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Here’s a list of major new releases from the week of January 14th of 2022.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.

– List of Releases from January 14th, 2022 –

aetherius

Aethereus: Leiden

Genre: Technical Death Metal
Label: The Artisan Era

anna
Anna von Hausswolff: Live at Montreux Jazz Festival

Genre: Classical, Experimental
Label: Southern Lord Records

blood red shoes
Blood Red Shoes: Ghosts On Tape

Genre: Garage Rock, Alt
Label: Jazz Life

bonobo
Bonobo: Fragments

Genre: Electronica
Label: Ninja Tune

old dead young
Broken Social Scene: Old Dead Young

Genre:  Ambient, Indie, Instrumental
Label: Independent

cat power
Cat Power: Covers

Genre: Singer Songwriter
Label: Domino Records

440648-pilot
Chavi Leons: Pilot

Genre: 
Label: 

cordae
Cordae: From a Bird’s Eye View

Genre: Rap
Label:  Hi-Level Records

descent
Descent: Order Of Chaos

Genre: Death Metal/ Grind
Label: Redefining Darkness Records

Earl-Sweatshirt-SICK-1641584520-870x870
Earl Sweatshirt: Sick!

Genre: Rap/ Hip Hop
Label: Warner

boy named if
Elvis Costello & the Imposters: The Boy Named If

Genre: Rock n’ Roll
Label: EMI RECORDS

the chosen
Enterprise Earth: The Chosen

Genre: Death Metal / Core
Label: eOne

ereb altor
Ereb Altor: Vargtimman

Genre: Pagan/Viking Metal
Label: Hammerheart Records

are we gonna be alright
Fickle Friends: Are We Gonna


50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation

50. Lord Huron – Long Lost

50 Lord Huron
[Official site] // [Spotify]

Although Lord Huron have been of note in indie folk circles for a while, the group’s fourth LP Long Lost really sees them come into their own. While still treading indie folk/Americana waters, here the band have moved into a much more lush sonic direction (think Honey Harper with a tinge of Ruston Kelly), while also leaning into classic country influences. While the country aspects of this record can feel like pastiche, they work, especially as it’s pretty clear that Lord Huron mastermind Ben Schneider is self-aware enough to understand he’s not Waylon Jennings. For listeners who, like most of my music-loving friends and I, are enthralled by forlorn old songs drenched in bourbon and steel guitar, this album is a godsend. Before the sunset haze of a lengthy ambient drone closer brings us home, Long Lost leaves us with the repeated mantra, “What does it mean if it all means nothing?” — a line that ultimately isn’t just a reflection on familiar tropes of long lost love and hard-drinking wandering songsmiths. More than anything, it’s a reminder that simple words can capture elusive and quite deep concepts. Now that’s a true country music tradition! –Sunnyvale

49. Porter Robinson – Nurture

49 Porter Robinson
[Official site] // [Spotify]

Have no fear, ladies and gentlemen:


ind

When you look at industrial as a genre, I don’t think it has an equal in terms of just how broad, vague and elusive it can be.  On the one hand, the sounds pertaining to industrial are tangible, distinct, and inimitable; on the other hand, the genre has fragmented and infected so many other styles of music over the years, it gets to the point now where you wonder what prerequisites are required to even make an “authentic” industrial record anymore – if there is such a thing. I recently gave Skinny Puppy’s magnum opus Last Rights a spin; the jam had such a lasting felicity, it made me want to go through some of my favourite industrial albums again. After all, as some of you may well know, the genre is somewhat of a staple of mine, albeit one I tend to overlook these days – which is a shame, because in recent years, incidental or otherwise, industrial has been getting a resurgence that’s creeping back into the stratosphere (mainstream or otherwise) again. Bands and artists from all walks of life are implementing industrial’s cold, sterile drum snaps and dystopian electronic backdrops into their own styles of music – styles of music as far-reaching as pop, or the deepest crevasses of metal’s underbelly. So, if you’re new to this genre and you want some of my essential recommendations (for whatever they’re worth), grab a coffee and dive into the disparate world of industrial with the Doctor.…


Hello and welcome back to our ongoing sexification of Staff past and present and hopefully present-and-future by way of deep-diving casual-reading power-lifting interview posi-sharking antics: Sputnik’s very own Meet the Spartans. Steel yourself as impossible questions are posed and the Staffers you wish you’d had the courage or attention span to acknowledge surpass your wildest expectations.

