Here’s a non-exhaustive list of new releases for the week of February 9, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: February 9, 2024 –
Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches To She
Genre: Gothic/Folk/Alt-Rock
Label: Loma Vista
The Chisel – What A Fucking Nightmare
Genre: Punk
Label: Pure Noise
Dizzee Rascal – Don’t Take It Personal
Genre: Hip-Hop/Grime
Label: Big Dirte3
Helado Negro – PHASOR
Genre: Alt/Indie Pop
Label: 4AD
Hulder – Verses In Oath
Genre: Black Metal
Label: 2o Buck Spin
Infected Rain – Time
Genre: Nu-Metal/Djent/Metalcore
Label: Napalm Records
In Vain (ESP) – Back To Nowhere
Genre: Heavy Metal/Thrash
Label: Fighter Records
Itasca – Imitation Of War
Genre: Folk/Rock/Psych
Label: Paradise Of Bachelors
Kali Malone – All Life Long
Genre: Classical/Drone
Label: Ideologic Organ
Kristoffer Gildenlow – Empty
Genre: Prog Rock/Alt-Rock
Label: New Joke Productions
The Last Ten Seconds Of Life – No Name Graves
Genre: Death Metal/Hardcore/Deathcore
Label: Unique Leader
Madi Diaz – Weird Faith
Genre: Indie Folk
Label: ANTI-
Morbid Saint – Swallowed By Hell
Genre: Thrash/Death Metal
Label: High Roller
Nocturnal Sorcery– Captive In The Breath Of Life
Genre: Black Metal
Label: Kvult
The Pineapple Thief –…
Previous Diagnoses:
Paradise Lost|Primus|Faith No More|Paramore|HEALTH
Hello music enthusiast, and welcome to another instalment of Dr.Gonzo’s ‘Diagnosis Series’– where I go through a band or artist’s studio recordings and find their strengths and weaknesses. Today’s edition is on Japanese legends Dir En Grey, so join me while I try and wade through their sprawling and epic work.
Band/Artist: Dir En Grey
Origins: Osaka, Japan
Founded: 1997
Members:
Kyo – vocals
Kaoru – lead guitar
Die – rhythm guitar
Toshiya – bass
Shinya – drums
Studio albums: 11
Active: Yes
Gauze (1999)
The Doctor’s rating: 4/5
Analysis: As far as debut albums go, Gauze is an excellent entry point for fans looking to listen to some great J-rock music. Tracks like “Yurameki”, “Akuro No Oka”, “Cage” and “Yokan” reveal the raw talent within the band, with a deluge of infectious melodies, fantastic vocal performances and solid playing from every member. “Cage” in particular is a song I hold close to my heart, as I spent A LOT of time trying to play it when I first started playing the bass (the solo is still one of Toshiya’s career highlights). In hindsight though, Gauze’s strongest attribute is setting the stage for the rest of Dir En Grey’s career. The album gives every member the opportunity to shine and show their…
Peter Gabriel-i/o
The usual hesitations behind releasing a record in December seemed to matter fuck all to legend Peter Gabriel, who kicked off the month with his first studio album of original material since 2002, which he had been tracking since as far back as 1995. i/o’s nearly 30 years in development did not go to waste either, as this may be his richest and most densely produced record since the ’80s. The man even released three separate mixes of the record, each highlighting enough new subtleties in the production to make any of them a reasonable candidate for “the definitive version”. Peter approaches the sonic palate here blending electronics and traditional instrumentation perhaps the furthest he’s ever gone, spanning a range from beautiful, lush, and sprawling orchestration (“Playing for Time”) to tightly constructed borderline sculptural beats that almost sound assembled in a musical junkyard out of any scrap he could find (“The Court”). This is a notably more patient and subdued record than some of his bombastic and thunderous early work (understandably so at 73 years old), but even a few throwback bangers rear their head and show the man can still sell jubilant pop tunes overflowing with vibrancy, most notably the exhilarating “Olive Tree”. It’s the title track however, a warm and moving piece on universal connectedness that only feels more earnest and resonant in Peter’s old age, that serves as the heart of the whole project. Although i/o admittedly falls short of the unfairly high…
|
|
By Nocte
Monday January 29, 2024
|
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of new releases for the week of February 2nd, 2024. What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered? Genres/labels are best guesses based on cursory Googling and should not be taken seriously. Don’t drive angry. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors. Or don’t, whatever. I wake up every day, right here, right in Punxsutawney, and it’s always February 2nd, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
– List of Releases: February 2nd, 2024 –
Birds in Row & Coilguns – You and I in the Gap (EP)
Genre: Post-Hardcore / Noise Rock
Label: Hummus
Brittany Howard – What Now
Genre: Psychedelic Soul
Label: Island Records
Cyberaktif – eNdgame
Genre: Electro-Industrial
Label: Artoffact
Eliminate – Get Off the Internet
Genre: Dubstep / Hybrid Trap
Label: Create Music Group
Enterprise Earth – Death: An Anthology
Genre: Deathcore
Label: MNRK
Giant Rooks – How Have You Been?
