April 28, 2017 —

New Releases & Staff Picks 4/28/17


STAFF PICKS

Kimber – Slowdive
Lindsay – Colin Stetson, Feist
Dario – Colin Stetson,
Brittany- Thurston Moore, Feist

THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES
 
Between The Buried & Me – Coma Ecliptic Live CD+DVD+Blu-ray (Metal Blade)
Between The Buried & Me performed their 2015 Coma Ecliptic in its entirety live on October 4, 2016 at The Observatory North Park in San Diego, CA.
 
BNQT – Volume 1 CD/LP (Dualtone)
“BNQT is billed as the new supergroup, although that seems a little grandiose a term for a project fashioned out of the remnants of moderately successful indie bands you probably remember from your teens. This effort sees Midlake’s Eric Pulido (supported by McKenzie Smith, Joey McClellan and Jesse Chandler) merge with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, and Travis’ Fran Healy. Volume 1 sounds very much like you would imagine music made by a mash-up of late ’90s-early-2000s indie groups might sound: meandering and nostalgic with a clean, crisp production that really showcases the instrumentals. I love the upbeat opener ‘Restart’, and the surreal love song ‘Hey Banana’, in which you can’t quite work out, by the end of the song, whether Banana is someone he wants to fuck or kill. Or maybe actually Banana is the small child who does a cameo midway through. Whatever. I liked it.” – Loud & Quiet
 
British Sea Power – Let The Dancers Inherit The Party CD/LP (Caroline International)
British Sea Power presents their sixth full-length studio effort and first since 2013. Melodic, direct and brimming with emotional urgency, it’s an album where rock muscularity joins inseparably with pop immediacy, where a crate of the finest sparkling wine explodes inside a Marshall stack. Subject matter on Let The Dancers Inherit The Party ranges from the stars in the night sky to the methodology of media manipulation. The album emerges alongside a world full of chaos and disorder, but seeks to answer this world with optimism and hope.

Feist – Pleasure CD/2xLP (Interscope)
Feist’s first album in six years reflects on secrets and shame, loneliness and tenderness, care and fatigue and is at its core a study on self-awareness. In addition to reaffirming Feist as a cagily inventive guitar player, Pleasure threads her shape-shifting and often haunting vocals into sparse and raw arrangements. Get a free cassette single with purchase, while supplies last
 
Gorillaz – Humanz CD/2xCD/2xLP+MP3/14×12”+MP3 (WB)
Being a virtual band was always part of the sales pitch of Gorillaz, the pairing of the Blur musician Damon Albarn and the illustrator Jamie Hewlett, which has been releasing hip-hop-influenced concept albums since 2001. And yet with Humanz, the fifth Gorillaz album and the first since 2010, Mr. Albarn found himself at the center of a decidedly real-world conundrum. To unify the album and its many collaborators, he tried to imagine an apocalyptic event — the election of Donald J. Trump — and the possible reactions to it. Then he convened some of the most vibrant talent in hip-hop, R&B, house, reggae and more: the pointed rappers Pusha T and Vince Staples, the nimble singer Peven Everett, the dancehall tear-jerker Popcaan, the early house music innovator Jamie Principle, the soul legend Mavis Staples and many more. Deluxe CD edition features a five-track bonus disc.

Mark Lanegan Band – Gargoyle CD/LP+MP3 (Heavenly/PIAS America)
Mark Lanegan Band’s new album Gargoyle features guest appearances from long-time collaborators Josh Homme, Greg Dulli and Duke Garwood. The contributions of English musician Rob Marshall (who co-wrote six songs) fit perfectly with the direction Lanegan had been pondering: in essence, a more expansive progression from the moody Krautrock-influenced electronica textures of his two previous albums, Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio. While sharing roots with its two predecessors, on Gargoyle there’s a significant up-shift in the swaggering powerlode of such keynote songs as “Nocturne” and “Beehive,” while the lyrics’ tonal palette is more varied. The album title comes from a lyric in “Blue Blue Sea” – ‘Gargoyle perched on gothic spire’ – and was chosen for its hint of self-deprecation. “I’m most proud of the songs that are atypical to stuff that I’ve done in the past,” Lanegan says. “So I really like Old Swan, because it’s an expression of positivity, which is completely anti-anything I’ve done before!” [Limited edition white color vinyl pressing also available.]