Today we embrace the softest boi of all the bois. He is wonderful, we all love him, and I am now going to think deep thoughts about hugging him instead of beefcaking up an uncomely introduction. Pleae make some candid noises of appreciation for… BlushfulHippocrene! 

Hello! 

 Salam.

 Who are you, and why does your name begin with Blushful

John Keats - WikipediaMy username, BlushfulHippocrene, is a Keats reference (from ‘Ode to a Nightingale’: ‘O for a beaker full of the warm South, / Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene’). Pretty embarrassing, but aptly so I guess. I don’t remember what my thinking was; but I’d been studying Keats in high school literature, I probably thought the phrase was interesting, I forgot the p/w to my old account, I was dying of boredom in Pakistan, and I wanted to 5.0 a Bon Iver album. Hence, the first thing I could come up with: BlushfulHippocrene. I’m glad people started calling me Blush; I wince when I have to read the full thing. 

You’re one of the most floaty huggable chillpeople on the interspace. I love this, but I also love bursting balloons: what’s something unexpected that makes you lose your cool,


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Here’s a list of major new releases from January 1st to January 13th of 2022.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.

– List of Releases: From January 1st to January 13th, 2022 –

a0538118235_16

Apes: Lullabies For Eternal Sleep [EP]

Genre: Black Metal / Grindcore
Label: Self released

4040357-2774675

Dark Millennium: Acid River

Genre: Death Metal / Doom
Label: Schoolkids Records

DeafClub-ProductiveDisruptionLPDIGITAL_2000x

Deaf Club: Productive Disruption

Genre: Powerviolence / Post Hardcore
Label: Three One G

a3077078082_16

death’s dynamic shroud.wmv: ENDLESSメガタワー III

Genre: Experimental
Label: Ghost Diamond

a0985980151_16

Decoherence: More Is Different [EP]

Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal
Label: Self released

189831-dope-lemon-rose-pink-cadillac

Dope Lemon: Rose Pink Cadillac

Genre: Singer Songwriter / Folk Rock
Label: BMG Ariola

a3348577266_16

Fragments of Lost Memories: Divagate

Genre: Funeral Doom
Label: Self released

a1612039008_16

Ghost Creek: II

Genre: Funeral Doom
Label: Self released

image-1-17

Imperio: Su Mágico Elixir

Genre: AOR
Label: Self released

a3487054789_16

Infected Rain: Ecdysis

Genre: Metalcore
Label: Napalm

a1641150101_16

Kalmankantaja: Metsäuhri

Genre: Atmospheric…


2021 GIF - 2021 - Discover & Share GIFs

2021:  Q1   |   Q2  |   Q3   |   Q4 2022  |  2020

One hundred and thirty nine songs. Eleven hours. That’s what we’ve poured into our collective playlist this year, as we continue compiling what will hopefully be an infinitely growing resource for registered users and general readership alike. All songs have been hand-selected by individual members of our staff, and the final product represents a melting pot of musical tastes covering a diverse range of genres. No matter your personal preferences, there should be more than something for everyone.  Who knows, you might even find yourself dabbling in genres that you’ve never considered approaching before! That’s part of the magic of this place. We’re unpaid, unbought music critics who play for the love of the game.

