Dream… or nightmare? That’s the underlying question posed on “New Town Dream,” the second LP from the Oakland Bay Area trio Neutrals, as guitarist/vocalist Allan McNaughton’s lyrical narratives expand on the world first built on the band’s 2022 EP “Bus Stop Nights,” offering snapshots of mundane lived realities in the “New Towns” that proliferated in the UK during the ’60s and ’70s. “New Town Dream” conceptually voices the psychic tension of that era, of being pushed toward the margins and becoming just another cog in a deeply broken machine.
The band’s musical touchstones are squarely situated in the timeline of doomed Thatcherism that followed from the late ’70s to late ’80s. “Wish You Were Here” and “The Iron That Never Swung” jangle with a razor-edged rapid strum to rival The Wedding Present; “That’s Him on the Daft Stuff Again” and “Travel Agent’s Windows” nod to the Television Personalities’ naive, kaleidoscopic mod melodies streaked with cynicism; “Steven Proctor Bus Conductor” slowly unfolds from verses in the dark, rhythm-forward spirit of Josef K to transcendently Pastels-esque pop choruses with sugary-sweet backing vocals from bassist Lauren Matsui. Perfect C86 sounds for often hellish C24 times!
You could call Wishy’s story a lucky one. Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music’s semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together. On their debut album “Triple Seven”, Indiana songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites’ musical synergy proves itself to be a rare one–the kind that sounds like someone striking gold. Wishy’s penchant for indelible hooks is couched equally in pillowy atmospherics and scathing distortion. By day Krauter works as a music teacher, giving drum and guitar lessons to students, while Pitchkites is a talented seamstress by trade and often makes embroidered merch for the band.
At 10 tracks and 41 minutes long, “Triple Seven” solidifies Wishy’s sound and proves that the band—formed in 2021 by long time friends Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites has the chops to sustain its standard of quality across a full-length release. But for rock fans burned by promising bands’ patchy releases in the past, it’s nice to hear. Krauter and Pitchkites trade off lead vocals the former’s come from a more nasally pinched pop-punk tradition, while the latter’s are calm and cool, often carrying melodies that float above it all. (Pitchkites sounds like she was born to sing in a dream pop band.)
Throughout the album, they play off each other perfectly, whether they’re providing tonal tension (see the back-to-back zigzag of the strutting “Busted” into the luscious “Just Like Sunday”) or intertwining seamlessly, as they do on “Game,” a propulsive chunk of jangle-pop delivered at a punk pace.
Wishy have many strengths, but chief among them is their affinity for instrumental hooks that surface from the swirl and settle in your brain for the foreseeable future. They’re everywhere: A three-note idea that crests over and over again in the background of “Sick Sweet”; the skittering rhythm that underpins the title track; the arena-ready twin-guitar solo in “Persuasion”; the extra-crunchy final third of “Love on the Outside,” in which a jaunty pop tune turns into roaring riff-rock.
And then there’s the nursery-rhyme cadence of the album’s caustic closer, “Spit,” in which Krauter and Pitchkites sing, na-na-boo-boo-style: “Who’s gonna break my heart? Who’s gonna wear my mind out? Wish this choice was mine.” OK, that’s a vocal hook, but the point remains the same: “Triple Seven” spills over with these kinds of sounds, which also happen to be the kinds of sounds that keep people coming back again and again.
Coming up in a scene defined by hardcore and emo, Krauter and Pitchkites instead found themselves writing melodies in their heads while driving to work, pulling music from the air and arriving at a blearier, more ethereal interpretation of Midwest expanse. Initially, their music oscillated between hazy dream-pop and heavier alt-rock.
Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes festering, and always cathartic, “Triple Seven” is a vibrant and exhilarating document of self-discovery with the scope and heft of the bygone big-budget rock albums that inspired it. Turns out Wishy have made not only one of the best debut albums of the year, but also one of the most irresistible, unshakeable albums of the year as well. It takes more than just luck to be this good.
Andwella were a Northern Irish psychedelic rock band formed in 1968, originally named The Method and later renamed Andwellas Dream. The trio were fronted by Dave Lewis (guitar/keyboard/vocals), with Nigel Smith (bass/vocals) and Gordon Barton (drums).
Hold on to your mind! Led by Belfast-born phenom David Lewis, Andwella made three LPs circa 1970 for London’s Reflection label, redolent with Cream-y rock workouts, soaring post-Sgt. Pepper psych experimentation, and earthbound laments The Band might’ve dreamt up at Big Pink. Barely heard back then, they now conjure a popular rock fantasia to challenge the most expertly composed and orchestrated songs of the era.
This deluxe set includes meticulous reproductions of the band’s 3-LP discography, plus an ephemera-packed booklet detailing Lewis’s brief moment as a downbeat song writing visionary at the height of his power.
Their first album, as Andwellas Dream, “Love and Poetry”, was recorded in London in 1968, and released in August 1969. It featured jazz musician Bob Downes on saxophone and flute, and Wilgar Campbell on drums on the track “Felix”. The album failed to sell, and Lewis then recorded a solo album, privately pressed, on the Ax label in 1970; which included new versions of some of the Andwella’s Dream .
