DeliveryForever Giving HandshakesFeel It/Spoilsport/Anti Fade Records [2022] The intense pulsating rhythm in Delivery’s opening track, “Picture This,” will give you your first realization that their debut record, Forever Giving Handshakes, will be one of the tightest sounding post-punk debuts you have heard this year. The Melbourne five-piece work as one true musical force through all … Read more
LambchopThe BibleMerge Records [2022] Over the decades, Kurt Wagner and his various collaborators have more than lived up to their early claim to the title “Nashville’s most f@%#ed up country band,” and that alone may explain how Lambchop’s artful, yet difficult music can leave one wanting, even searching for meaning and understanding and still filled … Read more
Rhett Miller has released the official video for “Go Through You,” the single from his new album The Misfit that was released in September via ATO Records. Miller has also announced a string of new solo tour dates, in addition to a monthly residency at The Loft at City Winery in New York. Find a … Read more
DumbPray 4 TomorrowMint Records [2022] I really like it when you can hear progression with a band, but the overall group sound doesn’t drastically change. That is the case with Vancouver’s Dumb on their third full length, Pray 4 Tomorrow. The band has already produced two solid indie post-punk albums as Pray 4 Tomorrow carries … Read more
Iggy Pop is back! Every Loser is Iggy’s 19th solo album and his first to be released via the recently announced partnership between Atlantic Records and Gold Tooth Records, the new label founded by the album’s GRAMMY Award-winning, multi-platinum executive producer, Andrew Watt. Iggy Pop will unleash his new album on the public come January 6, … Read more
WeezerSZNZ: AutumnCrush Music/Atlantic Records [2022] Sure as autumn follows summer, Weezer has delivered their third volume in this year’s concept album project, SZNZ: Autumn. While the story line is less clear, songwriter Rivers Cuomo has held onto the basic themes, but more importantly delivers a handful of fun songs that capture those reliable Weezer pop … Read more
Pile have announced their new album, All Fiction, with a video for its eruptive lead single “Loops.” On their eighth record, the ambitious group assembles its most texturally complex material yet—despite the fraught inspiration underscoring its restive lyrics. Alongside the blistering drums and scorched-earth riffs that first galvanized Pile’s dedicated fanbase, the band has incorporated … Read more
Wild PinkILYSMRoyal Mountain Records [2022] I don’t use the word gorgeous very often to describe music as I feel it never really defines the artists I typically have in my ear. That trend stops with ILYSM, the fourth full-length from Wild Pink. The record is carefully constructed and is both confident in its approach but … Read more
King Tuff, the project of Kyle Thomas, has announced his long-awaited new album Smalltown Stardust, with a video for its lead single and title track “Smalltown Stardust.” The album is available for pre-order now and due January 27th via Sub Pop. Smalltown Stardust, which was co-produced and largely co-written with SASAMI, is “an album about … Read more
MarthaPlease Don’t Take Me BackSpecialist Subject/Dirtnap Records [2022] Now on their fourth album, Durham, England’s Martha has perfected their indie pop punk formula as they have released one of their most engaging records to date. Please Don’t Take Me Back has an early DIY sound with loud crashing guitars and drums while the group comes … Read more
Simple MindsDirection Of The HeartBMG [2022] Scottish band Simple Minds came to the attention of American rock audiences in the early 80’s alongside UK bands like Big Country, The Waterboys, The Alarm, and, of course, U2, making what became known as the “big music,” for its larger-than-life atmospherics. It was inevitable that The Waterboys would … Read more
Ghost Funk OrchestraA New Kind Of LoveColemine/Karma Chief Records [2022] When Ghost Funk Orchestra’s debut LP for Karma Chief, Song For Paul, made its way onto turntables back in 2019, it felt like it was created in some alternate version of the early 1970s. Helmed by sonic mastermind Seth Applebaum, the band’s jazz-funk rhythms, psychedelic … Read more
