“Fingerless Gloves” sounds restless and chaotic, with Kevin Barnes cycling through three different aesthetics – warped hyperpop bounce, macho riff rock, classic fey Of Montreal synthpop – within just the first 30 seconds. It holds together through sheer force of will and a gleeful “fuck it” playfulness, and it makes you feel like you’ve been zapped into the brain of someone who thinks and feels much faster than you do. In terms of the Of Montreal catalogue it’s pretty similar to the bonkers energy of Skeletal Lamping, but there’s a different charge to it – less frazzled, more at peace with an identity full of apparent contradictions. There are songs in which ping-ponging through genres and tones is an expression of an unstable state of mind but “Fingerless Gloves” sounds more settled in a sense of identity, and like a statement of pride in being fractured and strange. I mean, check out how triumphant Barnes sounds at the climax, screaming “I Feel So Safe With You Trash!!!!” over super-charged video game thrash metal. That’s some maniac joy right there.
Making their debut on Wick Records, New York’s own Steady Sun deliver two sublime sides of ethereal psych. We’re not talking about your run-of-the-mill fuzz fodder here, folks – Steady Sun delivers some of the most refreshingly satisfying psychedelia in decades! “Truth is the Needle” floats out of the speakers like lysergic vapor, engulfing the listener in layers of delicate guitar, spaced-out vocals, and pulsating bass that swirl around the heavy, grounded groove – generating an intoxicating juxtaposition. On the flip is “To Lash Around”, whose insistent beat and hook-heavy melody will send you through a sonic wormhole that marries the experimentation of Barrett era Floyd with the hypnotic bounce of 1990s Manchester.
“Truth Is A Needle” feels slow, and not just in a musical sense. It sounds like experiencing time in slow motion and being only half-aware of it, but extremely attuned to the details that would ordinarily fly by. It’s a very stoned piece of music, psychedelic in the most literal way. The vocal melody is the most immediately appealing aspect of the song but the coolest part is the way the drums seem to drop you off to new levels through the piece. It feels like a drop, but not quite a descent – if anything, the gravitational pull seems to get weaker as you move through it.
“Dirt” is the latest EP from Hand Habits, the songwriting project of Meg Duffy. Comprised of two songs, “4th of july,” a simmering swell of chaos and beauty and “I Believe In You,” a favourite of Duffy’s from the Neil Young canon, the EP finds the songwriter exploring themes of growth and finding ways to let go of the parts of their past that no longer serve them.
Dirt showcases an artist returning to the fertile creative ground of their home. However, this time around home-recording didn’t necessarily mean working in isolation. Duffy had relocated to a shared living situation in Los Angeles with musicians Sasami Ashworh and Kyle Thomas (King Tuff), which also housed Thomas’ studio. The resulting songs showcase this creatively collaborative environment, with Ashworth co-producing the lead single and Thomas co-producing “I Believe In You,”. Such is the strength of this relationship, in fact, that this new single just may serve as a bridge toward a greater body of work the three will ultimately create together.
The resulting EP illuminates the songwriter’s attempts to evolve beyond the confines of their past. As they put it, “‘4th of july’ feels like trying again, rolling around in the wreckage of the past and finding new ways out of the maze of memory.” The sonic texture of the song complements this lyrical journey, with a simple and sparse introduction marked by a slow burn crescendo hinting at the rupture to come, followed by an ecstatic wail of transcendent emotion. Fittingly, it concludes with a reprise of the beginning but this time altered by new sounds, suggesting a new perspective.
Similarly, Duffy breathes new life into the Young staple, adding a foreboding weight and impact to the long-familiar words. For Duffy, the process of recording and the song’s themes of growth through trust dovetailed perfectly.
Holy Sons from Brooklyn, New York, The music of Emil Amos is at once intimate and expansive. Under the name Holy Sons, as well as with bands Om, Grails, and Lilacs and Champagne, Amos harnesses boundless sonic textures to embellish delicately crafted songs. His music balances cues from classic and indie rock traditions with a tenderness and sense of foreboding through unparalleled artistry. Holy Sons’ first double album “Raw and Disfigured” showcases Amos’ mastery of songcraft through a seemingly impossible combination of subtle yet potent gestures, bold arrangements and resolute vulnerability. Raw and Disfigured stands as Amos’ most ambitious and comprehensive album yet, a panoramic gallery of songs as beautiful as they are crushing.
