Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 15th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 15, 2024 –
Apocryphal: Facing The End
Genre: Black Metal Label: The Circle Music
As I Lay Dying: Through Storms Ahead
Genre: Metalcore/Thrash Label: Napalm Records
Becky and the Birds: Only Music Makes Me Cry Now
Genre: Dream Pop/Folk/R&B Label: 4AD
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 8th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 8, 2024 –
Ab-Soul: Soul Burger
Genre: Hip-Hop/Jazz Label: Top Dawg Entertainment
Bad Astronaut: Untethered
Genre: Indie-Rock/Pop-Punk Label: Fat Wreck Chords
Bananagun: Why is the Colour of the Sky?
Genre: Psychedelic/Folk/Funk Label: Full Time Hobby
The Body: The Crying Out of Things Genre: Sludge Metal/Drone Label: Thrill Jockey
The Browning: Omni
Genre: Metalcore/Deathcore Label: FiXT
Claire Rousay: The Bloody Lady
Genre: Ambient/Experimental Label: Viernulvier Records
Delain: Dance With the Devil
Genre: Metal/Gothic Label: Napalm
Klara Goliger: Words
Genre: Indie-Pop Label: Klara Goliger
Klone: The Unseen
Genre: Progressive Rock/Metal Label: Pelagic Records
Make Them Suffer: Make Them Suffer
Genre: Deathcore Label: Sharptone
Massacre: Necrolution
Genre: Death/Thrash Metal Label: Wydawnictwo Agonia
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 1st, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 1, 2024 –
Alice Costelloe: When It’s the Time – EP
Genre: Indie-Pop Label: Moshi Moshi
Anomalie: Riverchild
Genre: Post-Rock/Black Metal Label: AOP Records
Cane Hill: a piece of me i never let you find
Genre: Metalcore/Nu-Metal Label: Out of Line Music
The Cure: Songs of a Lost World Genre: Post-Punk/Gothic Label: Lost Music Limited
Ella Langley: Still Hungover
Genre: Country Label: SAWGOD Records
Haley Heynderickx: Seed of a Seed
Genre: Indie-Folk Label: Mama Bird Recording Co.
Henrik Appel: Shadows
Genre: Alternative/Rock Label: PNKSLM Recordings
Lil Uzi Vert: Eternal Atake 2
Genre: Hip-Hop Label: Atlantic
Mitochondrion: VITRISEPTOME
Genre: Death/Black Metal Label: Profound Lore
Mount Eerie: Night Palace
Genre: lo-fi/Folk Label: 7 e.p.
Just in time (-ish) for the start of spooky season, welcome to the third installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam while reading what participating staffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what should have been included (just remember this when it’s time for the end-of-year festivities)!
Tracklist:
The Airborne Toxic Event – “Our Own Thunder Road” Glory
Building a song upon references to Springsteen’s classic of classics is a dangerous choice, but in this case, The Airborne Toxic Event pull it off: the delivery is slow-burning, dramatic, and ultimately captivating. –Sunnyvale
And So I Watch You From Afar – “Do Mór” Megafauna
I adore “Mór”‘s pensive, contemplative start before ASIWYFA’s trademark cacophonous cymbals and fun guitar noodling wrap envelop you like your favorite hoodie on a blustery day. Plus, there’s cowbell (could I have used more throughout Megafauna? Who wouldn’t?). I really enjoyed how well-balanced Chris Wee’s toms and snare were mixed, especially as the song teeters on going off the rails towards its end. See also: lively opener “North Coast Megafauna” and delightfully bombastic “Mother Belfast (Part 2)”. –Jom
Anthony Green – “Last Summer in America” Last Summer in America…
Welcome to the second installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Having Canada D’eh and Independence Day during the same week had some of us partying hard. Feel free to jam while reading what participating staffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Arooj Aftab – “Aey Nehin” Night Reign
Perhaps the most heatproof antidote I’ve heard this year to everything sweaty and inconvenient about summer, Arooj Aftab’s stellar new record opens in a revelation of cleansing harp tones and dusky croons. Her hazy weave of textures effortlessly trots out everything palatable you could ask of a current-year chamber jazz, earning a rare for all music fans badge of approval from practically anyone whose opinion you should care to ask. Literally better than sunscreen. –JohnnyoftheWell