Everything you’ll hear below meant something to us at one time, and every word you’ll read in the blurbs (see our quarterly installments, linked above) was a labor of pure passion. As we put a lid on 2021 and look ahead to 2022, we hope you’ll join us in revisiting some of our favorite tunes from this year. Feel free to shuffle the below tracks for more of an even-flowing experience, or play it in order for a chronological/retrospective journey through 2021.

Protip: Spotify’s embedded playlist only shows the first 100 songs of our expansive 139 song collection. To hear…


Not long ago most of us death-nerds found ourselves listening to the new Obscura record. ‘A Valediction’ came out in a particularly busy release week alongside other names such as Adele, Converge and Chelsea Wolfe, Exodus, Swallow The Sun, Pathology and many others. Naturally I thought we’d make the band’s release week just a little busier and singled out Obscura personality, head-honcho and guitarist, Steffen Kummerer.

Here’s how it went.

Hello, Steffen, and welcome to the obscure reaches of the internet we like to call Sputnikmusic[dot]com. We’re home to a myriad of peoples and argue constantly over which albums are the best of their respective years — sometimes we even agree. Maybe you’ve heard of the site before?

There is nothing better than arguing about which band, album or song might be better than anything else with people you don’t even know. Yes, I am aware of the page and especially the well-written reviews on Sputnikmusic.

While the site looks like it hasn’t crawled out of the early-to-mid 2000s we at least try to keep up with as much modern music as we can get our fingertips to. Some of us feel quite spoiled with the quality of music being released during 2021. Are there any releases that have tickled your fancy this year?

Every year, new great albums see the light of day. In 2021, Hypocrisy, Nestor, Unanimated, Archspire, Lucifer and many more released new records I listen to constantly. A while…


50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1

10. The Killers – Pressure Machine

The-
[Official site] // [Spotify]

How did we get here, to The Killers dropping one of the most conceptually sound, consistently affecting albums of 2021? If the solid-but-safe Imploding the Mirage was a whisper of a shift in their sound towards a revitalised version of their classic-rock worship, Pressure Machine is a whole fucking sea change, a tidal wave reshaping the entire geometry and geography of The Killers’ landscape.

God only knows what Brandon Flowers has been through in the intervening years. It’s hard to believe the man whose lyrics seemed like they were written with fridge magnets is the same one sculpting the journey of Pressure Machine. With a semi-self-aware Springsteenian eye for detail, he shifts his focus to the imperfect lives of damaged people in a small town that resembles the one he was born in, a gambit that pays off in the form of a portrait that will be achingly recognisable to anyone from a similar place. The album wanders along discursive paths, touching on the glamourisation and demonisation of teenage beauty (“the chute opens, bull draws blood, and the gift is accepted by God”), the opioid crisis (anyone who thinks Flowers narrates this album from a remove missed the righteous anger that creeps into his voice singing “somebody’s been keeping secrets, in this quiet town”) and the sacrifice it takes to simply get up day…


50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1

30. Alora Crucible – Thymiamatascension

a1429536591_10
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]

Toby Driver is still the most reliable Renaissance man of our times, and his latest project a majestic netherscape of translucent haze and dreamless sleep. In many ways, it’s been a while coming: while Driver’s albums as Kayo Dot play out as vivid forays into esoteric fantasies, there’s something out of time and almost ritualistic in his sparser solo outings. They Are The Shield is an obvious touchstone, but his rather overlooked dance piece Ichneumonidae sums up the quality in question, too: something graceful and expansive unto itself, but so clearly estranged from familiar reality that it carries a distinct sense of claustrophobia. It’s cleansing and alienating in equal measure, “ritualistic” in steady rate at which it metes out demands and dividends for a patient listener, and eerily beautiful and meticulously detailed each step of the way. As far as Sounds go, that ain’t too shabby a foundation.

