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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 6, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.  Also, for those who missed it, our collective staff ranked the Top 10 Songs by The National – just in case you need something to argue about.


– List of Releases: July 6, 2018 –

Waitout

A Shoreline Dream: Waitout
Genre: Shoegaze/Psychedelic/Alt-Rock
Label: Latenight Weeknight

Alien Human Emotions

Asylums: Alien Human Emotions
Genre: Pop/Rock
Label: Cool Thing Records

Stream Alien Human Emotions here.

Night Time People

The Bamboos: Night Time People
Genre: Funk/Soul/R&B
Label: BMG Rights Management

Outlaws 'til The End, Vol. 1

DevilDriver: Outlaws ’til the End, Vol. 1
Genre: Thrash/Melodic Death Metal
Label: Napalm Records

Ocean Machine - Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv [Explicit]

Devin Townsend Project: Ocean Machine: Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre
Genre: Progressive Metal/Rock
Label: InsideOutMusic

Goosebump 'Goosebump by Goosebump' (album stream)

Goosebump: Goosebump
Genre: Art-Pop/Experimental
Label: Pleasence

Stream Goosebump here.

Trench Foot [Explicit]

Guts Club: Trench Foot
Genre: Folk/Lo-Fi/Country
Label: Guts Club

Stream Trench Foot here.

Northern Chaos Gods

Immortal: Northern Chaos Gods
Genre: Black/Thrash Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

Ecstasy

Kissin’ Dynamite: Ecstacy
Genre: Power Metal/Hard Rock
Label: Metal Blade

The Loudest Silence - Aesthetic Illusion

The Loudest Silence: Aesthetic Illusion 
Genre: Symphonic Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

Lucifer II

Lucifer: Lucifer II
Genre: Stoner/Doom Metal
Label: Century Media

A Light in a Dark Place

Point North: A Light in a Dark Place
Genre: Indie-Rock/Alternative Rock
Label: We Are Triumphant

Color The Weather

Suicideyear: Color The Weather
Genre: Electronic
Label: LuckyMe

Six

We The Kings: Six
Genre: Pop
Label: S-Curve

Ephem:Era

Wen: Ephem:era
Genre: Dubstep/Grime/Electronic
Label: Big Dada

Palo Santo [Explicit]

Years & Years: Palo Santo
Genre: Electronic/R&B/Pop
Label: Polydor


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The National at Brooklyn Academy of Music.jpg

Sputnikmusic Staff Rankings: The Top 10 National Songs


Preface:

It’s long been the subject of debate around this site: What are the best National songs?  Are they even possible to rank?  Have they ever even made a bad song?  While this list is unlikely to put an end to any longstanding arguments, it does represent the current staff’s carefully curated top 10 tracks for one of modern indie-rock’s most discussed and celebrated artists.  So if you are somehow just getting into the National (you’re at least ten years late!), these songs represent an excellent snapshot of the band’s best moments across seven albums and nearly two decades of making music.  As for everyone else, feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section below!


(10) The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness

Image result for the national sleep well amazon

from the album Sleep Well Beast

“The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” could serve as one of the best introductions for newcomers to The National. The song navigates a wide variety of terrain and functions almost too well as an accessible track on an album noted for more experimental leanings overall. There’s even a guitar solo, a rarity for the band, as they let loose and truly surprise listeners more used to their downtrodden side. Matt Berninger releases his frustrations in the soaring chorus alongside female vocals and subtle orchestral arrangements, making for a truly special and cathartic moment…


stat_banner

Hello fellow football fans, and welcome to a post that will assign numbers to your footy feelings. On the eve of the 2018 World Cup, I noticed that no one had made a “World Cup Thread”-type list, so I decided to start one. At some point, I realized that I could leverage the comments people were making into some sweet, sweet content. Specifically, I sought to measure the sentiment of each comment (positive or negative) which I could then summarize by World Cup team and by user.

