If the terms and sentiments of love and peace have an official sound yet, I propose Nala Sinephro’s latest to be its edenic image. At every possible turn the album swells and swirls like pacific waves, conjuring occasional electronic sharpness to break up the otherwise breathless flow of calm. It is the sound of a desert in an 80s movie, peaceful yet showing the potential of a menace. There is a sweaty underline caressing every note, every new instrumental lick, every harmonic sway. I love how the album ramps the subtlety like it is the most sensitive TNT explosive known to man. I adore its gentle touches on the spiritual, as if divine sorcery were a commonplace occurrence. Within the modernist techno-religious leanings the album takes, the main thread oscillates between transcendental zen and a digital night-(mare/dream). Herein comes the album’s most daring proposition: what if beautiful, but 8-bit? And all horrifyingly in-the-now gorge ensue. Nala Sinephro makes this look easy. Her punks of jazz cohorts help the effort. We can only sit back and be transported to a technoutopian domed world of pure beauty and peace, where the airy weightlessness of our dreams is tangible and the future with all its possibilities is endless.
In a lot of ways, I regard Daft Punk the Tool of their respective field. What I mean by that is, in terms of how they created and released music, it was always an event in the industry – as if the world stopped turning for a brief moment so all eyes could be locked onto what they were doing. That’s because, like Tool, they carved out a venerable reputation for themselves that was known for innovation and quality, with their meagre catalogue of music only adding to the fervent demand for more of it. When they released an album you knew, the wait was worth it. Daft Punk formed in Paris in 1993, however it would take four years before the enigmatic duo would release Homework, a trend that would follow suit for the two albums that succeeded the 1997 debut, followed by an eight year wait for their ambitious final record, Random Access Memories. Similarities in a lean catalogue aside, at one point both acts sold fans an enigmatic mystique that made their image and music all the more alluring.…
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.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 25th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 25, 2024 –
Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness
Genre: Lo-Fi / Alternative Label: B2B Records
Anna Lunoe: Pearl
Genre: Electronic / Dance Label: NLV Records
Anya Marina: Asteroid
Genre: Singer/Songwriter Label: Rough Trade
Atreyu: The Pronoia Sessions Genre: Metal Label: Spinefarm
Autumn’s Grief: Dead Among the Living
Genre: Symphonic Metal Label: Inverse Records
Avishai Cohen: Brightlight
Genre: Ska / Afrobeat Label: Naive Records
Behemoth: XXX Years Ov Blasphemy
Genre: Blackened Death Metal Label: Nuclear Blast
Better Lovers: Highly Irresponsible
Genre: Math Rock / Alt Metal Label: SharpTone Records
Devin Townsend: Powernerd
Genre: Progressive Metal Label: InsideOut Music
Elke: Divine Urge
Genre: Indie Rock / Indie Pop Label: Congrats Records
Entheos: An End to Everything
Genre: Technical Death Metal Label: Metal Blade Records
Fashion Club: A Love You Cannot Shake
Genre: Electronic / Art Pop Label: Felte Records
Fit For An Autopsy: The Nothing That Is Genre: Deathcore Label: Nuclear Blast
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 18th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 18, 2024 –
Bishop Briggs: Tell My Therapist I’m Fine
Genre: Singer/Songwriter Label: Terry Eighteen Inc.
Bon Iver: Sable EP
Genre: Indie Folk / Electronic Label: Jagjaguwar
Ensiferum: Winter Storm Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Power Metal Label: Metal Blade Records
Frozen Crown: War Hearts
Genre: Power Metal Label: Napalm Records
Funeral: Gospel of Bones
Genre: Doom Label: Season of Mist
Goldiie Lux: S.I.N. EP
Genre: Indie Pop / Hip Hop Label: South Coast Music Group
Japandroids: Fate & Alcohol
Genre: Indie Rock / Noise Rock Label: Anti- Records
Jerry Cantrell: I Want Blood
Genre: Alternative Label: Double J Music
Jay Oladokun: Observations From a Crowded Room
Genre: Soul / Folk Label: Republic Records
Kylie Minogue: Tension II
Genre: Electro Pop Label: Darenote
Lil Durk: Deep Thoughts
Genre: Rap Label: Alamo Records
Liv Greene: Deep Feeler
Genre: Americana Label: Free Dirt Records
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 11th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 11, 2024 –
Ad Infinitum: Abyss
Genre: Metal / Pop Label: Napalm Records
The Blessed Madonna: Godspeed
Genre: Electro Pop Label: Warner Music
Cascada: Studio 24 Genre: Electro Pop Label: Stars By Edel
Cemetery Skyline: Nordic Gothic
Genre: Gothic Rock / Post Punk / Metal Label: Century Media Records
Charli XCX: Brat and It’s Completely Different…
Genre: Pop Label: Atlantic Recording Corporation
Chat Pile: Cool World
Genre: Noise Rock / Sludge Label: The Flenser
Chrissy Costanza: VII
Genre: Alternative / Pop Punk Label: Independent
The Crown: Crown of Thorns
Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Thrash Label: Metal Blade Records
Dawes: Oh Brother
Genre: Americana Label: Dead Ringers
Dua Saleh: I Should Call Them
Genre: Hip Hop / R&B / Soul Label: Ghostly International
Eill: My Dream Box
Genre: J-Pop Label: Pony Canyon Inc.
