The Dead Freights are influenced by hard rock and disco, grunge and pop, and likely everything in between, too. The result is a delightfully dark, glammed-up dirty disco affair, likely to get entire nightclubs moving after midnight. This Southampton quartet The Dead Freights recently released their new single ‘Fever and the Thunder’. Recorded at Mi7 studios with Daisy Palmer (Feverist, Paloma Faith) and mixed by Josh Ager (Beabadobee) with help from Pete Robertson (The Vaccines), the single comes straight after their previous single and BBC Introducing’s Track of The Week, ‘Stray Dogs’ which received lots of radio support, media coverage. Check out their latest track ‘Fever and the Thunder’. Thank you everyone who has checked it out, shared it and bigged it up to their buds! So stay tuned for some new demos soon and of course another song release.
The Dead Freights – “Fever and the Thunder”
Written by: Charlie James, Robert Franklin, Robby Spencer, Louis Duarte
Produced by: The Dead Freights, Daisy Palmer, Dan Mills, Callum Ryan
Deap Vally have announced a new collaborative EP – get all the details on ‘Digital Dream’ below. The EP, out on February 26th via Cooking Vinyl, features collaborations with Peaches, KT Tunstall, The Kills‘ Jamie Hince and Warpaint‘s Jenny Lee Lindberg (aka jennylee), who features on the EP’s first preview, ‘Look Away’. Deap Vally, ‘Smile More’ – NME Basement Sessions
‘Digital Dream’ follows Deap Vally’s last full-length album, 2016’s ‘Femejism’, and their 2019 collaborative record with The Flaming Lips, under the name Deap Lips. A synopsis of ‘Look Away’ describes how the collaboration between Deap Vally and jennylee came together. “Julie [Edwards, drummer] has known jennylee since the early 2000s, when they met through friends at the Mustard Seed Cafe in Los Feliz, before either woman even played an instrument. “Years later, Lindsey and jennylee bonded over a bonfire at a birthday celebration at Brody Dalle and Josh Homme’s house.”
See the tracklisting for the new EP, which is the first of a number of Deap Vally projects to arrive in 2021, below.
Wand frontman Cory Hanson is gearing up to release his second solo album, “Pale Horse Rider”, on March 12th via Drag City Records. An Los .Angeles native, he’s penned this pretty ode to the city he lives in, the city of angels. No bridges mentioned. The gorgeously animated video was made with help from his brother, Casey. Talented family!. A lifelong Californian, Cory Hanson has naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sun bleached and left behind.
His forthcoming long player, Pale Horse Rider, eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands — a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with it’s back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next rise. Fuelled by DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guides his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway. Pale Horse Rider’s second single, “Angeles”, is an understated heartbeat thump of drums and folky acoustic guitar-driven tension, those steel strings echoing above Cory’s plaintive croon and impressionistic lyrics. The view of LA is exquisite from the high, lonesome peaks of the Angeles National, vibing with a foreboding mood of majesty and despair
Myths and truths of a country on the way down, viewed through a deep-focus lens trained on the city from the deserts on the east; a terminus of unoccupied residential parks and streets fading into craggy footpaths to nowhere, where our passage is seen as diligent, ephemeral and grotesque by turns, forgiven and made beautiful again by the sound.
“Angeles” is from “Pale Horse Rider,” to be released on LP/Cassette/CD/Streaming on March 12th, 2021, from Drag City.
