August is bringing the heat! After slipping white label LPs into customer’s shopping bags at Third Man Record locations a few weeks ago and posting a Google Drive link online, Jack White has now made his new album No Name available to the general public via streaming services and for sale at select independent record stores. This one doesn’t feature any special tricks and is a ragged rock and roll record through and through. White doesn’t go for shock on this one, but rather sticks to his signature licks, channeling classic blues riffs for a raw and dirty performance.
Another surprise album out today is the new one from JPEGMAFIA which he only announced a few days ago. It follows last year’s collaborative album Scaring the Hoes with Danny Brown, but marks his first solo record in three years.
Billed as an epilogue to last year’s Grammy Award winning Michael, Killer Mike is also back with a newly announced album that is actually billed as Michael & The Mighty Midnight Revival (Mike’s gospel group) and was debuted via livestream from his set at New York City’s esteemed Blue Note Jazz Club earlier this week.
Recently, The Smashing Pumpkins kicked off their latest tour as the support act for Green Day and now they’ve dropped a new album which they’ve seemed to claim will kick off a new era for the classic alt-rockers and is the first to feature their new guitarist.
Hardcore legends X have announced what they’re calling their final and farewell tour which will kick off this fall. In addition to that news, today they’ve released what is purportedly their final album as well and it features the band’s core line-up that still brings the heat.
Following last year’s awesome album Cartwheel, shoegaze act Hotline TNT have shared a new EP that remixes select tracks from their breakthrough. Appropriately titled Somersault (Remix) it’s a fun shift to their sound and at the center is the Sabrina the Teenage DJ remix of their standout track “I Thought You’d Change” which has morphed into a club song that will surely have you going hard on the dance floor.
This fall, MJ Lenderman will release his new solo album and this week he shared another glowing song from the record. “Joker Lips” is a bit of a twangy, slow-burner that digs into fuzzy guitars and some excellent steel-pedal guitar work as well. Lenderman plays pretty much everything on the track himself, but it still gives off the vibe of a a full band leaning into their grooves with smashing success.
If you run in the dance/electronic music scene at all, you know that Dan Snaith is known for his projects Caribou and Daphni. The former generally leans towards dreamier dance-pop while the later goes hard for techno. However, Snaith’s recent releases under Caribou have started to buck tradition and his latest, “Volume,” is pure rave music. Regardless of how he’s releasing these tunes, they’re bringing the fire to the floor.
A$AP Rocky has teamed up with folk-pop artist Jessica Pratt for his new single (seriously), making for one of the more surprising link-ups of the year. “I just love alternative,” Rocky said when talking about Pratt. “I love just different sounds and whatnot. [Jessica Pratt] kind of gave me this kind of Portishead meets Stevie Nicks vibe a little bit. Right. So I always fucked with her as a artist, and so I figured it was necessary to get her, Jon Batiste on this one and kind of make it feel soulful to bring it on home in the outro.”
After teasing a new project, the “supergroup” of Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly have announced their special new band and it’s called The Hard Quartet. The band also shared their first song, the as expected guitar-forward, classic indie rock sounding “Earth Hater.”
It’s been a few years since the last album from Trace Mountains, but Dave Benton is back with a new record due this year and the lead single is deeply indebted to the sound of The War on Drugs with its syncopated drums and clean guitar lines that bring out the essence of heartland rock in the same vein that Adam Granduciel and company have been fostering for over a decade.
Similarly, San Francisco jangle-pop group Chime School have been dropping singles ahead of their new album for a few months and their new one also all but samples another classic, this time it’s The Cure’s iconic riff from “Friday I’m in Love.”
In the seven years since his last album, former Girls singer Christopher Owens has faced his fair share of hardships including a period of houselessness and mourning the loss of his former bandmate JR. Now he’s shared a brand new song called “I Think About Heaven” that stretches out and revives a bit of his past.
The last album from Soccer Mommy was produced by Oneohtrix Point Never, a bit of a left-field move that helped bring about a new era of her sound (I thought it was great!), but now she’s announced a new album, Evergreen, and the lead single suggests a shift back to her classic homespun vibe that was so widely celebrated when she began to break into the scene.
This summer belongs to Charli XCX with Brat Green taking over Barbie Pink in extreme fashion. After dropping the biggest hit album of the summer, Charli and Lorde worked things out the remix of “girl so confusing” and now Charli has enlisted Billie Eilish to make an appearance on the new rendition of “Guess” and it’s certain to be a new club classic.
The emo classic self-titled debut album from American Football turns twenty-five this year and to celebrate, the band will be issuing a track-by-track cover album and our first taste is Iron & Wine covering the divine opening track “Never Meant” which somehow takes on an even more emotional approach than the original with Sam Beam’s angelic croon washing over glowing acoustic guitar.
Albums:
JACK WHITE | No Name
JPEGMAFIA | I Lay Down My Life For You
KILLER MIKE | Songs For Sinners & Saints
NAVY BLUE | Memoirs in Armour
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS | Aghori Mhori Mei
WHY? | The Well I Fell Into
ORVILLE PECK | Stampede
X | Smoke & Fiction
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO | No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin
MOSES SUMNEY | Sophcore EP
HOTLINE TNT | Somersault EP
TWO SHELL | Round EP
KACEY MUSGRAVES | Deeper Well: Deeper into the Well
Songs:
MJ LENDERMAN | “Joker Lips”
JAMIE XX | “All You Children” (ft The Avalanches)
CARIBOU | “Volume”
A$AP ROCKY | “HIGHJACK” (ft Jessica Pratt)
THE HARD QUARTET | “Earth Hater”
TRACE MOUNTAINS | “In A Dream”
CHIME SCHOOL | “The End”
CHRISTOPHER OWENS | “I Think About Heaven”
MAGDALENA BAY | “Images”
GEORGIA GETS BY | “Some Kind of Angel” / “Split Lip”
SOCCER MOMMY | “M”
ILLUMINATI HOTTIES | “The L”
NOSAJ THING | “RB3” (ft Jacques Greene)
CHARLI XCX | “Guess” [remix] (ft Billie Eilish)
IRON & WINE | “Never Meant” [American Football cover]
SNAIL MAIL | “Tonight Tonight” [Smashing Pumpkins cover]
If you’re a Spotify user, you can listen to these songs (and more from 2024) here!