Genre: Indie Rock
Label: Irrsinn
J Mascis – What Do We Do Now
Genre: Jangle Pop / Folk Rock
Label: Sub Pop
Kirin J Callinan –…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of January 26th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: January 26, 2024 –
Alkaline Trio: Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs
Genre: Pop Punk / Post Hardcore
Label: Rise
Benny the Butcher: Everybody Can’t Go
Genre: Hip Hop
Label: Griselda
Blood Red Throne: Nonagon
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Soulseller
Caligula’s Horse: Charcoal Grace
Genre: Progressive Metal
Label: InsideOut Music
Charlotte Sands: Can We Start Over?
Genre: Indie Pop
Label: CS
Cognizance: Phantazein
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Willowtip
Dissimulator: Lower Form Resistance
Genre: Death Metal / Thrash Metal / Sci-fi
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Exocrine: Legend
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Season of Mist
Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes: Dark Rainbow
Genre: Punk
Label: International Death Cult
Future Islands: People Who Aren’t There Anymore
Genre: Indie Rock
Label: 4AD
Goth Babe: Lola
Genre: Alternative
Label: Mom + Pop
 …
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
 [Official site] // [Spotify]
I’m going to say something that shouldn’t actually be controversial, but will inevitably cause a bunch of people to lose their shit: Divine Inner Tension is Hail the Sun’s best work.
[long awkward silence]
“Ye speaketh blasphemy, ye corpulent mammalian sea creature!”
Yes, I do. Shamelessly.
I’ve said this before, but it took a lot to bring me to listen to this album. I refused to listen to the singles. I refused to have anything to do with the rotten cadaver of the genre Hail the Sun had been pigeonholed into. “It all sounds the same anyway!” was the chant I told my friends about the singles that kept dropping. “They’ve peaked! They’re on the decline!” is what I kept saying to myself to justify my refusal to give Divine Inner Tension a chance.
It didn’t matter that I have a deep-seated respect and admiration for Donovan Melero as a musician and seemingly good dude. It didn’t matter that of all the “swancore” bands out there, Hail the Sun had actually put out the most consistent music. It didn’t matter that — while they hadn’t quite achieved the highs of Wake — Culture Scars, Mental Knife and New Age Filth were all very good records. All that would come of a new album in the age of aging guitar-wankery…
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
Short and sweet collection of almost-banging tunes that take their time to show how smooth these earworms are. The production is gorgeous, and Tenenbaum’s vocal delivery finely walks the playful-quirky line. Really excited about their future. –dedex
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
If you are still sleeping on Joliette, Luz de Bengala is a short and sweet cacophony to disturb your slumber: the Mexican post-hardcore mainstays are firing on all cylinders here, conjuring up an expected, spellbinding amalgam of downtrodden riffs, chiming, post-rocky builds, and zesty screams en español. Coming off a couple standalone singles in the years prior, this EP marks the band’s first multi-track project with bassist Gastón Prado on lead vocals, and that lineup change isn’t elemental so much as it is tonal: where once Joliette doubled down on grisly, violent imagery or infernal despair, their latest incarnation ultimately espouses hope without sacrificing their knack for tense, tightly-wound arrangements. Fans of Birds In Row, Ostraca, a theoretically skramz-ier At The Drive-In, or basically anything on the quartet’s latest home, Zegema Beach Records: don’t overlook these guys any longer. –ashcrash9
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
In…
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Official site] // [Spotify]
One of the most fascinating factoids of Sleep Token’s extensive and intricate lore is that the band themselves were concocted in a lab to piss off music snobs and elitists. Everything from the soaring clean vocals that are polished to a blinding sheen to the admittedly kind of obnoxious RnB samplings do everything they possibly can to make the conventional fan of prog or metal roll their eyes out of their skull, and frankly, I get it. But that test for elitist purity — known as the No Trve Metalhead fallacy — is a race to the bottom. I was there in the last.fm trenches in 2010 when everyone called Wolves in the Throne Room “Shirts In the Dorm Room” due to their perceived accessibility. Take Me Back to Back to Eden has plenty to criticize and is far from the majesty of Opeth’s Ghost Reveries or the creativity of Between the Buried and Me’s Colors, but in time, it may reveal itself to be the nexus in the same way those works were for an entirely new generation of metal fans and acts. It’s one hell of a time, but only if you’ll uncross your arms and allow yourself to have fun. –Odal
[Bandcamp] // [
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
“Like Mastodon but not like Mastodon” is one of my favorite genres. –Egarran
Has some old-school Sepultura/Slayer/Coroner tones — with an upgraded sound, of course. Worth the listen. –Astaroth666
49. Chepang – Swatta
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
Let’s make one thing really clear: Swatta is absolutely not for the faint of heart; but if you’re the type of person that seeks thrills, do yourself a favor and listen to this record. It’s hard for me to describe this album without resorting to a bunch of oxymoronic platitudes like “chaotically precise” or “brilliantly raw,” but the fact of the matter is that I don’t think any band brought more unrestrained ferocity to the table than Chepang did in 2023. Swatta is not just a triumph for grind, it’s a triumph in heavy music — and it’s the kind of album that follows the mantra of shooting on sight and taking no prisoners. Don’t be lulled by the disarmingly-satisfying-to-say names, either: Swatta will systematically break every bone in your body before torching you to a cinder. Oh, and you’re going to enjoy every fucking second. –Manatea
 [Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
An entirely new level for Panopticon. This is the album…
|
|
By Sowing
Thursday January 4, 2024
|
2023 :: Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4
Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q4 Playlist 2023
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
Danny Brown – “Bass Jam”
Quaranta
I have my…
Closet Witch – Chiaroscuro
DOC: Hey ChatGPT, are you familiar with Sputnikmusic.com?
