Canadian punks The Flatliners have shared the third single off their first album in five years, “New Ruin”, and this one works in some grungy anthemicism. Don’t you feel like you’ve been cheated? Prepare yourself for the double take of the summer with the deceitful new video for ‘Rat King’. The legend of RonRegal continues in the third and final installment of a story so unhinged you might just have to go back to the very beginning to connect the dots.
We are less than a month away from releasing The Flatliners brand new album, “New Ruin”. If you’ve been following along, you’ve already witnessed the chaos of RonRegal in their first video, “Performative Hours.” Then we were treated to possibly the catchiest song in ages, “Souvenir.” Today, we have the deceitful new video for their third single, “Rat King.”
The new song is called “Rat King” and is off their upcoming album “New Ruin” due out August 5th via Fat Wreck Chords.
Still feels so good to finally have our second record out in the world. Thanks for all the kind messages of love & support, and for blasting the album wherever you are in the world.
“Yesterday Park” is Island’s first new material since 2019 and has seen them already rack up millions of streams as well as earning plaudits from a vast array of publications including American Songwriter, Gigwise, Clash, DIY, The Independent, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and more.
Alongside the release of the album, the band have also shared the final single titled “By Your Side”. As with all of the recent songs, the new anthemic ballad sees the band lean further into a theme of nostalgia that is at once poignant and sanguine, combining wistful and passionate vocals with deceptively intricate instrumentation that is at once hook-driven and dynamically expansive.
Speaking about the single, the band says, “‘By Your Side’ is a song about that messy world of relationships and close friendships. Sometimes complicated times call for simple songs, and ‘By Your Side’ is one of those.”
“Yesterday Park” covers a number of themes, but at its core, it is rooted in the band members’ formative memories. When writing the record, Island considered how their understanding of past experiences had shifted through the many different retrospective lenses they have. Questioning and tackling the complexities of modern life, the band aims to capture that feeling of looking back and finding the beauty in those simple moments that exist as silver-linings.
Island had the majority of the album written just before lockdown in March last year, but, since taking that enforced pause, the songs have grown to take on new significance for them. Speaking on the album, the band go on to say, “Nostalgia is a feeling that has become more relevant for everyone in the last year, with more time and space to reflect on past experiences.”
Brooklyn-based Hello Mary have signed to esteemed indie label Frenchkiss Records. Today the trio – Helena Straight (guitar, vox), Mikaela Oppenheimer (bass), and Stella Wave (drums, vox) – have also shared a new single “Looking Right Into The Sun.” Driven by a tight and dynamic rhythm section that gives way to Straight’s crystalline and confident falsetto, the song features the band’s trademark harmonies and their ability to meld elements of 90s shoegaze with indie rock and grunge into something that is all their own. It was written in true Hello Mary fashion – a collage of different guitar parts, lyrics and rhythmic changes written by all three members. They share, “‘Looking Right Into The Sun’ plays with general themes of feeling stuck and restricted by circumstances out of one’s control. For us specifically it relates to us having to practice as a band during COVID, not being able to play shows, and being stuck in the thick of writing songs out of a need to cope. The main repeating line of the song ‘Looking right into the Sun,’ plays with the idea of confronting something with such duality – the sun is beautiful and mesmerizing yet looking directly at it will blind you- kind of like confronting a hard truth and turning it into a sick song.”
The video concept, which was developed by Abbie Jones and Stella Wave together, plays with these general themes through depicting the band tirelessly promoting a show that only one person ends up attending. Hello Mary is Helena Straight, Stella Wave and Mikaela Oppenheimer.
New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Julie Odell has announced a new album, “Autumn Eve”, due out September 30 via Frenchkiss Records. The new single is propulsive retro rocker “Cardinal Feather,” which Odell says “was born out of a panic attack. It’s about finding support in the dark times and finding the strength within to be gentle with yourself. It’s about accepting help when you need it and not being ashamed for needing it. It can be hard to feel seen when you can’t fully recognize yourself in moments of extreme anxiety and confusion. I’m thankful for the people who have stuck around after all the moments like this that I’ve had, along with so many others.”
Lead single “Cardinal Feather” is a quicksilver ripper, with both a graceful, silky patience and fiery rock motor. The accompanying video finds Odell lakeside in swampy Louisiana, shot from sunrise to dusk in the lush environment under swarms of mosquitoes.
“demonstrates the New Orleans–based songwriter’s talents both on the instrument and for singing, creating a recording that sounds like Neko Case by way of Veckatimest”
Blues guitarist and vocalist Blind Boy Fuller, born Fulton Allen, on this day July 10th, (1907) in Wadesboro, North Carolina — he passed away on February 13th, 1941.
