News
Now Hear This! - November 2021
|
What's New 10-29-21
Expectations never mattered to Bad Wolves. Instead, the Los Angeles band fused unpredictable metallic intensity and impressive instrumental proficiency to arena-ready hooks, transforming from underdogs into elite platinum-certified hard rock contenders without compromise or apology. Dear Monsters continues this trajectory with the addition of The Acacia Strain’s Daniel Laskiewicz as lead vocalist.
Carll's talent for storytelling and creating compelling lyrical narratives shines through as brightly as ever here, exemplifying his ability to span a wide range of musical styles while staying true to himself. Featuring songs co-written by Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, and Sean McConnell, You Get It All is both heartbreaking and lighthearted, a combination that Carll has honed on his records throughout his entire career.
The band’s most ambitious body of work to date surveys sonic landscapes of rock, psychedelia, punk, metal, alternative, and prog threaded together by the innately expressive musical interplay of these four musicians. An atmosphere of loss, loneliness, and longing also permeates throughout as they musically say goodbye to old friend, confidant, and longtime manager the late Nick John.
The War on Drug’s first studio album in four years started as a dozen-plus session odyssey that spanned three years in seven studios. But having steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, helping to remove the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, the band’s newest was well worth the wait. *Available In Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Blue 2x Vinyl*
The fourth installment in Sheeran’s symbol album series, =, is Ed’s most accomplished work yet. A body of songs that were made over a four-year period following his seminal ÷ album era, thematically, = finds Ed taking stock of his life and the people in it, as he explores the varying degrees of love, loss, resilience and fatherhood, while also processing his reality and career.
Four-time GRAMMY Award winners and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, The Doobie Brothers, announce the release of their 15th full-length album, Liberté. The album announcement precedes the band’s 49-city North American tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary, where Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, Pat Simmons, and John McFee will be on tour together for the first time in 25 years.
The band’s 4th full length album was written and recorded in the midst of a lot of life changing events for lead writer/singer Justin Osborne. "We were navigating the global and national issues that everyone else was dealing with, but also I became a father and also lost my father. The title Time in the Sun is meant to be a monument to my own human existence and also a tribute to the human experience in general.”
Committed to uncompromising expression, Black Veil Brides began as a gothic vision summoned in a small town by an isolated kid fascinated with death, rock, theatricality, and monsters (both real and imagined). Now a postmodern heavy metal institution with a legion of like-minded fans, they bring you Phantom Tomorrow. *Available on Limited Edition Moonphase Transparent Red & Black Vinyl*
The singer-songwriter's 13th album is a mellow and empathetic antidote to the chaos and confusion of modern life. On the title track, Bragg sings about the things we’ve all lost over the last two years: “A hug for the crying, a kiss for the dying.” It’s all but impossible not to relate. In an age of division, The Million Things That Never Happened is a gentle embrace of what unites us all.
On Time to Melt, his third full length and first for Fat Possum, Sam Evian swaddles the malaise of 2020 in a blur of groove-indie experimentation, cementing himself as one of indie’s foremost songwriters. It’s a promising collection of seductive tunes reminding everyone that, “Life’s a blur, take it in easy.”
Emily Scott Robinson beckons to those who are lost, lonely, or learning the hard way with American Siren. With hints of bluegrass, country, and folk, this eloquent collection shares Robinson’s gift for storytelling through her pristine soprano and the perspective of her unconventional path into music while also proving to her and her fans that heeding the call to make music was the right decision.
Archspire presents an unforgiving masterpiece that serves up technical death metal at its most extreme and intricate. The G-force levels of velocity and dizzying technical proficiency reach seemingly impossible heights, defying the laws of physics and pushing human boundaries to the outer limits. Bleed the Future sits at the apex of technical and extreme metal, certifying Archspire's place among the genre's masters.
