This Philly quintet’s debut LP—a remastered compilation of their three EPs to date—is a scuzzed-out hookfest with an entire kitchen’s worth of tasty ingredients plucked from the great rock bands of the ‘70s onward. Lead singer Tina Halladay stakes out center stage with a raucous wail that exudes just enough soul to avoid careening off the tracks. When Sheer Mag mixes in Kyle Seely’s riff-loving lead guitar and Ian Dykstra’s biscuit-tin drums, they come out with a danceable punk-boogie formula that recalls Australia’s Royal Headache or, for the older anglophiles in the room, Thin Lizzy. On standout track “Hard Lovin’,” Seely builds a nimble, blues-inflected guitar line beneath Halladay as she sings, “Little boy I can see in the dark / I can breathe underwater, gonna leave my mark / By the time you find out I’ll be down in the flames / I’m in every city you will know my name.” When she gets to your city, don’t miss her.
Sheer Mag have never sounded like a punk band in the traditional sense. The ‘70s-style arena rock they draw their inspiration from didn’t set much of a standard for social consciousness—many of its most famous acts, like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, left it with a reputation for misogyny, hedonism and appropriation. For Halladay, that made it all the more important for Sheer Mag to push the sound in a more thoughtful direction, one forged by the punk bands that followed those classic-rock monoliths—The Clash, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys
The Horrors have shared a third track from their new record. Scroll below to hear ‘Weighed Down’. The London-based band will release their fifth record ‘V’ on September 22. It follows on from 2014’s ‘Luminous’.
Following on from the album’s lead single ‘Machine’ and their record’s synth-pop closing track ‘Something To Remember Me By’, The Horrors have now unveiled ‘Weighed Down’. A sprawling, mind-bending and glitchy number,
Music video by The Horrors performing Weighed Down. (C) 2017 Wolf Tone Limited, under exclusive license to Caroline International.
Lana del Rey has premiered the official music video for her latest single “White Mustang”. The video came out today and now her global fans can watch it on the internet.
The single “White Mustang” is taken from Lana’s fifth studio album “Lust For Life”. The single is co-written by Rick Nowels and Lana so you can expect some fire lyrics. In the opening verse, Lana is talking about packing her stuff and getting ready for the summer but he never called even though he took her number. Despite that, Lana likes her boy. Now with that kind of start to a song, I expect a lot of good things coming up in the remaining lyrics. I hope you’d enjoy how Lana has picturized this song. This video is just a killer.
In the music video, you will see Lana showing her killer looks on-screen. I absolutely adore how beautiful she looks and how she changes her emotion based on what she is singing in the song. You will see her dancing in the slow motion in the video.
After scrapping some stuff they did in 2015, the boys met for their traditional run during the Newport Folk Festival in 2016 and creative juices began to flow. Their set was outstanding and a tremendous amount of fun for everybody involved.
2013′s Negativity were the nascent stages of John McCauley coming out of a funk. We’re now experiencing a McCauley who has a nice home life with a baby girl and is generally taking care of himself – running and cutting back on the booze and smokes. Much like JasonIsbell, those developments have not deterred him from penning some quality tracks. And quality tracks you will get; in fact you’ll get 20 – split among two separate LPs (don’t call it a double album). Vol 1 is the acoustic and Vol 2 sees them plugging in. Folk rockers Deer Tick are the well-established cult band with a huge international following.
The most endearing quality of Deer Tick has always been their heart-on-sleeve approach to their music. While they be married and more mature, that aesthetic is still on full display throughout. Vol 1 opener, Sea Of Clouds is a track about letting go built. McCauley’s rasp is surrounded by angelic harmonies and the tune, built around in a tasty acoustic lick, eventually builds into an orchestral finish.
Only Love is a sad track about the impending end of a relationship. And as you’ve come to expect, McCauley hits it out of the park but the rhythm section is the real star here. It doesn’t let the tune get too bogged down and it really works. On Vol. 2, McCauley mines the addiction subject again with Jumpstarting, arguably the best track of the twenty. I get goose bumps just imagining how this will play out live (yes, I am that lame). The boys revisit the Deervana days with the Nirvana inspired It’s a Whale and Sloppy.