He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans. Piedmont Blues seems dominated by blind men who managed to survive by playing for change on street corners. That was true of Blind Blake, Blind WillieMcTell and Gary DavisJosh White, and Buddy Moss, and none of them sold enough records to make a good living while they were in their prime. That was not true of Blind Boy Fuller, who had a strong career as a recording artist, but died at the age of only thirty-three. He learned guitar as a boy by listening to the work-songs and field-hollers he heard around him every day, and picking up ragtime tunes and popular Blues songs from older players.
By his mid-teens he was starting to lose his sight and, as he was already married and needed money, Fulton began playing full-time on the streets of Rockingham and later in the bigger towns of Winston Salem and Durham. By 1928, Fulton was totally blind, but he had gained a reputation as a versatile musician with a powerful voice and a good ear for copying the records of Blind Blake. He would play outside tobacco warehouses for tips after work and got himself invited to play for money at weekend parties. Some of these gigs would involve playing with local harp player Saunders Terrell (Sonny Terry).
Fuller’s repertoire included a number of popular double entendre “hokum” songs such as “I Want Some Of Your Pie”, “Truckin’ My Blues Away” (the origin of the phrase “keep on truckin”), and “Get Your Yas Yas Out” (adapted as “Get Your Ya-Yas Out” for the origin of a later Rolling Stones album title), and deep and soulful Blues like ‘Steel Hearted Blues’ and ‘Lost Lover Blues’.
He was usually joined on his recordings by some combination of his friends Gary Davis, Sonny Terry and ‘Red’ together with the autobiographical “Big House Bound” dedicated to his time spent in jail. Though much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues numbers, he possessed a formidable finger-picking guitar style. Fuller’s wide range of styles and his open and honest presentation made him one of the best selling Blues artists of the pre-War period.
Fuller went to meet his maker on February 13th 1941, dying from blood-poisoning after complications from a kidney complaint. After he died, his protege Brownie McGhee issued ‘The Death of Blind Boy Fuller’ and was briefly persuaded to appear as ‘Blind Boy Fuller II’. Fuller’s real legacy comes to us in the form of his wide stylistic range, and his influence on the players of modern Piedmont Blues.
We are so so so excited to tell you that our new album, ‘Here Is Everything’ is coming on October 14th!! This album has been on such a huge journey with us and we cannot wait to finally share it with you all The Big Moon return their new album, “Here Is Everything” and it’s theme is motherhood, parenthood, birth, lockdown, friendships and love.
Like so many records landing in store and on streaming services right now, “Here Is Everything” was conceived during the weight and worry of lockdown in a pandemic. Worlds were turned upside down and inside out. Lives became seismically different, whilst every day a carbon copy of the last. So, whilst Covid pulled the duvet tightly up over our heads and sat on it whilst we muffle-screamed that we could not breathe, it was also the unlikely backdrop to welcoming new life. Vocalist Juliette Jackson might have started lockdown teaching fans how to play guitar on Zoom to help pay the rent (including, to her eternal bemusement, one Courtney Love), she ended it as mother to a super little human being.
“Here is Everything” documents the arrival of that fragile but mighty baby in real time, and the excitement and fear felt by this fragile but mighty mother. Meanwhile, the rest of the band doubled-down in the studio, taking Jules’ embryonic song frameworks and stepping forward as one, revelling in an innate, giddy togetherness and with a clutch of genuinely fantastic tunes.
The record was introduced by “Wide Eyes”, a pure, uplifting song of collective jubilance. It sounds like a band in the form of their lives, having the time of their lives, and against all the odds. It sounds instantly like The Big Moon whilst sounding unlike any of the music that’s gone before it.
“Here Is Everything” was mostly self-produced, with the expert guidance and expertise of Adam Cecil Bartlett (Self Esteem, Jehnny Beth, PJ Harvey) and the Grammy Award winning producer Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Deer Hunter, and the producer of Walking Like We Do)
The New Album ‘Here Is Everything’ • Out 14th October.
Addy Harris – caught the attention in 2019, with her excellent debut EP ‘When You Wake Up’.
Drawn into the orbit of 6131 Records, work started on her debut album, and the results are due shortly. Rat Tally will release debut LP ‘In My Car’ on August 12th, and it features Jay Som and Madeline Kenney. She’s introducing it with “Spinning Wheel,” a sighing and melodic one about wanting to get a rise out of someone: “I wish you would scream at me/ At least then I could say a few things/ I was ready on sight/ But you brought a ghost to a fist fight.”
The new song ‘Spinning Wheel’ is excellent, Reflective, it whirls through a number of gorgeous landscapes and memories, before reaching that succinct, absorbing conclusion., a fully realised, gripping piece of indie pop that recalls Soccer Mommy or Julien Baker.
For fans of Lucy Dacus and Soccer Mommy who are sure to find something to love in Addy Harris’s intimate indie rock confessionals. Rat Tally (Addy Harris) Writing sad music for sad people. Or happy people. Or whoever.
