The Fat Angel Sings

With time, we come to understand the way the joy of connection is mirrored by the void of loss, how the constancy of love is matched only by the impermanence of life, the simple idea that we could not create light if we did not risk the dark – we’d never need to.

So it is with Metz, a band once known for blowing out eardrums with songs of joyous rage who have, over their past few records, begun exploring ways to turn abrasiveness into atmospherics, the evolution of their sound not only a reflection of the maturing of the band themselves but also of a changed world that demands nuance and compassion to comprehend and to survive.

It was a journey already underway on 2020’s “Atlas Vending“, but one that reaches new heights on “Up On Gravity Hill”, where the Canadian trio creates a kaleidoscopic sonic world as tender as it is dark, aided once again by engineer Seth Manchester (Mdou Moctar, Lingua Ignota, Battles, The Body). Deep, detailed, and unyieldingly personal, it is not only Metz’s most powerful record to date but also their most beautiful.

Still three punks from Ontario at heart, guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Menzies, and bassist Chris Slorach waste no time as opener “No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing” sweeps in like a wave, sonically and thematically setting the scene for the record to come. A dynamic song about feeling suspended in stasis, layers of dissonance melt into a restlessly heady outro marked by escalating crescendos of shimmering noise that reach for the stars—and is that a violin quivering brightly beneath those elegant swells of guitar, those charging drum fills, those intricate bass lines? It is indeed, courtesy of composer Owen Pallett; his presence an immediate indicator that Metz are thinking more cinematically than ever before.

The change is partially inspired by Edkins’ work as a scorer for film and television and his pop-leaning solo project, Weird Nightmare, where, he says, he learned to write more intuitively, letting his emotions lead the way. But make no mistake: “Up On Gravity Hill” is a total band effort, the work of three musicians who have been playing together for over a decade, with all the trust that entails.

For those who believe in the power of the rock band to exemplify the highest resonance of human connection, there is much on “Up On Gravity Hill” to lift the spirit, a puzzle worth repeated listening to unlock or just to get lost in again and again. Rather than the music being flattened into a single plane, the band explores “the space above the cymbals,” resulting in some of the most spacious, sympathetic, and accessible songs—could we call them pop?—of their career. If this seems contradictory, well, Metz has always been something of a contradiction. “We’ve never been heavy enough for metal or hardcore purists, but we’re way too heavy for indie rock. We just don’t have a lane—and that’s okay. We exist outside the lines of delineation. I think this record is even more like that,” says Edkins.

Thrilling debut album “This Could Be Texas” from Leeds indie frontrunners English Teacher. Singles of ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, ‘Nearly Daffodils’ and ‘Mastermind Specialism’, which were all A-listed on the BBC 6 Music playlist, English Teacher’s remarkable ascent continues to reach new levels, having completed sold-out debut UK and US headline runs last autumn, following their thrilling debut appearance on Later With…Jools Holland.

Lead singer Lily Fontaine explains, “I want this album to feel like you’ve gone to space, and it turns out its almost identical to Doncaster. It’s about in-betweens, it’s about home, and it’s about Desire Paths.” In several songs, Fontaine reflects on growing up as a mixed-race individual in a place, she says, “where many didn’t have any tolerance towards people who are different” in a post-Brexit landscape. 

The debut album from the Leeds indie ascendants, English Teacher, goes way beyond their post-punk tags to showcase an incredible versatility, depth & range to their sound – from joyous pop to inventive instrumentation to melancholic comedowns – all with cracking guitar riffs & melodies.

‘Bursting Out’, will be reissued on 3CD/3DVD boxset with an array of extras, remixed by the legendary Steven Wilson, out 21st June 2024. Jethro Tull’s first live album, recorded at various locations during the European “Heavy Horses” tour in May and June 1978.

• CD 1: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 1) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix, Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 7, 10, 11 (full version) & 12-16 previously unreleased

• CD 2: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 2) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix, Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 11-13 previously unreleased

• CD 3: contains an edited version of the 1978 Madison Square Garden Show which was issued in 2009 but now mixed by Steven Wilson

• DVDs 1 & 2 have the remixed tracks in 96/24 stereo and 5.1 surround plus the flat transfers of the original album at 96/24 stereo

• DVD 3 has the full 93-minute MSG show including 50+ minutes of video which was part of a transatlantic broadcast with the BBC and Radio 1. The audio is 48/24 stereo and 5.1 surround

• Hardbacked 96-page book

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson said: “A live extravaganza from the 70s Jethro Tull, this was recorded over several nights in different venues on a portable 8-track tape recorder and transferred to 2” multitrack when I got home after the tours. I had to listen all through to many shows and pick the best live versions. But much of it was, at least, from the concert in Bern, Switzerland where dear Claude Nobs came to introduce the band in his inimitable style. Also featuring on this box set collection is the live concert from Madison Square Gardens recorded a few months later and shown live on BBC TV in the UK. A scary experience for the band as it was, we were told, the first time a live rock concert had been the subject of a live satellite broadcast. The new edition also includes a 96-page booklet with photos, an interview with Ian Anderson, about the making of “Bursting Out“, tour info and excerpts from crew members Kenny Wylie and David Morris.