Mew – Visuals CD/LP+MP3 (PIAS America)
Visuals is Mew at their most compact, their chemistry at its most potent. With only one song over five minutes, it’s their most concise album. Frontman Jonas Bjerre says there was no need for a grand, overarching concept. Each song on Visuals represents its own little chapter and story: nothing needed to be overly long. The discordant stomp of “Candy Pieces All Smeared Out” sums up the emotional to and fro and captivating contrariness at the heart of Visuals: it’s an album that’s both nostalgic and contemporary, that looks back whilst marching forward. The blissful glide of “In A Better Place” is a prime example of the impulsive environment that the songs were written in, whilst the atmospheric rock of “Ay Ay Ay” was based around a choir part that Bjerre had come up with a few years ago. Bjerre says that the celebratory groove of “Learn Our Crystals” “is one of our weirdest songs.” Poppy and fantastical, it had a familiar feeling to the singer as soon as he wrote it. The soulful sway of “Shoulders” has an R&B feel to it, whilst the band had earmarked the mesmerizing intricacy of “Carry Me To Safety” as the album’s closer as soon as it’d been written. 
  

Thurston Moore – Rock N Roll Consciousness CD/LP (Caroline)
Rock N Roll Consciousness is a new and exhilarating chapter for Thurston Moore, and promises to be a creative highpoint for anyone interested in his legacy of avant-garde music and writing, as strong a statement as anything he has recorded these last three decades — serious and precocious and strangely accessible. The songs here are expansive, anthemic and exploratory with lyrics, co-written with poet Radio Radieux, investigating and heralding the love between angels, goddess mysticism and a belief in healing through new birth. They range from the opener “Exalted,” an unfolding and emotional journey in homage to sacred energy and exaltation, to “Cusp” a springtime charging, propulsive piece with a feeling of Sonic Youth mixing in with My Bloody Valentine to “Turn On” a pop-sonic poem to holy love both intimate and kosmiche to the contemplative mystery of life-defining time travel in “Smoke Of Dreams.” The record concludes with “Aphrodite,” a strange and heavy no wave rocker in salutation to the idol of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. [Vinyl is available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Limited Deluxe features gatefold packaging.]

Willie Nelson – God’s Problem Child CD/LP (Legacy)
God’s Problem Child is Willie’s first album to debut all-new songs since Band Of Brothers in 2014. It includes 13 new songs, including seven recently written by Willie and Buddy Cannon, his longtime collaborator and producer. The album’s title track, penned by Jamey Johnson and Tony Joe White, includes vocals by both writers and the legendary Leon Russell (on what may be Russell’s very last recording). Closing the album is “He Won’t Ever Be Gone,” a song written by Gary Nicholson that pays tribute to Willie’s outlaw country comrade, Merle Haggard. “While remaining endlessly prolific, Nelson has always looked at the album as a totemic work, collecting songs in ways that add up to something bigger than the individual pieces. Let’s not forget that this is the songwriter who crafted one of country music’s first concept records (1971’s Yesterday’s Wine) and one of its first crossover standards collections (1978’s Stardust). God’s Problem Child continues that tradition—approaching life and love from angles that can only result from a career spent studying both with a restless sense of wonder. It’s the kind of perspective that most songwriters can only dream of attaining: for Willie Nelson, it’s just another day at the office.” – Uncut

Old Crow Medicine Show – 50 Years Of Blond On Blond CD/2xLP+MP3 (SME Nashville)
50 Years Of Blonde On Blonde was recorded live at the CMA Theater located inside the historic Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum located in Nashville, TN in May 2016. “Fifty years is a long time for a place like Nashville, Tennessee. Time rolls on slowly around here like flotsam and jetsam in the muddy Cumberland River. But certain things have accelerated the pace of our city. And certain people have sent the hands of the clock spinning. Bob Dylan is the greatest of these time-bending, paradigm-shifting Nashville cats,” says Ketch Secor, the primary vocalist of the Old Crow Medicine Show. “By deciding to record his newly found rock ‘n’ roll voice in 1966 Nashville, Bob swung the gates of Country music wide open; so wide, in fact, that 50 years later there was still enough of a crack left for Old Crow Medicine Show to sneak its banjos and fiddles through the gates with string band swagger.”
 
Pinegrove – Everything So Far CD/LP+MP3 (Run For Cover)
An anthology of all of Pinegrove’s output up to the point of their breakout Run For Cover Records full-length, Cardinal.
 
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers – Sidelong CD/LP+MP3 (Bloodshot)
North Carolina’s Sarah Shook sings with a conviction and hard honesty sorely lacking in much of today’s Americana landscape. Always passionate, and at times profane, Sarah stalks/walks the line between vulnerable and menacing. You can hear in her voice what’s she’s seen; world weary, hard lessons learned-or not-but always defiant. The Disarmers, with their snarling boom-chicka-boom guitars and an Old 97’s swing in the rhythm section, keep it in the pocket. Tight and tough.
 
Colin Stetson – All This I Do For Glory CD/LP (52Hz)
New album from the saxophonist and multireedist. All This I Do For Glory is a reasoning and exploration of the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the Greek tragedies. With this, his first solo outing since 2013’s To See More Light, Colin Stetson ventures into territory both familiar and strange. Here still, is the dogmatically stripped down approach to performance and capture (all songs recorded live with no overdubs or loops) but there is an immediacy to the album that belies a more invasive and thorough mic’ing of the various instruments being utilized and a seeming influence drawn from the early nineties electronica of artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre, evident in the more pointed role played by the instruments’ many percussive elements. [Limited white color vinyl pressing also available.]
 
