!!! – As If CD/2xLP+MP3 (Warp)

Combining punk abandon and tightly-coiled dance music has always been bonded into !!!’s DNA. It’s this core plus their growth and mastery of songwriting that has seen them outlive the mid-2000s ‘indie/dance punk’ tag and has allowed them to consistently grow lyrically and sonically from album to album. As If is their sixth album and their first since 2013’s Thr!!!er, and was self-produced mostly by the band, along with some help from Spoon’s Jim Eno and Patrick Ford, who have worked with them in the past. “Everyone wants us to be punk; everyone wants us to be raw,” Nic Offer said in an interview with Spin earlier this month. “Well, we want to make dance music. The kind of dance music that sounds raw is that early-’90s house records.”

Birthmark – How You Look When You’re Falling Down CD/LP+MP3 (Polyvinyl)

Birthmark is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Nate Kinsella, who on top of releasing three previous albums under the Birthmark moniker, has collaborated with his cousins Mike and Tim Kinsella in various projects over the years (Owen, American Football, Joan Of Arc, Make Believe).

Christine And The Queens – Christine And The Queens CD (Atlantic)

Christine And The Queens’ Héloïse Letissier has already made a name on the back of her shadowy pop songs in her native France. This US edition features some translations of songs from the triple platinum French version as well as a few new songs and collaborations with Tunji Ige and Perfume Genius. “It’s challenging, Christine says, to be attempting full-scale U.S. crossover success while also combatting the norms of an industry she’s attempting to pierce, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. “The thing that bothers me is that sometimes I do interviews and they’re like, ‘Oh, so you’re like the good woman, ‘cause you’re not trivializing your body,’’ she says. ‘You’re not a whore. You’re not selling your body like Miley Cyrus.’ I love Miley! She’s punk rock, she’s crazy, she’s sexual, and that’s cool. I can be complex like that. I would love to be perceived as a male rock star. You can take a picture of me and not airbrush it. Embrace my defects” – SPIN. Vinyl version due October 30.

Coheed And Cambria – The Color Before The Sun CD/2xLP+CD (300 Entertainment)

Following the conceptual double album, The Afterman: Ascension and Descension, released in 2012 and 2013 respectively, The Color Before The Sun is the first non-conceptual album the band has released, making it the only Coheed And Cambria album to not be a part of The Amory Wars storyline.

Dead Ghosts – Love And Death And All The Rest CD/LP+MP3 (Burger)

Love And Death And All The Rest hears the Vancouver garage rock band taking a refreshing DIY approach to recording, eschewing a standard studio in favor of a dilapidated barn on the outskirts of Vancouver. According to a press release, the self-produced album features a slightly more restrained feel, opting for a “fuller, less abrasive sound” than heard on previous releases.

 

Deerhunter – Fading Frontier CD/LP+MP3 (4AD)

The seventh full-length studio release for the Atlanta indie rock band was produced with Ben H. Allen III. “Cox drew an ‘influence map’ for this record, one which included R.E.M., Tom Petty, and INXS. All of these names together clarify something about Cox’s intentions: These are amongst the most agreeable rock artists to ever become stars, andFading Frontier sounds like Deerhunter attempting to create songs that are equally enjoyable in an objective way as ‘Free Fallin’’ or ‘Need You Tonight’ or ‘The One I Love’—ones where if you hear them in a restaurant or car or house party, no one will ever ask you to turn them off.  While Deerhunter’s created a number of indelible songs over their career, Fading Frontier may have their first that could conceivably blend into real-deal classic rock radio.” [BNM] – Pitchfork

Esmerine – Lost Voices CD/LP (Constellation)

Montréal chamber rock ensemble Esmerine return with the new full-length album. Led by co-founders Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) on various mallet instruments and Rebecca Foon (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Saltland) on cello, Esmerine also includes drummer/percussionist Jamie Thompson (The Unicorns, Islands, Little Scream) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson. Lost Voices can fairly be called Esmerine’s “rock” album, expanding upon the band’s celebrated prowess at deploying structure and dynamic, balancing melodic expression against methodical restraint through a diversity of stylistic touchstones while allowing for explosive crescendos of exuberant density and maximalism that most notably distinguishes this record from previous work. 

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs – Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda CD (Transdreamer)

The 12-song Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda boasts Holly’s unmistakable voice gracing such persuasive tunes as the raw gospel-thrash workout “Heaven Buy And Buy,” the fearsome white-trash tango “Apt. 34,” the bittersweet waltz “Jackhammer,” the heart-tugging holiday-themed “Christmas Is A Lie” and the crunching, anthemic title track. Vinyl version due November 27.

