\/em>,\nin late February; it&#8217;s uneven, as her first album <em>CollXtion II<\/em> was, with\nthis song the best on the album, an upbeat dance-pop track that contrasts with\nthe darker tones on the record as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adam Snow, Freddie Gibbs, Tedy Andreas \u2013 9 to 5<\/strong>. Producer\nSnow&#8217;s name comes first, but Gibbs is the star here; the moment Houston rapper\nAndreas shows up he sucks most of the energy right out of the track, although I\nenjoyed his name-check of my former colleague Dan Le Batard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alkaline Trio \u2013 Minds like Minefields<\/strong>. Alkaline Trio\nreleased a three-song EP in March just called <em>E.P. <\/em>after their spring\ntour was cancelled, with this anthemic punk-pop track released as a single. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Wants \u2013 Motor<\/strong>. This NYC trio show some heavy\npost-punk influence, unsurprising as lead singer\/guitarist Madison\nVelding-VanDam has spoken about his love of Gang of Four. &#8220;Motor&#8221; was\noriginally an instrumental track, but the spoken-word vocals that appear about\nhalfway through definitely add to the song&#8217;s appeal by breaking what might have\nbeen a bit of a monotonous guitar riff otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fake Names \u2013 Brick<\/strong>. Fake Names is a punk supergroup\nwith members of Refused, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, and other bands. This lead\nsingle from their upcoming, self-titled album isn&#8217;t even two minutes long but\nis definitely a throwback to the heyday of melodic hardcore acts like BR and\nthe Descendents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Poppy \u2013 Concrete<\/strong>. I have no idea what to make of Poppy,\na singer and Youtube personality who blends bubblegum and J-Pop elements with\nbrief bursts of highly polished heavy metal. She has a fan base that&#8217;s\nindependent of her music, based on her videos, her graphic novels, and I think\nher overall persona; I obviously am not in tune with any of that, but this song\nis weirdly catchy even though it feels like two completely disconnected tracks\nthat have been smushed together in post-production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Moon Destroys featuring Paul Masvidal \u2013 Stormbringer<\/strong>.\nMoon Destroys are a new progressive metal project with former members of Royal\nThunder and Torche, with a new sound that blends prog and stoner\/sludge metal sounds.\nTheir first single featured Troy Sanders of Mastodon, while this has Paul\nMasvidal of Cynic on vocals \u2026 speaking of which, I just learned that former\nCynic and Death drummer Sean Reinert died in January at age 48, which is awful\nnews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wolf \u2013 Feeding the Machine<\/strong>. The title track from\nWolf&#8217;s first album in six years shows that not much has changed for these guys,\nwho seem firmly stuck in the late 1980s musically, with classic thrash sounds\nthat would have fit well in the San Francisco sounds of that era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kreator \u2013 666 &#8211; World Divided<\/strong>. Mille Petrozza&#8217;s voice\nhas taken a beating \u2013 he sounds older than 52 on this track \u2013 but these guys\ncan still bang out thrash riffs with the best of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Testament \u2013 Children of the Next Level<\/strong>. Testament\njust released their 13<sup>th<\/sup> studio album, <em>Titans of Creation<\/em>,\nthis morning; I feel about this record as I have about most of their music in\nthe last decade, that guitarist Alex Skolnick is still an iconic author of\nthrash riffs, and a tremendous shredder, but the songs all leave me a little\nshort of compelling hooks. I like Testament, but I don&#8217;t attach to their songs\nthe way I have with many of the other pioneers of thrash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we&#8217;re all home now \u2013 or ought to be \u2013 so let&#8217;s listen to some new music, nineteen songs this month, most of which just appeared in March. If you can&#8217;t see the widget below you can access the playlist directly here. Moses Boyd featuring Poppy Ajudha \u2013 Shades of You. Boyd&#8217;s new album, [&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":[1153,359,757,852,261,1114],"class_list":["post-8348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2020-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-rap","tag-thrash","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348","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=8348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8349,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions\/8349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}