The Herd was founded in 1965 in south London and recorded three singles with Parlophone the most well known perhaps “I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die”. In 1966 three members in succession (Terry Clark, Louis Cennamo and Mick Underwood) quit the group, Parlophone did not want to go on with them, but Fontana Records was willing to give them a try. They also sent their manager Billy Gaff away and brought in the songwriters/producers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley instead. This pair had been largely responsible for a string of hits by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Howard and Blaikley orchestrated for them a unique blend of pop and flower power pop.
and the group got the line-up that made it famous. Peter Frampton was 16 when he joined the group in 1966, a few years younger than the other members. After a UK Singles Chart near-miss with “I Can Fly” (April 1967), the haunting “From the Underworld”, (August 1967) based on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, reached Number 6 later that year with help from copious plays on pirate radio. Radio airplay was essential for success and the band recorded many unique versions of their hits, near misses and stage favourites for radio broadcast. It’s those recordings that comprise this album. The last months of 1968 were tempestuous times for the group. Steele left to be replaced by Henry Spinetti and dissatisfied with mere teen idol status, and disappointed with the failure of “Sunshine Cottage”, which he’d written, Their first and only album Paradise Lost most songs being written by Peter Frampton and Andy Bown, . Frampton left to form Humble Pie with Steve Marriott.
Tele Novella is a project out of Lockhart, Texas–a small town lost in time–where their classic and sincere pop song writing is slowly processed through a loner medieval-tonk machine and then captured on cassette 8-track. Their forthcoming record, Merlynn Belle, was the music they wanted to be making all along but didn’t know until it happened accidentally.
Sometimes the best things happen by accident and for Natalie Ribbons and Jason Chronis of Tele Novella, that is exactly the case with their latest single, “Paper Crown.”Ribbons recalls how she wrote part of this upbeat song to keep herself occupied while at work. “I wrote the very first verse of this song about nine years ago when I was a cook at a Thai restaurant,” Ribbons shares. “I used to make up little ditties to sing while I would chop up lime leaves and chilies, and this just happened to be one that stayed in my head all these years.”
Although this verse was written with the assumption that it would only remain a verse, with their sophomore album, Merlynn Belle, out now, it became much more.
“When I considered this little song fragment, I was immediately very inspired and wrote the rest of the song in one sitting,” says Ribbons. With its enchanting lyrics, “Paper Crown” is the perfect tune to make you feel inspired, and make you want to live every day to the fullest. It’s the type of melody to stick with you, even when you’re chopping lime leaves and chilies.
“This song embodies a feeling that sometimes spontaneously overcomes me, where I am just heart bursting-ly, madly in love with life and with the moment,” adds Ribbons. “Times like these, I just want to do anything within the realm of my abilities to leave a mark on this world and play a part in decorating time as it passes.
Since forming little over a year ago, London’s desert-rockers The Howlers have quickly identified themselves as one of the UK’s must-see live acts. Though forming so relatively recently, vocalist Adam Young explains that they’ve been playing music most of their lives, in various bands and cover bands. “Gus, our bass player, is from the Netherlands originally and he was in a wedding covers band from the age of fourteen. So we’ve got interesting backgrounds. We’ve not been playing music together that long but were one of the tightest bands out there, and it feels like a lifetime.”
“Last year I lost a family member to Covid 19”, he tells me, when asked about any happy moments in the previous few months. “Which isn’t the answer to that question,” he quickly adds, “but it is to answer it. So it was shit, and the way we dealt with it as a band was probably my most happiest moment, because we used music as a way to get through that. We ended up having this week of normality, and that for me was … life changing’s a bit too profound, but I look back and think, I wouldn’t change it for the world. And I know the person I lost would see that.”
Though the group have mentioned before that they don’t believe music should be political, an analysis of their lyrics reveals an abundance of political themes. “Our generation is very much politically aligned”, Adam says. “We all know who the dickheads are in power. But that doesn’t mean we have to shout about it. It seems like every band out there at the moment thinks that to be a musician, you need to buy a pair of Dr Martins and you need to be angry and shout and it’s like, I get that … but can we not give someone a bit of hope about something else?.