GPT: Yes, I’m familiar with Sputnikmusic! It’s a platform that covers music reviews, news, and discussions across various genres.
DOC: And the band Closet Witch?
GPT: Closet Witch is a hardcore/grindcore band known for their intense and energetic music. They’ve gained attention for their raw and chaotic sound within the hardcore scene.
DOC: Awesome. Write a Seinfeld scene about the band Closet Witch. Also George has been banned from Sputnikmusic
GPT:
[Jerry’s Apartment. Jerry is sitting on the couch reading a music magazine. George bursts in, looking agitated.]
Jerry: What’s got you all riled up now, George?
George: I’ve been banned, Jerry. Banned from the depths of the internet!
Jerry: What? Where? Not another forum, George. Last time it was that cooking blog.
George: No, not just any forum. Sputnikmusic!
Jerry: Sputnikmusic? What did you do, George?
George: I made an innocent comment about Closet Witch!
Jerry: Closet Witch? That hardcore band? What could you have possibly said about them?
George: I said they reminded me of a mashed-up cacophony of angry lawnmowers! I didn’t mean it in a bad way, just descriptive!
Jerry: And let me guess, the fans didn’t take kindly to your creative imagery?
George: They didn’t! They started a riot on the forum. ‘George The Mower Man’ they called me. I’ve been exiled, Jerry. Exiled!
Jerry: You and your way with words, George. Always stirring the pot.
[Elaine enters.]
Elaine: Hey, what’s going…
Due to the continued slow release schedule as 2024 begins, here is a list of major new releases for the weeks of January 5th through the 19th, 2024. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: January 5th, 2024 –
 Kinoteki: Faith and the Vessel
Genre: Atmospheric Drum & Bass
Label: Tabula Rasa
 Animal Ghosts: Swell
Genre: Indie Rock / Dream Pop
Label: Independent
– List of Releases: January 12th, 2024 –
 Alluvial: Death is But a Door
Genre: Deathcore
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
 Bill Ryder-Jones: Iechyd Da
Genre: Indie Rock
Label: Domino Recording Co
 Drown in Sulphur: Dark Secrets of the Soul
Genre: Blackened Death Metal
Label: Scarlet Records
 Hannah Ellis: That Girl
Genre: Country
Label: Curb Records, Inc
 Kali Uchis: Orquideas
Genre: R&B / Pop / Soul
Label: Geffen
 Kid Cudi: Insano
Genre: Hip Hop / Alternative
Label: Republic Records
 Mourning Dawn: The Foam of Despair
Genre: Funeral Doom
Label: Aesthetic Death
 Nailah Hunter: Lovegaze
Genre: New Age / Ambient
Label: Fat Possum
 Neal Morse: The Resoration – Joseph Part Two
Genre: Progressive Rock
Label: Frontiers Music
 Rough Justice: Faith in Vain
…
Negative Blast – Echo Planet
Simply put; Echo Planet is a rip-roaring walk down memory lane for me. It’s a hard-hitting hardcore punk album that manages to capture the zeitgeist of the mid-noughties’ punk scene, procuring all of its greatest attributes along the way. If you’re a fan of bands like The Bronx, Fucked Up, or Paint it Black, this will satisfy your needs in every conceivable way. A ferocious banger in every sense of the word, and it wastes absolutely none of your time while doing it.
Orsartag – Found Wisdom: Symphonic Tribute to Burzum
Found Wisdom: Symphonic Tribute to Burzum is a novel idea, but one that works really well. Taking various numbers from across Burzum’s broad body of work, this album sets out to give you a fresh perspective on these (mostly) beloved tracks. Admittedly, the album is at its strongest when it is reinterpreting Burzum’s heavier side – namely the golden age of the band – than the synth sound adorning later works, but nevertheless, the album is packed with excellent renditions and is sure to win you over if you’re a fan of the band.
Paramore – This is Why
As far as albums go, This is Why ticks all of the right boxes for me. For any long-standing band, it can be hard keeping things fresh, but This is Why’s post-punk leanings and relatively lean run time make it a worthwhile entry for the band. Paramore ensures their…
|
|
|
