The Fat Angel Sings

The genre-blending Californian artist casts off past toxic influences with a powerful set of tender, brooding and emotionally charged songs that wouldn’t feel out of place as festival anthems.

When Chelsea Wolfe was interviewed in 2015 about her fourth album, “Abyss“, she revealed that her music had been informed by the bouts of sleep paralysis she’d suffered from since childhood. The condition – a transitional state between being awake and asleep – affects sufferers in different ways. Some wake up feeling paralysed, others see ghosts or demonic figures. For the California-born singer-songwriter, it meant “waking up, and you can move your body and your eyes are open, but there are figures and people from your dreams still present in your room”.

No surprise, then, that her music – a blend of drone, alt, folk, industrial and doom metal – had ended up so spookily unsettling. She appeared on album covers with pupil-less eyes, spoke in interviews about “following the path of witchcraft” and even covered Norwegian black metal act and convicted arsonist/murderer Burzum. She did have a sense of humour about it all, however, telling one interviewer, with a chuckle: “It’s not party music.” Since then, though, much has changed. Wolfe left Los Angeles for the mountains above the city – where she’s finally been able to enjoy a good night’s sleep. Sobriety since 2021 has also brought what she calls “a new clarity”. Both developments inform “The Dark“.

The sublime opener “Cold” is again driven by lack of sleep, but for entirely different reasons as she taps into the insomnia that can result from a fracturing relationship. “Baby, when I’m next to you / Feels so cold / And it’s hard to sleep / And it’s hard to feel so alone,” she sings, dramatically ending up feeling as if she is “crying underwater / Screaming at the surface”. With its strummed folk beginning, brushed drums and layers of piano and acoustic guitars, the yearning gothic ballad is closer to, say, Annie Lennox than Ethel Cain and sets the scene for this much more accessible ninth album which channels her darker urges into something more universal.

After 2024’s largely electronic, David Sitek-produced “She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out” to “She”, Wolfe felt as if she was continually returning to “a version of my old self”. So The Dark turns to Grammy-winning producer/co-writer Jennifer Decilveo, whose credits include Hozier and Miley Cyrus, and returns to a core of guitar, bass and drums (alongside longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm). Drone and doom metal has almost entirely made way for brooding bass lines, wailing guitars, dramatic dynamic shifts and subtle orchestrations. The dreamier, more gothic tracks recall Evanescence or, on Swallower, the Cure, while Wolfe’s haunting vocals literally span the spectrum from a whisper to a scream – or, on the driving, windswept “Seethe”, a blood-curdling howl.

Her ethereal singing suggests, of all things, Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser fronting the Sisters of Mercy.

Now 42, the singer has talked about how “The Dark” has been driven by “letting go … being in my early 40s as a woman, growing older and wanting to be who I am now”. This process has involved letting go of old behaviours and toxic relationships as well as her old music, which has driven some emotionally powerful songs.

In the beautifully sad “I’m Not There“, she tells someone: “It’s too late, we’re already strangers,” a sentiment which recalls Carole King’s It’s Too Late. In the slightly Lana Del Rey-ish Halo, she directly quotes Martha and the Vandellas – “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide” – another unexpected reference point from an artist with Wolfe’s history.

Wolfe subsequently disowned her more conventionally singer-songwriter self-released 2006 debut “Mistake In Parting” as a “shitty breakup album”, but seems to be reacquainting with classic songcraft as well as allowing herself more warmth and introspection. The folky title track is a beautifully observed “love letter” to the comfort of the black (“Our love glows in darkness / In a world that feels so heartless”) which builds to a finale featuring Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa and former Nine Inch Nails bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen.

“Death Is Not The End” not the Bob Dylan song – is a tender largely acoustic folk rumination on the afterlife. Wolfe gently whispers “I’ll see you again” as one might over a dearly departed’s coffin, before Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck lets fly with guttural, chilling noise. “Dancer in the Sky” is the closest Wolfe has come to an epic, anthemic love song, with an exquisite arrangement and a chorus made for people to sing along. In fact, a lot of these songs wouldn’t sound incongruous being performed before huge crowds holding phones or lighters in the air. Wolfe recently became the unlikely face of a perfume range (Ghosts, obviously) and is clearly edging towards to the mainstream, but after two decades at the culty coal face this powerful, mature collection should take her to a wider audience.

