“Butter Miracle The Complete Sweets“, Following the 2021 release of “Butter Miracle, Suite One“, comes the full album – “Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!” The album consists of the 4 tracks from Suite One, plus 5 new tracks. Adam Duritz and Counting Crows released “Butter Miracle, Suite One” in May 2021 to rave reviews. The band also kicked off their first tour since 2018, ‘The Butter Miracle Tour’ from 2021 through 2023, with sell-out performances across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. For more than two decades, the GRAMMY and Academy Award-nominated Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock n’ roll.
Exploding onto the scene in 1993 with their multiplatinum breakout album, “August and Everything” After, the band has gone on to release 7 studio albums, selling more than 20 million records worldwide, and is revered as one of the world’s most pre-eminent live touring rock bands.
Since the ’90s, Counting Crows have been at the forefront of alternative rock groups to enjoy enormous critical and commercial success. This album, completing a set which beganin 2021, perfects their moving lyrics and embraces shades of Bruce Springsteen and Americana across the album’s cohesive entirety.
The heralded UK band’s first album since 2004 and first for Ipecac Recordings.
Having formed in the late nineteen-nineties and releasing music, if that is what it was, from 2000-2004, Mclusky disbanded soon afterwards in a slow motion farce of not enough drama to get much press off the back of it. Now they are back fuelled initially by spite but now enjoying it too much not to do it, and playing to crowds in the UK, US and Australia which are much bigger – and more hygienically inclined – than in their so-called heyday. So far nobody has complained, except for one guy in Leeds (and he was clearly on ketamine).
Reformed post-hardcore heroes Mclusky present their first studio album in over two decades, and their fourth altogether. “The World Is Still Here And So Are We” contains thirteen new tracks that veer between misanthropy and dark humour, including the songs ‘Unpopular Parts Of A Pig’ and ‘The Digger You Deep’ that came out in 2023.
Now comes a new album – entitled “The World is Still Here and So Are We”.
On “Manhunter”, their fifth full-length, Hooveriii distil a wide orbit of influences—spiky post-punk, lush new age, 70s arena rock—into a lean, cosmic psych-rock album that hits with clarity and purpose.
While previous records revelled in exploratory jams and interdimensional detours, “Manhunter” locks into the groove, delivering hooks with precision and riding expansive rhythms straight into the heart of the trip. It’s their most confident and cohesive work to date—equal parts propulsion and psychedelia, made for heads-down listening or lift-off moments.
After four albums of extra-dimensional exploration, Hooveriii delivered “Manhunter” with the controls set directly for the heart of the cosmic groove. Expertly synthesizing their influences and still managing to bring even more to the party, from spiky post punk to beautiful new age excursions and mammoth 70’s arena rock hooks, “Manhunter” delivers not only their best album yet but an instant classic for all the psych-heads, stoners and dimensionauts.
Inspired entirely by the life and mythos of actor, Dennis Hopper, Mike Scott and The Waterboys created this expansive album as tribute to one of American popular culture’s most compelling public figures.
The Waterboys enlisted a hearty cast of contributors for their new concept album, “Life, Death and DennisHopper”, which, per its title, was inspired by the legendary late actor. Fiona Apple features on one song, a ballad titled “Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend,” while Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, Taylor Goldsmith, and others appear throughout the album’s whopping 25-song tracklist. Speaking of Dennis Hopper in press materials, the Waterboys’ leader Mike Scott said: “The arc of his life was the story of our times.”
The Waterboys’s “A Wild and Beautiful Ride2 is a new 48-minute documentary exploring the creation of their latest album “Life, Death And Dennis Hopper”. Directed by Mick Puck and Duende Visions, the film takes viewers behind the scenes of this bold musical and spiritual journey inspired by the life and career of Dennis Hopper. “A Wild and Beautiful Ride” includes music from the album, location footage shot in New Mexico, and intimate reflections from the band’s lead singer and guitarist Mike Scott, who spent four years crafting the record.
Deeply conceptual, this album of all original songs to musically weave through Hopper’s life, including a song for each of Hopper’s wives.
‘Real Power’ is the exhilarating lead single from Columbus, Ohio band Golomb’s newly announced album “The Beat Goes On”, which comes out July 25th on No Quarter. If you’re a fan of Yo La Tengo, don’t let this slip under your radar.
Golomb hail from Columbus, the esteemed Ohio city. They’re a family band of sorts; spouses Mickey and Xenia Shuman first formed the group, and Xenia’s brother Hawken Holm joined on drums shortly after. After kicking out an impressive discography on Bandcamp in recent years, Golomb have signed with the esteemed No Quarter label for the new album “The Beat Goes On”. That tremendous image above is the album cover.