Gun Outfit – Dream All Over CD/LP+MP3 (Paradise Of Bachelors)

On their most refined and ruefully elegant album, Gun Outfit perfect their incandescent sonic signature: a dusky, canyon-cult blues fueled by melodic dual-guitar weaving and seductive male/female incantations at zero hour. It’s the nocturnal sound of desert-damaged L.A. burnout, a soured American surrealism in rock and roll creole: white line fever, paint fume flashbacks, a stranger wading out alone into the black surf. Featuring Henry Barnes (Man Is the Bastard/Amps for Christ) on homemade sitars; engineered and co-produced by Facundo Bermudez (Ty Segall, No Age, King Tuff.)

Here We Go Magic – Be Small CD/LP+MP3 (Secretly Canadian)

HWGM’s new album Be Small finds the band taking a smaller approach to production and finding more intimate soundscapes — from the live, expansive sound of 2012’s A Different Ship, produced by Radiohead’s sixth man Nigel Godrich, to Be Small‘s direct-to-board home-recorded album — it hosts no less acrobatics of musicianship and a singular sonic ambition. The album was “inpired by Brian Eno and John Cale’s Wrong Way Up and Robert Wyatt’s Shleep,” and, as frontman Luke Temple says, features “overtly major and optimistic” songs of the future pop variety.

Keep Shelly In Athens – Now I’m Ready CD (Friends Of Friends)

At eight songs and 45 minutes, Now I’m Ready strikes a concise, yet imposing figure, each individual effort comprised of enough peaks and valleys to bring the listener to the edge and back again. Lifted off by lead single “Fractals”, Now I’m Ready is not your typical indie effort, un-beholden to tempo and style, the album skips across genre tropes with ease, each track guided by producer R??’s singular aesthetic and vocalist Myrtha’s unmistakable crescendos. And whether you’re locked into a long road trip, careening around a city or looking over the Mediterranean, Keep Shelly In Athens bring an arresting pathos to the proceedings, felt everywhere from the breakbeat-led madness of “Hollow Man” to the ever-building, hypnotic vocal qualities of title track “Now I’m Ready”. Vinyl due October 30.

Lymbyc Systym – Split Stones CD/LP (Western Vinyl)

Brothers Jared and Michael Bell have been making music together as Lymbyc Systym since 2004. On their new album Split Stones they explore the power of disparate halves coming together to form a unique whole. The idea serves as an analogy for Jared and Mike’s relationship, Lymbyc’s sound, and the mind/body dichotomy. The album opens with “Generated Bodies,” a song that starts as a colossal instrumental rock track, but quickly evolves into spirals of chordal synths and electronic beats, mirroring the band’s metamorphosis over the past decade. Other songs like “Split Stones” and “Pulses” find the band experimenting with longer cinematic song structures, leaving behind the short “pop” song structures they’ve delivered on previous albums. The album veers into full on dance mode on “Paraboloid” before things wind down with the sunny groove of album closer “Scientific Romance.”

Maritime – Magnetic Bodies/Maps Of Stone CD/LP+MP3 (Dangerbird)

Magnetic Bodies/Maps Of Bones finds the core lineup of Didier, von Bohlen, bassist Justin Klug and guitarist Dan Hinz following up the polished hooks of 2010’s Human Hearts with something a little more risky, a little weirder, a little more oblique in its sentiment but nonetheless purposeful. von Bohlen’s words, especially, are back to their old impressionism, with pathos one minute and unbridled joy another.

Neon Indian – VEGA INTL. Night School CD/2xLP (Mom + Pop)

VEGA INTL. Night School was conceived during a period of aesthetic reinvention for Alan Palomo, as he retooled the lo-fi and spontaneous writing style he’d developed as Neon Indian by incorporating elements of the cleaner production values and dance oriented approach of his previous recording moniker VEGA, ultimately merging the two into one fast lane. Developed over a four-year period, the album brims with funk-centric guitar lines, pronounced Balearic rhythms, and the most elaborate songwriting of his career. (Limited copies pressed on double transparent yellow vinyl with bonus slipmat.)

Josh Ritter – Sermon On The Rocks CD/2xCD/LP+MP3 (Pytheas)

“On Josh Ritter’s most recent album, 2013’s The Beast In Its Tracks, the singer/songwriter dredged through the battered ruins of his own post-divorce psyche. As such, the record looked relentlessly inward — to forgiveness and spite, to recovery and despair — as Ritter labored to examine his failed relationship from every angle. For his eighth full-length album, Sermon On The Rocks, Ritter takes a turn in the opposite direction — outward, toward other perspectives entirely. As its title suggests, the album is Ritter’s foray into what the singer himself calls ‘messianic oracular honky-tonk,’ often dispensed via a kind of traveling-preacher/snake-oil-salesman persona. Which means, in turn, that Sermon On The Rocks is lighter than usual on the sincere rumination that has marked many of its predecessors. ‘Birds Of The Meadow,’ which opens the record, isn’t Ritter’s first examination of the apocalypse, but it’s surely his fiercest” – NPR. “I wanted to make something grand. I wanted it to swing hard. I wanted to peek through deaths keyhole. I wanted my monster to run” – Josh Ritter. Available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe adds a home-recorded version of the album. (Limited copies pressed on opaque blue vinyl.)

