{"id":9438,"date":"2022-05-06T10:40:59","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T14:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=9438"},"modified":"2022-05-06T10:41:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T14:41:00","slug":"music-update-april-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/06\/music-update-april-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, April 2022."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>April was a lighter month for good singles, but we&#8217;re heading into a heavy period of new album releases starting today (Arcade Fire, Belle &amp; Sebastian, Sunflower Bean, Warpaint). We get new albums from The Smile, Everything Everything, Porridge Radio, Stars, and Liam Gallagher this month, and Bartees Strange, Foals, Soccer Mommy, and Post Malahahahaha I can&#8217;t even finish that, next month. As always, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/1QsRKRcfwGe5W1fXeO9KQG?si=ebf804854e0f4d78\">click here to access the playlist<\/a> if you can&#8217;t see the widget below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s April 2022 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\/1QsRKRcfwGe5W1fXeO9KQG?si=cc10ec9c09464614&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kae Tempest feat. Grian Chatten \u2013 I Saw Light.<\/strong> Tempest is a poet and spoken-word artist whose work I was unfamiliar with, but this song, featuring Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C., flattened me. I heard the song and thought they might be a poet, just because the lyrics are that good, especially the depth of imagery within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Belle and Sebastian \u2013 Young and Stupid.<\/strong> This is the sweet spot for me with Belle and Sebastian \u2013 lush and a little more uptempo, with Murdoch&#8217;s wry humor throughout the lyrics, which he also exhibited in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nee_massey\/status\/1522306539800993793?s=20&amp;t=EwsVU0EPwUynBnz8cZMltA\">this tweet on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sports Team \u2013 R Entertainment.<\/strong> Strong lyrics might be the theme for this month&#8217;s playlist; Sports Team does that thing I keep mentioning that I like where we get some British singer sing-talking clever lyrics over post-punk backing music. They&#8217;re just the right side of obnoxious for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Just Mustard \u2013 Mirrors.<\/strong> I think this Irish shoegaze band is starting to come into its own heading into their second album, with a better sense of its sound, including a slightly more prominent melody, and better production that better centers the vocals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler \u2013 The Eagle and the Dove.<\/strong> Yep, that&#8217;s Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. Buckley&#8217;s career started on a British reality competition show, where she finished second, with the winner getting a part in a new stage production of <em>Oliver!<\/em> \u2026 which is a long way of saying she was a singer before she was an actress. It turns out she&#8217;s great at both, which you can see in 2019&#8217;s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/18\/wild-rose\/\">Wild Rose<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Let&#8217;s Eat Grandma \u2013 Levitation.<\/strong> I understand the joke in this band&#8217;s name (the importance of proper punctuation!) but I still don&#8217;t like it. Their sound, though, has a very mid-80s synthpop vibe that is catnip to me as a child of that era. This is my favorite song from them so far, coming off their third album, <em>Two Ribbons<\/em>, released last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Everything Everything \u2013 I Want a Love Like This. <\/strong>One of my favorite bands of the last decade, EE will release their sixth album, <em>Raw Data Feel<\/em>, on May 20<sup>th<\/sup>. This is the third single from that album \u2013 a fourth, &#8220;Pizza Boy,&#8221; dropped this morning \u2013 and I&#8217;m pretty excited about the direction so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Foals \u2013 Looking High. <\/strong>Foals promised that their upcoming album, <em>Life Is Yours<\/em>, due out June 17<sup>th<\/sup>, would be upbeat and danceable, and the early singles have delivered on that promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cory Wong \u2013 Power Station.<\/strong> Wong has worked with a few musicians who worked with Prince, and this track sounds a lot like something we might hear from Prince&#8217;s endless well of unreleased tracks. I&#8217;m in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>beabadoobee \u2013 See You Soon.