On the back-half on Vol. 2, McCauley takes a humorous look at being a band at the summer festivals with S.M.F. This is sure to be another winner live. That leads into the touching instrumental, Pulse – a tribute to the victims of the 2016 Orlando shooting. The closer, Mr. Nothing Gets Worse, sung by Ian O’Neil feels like it was lifted off one of the Diamond Rugs albums; boozy sax and all.
Not many bands could have pulled this off. But Deer Tick certainly have, Throughout the 20 songs, you get the full gamut of Deer Tick in a way that reflects their current station in life. Good for them. They are and always will be one of my favorites.
This November, Concord Music’s Craft Records imprint will reissue a 25th anniversary super deluxe edition of R.E.M.‘s 1992 album “Automatic For The People”.
We knew this was coming (it was mentioned when Craft Records was launched) and the super deluxe edition very much echoes the content of last year‘s Out Of Time super deluxe, if not the presentation.
R.E.M. is excited to announce the reissue of their landmark album Automatic For The People to commemorate the record’s 25th Anniversary. Due November 10th via Craft Recordings, the remastered album will be available in a variety of formats, the most extensive of which is the Deluxe Anniversary Edition, which will feature the album in its entirety mixed in Dolby Atmos. The album (plus bonus track “Photograph,” featuring Natalie Merchant) was remixed in Dolby Atmos by Automatic’s original producer, Scott Litt, and engineer, Clif Norrell. This technology delivers a leap forward from surround sound with expansive, flowing audio that immerses the listener far beyond what stereo can offer. It transports the listener inside the recording studio with multi-dimensional audio – evoking a time when listening to music was an active, transformative experience, and reigniting the emotion you felt when you first heard the album in 1992. R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People is the first album to be commercially released in this expressive, breathtaking format. In addition, the 4-disc Deluxe Edition will offer a wealth of previously unreleased material. The band selected 20 never-before-heard demos from the LP’s sessions, including the fully-realized, unreleased track “Mike’s Pop Song” and the oft-mused about song, “Devil Rides Backwards.” “Mike’s Pop Song” is available NOW as an instant great track with preorder of the reissue.
The first CD features the remastered (‘from the original analogue tapes’) version of the original album, while disc two offers 13 tracks performed live at the band’s Greenpeace benefit concert at Athens, Georgia’s 40 Watt Club. This performance was about five weeks after the original album release and features four tracks from Automatic For The People.
Twenty demo recordings fill up the third CD and many of them have placeholder titles such as ‘Peter’s New Song’ and ‘Bill’s Acoustic’, although where applicable, the titles of the songs they became are indicated! There are also a couple of previously unreleased tracks, ‘Mike’s Pop Song’ and ‘Devil Rides Backwards’. As with Out Of Time, expect a fair few instrumentals.
The fourth disc is a blu-ray which features a ‘Dolby Atmos’ surround sound mix of the album (plus bonus track ‘Photograph’ featuring Natalie Merchant).
The blu-ray on this super deluxe also contains videos for the singles (including two versions of Nightswimming) and the EPK (Electronic Press Release) issued at the time. Incidentally, this disc also includes a hi-res stereo version of the album.
Craft Recordings have gone for a bigger, square-shaped book this time around and haven’t replicated the same packaging as used for the Out Of Time super deluxe. You will see from the image above that the cover features a variation of the 1992 album artwork (only the vinyl reissue maintains the original) and the 60-page book will feature photos (some unreleased) taken at various sessions by Anton Corbijn and Melodie McDaniel in 1992 and 1993, along with expanded liner notes by Tom Doyle who conducted new interviews with all four band members. The book sits in a 12” x 12” box.
The Californian trio pack up their reverb and garage-psych and pile it all into this debut album that drips with reverbed guitars and sultry vocals of Sade Sanchez.