Raw and Disfigured draws thematically from the archetypal tale of Quasimodo and classic ghost story imagery to illustrate the “hero’s journey” in the time of a coming apocalypse. Album opener “The Loser That Always Wins” acts as the album’s thematic thesis and traces the tale of an underdog triumphing against all odds. From the opening swells, Amos creates a sense of mystery and tension. Melodic sections pierce through the thick fogs of unease with gliding choral harmonies and guitar lines. The looming threat of apocalypse hangs in the air of “Cast Bound King” and “Permanent Things” which gives way to sun dappled catharsis.
Songs like “Lady of the Hour” and “Transformation” serve as vistas amidst the gloom with sweeping pastoral layers and melodies that grasp towards hope rather than resignation. Amos pays homage to one of the greatest champions of the underdog in outsider pop music with an anthemic cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Held the Hand.” Closing piece “Bloody Strings” quietly draws the curtains on the album, borrowing melodic phrases from “Permanent Things” and reconfiguring them into a funeral march towards acceptance of our inevitable decay.
The recording of Raw and Disfigured took place largely at Sonic Youth’s studio Echo Canyon West. Amos, who plays the bulk of the instruments and sings the majority of the vocals throughout the album, is joined on a few pieces by drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), as well as album and WFMU in-house engineer Ernie Indradat. The swirling atmospheres of “Lost in the Fire” and “Slow To Run” (featuring Shelley) invoke the spaced-out textures of Spacemen 3 to colour Amos’ moving pop structures. “Coiste Bodhar” buttresses the album’s cinematic undercurrent across nine minutes of instrumental grandeur as affecting as the touchingly raw electric piano and voice duet of the album’s final minutes.
Holy Sons’ songs contain entire epochs, elegantly stretching the bounds of pop songs. Amos’ lyrics are as immediate as they are haunting, spilling out across the expense of entire lifetimes. A keen observer, Amos describes the world from the darker side. Rich vocals draw you into an exotic atmosphere of mystical musical sounds, while classic lilting guitar lines entice you further. Raw and Disfigured proves the enduring power of the rock ballad without dwelling on the nostalgic tropes. The ballads of Holy Sons are ballads for these dark times.
Emil Amos’ (Grails, OM) fantastic double LP from last year, “Raw and Disfigured”, is back on orange wax. The first press of this sold out super quickly,
Led by Taylor Momsen, The Pretty Reckless never fail to resurrect the attitude and rock rebellion of yesteryear, and “Death By Rock And Roll” is a wonderful homage to the glory years of the past whilst being so very vital right now!
Tapping into a huge range of hard rock genres, including metal, blues rock and even grunge – their fourth album continues to push forward and sees Momsen powerful vocals at her best, with incredible lyrical prowess too. Check out the hard hitting title track, sinister single “Broomsticks”, colossal anthem “25” plus “And So It Went” which sees them team up with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello to bring the big riffs everyone needs in their life.
See The Pretty Reckless make an appearance at DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL this summer,
Trace the arc of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s evolution and it shows an accomplished musician and composer sounding ever more confident, constantly refining and broadening his sound and indulging an ever wider set of influences. Few have been as consistently brilliant, eclectic, and intimate; fewer still have done so while being defiantly, 100% independent, refusing to sign deals that compromise artistic vision. ‘New Fragility’ is a continuation of this, yet it also stands apart as one his strongest collection of songs yet. Personal yet universal, ‘New Fragility’ confronts numerous modern ills.
‘Where They Perform Miracles’, a song concerning spirituality and alternative methods of healing, harks back to Ounsworth’s time as an anthropology student doing fieldwork in Mexico, while Dee, ‘Forgiven’ is an intimate look at what harm anxiety, and the over-prescription of certain medication, has on the vitality of youth. The song contains one of Ounsworth’s strongest vocals yet – a quivering beacon that shifts from a wail to a low grumble in the blink of an eye, a remarkable expressive instrument that sits perfectly amid the understanded orchestration. For 15 years, it’s been one of music’s most distinctive voices, and it’s never sounded as rich or poised.