<\/strong> <em>Beatopia<\/em>comes outon July 17<sup>th<\/sup>; withthis and &#8220;Talk,&#8221; both very strong singles with different vibes (this one is quieter and more lush, &#8220;Talk&#8221; is more straight-up rock), coming out in the last few weeks, I&#8217;m expecting a big leap forward on her second record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Head and the Heart \u2013 Shut Up. <\/strong><em>Every Shade of Blue <\/em>came out in April and it&#8217;s really all over the place \u2013 it sounds like the work of three different bands who split the album between them \u2013 with this my favorite track on the album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arcade Fire \u2013 Unconditional I (Lookout Kid).<\/strong> I definitely worry any time Arcade Fire puts out a song with a second part, but this is actually a simpler and less pretentious affair than Win Butler has offered on similar diptychs (&#8220;Infinite Content,&#8221; the Orpheus\/Eurydice tracks from <em>Reflektor<\/em>, or the two singles they released in March).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Interpol \u2013 Toni.<\/strong> The lead single from their forthcoming album <em>The Other Side of Make-Believe<\/em>, due out July 15<sup>th<\/sup>, is an understated affair from Interpol as they celebrate their 25<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary, a change from how they usually announce new albums \u2013 &#8220;PDA,&#8221; &#8220;Slow Hands,&#8221; and &#8220;The Heinrich Maneuver&#8221; were all heavier rock tracks and the lead singles from their respective albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sunflower Bean \u2013 I Don&#8217;t Have Control Sometimes<\/strong>. This jangle-pop trio&#8217;s third album, <em>Headful of Sugar<\/em>, comes out today, featuring five songs we&#8217;ve heard already \u2013 four advance singles as well as the bonus track &#8220;Moment in the Sun,&#8221; a one-off single from 2020 that made <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/24\/top-100-songs-of-2020\/\">my top 100 from that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fontaines D.C. \u2013 Skinty Fia.<\/strong> Speaking of these Dublin punks, they dial the intensity down on their third album, as on the title track here. It&#8217;s hit or miss, unfortunately, as I think they&#8217;ve lost the righteous anger that made their last album, <em>A Hero&#8217;s Death<\/em>, more successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Iceage \u2013 All the Junk on the Outskirts.<\/strong> This track was left on the cutting room floor during the recording of 2018&#8217;s <em>Beyondless<\/em>, but they&#8217;ve &#8220;reconfigured&#8221; it and released in advance of their summer\/fall tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Buzzcocks \u2013 Senses Out of Control.<\/strong> I assumed the death of Pete Shelley in 2018 would be the end of the Buzzcocks, but here they are \u2026 and this is actually pretty good, wth 66-year-old Steve Diggle handling vocals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Working Men&#8217;s Club \u2013 Circumference.<\/strong> I don&#8217;t know if WMC qualify as &#8220;darkwave,&#8221; but I love their darker spin on new wave, which at least has strong roots in 1980s darkwave bands like Clan of Xymox and Bauhaus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wet Leg \u2013 Ur Mum.<\/strong> I&#8217;m just not on this duo&#8217;s wavelength despite the wide critical acclaim; the weird high\/low vocal delivery just rubs me the wrong way, and I find myself in the minority in thinking their lyrics aren&#8217;t that witty. That said, there are three songs on their self-titled debut album I like, this one &#8220;Angelica,&#8221; and &#8220;Wet Dream,&#8221; which is a pretty solid effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAULT \u2013 Luos Higher.<\/strong> SAULT changed their entire sound for their sixth album, <em>Air<\/em>, released last month with no advance notice, as with their previous records. They&#8217;ve dispensed with the &#8217;70s funk and soul sounds, and all of the Black Lives Matter-themed lyrics are gone \u2026 in fact, just about all of the lyrics are gone. <em>Air<\/em> is almost all instrumental, highly experimental in music styles and forms, and simultaneously impressive and disappointing. I respect the ambition here, but what made SAULT&#8217;s first four albums in particular so incredible was their combination of smart, incisive lyrics and a modern twist on classic genres of music. Bring that beat back, Inflo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April was a lighter month for good singles, but we&#8217;re heading into a heavy period of new album releases starting today (Arcade Fire, Belle &amp; Sebastian, Sunflower Bean, Warpaint). We get new albums from The Smile, Everything Everything, Porridge Radio, Stars, and Liam Gallagher this month, and Bartees Strange, Foals, Soccer Mommy, and Post Malahahahaha [&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":[1275,359,852],"class_list":["post-9438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2022-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438","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=9438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9439,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions\/9439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}