Recently, I was googling sentiment analysis and came upon this post. The post describes and has code for a model that uses the words of tweets to predict the sentiment of each tweet (a sentiment of 1 being positive, 0 negative). The post is from about a year ago, uses tweets as training data not sputnik comments, so it may not exactly match the vocabulary and sincerity level of our own sputnik soccer commenters. Regardless, I fit the sentiment model from the code in that post, scraped the comments from the World Cup 2018 list following the conclusion of the group stages, and then fit the sentiment model to each comment. The model assigns each comment a value between 0 and 1, 1 being positive, and 0 being negative. Most comments lie somewhere in the middle, ~ 75% of comments are between .25 and .75 and ~ 92% are between .1 and .9.

So, after classifying every comment with that model, I searched the…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 29, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release

High As Hope

Florence + The Machine: High As Hope
Genre: Indie-Pop/Alternative Rock
Label: Republic

Few artists have as recognizable of a voice as Florence Welch, one of the most respected frontwomen in alternative rock.  While Lungs and Ceremonials launched her career to stardom, wielding hits such as ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and ‘Shake It Off’, the more understated How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful still managed to keep the magic alive with prevalent acoustics and a slightly more uptempo atmosphere.  While no one is certain as to what tricks – if any – that High As Hope holds up its sleeve, you can count on Welch delivering another vocal masterpiece.  That alone makes High As Hope worth investigating, regardless of whether this album treads the same lighter path as its predecessor or returns to the booming, anthemic way of Lungs.


– List of Releases: June 29, 2018 –

Bells Atlas

Bells Atlas: Be Brave
Genre: Indie-Pop/Soul
Label: None Records

Candy


Allegory and Self was a watershed moment in Psychic TV’s timeline (as much as a band that morphs, dissembles and fledges chronically can cultivate a cogent turning point). It had taken everything that came before them, everything that was happening around them and threw in a few instants of prescience, and unceremoniously flung it forth. Folk, psych, new-wave, art punk, industrial squeals, noise, minimalism, ambient and a dozen of other sub-sub-genres came together in decidedly ungraceful fashion to make something vilely pretty. “Thee Dweller”, better than any other track on the LP stands for it all – difficult and punishing, it stomps on, amid howls, muttered mantras, noisy outbursts and a synthetic backdrop. A good song to open a night of no sleep.

 

Bristol post-punk antiheroes The Pop Group recorded their dub-punk freakouts to mixed acclaim. I don’t know if they understood at the time that they were making one of the most important albums of its time. Dance music for the infirm, “Thief of Fire” permeates the cranium the way sickness does – against a tide of instinct and protection, to forge something eerier and better.

 

When Pete Doherty sang about Albion as some dreamy ultra-tolerant place where the subversive felt normal, I doubt many fans knew that he’d pilfered the concept from Ted Milton – poet, marionette despot and rotten saxophonist. Blurt, his art rock outfit, were driven by a rough-edged garage band propping up Milton’s manic recitals and saxophone shrieks.…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 22, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


 

Featured Release

Heaven and Earth

Kamasi Washington: Heaven And Earth
Genre: Jazz/Soul
Label: Young Turks

Washington made a huge splash in 2015 with The Epic – a three volume, three hour masterpiece that brought soul and jazz fusion back into the spotlight of modern music.  By comparison, Heaven And Earth is merely two parts, and closer to two-and-a-half hours long.  Either way, we get it – the man is capable of writing towering, lengthily intimidating albums.  But the thing is, Washington’s records never feel that long.  Boasting impeccable flow and nary any filler, Kamasi’s works draw you in while keeping you engaged.  If The Epic was any indicator, we may be in for an album of the year candidate right here.

Listen to the below song samples for ‘Fists of Fury’ and ‘Space Travelers Lullaby’:



– List of Releases: June 22, 2018 –

Youngblood [Explicit] (Deluxe)

5 Seconds of Summer: Youngblood
Genre: Pop
Label: Capitol


Butcher’s Deck Vol. I

Hasaan Ibn Ali (born William Henry Langford Jr.) had played with every bop heavy throughout his life, from young impresarios like Clifford Brown all the way down to Miles Davis at his creative peak. He’d lead his own ensembles, figured as a key aspect in several iconic live sessions, and his layered, intricate and highly pliant playing style has long since been considered to be the main inspiration behind Coltrane’s sheets of sounds recording approach. The sole studio recording the legendary pianist has ever figured on however was a collaborative session with the Max Roach Quintet. The opening piece off the album is a thrilling show of his prowess on the keys, loose and unafraid to go into odd corners and the perfect way to kick off the first installment of this little jukebox.