New album “The Dark” is out September 18th

There’s no shortage of bands lionizing the past, There’s little softness in the mix, and even fewer psychedelics on Introducing… The Gnomes. The band captures the pre-Summer of Love explosion from suit-matched manners to winking hijinks that slipped fuzztone into the living room and onto the family stereo. The band skews closer to the haggard heat of the garage beat — pre-concept-era Kinks, The Animals at their most un-coiffed, or The Guess Who in their shaggy early years. The Gnomes succeed best when they suture the softness to the scorch, lacing deceptively sweet harmonies over the amp-fried din of “I Like It,” or the power pop of “I’m Not The One.” The band’s debut is a record dipped in a love for classic aesthetics, but infused with the ragged youth, and unapologetic zeal that always made garage pop vital.

Although they emerged from Melbourne bayside outer suburbs onto the local live scene with their fresh and spirited indie-rock update of the garage-beat sounds of The Easybeats, Kinks and early Beatles only a year or so ago, Gnomes actually started out as a bedroom solo project for teenaged singer/songwriter/ guitarist Jay Millar a few years back. Jay, playing everything himself, started recording and releasing a steady succession of material – quite a few albums’ worth – on his own Goblin Records label via Bandcamp.

Realizing he needed a band to start playing out, Jay approached some like minded players from Frankston’s rehearsal hub Singing Bird, and with Jay on lead vocals and lead guitar, Ned Capp on guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass, and Ethan Robins on drums, Gnomes became a band.

Early in 2025, the last solo Jay recordings released under the Gnome name caused something of an international underground sensation when the Bandcamp only I Like It EP – four songs of kranked up Kinks-style mono riffage – was posted by a Spanish garage-punk YouTube page and quickly clocked up over 50,000 views.
 
At the same time, the band quickly began gaining attention on the thriving Recent single “Magic Man” conjured a thrilling conflation of The Monkees’ Pleasant Valley Sunday. 

And now, finally, we have The Gnomes’ debut album. Twelve killer tracks that combine the best of the ’60s with the best of today. Twelve killer tracks that show off assertive and accomplished songwriting, singing and playing and an explosive and authentic swinging group sound. Twelve killers slices of raw rock’n’roll running the gamut from the savage Rhythm and Blues of “Play With You” and “Better With You” to the vibrant beat pop of “I’ll Be There” and “I’m Not The One”, with forays into the heavy reverb psych of “Stung”, the Cavern/Star Club stylings of “Flippin’ Stomp” and  the first flyte jangle of  “Time Will Tell” along the way. There’s more of course, including a new version of that Kinks-style kranker “I Like It” for good measure.

The Gnomes now have the same US booking agent as prolific psychedelic Aussies King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

“We’ve heard how, in their early touring days, Gizzard would happily rough it,” says Robins. “They’d book one hotel room and have six people on the floor in sleeping bags. We’re ready for that. Bring it on!”

“Apples For Isaac” is a monumental return from Echo & The Bunnymen, their first album of newly-written songs in over a decade. After years spent performing their immense catalogue of classics to audiences around the world, the Bunnymen have recorded an album that is as bold as it is vulnerable, that perfectly captures the essence of what makes the Bunnymen so great. From the first few moments of opener ‘Take Me By The Hand’ it’s apparent that the band have lost none of the urgency of their early work. The lead single ‘Brussels Is Haunted’ is emblematic of the band’s proud legacy, with life-affirming chorus worthy of one of post-punk’s forefathers. All but one of the tracks on “Apples for Isaac” also feature the late drummer Clem Burke, who sadly passed away during its creation. 

Following the incredible response to Brussels Is Haunted, we’re thrilled to share the next taste of Apples For Isaac…
The Light That Surrounds You will be available to stream from 18th August,

British sibling duo Penelope Isles (Lily and Jack Wolter) are releasing a new album,” 3, “on September 25th via Bella Union Records. Now they have shared its third single, “Another Kind of Love” via a time lapse music video featuring Jack making a painting. Jack also sings lead vocals on the song.

Penelope Isles have previously shared the album’s lead single, “Thinking Seat,” via a music video. Their second single, “I Loved You, Robert Pattinson,” which is inspired by Lily’s love of The Odyssey actor back when he was in the Twilight films, .

The new album follows 2021’s “Which Way to Happy” and 2019’s “Until the Tide Creeps In”. Not only has it been five years since Penelope Isles’ last album, it’s also been three years since their last live show. In that time, the duo have been busy with solo projects—Jack with Cubzoa and Lily with My Precious Bunny (who released “A Moment in My Eyes” in May; Jack also toured with CMAT on guitar.