ELUCID: Revelator
Genre: Hip Hop Label: Fat Possum Records
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…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 4th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 04, 2024 –
1349: The Wolf & The King
Genre: Black Metal Label: Season of Mist
With the recent announcement of Linkin Park’s return, there has been heated debate on whether Mike Shinoda should have brought the band back after Chester Bennington’s untimely death in 2017. I fall on the side of fervently abhorring the decision, and as the weeks have trickled past since their proclamation of return, it’s got me thinking about a few things, most prominently: what makes a band? So folks, not a single person has asked for it, but this is something that has been passionately eating away at me since it was announced, so you’re getting pinned down like Alex from A Clockwork Orange and having my two-cents shovelled into your mouth, whether you agree with it or not.
What is a band?
Before I talk about The Linkin Park Conundrum, I want to take it back a bit and define what a band is. The most elemental description of a band is a group of like-minded individuals – typically friends starting out – who want to make music they enjoy listening to. It’s a collection of individuals who come together with the common interest of creating music; each member picks a role, be it singing or playing one or more instruments, and they set out to make music. Outside of this simple materialistic description, there are two other important factors I think define a band. This is the value an individual brings, and the band’s chemistry.
If birdwatching on a brisk morning could be broken down and translated into audio frequencies, it would sound like Alora Crucible. The haunting melodies whirl and dip and ascend in their own imperfect weather, fighting the wind for just a moment before it turns ally and allows for soaring once more.
Gentle mists creep over the landscape and the promise of snow looms over the heather as each songbird mourns in its own special way the falling sun beyond the frosty mountain peaks.
Alora Crucible’s Oak Lace Apparition represents 80 minutes of alluring hope, 80 minutes of teasing an adventure in the clouds and beyond, 80 minutes of inward birdwatching that satisfies the mind, body, and soul with each flap of its unerring wings.
Here’s a sampling of September 27th, 2024 new releases. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors; or, let the people know what else should be on the community’s radar this week.
– List of Releases: September 27th, 2024 –
Alan Sparhawk – White Roses, My God Genre: Alternative/Electronic Label: Sub Pop
The Amity Affliction – Let The Ocean Take Me (Redux) Genre: Metalcore/Post-Hardcore Label: Pure Noise
Best Bets – The Hollow Husk Of Feeling Genre: Jangle/Power-Pop Label: Meritorio
The Black Dahlia Murder – Servitude Genre: Melodic Death Metal Label: Metal Blade
Welcome back to Weekly Releases, in which we list a wide variety of upcoming releases from an even wider variety of genres. Will your most anticipated record make the grade, or will it be a crushing disappointment? Only one way to find out! As always, please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors. Cheers!
– List of Releases: September 20th, 2024 –
The Black Pacific – Here Comes Our Wave Genre: Punk Label: Dine Alone
Blossoms – Gary Genre: Indie Rock Label: ODD SK
Bright Eyes – Five Dice, All Threes Genre: Indie Folk / Indie Rock Label: Dead Oceans
The Calamatix – The Calamatix Genre: Reggae / Rock Label: Epitaph
Charlotte Wessels – The Obsession Genre: Symphonic Metal Label: Napalm
Crimson Veil – Hex Genre: Gothic Metal / Progressive Metal Label: Reigning Phoenix
Haujobb – The Machine in the Ghost Genre: Industrial / IDM Label: Dependent
Hippo Campus – Flood Genre: Indie Rock Label: Psychic Hotline
Honeyglaze – Real Deal Genre: Indie Rock / Alternative Rock Label: Fat Possum
Jamie xx – In Waves Genre: Electronic / Garage Label: Young
Welcome back to Neek’s 1st Listen, where I listen to an album for the very first time while my fingers fly across the keyboard, generating near-thoughtless spur-of-the-moment takes. It’s messy, stream-of-conscious, and only very lightly edited. You’ve been warned!