 

Swedish new-wavers with a propensity to slide into prolonged dub dirges, Commando M. Pigg merged post-punk, krautrock and deep dark dense bass into the sort of extended thickly-atmospheric dance numbers that immediately start pulsing off in your temples when you take molly in a dimly-lit pub.

 

Sexily melancholic, this patient slow dance tune by The Raincoats is packed with so many brilliant little touches (trumpet squeaks, throaty ululating, penny whistles, Caribbean percussion). It all comes together into a busy ecosystem that sways you into oblivion. Available on Rough Trade re-issues of Moving, the band’s third full-length.

 

A hyper-short darkwave ditty from…


The first things which interest me on every play of this album are the parallels between Kids See Ghosts and Pusha T’s DAYTONA. Both albums begin with a slow, surgical verse from Pusha delivered nearly a cappella; both move to a foot-stomping Track 2 built around vintage-sounding guitars with a hint of psychedelia; both repurpose soundbites with positive intentions and turn them to their own twisted ends. (To that last point, “Come Back Baby”‘s flip of Mighty Hannibal’s anti-drug “The Truth Shall Make You Free” as an intro to, uh, a drug song is one of Kanye’s best black comedy moments, while “4th Dimension”’s creepy sample is where the album veers closest to its surreal cover art). This isn’t a direct one-to-one comparison, though, and it’s the divergences between the albums which colour them as much as their similarities. While DAYTONA doubles down on Pusha’s ice-cold raps in its second half, Kids See Ghosts starts to resemble a more complete ye in its emotionally vulnerable second half, when the two rappers begin an unexpected, touching reckoning with their insecurities and mistakes.


This is why a moment which many have justifiably rolled eyes at, namely Cudi’s extended repetition of the chorus at the end of “Reborn”, is to me the most important on the album. This more than anything is music of reclamation – “Freeee” reclaims a line 070 Shake introduced to the project as an ode to emotional numbness and turns it to joyous proclamation, “Cudi Montage” reclaims Cudi’s…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 15, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.



– List of Releases: June 15, 2018 –

419R1rUocmL._SS500[1]Aryn Van Dyke: I Do Not Not Love You
Genre: Pop
Label: 871140 Records

61grE8ZZsGL._SS500[1]Ben Captain: Old Stock
Genre: Folk/Blues
Label: Under Control Entertainment

41TuFRdTYGL._SS500[1]Chaouche: Safe
Genre: Indie Pop
Label: Night Time Stories

51+Wx-EJgRL._SS500[1]Christina Aguilera: Liberation
Genre: Pop
Label: RCA Records

514nWYmsHGL._SS500[1]Chromeo: Head Over Heels
Genre: Electro-Pop
Label: Big Beat Records/Atlantic

61EfR5rLCUL._SS500[1]Crossing Eternity: The Rising World
Genre: Symphonic Metal
Label: Rockshots Records

515Qhf8riwL._SS500[1]Frayle: The White Witch
Genre: Doom/Stoner Rock
Label: Independent

FUNERAL-HORSE-PSALMS-820x820[1]Funeral Horse: Psalms For The Mourning
Genre: Doom/Stoner/Punk
Label: Artificial Head

51p0VQGzlEL._SS500[1]Gretchen’s Wheel: Black Box Theory
Genre: Indie/Singer/Songwriter
Label: Futureman Records

51eul5mCbsL._SS500[1]JessLee: Strong
Genre: Country
Label: JessLee

Bird-Dog-Dante-500x500[1]John Parish: Bird Dog Dante
Genre: Indie Folk
Label: Thrill Jockey

415GjRM6aVL._SS500[1]Johnny Marr: Call the Comet
Genre: Alternative/Britpop
Label: New Voodoo Records

610aaWuDcVL._SS500[1]Leon Vynehall: Nothing Is Still
Genre: House/Electronic
Label: Ninja Tune

61Fh3evDXNL._SS500[1]Lizzy Borden: My Midnight Things
Genre: Heavy Metal
Label: Metal Blade Records

51KYYtH+IBL._SS500[1]Madball: For The Cause
Genre: Punk/Hardcore
Label: Nuclear Blast…

I Know How To Speak

Manchester Orchestra – “I Know How To Speak”

It hasn’t been a full year since Manchester Orchestra dropped the gorgeous and moving A Black Mile to the Surface, but the band is already offering us new music.  Of course, new is a relative term when you consider the process of writing, recording, and releasing – per frontman Andy Hull, “I Know How To Speak” is a song that originated several years ago.  It would have made the final cut for Black Mile had it reached the full, finished form that Hull and his bandmates had envisioned back in the summer of 2017; but because that time did not arrive until now, we have what amounts to a rather impressive b-side on our hands.