 

Rival Consoles – Howl CD/LP+MP3 (Erased Tapes)

Howl is the new album by Rival Consoles, London-based electronic producer Ryan Lee West. The album explores a wide range of emotions; from the dissonance eruptions and primal rhythms in “Howl,” to the mournful improvisations of “3 Laments,” which features a sample of his own voice. Alongside his performances on Moog, Prophet, tape delay and guitar, West enlisted the help of drummer Fabian Prynn for “Low” and cellist Peter Gregson for “Walls,” both long-time collaborators of Erased Tapes peers Douglas Dare and Michael Price. (Limited copies pressed on red vinyl.)

Small Black – Best Blues CD/LP+MP3 (Jagjaguwar)

Coming full circle from the group’s hazy, lo-fi beginnings and more streamlined, clean recent releases, Best Blues offers a fusion of structure and ambience. Colored by singer Josh Hayden Kolenik’s poetic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, the freewheeling and atmospheric music offers listeners an electronic pulse and an intimate connection. Small Black stretches out on Best Blues and takes a step forward, showcasing an evolved sound that’s both more refined and aggressive.

Son Little – Son Little CD (ANTI-)

Blending elements of acoustic blues, vintage soul, and conscious hip-hop into a mixture that’s expressive yet deeply personal, Son Little is the alias of Aaron Livingston, a singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter who divides his time between his own music and collaborating with others. “The Philadelphia soul artist has already logged collaborations with The Roots and RJD2, but the vocalist-guitarist can by all means stand on his own merits, and with the politically-minded new single ‘O Mother’ he doesn’t just stand tall, but marches against injustice. In step with Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On,’ ‘O Mother’ blends a sunlit, upbeat soul sound with lyrics that beckon at the very core of injustices. Little’s pleas ‘Why do they treat me like I’m not a man? I wonder does anybody know just who I am?’ may read as just another turn on self-centered angst, but given the timing of the track’s release, just days after a damning report on racist policing in America, the scope of Little’s lines grow massive. Soul music has always held hands tightly with the push for Civil Rights in America, and at the heart of any Civil Rights movement is the simple dream of fair human treatment and dignity” – Okay Player. Vinyl version dueNovember 27.

Supersuckers – Holdin’ The Bag CD (Acetate)

The Supersuckers’ trademark balance of take-no-prisoners swagger and hard-headed introspection is reflected throughout Holdin’ The Bag. The album’s eleven songs find them in typically rocking form, while tapping deeply into the band’s longstanding affinity for country music, which has grown increasingly prominent in their output since 1997’sMust’ve Been High.

together PANGEA – The Phage CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Burger)

“Give ’em a year and they’ll come back louder. That’s sound advice, no pun intended, yet also the vibrant truth for Los Angeles garage rockers together PANGEA. After teasing demos, touring Europe, and sharing a bill with The Replacements, the scorched lungs of William Keegan and his raucous band of misfits have returned in chummy style with a new EP…” – Consequence Of Sound

The Twilight Sad – Òran Mór Session CD/LP (FatCat)

Captured live at Glasgow’s infamous Òran Mór, a converted 19th century church, by the band’s longtime live engineer Andrew Bush, these versions strip away the sonic fury to leave the songs vulnerable in acoustic arrangements that highlight the quiet beauty that lies beneath Twilight Sad records. The result is a new look at the songs that made upNobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave paired with an emotional cover of Arthur Russell’s classic “I Couldn’t’ Say It To Your Face.”

Chris Walla – Tape Loops CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Trans)

Chris Walla has said little publicly about his 2014 departure from Death Cab For Cutie, a band that he co-founded and called home for 17 years. He begins to break his silence with Tape Loops, a full-length album that doesn’t so much provide answers or explanations, but invites the listener into the instrumental landscapes of his inner world. Sidestepping the specificity of narrative songwriting in favor of immersive aural topographies, Chris Walla’s Tape Loops offers up a quietly dynamic listen that is as beautiful as it is masterful. Leaning into the constraints of analog loop-based recording, Walla’s virtuosity as a composer and producer shines.