Adam explains that like many artists, they think fashion and music goes hand in hand. “How we dress is very important to us,” he explains. “We’ve always been extroverted even before we were a band. I’d walk into a room wearing a neckerchief and a 70s shirt and jacket, and I’m from a working class town where everyone’s wearing Adidas or Lacoste tracksuits. He elaborates that when you play gig after gig, you realise people do want that performance – the escapism it helps provide. “It’s just what we enjoy. And I love the iconography of the 70s – the Western films and stuff, and my character on stage is exactly that. It’s almost like putting on a uniform.”
“Bowie wouldn’t have done that well if he was just wearing a nike t-shirt,” he laughs. “The geezer dressed in glittery catsuits – you can’t sing Ziggy Stardust dressed as if you’re about to go on an away day. That’s not to compare us to Bowie – that’s unbelievably egotistical.” And egotistical, the group are definitely not.
Interestingly, they thought their most successful track, ‘Matador’, would be a failure. “We thought it’d be shit. Honestly. We wrote it and we were like, it’s not radio worthy. Its got something like 27 words in the whole song. It’s not a song, it’s a bit of music. There is talk of an upcoming tour, coming in the spring of 2021. “If it goes ahead I’ll be very excited,” Young says. “But it probably will be postponed. We actually took our set, ripped it up and threw it out the window, and wrote a whole new set. So were just excited to play it all now.”
Undoubtedly, The Howlers have all the passion and dedication needed to make it a long, long way in their industry, and release a debut album that sky rockets itself to great heights of popularity. Keep your eyes on this 3 piece band for 2021,
This last year, indie rockers Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers all released acclaimed solo albums. The three Singer Songwriters guitarist-vocalists were booked on a North American tour together, with Baker and Bridgers co-headlining and Dacus opening. But that wasn’t enough: They also quickly formed a supergroup, and gave it a tongue-in-cheek name that nods to how women are rarely called geniuses with the frequency the way their male peers are. After the trio released its self-titled EP, on which they take turns in the frontwoman role and elsewhere blend their voices and instruments together in perfect bliss. The EP’s uniting thread, though, will surely be the clear-cut lyricism they all have in common, which packs a witty punch line after line. Some might even call it genius.
The debut from rock supergroup boygenius has only one real flaw: it’s much too short. Its length (still on the longer side for an EP, at six songs) is forgivable, though: The women behind boygenius—Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus—are busy artists. They’ve each released a critically-adored solo LP in the last year or so and have thusly been swamped with promotional duties and live performances. So although these ladies aren’t technically “new artists,” their supergroup is new, and music is better for it. On boygenius, the three become one, miraculously and pristinely so. Bridgers, Baker and Dacus pack a novel’s worth of narrative and as many masterful melodies (not to mention harmonies) into just 21 minutes that will leave you feeling as if you’ve had the wind knocked right out of you.
The album ends on an especially magical note. On “Ketchum, ID,” Bridgers, Dacus and Baker assume soprano, alto and tenor and churn up a harmony so handsomely melancholic you’ll find yourself snatching tissues without even knowing why. It’s a fitting epilogue, too, that chronicles the band’s shared experience as touring musicians, and the emotional heaviness following those long nights in unfamiliar places. “I am never anywhere / Anywhere I go,” they sing in unison. “When I’m home I’m never there / Long enough to know.” Those are devastating words, but, at the same time, you get the feeling Bridgers, Baker and Dacus have found some sense of home in one another.
boygenius performed songs off their first EP live at Brooklyn Steel for Pitchfork Live
Setlist:0:50 Souvenir 5:10 Bite the Hand 8:50 Stay Down 13:35 Me & My Dog 17:50 Salt in the Wound 23:35 Ketchum, ID
Their mutual experiences are what unite them, and that bond bleeds through this music in every buzzing, beautiful bar.
Pale Waves have just dropped ‘She’s My Religion’, another track to be released from their upcoming album “Who Am I?”.
A track following the story of a cynical girl and the speaker’s love for her, it fights against the usual stigma that darker characters are unlovable and Hollywood’s preference for positive love interests. This normalisation of unhappy characters still being necessary to our lives can be heard in the lyrics, “She helped me find a different kind of love, made me feel like I was finally enough / She’s cold, she’s dark, she’s cynical, she’s forever angry at the world / She’s no angel but she’s my religion”.
