The irony that I’d given up on ever hearing anything new from a band named “So Long Forgotten” is not lost on me. The band’s last full-length release was issued in 2009 – nearly 7 years ago. Now, nearly 3 years after launching a kickstarter to fund their latest efforts, there will finally be a new So Long Forgotten EP in April of this year.
And from the sounds of “Marahute” – the album’s first single – I’m quite excited for it. The song shows the post-rock meets post-hardcore band maturing their songwriting to a new boiling point that builds on the emotional and introspective sounds and thoughts of their debut. But while Beneath Our Noble Heads was unabashedly Christian in its philosophy, “Marahute” is intriguingly full of doubt, openly questioning the existence and purpose of a literal Hell and negative implications on those we love.
What else can I say? There’s plenty of driving melodies and tasty grooves here and I’m simply a sucker for sincere, well-delivered emotion painted with a hard-edged post-rock sound. It’s really just damn good to hear So Long Forgotten back at it again.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 4, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. In addition, you may notice more “track of the day” posts on this site, a feature that we hope to maintain with some level of consistency in the future. If you have a track you would like to see covered, let us know in the comments below.
Atrament – Eternal Downfall (Argento Records)
Baklava – Dane On (Grimoire Records)
The Big Pink – Empire Underground (B3SCI Records)
Big Ups – Before a Million Universes (Exploding In Sound Records)
Casket Robbery – Evolution of Evil (Mortal Music) Circle of Dust – Circle of Dust [Remastered] (FiXT) — Trey Spencer
Coppersky – If We’re Losing Everything (Uncle M Music)
The Coral – Distance Inbetween (Ignition Records Ltd)
Cub Sport – This Is Our Vice (Nettwek Productions Ltd)
Dead Procession – Rituais e Mantras do Medo (Labyrinth Productions)
Dead Stars – Bright Colors (Weird Tree Records)
Esperanza Spalding – Emily’s D+Evolution (Concord Music Group Inc)
Face to Face – Protection (Fat Wreck Cords)
Gadget – The Great Destroyer (Relapse Records Inc)
Guerilla Toss – Eraser Stargazer (DFA LLC)
Heel – The Parts We Save (No Label)
Hero The Band – Bleach (Nova Love Records) Inverloch – Distance Collapsed (Relapse Records…
It’s the year 2016, and everyone knows of M83. With their breakthrough record having come in 2008 with Saturdays=Youth, it has seemingly been nothing but constant ascension for this bunch, culminating in the massive double record Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. For the first time since 2011, we’re faced with an upcoming full-length album from the indie/electronic stars entitled Junk. Even though the album art is the stuff nightmares are made of, the lead single off the LP, “Do It, Try It”, is confirmation that Junk will be anything but. Exploding with sonic energy, the track bubbles with upbeat pianos/keyboards, soars atop massive synths, and features one of the most irresistible hooks of the year so far. Sure it’s weird, and it’s not the same M83 that gave us chills on “Wait”, but it’s fun – and a welcome change even if it ends up being a one time indulgence. For a band that seems limitless in their capabilities, why not splash a little color on the walls?
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 26, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Anthrax – For All Kings (Megaforce Records) — Trey Spencer
Anvil – Anvil Is Anvil(Steamhammer)
Black Cobra – Imperium Simulacra(Season of Mist)
Bombus – Repeat Until Death(Century Media Records Ltd)
Bonnie Raitt – Dig In Deep (Redwing Records)
Centerfold – MOTHXR (Washington Square Music)
Colours – Ivory (Victory Records)
Conny Ochs – Future Fables (Exile On Mainstream Records)
Death Index – Death Index (Deathwish Inc)
Deathless Legacy – The Gathering (Scarlet Records)
Devotion – Words and Crystals (Pavement Entertainment)
Divine Realm – Tectum Argenti (Divine Realm)
DMA’s – Hill’s End (Mom + Pop)
Droids Attack – Sci-Fi or Die (Riff Reaper Records)
Entombed A.D. – Dead Dawn (Versity Rights)
Folteraar – Vertellingen van een donkere eeuw (Iron Bonehead Productions)
Frokedal – Hold on Dreamer (Propeller Recordings)
From Ashes to New – Day One (Better Noise Records) Fuzzy Vox – No Landing Plan (Self-Released) — Raul Stanciu
Ghost Horizon – Astral Possession (Ghost Horizon)
Greenleaf – Rise Above The Meadow (Napalm Records Handels GmbH)
Headspace – All That You Fear is Gone (Inside Out Music)
High Priest of Saturn – Son of Earth and Sky (Svart Records)
Holy Esque – At Hope’s Ravine (Beyond The Frequency)
Hopelezz – Sent to Destroy (Sonicscars Records)
IDestroy – Vanity Loves Me (IDestroy) …
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 19, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. Speaking of which, we would like to welcome our newest staff members and contributors on board! If you have not already heard, JohnnyOnTheSpot, Atari, and Jacquibim have joined our staff writing team, while TalonsOfFire, TheSpirit, GameOfMetal, DoofusWainwright, and Beachdude are settling into their new found roles as contributing reviewers. Congratulations on a job well done and we’re looking forward to what you will bring to the site in the future!
