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Saturday, March 16, 2024

New music by Willow, Alice Merton, Cadet Carter, Cloud Nothings, Dead Root Revival


Willow: Symptom Of Life


The LA-based musician has explored various styles of pop and rock over five albums, and takes a jazzy turn on this new single. “The song has a very beautiful whimsical nature but holds a lot of mystery,” says the 23-year-old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith. “There’s this beautiful light coming in through the piano, but also this syncopated rhythm of the bass bringing in that mysterious element. A juxtaposition of light and dark.”

Alice Merton: Run Away Girl


Remembering her breakout song "No Roots," it's not surprising to hear Merton singing "Where the hell am I supposed to be? ... Who the hell am I supposed to be?" She says this new song "comes from an introspective look at oneself and feeling lost in the outside world, but especially feeling lost on the inside."

Cadet Carter: My Favourite Place (feat. Kayleigh Goldsworthy)


Although they describe themselves as an emo/punk band, their latest single fits solidly in what one might call the alternative mainstream (oxymoron much?). The Munich-based band, fronted by Welsh lead singer Nick Sauter, is joined by Philadelphia-based singer Goldsworthy on this track from its upcoming album Self Maintenance.

Cloud Nothings: Running Through The Campus


Photo by Errick Easterday
The Cleveland band’s eighth full-length album, Final Summer, comes out in a few weeks. This is the second pre-released single, which bandleader Dylan Baldi says was inspired by his own daily runs through a college campus near his home. He says the song "is about an intrusive thought I can have on those late-night runs, about whether or not it’s slightly depressing that I’m out running around alone while everyone else is gone and actually doing something, probably with other people."

Dead Root Revival: Got In Store


This classic-rock-style band from Kingston, Ont., has released a handful of live albums over the years and now has finally gotten around to putting out a studio LP. But The Controller's Exam was recorded mostly live-off-the-floor with producer David Barbe in Athens, Georgia. "Our goal with this record was to capture the energy of our live show, and really give DRR fans something special," says singer-songwriter-guitarist Tom Savage. The other band members are Tony Silvestri on keyboards, drummer Bonz Bowering and bassist Richard Piche.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Dear Rouge, Two Door Cinema Club, San Fermin, Lake Street Dive, Forest Sun in the New Music bin


Dear Rogue: Goon


The Vancouver alt-rock duo of Danielle and Drew McTaggart just released this single about "people in our lives that we'd like to forget" but who keep turning up, often in the most uncomfortable ways. Danielle says Drew "had a great idea of putting the line “go on” together to make the title of the song: “GOON” ... So this song goes out to everyone who has a “GOON” person in their life who just won’t leave you alone. It’s time to go away!"

Two Door Cinema Club: Sure Enough


This trio from Northern Ireland just released a new single - but this isn't it. We decided instead to catch up with their release from last fall, which NME called "an explosion of energy, featuring fizzing synths reminiscent of retro video games and spry electric guitar lines." The club's brand-new track, "Happy Customers," will find its way into our mix as well.

San Fermin: Weird Environment


This single comes from the new album Arms, the fifth studio LP by the eight-piece band from Brooklyn. Leader Ellis Ludwig-Leone says the song "is about the disorientation of a breakup, how your whole world feels suddenly fake and unpleasant." The video puts various A-I versions of Leone through various fantastic settings.

Lake Street Dive: Good Together


Some 20 years after the band was formed at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, it's preparing to release its eighth studio album in June - preceded by this, the title track. "We’ve been calling this record a 'joyful rebellion,'" the group said in a post. "There’s so much to be sad or angry or scared about in the world right now, but joy keeps you going." Relix calls this track "pitch-perfect power pop, featuring a duet between Rachel Price and Akie Bermiss atop a bouncing staccato synth riff, completed by exultant horns and an undeniably funky danceable backbeat."

Forest Sun: Never Been


We can't keep up with the prolific output of this troubadour from the San Francisco Bay area, who puts out new songs on a monthly basis between occasional albums. As we add this February track to the New Music Bin, we realize he's already released another, on Bandcamp and through Patreon. The litany-style lyric here starts with a nod to Paul Simon - "Never been laid so low" - and continues with a litany of experiences that may come as "Life keeps singing no matter what we say."

Saturday, March 2, 2024

New music by Elephant Stone, Joywave, MGMT, The Greeting Committee, Teles


Elephant Stone: Going Underground


From the Montreal group's sixth studio album, Back Into The Dream, comes this track that Broadway World calls "a slice of high-powered jangle-pop with an infectious hook." Montreal Rocks writes that this song as "The Spark" (which we featured as a single in October) " showcase Rishi Dhir and the band's "ability to seamlessly blend elements of psych-pop with hints of folk and even jazz, resulting in a sound that is at once familiar and refreshingly original."

Joywave: Brain Damage


"A song about the absurdity of trying to be ‘ok’ in a time when everything is clearly not,” is how singer Daniel Armruster describes his band's new single. It comes as the group from Rochester, N.Y., launches a tour with Two Door Cinema Club.