Alora Crucible does a marvellous job of taking the most palatable side of this atmosphere along with Driver’s exemplary solo violin arrangements, transposing both over a delicately synth-padded, dryly guitared new age palette. Primarily instrumental and never more than understated, its composition retains obvious depth, but the subdued (and quite lovely!) tones of Driver’s chamber arrangements together with his serene dynamics make for the closest thing to easy listening he’s put his name to. Don’t get hung up…


50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1

50. Coevality – Multiple Personalities

fasf
[Official site] // [Spotify]

Multiple Personalities — and, well, Coevality in general — came out of nowhere and hit me like a ton of bricks at the beginning of the year. The first release of an otherwise unknown band, Multiple Personalities harnesses big Cynic energy sans robot vocals and with more of the wandering cosmic spirit you see in the album’s artwork. A wholly instrumental experience curated and performed by only the trio comprising Coevality — guitarist Jon Reicher, bassist Derrick Elliott, and drummer Andy Prado — all of whom move boulders in terraforming a composite prog landscape on Multiple Personalities.

While that’s feat enough on its own, it really is worth hammering home just how tactfully interwoven and interlaced Multiple Personalities is without becoming an immemorable headache. In fact, it’s quite the opposite — with theme and melody always blazing the trail and making it a memorable journey that’s easy to recall and revisit. And with so many exciting variations strung along in each piece of the composition, there’s always something new and interesting to uncover on each return trip as the unconscious mind follows the familiar and the conscious digs into sidewinding paths of fretless bass, frenetic drumming, and fascinating guitar. –AtomicWaste

49. CHVRCHES – Screen Violence

asfa
[Official site] // [Spotify]

Screen Violence is too damn…


Hello and welcome back to our ongoing sexification of Staff past and present and hopefully present-and-future by way of deep-diving casual-reading power-lifting interview posi-sharking antics: Sputnik’s very own Meet the Spartans. Steel yourself as impossible questions are posed and the Staffers you wish you’d had the courage or attention span to acknowledge surpass your wildest expectations.

Today we welcome the most expensive cocoa in the Staff chocolate cupboard. He is a gentlemen among warthogs. He prances heavenwards while the rest of us wipe our noses with our unpaid utility bills. He knows how to write, he’s the essence of charm and dignity when on duty, and he’s too nice to do much more than ignore the hell out of your sorry arse if you’re not up to standard. Believe you me, that’s the treatment most of us deserve and (oh fuckin’ yes) receive. Give it up for the one, the only… Pon! 

Image

Pon. Hi.

Henlo!

What is your alignment?

Based on others’ assessments of me I’m either lawful or chaotic neutral. So I guess I’m completely self-serving and my methods depend on the situation.

Why are you named after a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song?Stream Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Ponponpon [cover] by nathfin | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

“Pone” gave way to “Pön”, which resulted in an attempt to have my Sput name changed to the latter. Regrettably, because Sput’s code is as old as the internet itself, the accented character broke the site…


Hello and welcome back to our ongoing sexification of Staff past and present and hopefully present-and-future by way of deep-diving casual-reading power-lifting interview posi-sharking, Sputnik’s very own Meet the Spartans. Steel yourself as impossible questions are posed and the Staffers you wish you’d had the courage or attention span to acknowledge surpass your wildest expectations.

Today’s hot bod in the hot seat is a dreamer of dreams, an upside-down-er of opportunities, a cipher of ciphers, an animal for unexpected hype, and an unmasker of hidden faces in places you never knew faces were to be found. He has facets also. Please give it up for: Winesburgohio! 

Who the hell are you?

wines

I feel like this should clear things up. Otherwise! Eyes: Poo-brown. Hair: Balding remains of once leonine and voluptuous locks :O. Sex: if you insist! etc.

How did you originally arrive on this website, and what convinced you to stick around?

