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Saturday, October 30, 2021

New: Elvis Costello, My Morning Jacket, Jeen, Sunflower Bean, Andrew Leahey & The Homestead


Elvis Costello and The Imposters: Magnificent Hurt


"A new album of urgent, immediate songs with bright melodies, guitar solos that sting and a quick step to the rhythm” is how the veteran rocker describes The Boy Named If, due in January. Costello says its 13 songs “take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child — which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next 50 years.” Stereogum writes that this first single "sounds a whole lot like something that Costello might’ve made in the late ’70s. The song has a pounding backbeat, some perfect organ interjections from longtime bandmate Steve Nieve, and a lead vocal with some real snarl in it."

My Morning Jacket: Complex


After last year's release of leftover tracks from the Waterfall session, the band is back with an album of fresh material. (Seems they couldn't come up with a fresh title, though, so it's called My Morning Jacket.) New York's WFUV radio says it's "packed with everything fans look for in a My Morning Jacket album: Fully-developed, rich, anthemic rock anchored in American roots and adorned with dense layers of opulent psychedelic guitars, soaring vocals, and complex, progressive melodies."

Jeen: Recklessly


Jeen (O'Brien) says she "started writing ‘Recklessly’ last summer when my head was spinning like everyone else. Always feeling like the bottom could drop out any second. Being a musician can be challenging on a good day and I never made a plan B. So I felt that pretty hard last year and this year as well. Like that rush of not having a safety net, but maybe wishing you did.” The song is on the Toronto-based artist's new LP, Dog Bite, which also features the single "Maybe I'll Be Gone," which entered our mix a few months ago.

Sunflower Bean: Baby Don't Cry


It's been a little over a year since the Brooklyn-based trio of guitarist-vocalist Nick Kivlen, bassist-vocalist Julia Cumming and drummer Jacob Faber released its last single, "Moment in the Sun," so it's good to hear from them again. No word on whether an album is in the works, but the band is about to begin touring again after a pandemic hiatus. This song, they say, "is about how so many things in our lives are disposable. Content and news is consumed and discarded leaving us unfulfilled. 'Baby Don't Cry' is about enjoying the real. The things right in front of us that give us meaning and how sometimes, even sad songs can give you that warm feeling of hope."

Andrew Leahey & the Homestead: Good At Gone


This Nashville-based songwriter and his band just released the first half of a planned 18-track double-album, American Static Vol. 1. The band's combination of guitar-driven arrangements and storytelling lyrics bring frequent comparisons to Petty and Springsteen, but a review by The Alternate Root says the group is "a decidedly cohesive outfit that isn’t indebted to any other entity and their rugged, determined stance results in songs that are singularly stirring and flush with resilience and resolve." About this song, Leahey tells American Songwriter: “I spent four years remaining in transit the whole time. I like crazy schedules like that, but I don’t like the fact that I’ve grown accustomed to being apart from my wife for long periods of time. ‘Good at Gone’ deals with that realization. It’s a song about distance, guilt, long hauls, and payoffs.”

(Photo credit: Chad Cochran)

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