America is still reeling from Trump’s presidency and his attempted last grab at power, rallying the Far Right for a riot at the White House, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah try to understand the events and bring about a sense of healing on sixth album New Fragility.
“No one seems to be speaking to what I feel like is inescapable. The political environment around the world, but especially the United States – I don’t understand why people don’t try to at least touch on it.” – Alec Ounsworth, Powerful and anthemic, New Fragility is ten tracks which conjures some of the Springsteen magic, and finds strength in sensitivity rather than becoming an outright protest record. By connecting emotionally, rather than making political statements, it becomes all the more compelling.
“New Fragility” Out February 12th, 2021 VIA CYHSY / Secretly Distrubution.
Like so many of plans made in the past year, “Flat White Moon” started out as one thing and evolved into another. After the complexities of touring 2018’s Open Here, which required a bigger live band to cover the expansive arrangements, and then 2020’s Making A New World, which was performed as one continuous piece with a synchronised visual accompaniment, Field Music’s newest album began with the desire to play and to have fun.
On “Flat White Moon” Field Music takes on the challenge of representing negative emotions in a way that doesn’t dilute or obscure them but which can still uplift. The result is a generous record of bounteous musical ideas, in many ways Field Music’s most immediately gratifying release to date.
“We want to make people feel good about things that we feel terrible about.” says David Brewis, who has co-led the band Field Music with his brother Peter since 2004. It’s a statement which seems particularly fitting to their latest album, Flat White Moon released on 23 April via Memphis Industries.
Sporadic sessions for the album began in late 2019 at the pair’s studio in Sunderland, slotted between rehearsals and touring. The initial recordings pushed a looser performance aspect to the fore, inspired by some of their very first musical loves; Free, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles; old tapes and LPs pilfered from their parents’ shelves. But a balance between performance and construction has always been an essential part of Field Music. By March 2020, recording had already begun for most of the album’s tracks and, with touring for Making A New World winding down, Peter and David were ready to plough on and finish the record.
The playfulness that’s evident in much of Flat White Moon’s music became a way to offset the darkness and the sadness of many of the lyrics. Much of the album is plainly about loss and grief, and also about the guilt and isolation which comes with that.
We are delighted to share with you news of Field Music’s new album Flat White Moon, released on 23rd April 2021, featuring new single No Pressure and already out there Orion From the Street.
This week Philadelphia-based trio Another Michael shared the song “Row,” another sneak peek from their upcoming album. “New Music and Big Pop” will be out next Friday (February. 19th) on Run For Cover Records,
Frontman Michael Doherty speaks about the song in a press release: “‘Row’ is a song that I built around a rhythm guitar line that to me, resembles the feeling of rowing a boat. I wanted to create a song that allowed our acoustic and electric elements to ring out as one texture, and to showcase the range of musical styles that we’ve touched on since the start of this project.”
For Another Michael, it all boils down to trust. In mid-2017, the critically acclaimed indie three-piece packed their bags and collectively relocated from Albany, NY to a shared house in West Philadelphia. This move signalled not only the start of a new chapter for the trio, but also a deepening of the bonds that would come to define their captivating debut LP, ‘New Music and Big Pop.’ “It’s hard for a group of people to get closer than living together,” says bassist and producer Nick Sebastiano. “The stronger our connection grew, the more it shaped the music we found ourselves making.”
It should come as little surprise, then, that ‘New Music and Big Pop’ is Another Michael’s most collaborative work yet. Recorded in a small A-frame house-turned-makeshift studio outside Ferndale, NY, the record finds the trio pushing their sound in a dreamier, more folk-influenced direction, building songs around vulnerable, intimate performances using an ethereal palette of breezy guitars, subtle keyboards, and layered harmonies. As on the band’s early EPs, singer and songwriter Michael Doherty’s mesmerizing voice is front and centre here, calling to mind Robin Pecknold or Ben Bridwell in its reedy, crystalline timbre, but it feels more at home than ever before amidst the album’s lush, Technicolor landscape, which the band partnered with producer and fellow housemate Scoops Dardaris to create. The result is a masterfully understated record that belies its status as a full-length debut, a thoughtful, poetic, collection all about growth and change, hope and faith, endings and beginnings, delivered by a band that’s only just begun to scratch the surface of their story.