White Out w/ Nels Cline – Accidental Sky CD (Northern Spy)

New York radical innovators White Out and transplanted Los Angeles legend Nels Cline share a long musical history, having played together for over a 15-year period. They play a kind of improvised chamber music. Their tightly cohesive interplay the sonic consequence of years spent developing their highly personal electro-acoustic language.Accidental Sky represents their first official release, and their first attempt at recording in a studio together. The album does not disappoint. Accidental Sky runs the full gamut of artistic expression. Vinyl version due November 27.

Yacht – I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler CD/LP (Downtown)

I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler is a sweeping and visionary critique of the 21st century. It reveals the band at it’s most self-assured: critical, funny, tough, and musically diverse, crafting an infectious and hyperactive conceptual pop that seems to seep through the walls of an alternate universe. Yacht’s knowing references to technology, feminism, and media are layered in complex arrangements in songs about holograms and phones, police violence and identity, sex and the future. The album draws from a weird well of ADD influences: ‘80s Japanese electronic reggae (Sandii & The Sunsetz, Haruomi Hosono), ’70s and ’80s post-punk and no wave (Family Fodder, The Waitresses, Suburban Lawns, Killing Joke, A Certain Ratio, Devo), Norwegian disco (Todd Terje, Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas), and Grand Royal Records-era alternative music (Cibbo Matto, Luscious Jackson, Money Mark). (Limited copies pressed on white vinyl.)

The Alchemist/Oh No (Gangrene) – You Disgust Me 2xLP (Mass Appeal)

Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Producers extraordinaire Alchemist and Oh No have been working together as Gangrene since 2010. The duo’s seventh collaborative project in five years, You Disgust Me, features guest contributions by Havoc, Sean Price, Action Bronson, Chuck Strangers, Your Old Droog, and more.

Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars LP+MP3 (Sub Pop)

Surprise sixth LP comes less than two months after Depression Cherry. “It was recorded at the same time as Depression Cherry, but for us, it’s very much a different record. All of its songs were written after the DC songs. Along the way we realized that we didn’t want it to be released in the traditional manner. Mainly, we just wanted our listeners to hear it first.” CD version due October 30.

Blackalicious – Imani Vol. 1 2xLP (Black Mines)

Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Ten years after 2005’s The Craftcomes Blackalicious’ self-release, Imani, Vol. 1. Three years in the works, the album stays true to rapper Gift Of Gab’s clever tongue-twisting wordplay and DJ/producer Chief Xcel’s unique beats. First volume of a trilogy.

John Carpenter – Lost Themes Remixed LP+MP3 (Sacred Bones)

Eight pivotal contemporary electronic artists were moved to reshape the original songs on Lost Themes in tribute to one the genre’s great pioneers. Several of the remixes were released as part of the digital deluxe edition of the album, but Lost Themes Remixedmarks the first time any of the tracks have been on vinyl.

Childbirth – Women’s Rights LP+MP3 (Suicide Squeeze)

Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Childbirth is a “supergroup” in the sense its members are all in other hit bands (Julia Shapiro of Chastity Belt, Bree McKenna of Tacocat, Stacy Peck of Pony Time) and also that they do good for the world while in costume. Their new album, Women’s Rights, is piss-your-pants funny — subject matter includes a trashy friend bringing coke to a baby shower (“Baby Bump”) characteristics that warrant an instant “swipe left” on Tinder (“Siri, Open Tinder”) and dating vapid IT douches (“Tech Bro.”). Yellow vinyl.

Disclosure – Caracal 2xLP (Capitol)

Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. “Disclosure has traded in its debut’s hook-heavy, nonstop good time for a more relaxed follow-up designed for respectability beyond the EDM world — as if dance music couldn’t possibly be enough.” – Billboard

Iron And Wine – Archive Series Volume No. 2 7”+MP3 (Black Cricket Recording Co.)

Collects two cover versions of classic songs found in Sam Beam’s early home recorded cassettes and presents them on limited edition colored (pink/lemon-lime) 7” vinyl. Side A features a cover of Neil Young’s “Albuquerque” while Side B features a cover of “It’s The Same Old Song” by the Four Tops.

New Order – Republic [Reissue/1993] LP (Rhino)

New Order – Get Ready [Reissue/2001] LP (Rhino)

New Order – Waiting For The Siren’s Call [Reissue/2005] 2xLP (Rhino)

HQ-180gm vinyl reissues of New Order’s sixth, seventh, and eighth albums.

Wilco – Star Wars LP+MP3 (ANTI-)

Limited white vinyl LP pressing in gatefold sleeve, with digital download that contains exclusive bonus live material. Wilco’s ninth studio album and it’s first since 2011’s The Whole Love. “Because Wilco sounds about 85% committed to a truly new idea, Star Wars is their strongest record in a decade; and if Wilco have another truly great one in them, history strongly suggests it’ll be devoted to sounding nothing like Star Wars.” – Pitchfork