It’s got a bit more classic rock energy than that comparison implies, with garage-band vocals that pile up into overflowing harmonies and a backbeat that steadily builds tension without ever ripping open. It’s an ultra-catchy pop song that rocks
Newly signed to Jagjaguwar, Folk Bitch Trio have announced their debut LP, “Now Would Be A Good Time”, dropping on July 25th. It’s led by the lilting, claustrophobic new single ‘Cathode Ray’, which the band’s Gracie Sinclair said “expresses a feeling of being trapped in myself and wanting to break out of that so violently that Iʼm literally talking about opening up a body viscerally. Itʼs about frustration and knowing thereʼs no cheap thrill thatʼs going to fix that.”
Folk music has a bad habit of being presented as a deathly serious concern. It’s something you cry to, it’s overly sacred, it’s solemnly considered by critic-historians. But Folk Bitch Trio, former high school friends Heide Peverelle (they/them), Jeanie Pilkington (she/her) and Gracie Sinclair (she/her), have a shared sense of humour that is embedded deep in their music, and that sets it alight, safe from the self-serious traps of the genre.
“Now Would Be A Good Time”, their debut album, tells vivid, visceral stories, and is funny and darkly ironic in the manner of writers like Mary Gaitskill or Otessa Moshfegh. Their music sounds familiar, but the songs are modern, youthful, singing acutely through dissociative daydreams and galling breakups, sexual fantasies and media overload, all the petty resentments and minor humiliations of being in your early twenties in the 2020s.
“Cathode Ray” opens with caution, its first harmonies arriving in big, looping sighs. It’s vulnerable but a little menacing, with a wide open chorus and a spacious, airy beat anchoring everything. “Moth Song”, a song about unrequited love and “being so spun out by everything that you feel like you’re delusional and hallucinating crazy things,” forms the album’s spare centrepiece, Anita Clark’s undulating violin part drifting in and out of focus as if from a dream.
Other songs aren’t as oblique, instead chronicling brutally familiar moments at the end of relationships: The tense, emotionally volatile torch song “The Actor”, says Peverelle, is about “going to your partner’s one-woman show and then getting broken up with”. “Hotel TV”, a hypnotic, late-night reverie, is about “having a sex dream about somebody else while next to your partner, and your partner being a liar,” explains Pilkington.
The strongest link between the trio, aside from friendship, is music. “We all talked about loving music when we were growing up, and knowing we wanted music to be a big part of our lives,” says Pilkington. That feeling—of music as an innate calling, as opposed to hobby or folly—was justified: Folk Bitch Trio have already toured across Australia, Europe and the US, supporting bands as disparate as King Gizzard, Alex G and Julia Jacklin. They’ve signed with Jagjaguwar, a home for singular icons and iconoclasts (Bon Iver, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, UMO and others), and they’ve found their first diehard fans with dazzling harmonies and acerbic lyricism that transcend genre expectations and audience lines.
These are the stakes: Learning how to live a life free of lovesickness and loser exes, when to sink into contemporary nihilism and when to have a laugh with your friends, and why being alive can feel so ephemeral and unreal. In this sense, “Now Would Be A Good Time” feels like a manual for modern living: a missive from three proud Folk Bitches finding beauty and wisdom where they can, together.
Coral Grief – the Seattle trio comprising singer and bassist Lena Farr-Morrissey, guitarist Sam Fason, and drummer Cam Hancock – have announced their debut album, “Air Between Us”, arriving July 18th. “We were committed to the three piece way of doing things, but wanted to make it sound as lush and as full as possible,” Fason explained. The lead single ‘Rockhounds’ is sunny and enchanting.
With two EPs under their belt. they’re announcing their debut full-length “Air Between Us” and the lead single “Rockhounds” is an entrancingly dazed sprawl.
“Air Between Us”, its debut album, are accurately named. The first notes hit like a blast of sea air to the face and in just seconds, you’re soaring, equal parts under the sky and above the sea. It’s a similar in-between where Coral Grief thrives, as they construct elaborate webs of double meanings across this tribute and eulogy to their city and community. Across these songs, Coral Grief takes you on a journey inspired by their travels and yours, whether it’s across neighbourhoods in their hometown, the never ending freeways of America on tour, or simply a walk to nowhere. Everything is ready to reveal itself–all you have to do is know where to look.
Lena FM – Vocals, bass, synth, organ, acoustic guitar Sam Fason – Guitar, synth, samples Cam Hancock -Drums, percussion
The Bug Club are sharing “Appropriate Emotions,” a new offering and the closing track from the group’s forthcoming new long-player, “Very Human Features”. the band shared ‘Appropriate Emotions’, the breezy final single from their forthcoming album. I love the little laugh that escapes after the final chorus. “Go have a listen feel the feelings have a little cry then have a little dancey rinse and repeat,” the band commented.