The band has previously shared the songs “Big Pop,” “I Know You’re Wrong,” and “New Music” from their upcoming album.
“New Music” by Another Michael from the 7″ / 2 song digital single ‘New Music’ out now via Run For Cover Records
UK trio Mush release new album “Lines Redacted” and here’s one last new single before the whole album drops. “The concept for “Hazmat Suits” bizarrely predates the pandemic,” explains frontman Dan Hyndman. “It then quickly became relevant and I retroactively rewrote some of the verses. I saw a group of guys in Hazmat Suits going into a building in Leeds town center around March, it was a really strong image that made me pick the tune-up again. It evoked a real modern dystopian vibe.”
The Leeds three piece, Mush’s new album Lines Redacted is out this week. Politically on point without being didactic, musically uncompromising yet as catchy as the Kent variant and as funny as it is coruscating, it’s Album of the Day on BBC 6 Music today and is getting praised to the rafters elsewhere:
“One of the finest British guitar records of recent years” 8/10 UNCUT “Rallying against aggravating, absurd political realities with passion and humor, the Leeds post-punks offer a tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to dourer contemporaries” Pitchfork “Twisty indie rock that pulls from the gamut of the arch and angular” Brooklyn Vegan
Pale Waves‘ next album ‘Who Am I?’ singer/guitarist Heather Baron-Gracie has revealed is out now. Baron-Gracie confirmed the news when she responded to a fan on Twitter who posited the idea that the Manchester band’s follow-up “is just chilling on a hard drive somewhere”
Pale Waves’ debut album, ‘My Mind Makes Noises’, was released in 2018. In a four-star review, “Pale Waves’ debut album packs a whole lotta love. ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ is an album that obsesses over break-ups and make-ups, as well as dizzy affairs and their bitter fallouts – purposefully telling the story from all different angles. It’s the perfect record to summarise the band’s rise from Manchester’s little secret to one of the most adored new bands in the country.”
“This is the perfect title: ‘Who Am I?’“, says Pale Waves’ lead vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie of the band’s stellar second album. “It’s simple. It’s easy to understand. It represents where I was in my life, ready to embark on that journey to become the better version of myself.”
With its release date pushed back by not only a near-fatal bus crash but a world-shaking pandemic, too, the arrival of the follow-up to 2018’s Top 10 LP ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ feels like a hard-won triumph. Informed by the Manchester group’s collective struggles with fame and its spoils, it’s a bracingly candid effort that explores the physical and mental constraints of growing up in the spotlight. “I feel like as an artist you feel vulnerable all the time,” Baron-Gracie continues on the real meaning behind the album’s title. “Putting yourself on show to the world is intimidating, and I do have mini freakouts quite often about it.
“I tend to feel vulnerable a lot of the time, but it really helps people. The music that I write is there for them, and creates a safe space. So all that vulnerability, all those feelings of me freaking out are worth it.”
‘Who Am I?’ is open, authentic and honest – a record which Baron-Grace explainswas heavily inspired by the unflinching strength of legendary alt-rock artists Courtney Love, Alanis Morissette and Liz Phair. Making the album also gave the frontwoman the space and confidence to explore her sexuality openly through the band’s lyrics, a personal subject that was left untouched when recording Pale Waves’ debut three years ago.
“This is the first time where I’ve been so open about my sexuality,” she says. “I needed to represent the LGBTQ+ community in a healthy and positive manner. I didn’t want to jump into it too soon… I needed time to figure myself out even more. Our fans, some who are gay themselves, finally feel represented in a healthy way – and they feel understood. I’m really glad that we can do that for them.”
The Fat Angel Sings 