“I Know How To Speak” is centered around resplendent acoustic guitars, delicate piano notes, and “the impending weight of the future” – a lyrical topic made all the more relevant by the birth of Hull’s son on the horizon.  At six minutes in length, the track has ample time to change its pace and direction, but opts for more of a direct and soft-spoken approach.  It works its way in slowly, but it’s a comforting kind of predictability – like waves on the shore of a lake splashing up against the rocky shoreline.  It’s not really until the final minute-and-a-half that it ramps up the intensity, allowing for fiery electric riffs to rain down on the unassuming classical pianos, which continue unbothered by the mayhem swirling…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 08, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.



– List of Releases: June 08, 2018 –

41kbBqxOnpL._SS500[1]Dead Sara: Temporary Things Taking Up Space
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: Atlantic Records

51xD7a0-9tL._SS500[1]Dierks Bentley: The Mountain
Genre: Country
Label: Capitol Nashville

51uGsNpg38L._SS500[1]Flasher: Constant Image
Genre: Pop Punk/Indie Rock
Label: Domino Recording Co.

61oGA1YTakL._SS500[1]Gruff Rhys: Babelserg
Genre: Alternative/Pop
Label: Rough Trade

51OeiB7xz8L._SS500[1]Jorja Smith: Lost & Found
Genre: Soul/Pop
Label: FAMM

500x500cc[1]Kanye West & Kid Cudi: Kids See Ghosts
Genre: R&B/Pop
Label: Def Jam

516j60ZP4vL._SS500[1]Laura Jean: Devotion
Genre: Folk
Label: Chapter Music

51M4U0qaSVL._SS500[1]Lesser Glow: Ruined
Genre: Doom/Sludge
Label: Pelagic Records

51D5jkgWfOL._SS500[1]Lily Allen: No Shame
Genre: Pop
Label: Parlophone UK

51VJjU4aCEL._SS500[1]Lykke Li: So Sad So Sexy
Genre: Indie Pop/Electronic
Label: RCA Recordings

61KlXxCOawL._SS500[1]Megadeth: Killing Is My Business…
Genre: Thrash
Label: Columbia/Legacy

61FwioNIS+L._SS500[1]Nereis: Turning Point
Genre: Alt. Metal
Label: Eclipse Records

619G1XqFghL._SS500[1]Pig: Risen
Genre: Industrial Rock
Label: Metropolis Records

41K4ezzz3sL._SS500[1]Snail Mail: Lush
Genre: Lo-Fi/Shoegaze
Label: Matador Records

61yCW9gdmqL._SS500[1]Tsjunder: Throne of the Goat
Genre: Black Metal
Label: Season of Mist

61LOtWQrqjL._SS500[1]YOB: Our Raw Heart
Genre: Doom/Sludge
Label: Relapse Records


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The powers of capitalism that be forced my hand when Yelderbert’s neon shine burst onto my Facebook feed. I seldom click on advertising campaigns, but I’m pretty happy I did because this Melbourne producer has been working away at some rather unique flavours of experimental pop in a way that’s both invigorating and wonderfully homely. And just as well; while getting lost in Canada recently, I reached out to Yelderbert to breathe some Aussie air and learn about the man behind the button pushing. —ramon.

Ramon: Kicking things off, Yelderbert. Dope name. Give me the what, why, who, when, and how when it comes to your origin story.

Yelderbert: Well, to be honest, it means absolutely nothing, and that’s more or less the point. I don’t want to attempt to be trendy. I’m also aware that, as a white Australian, I’m fairly devoid of rich cultural context, so I wanted something that didn’t mean anything. Yelderbert was just a word I came up with one time and it means nothing. It doesn’t really sound close to anything else; there wasn’t even anything on Google when I searched it. And while it’s pretty clunky, I just thought, “That’s my word, it came organically out of me, and it’s not trying to be anything except itself,” which is fairly analogous to the way I make music.