Opening with a soft solo guitar, Heather’s vocals join in a whispery tone and set the scene for the love story. Suddenly, the chorus of the song brings the power that we’re used to from Pale Waves. With blasted vocals that’ll be screamed by everyone who can relate, the verses go back to a slow paced track creating a nice balance between passion and sincerity.
In an age where hetrosexual couples are still the focus of popular media unless being the feature of a dramatic and often overwhelming and exaggerated hollywood film, it’s refreshing to see Pale Waves talking about homosexuality in such a casual and accessible way. It allows young people to find themselves without being scared to ask questions or feeling isolated from a community because they haven’t felt the struggles of past generations. This accessibility along with the erasure of the usual clichés of over-sexualisation or experimentation is exactly why Pale Waves made the cover of Gay Times this year.
‘Who Am I?’ is the second album from indie-pop icons Pale Waves, due for release on February 12th 2021.
Recorded in Los Angeles over early 2020 with Rich Costey (muse, biffy clyro, sigur ros), and led by the unabashedly huge lead single ‘Change’, it finds the Manchester band stepping up once more, fulfilling the promise of that widely-lauded debut album and striding towards pop megastardom.
From the new album ‘Who Am I?’, out February 12th – Dirty Hit Records.
The introduction to “Friends On Ice” reverberates like the switching on of machinery, the transfer of emotion through engagement or the wheel of cognitive thought ahead of comprehension. The thought-provoking new single by Danish collective Yung is cut from their upcoming LP which arrives this month on PNKSLM Recordings.“Friends on Ice” came about as a consequence of Mikkel being challenged to strum the most difficult guitar chord he could come up with. This approach has since become a go-to suggestion to any kind of creative block we encounter.
The instrumental repetition and momentum that Yung develop in the track seems to embody grief itself, allowing a contemplative and confessional lyrical delivery to drift ghostlike through the mix. On the subject of lyricism, vocalist and songwriter Mikkel Holm Silkjær explains, “It’s a song about alienation, loneliness and the immediate remedies we, as individuals in western society, turn to when confronted with pain or struggle.”
Previous singles taken from the band’s upcoming record – “Such a Man” and “Above Water” – offer a more combative and dynamic post-punk sound, which reveals “Friends On Ice” as a unique feat and a perfect album closer. Mikkel Holm Silkjær reiterates, “Capitalism promotes individualism, which makes a lot of people think they have to deal with issues and problems in life on an individual level, when often we’d be much better off if we dealt with things on a collective level.”
The sophomore record by the Aarhus quartet is entitled “Ongoing Dispute” and arrives January 22nd.
Taking influence from 80’s post-punk, Factory & Creation era bands, Winter Gardens have developed their own ‘dream-punk’ sound, with all the ethereal haze of shoegaze & dream-pop combined with the energy of punk.
Based out of East Sussex, Winter Gardens caught the ear of many back in 2020 with their debut EP, “Tapestry”. While there are no plans announced for this year yet, it was a collection of tracks that hinted at a band with a very bright future. Released through Austerity Records, a new socially-conscious independent record label part-owned by the band’s guitarist Jamie Windless,Tapestry is a record heavily influenced by the 80’s indie sounds of labels like Creation and 4AD, bands who fused the worlds of dream-pop and the rawness of punk
Across its four tracks, “Tapestry” incorporates moments of lush introspection, such as the Lanterns On The Lake-like title track, as well as moments of ferocious energy, with the excellently titled Zigzanny, reminiscent of The Joy Formidable. Even if no further new music arrives this year, I can only hope 2021 gives the band the opportunity to take this record out to the live environment, and having already played with the likes of Penelope Isles and Say Sue Me, that’s something well worth being very excited about.
The Fat Angel Sings 