ARTMS – “Virtual Angel” <DALL>
Charli XCX might be sitting on pop’s most obvious AOTY ticket, but this right here is the flyaway headrush single of (maybe) the year, affirming everything gauzy and effortless about pop, living and dying on the sheer gratification of breezy production and the featherweight delivery of knockout hooks. If that’s not enough (and your Korean is up to it), ARTMS’ lyrics offer a wholesome take on…
Welcome to the first installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam while reading what some of our newest staff writers as well as other longtime Sputstaffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Tracklist:
Allie X – “Girl With No Face” Girl With No Face
On an album loaded with mid-tempo mad-bops, “Girl with No Face” truly takes the cake. A new-wave beat and sassy bass lines revel in the humid dark before venomous guitars crash through the bridge and fully kick shit into gear. The resulting finale is a noiry powertrip with surprising muscle and a killerrr groove. –neekafat
Anatole Muster – “blip blop” blip blop
The alliterative onomatopoeia “blip blop” seems to cleave a space between the digital and the natural — the ‘blip’ indicating an ontology rooted in electronic music, the ‘blop’ indexing the kind of reverberation brought forth by the movement of an object in real space. Anyways, this vaguely hyperpop-ish song by very promising German accordion prodigy Anatole Muster (“Layers”, “auntie mabel”) and pretty-damn-good South African cornball M Field (“Andrew”, “Block Universe”) is…
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of new releases for the week of February 16, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: February 16, 2024 –
Art of Anarchy: Let There Be Anarchy Genre: Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Label: Pavement Entertainment
The Boxer Rebellion: Open Arms Genre: Indie-Rock Label: Universal
Darkspace: Dark Space – II Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal Label: Season of Mist
Welcome to the fourth and final installment of our 2023 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!
Next week: stay tuned for the Sputnikmusic community’s Top 50 LPs (and Top 10 EPs, Live Albums, and Compilations) of 2023 — cheers!
Tracklist:
Beastwars – “Waves” Tyranny of Distance
Beastwars rightfully turned a folk song about murder and suicide into their own sludgy brand of metal. This scorching affair hits as hard as the lyrics, easily becoming a highlight in their catalog. –Raul
Casey – “How to Disappear” How to Disappear
Casey’s reunion and subsequent slow-dripping of singles have been a pleasant surprise, with the title track (and album closer) being my favorite of the bunch. The Welsh quintet’s sonic palette brings to mind Keep You-era Pianos Become the Teeth with some of Moving Mountains’ most meditative moments, and the slow-burning crescendo into the song’s cathartic final chorus is refreshing despite the somber lyrical backdrop. –Jom
Young Fathers have never shied away from jubilation — see “Nest”, “Only God Knows”, and even Tape Two‘s cover art — but it’s never been as transparent as it is on Heavy Heavy. This album is joyful, heartfelt, affirming, powerful, and overwhelmingly sincere, miles past the conversation of irony at this point. It’s the sound of your second wind as you near the end of the longest hike you’ve ever been on, a mix of accomplishment, vigor and encouragement. Like their previous work, it incorporates a variety of genres and styles, a sort of psychedelic, noisy, and spiritual pop. It seems this may be a pivotal moment in their artistic evolution, as the bleeding and passionate heart of their music is no longer just being used to create a beautifully contrasting emotional dichotomy, but has taken over entirely, spinning all their previously identifiable influences into an even more unclassifiable tornado of percussion, keyboards, and particularly the human voice. Even their hooks have gotten stronger, with each song demonstrating masterful pop instincts, filled with rhythms that you’ll wish were stuck in your head for even longer.