Whitechapel return with the mighty KIN, an even more dynamic and diverse collection than 2019’s The Valley. It further advances the band's sound into new territory without losing sight of what brought them to this point - full-on death metal assault, brutal, serrated and extreme as it gets, and vocalist Phil Bozeman’s trademark roar. *Available on Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Black w/ White Splatter 2x Vinyl*
Tattoo You celebrates 40 years with the release of a brand new Super Deluxe 5 LP Boxset which includes the newly remastered version of Tattoo You, Lost & Found: Rarities, and Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982. Also included is a 124-page book featuring over 200 rare photos from recording sessions and their world tour, plus interviews with producer Chris Kimsey and photographer Hubert Kretzscmar. The package includes a special lenticular sleeve.
Recorded during fall 2020, Faithful is a meditation on grace, loss, hope, and community. Explains songwriter M.C. Taylor, "Big, brash holiday music… has never resonated with me, and this past year it felt absolutely dissonant. I wanted to make a seasonal record that felt more in step with the way that I, and so many others, experience this time of year: quiet, contemplative, searching, and bittersweet."
On What Happens Next, roots singer-songwriter and guitarist Davy Knowles boldly steps forward with timeless and cohesive songwriting, sleek modern production, and a lyrical, play-for-the-song guitar approach informed from soul, folk, rock, and blues. It’s 12 songs are equally influenced by The Black Keys, Fantastic Negrito, Gary Clark Jr., as they are Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough, and R.L. Burnside.
HITS is the ultimate Sixx:A.M. collection, featuring their first new song in six years and songs that complement the legendary Crüe bassman’s new book, The First 21. Also includes two more unreleased tracks "Penetrate” and "Waiting All My Life,” plus new mixes of "Talk to Me," " Skin," and the iconic "Life is Beautiful."
La Luz launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy through songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry. With sounds ranging from ghostly electric guitar shimmers, charging fuzz-guitar rock, soulful organ-driven dream-funk, galactic synths, and breezy '70s folk-pop, La Luz is an album that celebrates love-of music, of friendship, of life in all its forms.
I Want the Door is a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment Lillie West declares "I want to look right into the camera" over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track "Lava," the album distinguishes itself from anything she's done before in scope and intensity.
Future Past is the highly anticipated 15th studio album from the legendary Duran Duran and boasts esteemed producers Erol Alkan, Giorgio Moroder and Mark Ronson behind the board. Featuring special guests Graham Coxon of Blur, Mike Garson from David Bowie's band, Lykke Li and more. *Available on Indie Exclusive Limitd Edition Trasnparent Red Vinyl*
Creepsylvanian cannibal splatterthrashers Ghoul unleash the live double album Live in the Flesh recorded in 2018 at the Oakland Metro Opera House. "If you want pathos, if you want passion, if you want prop-based heavy metal delivered with questionable technical skill, then this is for you," comments Ghoul's Digester. A full set of skits, jokes, and all the hits.
Colourgrade, recorded soon after the birth of her first child and shortly before her second, forms a subconscious snapshot from across a year when Tirzah was playing live regularly for the first time. The album explores recovery, gratitude and new beginnings, presenting a singer having discovered the type of love that is shared between a mother and a child for the first time, whilst simultaneously working as an artist.
The band's fifth studio album and first in five years, Talk Memory is a mostly improvisational work written by the trio with contributions from featured American instrumentalists Laraaji, Karriem Riggins, Terrace Martin, and Brandee Younger, and string arrangements from Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai. *Available on Indie Exclusive Limited Edition White Double Vinyl*
Norah Jones, the 9x GRAMMY-winning artist has made her first holiday album with I Dream Of Christmas, a collection of timeless seasonal favorites (“White Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Christmas Time Is Here”) and profound new originals that explore the complicated emotions of the past year and our hopes that this holiday season will be full of joy and togetherness.
Pokémon 25: The Album is an exciting new compilation released to celebrate 25 years of Pokémon. Featuring new tracks by J Balvin, Lil Yachty, Vince Staples, Jax Jones with Sinead Harnett, Mabel, Tierra Whack, Katy Perry, Post Malone, and Louane. Fans can keep up with the latest news for P25 Music and more celebrations across the franchise on Pokémon’s 25th anniversary website at Pokemon.com/25.