Opener ‘Kill My Baby Tonight’ is the perfect introduction to the band’s 60s girls-in-the-garage style and David Lynch’s surreal exposés of Southern California’s underbelly. ‘Brian’ reveals similar slow-mo psych leanings, while the motorik beat and fuzzed-out licks of ‘Drive Your Car’ and step-on-the-gas speed of ‘Feel Alright’ sit equally well with the dreamier delight of the langorous ‘Baby In Blue Jeans’ providing a seductive, haunting, and engaging sound that encompasses garage rock, dreampop, psych, and beyond.
L.A. WITCH — ‘HEART OF DARKNESS‘
from the debut L.A. WITCH EP [March 18, 2014/MANIMAL]
They might be the latest exciting act emerging from New Zealand, but before they embarked on their new record, Willowbank, Yumi Zouma never really felt like a band from New Zealand. It was only during what band-member Josh Burgess describes as, “a brief pause in all of our lives”, that the band settled on a plan to go home to Christchurch and record their first release put together entirely in their home country. The fruits of that homecoming will become evident with Willowbank’s release next month, but ahead of that, the band have shared a video to new single, Half Hour.
Half Hour is inspired by Josh’s grandfather’s death back when he was just seven, as he explains, “the first time I experienced death in any significant way was when I was seven. My granddad died, and I still remember this feeling knowing that now he was no longer on the planet, and no matter how hard I searched, he could not be found”. It is perhaps no surprise that the song mirrors that sense of confusion, loss and longing for the past. Musically, it’s sad certainly but also strong, as singer Christie’s vocal entwines with Josh’s atop a backing of complex rhythms and pulses of bassy synth. A rush of electronics and gorgeous pop-tinged melodies, Yumi Zouma have never sounded more ready for the success that looks set to come their way.
Filmed in Christchurch, New Zealand, by Julian Vares. Willowbank is out October 6th via Cascine. ‘Persephone’ is the third single from Yumi Zouma’s sophomore album, Willowbank. Listen to previously released singles ‘December’ and ‘Depths (Pt. I) here: http://bit.ly/yumi_dec_sc
Alvvays are a band who no longer require much in the way of an introduction. The Canadian-quintet just put out their hotly anticipated, and frankly brilliant, second album, Antisocialites, and have this week shared the video to new single, Dream Tonite.
The track is accompanied by a beautiful video where director Matt Johnson inserts Alvvays into footage of the Montreal Expo back in 1967, the perfectly retro video serving as an expert accompaniment to the band’s timeless take on pop. A clear stand out from Antisocialites, Dream Tonite is Alvvays at their most downbeat and wistful, as lyrically, singer Molly Rankin seems to grapple with a fading memory of a failed relationship. Alvvays have never sounded better and increasingly the cliché of difficult second albums seem entirely redundant.
Antisocialites is out now via Transgressive Records.
“Dreams Tonite” is taken from our new album, Antisocialites, out September 8th, 2017.
Atlanta-based band Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ recorded a Peter Buck-produced demo titled “Mountaintop” for their 1989 classic album Mystery Road, but the track was never released … until now. “Mountaintop” will be included on an expanded edition of Mystery Road due out on October. 6th.
“Mountaintop” is an ambling, upbeat track “about climbing up a mountain to find yourself,” as Kinney sings. The rustic tune is highlighted by bright mandolin notes and inviting vocal harmonies. Kinney says the song is “about spending years to accomplish what you thought you needed to accomplish and find out you’ve been standing on top of it the whole time.”
Kinney also recalls writing “Mountaintop,” and how the song helped to shape Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s sound from square one: “Mountaintop” was actually a song I wrote when I first retired … at the ripe old age of 23! I was in the Milwaukee punk avant-garde scene and had sold off all my possessions, grabbed a girl and left town, never to return. First stop, Graceland … Memphis, Tennessee!
Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s forthcoming deluxe edition of Mystery Road includes both a remastering of the original record and nine previously unreleased Peter Buck demos, many of which ended up on frontman Kevn Kinney’s debut solo album, MacDougal Blues, also produced by Buck.
