New Releases & Staff Picks – 10/29/31
Staff Picks
Lindsay – Ashley Shadow and Nightmares on Wax
Dario – Ashley Shadow
Zach – Marissa Nadler and Ty Segall
Kimber – Khruangbin
Caleb – Marissa Nadler
The War On Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore CD/2xLP/Cassette (Atlantic)
The War On Drugs return with I Don’t Live Here Anymore, their first studio album in four years. Over the last 15 years, The War On Drugs has steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, removing the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, between the obtuse and the anthemic, making records that wrestle a fractured past into a unified and engrossing present. The War On Drugs have never done that as well as they do with this uncommon rock album about one of our most common but daunting processes – resilience in the face of despair. I Don’t Live Here Anymore is an expression of rock ‘n’ roll’s power to translate our own experience into songs we can share and words that direct our gaze toward the possibility of what is to come. [A limited-edition indie-exclusive blue vinyl pressing is available.]
Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color (Deluxe Edition) CD/2xLP (ATO)
Resisting any notion of a sophomore slump and putting to bed the “revivalist soul” label, Alabama Shakes returned in 2015 with a humdinger. Replete with moody vibes, intricate textures, atmospheric grooves, and confident playing, Sound & Color encompasses blues, psychedelia, R&B, and garage rock while ceding the floor to powerhouse singer Brittany Howard. Expanding on the soulful blues-rock base that made their name, they defy predictable expectations and map an exciting, surprising, and innovative new direction. The album’s twelve songs reveal a band honed by years on the road and drawing from a wide range of influences. This Deluxe Edition reissue features seven bonus tracks pulled from unreleased studio material, B-sides, and live songs cut at the world-renowned Capitol Records Studio A plus revised artwork and new photos. [A limited-edition red/black/pink vinyl pressing is also available.]
Ty Segall – Harmonizer CD/LP (Drag City)
For his first new album in two years, Ty glides smoothly into a new wild area via a synthtasm of production overhaul, rebooting guitar and keyboard tones ‘n’ zones. A seething, yet emotionally austere statement, Harmonizer slices through psychic cloud cover, enrapturing the ear with groove moves for the body, mind and soul.
Khruangbin – Mordechai Remixes 2xLP (Dead Oceans)
Entering the tight-knit world of a Khruangbin song can be a little daunting. They have created this entire universe in which the trio seem to function telepathically in the way the music is composed, arranged and played. To mess with their delicate eco-system can invoke feelings like that of an unwanted guest crashing a good-time party. “We write our music to be interpreted; this is another wonderful interpretation of the music”, reassure Khruangbin. There is something very vulnerable about letting others work on your music. But through the correspondence with the different artists, we gained a bigger connection to the songs themselves.
Tori Amos – Ocean To Ocean CD (Verve)
Despite the various crises that have occurred since 2017’s Native Invader, Tori Amos has emerged with Ocean To Ocean, her most personal work in years – an album bursting with warmth and connection, with deep roots in her earliest song writing. Written during the third lockdown in Cornwall in 2021, Ocean To Ocean is a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again. [Vinyl edition due January 28.]
Billy Bragg – The Million Things That Never Happened CD (Cooking Vinyl)
Billy Bragg returns with his tenth studio album, The Million Things That Never Happened. Featuring 12 soulful country rock gems, it’s not only the first pandemic blues album of our times but also a heartfelt paean to human resilience. All the songs were written by Bragg apart from the final song (“Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained”), which was co-written by Billy’s son Jack Valero. Says Billy on lead single “I Will Be Your Shield”: “To me this is the heart and soul of the album. I’ve concluded that empathy is the currency of music – that our job as songwriters is to help people come to terms with their feelings by offering them examples of how others may have dealt with a situation like that in which listeners find themselves. After what we’ve all been through, the idea of being a shield, physically, emotionally, psychologically, should resonate.” [A limited-edition indie-exclusive vinyl edition is due December 10.]
Hayes Carll – You Get It All CD/LP (Dualtone Music Group)
With folkie conscience, country simplicity, and a vagabond’s desire for mischief, Hayes Carll has spent over 20 years including anybody who will listen in an easy conversation about what it is we’re all doing here. “I like to tug at heartstrings, find commonality with others, reflect on my own life, and sometimes I do it in a lighthearted way,” says Carll while discussing his eighth album You Get It All. A lot of musical styles found their way onto this record, but my first and most formative influences came from country music. This is a country singer-songwriter record. It’s just unapologetically me.”