“Penny Isles is such a big part of our personalities,” says Jack in a press release. “So it was about time we got back to it.”

The album features Joe Taylor on drums and was recorded live in the studio, at Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast. Prior to that, the album was written on a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal.

3 Due Out September 25 via Bella Union

Fontaines D.C. recently unveiled new songs at their first show in nearly a year, and now the Dublin rockers have confirmed their fifth album, ‘Dopamine Chamber,’ is coming soon via XL Recordings. The news follows their headlining set at La Route du Rock in Fort-de-Saint-Père, France, where they brought out Kurt Vile.

At La Route du Rock, K.V. joined D.C. for “Roman Holiday,” the ‘Skinty Fia’ single that the Philly musician inspired. After meeting at music college in the Irish capital in 2014, the five-piece has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed rock bands of the past decade, earning consistent critical acclaim while growing its audience and leveling up to arena-sized headline shows

‘Dopamine Chamber’ does not have an exact release date yet, but on social media today Fontaines revealed the title with a video set to a bit of “Six Shot Morning,” one of the two new songs they debuted in Cádiz, Spain last weekend. The punchy lead single, “Marianne,” which also received its live debut during a headline gig at the Baluarte de la Candelaria venue, in Cadiz, Spain, on August. 8th.

According to the press release, “Dopamine Chamber” was produced by James Ford, who worked with the band on its previous two albums — “Skinty Fia” and “Romance”. The album was recorded between London, the English countryside and Palermo, and sees the band embrace a darker, electronic-infused sound. Conor Curley, the band’s guitarist, said in a statement that the sonic shift and new influences is the band “trying to find stuff that pointed into the future.”

A numbered first pressing of ‘Dopamine Chamber’ is available for 24 hours at Fontaines D.C.’s online store. The order page notes it ships in “late 2026” (and the “number on the LP sleeve will be randomised”).

Fontaines D.C. has pulled the curtain back on its next era, with the Dublin-formed band’s new album, “Dopamine Chamber”, confirmed to arrive on Oct. 16 via XL Recordings.

San Francisco punk band Spiritual Cramp release their sophomore album Rude via Blue Grape Music. Produced by Grammy Award-winning John Congleton, mixed by Carlos de la Garza, and featuring a duet with Sharon Van Etten, the album feels like a massive level up or the band. After perfecting their kaleidoscopic take on punk over a handful of EPs and one album, the band has entered a new era, expanding the songwriting duties across the entire group—a role that vocalist Michael Bingham and bassist Michael Fenton had previously helmed. The results are nothing short of ecstatic, blending new wave burn, indie rock swagger, old-school punk, and even dub and hip-hop flourishes, all evident in the first single “At My Funeral.”

The thumping rhythm and chunky guitar riffs showcase the band’s evolved songwriting, as well as Bingham’s trademark self-deprecating humour. The track arrives with a Sean Stout-directed video heavily inspired by Pharcyde’s “The Drop,” featuring Bingham walking the streets of San Francisco.

With Rude, Spiritual Cramp finds a new balance between the cheekiness, emotional vulnerability, and raw energy that started to emerge on their debut.

“When you focus on yourself and the people around you, you can keep your side of the street clean,” Bingham says. “And when I see the opposite of that, I get kind of offended, which is what a lot of these songs are about.” The album reads like a love letter to San Francisco, with Los Angeles—where Bingham relocated shortly before the debut—serving as the unkept side of the street. “My foundation is in San Francisco, California, and from there I can go anywhere and be who I am,” Bingham says.

The first words we hear Ben K. Lochen sing after a rousingly up-tempo and kickass rendition of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Sin City” are these: “You wanna be like those old singers / you wanna live like that’s true / you wanna give all you can give / to the ones who gave to you.” Certainly by the time we hear “Caught,” the fourth track on “Long Gone Saviors”, the lowly ambitions and lofty aspirations to be a specific breed of Graham Parsons-esque burnout country star feel apparent on Idle County’s debut—sure, you can write “Hot Burrito #1” and “She” and beat the Stones to market with “Wild Horses,” but with it is going to come lonely nights on barstools, a burned-down home in Laurel Canyon, and an early grave at 26.