The band line-up at this time was a fine-tuned machine and, although missing the unwell John Glascock for the MSG show, it serves as a fine testimony for the many wonderful shows we did in the 70s, before general touring fatigue and burn-out began a year or so later. Enjoy vintage Tull at its 70s best!”

Jethro Tull are the cover stars of the new issue of Prog Magazine, on sale tomorrow, and today the band announce a new reissue of their classic 1978 live album “Bursting Out” as the next release in the band’s ongoing box set reissues campaign. “Bursting Out: The Inflated Edition” will be released through Rhino Records in June 21st.

UK duo The KVB call their new album “dystopian pop” which honestly I think would apply to everything they’ve ever released. “Tremors” is straight-up darkwave post-punk that borrows from the best: basslines from The Cure, synths and vocals from New Order/Joy Division, and the sweep (but not the bombast) of Sisters of Mercy. Nicholas Wood and Kat Day know how to construct satisfying, hooky songs and really understand genre sonics.

“Tremors” sees Manchester-based cold wave duo The KVB return to the darker sound that embodied their earliest releases whilst retaining the infectious energy of their previous album “Unity” which MOJO described as having a “sense of wonderment throughout”. The band have dubbed their sound on “Tremors” as ‘dystopian pop’, and wrote it with the live show in mind; full of energy, hooks and dynamic moments.

Writing the album between Manchester and Bristol, the band have drawn on their own back catalogue and the music that inspired them at the very beginning of their artistic journey. The end result is the most complete album from The KVB to date, full of emotive impact and hooks presented in a uniquely shadowy atmosphere with an idiosyncratic detachment that adds to the cinematic quality of their sound.

On that note, “Tremors” is their biggest, best sounding record yet with a few curveballs in the mix, like the widescreen pop sheen on “In The Silence” and the sexy noir atmosphere and extremely satisfying chorus on “Overload.” There are no shortage of groups who sound like this, but few do it as well as The KVB.

The Pernice Brothers will release their new album “Who Will You Believe?” on April 6th, and they’ve just shared “I Don’t Need That Anymore,” which is a gorgeous he-said-she-said duet with Neko Case.

“‘I Don’t Need That Anymore’ is one of the rare songs of mine that started with a lyric hook instead of a melody,” says Joe Pernice. “My wife and my mother were looking at the latter’s sixty-six-year-old wedding album. My wife said to my mother, ‘Wow! You Had some figure.’ Not skipping a beat, my mother said, ‘I had it when I needed it.’ I immediately sent myself a text that read ‘I’m glad I had it when I needed it. But baby, I don’t need that anymore.’ I was excited that Neko was into singing with me. No one needs me to tell of her singular voice. And being in the live room while she recorded her part legit gave me goosebumps. And she’s a really great person, which is always a plus.”

from the new album ‘Who Will You Believe’ out April 5th

Los Angeles four-piece Milly have announced their new album, “Your Own Becoming”, which is set to arrive June 28th via Dangerbird Records. To coincide with the announcement of their first LP since their 2022 debut “Eternal Ring”, the band has unveiled lead single “Drip From the Fountain.” The track is melodic in all of its noise, blending a piercing, mountainous leveling of distortion with a great vocal performance from songwriter/singer Brendan Dyer. “I know, I know, the years fall down,” he sings. “I know, I know, they’re spinning ’round. Still, the dusk holds a broken home.” Together, Dyer, Yarden Erez, Connor Frankel and Nico Moreta have put together a tune that is bulletproof, full of skyscraping riffage and knee-deep in hooks.

“This was the final song we wrote for the record,” Dyer says of “Drip From the Fountain.” “I’m trying to just soak in being a person and enjoying my time and especially observing as much stuff as I can. The dark especially. ‘Time is running out but this moment feels nice’ is truly where my head was at.”

The L.A. band’s latest is set to release on June 28th via Dangerbird Records

DIIV are releasing a new album, “Frog in Boiling Water“, on May 24th via Fantasy Records. This week they shared the album’s third single, “Everyone Out.”

