Since reuniting in 2005, Chicago pop-punk band the Smoking Popes have been, to put it kindly, conservative with their album output.
In fact, Lovely Stuff, their latest release, marks only their fourth release in the past two decades. Like all the efforts that have preceded it, the album is crammed with near-perfect three-minute pop-punk anthems, somehow making the wait for new material both frustrating and well worth it.
Commenting on the album, singer/songwriter Josh Caterer said it took two years to complete this album. “We went into the studio with just two songs in the summer of 2022, then I kept writing, and we’d go back every few months and record another couple songs. It was a long process because we were doing it all piecemeal, but…
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Northline are a 5-piece Spanish outfit fronted by singer and songwriter Enric Máñez. They are not the most prolific of bands; following a handful of EPs in 2020/21, this new release All Things Done is only their second full-length album since the band’s 2018 debut Not That Easy, but it has been well worth the wait.
Máñez’s warm, world-weary vocals lay bare the struggles to cope with mental health and failing relationships. The nine tracks are unconventional in structure, the stark lyrics rarely rhyme and Máñez prefers refrains over wordy choruses to drive home the themes. All are delivered over nuanced, sympathetic musical arrangements of guitar and drums with a touch of lap steel or mandolin for colour.
Grey DeLisle’s new double album is chock-full of empathetic songs that are equal parts silly and sincere. DeLisle has a unique voice that makes her singing seem girlish even when she’s serious. There’s something comic and odd about the effect. This ambiguity makes the lyrics’ emotional concerns seem deeper and heavier. If one can’t laugh at love’s foibles, is one really in love?
Her protagonists do things like shoot their lovers in the bathtub at a house of ill repute, write the word “lonesome” on their ID badges, and cling to their mama on the way to the honeymoon. The characters share a fear of being alone that often isolates them. DeLisle’s vocals make their solitariness humorous rather than pathetic. We live in an absurd world where laughing at…
For a country that has, for so long, been embroiled in civil war and corruption, the two Congo wars from 1996-2003 reportedly having claimed the lives of some 6 million people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has, nevertheless, been responsible for providing some of Central Africa’s most enduring music.
Two bands in particular, Konono Nº1 and Staff Benda Bilili, have played pivotal roles in bringing the country’s music to global audiences, whilst in 2021, UNESCO added Congolese rumba to its “intangible cultural heritage of humanity list”.
Since 2023 and the release of their first EP, Moto, new kids on the block Kin’Gongolo Kiniata have been making their mark with live performances in Europe and the US. With the release of Kiniata,…
Buffet Lunch comes honking and shambling into view, its music a discombobulated concoction of wandering guitars, wheezy keyboards and yelped surrealities. The band, out of Glasgow, is a foursome, formed around the jittery energies of singer and rhythm guitarist Perry O’Bray. To this, we add the angular extrapolations of Matthew Lord on lead guitar, the bumptious optimism of Jack Shearer’s bass play and the bashing steadiness of drummer Luke Moran.
Perfect Hit! is a chocolate box, each track offering new, delicious morsels from the ridiculous to the sincere. The sweet, childlike lilt of ‘Blue Chairs, Blue Floors, Blue Folders’ recalls Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest; a perfect accompaniment to O’Bray’s tender appraisal of awaiting a newborn,…
Nearly 50 years into their career, the DIY punk greats Mekons are still doing what they do best — skewering the pompous and pios, offering social commentary with wit and an eye on history, and delivering rousing, beers-aloft anthems in the band’s signature globe-trotting style.
Horror is Mekons’ 20th studio album and first for Fire Records, and it sounds like a sampler plate of everything they’ve ever done, from dub to country, celtic folk, janglepop, angular postpunk, and everything in between. Themes couldn’t be more 2025, though, as Jon Langford, Sally Timms and the rest of the band take stock of the mess that’s become of the world, placing much blame on British imperialism and touching on everything from the Irish Famine to the climate crisis,…
With their latest set, Believer, Ella Coyes assumes a more aerial view than on their 2022 debut, Communion, frequently putting distance between themself and their subject matter. John Nellen’s production MO complements Coyes’ narrative style and this new, detached perspective, infusing the tracks with buoyancy, while never diluting Coyes’ pensive leanings.
