This Week’s New Releases & Staff Picks – 11/3/17
STAFF PICKS
Kimber – Bibio
Lindsay – EERA
Dario – Bibio
Dominic – Survive
THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES
Anti-Flag – The American Fall CD/LP (Spinefarm)
“The politics of distraction influences people to lose focus on what makes a positive impact on their lives and the world,” the band explains. “It encourages people to make choices that are not in their best interest and reduces society’s ability to make progressive change. The American Fall is our rejection of this harmful distraction. At this crucial moment in history, we must focus on pushing past the status quo to create a better and more just world. ” [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Bibio – Phantom Brickworks CD/LP (Warp)
Deviating from the more pop-eschewing songwriting of his recent releases, Phantom Brickworks showcases Bibio’s immense talents as a musician. Appealing to diehard Bibio fans eager to see him stretch his artistic muscles, as well as fans of artists like Grouper, Olafur Arnalds, Basinski, Nils Frahm, Max Richter, and Johann Johannsson.
Blitzen Trapper – Wild And Reckless CD/LP (LKC Recordings)
Blitzen Trapper’s ninth studio album was born from the stage production that the band spent the better part of a year producing. The half musical, half rock-opera dealt with heroin abuse, desperation, true love and western power structures. The story evoked a bygone era of Portland with this sci-fi love story, featuring a rock ‘n’ roll score that paired unreleased songs with favorites from the band’s catalog.
Cannibal Corpse – Red Before Black CD/LP (Metal Blade)
Returning with their fourteenth full-length slab, Cannibal Corpse’s monstrous new album Red Before Black serves to not only reiterate this but to once more raise the stakes, making it very clear who sets the standard when it comes to always compelling music that is equally brutal and complex. Moreover, the band have pushed themselves again, ensuring that it stands out from their catalog. [Limited Edition red colored vinyl pressing also available.]
The ninth full-length from the Boston-based heavy-music innovators is both dark and hopeful, abrasive and melodic, devastating and powerfully cathartic.
Daphni – Joli Mai CD (Jiaolong)
Extended versions of the tracks Daphni (aka Caribou, aka Dan Snaith) included on his recent Fabriclive mix plus new track “Vulture.”
EERA is the moniker of the Norwegian-born, London-based musician Anna Lena Bruland. Her debut album, Reflection Of Youth, is an album of visceral beauty and blistering honesty. It is a brave, candid and uncompromising record about finding purpose from confusion and strength in your weaknesses. It’s about learning how to work through your problems and take charge of your own life, instead of relying on others to do it for you. Its ten songs were largely composed in the small hours of the night and are arguably best experienced in that context, when soul-searching and introspection come naturally. [Limited edition red colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Legendary Shack Shakers – After You’ve Gone CD (Last Chance)
The Legendary Shack Shakers, the band Stephen King described as “dynamite” and guitar legend Jeff Beck called “a cross between the Yard Birds and the Sex Pistols,” are back with a new album. With After You’ve Gone, the band channels their swampy rock-n-roll inside of a lo-fi car garage hidden somewhere deep in the underbelly of Atlanta Georgia, and far, far away from the glitz of Music City.
Sondre Lerche – Pleasure CD (Analog Spark)
“For more than a decade, Norwegian-turned-New-Yorker Sondre Lerche explored confessional singer/songwriter reveries, Burt Bacharach-tinted chamber pop and the kitchen-sink gamut of country/blues/psych-folk, much of it with a jazzy undertone. With 2014’s Please, Lerche channeled his inner David Byrne and fully connected with his long simmering love of ’80s synth pop and Brazilian samba on a set of songs that addressed the end of his marriage. Pleasure finds Lerche similarly searching for danceable solutions, once again setting his irresistibly twisted lyric pretzels (“I’ve got so much love to give/So many graves to dig” or “I’m always watching/Call it voyeurism or masochism, a coward’s distance”) to drum machinery, Saturday-night fever sweats and twitchy ‘80s Frankie/Duran2/Soft Cell moves. The beauty of Pleasure’s vintage danceteria lies in its sharp 21st-century focus and Lerche’s consistently reliable songwriting skills, which have proven adaptable to every genre in which he’s dabbled.” – Magnet [Vinyl edition due November 10.]
Four-time Grammy award-winning English singer/songwriter Sam Smith returns with his highly anticipated sophomore album. The Thrill Of It All finds Smith once again working alongside close friend and long-time collaborator Jimmy Napes plus Timbaland, Malay, Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd and Stargate. He also collaborates with the unsigned artist YEBBA on the song “No Peace.” Rolling Stone hailed the album’s first single “Too Good At Goodbyes” as “poignant” and TIME observed, “Cue the swelling violins, gospel chorus and Smith’s inevitable return to dominance.” Vulture said, “Crooning with his trademark soul, Smith packs an emotional punch with his lyrics…It’s been a long wait…but if the rest of his upcoming album is as moving as this new song, it has certainly been worth it.” [Limited Special Edition CD and double-LP featuring four extra tracks are also available.]
Cigarettes After Sex is an ambient pop group based out of Brooklyn, NY led by songwriter Greg Gonzalez. Includes the non-album B-side “Keep On Loving You”.
Nahko – My Name Is Bear LP (SideOneDummy)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Nahko’s (Medicine For The People) first solo album under his name. Spanning his formative years as an emerging artist travelling through the wild landscapes of Alaska, Hawaii and Louisiana, My Name Is Bear is a collection of deeply personal songs that tell the tales of Nahko’s awakening as an artist.
S U R V I V E – RR7387 Remix Record LP (Relapse)
Remixers include Lena Willikens, Not Waving, Sam Haar and Justin K Broadrick as JK FLESH. For fans of The Haxan Cloak, Zombi, Perturbator, John Carpenter and Trent Reznor.
NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES