Even as summer starts to wind down, the incredible new releases keep on coming. This week, hardcore band Fiddlehead are back with their new album Death Is Nothing To Us. It’s a tight, compact record that goes hard with a runtime clocking in at just under thirty minutes making for an energizing bolt of heavy riffs and killer rhythms.
Shamir returns this week with Homo Anxietatem, their third album in four years, and it’s more of the electro/hyper-pop that’s been their trajectory with these past few records. Vines, not to be confused with Garage Rock revivalists The Vines, is the project from Brooklyn-based composer Cassie Wieland and her new record Birthday Party is a rich, ambient-led album that reflects the emotions and celebrations of the event it’s named for.
Philadelphia’s Horrendous drop their pulverizing new album this week which they’ve described as a “towering death metal thrill ride” and furthers the band’s tenacious and diabolical power. Osees also have a new record out this week and it comes nearly a year to the date after their last album, nearly an eternity for the band whose psych-punk discography can be accustomed to multiple new additions a year.
Timeless art punks and no wave icons Sonic Youth have released a live recording of their final U.S. show which took place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn along the East River waterfront in 2011 and captures the legendary band at the end of their storied career giving final moments of glory to their fabled catalogue before extinguishing their long-burning flame. Last year, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom teamed-up for their first official collaborative album and today they’ve released the Dub version which features every track from the album reimagined by Dub artist Adrian Sherwood.
Earlier this week, it was announced that all four members of the band Talking Heads would reunited onstage at the Toronto International Film Festival for a Q&A hosted by Spike Lee (who directed a TV-version of David Byrne’s recent Broadway show American Utopia for HBO) following a screening of the re-release of their classic concert-film Stop Making Sense. It’ll mark the first time all four members have shared a stage since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 (which in and of itself was theire only live performance together since 1984). Today, the accompanying album for the film is being re-released for the first time.
It was only in 2021 when Sufjan Stevens last released a new album, but this week he announced his next record, Javelin, would arrive this fall and that it was his first proper singer-songwriter record since 2015’s brilliant Carrie & Lowell. The lead single “So You Are Tired” is a classic return-to-form of Stevens’ baroque-pop and indie folk sound.
It was just this past April when The National released their latest album, The First Two Chapters of Frankenstein, but this week they shared two new songs. “Alphabet City” is a sullen and somber track that finds Matt Berninger leaning into his lower register while “Space Invader” stretches out to the seven-minute mark and lets the band, letting the band grind-out one of their most solid jams in years.
Leading contemporary Free-Jazz act Irreversible Entanglements dropped their new track, the beautifully rich and complex “Our Land Back,” a track that blossoms into its groove and lets Moor Mother’s essential words take center stage. Jamila Woods also shared the second single from her upcoming album and it’s another jubilant number full of poise and style.
Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew announced a new solo album for this coming fall and shared two tracks from the record. Their both his pronounced form of indie rock that he’s long-been perfecting with his main band. Black metal veterans Wolves in the Throne Room have a new EP on the way and the first single is their typical dark and heavy storm of guitars and drums, but dabbles into more of an atmospheric direction by its conclusion.
Following last year’s excellent album Flaming Swords, Fievel is Glauque announced that they’ve signed with Fat Possum Records who will reissue their earlier material. Along with the news comes two new tracks from the band, “I’m Scanning Things I Can’t See” and “Dark Dancing,” both of which push their experimental jazz fusion to new directions. Truth Club take on the sound of mid-western indie rock and post-punk made famous by labels like Touch & Go in the early ‘90s and the band’s new track “Exit Cycle” tackles the slow lurch and gnarly arrangements of bands like Slint and Rodan.
Guns N’ Roses finally released the song “Perhaps,” one that’s been rumored for years and accidentally leaked earlier in the week, and the band says it’s the first attempt at new recordings from Axel, Slash, and Duff in thirty years. Queen Dolly Parton is gearing up to release her rock album which is set to feature a murderer’s row of icons as guests throughout the record. This week she shared her take on The Beatles’ all-time classic “Let It Be” featuring none other than Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Icons only.
Albums:
Fiddlehead | Dehouath Is Nothing To Us
Shamir | Homo Anxietatem
Osees | Intercepted Message
Vines | Birthday Party
Horrendous | Ontological Mysterium
Jon Batiste | World Music Radio
Rhiannon Giddens | You’re the One
Arnold Dreyblatt | Resolve
Sonic Youth | Live In Brooklyn 2011
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom | Reset In Dub
Songs:
Sufjan Stevens | “So You Are Tired”
The National | “Space Invader” / “Alphabet City”
Irreversible Entanglements | “Our Land Back”
Alabaster DePlume | “Naked Like Water”
Jamila Woods | “Boomerang”
Sun June | “Get Enough”
Kevin Drew | “Out in the Fields” / “Party Oven”
Wolves in the Throne Room | “Twin Mouthed Spring”
Future Islands | “Deep in the Night”
Truth Club | “Exit Cycle”
Fievel is Glauque | “I’m Scanning Things I Can’t See” / “Dark Dancing”
Wild Nothing | “Headlights On”
Guns N’ Roses | “Perhaps”
Dolly Parton | “Let It Be” (ft Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr)
If you’re a Spotify user, you can listen to these songs (and more from 2023) here!