We opened all of our shows with it for the first year or so. People would come out to the shows expecting to hear this way-out psychedelic punk band and we would walk out with an acoustic guitar, mandolin and a tambourine. It helped to define us as the band that was like your record collection, or a wedding for that matter. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something to blow your mind.
The album that includes two of the all-time D’nC classics, “Honeysuckle Blue” and “Straight To Hell”? Those two songs made an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of every rock fan in Georgia.
Cheap Trick‘s self-titled debut album, which came out in February 1977, showed the band was capable of playing tough rock ‘n’ roll with the best of the era. But it was their second LP, In Color, released just seven months later, that proved they had a pop side to them too. This album is considered a classic of the power pop genre as well as one of the best rock albums ever recorded.
Unlike the first album, which was produced by Jack Douglas (the man responsible for making those early Aerosmith records sound so good), In Color was guided by Tom Werman, an A&R man who signed CheapTrick to Epic Records and had previously worked on Ted Nugent‘s albums.
With Cheap Trick, he softened some of their rougher edges and brought out the melodies that were lurking just below the surface of so many of their songs. It also helped that the songwriting was tighter and more focused the second time around. (Guitarist Rick Nielsen wrote all 10 of the LP’s tracks, two of them with bassist Tom Petersson.) It all added up to the band’s first classic album … though they didn’t necessarily feel that way.
Werman spotted the pop hooks that were inherently attached to the group’s music. He even noted that they were on the debut too, they just happened to get lost in the rock ‘n’ roll guitars. With his A&R radar ringing loudly, Werman wanted to make Cheap Trick a Top 40 band. He heard the potential in their songs, which could be just as radio-friendly as the Beatles‘ at times.
So he turned down the noise, turned up the pop and polished off the edge, a complaint lodged at Werman by CheapTrick and other clients over the years.
But Tom Werman hit a sweet spot with Cheap Trick. Despite their problems with his production, they worked with him on their next two studio albums, 1978’s Heaven Tonight and 1979’s Dream Police, their only Top 10 studio LP. (In between those two records was Cheap Trick at Budokan, the landmark live album that made Cheap Trick stars.) And why not? In Color is a great power pop album, a classic of the genre and a creative breakthrough for the band.
Half of its songs make up half of At Budokan (which was recorded in Tokyo around the time of Heaven Tonight‘s release): album opener “Hello There,” “Big Eyes,” “Clock Strikes Ten,” “Come On, Come On” and “I Want You to Want Me,” which, when released as a live version two years later, became Cheap Trick’s breakthrough single.
And they’re just as electrifying on In Color, bouncing off the walls and sticking their landings — especially the hand-clap-powered “Southern Girls,” maybe its most enduring song. Almost every piece seems in place. Next to the justly celebrated At Budokan, In Color is the band’s most defining record, even if they have misgivings about Werman’s studio gloss. Truth be told, the production showcases a side of them that may never have come out otherwise.
(In the late ’90s, the band reportedly re-recorded the entire album with producer Steve Albini, an engineer known for his press-“record”-and-let-the-band-go-wild style, The re-recorded In Color never came out, but the sessions have surfaced online.) The big commercial push for the band didn’t really pay off at home. Cheap Trick had to wait another couple of years before one of their albums broke into the Top 40 (Budokan, again), but just one year until Heaven Tonight‘s “Surrender” nudged its way to No. 62. In Color managed to climb to No. 73 — a huge achievement seeing that Cheap Trick didn’t even crack the Top 200.
But the album was huge in Japan. Those screaming kids, and their eardrum-splitting enthusiasm, you hear on Budokan are real. A couple singles, and the LP, rocketed to the top of the charts there, setting in motion one of rock’s greatest fairy tales. No matter how Cheap Trick feel about In Color these days, it’s the album that put them on their path to stardom. Without it, and the power-pop sheen Werman gave the record, they may not have ended up eventually making that mainstream breakthrough they were hoping for.