Then in 1970 David Lewis wrote the music for and produced poet David Baxter’s “Goodbye Dave” album, for which he was backed by Andwella.
With the addition of Dave McDougall on guitar and vocals, the band was renamed Andwella. This line-up issued “World’s End” in August 1970, before Dave Struthers replaced Nigel Smith on bass and JackMcCulloch joined as drummer. This line-up recorded the bands’ last album, “People’s People” (released late in 1970), after which the band broke up in 1971.
While filled with more melodic moments and pop hooks than their first two albums, High Vis still managed to retain all of their angst on their third outing, “Guided Tour”. The London-based group is at its best when decimating boundaries between genres, and nowhere was this more evident than on the album high point, “Mind’s a Lie,” with its dreamy vocal samples and Baggy-electronic beats serving up one of the year’s most groovy and starkly unique tracks.
Elsewhere, the band fuses Britpop and hardcore “Drop Me Out”, enters goth post-punk territory “Gone Forever“, and even tries their hand at shoegaze on “Mob DLA“, all the while sounding like themselves. “Guided Tour” is a self-aware and confident nod at the musical past from a band that is only ever looking into the future.
Since first forming in 2016, London’s High Vis have steadily polished their palette of progressive hardcore with shades of post-punk, Brit pop, neo- psychedelia, and even Madchester groove, mapping a middle ground between hooks and fury, melodies and mosh pits. Singer Graham Sayle describes their third album “Guided Tour” as an axis of competing forces: “It’s trying to be a hopeful record, while also being incensed.” Rounded out by drummer Edward ‘Ski’ Harper, bassist Jack Muncaster, and guitarists Martin MacNamara and Rob Hammaren, the band’s deep roots in the UK and Irish DIY hardcore scenes have kept them grounded but growing, inspired equally by restlessness and righteous anger. As Sayle puts it, “Everyone’s scratching, everyone’s working all the time, and their idea of relaxing is just getting fucked and avoiding reality. This album is an escape from that.”
From its opening seconds of a cab door slamming, a car revving away, and a baggy rhythm swinging to life, “Guided Tour” sounds like a band reaching for new heights, bristling with energy. Recorded across a few weeks at Holy Mountain Studios in London with producer Jonah Falco and engineer Stanley Gravett, the results feel dynamic and dialed-in, like anthems burned into sense memory through sweat and repetition. Harper cuts to the chase: “We had a clear idea going in, every moment got used. Maybe when we’re 60 we can sit around and get a drum sound right, but for now it’s about getting things done.”
Nowhere is this sentiment flexed more boldly than on “Mind’s A Lie,” a dance- punk anthem inspired by Harper’s love of house, garage, and pirate radio. Stabs of sampled female vocals (by celebrated South London singer and DJ Ell Murphy) build into a razor wire rhythm of low-slung bass, tense drums, and sparkling guitar before Sayle’s staunch voice starts barking harsh truths (“Face to face with all I’ve known / I can’t call these thoughts my own”). After a sudden breakdown, the track regroups and takes off, cruising into the horizon in a haze of chiming guitars and Murphy’s ascendant voice, from the streets to somewhere beyond.
“Becoming Led Zeppelin” explores the origins of this iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds. Powered by awe-inspiring, psychedelic, never-before-seen footage, performances, and music, Bernard MacMahon’s experiential cinematic odyssey explores Led Zeppelin’s creative, musical, and personal origin story. The film is told in Led Zeppelin’s members own words and is the first officially sanctioned film on the group.
With fans ranging from Bon Iver to The War On Drugs, critically acclaimed Amason member – multiple Swedish Grammy winner and festival headliner, farmer, record label boss & singer-songwriter AmandaBergman – known for her grand voice – is back with her first solo album in over 8 years titled “Your HandForever Checking On My Fever“
Amanda Bergman’s second album release has become a constant companion on my turntable. It’s a soothing, soul-stirring, endless lullaby; a spellbinding set of sweet serenades that envelop the ears while warming the heart and nourishing the soul. Calm yet cathartic, charming yet charged, “Your Hands Forever Checking on My Fever” is a breathtakingly beautiful triumph of the human spirit. It’s at once tender and dramatic – an infectiously catchy, all-consuming collection of radiant reveries, intimate inner reckonings, and vulnerable reflections on life and death, purpose and place – what it means to live, and what it means to live well.
Amanda Bergman has described music as “the answer to life,” and this album certainly feels like the full-bodied realization of that philosophical statement. From the smoky, scintillating seduction of album opener “Wild Geese, Wild Love” and the heartrending romantic ache of “I Love Him Til I Love Him Right,” to the exhilarating propulsion of “Day 2000 Awake,” the cinematic, ethereal exhale of “My Hands in the Water,” the gentle, tranquil ebb and flow of “The World Is Tired of You” and beyond, Bergman unpacks life itself – the world around us, as well as her very own existence – through songs filled with light, love, and an intimate, undeniable sense of awe.
Like a waking dream or a fantasy fulfilled, “Your Hands Forever Checking on My Fever” feels otherworldly, yet comforting. It’s the musical blanket we didn’t know we needed.