On Coldplay’s ninth full-length, the band (with the help of Swedish hitmaker Max Martin on co-production) do what they do best. It’s an album full of soaring pop melodies that take you high enough to enter orbit and touching sentiments that makes the universe around you glow ever brighter. It’s a celestial beauty that’s capable of inspiring great awe and emotion - in other words, a Coldplay album.
New Release Round-Up 10-29-21
Tori Amos - Ocean To Ocean - Decca
In spite of the various crises that have occurred since 2017's Native Invader, Tori Amos has emerged with Ocean To Ocean, her most personal work in years - an album bursting with warmth and connection, with deep roots in her earliest song writing. Written during the third lockdown in Cornwall this year, Ocean to Ocean is a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again.
Mastodon - Hushed And Grim - Reprise
Mastodon release their anxiously awaited ninth full-length album, Hushed And Grim, via Reprise Records. Over the past year, the group recorded the album in their hometown, collaborating with producer David Bottrill [Tool, Rush, Muse, Peter Gabriel] behind the board. As their most ambitious body of work to date, it consists of 15 tracks, surveying sonic landscapes of rock, psychedelia, punk, metal, alternative, and prog threaded together by the innately expressive musical interplay of these four musicians. At the same time, an atmosphere of loss, loneliness, and longing permeates through the trio of cathartic vocals as they musically say goodbye to old friend, confidant, and longtime manager the late Nick John by architecting a magnum opus that bears the influence of his eternal memory.
Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color: Deluxe Edition - ATO Records
Deluxe edition of the groundbreaking, genre-defying second album by Alabama Shakes. Certified gold and the winner of four Grammys, Rolling Stone called "Sound & Color” a "weirder, woozier, fiercer and sexier record than their debut in nearly every way.” This repackaged set features revised artwork, new photos, and seven bonus tracks pulled from unreleased studio material, b-sides and live songs cut at the world renowned Capitol Records Studio A.
SUSTO - Time In The Sun - New West Records
Time In The Sun is the 4th full length album from Charleston, SC band SUSTO. The album was written and recorded in the midst of a lot of life changing events for lead writer/singer Justin Osborne. Like everyone around the world, Osborne was navigating the global issues felt from the pandemic while normal life continued with its own blessings and challenges.. "We were navigating the global and national issues that everyone else was dealing with, but also I became a father and also lost my father. There was a lot of contemplation going on in my brain, a lot of personal evolution going on in my life, and songwriting was my way of working through it all. The title Time in the Sun is meant to be a monument to my own human existence and also a tribute to the human experience in general. I wouldn’t claim to understand what it means to be a human, from the countless different perspectives of the world, but I do have my own experience to reflect on and I want to be able to express and explain that in some way. I guess this album is an attempt at that. At the core though, it’s just a collection of songs about my life and my feelings."
Bad Wolves - Dear Monsters - Better Noise Music
Expectations never mattered to Bad Wolves. Instead, the Los Angeles band fused unpredictable metallic intensity and impressive instrumental proficiency to arena-ready hooks, transforming from underdogs into elite platinum-certified hard rock contenders without compromise or apology. Since 2017, the core group-John Boecklin [drums], Doc Coyle [lead guitar, backing vocals], Chris Cain [rhythm guitar], and Kyle Konkiel [bass, backing vocals]-have consistently subverted expectations and accomplished the seemingly impossible. In 2018, the band earned a platinum plaque, topped iTunes, and ruled Active Rock at #1 for three weeks straight. This momentum also propelled their debut album, Disobey, to a Top 25 debut on the Billboard Top 200. In between performing to sold out audiences on multiple continents with heavyweights such as Five Finger Death Punch and Megadeth, 2019's N.A.T.I.O.N. yielded their fifth straight #1 at Active Rock, "Sober," and brought their total stream tally past the half-billionmark-unprecedented for a modern rock band. Not to mention, LoudWire hailed it among the "50 Best Rock Albums of 2019" as Billboard and Consequence of Sound chronicled their rise. In the midst of 2021, Bad Wolves welcomed Daniel "DL" Laskiewicz-previously of The Acacia Strain-as lead vocalist, ushering in a new chapter with their third full-length offering, Dear Monsters,[Better Noise Music], led by the single "Lifeline."
