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
Machine Girl: MG Ultra
Genre: Electronic / Indie Pop
Label: Future Classic
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
Envy: Eunoia
Genre: Post Hardcore / Emo
Label: Temporary Residence Ltd.
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q3 Playlist 2024
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
Alison Moyet: Key
Genre: Electronic/Pop
Label: Cooking Vinyl
A Place to Bury Strangers: Synthesizer
Genre: Noise Rock / Shoegaze
Label: Dedstrange
Balance and Composure: With You in Spirit
Genre: Alternative/Post Hardcore
Label: Memory Music
Blood Incantation: Absolute Elsewhere
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast
Coldplay: Moon Music
Genre: Pop Rock
Label: Atlantic Records
D.A.D: Speed of Darkness
Genre: Rock
Label: Napalm Records
Eric Clapton: Meanwhile
Genre: Classic Rock
Label: Independent
Geordie Greep: The New Sound
Genre: Alternative/Experimental
Label: Rough Trade Records
Godspeed You! Black Emperor: No Title as of…
Genre: Post Rock
Label: Constellation
Half Waif: See You at the Maypole
Genre: Indie Pop
Label: Anti Records
Leon Bridges: Leon
Genre: Soul/R&B
Label: Columbia Records
Lotte Gallagher: A Better Feeling
Genre: Alternative
Label: Liberation Records
Michael Love Michael: Bruiser
Genre: Experimental Pop
Label: Get Better Records
…
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.
Value
Value comes from each member of the band – a…
Alora Crucible-Oak Lace Apparition
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.
–Zakusz
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
Crows – Reason Enough
Genre: Post-Punk/Indie Rock
Label: Fuzz Club/Bad Vibrations
Dolores Forever – It’s Nothing
Genre: Indie Pop
Label: Sweat
Ezra Collective – Dance, No One’s Watching
Genre: Jazz/Afrobeat/Hip-Hop
Label: Partisan Records
Fantasy of a Broken Heart – Feats of Engineering
Genre: Dream Pop
Label: Dots Per Inch
The Flight Of Sleipnir – Nature’s Cadence
Genre: Doom Metal/Black Metal/Folk
Label: Eisenwald
The Heist Revenge – For Losers Craving Love
Genre: Indie Rock/Punk/Emo
Label: Self-Released
…
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
JJ…
Hey Sputters—
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!
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
“Hell 99”:
Ok well that…
Revisit other SputStaff Top 10 Lists:
Bjork | Bon Iver | Chelsea Wolfe | Kanye West | Metallica | Mastodon
mewithoutYou | My Chemical Romance | Queens of the Stone Age | The National
Say Anything | Swans | Taylor Swift | Tim Hecker | Thrice | Yellowcard
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
Chastity – Chastity
Genre: Shoegaze / Melodic Hardcore / Emo
Label: Deathwish
COIN – I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore
Genre: Indie Rock / Indie Pop
Label: 10K Projects
Colin Stetson – The Love It Took to Leave You
Genre: Post-Minimalism / Avant-Garde Jazz
Label: Invada
Cursive – Devourer
Genre: Indie Rock / Post-Hardcore / Emo
Label: Run for Cover
…
Below is a smattering of new releases for September 6th, 2024. Exclusions not intentional because seeing new comments is a dopamine hit. Feel free to request reviews from staff and/or contributors, inform the people about what’s unintentionally missing from the list, and let us know what you plan on jamming this release week.
– List of Releases: September 6th, 2024 –
40 Watt Sun – Little Weight
Genre: Slowcore
Label: Fisher’s Folly
A Swarm of the Sun – An Empire
Genre: Post-Metal / Atmospheric Sludge Metal
Label: Pelagic
The Airborne Toxic Event – Glory
Genre: Indie Rock
Label: Little Tokyo
Amy Allen – Amy Allen
Genre: Indie Pop
Label: Kenny + Betty
Ashe – Willson
Genre: Alt-Pop / Americana
Label: [independent]
Black Sites – The Promised Land?