Sam Evian – Time To Melt CD/LP (Fat Possum)
Time To Melt reckons with the weight of our time, even when it sounds largely weightless. Following a brief decampment to upstate New York to create his last album, You, Forever, Sam realized he could no longer resist the urge to escape the anxious city life. He took himself out of the city to upstate New York, building their refuge and Sam’s studio, Flying Cloud Recordings, in the quiet of a Catskills town. That reflective, relaxing environment shaped Time To Melt, a glowing set of soulfully psychedelic pop gems and a testimonial to the life and wisdom to be found when you give yourself the mercy of space. [A limited-edition indie-exclusive vinyl pressing is available.]
Mastodon – Hushed And Grim 2xCD/2xLP (Reprise)
Mastodon return with their anxiously awaited ninth full-length album, Hushed And Grim. Over the past year, the metal mavericks recorded the album in their hometown of Atlanta, GA, collaborating with producer David Bottrill (Tool, Rush, Muse, Peter Gabriel) behind the board. As their most ambitious body of work to date, it consists of 15 tracks, surveying sonic landscapes of rock, psychedelia, punk, metal, alternative, and prog threaded together by the innately expressive musical interplay of these four musicians. At the same time, an atmosphere of loss, loneliness, and longing permeates through the trio of cathartic vocals as they musically say goodbye to old friend, confidant, and longtime manager the late Nick John by architecting a magnum opus that bears the influence of his eternal memory. [Free Mastodon slipmat w/purchase, and a limited-edition indie-exclusive vinyl pressing are available.]
Mouse Rat – The Awesome Album LP (Dualtone Music Group)
Recently released on CD – now available on orange color vinyl. For years, fans have been eagerly waiting for the release of The Awesome Album by Pawnee, Indiana rock band Mouse Rat. The band is fronted by Parks And Recreation Shoeshine Department employee Andy Dwyer, who has led many local acts through the years such as Angelsnack, Everything Rhymes With Orange, Department Of Homeland Obscurity, Just The Tip and Scarecrow Boat, among others. The hits are all here: “5,000 Candles In The Wind”, “The Pit”, “Two Birds Holding Hands”, “Catch Your Dream (feat. Duke Silver)” and two additional tracks by the Scott Tanner-fronted band Land Ho!.
Nightmares On Wax – Shoutout! To Freedom CD/2xLP+MP3 (Warp)
The new release from George Evelyn aka Nightmares On Wax, Shout Out! To Freedom oscillates between electronica, jazz, hip-hop and contemporary styles. The album contains a wealth of guest features, with contributions by Greentea Peng, Shabaka Hutchings, OSHUN and Haile Supreme. Although nine albums into his career, Evelyn considers this album to be the first time he has truly found his sound. [A limited-edition blue color vinyl pressing is available.]
Minus The Bear – Farewell 3xLP (Suicide Squeeze)
Super limited, Grey color vinyl pressing. Farewell covers a lot of ground across the span of its 26 songs and two-hour run time. Yet every moment is a reminder of why Minus the Bear was such an experiential live band. They were always pushing forward, evolving their sound, and adding new ways to balance brainy musicianship, pop worship, meditative sentimentality, and adrenalized fervor into their own signature concoction. Further bolstered by the mix of Matt Bayles and master job by Ed Brooks at Resonant Mastering, the album sounds like a fully immersive live experience.
Deadbolt – Shrunken Head LP (Pig Baby)
Deadbolt’s debut! The 1993 cult classic Shrunken Head. Remastered with liner notes.
Motorhead – Everything Louder Forever – The Very Best Of LP (BMG)
Motörhead are the true embodiment of rock n’roll excess. A hybrid of rock, punk and heavy metal played with relentless, ear-curdling power. They were a force of nature and nothing short of life-changing for millions and their approach to life and music; there was no “off” switch and they became legends as a result. Fronted for their entirety of their career by Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister, they released twenty two studio albums over their 40 years together. This is the definitive collection of their loudest songs ever and is the first to span their entire career. This gatefold 2LP edition contains twenty two songs including : Ace Of Spades, Killed By Death, Overkill, Orgasmatron, Bomber, The Game and many more.