Save Face - Another Kill For The Highlight Reel - Epitaph
Save Face are a band who have always prided themselves on taking risks and the New Jersey band have doubled down on that sentiment with their sophomore album, Another Kill For The Highlight Reel. Another Kill For The Highlight Reel, which features indelibly human performances, including a guest appearance from Thursday’s Geoff Rickly on “A.M. Gothic”. “There’s something about the New Jersey kinship [between Geoff and I] that really resonates with me,” Tyler Povanda explains. “New Jersey’s music scene is really something special.” Musically, the album—which was produced by the Movielife’s Brett Romnes—sees Povanda taking influence from his Jersey brethren like Thursday but adds a theatrical twist. “‘GLITTER’ was the first song I wrote that ended up being on this album and it bridges the gap between Merci and Another Kill For The Highlight Reel, ” Povanda says. “I think that song serves as a cool sonic metaphor for the transformation of the band. I would say this album isn’t narrative in the same way as the last one, but it does feel much more immersive.”
Spice Girls - Spice: 25th Anniversary - Virgin Records US
Originally released on November 4, 1996, The Spice Girls' debut album Spice celebrates its 25th anniversary this year! The album features the smash singles "Wannabe," "2 Become 1," and "Say You'll Be There" and is the best-selling album in music history by a girl group and one of the best-selling albums of all time. The 2CD set includes the original album along with bonus tracks, B-sides from the hit singles, remixes commissioned for the singles, and previously unreleased demos.
Nat King Cole - A Sentimental Christmas With Nat King Cole And Friends: Cole Classics Reimagined - Capitol
The new album 'A Sentimental Christmas With Nat King Cole And Friends: Cole Classics Reimagined' weaves Nat King Cole's unparalleled, beautifully restored vocals with new arrangements and contemporary artists creating beautiful sentimental duets of holiday classics. Taking its lead from the GRAMMY award-winning virtual duet of “Unforgettable,” by Natalie Cole with her father, this holiday album features brand new duets with John Legend, Kristen Chenoweth, Calum Scott, Gloria Estefan & Johnny Mathis.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
Ed Sheeran - = [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition White LP]
Black Veil Brides - The Phantom Tomorrow
Dave Chappelle - 8:46
Khruangbin - Mordechai Remixes
R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi: 25th Anniversary Edition
The War On Drugs - I Don’t Live Here Anymore [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Blue 2LP]
Joe Bonamassa - Time Clocks
Billy Bragg - The Million Things That Never Happened
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason: Remixed & Updated
Emily Scott Robinson - American Siren
Sam Evian - Time To Melt [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Pink LP]
Iggy Azalea - The End of an Era
Mouse Rat - The Awesome Album [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Nothing Rhymes With Blorange Orange LP]
Eddie Vedder/Glen Hansard/Cat Power - Flag Day (Original Soundtrack)
The Front Bottoms - The Front Bottoms: 10th Anniversary Edition
Bremer/McCoy - Natten (The Night)
Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend: Deluxe [Limited Edition]
Bnny - Everything
Lindsay Lohan - A Little More Personal (Raw)
Nightmares On Wax - Shout Out! To Freedom...
The The - The Comeback Special [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set]
Tipper - The Seamless Unspeakable Something
Hayes Carll - You Get It All
& More .....