None of this means that they have lost their edge. Just because this is the Young Fathers project you could probably play in front of your parents with the least complaints doesn’t mean the music isn’t fighting for something. What it means…
Looking back on this year’s biggest highlights, it’s apparent to me the folk genre has resonated the loudest with a handful of truly exemplary albums — all disparate in approach, but equal in their excellence. And so, with 2023 putting a spotlight on just how incredible this genre is, it seems only fitting that the Finnish legends should return and put their two-cents in on the matter. Serendipitously, I started listening to Tenhi in the same year the band decided to break their twelve-year recorded silence, affording me just enough time to get familiar with their incredible discography. To my surprise, given the length of time the band have been away from recording new music, Valkama effortlessly slots into the canon with minimal disruptions. This is because Valkama isn’t here to ruffle the status quo, but rather astutely refine the band’s modus operandi. Ultimately, it’s a tight discussion on whether this is better than Maaaet, but regardless of the hair-splitting, a band couldn’t hope to come back with a better-sounding album. Valkama‘s lush instrumentation, poignant atmosphere and gripping arrangements make it a stellar piece of work, but add Tenhi’s inimitable personality into the equation and you’ve got a very unique offering indeed. Valkama does have a couple of conditions in order to get the most from it — being that it’s seventy minutes long, and has to be heard in its…
At the start of this decade, The National went through a rough patch, struggling with the new material they were working on. Perhaps those difficult times led to the placidness of First Two Pages of Frankenstein, but in hindsight, it was a necessary step in order to shake things off. As a result, Laugh Track, whose songs were mostly finished and recorded on tour at a much faster pace, ended up more diverse and energetic. The album doesn’t carry the heavy load its predecessor got almost crushed under. It’s the most alive The National have felt in years, and it feels like the members are excited again to work together on new music. –insomniac15
Frenetic tremolo picking, shotgun-sounding snare alongside cataclysmic blast beats, and guttural malevolence are ubiquitous throughout Fossilization’s premier LP. A logical progression from the Brazilian duo’s first EP and subsequent split release with Ritual Necromancy, those favoring the ‘death doom’ side of the spectrum will enjoy “Once Was God”‘s hostile opening deluge and the equitable balance of melody and malice found in “Oracle of Reversion” and Leprous Daylight‘s title track. Meanwhile, listeners preferring a ‘doom death’ alignment will appreciate the sludgy dissonance heard in “Eon” and especially “Wrought in the Abyss”‘ closing moments. An…
Well, it’s that time of year again when I compose a needlessly elaborate blog post highlighting my favorite (and least favorite) musical happenings of the year. You and your extended family know it as Sowing’s Music Awards, and it’s been an on-and-off tradition for NINE years now, thus proving that I do not quite have the quality of life I thought I did. Take a gander at the past winners, all of whom have been enshrined in immortality:
2014 – Low Roar: 0
2015 – Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell
2016 – Yellowcard: Yellowcard
*2017 – Manchester Orchestra: A Black Mile to the Surface
2018 – mewithoutYou: [Untitled]
2019 – Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell!
*2020 – Honey Harper: Starmaker
2021 – Iosonouncane: IRA
*2022 – Domestic Terminal: All The Stories Left to Tell
*Denotes AOTYs on years when the SMAs did not formally take place.
WHO will take home the coveted AOTY trophy in 2023 and join such esteemed company? Scroll down to find out, but don’t forget to wipe as you read along, seeing as our data analysis team has determined that bathroom breaks are the best (and most symbolically congruent) time for reading…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the entire month of December 2023. These releases have been condensed into one post as, historically at least, December is a slower time for new musical releases. In the meanwhile, our staff will be working on compiling their highly anticipated “Top Albums of 2023” feature, so stay tuned to see what we anoint as the album of the year. With regards to the below releases, please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums. From our staff and userbase to you, we wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy holiday season. We’ll see you in January!
– List of Releases: December 1, 2023 –
Bjørkø: Heartrot
Genre: Metal/Experimental Label: Svart Records
CZARFACE: Czartificial Intelligence
Genre: Hip-Hop Label: Silver Age
Full of Hell and Nothing: When No Birds Sang
Genre: Hardcore/Shoegaze Label: Closed Casket Activities
Health: Rat Wars
Genre: Noise Rock/Electronic Label: Loma Vista
Neil Young: Before And After
Genre: Folk/Rock/Country Label: Reprise
Here’s a list of notable new releases for the week of November 24th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 24th, 2023 –
Burden Of Grief: Destination Dystopia Genre: Melodic Death Metal Label: Massacre Records
Here’s a list of significant new releases for the week of November 17th, 2023. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 17th, 2023 –
Aeternus: Philosopher Genre: Death/Black Metal Label: Agonia
Celeste: Epilogue(s) Genre: Black Metal/Hardcore Label: Nuclear Blast
Ceremonial Bloodbath: Genesis Of Malignant Entropy Genre: Death/Black Metal Label: Sentient Ruin
Danny Brown: Quaranta Genre: Hip-Hop/Experimental Label: Warp
Earthside: Let The Truth Speak Genre: Progressive Rock/Metal Label: Mascot Label Group
Emeli Sandé: How Were We To Know Genre: Pop/Soul/R&B Label: Venus Records
Kurt Vile: Back to Moon Beach Genre: Folk/Americana Label:overnite kv incorporated
Iron & Wine: Who Can See Forever Soundtrack Genre: Indie-Folk/Americana Label: Sub Pop
Julie Byrne: Julie Byrne With Laugh Cry Laugh Genre: Folk/Psychedelic Label: Ghostly International
Lacey Sturm: Kenotic Metanoia Genre: Pop Rock/Hard Rock Label: Lacey Sturm
Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz: Welcome 2 ColleGrove Genre: Hip-Hop Label: Polyvinyl
MAUL: Desecration And Enchantment Genre: Death Metal/Hardcore Label: 20 Buck Spin
Alice Costelloe: When It’s the Time – EP