As most albums in the genre are now, the sound and writing of “Long Gone Saviors” is perhaps better understood through the lens of everyone that came after Parsons—many of whom are neither gone nor saviors. The North Carolina that birthed Idle County feels deceptively unrecognizable from the music scene that’s currently thriving there right now. While the Ashville band have opened for the likes of Collin Miller, Florry, and rising phenoms i26 Connector (some of whom play on the album), and Lochen grew up seeing MJ Lenderman and Wednesday play in small clubs well before they broke into the mainstream, the album itself dizzily embodies the exact alternative southern rock sound that caused writers to come up with the term “alt-country” in the first place—many forsaken Gen X tastemakers would’ve quickly anointed Idle County a tentpole of the genre alongside the Bottle Rockets, the Jayhawks, and the Old 97s 30 years ago, and rightfully so. A bevy of booze-soaked, riff-heavy tomes, the stories involve characters who know their fates are tethered to destiny or tragedy—ingrates watching the world pass them by: run-up bar tabs, thrown-away guns, love lost and beads of sweat earned. In that sense, it most closely resembles a lost Truckers album, with Cooley and Hood and early Isbell sounding like true north stars for Lochen’s songwriting.

Close enough, welcome back uncle tupelo. But no joke, this album rocks. Virtuosic performances and amazing songwriting a level above

Cautiously acknowledging the lonely passage of time and hard life lived that can come with chasing the ghosts of country stars and sounds, the six-minute closing title track feels as much written from the POV of a character as it is Lochen; inevitable tragedy runs through it as he raises his beer to sing, “This one is for all the times you said / we were gonna put this thing to bed.” Given he’s just put out one of the best alt-country albums in years, I hope he’s not putting it to bed too soon, but I’d understand all the same if it all tragically fades away. 

Our debut record, “Long Gone Saviors,” is yours. Grown locally. Play it loud.

released July 10th, 2026

Guitars, Vocals: Ben K. Lochen
Lead Guitar, Vocal Harmonies: Caelan Burris
Bass: Clayton Gibb
Pedal Steel: Will Elliot
Fiddle: Zoë Eshan
Drums: Eli Whitlow
Banjo on “Caught”: John James Tourville

All songs written by Ben K. Lochen, except “Sin City,” written by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have released their 28th album. Out today, ‘Alien Metal’ arrives via the band’s own p(doom) Records. King Gizzard’s new album “sees the ever shape-shifting Melbourne six-piece set the controls for the dark heart of electronic dance music ”Alien Metal” was written and recorded on the modular synthesiser set-up which they took out on the road last year, affectionately named “Nathan” by the band.

The album grew out of last year’s ‘rave shows’ where King Gizzard abandoned traditional instruments in favour of their modular synthesiser set-up. What began as a fun experiment grew into an obsession, inspiring one of the band’s most ambitious records to date.

At this point, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s new album could arrive at any moment. The prolific, ever-morphic Australian psychedelic wizards previously announced that the rave-centric “Alien Metal”, their 28th studio LP, would come out this summer, and they shared “Level 5” and the title track. The band still hasn’t announced a release date for “Alien Metal”, but the third single from that record is out today.

You have to figure that the album isn’t far behind.

The album grew out of last year’s ‘rave shows’ where King Gizzard abandoned traditional instruments in favour of their modular synthesiser set-up. What began as a fun experiment grew into an obsession, inspiring one of the band’s most ambitious records to date.

“It completely rewired my brand,” said lead singer Stu Mackenzie, who discovered the possibilities of the Eurorack synthesiser format on the recommendation of fellow King Gizzard member Joey Walker. “I was like, ‘I’m going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.’”

“We’ve never scrapped so much material as we have for this album,” Mackenzie explained. “Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again.”

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have released their ‘Alien Metal’ arrives via the band’s own p(doom) Records.

King Gizzard featured in not one, not two, but three major Rolling Stone AU/NZ lists last year.

We included “L.W.” (2021) in our 100 Best Australian Albums of the 2020s So Far countdown; “Dragon” (2023) and “Gamma Knife” (2016) made our Best Australian & New Zealand Songs of the 21st Century So Far countdown; and we included “Phantom Island” (2025) in our year-end Australian albums list.

John Mellencamp has said that 1987’s “The Lonesome Jubilee” was made differently than how he usually makes records. In the past, Mellencamp generally would write and record the songs for an album while in the studio and that would be the album. But for “The Lonesome Jubilee” Mellencamp and his band talked about the kind of record that they wanted to make ahead of time and Mellencamp wrote songs that would fit that thematic and sonic vision. Indeed, “The Lonesome Jubilee” was originally envisioned as a double album but in the end Mellencamp himself decided to cut it down to a single album when he felt too many of the songs he had written strayed from the vision he had for the record.