What's New 10-22-21
This newly discovered live-recording of a performance of the Love Supreme suite is a revelation. Recorded at The Penthouse in Seattle on October 2, 1965, this recording transports the listener to a prime seat for piece of musical history. Featuring an expanded band that includes the same Classic Quartet and Pharoah Sanders in his first official gig as part of Coltrane’s group.
My Morning Jacket reaffirm the rarefied magic that has made them so beloved, embedding each song with moments of discovery, revelation and ecstatic catharsis. It comes after a near permanent hiatus for the band until performing four shows in summer '19 left them with a new energy. Jim James engineered/produced at 64 Sound in LA where the band spent weeks in intentional seclusion emerging with their self-titled 9th album.
After breaking through with music that compassionately distills the Latinx experience, singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos Lange looks within on his hypnotic forthcoming album. Characteristically contemplative and joyful, Far In allows for listeners to imprint their own experiences and daydreams onto it. “It doesn’t have to be isolating, to go far in,” Lange says. “It’s more like an invitation.” Let’s dance.
The sky over -io, Circuit des Yeux’s first album since 2017, is Florida's strange, radiant orange. It's a built environment, unnatural, made from concrete and glass, with skyscrapers that stretch to the vanishing point as you gaze up at them. It's crumbling and suffocating, a city perpetually on the brink of collapse, where tension never topples over into catharsis, where the heat never breaks.
Sympathy For Life finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity. Built largely from improvised jams, inspired by New York clubs, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne), this was always destined to be a dance album.
Black Metal 2 is the most approachable album of Dean Blunt's career without losing the vital ambiguity that has always made his records special. This is minimalist sophisti-pop, sung by a terminally downward-looking troubadour. It’s the clearest Blunt has ever sounded and one of his most thrilling releases to date.
New Release Round-Up 10-22-21
My Morning Jacket - My Morning Jacket - ATO Records
On their new full-length - the first new music since The Waterfall (2015) - My Morning Jacket reaffirm the rarefied magic that has made them so beloved, embedding each song with moments of discovery, revelation and ecstatic catharsis. It comes after a near permanent hiatus for the band until performing four shows in summer '19 left them with a new energy. Jim James engineered/produced at 64 Sound in LA where the band spent weeks in intentional seclusion emerging with their self-titled 9th album.
The Rolling Stones - Tattoo You: 40th Anniversary Edition - Interscope
Tattoo You celebrates 40 years with the release of a brand new Super Deluxe 5 LP Boxset which includes the newly remastered version of Tattoo You, Lost & Found: Rarities, and Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982. Also included is a 124-page book featuring over 200 rare photos from recording sessions and their world tour, plus interviews with producer Chris Kimsey and photographer Hubert Kretzscmar. The package includes a special lenticular sleeve. Also available: CD, 2CD, 4CD/Picture Disc Box Set, LP and 2LP
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle - Impulse!
This newly discovered live-recording of a performance of the Love Supreme suite is a revelation. Recorded at The Penthouse in Seattle on October 2, 1965, this recording transports the listener to a prime seat for piece of musical history. While not studio-quality audio, the power of the performance shines through. This version is also of the full suite and features an expanded band that includes the same Classic Quartet and Pharoah Sanders in his first official gig as part of Coltrane’s group.
Every Time I Die - Radical - Epitaph
Every Time I Die is a loud rock institution committed to leaving an outpouring of chaotic passion and blissful malcontent all over their records and on the stage. With boiling charisma and unrelenting energy to spare, the Buffalo, NY band manages not one but two near-impossible tasks. They’ve survived two decades as an underground entity cherished for coloring outside the lines, and contrary to most career arcs, continually improving with each successive album as they charge ahead. ETID makes a glorious hardcore-punk noise. Alchemized by a swampy summoning of Southern rock and coarse poetry, the music swirls beneath sardonic and clever wordplay, cementing them as leaders, not followers. The band’s ninth studio album, Radical, is 16 tracks of peak-ETID, including raucous new anthems. They deliver what you have come to know and love and then diverge into new paths. To say that “All This And War” featuring guest vocals by Josh Scogins from The ‘68 is absolute brutal heaviness is an understatement. It’s an addictive punch in the face, you’ll want on repeat. The boys then run off to explore the dark haunted woods of a more somber and melodic side in the track “Thing With Feathers” featuring Andy Hull from Manchester Orchestra. Radical proves with every track that it is a distillation of the strengths of their past, injected with their unyielding revelry and signature sarcasm while cognizant – and fiercely combative – of the present state of world affairs.