Monolord – Your Time To Shine LP (Relapse)
Swedish power trio Monolord return with their highly anticipated new album, Your Time to Shine. Recorded by drummer Esben Willems at Studio Berserk, Your Time to Shine sees the trio looking inward, cultivating the elements that take their monstrous, heavy riffing to new heights with a darker edge. A five-track journey that spans across crushing doom rock to more spacey, groove laden opuses, Your Time to Shine is Monolord at their most unfiltered and focused.
Cannibal Corpose – Butchered At Birth LP (Metal Blade)
Limited clear colored vinyl LP pressing. Butchered At Birth is the controversial second album by Cannibal Corpse, originally issued in July of 1991 and banned in Germany and other countries due to its violent artwork. In fact, the first pressing of the compact disc was wrapped in white butcher paper stamped with the band logo and featured the album’s title in blood red ink. The cult favorite debuted the death metal sound which would become the band’s trademark with grotesque numbers like “Meat Hook Sodomy,” “Under the Rotted Flesh,” “Covered with Sores,” “and “Rancid Amputation.”
Type O Negative – October Rust LP Reissue (Rhino)
October Rust is the band’s fourth studio album, released on August 20, 1996. The album has more ballads and less of the doom metal sound of previous and subsequent Type O albums. It also features a heavy cover version of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.” It is the first of the band’s albums to include a “joke intro”-in this case, “Bad Ground, ” which is 38 seconds of low-level buzzing, meant to sound as if the listener’s speakers are incorrectly set up. The second and fifteenth tracks are humorous untitled spoken word intros and outros to the album, respectively, with the band downplaying the recording of the album. Another technique employed on the album is the heavy use of abrupt endings and segues to a few of the songs, heard on the tracks “Green Man, ” “Red Water, ” and “Haunted.”
Jon Hopkins – Opalescent LP reissue (Just Music)
Remastered version of the extraordinary debut album, Opalescent, from Mercury Music Prize and Ivor Novello award nominated artist Jon Hopkins. The album uniquely combines the light with the dark, the beautiful with the mysterious, in a glorious atmosphere where the worlds of trip hop beats and chill out are made Jon’s own personal domain. Sometimes eerie, sometimes majestic, but always profoundly musical.
Dave Chappelle – 8:46 LP (Third Man)
Third Man Records is proud to release a vinyl pressing of Dave Chappelle’s viral video, 8:46. The video was YouTube’s top trending video of 2020 with over 30 million views on the official post and 7.5 million views on Chappelle’s Instagram. The video and subsequent album is a searing rumination in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd that ignited worldwide outrage and led to protests on race inequality, police brutality and the criminal justice system. Filmed in Ohio on June 6, during the COVID-19 lockdown, 8:46 addresses one deadly plague, while in the grips of another. The B-side of the album features poet Amir Sulaiman’s performance of “My Insides Out” and “We Must Win”, also recorded in Ohio. It also includes “White Noise”, 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence in remembrance of George Floyd and the countless victims of police brutality and systemic racism. The album cover and artwork features performance, backstage photos from Chappelle’s concert as well as images from various George Floyd protests in Los Angeles, CA, all taken by Grammy-nominated artist and photographer Mathieu Bitton.
Phish – Joy [Reissue/2004] 2xLP (ATO)
Joy is the fourth studio album from Phish, praised by critics upon its release in 2004. Rolling Stone called it “a deeper trip than most Phish LPs” in their four-star review. This ‘Growing Brighter’ edition of Joy is pressed on a tri-color mix of vinyl (red, purple and blue).
Marissa Nadler – The Path Of The Clouds CD/LP (Sacred Bones)
The Path Of The Clouds, Marissa Nadler’s ninth solo album, is the most stylistically adventurous, lyrically transfixing, and melodically sophisticated collection of songs in her already rich discography. Gripped by wanderlust while suddenly housebound at the start of the pandemic in 2020, Nadler escaped into writing, and came back with a stunning set of songs about metamorphosis, love, mysticism, and murder. Blurring the line between reality and fantasy and moving freely between past and present, these 11 deeply personal, self-produced songs find Nadler exploring new landscapes, both sonic and emotional. [A limited-edition silver color vinyl pressing is also available.]