This focus makes “The Lonesome Jubilee” arguably the best record of Mellencamp’s career.

“The Lonesome Jubilee” opens with the great “Paper In Fire”, an intense and ferocious rocker that builds the tension and then releases it in a cathartic blast of a chorus. Lyrically, the song draws on Mellencamp’s own extended family’s drama and how the inability to control desires can destroy a person and their life. “Paper In Fire” was the lead single for “The Lonesome Jubilee” and a very big hit. “Down And Out In Paradise” is a fiery rocker about how the blue collar worker was losing access to the American Dream under the economic policies of the Reagan administration. It is another angry and disillusioned song about the erosion of the way of life in the American heartland.

The third track is the third single “Check It Out”, a midtempo song with a great melody and vocal hook refrain that gets lodged in your head. Another hit song, “Check It Out” is about the ups and downs of everyday people just trying to live a life of meaning and happiness. It is a hopeful song with a touch of melancholy that serves it perfectly as it really does capture the small joys and trials of living life.

“The Lonesome Jubilee” opens strong and that consistency continues as the record goes on. “The Real Life” is based on many people Mellencamp knew growing up in small town Indiana, including his own uncle. Mellencamp remembered having a conversation with his uncle when his uncle was in his 40’s. His uncle told him “I have done what I thought was right, what was expected of me: Married young even though we weren’t really in love, stayed with her, had kids, worked hard to provide for them, and never did anything for myself. Now I am going to”. This inspired Mellencamp to write “The Real Life”. The sentiment is one many people can relate to as they age and change and question their choices in life and the song is lyrically strong. Musically, I find “The Real Life” to be one of the album’s least interesting songs, but it is still very listenable.

This is followed by the album’s second single, and one of Mellencamp’s most popular songs, “Cherry Bomb”. “Cherry Bomb” is one of those songs that perfectly captures the feeling of young love, young lust, carefree days, and hot summer nights; of being young and unburdened by life. The song is told as a reflection back on those days from the perspective of an older, wiser, and less naive person who now knows that those days are far too short and that as much as you enjoy them at the time, you can’t really appreciate them until they are gone. “Cherry Bomb” is a classic and one of the more warm and positive songs on “The Lonesome Jubilee”.

Things get a bit more serious and sombre on the brooding rocker “We Are The People”, which serves as something of a centerpiece of the record; a reminder that the everyday, hard working people that this song is about are the real heart and soul of our communities and of the country. The song also has a touch of the more Americana influences that were beginning to come into Mellencamp’s work and eventually would become his main interest. “Empty Hands” leans into the Americana influences even more without yet abandoning the fact that Mellencamp is a rocker. The percussion crashes and is high in the mix (Mellencamp almost always had great drumming and percussion) and drives forward the tense and yearning song. “Empty Hands” is good enough to be a highlight on most of Mellencamp’s but on “The Lonesome Jubilee” it is just another excellent song that isn’t quite on the album’s very best.

“Hard Times For An Honest Man” could be the theme of the whole record, and in spite of its lyrical pessimism, it is one of the record’s more upbeat, jubilant feeling tracks musically. They may be hard times for the honest man, but the song gives the impression that they can still succeed. “Hard Times For An Honest Man” has a summery feel that is even more present on the warm, breezy “Hot Dogs And Hamburgers”, which has that warm, nostalgic feeling that is made for 4th of July barbecues and dancing at the county fair. “Hot Dogs And Hamburgers” may feel like a lighthearted jaunt (a fact reinforced by the title) but it actually is a fairly deep look at the exploitation of the Native Americans, historical trauma, and personal morality. Thus, it works really well on either a casual listen or a deeper one.

The original album closer is “Rooty Toot Toot”, a song that Mellencamp wrote as a kind of nursery rhyme for his daughter Teddi Jo when she asked him why he had never written a special song for her. It is a fun and lighthearted closer than works well for this particular album.

Later issues add a short bonus track called “Blues From The Front Porch” as the album closer. “Blues From The Front Porch” is a loose blues jam primarily sung by Crystal Taliefero, who worked as a prominent backing and counterpoint vocalist all across “The Lonesome Jubilee” and several other albums. It is also a good way to end the record for versions that have it. 

“The Lonesome Jubilee” has strong songwriting, varied sounds and styles, thoughtful lyrics, emotional resonance, and a strong and unified theme. It is Mellencamp’s best work.