FOXING Foxing
Full disclosure: I love Foxing. Well, for brevity’s sake, I love Nearer My God, and most of their other stuff with the occaisional asterisk. Perhaps I shouldn’t have heard “Hell 99” first but it left just a bad taste in my mouth that ran through “Greyhound” and it never left. Still, I don’t expect this to be the first Foxing album I’m not into, I’m just worried that their scattershot freneticism might be more frustrating than captivating this time around.
Without further ado…
“Secret History”:
The scratchy record vocal sample playing under Conor’s voice suddenly makes me realize why Sowing cites “Vices” in his opening paragraph, but I wonder if it’ll have the same “surprise explosion.” And there we go. Ok and it’s already gone! So like, I’m not sure that counts as a surprise after “Hell 99.” Alternating between two very disparate sounds and genres and melodies on the same track is an interesting opening statement for sure, but I fail to see this having the same lasting impact as, say, “737” did for both me and its parent album. 6/10
David Bowie’s impact is cohesive and powerful when assessed within conventional metrics like “innovation” and “longevity”—some call swan song BLACKSTAR (2016), released 49 years after his first LP, the best work he ever did, generally without much objection from those who think his magnum opera issued forth decades rather than days before his tragic, shot-heard-round-the-world-style departure from this Earth. As for innovation, innumerably more people will testify to how consistently Bowie pushed against the generic boundaries of radio music throughout his long, long career, despite rooting his practice in familiar traditions of chords-and-melody drawn from British folk, Gershwin showtunes, 1950s rhythm-and-blues—lots of stuff people had already heard whose emotional contracts with global audiences had new life breathed into them by a guy whose relationship with tradition was purer for its lack of self-surveillance. Bowie forged his own path by not caring how he’d come off seemingly at all—his career takes on an unpleasant shape if you fetishize either tradition or subversion, and so he’s the kind of artist who teaches us to be better listeners, to latch less often onto shit that ultimately doesn’t matter. I don’t know if I believe Nietzsche when he says that we’re losing some essential element of experience in grouping together as “leaves” the individual green things that issue forth from…
Welcome back to another on-time edition of the Weekly Releases, where “mediocre sputpilled artists are repped” and more will probably be added in the comments hmm lfg ifg
– List of Releases: September 13th, 2024 –
Agrypnie – erg Genre: Melodic Black Metal / Atmospheric Black Metal Label: AOP
Allegra Krieger – Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine Genre: Indie Folk Label: Double Double Whammy
Babyface Ray – The Kid That Did Genre: Trap / Cloud Rap Label: Empire
Bill Leeb – Model Kollapse Genre: Electro / Industrial Label: Metropolis Records
BONES UK – Soft Genre: Electropop / Industrial Rock / Blues Rock Label: Sumerian
Alice Costelloe: When It’s the Time – EP
David Bowie’s impact is cohesive and powerful when assessed within conventional metrics like “innovation” and “longevity”—some call swan song BLACKSTAR (2016), released 49 years after his first LP, the best work he ever did, generally without much objection from those who think his magnum opera issued forth decades rather than days before his tragic, shot-heard-round-the-world-style departure from this Earth. As for innovation, innumerably more people will testify to how consistently Bowie pushed against the generic boundaries of radio music throughout his long, long career, despite rooting his practice in familiar traditions of chords-and-melody drawn from British folk, Gershwin showtunes, 1950s rhythm-and-blues—lots of stuff people had already heard whose emotional contracts with global audiences had new life breathed into them by a guy whose relationship with tradition was purer for its lack of self-surveillance. Bowie forged his own path by not caring how he’d come off seemingly at all—his career takes on an unpleasant shape if you fetishize either tradition or subversion, and so he’s the kind of artist who teaches us to be better listeners, to latch less often onto shit that ultimately doesn’t matter. I don’t know if I believe Nietzsche when he says that we’re losing some essential element of experience in grouping together as “leaves” the individual green things that issue forth from…