R.E.M. – New Adventures in Hi-Fi: 25th Anniversary Edition 2xCD/2xLP (Craft Recordings)
First released in September 1996, New Adventures In Hi-Fi endures as one of R.E.M.’s most acclaimed albums and stands as a favorite among band members and fans alike. Recorded at the height of their fame, it is R.E.M.’s final album with drummer and founding member Bill Berry, who left the group amicably the following year. Perhaps most remarkable, however, is that New Adventures in Hi-Fi found the band taking a unique creative approach: writing and recording much of the LP on the road, during their 1995 Monster tour. While writing new material on the road wasn’t an unusual feat for R.E.M., New Adventures was unlike anything they had done before. As they embarked on tour, the band sought to create an abstract travelogue documenting every emotion and experience as it happened. [The double-CD edition features 13 B-sides and rarities.]
Come – Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: Expanded Edition 2xLP (Fire)
In 1994 Come responded to the difficult-second-album stereotype with the hypnotic, intense and emotional masterpiece Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Featuring the original line-up of Thalia Zedek, Chris Brokaw, Sean O’ Brien and Arthur Johnson, the Boston band broadened their sound by slowing down the tempos and creating a dense urban stream of consciousness that mixes noise, city blues and catharsis. The album hits you immediately as one of the greatest dissident records ever made. Lovingly remastered, this expanded edition includes Wrong Sides, an additional album’s worth of B-sides and unreleased tracks, including the band’s very first single “Car” and their last recorded song, “Cimarron”, featuring this core line-up. These gems showcase the rawness and incredible growth of a band completely in command of their songwriting and at the same time paying homage to some of their punk roots with beautiful renditions of Swell Maps “Loin Of The Surf” and X’s “Adult Books”. Also includes new artwork with unearthed photos and fresh liner notes by the band.
Dawes – North Hills [Reissue/2009] 2xLP (ATO)
Double translucent red color vinyl pressing. North Hills, the debut album from Dawes, was released in the summer of 2009. The band hit the road for nearly three years of non-stop touring. Rolling Stone declared them “The most promising purveyors of new-school country folk.” Years later, after performing alongside Jackson Browne, and backing up Robbie Robertson, that promise has proved true and the album – featuring hits like “When My Time Comes” – sounds as fresh as ever.
Deadbolt – Shrunken Head [Reissue/1993] LP (Pig Baby)
The creepy surf rock band’s 1993 debut – the cult classic Shrunken Head – remastered with liner notes.
The Felice Brothers – From Dreams To Dust 2xLP+MP3 (Yep Roc)
Double red and cream-colored vinyl pressing. Includes bonus tracks. From Dreams To Dust, the latest studio album by The Felice Brothers was recorded in the fall of 2020 in an old one room church in Harlemville, NY. Produced by The Felice Brothers and mixed by Mike Mogis, the record ranges over a variety of topics and themes, including isolation, the world of dreams and delusions, environmental collapse, and the inward and outward chaos of modern life.
The Record Company – Play Loud LP (Concord)
Indie store exclusive color vinyl pressing w/ poster. The Record Company has outgrown the home recording of previous records and enlisted Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Sardy (Fall Out Boy, A Perfect Circle, Modest Mouse) to work with them on their third studio album, Play Loud. It also finds the band collaborating with outside songwriters for the first time ever, including Kevin Griffin and Sam Hollander on single “How High”. The result is a sonic growth both in music and in songwriting, highlighting an ever-evolving band bringing rock back to the masses. On Play Loud, the group stretches out artistically and explores their far-flung influences.
Ashley Shadow – Only The End LP (Felte)
Blue & orange swirl color vinyl. Ashley Shadow winks at darkness, but she won’t lead you towards it. It’s easy to fall under the spell of her haunting voice, which you recall as one of the singers of Pink Mountaintops and Lightning Dust. The Vancouver, B.C. based songwriter forged her own identity as a songwriter with 2016’s eponymous self-titled debut. Her sophomore effort, Only The End, maintains the moody introspection that is ingrained in Pacific Northwest life, but now comes armed with a palpable hope complementing her signature melancholy.
We Are Scientists – Huffy LP (Masterworks)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Jet-skis ripping across a jewel-green bay. Piña Coladas on ice, shredded in the blender. An alligator drops into a sick-ass guitar solo, then takes the last chorus up a notch with an unusual harmony you simply didn’t see coming. This is Huffy, the brand-new studio album from We Are Scientists. Ten tracks recorded and produced by the band, and mixed by ear-athlete Claudius Mittendorfer, in a package that only you can complete.