The band collectively had this to say about the track in a press release: “Everyone Out’ utilizes a softer and more textural sonic pallet: acoustic instruments, layered tape loops and synthesizers. The song is emotional and intimate, and could be interpreted as either hopeful or cynical. It may or may not be a character study centering around a quick transition from youthful naivety to bitter disillusionment. This loss of hope may be manifest in a desire to leave society completely or to accelerate its collapse. Or maybe both, or neither.”

Previously the band shared the album’s lead single, “Brown Paper Bag,” in which the band has a fake performance on Saturday Night Live. The video also features Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. The band had also shared a video for “Soul Net.” The band originally shared the audio of the song last October exclusively via a strange website of the same name, but more recently they shared a video of the song to YouTube.

DIIV is Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield, Ben Newman, and Zachary Cole Smith. “Frog in Boiling Water” is the follow-up to “Deceiver”, which came out in 2019 via Captured Tracks. It’s been five years since that album and DIIV spent four of those making the new record, a process that a press release says almost broke the band as they strived to push their sound.

This is also the first album where the band acted as a democracy. “This journey left their relationships with one another fraying, with the many complex dynamics of family, friendship and finances entangled, coupled with suspicions, resentments, bruised egos and anxious questions,” stated the press release announcing the album.

The album’s title was inspired by Daniel Quinn’s 1996 philosophical novel The Story of B. The band collectively explained more about the title in the previous press release: “If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.

“We understand the metaphor to be one about a slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities we’ve maybe come to accept as normal. That’s the boiling water and we are the frogs. The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition which we think highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.”

“Spilt Milk” is the second and last studio album by American rock band Jellyfish, released on February 9th, 1993, by Charisma Records. It features a harsher and more ornate sound than their previous, “Bellybutton” (1990). As with “Bellybutton”, “Spilt Milk” was written and co-produced by founding members Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning. Albhy Galuten and Jack Joseph Puig also returned as producers.

Named for the hard work and turmoil surrounding its making, Spilt Milk was recorded after the departure of bassist Chris Manning (who was replaced by Tim Smith) and lead guitarist Jason Faulkner. Guitar duties were instead handled by session musicians Jon Brion and Lyle Workman. Production lasted several months due to the record’s complicated orchestrations, and ultimately ran over-budget.

The album was supported with a yearlong tour that introduced guitarist Eric Dover into the band’s line-up. “Spilt Milk” performed below commercial expectations, Singles “The Ghost at Number One” and “New Mistake” charted .

“Spilt Milk” was the vision of what we set out to do fully realized. Everything Andy and I would stay up late dreaming and talking and fantasizing about we went for on “Bellybutton”, which I was proud of. But on “Spilt Milk” we saw all those ideas seen through to fruition.

Roger Manning, 

The press described “Spilt Milk” as being “as compelling a homage to the Beatles and the Beach Boys as there is”, but one that is “so heavy on production sleight-of-hand that the melodies sometimes collapse beneath the weight of the sound.” Though he criticized the album for being “frustratingly derivative”, he praised its “sprawling production and loving performances”

Manning and Sturmer collaborated with Ringo Starr for his 1992 solo album “Time Takes Time”. They were then invited to work with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wilson and Jellyfish only had one song-writing session that was unproductive. Manning described the experience as “utterly surreal”. After their sessions with Starr and Wilson, the band was dedicated to making their next album “their masterpiece”

An expanded deluxe edition of the album was released by Omnivore Recordings in 2015

This five-disc 66 track round up of pretty much everything recorded by early 70s Glam hard rockers Geordie. Including their four official studio albums – ‘Hope You Like It’, ‘Don’t Be Fooled By The Name’, ‘Save The World’ and the rare ‘No Good Woman’ – plus a fifth disc of re- recordings by vocalist Brian Johnson.

With the UK hit singles ‘Don’t Do That’ (No.32), ‘All Because Of You’ (No.6), ‘Can You Do It’ (No.13) and ‘Electric Lady’ (No.32).

In Germany ‘All Because Of You’ hit No.30 whilst ‘Can You Do It’ reached No.22 and ‘Electric Lady’ No.32 and they also scored German hits with ‘Ain’t It Just Like A Woman’ (No.43) and ‘Black Cat Woman’ (No.36).

The 20-page booklet comes complete with a detailed history of the band plus loads of pictures of all relevant record releases including many overseas issues to get the collectors updating their “Wants Lists”!

You can’t talk about Geordie without mentioning vocalist Brian Johnson who went onto fame as the frontman of AC/DC whom he joined in 1980 and debuted on the mega-selling ‘Back In Black’ album.