Very interesting. That brings up a few different pathways, but let’s start from the top. You brought up your own cultural


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 01, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release

mazzy-star-still

Mazzy Star: Still
Genre: Indie Pop/Dream Pop
Label: Rhymes of an Hour Records

Mazzy Star: Quiet, The Winter Harbor

Mazzy-Star-set-to-release-new-EP-Still


– List of Releases: June 01, 2018 –

71vLmABWQ6L._SS500[1]Ben Howard: Noonday Dream
Genre: Indie Folk/Folk
Label: Universal Island Records

51JVABegYqL._SS500[1]Circle Of Dust: Alt_Machines
Genre: Industrial Metal
Label: FiXT

51ck5hISPGL._SS500[1]Father John Misty: God’s Favorite Customer
Genre: Indie Folk/Folk
Label: Sub Pop Records

71C+JUw2xEL._SS500[1]The Flaming Lips: Greatest Hits, Vol. 1
Genre: Psychedelic/Dream Pop
Label: Warner Bros.

61JCD3p1HPL._SS500[1]Ghost B.C.: Prequelle
Genre: Doom/Heavy Metal/Psychedelic
Label: Concord Loma Vista

51U54JGJbhL._SS500[1]Joan Of Arc: 1984
Genre: Post Rock/Indie Rock
Label: Joyful Noise Recordings

61FZcS4yWwL._SS500[1]Kataklysm: Meditations
Genre: Death Metal/Melodic Death Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

untitledLump: Lump
Genre: Indie Folk
Label: Dead Oceans

61YT-ggmYzL._SS500[1]Mazzy Star: Still
Genre: Indie Pop/Dream Pop
Label: Rhymes of an Hour Records

51u-zo3kMOL._SS500[1]Natalie Prass: The Future and the Past
Genre: Indie Pop/Indie Folk
Label: ATO Records…

Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of May 25th, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release

Love Is Dead

Chvrches: Love Is Dead
Genre: Indie Pop/Electronic
Label: Glassnote

Chvrches return with their third full-length LP after opening their discography with back-to-back well-received electronic/indie-pop albums.  Continuing to push the pop boundaries defined by Every Eye Open, Love Is Dead figures to continue honing the band’s well-established approach.  On the heels of successful singles such as ‘Get Out’ and ‘My Enemy’ (featuring The National’s Matt Berninger), it figures to be yet another commercially successful venture.  On the record’s sound, the band was quoted as saying that they opted for “more universal topics instead of introspection”, and that Love Is Dead is “the most pop stuff we’ve done and also the most aggressive and vulnerable at the same time.”  Check the record’s lead single below.


– List of Releases: May 25th, 2018 –

Argonauta

Aisha Burns: Argonauta
Genre: Folk
Label: Western Vinyl

Puff: In The Air Without A Shape [LP]

Bernice: Puff: In the Air Without a Shape
Genre: Indie/Folk/Psychedelic
Label: Arts & Crafts

Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of May 18th, 2018.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the artwork (if we remember…) so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release

Tell Me How You Really Feel

Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
Genre: Alternative/Indie-Rock
Label: Mom+Pop

The Melbourne singer-songwriter/guitarist’s second album, Tell Me How You Really Feel, stands as one of indie-rock’s most anticipated albums of 2018.  2015’s sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit was released to widespread critical acclaim, garnering praise for its storytelling ability and potent expression despite a relatively straightforward songwriting approach.  Her sophomore effort keeps up the driving rhythms and catchy riffs, resulting in another strong album that may not be as immediate as her debut, but possesses the layers worthy of an album due to grow over time.


– List of Releases: May 18th, 2018 –

Liquid Anatomy

Alkaloid: Liquid Anatomy
Genre: Death/Progressive Metal
Label: Season of Mist

Queen of Time

Amorphis: Queen of Time
Genre: Death/Progressive/Doom Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

Islands [Explicit]

Ash: Islands
Genre: Indie-Rock/Punk
Label: Infectious Music

To Drink From The Night Itself

At The Gates: To Drink


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