MGMT: Nothing To Declare


Photo by Johan Freeman
The new album Loss of Life, the fifth from this Brooklyn duo, is described by AllMusic as "sounding like '70s soft rock and FM pop radio beaming in from an alternate galaxy where psychedelic thoughts were the norm."


The Greeting Committee: Popmoneyhits


We're not sure just how tongue-and-cheekily we're supposed to take a lyric that basically says, "You bet  I want to sell out and get rich," but we can certainly understand that sentiment coming from an indie band. This single comes from the Kansas City duo of Addie Sartino and Pierce Turcotte, who we're told are working on their third album.

Teles: Olivia


This group from Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire, UK, began in 2018 as The Boxteles. Its four members have been in the music business for years, we're told, and their band has been growing its sound "with heavier riffs, bigger hooks and serious sentiments." They describe this single as "a heartfelt 60’s-inspired Brit-Pop anthem" in which the protagonist urges a woman to break free from a bad relationship.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Catfish and the Bottlemen, Grouplove, Real Estate, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Keeton Coffman


Catfish and the Bottlemen: Showtime


Van McCann and his crew are back with this single, their first release since the 2019 album The Balance. "Sometimes when the thing you love is right in front of your eyes / Don’t blink or you’ll miss/ Showtime" he sings in the chorus of what NME calls an "anthemic track along a booming medley of percussion and jangly guitars."

Grouplove: Chances


Image by Brantley Gutierrez
This single follows the LA band's 2023 album I Want It All Right Now and comes as they launch a cross-country tour. Their press release says "With the band’s vocalist/keyboardist Hannah Hooper at the helm, the new offering is an overstimulated, hallucinogenic, aggressive singsong." Can't disagree. 

Real Estate: Market Street


The New Jersey-based band led by Martin Courtney just released its sixth album, titled Daniel (which might or might not have to do with being helmed by Nashville producer Daniel Tashian). We've been playing the advance single "Water Underground," and now we're dropping track 10 into our New Music bin. AllMusic writes that the song taps into a "combination of existential uneasiness and reflective joy," which we say is summed up by the refrain: "Things don't seem right / Bathed in sunlight / I feel uptight."

Hurray for the Riff Raff: Alibi


Band leader Alynda Segarra says this track from the new album The Past Is Still Alive is "a plea, a last ditch effort to get through to someone you already know you’re gonna lose. It’s a song to myself, to my Father [who died last year], almost fooling myself because I know what’s done is done. But it feels good to beg. A reckoning with time and memory. The song is exhausted with loving someone so much it hurts.”

Keeton Coffman: Kathryn


It's great to hear new music from this very indie Texas singer-songwriter who has been in our mix since 2016. About this track he says: "Kathryn is the one who haunts you. And the hope that still guides you. She is both memories past, and mystery present. I was feeling very nostalgic about a certain someone when I wrote it… and the memories of her felt so visceral and real, that I’m honestly not even sure how I wrote the song. When we play it live, I lose myself in that moment every time."

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Our latest adds: Middle Kids, Bridget Kearney, Maggie Rogers, Marcus King, Pearl Jam


Middle Kids: Terrible News


Photo by Pooneh Ghana
We can't resist saying that the release of this Australian band's latest LP, Faith Crisis Pt. 1, is actually good news to our ears. The trio of singer/guitarist Hannah Joy, bassist Tim Fitz (her husband) and drummer Harry Day continue to make buoyant pop-rock songs out of Joy's angsty thoughts. "And I can’t take it / Sitting in this noisy room / With all these wound up people / Giving terrible news ... I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to prove."

Bridget Kearney: Security Camera


More good news: The bassist from Lake Street Dive will release her second solo album, Comeback Kid, in April. This sprightly number imagines being able to rewatch a happy memory of a past romance. "Security camera, roll back the tape / I wanna see that day that he stole my heart." Says Kearney: "The moral of the story is that even though life is ephemeral, these fleeting moments of bliss that come and go are actually ours forever because we carry them with us in our minds."

Maggie Rogers: Don't Forget Me


This is the title track from the singer-songwriter's third studio album, also coming in April. She says she wrote the songs in a burst of creativity over five days in December 2022 and January 2023. She credits co-producer Ian Fitchuk with co-writing eight of its ten songs and playing most of the instruments on the album.

Marcus King: Mood Swings


The guitar phenom is prepping his third solo album, this one produced by Rick Rubin at his Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, Calif. Variety magazine writes that the LP "promises to probe new depths for King, both musically and psychologically, as Rubin encouraged him to dig deeper into his soulful side as a musician, as well as explore his personal demons as someone who is finding his way away from self-medicating. ... [T]he album can overall best be described as: What if Al Green also played a mean axe and made a record about dealing with anxiety and depression?"

Pearl Jam: Dark Matter


Photo by Danny Clinch
Rounding out this week's New Music bin is this hard-hitting title song from the grunge-scene veterans' upcoming 12th studio album. Consequence of Sound writes that the track "opens with thunderous drums from Matt Cameron that would do Phil Collins proud, before Jeff Ament’s baritone guitar comes purring in. [Producer Andrew] Watt highlights some phrases with guitar reverb so intense it approaches static, while [Eddie] Vedder’s voice explores the 'strange' days 'when everybody else pays for someone else’s mistake.'"