Plenty is made of London band High Vis mixing hardcore, a style they dealt in previously, with Creation Records-era indie. “Fever Dream,” however, puts all of its chips on the latter with jangly guitars and frontman Graham Sayle’s sugar sweet vocals taking things back to 1996. Is this the start of a Britpop revival?. High Vis announce their new LP ‘Blending’ with “Fever Dream” – pre-order on limited edition color vinyl at https://found.ee/Blending “The Fever Dream video was shot over the course of three years and assembled as a kaleidoscopic document of the highs and lows of life as a band. Through intimate studio, tour and live footage we were aiming to capture the essence of a band bridging the gap between nostalgic reflection and newly realised optimism. It’s the sound of summer in the capital; chaotic nights blending into aimless days.”
High Vis were formed in 2016 from the ashes of some of the UK’s best hardcore bands. Gold-toothed frontman Graham Sayle’s anguished lyrics about life in working class Britain were familiar to fans of Tremors’ full-throttle thrash, but alongside his former bandmate Edward ‘Ski’ Harper and veterans of Dirty Money, DiE and The Smear, High Vis sought to transform that energy and intensity into something entirely new.
Like scene-mates Chubby and the Gang did by pulling in unlikely source material from classic doo-wop or Micromoon have by combining everything from psychedelia and metal into their high potency mix, High Vis’ 2019 debut album, “No Sense No Feeling” showed the band were never going to be constrained by any sense of genre rules or regulations. Its claustrophobic rattle bore traces of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Crisis, The Cure and Gang Of Four lurking in the shadows. 2020’s synth-driven EP, “Society Exists“, was further evidence of the band’s restless creative MO.
High Vis’ second album “Blending” sees them open their viewfinder wider than ever before. Alongside longstanding favourites such as Fugazi and Echo and The Bunnymen; Ride and even Flock Of Seagulls were shared reference points as the band worked on the album together.
From the anthemic sweep of opener “Talk For Hours”, through the title track’s psychedelic swirl and “Fever Dream’s” baggy groove, it sees High Vis’ sound blossoming into something with an unlimited richness.
The hazy drift of “Shame” or the melodic jangle of “Trauma Bonds” may take them until uncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made “No Sense No Feeling” so remarkable.
Lyrically, the album represents another leap forward too. Talking frankly about poverty, class politics, and the challenges of everyday life, Sayle’s lyrics have always addressed the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britain slipping below the waterline. This time around, Sayle’s lost not of that social consciousness, but he’s looked at himself and his own emotional landscape, and in the process created something that feels more universal, that reaches a hand-out to people and ultimately gives a message of hope.
Kati Malison has a great voice, the kind that make her band Doll Spirit Vessel stand out from the crowd.
Doll Spirit Vessel try to outrun their old beliefs on “Train Brain Rot.” The single marks the first release from their debut, “What Stays” , via Disposable America. An identity crisis disguised as inconspicuous indie rock, “Train Brain Rot” sees bandleader Kati Malison second-guessing some of her strongest convictions. Trying to resist the comfort of being defined, Malison pushes herself to reassess “the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how little they serve us sometimes,” she says in a statement.
The band’s DIY ethos appears in the accompanying music video, co-produced by Malison and Jon Cox (Sadurn, Mother Moses). Malison sprints through the darkness in a sporty get-up as she tries to dodge the obstacles her friends hurl at her, downs a beer and deters her competition by throwing a few elbows. Even after cutting the finish line with what appears to be safety scissors, she doesn’t stop to catch her breath, but rather continues to run in never-ending circles.
Listen to her wail on “Train Brain Rot,” which will feature on “From What Stays“, out August 12th.
“From What Stays” out August 12th, 2022 on Disposable America Written by Kati Malison
Performed and arranged by Kati Malison, Max Holbrook, and Lewis Brown Drums on “What Stays” and “Small Mass” by Pepe Hidalgo E-drums on “Small Mass” by Peter Geiser Backing vocals on “What Stays” and “Mirrors” by Sophie Goldberg Horn on “A Light” by Heidi Aispuro
The third album for Matt Berry’s pseudo-eponymous project. Loss and desire take centre stage as Berry delves deep into 21st century malaise, crafting densely layered songs which project an unshakable yearning for deliverance from the world’s shortcomings.
Each track extends an outstretched palm towards universal connection, blending a complex mix of pop hooks, rock swagger, and psychedelia into dejected populist anthems.
On his lead single “Prime”, Berry channels the simple pop mastery of Lindsay Buckingham. Getting older, I’m getting older, he restlessly croons as he takes jabs at the moral laziness of aging millennials, expressing his yearning for a return to vitality and conviction.
With High Flying Man, Berry embraces undying love in the face of isolation. Daring to want more life becomes a spiritual rallying cry against a world that has failed to make life either meaningful or beautiful. At their core, these songs are not about revolution, but they are about the faith that gives something like revolution a purpose in the first place.
“Prime” by The Berries, from the album ‘High Flying Man’ out August 19th, 2022 via Run For Cover Records