It’s no surprise that, in poking fun at the familiar, the humour is turned inwards and it’s The Bug Club themselves in their own firing line. It’s a rollercoaster unpicking of whatever-it-is The Bug Club do, while at the same time building on the work done in previous albums and presenting us with layers of creativity piled up atop one another.
Sam and Tilly, combined. There’s a name for that – and it’s tempting to think that they might be, given all the joking around. But the multi-dimensional nature to The Bug Club is what makes “Very HumanFeatures” just as re-listenable as their previous work.
The new single tackles expectations and comparisons, with a loud-quiet-loud structure reflecting the ups-and-downs and outbursts unavoidable in frustration and anger. “Appropriate Emotions” manages to be deeply relatable while making its singers sound about as removed from the human experience as possible – perhaps that’s why it’s relatable.
The Bug Club is currently on the road supporting “Very Human Features” and their previous Sub Pop release, 2024’s “On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System by Means of Popular Music,or the Contemplation of Pretty Faces, Tinned Bubbles and Strife.
PLUS! Some of their older songs. Tonight, Wednesday, May 14th they’ll headline L’Aeronef in Lille, France, before a short UK festival run May 15th-May 31st, which includes two appearances at The Great Escape Festival.
Then in June, the band will pair up with Sub Pop label mates Omni for a month-long trek beginning Friday, June 13th in Montreal, QC at Cabaret Foufounes and running through Friday, June 27th in Philadelphia, PA at Johnny Brenda’s.
From July 26th-September 13th, the Bug Club will hit the UK festival circuit once again, with stops at Deershed Festival (Jul. 26th), Utrecht, NL’s Loose Ends Festival (Aug.23rd), End of the Road Festival (Aug. 29th), Manchester’s Psych Fest (Aug. 30th), and Sonic Boom Festival (Sep.13th).
The Bug Club’s “Very Human Features” includes the only-very-recently mentioned “Appropriate Emotions,” “How to Be a Confidante,” “Jealous Boy,” and ten other excellent songs. It was produced and mixed by Tom Rees at Rat Trap Studios in Cardiff, Wales, and mastered by Mikey Young.
News of Billie Marten‘s fifth studio album “Dog Eared” is a warm, rich, and textured record that bristles with confidence and self-belief. It’s a left turn from her previous recordings, albeit a subtle one, taken with a deftness of touch. A musician embracing change, while staying true to her core self. With “Dog Eared“, Billie calmly posits herself at the top of the tree of not just British contemporary folk artists, but with British songwriters at large.
‘Dog Eared’ is a warm, rich, and textured record that bristles with confidence and self-belief, with Billie already approaching the prolificacy of a ‘lifer’ with so much life left to live.
It’s a left turn from her previous recordings, albeit a subtle one, taken with a deftness of touch. A musician embracing change, while staying true to her core self. There’s a certain strength of conviction here that finds its voice more prominently in the extensive pool of her acclaimed American contemporaries, of which she now surely stands shoulder to shoulder with. With ‘Dog Eared’, Billie calmly posits herself at the top of the tree of not just British contemporary folk artists, but with British songwriters at large.
The prolific British singer-songwriter headed to New York in the summer of 2024 to record with producer, Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Laura Veirs) at his Sugar Mountain studio, alongside an all-star cast of musicians. The likes of Catalan singer-songwriter/guitarist Núuria Graham, bassist Josh Crumbly, virtuosic guitarist Mike Haldeman, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, revered indie-rock musician Sam Evian, former Dirty Projectors vocalist/folk musician Maia Friedman, Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Vishal Nayak, and acclaimed folk musician Sam Amidon all sprinkle their gold dust over “Dog Eared”.
Billlie Marten has shared the new single from her upcoming LP “Dog Eared”, the rootsy, wonderful ‘Swing’. “I wanted it to sound like the Meat Puppets-meets-The Breeders,” the singer-songwriter remarked. “I think we got pretty close without sharing any influences in the studio. This one’s funny because we had Mauro Refosco (who does percussion on nearly every song) try out lots of different things, and in the end, producer Phil just turned all of his tracks up at once and what you’re hearing is every pass that he did. It’s awesome. The bass is also supremely loud. The last addition to the record was Sam Amidon with his fiddle part, which the song would be nothing without.”
Los Angeles band Rocket are back with another swirling, infectious track, “‘One Million’ is about wanting someone to meet you halfway but not knowing if they ever will,” they explained. “It’s the feeling of doing everything you can, going above and beyond for someone, knowing that you would wait a million years for them just to notice how important they are to you. It’s the hoping that maybe you are as important to them as well. It’s learning to be okay with the fact that you might always love them more.”
Official video for “One Million” – out now May via Transgressive Records/ Canvasback
The Fat Angel Sings 