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Saturday, October 29, 2022

Introducing Deep Pocket Thieves, plus The Arcs, Marcus King, Arctic Monkeys, Weyes Blood

With apologies for missing a couple of weeks - 
we're back to picking fresh tracks to feature in our New Music Bin.


Deep Pocket Thieves: What Was I Thinking


A new entry to our roster of artists, this Colorado combo won the Mile High Blues Society competition a few years back. Like so many emerging bands, its takeoff was hampered by the pandemic. This single should bring them more attention beyond the Rockies. The current line-up includes Larea Edwards on vocals and violin, Jimmy Ayers on piano, Hammond, dobro, and slide guitar, Mahlon Hawk on bass and Seth Bennett on drums.

The Arcs: Keep On Dreamin'


This band led by the inescapable Dan Auerbach has announced the January 2023 release of Electrophonic Chronic. The album was mostly recorded before the 2018 death of bandmate Richard Swift, and Auerbach says finishing and releasing it was "a way for us to say goodbye to him ... It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.”

Marcus King: It's Too Late


We wanted to feature one more track from Young Blood before (ahem) it's too late to call it "new music." This is the opening track on the LP the South Carolina blues-rocker released late this summer - produced by the aforementioned Auerbach.

Arctic Monkeys: I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am


Twenty years into their career, the band from Sheffield, UK, is "taking a bigger step back from the sinewy guitar rock that made them superstars," WFUV Radio writes about their upcoming album. "Alex Turner and his bandmates go heavy on orchestration on The Car, and excel at that dynamic cinematic landscape, steeped in rumination and preoccupied with matters of the heart."

Weyes Blood: Grapevine


Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Natalie Mering got her start in Portland, Oregon's noise/experimental scene in the early 2000s, AllMusic informs us. Over time, her music "grew more straightforward without losing its haunted edginess." The fourth Weyes Blood studio album, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, is due in November. Mering describes this track as "a road song set along the titular stretch of Southern California’s Interstate 5."

Sunday, October 9, 2022

The Latest: July Talk, Sloan, The War and Treaty, Alvvays, The Smashing Pumpkins


July Talk: After This


A new single from the upcoming album Remember Never Before.

Sloan: Nice Work If You Can Get It


A track from the veteran alternative-rock band's new album, Steady.

The War and Treaty: Lover's Game


This single is the title track for a forthcoming album from the husband-wife duo. It's a co-write with Dave Cobb, the album's producer.

Alvvays: Easy On Your Own?


The second single from the band’s third studio album, Blue Rev.

The Smashing Pumpkins: Beguiled


This single was released along with details of the band's 12th studio album, a three-act rock opera titled ATUM (pronounced Autumn), due in April 2023.

Saturday, October 1, 2022

New music from Automatic, Paramore, Emperor of Ice Cream, Brooke Annibale, Derek Christie


Automatic: New Beginning


It's been a while since we heard such a strong echo of Kraftwerk in new music, and it seems appropriate that it would come from a band called Automatic. The LA trio of Izzy Glaudini (synths), Halle Saxon (bass) and Lola DompĂ© (drums) released its second album, Excess, in June, and this opening track just came our way as a single. Stereogum writes that "the song twists Glaudini’s deadpan melodies around a simple, insistent bass groove and lockstep motorik drums, punctuated with chunky blasts of fuzzed-out keyboard." The lyric rejects the false hope of abandoning a damaged Earth for a better place in space. 

Paramore: This Is Why


Photo by Zachary Gray
The first release in five years from vocalist Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro is the first taste of a new album, due in February. Williams says it "was the very last song we wrote for the album" and ended up being the title track. "It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last three or four years." The lyric suggests retreat from a hypercritical world: "You're either with us or you can keep it to yourself / This is why I don't leave the house."

Emperor of Ice Cream: I See You Everywhere


Since reuniting in 2020 after a 25-year hiatus, this indie-rock band from Cork, Ireland, has released an album and seven singles, as well as re-releases of its 1990s recordings. We featured last year's "Weather Vane," and with this new track comes a promise of more songs in the coming months. A press release says the band's sound has evolved, cutting back on production tricks "while maintaining their trade-mark basslines, raw and melodic guitars, topped by elegant, lush vocals and harmonies."

Brooke Annibale: Be Around


We previously featured a couple of early singles from Better By Now, and with last week's release of the full album, we're pulling out another number by this indie singer-songwriter, originally from Pittsburgh and now based in Rhode Island. The track opens quietly with a few piano notes, gentle strumming and vocal, then opens up with soaring synths and drums. Annibale says the album's ten songs are "almost half about falling in love and half about mental health.” This one is an unabashed love song.

Derek Christie: Wherever It Takes You


Photo by Chris Robart
We dip again into this Toronto-area rocker's latest album, DC, to feature a song "about a rogue rambler with no plan, no map, no responsibilities and no safety net." Indie-music website Pitch Perfect writes: "It features a shuffling reggae beat, a bold and fat horn section and some extra percussive elements," adding up to "a fun song to listen to."