Although the Edmonton-born, Métis singer-songwriter can thrive in stripped-down or full-band environments, the guitar-bass-drums line-up does seem to boost or texturize Sister Ray’s voice and lyrics effectively, prompting Coyes to sing more loosely, almost rakishly. The opening title song is a basic, yet effective folk-rock mix with added horns. Coyes’ voice is relaxed as…
Coming just a year after her last LP, Lily Seabird’s latest, Trash Mountain, is another deep dive into emotionally delicate indie pop-adjacent folk music. The record came together quickly in just a matter of months – after Seabird came home after a series of tours, both for her own music and as a touring bassist for others.
The album (and two song titles) are a reference to the community she lives in, surrounded by other artists and built on a decommissioned landfill in Burlington, Vermont. The connected thread across all nine of these tracks is a stripped-down, almost minimalist approach to soul-bearing. The first single and somewhat title track – “Trash Mountain (1 pm)” – serves as a thesis of sorts for this record. Led off with…
…After more than 30 years, lost tapes by Holger Czukay that he once recorded “for free disposal” have resurfaced. A sound meditation from 1997, now available for the first time remastered in the original and in a “version” by die ANGEL (Ilpo Väisänen / Dirk Dresselhaus) and Zappi W. Diermaier from the Krautrock legend Faust.
The works from the Czukay studio are idiosyncratic sound structures that mastering engineer Dresselhaus, alias Schneider TM, describes as “futuristic gems that are musically far ahead of their time.” For an abstract sound structure, “deep and emotional,” as he says.
…The genesis of these recordings goes back to the free-spirited 1990s, when Holger Czukay was experimenting with…
Hüma Utku’s Dracones begins by locating its listeners in deep space, or perhaps deep waters: we are floating, drifting, surrounded by otherworldly drones and echoes.
We hear cosmic resonances – alien life or whalesong? – that morph from hums to howls to cries and back over layers of vibrational haze. Voices are distorted, cello strings groan, and an electromagnetic lyre (Mihalis Shammas’s lyraei) shrieks. The life that rises from this futurist strangeness is pure and primeval.
“A World Between Worlds” explores unknowns within as much as without. It sets a distinct tone for Utku’s experiments across the album: they are poignant in their abstractness, and the ways she works with her various implements…
Wolfgang Flür was, famously, a member of Kraftwerk during their triumphant synthpop reign that began with Autobahn in 1973.
Flür left the band in 1987, disenchanted with Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider’s preference for cycling over creating music. Flür himself, though, went back to his pre-Kraftwerk vocation of designing furniture. He didn’t release any new music until the mid-1990s.
Over the last half-decade, though, Flür has been relatively prolific. In 2020, he released a collaborative album with U96, the German techno outfit best known for their 1991 cover of the Das Boot theme. His solo record Magazine 1 followed in 2022.
Times was originally titled Magazine 2 and…
The key to success in so many endeavors is persistence. Skill, luck, and good networking skills are all valuable, of course, but the difference between an artist who burns out early and one who is still going decades after their first tentative works is often simply that the latter sticks to it even when things get rough.
If you just keep digging, eventually you’ll hit something. Whether it’s bedrock or a sewer pipe, at least there’s progress.
Dead Meadow is a band that knows well the value of perseverance. They formed in 1998 and released their self-titled debut in 2000. Those are days long since gone, a period of time whose stability and affluence seem like dreams now. They recorded that album for a whopping…
An exclusive edition of the rare mono mix, Mulligan Meets Monk was originally released on Riverside Records in 1957 and met with great intrigue. At the time, Thelonious Monk was just making his name, while Gerry Mulligan was firmly ensconced in the jazz world. This collaboration thrillingly entwined their very different approaches, dazzling critics and fans alike.
At heart, Mulligan Meets Monk is a study in contrasts, with Mulligan’s bright, smooth sax playing off Monk’s edgier piano (and vice versa), all grounded by the rhythm section of bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Shadow Wilson. “Mulligan enjoys himself,” Jazzwise wrote, “and his improvising style fits well with Monk’s backing, recalling again the pianist’s roots in the swing era.”
Butler, Blake & Grant is the first album from Bernard Butler, Norman Blake And James Grant, three of the most respected songwriters and musicians of recent decades.
