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Sunday, February 16, 2025

New music from Soda Blonde, Horsegirl, The War and Treaty, Lilly Hiatt, Krooked Tongue


Soda Blonde: People Pleaser


The Dublin quartet that released its sophomore album Dream Big in 2023 has popped out a couple of singles since, and just dropped this one with the promise of more to come this year. Vocalist and songwriter Faye O'Rourke says the song is "an anthem for people who love too easily, lose themselves too often, and mistake validation for love."

Horsegirl: Well I Know You're Shy


Three years after their debut album, Versions of Modern Performance, and following a move from Chicago to New York, this group is out with its second LP, Phonetics On and On. AllMusic writes that they've moved away from noise-rock, opted for "crisp, clean production helmed by Cate Le Bon." brought the vocals to the front of the mix and slowed their pace on many of the songs. Our pick for the New Music Bin is one of the peppier tracks on the album.

The War & Treaty: Love Like Whiskey


The duo's new album, Plus One, opens with this "strutting, horns-punctuated country-soul" number (as AllMusic calls it), cowritten by Miranda Lambert. The lyric describe a couple in a break-up-make-up cycle - or would that be a cycle of war-and-treaty?

Lilly Hiatt: Ghost Ship


From the new album Forever comes this track that Americana Highways calls "a mesmerizing, hypnotic, cigarette-dangling, fast-car-driving, blurry-warm-summer-night, convertible anthem." The album as a whole combines personal, self-reflective lyrics with a rough-edged alt-rock sound (including distorted vocals that get to be too much on some of its other tracks).

Krooked Tongue: Let 'Em Loose


We picked up this Bristol, UK, trio's "Ember Mile" single a couple of months ago, and this latest track comes with word of a "longer body of material" (album? EP?) in the works. Vocalist/lyricist Oli Rainsford says the song is about "the technological age we found ourselves in today" and our addiction to screen time. (If you say so; frankly we can't make much sense of the lyrics.)

Saturday, February 8, 2025

New from Sharon Van Etten, The Black Keys, Inhaler, Momma and (psst) Modest Mouse


Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: Idiot Box


After issuing a half-dozen records as a solo artist, the singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist presents her latest album as a creative collaboration with her band. Pitchfork reports: "During rehearsals for her 2022 tour, Van Etten grew tired of her own voice and impulsively asked her band to 'just jam.' The experiment yielded two songs ... and left the singer 'feeling very inspired.' ... On Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, the frontwoman surrenders to the rhythm on a stormy, unsettled album centered on groove and mood." This track bemoans the modern impulse to replace personal interaction with electronic devices: "All these things we think we lack / All this time we can't get back."

The Black Keys: The Night Before


The 13th album from Dan Auerbach's project with Patrick Carney, No Rain, No Flowers, is on its way this year. This first single comes just 10 months after the duo's Ohio Players LP. It also follows a dispute with their former management company that resulted in the cancelation of their 2024 tour. Carney says: "We were already on a creative streak, and the best thing we could do, rather than sit at home, was just go back in the studio."

Inhaler: All I Got Is You


We previously featured a couple of the singles from Open Wide, and now with the release of the full LP, we're picking this track for the New Music Bin. Reviewers have noted more variety of styles and influences here than on the band's previous albums, with Glide Magazine hearing "touches of The Smiths and The Cure" on this number.

Momma: I Want You (Fever)


Ahead of the Brooklyn indie-rock quartet's next album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, comes this song of jealous love. The group says it's "about wanting to be with someone who has a girlfriend, or someone who isn’t over their ex. It’s pining after someone, but there’s also some confidence knowing that that person wants to be with you." There's not much subtlety in the lyrics: "Pick up and leave her / I want you, fever."

Modest Mouse: Kingdom of Could'a


Talk about a limited release: Good Music to Lift Los Angeles, an extraordinary collection of 90 tracks by as many artists, put together as a fund-raiser for California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund and the LA Regional Food Bank, was available for just one day (Feb. 7) via Bandcamp. The website also donated all its fees that day to MusiCares. Luckily we got the word in time to snag the bundle of originals and covers, demos, alternate takes and live recordings - including this song that we understand has popped up in Modest Mouse live sets but never had a studio release.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Sunflower Bean + Snow Patrol + Tunde Adebimpe + The Weather Station + R.O. Shapiro = New Music


Sunflower Bean: Champagne Taste


Here's the lead track from Mortal Primetime, due in April. Stereogum writes that the Brooklyn trio "leaned into their dark side with the Shake EP," released in September - and now "is getting even heavier." Bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming describes the album as “Belle And Sebastian meets Alice In Chains.” This track, she says, "is about feeling beaten down but still driving forward."

Snow Patrol: But I'll Keep Trying


This new single will be on an upcoming deluxe version of last year's album, The Forest Is The Path. We're told six new songs will be on the extended edition. (Why not issue them as an EP? What is an album these days, anyway?)

Tunde Adebimpe: Drop


Following up on "Magnetic" comes this new single from the TV On The Radio frontman's upcoming solo album, Thee Black Boltz

The Weather Station: Humanhood


We previously featured a couple of singles and now here's the title track of the latest release by Tamara Lindman and company. It's musically complex, featuring winds, strings and syncopated percussion, with seeming stream-of-consciousness lyrics. "I been carrying this humanhood clumsily / carrying this humanhood, not carefully / carrying a body that’s tired from carrying a mind."

R.O. Shapiro: A Song To The Sunset


Now in California, formerly of Austin, Texas and native of Sag Harbor, N.Y., this self-described troubadour has just released a four-song EP called Worthy. This jaunty, cheerful tune is the most light-hearted of the bunch, and in heavy times we found it irresistible. (Photo by Brit Powers.)