Jackson + Sellers - Breaking Point - Anti
Introducing Jackson + Sellers and their debut album Breaking Point, on ANTI records. Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, two rising stars who aligned during the pandemic to write one of the most compelling duo albums of the last decade. Drawn together by instant chemistry, cosmic forces and their ability to write intuitive romantic breakup songs for each other, their album is a window into the dissolution of two different relationships and the formation of another: a perfect, platonic, creative union. United in their desire to write a record that reflected their expansive musical interest from 70s rock to raucous roots to indie pop, their LA written, Nashville recorded album is a masterclass in unexpected vocal harmonic convergence. With Breaking Point, Jackson + Sellers will establish themselves as two individual artists who together, share a deep friendship, musical kinship and the ability to craft tight singular pop rock songs that will embed themselves in your ears for the rest of time.
Sixx: A.M. - Hits - Better Noise Music
Sixx: A.M. Hits is the Ultimate Sixx: A.M. Collection featuring the first new song in six years and song that compliments his new book - 'The First 21', 2 more unreleased tracks "Penetrate' + "Waiting All My Life" and new mixes of "Talk to Me", " Skin" and the iconic "Life is Beautiful". Sixx: A.M. formed in 2007 by Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, renowned guitarist DJ Ashba, and producer /songwriter James Michael, and has had #3 US top 20 albums with #9 US Top 20 singles and is best known for their debut album The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack and the #1 hits "Life Is Beautiful" and "Lies of the Beautiful People". Available via limited edition CD digi pack and color vinyl.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
Lana Del Rey - Blue Banisters
Duran Duran - FUTURE PAST [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Transparent Red LP]
Paul McCartney - McCartney III: 3333 Edition [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Yellow/Black Splatter LP]
Parquet Courts - Sympathy For Life
Elton John - The Lockdown Sessions
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells: 20th Anniversary Edition [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Peppermint Pinwheel LP]
Starset - Horizons
The Allman Brothers Band - Fillmore East 1970 [Limited Edition Pink LP]
NCT 127 - The 3rd Album 'Sticker' [Sticker Ver.]
Deerhoof - Actually, You Can
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - B-Sides & Rarities: Part II
The Replacements - Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash: Deluxe Edition [4CD/LP]
Wale - Folarin II
BIA - FOR CERTAIN
Spiritualized - Let It Come Down: Reissue [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Ivory LP]
Jarvis Cocker - Chansons D'ennui Tip-Top
Superchunk - Here's to Shutting Up: 20th Anniversary Reissue [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Peak LP+CD]
Lady A - What A Song Can Do
Pennywise - Pennywise [Blue With Black Splatter LP]
Hiss Golden Messenger - O Come All Ye Faithful [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Bone Green Red Tri-Color Segment 2LP]
Guided By Voices - It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them!
Seether - Wasteland - The Purgatory EP
Hawthorne Heights - The Rain Just Follows Me
Seventeen - SEVENTEEN 9th Mini Album ‘Attacca’ [Op.1]
Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia Of The Air [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Seaglass Wave LP]
Dream Theater - A View From The Top Of The World [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Tan 2LP+CD]
The Convenience - Accelerator [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Green LP]
Young Gun Silver Fox - Canyons [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Opaque Red LP]
NOFX - Ribbed: 30th Anniversary [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Red with Black Splatter LP]
Clinic - Fantasy Island [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Blue LP]
& More .....