O.K. bear with me: I must have stumbled on this website in my teen years – surely one couldn’t have loved Circle Takes the Square and Kayo Dot in the ‘00s and not have cursorily browsed spitnuk at least once – but I was actually put onto it by Zach Savage, a man who I have never met and will never meet. I friended him on facebook because we were the only two people who had the wit to add “allocating resources” to our “likes”; he recommended sput and the rest was history! I’ve formed really strong friendships with


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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of December 17th, 2021 through to the end of the year (31st, December).  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors. This will be the staff’s last report on upcoming releases for the year. Fear not! We’ll be back early 2022.

athena

Age Of Athena: Gate to Oblivion

Genre: Symphonic Metal
Label: Self-released

agnes vein

Agnes Vein: Deathcall

Genre: Black Metal / Doom / Post Metal
Label: Venerate Industries

behemoth

Behemoth: In Absentia Dei (LIVE)

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

sun

Charnel Altar: Abatement of the Sun

Genre: Death Metal / Thrash Metal
Label: Blood Harvest Records

che noir

Che Noir: Food For Thought

Genre: Hip Hop
Label: TRUST

follow the scras

Decerebration: Follow the Scars

Genre: Death Metal
Label: Independent

candles

Diablery: Candles

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Saturnal Records

fireflies

Evadne: The Pale Light of Fireflies

Genre: Doom Metal / Death Metal

Label: Solitude Productions

memento mori

Feuerschwanz: Memento Mori

Genre: Folk Metal
Label: Napalm Records

fokis

Fokis: Seasons Change, People Too: The Experiment

Genre: Hip Hop
Label: Loyalty Digital Corp.

funeral mist

Funeral


Hiya. johnnyoftheWell here. A couple of weeks ago I found myself hospitalised, in severe pain and a 50/50 mix of unable and unwilling to listen to music. It sucked.

Here’s a Digbox about how I got out of that.

So, uh, welcome to a special edition of the Digbox. This is a little unorthodox and perhaps closer to straightforward diarism than anything I’d usually allow to be published about music under my name, but there are circumstances and pressures and maybe even a story behind it. So there: get your shovel.

Around mid-November I picked up inflammation under my wisdom tooth, which proceeded to turn into an abscess. I struggled through work and visited my dentist on the regular, but he didn’t pick up that my increasingly debilitated state pointed to an abscess until it was too late. Next thing I knew, the right side of my face was swollen to three times its usual size, my jaw was locked shut, and I was in a hospital bed with little to do but knuckle down and count the minutes between continuous rounds of painkillers and antibiotics. Up until the start date of this piece, I was only able to listen to music as a frayed-nerve distraction, which I stopped entirely once in hospital because I felt too washed out to process anything and the inflammation had spread to one of my ears anyway. So much for that end-of-year cram.

Fortunately, and I guess inevitably,


Hello and welcome back to our ongoing sexification of current (and past) Staff by way of deep-diving casual-reading interview razzle, Sputnik’s very own Meet the Spartans. Allow your jaw to drop as impossible questions are posed and the Staffers you never acknowledged surpass your wildest expectations.

Today’s willing participant missed the Pokemon hype train, but is more than happy to help, guide or just speak to anyone that wants to do so… oh and has also found the time to write 594 reviews (So Far). Please welcome Sputnik Music’s nicest moderator, SowingSeason — in we go!

SowingSeason

SowingSeason: Ready to Bare his Soul

—————————————————————————————-

Good day, Mr. Sowing. How is your day?

It’s good! I’m settled in with a coffee and ready to bare my soul to sputnikmusic.com.

Nice, nice. What Pokemon would you be if you were a…Pokemon?

This may be heresy to some people, but I totally missed the Pokemon hype train. I remember it being huge when I was a kid – my friends all had Pokemon cards – but for whatever reason I simply didn’t care. Pikachu, I guess? That response is sort of “by default” because it’s the only one I know off the top of my head (thanks Mario Smash Bros.!)

74023495

[response lol!] And yet, you are not a Pokemon, you are a Moderator! Disregarding the vast amount of largely unseen administrative work that this role entails for one moment, could you comment on the following community


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