Genre: Progressive Metal / Heavy Metal
Label: [independent]
Bleachers – A Stranger Desired
Genre: Acoustic renditions of 2014’s Strange Desire
Label: Dirty Hit
blink-182 – ONE MORE TIME… PART-2
Genre: Pop-Punk / Alternative Rock
Label: Columbia
Boston Manor – Sundiver
Genre: Alternative Rock / Post-Hardcore
Label: SharpTone
Welcome back to another edition of the Weekly Releases feature, where everything is made up and the points don’t matter! That’s right — the points matter as much as pants to a toll booth operator or why your obscure Transylvanian dungeon synth band with 3 bandcamp followers didn’t make the list (because it will probably be in the comments). Feel free to request reviews from staff and/or contributors and let the people know what’s missing from this intentionally-not-thorough list.
– List of Releases: August 30th, 2024 –
Alora Crucible – Oak Lace Apparition
Genre: Chamber Music / Neoclassical New Age
Label: House of Mythology
Anciients – Beyond the Reach of the Sun
Genre: Progressive Metal / Sludge Metal
Label: Season of Mist
AWOLNATION – The Phantom Five
Genre: Alternative Rock / Indietronica
Label: Better Noise
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water
Genre: Art Rock / Chamber Pop
Label: Take This to Heart
CHELSEA WOLFE – Undone (EP)
Genre: Darkwave / Witch House
Label: Loma Vista
Deliver the Galaxy – Bury Your Gods
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Label: Massacre
Destroy Lonely – LOVE LAST FOREVER
Genre: Trap / Southern Hip-Hop
Label: Opium /…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 23rd, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: August 23, 2024 –
Alleviate: DMNS
Genre: Metalcore/Deathcore
Label: Arising Empire
Cassyette: This World Fucking Sucks
Genre: Alternative
Label: Rough Trade
Fleshgod Apocalypse: Opera
Genre: Symphonic Death Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast
Fontaines D.C.: Romance
Genre: Post Punk
Label: XL Recordings
Gift: Illuminator
Genre: Indie / Psychedelic
Label: Omnian Music
Illuminati Hotties: Power
Genre: Lo-fi / Indie pop
Label: Hopeless Records
Kingcrow: Hopium
Genre: Progressive Metal
Label: Season of Mist
Kishi Bashi: Kantos
Genre: Indie Pop / Psychedelic
Label: Joyful Noise Records
Lainey Wilson: Whirlwind
Genre: Country
Label: Broken Bow
Lisa Loeb & The Hollow Trees: That’s What It’s All About
Genre: Folk / Alternative
Label: Independent
Meer: Wheels Within Wheels
Genre: Alt Prog
…
Ulver: A Sputnik Guide
This feature is part of a hopefully ongoing series aimed at exploring the discographies of interesting and/or important bands whose wider body of work is often overlooked on this site. There will be lots of words and a few pictures, but the main deal is that if a band features here, they are good and you should listen to them! And if you already jam them, hit up the comments and explain where and why this is wrong! Get going!
Previously covered discographies:
Stereolab・Sweet Trip・Blonde Redhead・Slowdive
The news broke today that Tore Ylwizaker, member of Ulver since 1997, died three days ago on his 54th birthday. Though credited as a ‘keyboardist’, Ylwizaker was absolutely essential to everything the group made since he joined: without his contributions, it’s unthinkable that Ulver would have emerged from their early years as a metal band as a such a stunningly proficient juggling act between IDM and downtempo — and then onto drone, onto classical, onto full-tilt synthpop, and anything they could fold into the margins of their umpteen strong suits. Ulver’s name has practically become a by-word for versatility, but for me this was always underpinned by a rigorous sense of competence, which, in turn, I viewed as practically synonymous with Ylwizaker. His passing marks a great loss for forward-thinking music as a whole, and we are privileged to be able to hear his talent across so many guises.
…