Sylvan Esso – What Now CD/LP (Loma Vista/Concord)
“Deceptively simple” encapsulates Sylvan Esso’s entire brand. You can plumb the hidden depths of their work, or not; they’re going to have a good time either way. Over 10 tracks on the duo’s sophomore album, What Now, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn unravel familiar themes of physicality and immediacy, building on and complementing, but never managing to overtake, their debut’s aggressive minimalism. The tricky thing is that their sound is distinctive and largely theirs alone: It is Sanborn’s electronic beats and burbles that manage to never feel cluttered or heavy, coupled with Meath’s lyrics, dripping with urgency and delivered in her flawless croon. “Die Young” is one of the album’s truest gems, an unexpectedly sweet love song about readjusting plans for an early death to accommodate a promising relationship. It seems hard to imagine that anyone who isn’t overtly suicidal would assume their death would happen in a fire or a “crash off a ravine,” as Meath posits, but she sells it; more than any other track, this one sticks with me.” – Consequence Of Sound

Various Artists – Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 CD (Walt Disney)
Set to the all-new sonic backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, Marvel Studios’ Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team’s adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand. This time our heroes are accompanied by classic tracks from Electric Light Orchestra, Sweet, Fleetwood Mac, Sam Cooke, Glen Campbell, George Harrison, Cheap Trick, Cat Stevens, Parliament, and more.
 
J. Cole – 4 Your Eyez Only LP (Dreamville/Roc Nation/Interscope)
Released last December on CD – now available on vinyl. Multi-platinum-selling North Carolina rapper J. Cole’s newest release 4 Your Eyez Only serves as his fourth consecutive No. 1 album following 2011’s Cole World, 2013’s Born Sinner and 2014’s Forest Hills Drive. Sticking with tradition Your Eyez Only contains zero features with Cole owning every writing credit.
 
Depeche Mode – Where’s The Revolution (Remixes) 2×12” (Sony)
Double-12” containing eight remixes of the first single lifted from their recent album Spirit.

 

NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES

MAC DEMARCO – This Old Dog CD/LP/Colored LP/Cassette
SLOWDIVE – Self-Titled CD/LP/Colored LP
AT THE DRIVE IN – In.Ter. A.lia CD/LP
LITTLE DRAGON – Season High CD/LP
NICK CAVE + BAD SEEDS – Lovely Creatures CD/Deluxe CD/Deluxe Box/ LP
SWORD – Greetings From CD/LP
CHRIS STAPLETON – From A Room Vol 1 CD/LP
AFGHAN WHIGS – In Spades CD/LP
BIG WALNUTS YONDER – Self-Titled CD/LP (Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Greg Saunier (Deerfhoof), Nick Reinhart (Tera Melos))
BLACK LIPS – Satan’s Graffiti Or God’s Art CD/LP
BLONDIE – Pollinator CD/LP
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY – Best Troubador (Tribute to Merle Haggard) CD/LP
FLAMING LIPS – Onboard The International Spacerock CD
HEAD AND THE HEART – Stinson Beach Sessions CD
GRATEFUL DEAD – Cornell 5/8/77 CD
JOAN SHELLEY – Self-Titled CD/LP
LOGIC – Everybody CD/LP
TAJ MAHAL / KEB MO – Tajmo CD/LP
HOOPS – Routines CD/LP
JESU/SUN KIL MOON – 30 Seconds To The Decline Of Planet Earth CD
JUANA MOLINA – Halo CD/LP
JOHN MORELAND – Big Bad Luv CD/LP
NITE JEWEL – Real High CD/LP
OXBOW – Thin Black Duke CD/LP
AMANDA PALMER / EDWARD KA-SPEL – I Can Spin A Rainbow CD/LP
PERFUME GENIUS – No Shape CD/LP
CHRIS ROBINSON – Betty’s Self-Rising Southern Blends 3 CD/LP
SWANS – Great Annihilator CD/LP reissue
WOODEN WAND – Clipper Ship CD/LP
BROTHER ALI – All The Beauty In This Whole Life CD/LP
CARL CRAIG – Versus CD/LP
FOREST SWORDS – Compassion CD/LP
PENGUIN CAFE – Imperfect Sea CD/LP
TOSCA – Suzuki CD/LP
ALICE COLTRANE – World Spirituality CD/LP
DANGERDOOM – Mouse and The Mask: Official Metalface Version CD/3LP
OZOMATLI – Non-Stop Mexico To Jamaica CD/LP
DESCENDENTS – Everything Sucks 20th Anniversary LP
WHITE STRIPES – Get Behind Me Satan LP reissue
ARCA – S/t LP
BUG VS EARTH – Concrete Desert LP