The three artists first played together at the 2022 Celtic Connections festival, before discussing a potential album. Butler is best known for his work in Suede but has since been a prolific producer and collaborator. Norman Blake is the songwriter and lead vocalist for Teenage Fanclub, while James Grant was a founding member of Scottish band Love and Money. This new album brings them together for a sound full of vocal harmonies and guitar interplay, as you might expect.
To be clear, this isn’t an album full of co-written songs.
Although it was 1988’s Red Rose for Gregory that really fired the imagination of international audiences, Private Beach Party, unleashed three years earlier, was immensely popular in its day, and drove reggae fans worldwide to distraction. Both sets were produced by Gussie Clarke, and boasted some of his most sizzling rhythms.
In 1985, ragga was beginning to steamroll across the Jamaican dancehalls, but Party still has a wonderfully organic quality, even though it’s aimed straight at the sound systems. The musicianship is superb, with Sly Dunbar, Willie Stewart, Lloyd Parks, and Robbie Shakespeare laying down the sizzling rhythms, while guitarist Willie Lindo, pianists/synth players Franklin Waul and Robbie Lyn build up the melodies and moods, and the superb…
The title of Portland, Oregon-based Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters’ second album, Good Morning, Sunshine, is perfect. Like their rocking predecessors in the 1970s band Fanny, Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters deliver joyous, high-octane performances, and the 11 songs on this collection overflow with ebullience and energy.
The bright title track rocks steady with shimmering harmonies and snaking slide guitar lines; it’s an ode to the glowing rays of the morning sun as it climbs above the Columbia River Gorge, and the song’s radiant lyrics and dazzling instrumentation brighten any listener’s day. The album opens “Drunk in Ojai,” a barroom ballad that features scalding lead guitar riffs playing call-and-response with a wailing harmonica…
Dan Fogelberg’s seminal second album, Souvenirs, celebrated with a special 50th-anniversary release. The album, originally released in 1974, will available as a 180-gram audiophile vinyl LP and a digitally remastered edition featuring bonus tracks via Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music.
Souvenirs marked a pivotal moment in Fogelberg’s career, solidifying his place as a leading voice in the singer-songwriter movement. Produced by Joe Walsh, the album showcased Fogelberg’s diverse musical talents and his ability to connect with audiences on a deeply personal level.
The 50th-anniversary vinyl edition has been meticulously remastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering from a flat 1:1…
Hannah Cohen has come out with her first full-length album since 2019, and it is steeped in timeless, unskippable melodies that have come just in time to sing spring into bloom. Cohen’s signature dulcet vocals ebb and flow effortlessly with the various genres she explores, especially evident in ‘Summer Sweat’ and ‘Una Spiaggia’, the latter sounding like an interluding ode to Piero Umiliani, and the first rays of summer gracing a Roman terrace. Comforting and confronting, Earthstar takes you by the hand as it navigates themes of loss, grief, isolation, and joy, with a tenderness that reflects the natural world Cohen was surrounded by during the album’s conception.
As always, the strength of her vocals is in her effortless delicacy, and almost childlike…
In 2023, pianist Hiromi Uehara released the future groove-laden Sonicwonderland, an album that required a new band in order to record it. She enlisted French bassist Hadrien Feraud, trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, and drummer Gene Coye. They became Hiromi’s Sonicwonder.
The album was lauded in the global jazz and pop press, while tours and music festival concerts sold out. Hiromi’s Sonicwonder returns on Out There. These eight compositions, including the four-part title track, are a dazzling, complex extension of Sonicwonder.
The set opens with “XYZ,” a startlingly dense new version of the first track on Another Mind, her 2007 debut album. The original was a piano trio version and showcased her dazzling…
Population II tick all the boxes for a proper prog-rock act. They can easily fill an entire album side with a single track. Their drummer is also their lead singer. The guitarist and bassist double as synth players. And they hail from Quebec, historically the proggiest of all Canadian provinces. But approached from a different vantage, the Montreal trio is also a prototypical garage-rock band, fueled by maniacal energy, blistering fuzz, and a belief in raw power over precision. Their collision of prog excess and punk attitude made them a perfect fit for John Dwyer’s Castle Face label, which released Population II’s first proper album, À la Ô Terre, in 2020. But like Ty Segall and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard before them, Population II used their early…
But this release isn'tnew.It was released by Rhino in 2007.