We also encourage all of our readers to check out last week’s interview between We Lost The Sea’s Matt Harvey and our very own Magnus Altkula. It’s a superbly executed piece, both by Magnus and by Matt. Without further ado, though, here is this week’s lineup:
Adept – Sleepless (Napalm Records)
After the Burial – Dig Deep (Sumerian Records)
Animal Collective – Painting With (Domino Recording Co) Antigone and Francois X – We Move As One (Dement3d) — Tristan Jones
Bentcousin – Bentcousin (Team Love Records)
Choir of Young Believers – Grasque (Ghostly International) Deep Sea Diver – Secrets (High Beam) — Irving Tan Delain – Lunar Prelude (Napalm Records) — Trey Spencer
Dinamo Azari – Estranged…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 12, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Adam Strangler – Ideas of Order (No Label/Independent)
AntropomorphiA – Necromantic Love Songs (Metal Blade Records)
Basia Bulat – Good Advice (Secret City Records Inc.)
Betty Black – Valley Low (KID Recordings LLC)
Black Wizard – New Waste (Listenable Records)
Daniel Ash – Stripped (Main Man Records)
The Erkonauts – I Did Something Bad (Kaotoxin)
Exec – The Limber Real (Tambourhinoceros)
Flummox – Selcouth (Tridroid Records)
For Sore Eyes – Nexus (Sliptrick Records)
The Frights – You Are Going To Hate This (Dangerbird Records) Gehennah – Too Loud to Live, Too Drunk to Die (Metal Blade Records)
Holy Grail – Times of Pride and Peril (Prosthetic Records) The Jezabels – Synthia (No Label/Independent) – SowingSeason Kanye West – The Life of Pablo (Def Jam Recordings) – Will Robinson
James Supercave – Better Strange (Fairfax Entertainment Group)
Lady Low – And They Say Romance Is Dead (No Label/Independent)
Lissie – My Wild West (Lionboy Records)
Lobo – Alma (Signal Rex)
Lost Society – Braindead (Nuclear Blast Records)
Low Flying Hawks – Kofuku (Magnetic Eye Records)
Magrudergrind – II (Relapse Records Inc.)
Manipulate – Becoming Madness EP (Flatspot Records)
Me and My Drummer – Love Is a Fridge (Sinnbus)
Michel Anoia – Plethora (Allende Records) Motorpsycho – Here Be Monsters (Stickman Records) – Raul…
There are a lot of different preferences and approaches when it comes to interviews, both when conducting the interview and when putting it all on paper. My approach is all about letting the artist speak their mind, and in as much detail as they wish. That’s also why my interviews tend to be on the long side, because I like to include as much original content as possible. And these long interviews, man are they fun to conduct (and a bitch to transcribe!). During the course of one, you can really connect with the person on the other side of the screen/phone, if that is your goal, and once you do, you get some really cool insights about a lot more than just the music, and that has always excited me personally – to learn more about the actual people behind the music that I like, because I can conceptualize the music itself on my own. Matt Harvey, the guitarist for Australian instrumental band We Lost The Sea, provided me exactly that. Not everything that Matt said here is of absolutely essential value when it comes to the band We Lost The Sea and their craft, and I’d wager he would agree with that statement, seeing as how we start out by discussing his memories of Tallinn and come full circle in the end as I get interested in the Australian party culture (note: it turns out that the most stereotypical Australian things according to the locals…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 5, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Amoral – In Sequence (Imperial Cassette)
Beacon – Escapements (Ghostly International)
Breakbot – Still Waters (Ed Banger Records)
Burnt Palms – Back On My Wall (We Were Never Being Boring)
The Cult – Hidden City (Cooking Vinyl Limited)
Degradead – Degradead (Flying Dolphin Entertainment)
DIIV – Is The Is Are (Captured Tracks)
Divinity – The Immortalist Part 2. Momentum (No Label/Independent)
Dr. Dog – The Psychedelic Swamp (ANTI-)
Drowning Pool – Hellelujuah (Entertainment One Music)
Elton John – Wonderful Crazy Night (Island Records) EVOL – Future (Epic Records)
Field Music – Commontime (Memphis Industries)
Fleshgod Apocalypse – King (Nuclear Blast)
Foxes – All I Need (Epic Records)
Francis – Marathon (Popup Records)
Frostbite – Etching Obscurity (Tmina Records)
Hey Marseilles – Hey Marseilles (Shanachie Ent. Corp.)