Dropkick MurphysThis Machine Still Kills FascistsDummy Luck Music [2022] In 2003, Boston-based Celtic punk rock band Dropkick Murphys covered Woody Guthrie’s song “Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight” for their Blackout album, which brought them to the attention of Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter and Arlo’s sister, who’s also the President of the Woody Guthrie Foundation. In … Read more
Death Cab For CutieAsphalt MeadowsAtlantic Records [2022] While responses to the 2018 release from Death Cab For Cutie were mixed, there were hints in several tracks on the back half of the album that suggested that songwriter Ben Gibbard and new bandmates Dave Depper and Zac Rae were beginning to see their way to the … Read more
Not every two-year period measures out the same, noted Brendan Benson, the 51-year-old Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and co-founder of The Raconteurs. Benson had just finished his well-received seventh album, Dear Life, in 2019 when his world came to a stop. “I was rehearsing for South-By-Southwest and gearing up for a tour and had a band ready … Read more
The Newcastle, UK-based group Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs has announced their upcoming album, Land of Sleeper to be released on February 17th via Missing Piece Group Records. Today the group has also shared their new track, “Mr Medicine,” a Stooges-like exploration of powerful, repetitive and uplifting rock. Land of Sleeper is the … Read more
Surprise ChefEducation & RecreationBig Crown Records [2022] In the music critic business, you would be surprised sometimes on how promoters create large reaching descriptors for artists just to grab a publication’s attention. Many times, they are not even close but sometimes just asking the band is the best source as Melbourne’s Surprise Chef describes their … Read more
King Gizzard & The Lizard WizardChangesKGLW [2022] Changes wraps up King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s trilogy of new albums released in October 2022, and it’s the hardest to categorize of the three. While Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (IDPLML) and Laminated Denim felt very similar in their jammy, psych-prog explorations, Changesbreaks the mold by bringing in both the … Read more
DrugdealerHiding In Plain SightMexican Summer [2022] Michael Collins has always been an interesting character in music since the early 2010’s. After a legal battle over the name Run DMT he emerged in 2013 under the moniker Salvia Plath with the 60’s psych bent of The Bardo Story. Well, with band names like that why don’t … Read more
Guided By VoicesScalping The GuruGBV Inc. [2022] If you were to poll fans of Guided By Voices what they thought were three consecutive years that highlight the sweet spot of recordings from the band, 1993-1995 would be one of the top answers. One obvious reason of course is that the classic LPs Bee Thousand (1994) … Read more
Richard X. Heyman67,000 Miles An AlbumTurn-Up Records [2022] The speed of the earth as it moves in orbit around the sun is 67,000 miles an hour, even though we go through our daily lives entirely unaware of our constant motion. An original member of the 60’s Jersey band, The Doughboys, Richard X. Heyman follows up … Read more
The 1975Being Funny In A Foreign LanguageDirty Hit/Polydor/Interscope Records [2022] One of the challenges in describing the music and albums of The 1975 in the past is that there was always a lot to take in. And it wasn’t just that singer and primary songwriter Matthew Healy wrote about anything and everything that crossed his … Read more
Archers Of LoafReason In DeclineMerge Records [2022] I know that I was not alone in my excitement when I heard that the original four members of Archers Of Loaf reunited and made a new album, Reason In Decline. It has been 24 years since this band released White Trash Heroes (1998), so I think the … Read more
“When everyone left NYC, the sewer opened and we crawled out.” Prolific Brooklyn institution The Men are today announcing their ninth studio album, ‘New York City’, and sharing the incendiary lead cut, “Hard Livin’’. Arriving following 2020’s Mercy, the new LP will be released February 3rd 2023 on the group’s new label home Fuzz Club … Read more
Robyn HitchcockShufflemania!Tiny Ghost Records [2022] With 22 studio albums to his credit, and the subject of a concert film by Jonathan Demme, Robyn Hitchcock may be the most-celebrated British singer/songwriter that most people have never heard of. In the late 70’s, Hitchcock led a folk rock/psychedelic band called The Soft Boys, before going solo before … Read more