Authentic… Original… Inspiring… Healing… Honest… Important… Abby Holliday’s third album release “Crack A Smile Come On Stay A While”hits hard and leaves a lasting mark because it comes from a place of truth – and while our truths can be painful, they are equally liberating. Holliday’s most ambitious release to date is also her most vulnerable and raw, finding the Nashville-based singer/songwriter wrestling with demons past and present, processing traumas and unpacking relationships, and reckoning with herself (and her loved ones) as she dives deeper than ever into what it means to be human: A living, breathing being, thriving on some days, and barely surviving others.
Music like this – music that comes so unapologetically from the heart – is inherently delicate, and yet the songs on “Crack A Smile Come On Stay A While”are dynamic, energetic, and assertive – larger-than-life, despite their intimate nature. Produced with her longtime collaborator Jon Class, Abby Holliday’s third LP is gut-wrenchingly beautiful and breathtakingly bold: A dramatic fever dream that finds the artist at her absolute best, despite the dark clouds that often surround her.
“They say people change their cell structure every seven years, so I’ve totally regenerated several times since we started Pylon forty years ago,” says Vanessa Briscoe Hay, frontwoman for that iconic Athens band and now frontwoman for Pylon Reenactment Society. It’s easier to explain what Pylon Reenactment Society isn’t than what it actually is.
It’s not a continuation or a reunion, because Vanessa is the only member in both groups. It’s neither a tribute act nor a cover band, although they do perform Pylon songs. Instead, this new band draws inspiration from that old band, taps into it’s motivating principles. Pylon Reenactment Society’s “Magnet Factory” organically grew out of jams and writing sessions over several years. As the album took shape, the lyrics peeled away at the layers of time and shared spaces that make up a life. A pair of unrecorded songs by Pylon were brought in to round out this collective unspoken theme.
All the music was recorded by the current four members of the band (Vanessa Briscoe Hay, Jason NeSmith, Kay Stanton, Gregory Sanders) with a stellar vocal duet with the incomparable Kate Pierson of The B-52’s.
Wolf Parade has made a few albums since “Apologies to the Queen Mary.” They are mostly fine but can’t live up to the power of the band’s debut album. Meanwhile, “Apologies to the Queen Mary” just keeps getting better. It captured the band’s sound perfectly out of the gate and has never been able to live up to the lofty standards since.
Sub Pop’s release Wolf Parade’s ‘Apologies to the Queen Mary’: Deluxe Edition, a reissue of the group’s acclaimed first album. The reissue features the original album, now as a much-better-sounding 2Xlp, along with the band’s pre-Sub Pop, self-titled EPs (released in 2003 and 2004), both of which are making their vinyl debut.
The package also includes the previously unreleased track ‘Snakes on the Ladder’ from the Apologies sessions. The album was remastered for this release by the band’s longtime associate Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering. Wolf Parade was founded in 2003 in Montreal, Quebec. After the aforementioned self-titled EPs, the group released ‘Apologies to the Queen Mary’ to much acclaim in September, 2005, on Sub Pop Records. The album was recorded by Modest Mouse front-man Isaac Brock and engineer Chris Chandler at Audible Alchemy in Portland, Oregon.
The album was an entirely collaborative effort, barrelling headfirst and breathlessly through songs written during Wolf Parade’s early years together as a band. Pitchfork gave “Apologies to the Queen Mary” a 9.2 rating, saying, “Wolf Parade’s true talent is transforming the everyday into the unprecedented.” And The Guardian raved, “Magnificent, all told.” The album has sold over 100,000 in the U.S. alone.
3LP – Black Triple Vinyl Set with Download.LP+ – Limited Coloured Vinyl Triple Set with Download.Tape – with No Bonus Tracks and No Download.
Come Together! There is new music from the Lennon and McCartney songbook, but not as you might expect. Taken rom the album “Beautiful Nothing”James McCartney made waves when he revealed that he’d co-written “Primrose Hill” with Sean Ono Lennon — and indeed, the song’s wistful melancholy evokes the work of their fathers. The folk-tinged acoustic ballad tells a simple but poignant story of fond remembrance and heartsick longing. “You disappear forever / forever’s a long word / but never’s not long enough / to be loving you,” McCartney sings. It’s a turn of phrase most songwriters would kill to write he learned from the best, after all.
James McCartney and Sean Ono Lennon – the sons of Beatles bandmates Sir Paul McCartney and John Lennon – have co-written the song The reflective, acoustic ballad is an ode to the power of London’s panoramic viewing spot in Regent’s Park.
Announcing the release with his “good friend” McCartney said the track left him feeling “excited”.
“I had a vision as a child in Scotland, on what was a lovely summers day. Letting go, I saw my true love and saviour in my mind’s eye. “Primrose Hill” is about getting the ball rolling with me & finding this person.” – James McCartney To create the music video for “Primrose Hill” we asked fans to submit a heartfelt and visually appealing video showcasing themselves enjoying their time together in their favourite romantic location while listening to James McCartney’s song “Primrose Hill”. The winning couples had the opportunity to be featured in James McCartney’s official music video for the song
The Fat Angel Sings 