Jagged Leaves – Nightmare Afternoon (CTD)
Junior Boys – Big Black Coat (City Slang)
KING – We Are KING (KING Creative)
Lucinda Williams – The Ghosts Of Highway 20 (Highway 20 Records)
Majid Jordan – Majid Jordan (Warner Bros./OVO Sound)
Moomin – A Minor Thought (Smallville)
Nonkeen – The Gamble (R&S Records)
Obscura – Akróasis (Relapse Records)
Ocerco – A Desolação (Signal Rex)
Odyssey – Voids(Bandcamp)
Orchid – Sign Of The Witch (Nuclear Blast)
Porches – Pool (Domino)
Product of Hate – Buried In Violence (Napalm Records)
Prong – X – No Absolutes…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of January 29, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Aubrie Sellers – New City Blues (Aubrie Sellers Music)
Avantasia – Ghostlights (Nuclear Blast) Basement – Promise Everything (Run For Cover Records) — Dan H. Black Tusk – Pillars Of Ash (Relapse Records) Bloc Party – Hymns (Vagrant) Brothers In Law – Raise (WWNBB Collective) Bury Tomorrow – Earthbound (Nuclear Blast) Chthe’ilist – Le Dernier Crépuscule (Profound Lore) — Elijah K. Clan Nugent – Night Fiction (Woodsist Records) Conan – Revengeance (Napalm Records) — Raul Stanciu Dream Theater – The Astonishing (Roadrunner Records) Emily Wells – Promise (Lefse Records) Exumer – The Raging Tides (Metal Blade Records) Fall – The Insatiable Weakness (Self-Released) The Gathering – TG25: Live At Doornroosje (Napalm Records) Hexvessel – When We Are Death (Century Media Records) Kevin Gates – Islah (Bread Winners Association/Atlantic) Lionheart – Love Don’t Live Here (LHHC Records) Master – An Epiphany Of Hate (FDA Rekotz) Miranda Lee Richards – Echoes of the Dreamtime (Invisible Hands Records) Money – Suicide Songs (Bella Union) Nevermen – Nevermen (Ipecac Recordings) Nordic Union – Nordic Union (Frontiers Records) Pil & Bue – Forget The Past, Let’s Worry About the future (Name Music/Indie Recordings) Rihanna – Anti (Westbury Road Entertainment) Serenity – Codex…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of January 22, 2016. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Abbath – Abbath (Season of Mist) Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Arc (Bandcamp) The Besnard Lakes – A Coliseum Complex Museum (Jagjaguwar) Borknagar – Winter Thrice (Century Media) Brutality – Sea of Ignorance (Ceremonial) The Casualties – Chaos Sound (Season of Mist) Closet Fiends – Closet Fiends (Fat Wreck Chords) Conrad Keely – Original Machines (Superball Music) Eleanor Friedberger – New View (Frenchkiss Records) The I Don’t Cares – Wild Stab (Dry Wood Records) Jesu/Sun Kill Moon – Jesu/Sun Kill Moon (Caldo Verde Records) Half Japanese – Perfect (Joyful Noise Recordings) Latitudes – Old Sunlight (Thrill Jockey) The London Suede – Night Thoughts (WM UK) Lumisokea – Transmissions From Revarsavr (Opal Tapes) Megadeth – Dystopia (T-Boy Records) Mourning Beloveth – Rust & Bone (Van Records) The Mute Gods – Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me (Inside Out U.S.) NZCA Lines – Infinite Summer (Memphis Industries) Peace Killers – Peace Killers (Svart Records) Primal Fear – Rulebreaker (Frontiers Music srl) Savages – Adore Life (Matador) Seer – Vol. 1 & 2 (Art of Propaganda) Shearwater – Jet Plane And Oxbow (Sub Pop Records) Steven Wilson – 4 1/2 (KSCOPE) Tindersticks – The Waiting Room…
A little later than usual, here’s our Q4 mixtape for 2015, kicking off the new year with a pick of some of the best music released in the final three months of last year. Some of the below mentioned artists featured as part of our year-end staff and userfeatures, and the individual tracks can be heard below the track title or, if you’d prefer, most can be found on the Spotify playlist below. Featuring everything from the wandering post-punk of Cindy Lee to the proggy space jam of Yuri Gagarin to Reket at the forefront of Estonian rap, we hope you enjoy. –Dave
Cindy Lee – “Last Train’s Come And Gone” Act of Tenderness Listen if you like: Women, Viet Cong, Zola Jesus, Metal Machine Music
One of the great clichés in music criticism is to mark down a song by saying that it simply “doesn’t go anywhere”. Now, there is no apparent navigational sense to “Last Train’s Come and Gone”, one of the (many) standout tracks from former Women guitarist/singer Patrick Flegel’s eerie new album Act of Tenderness, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming one of the most profound songs I’ve heard this year. The number arrives subsumed within a thick syrupy murk, with Flegel casting off individual guitar notes that unfurl in the crushing gloom before slowly spinning off into the abyss; I’ve struggled to come up with a better description for it here but somehow the…
I’ve been mulling a review of David Bowie’s most recent album, Blackstar, which, if you’re reading this, no doubt you’ve realized was released mere days before his passing on January 10th. He died in peace, surrounded by family, so we’re told by his publicist. Could there be a better way to go for a man who made himself so private? For all his fame and public adoration, Bowie died simply, in the company of family. It seems fitting that, for whatever reasons were, Bowie’s prolonged battle with cancer (over 18 months, from the brief obituary provided) was hidden, and his music was allowed to speak for itself. In my mind, that’s how David Bowie would want to go out – not on his knees as the subject of tabloid spectacle, but on his feet, shouting one last opus to the world. How grand a man, to suffer in silence and let the grandeur of his work tell his tale. That’s David Bowie.
I can’t claim to remember all that David Bowie had to offer the world – I’m no historian and Wikipedia and Rolling Stone and others who lived through all phases of his career can, no doubt, provide history lessons and the emotional impact of what it felt like to be there and see Ziggy Stardust in concert. The experience, for me, is far less grand, but still as personal, and if only to personally say “thank you” to one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived, I’d like to share those…
I’ve occasionally come across a particular notion in the music community that the more we listen to the more we build expectations, higher and higher until the bar’s raised unattainably high and we in turn forget what it’s like for that threshold to be met in the first place. I’ve never explicitly agreed with this thought because of how nonsensical it’s always come across – “shouldn’t we come to appreciate art more the more time we take to truly understand it?,” I usually feel, and yet it still can strike me subconsciously, at times. I sometimes catch myself thinking what Theodore, the central character of Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her, once wondered to himself, if I’m “not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I’ve already felt.” And that thought’s a scary one, because I never want to lose that ability to tear up to a song, to get lost in the rhythm of a good screamo song when I feel that desire.
Ultimately I know this fear to be misguided, and don’t worry much about its implications either. I just mostly worry about the fact that this kind of pessimism, cynicism, what-have-you, is such an ingrained thought to me. When I find a new album I love, why am I so quick to worry about when those impressions will fade? I listened to Dream Sequins by Nmesh several nights back, and I was so taken by it – never had I heard an album that seemed to have such…
From an editorial standpoint, the Year-End features are a lot of fun, despite the hectic scheduling and frenetic coordinating necessary to ensure we meet our [perpetually-malleable] deadlines. This is especially true for the Users’ Year-End list, which requires me to rely on the site’s contributing contingent to create the blurbs that complement each album in the feature. Not only are the Contributors tasked with all the writing, but there are occasions where they need to identify and recruit other users to alleviate the burden with similar energy and gusto.
Regardless of your opinion on the Users’ list – yes, we’ve heard plenty of you in regards to the Staff list – it takes an enthusiastic and reliable bunch to pull this off without a hitch. I’d wager that, all things considered, both features turned out rather well.
To say thank-you to the contributing reviewers for their hard work for the 2015 list, I’ve awarded them some additional, one-off “face time” on the blog. I left the theme open-ended and to each individual writer’s own devices. Where one might want to write about his favorite album this year, others might prefer instead to champion for an album that seemed to have gone under-appreciated or unrecognized on the site. Perhaps someone else wanted to write a treatise on why Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz is really 2015’s Album of the Year.
Please enjoy this 10-item featurette, and if you have other ideas that you’d enjoy contributing to or reading, don’t hesitate to keep in touch. –Jom
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found late December/early January to be a dead zone for music. Aside from a few stray finds, it’s typically just a time for me to reflect upon the previous year, look at others’ year-end favorites, and see if I can augment my musical collection with their discoveries. That’s not a bad thing though, as the process often results in some of my most highly-rated records (see: The World is a Beautiful Place’s Harmlessness). So if that’s the route you’re used to taking, then I fully encourage you to continue. However, if you’re a little bored with 2015’s leftovers, it’s often fun to turn the page and peak ahead at what 2016 has in store.
Offering a glimpse into the future is nowhere near as good as what we already know rocked the socks off 2015. I suppose that it goes without saying that hindsight is 20/20, thus it is important not to hold this playlist to the same standard as a “year best” list. Plus, as much as I’d love to know every album that 2016 will bring us, the truth is that I typically play things pretty nonchalantly and just wait to see what comes my way as the months roll by. As a result, the below playlist is merely an appetizer sampler. You’ll probably like a few tracks and hate the rest, but that’s okay because the point is to just see what’s out there. Also, I was kind of limited to…
