6/30 New Music Roundup
Four new albums from bands both classic and brand new. Just two new singles for ya this week, but luckily they’re both bangers!
Albums
The best album released this week is by a band I had never heard of and was originally released over a year ago. Back in April 2014, when Northbound was just a solo side project of Sleep Patterns’ Jonathon Fraser, Death of a Slug was released, featuring five full band songs and five solo acoustic songs. Now, in June 2015, the re-released Death of a Slug features 12 full band songs, and goddamn is it good.
The album is an amalgamation of pop/punk and emo, not too dissimilar from the style popularized by The Wonder Years. It jumps right out of the gate, with Fraser’s passionate lyrics being delivered earnestly on top of powerful riffs and ultra-catchy melodies. If I’m being honest, the lyrics are often extremely sophomoric in both their content and their complexity, but he somehow makes them sound fresh and heartbreaking throughout. This album is fun to listen to, but it’s even better to shout along with on the drive home after another bummer of a high school party.
Listen: Full album (Spotify, non-Spotify), “Lucky Sentimental”
This album had been rumored for a while and confirmed to actually be a thing for some time now, but I was still somewhat skeptical that it would ever see the light of day. And yet, in a quiet manner unlike that of either band, the album appeared on Bandcamp last night. That isn’t the only surprising thing about this album, either.
The lasting impression I had of this album was how tame it is compared to the two bands from whose singers the songs were birthed. The lo-fi, grungy sound is still there in the guitars, but they are lower in the mix and calmer than normal. There is little aggression in the vocals of either singer, and we actually hear some straight-up melodicism from Baldi for the first time in years. Now, I understand that both Wavves and Cloud Nothings are pop bands disguised in an indie/pop-punk/post-punk wrapper, but this was still rather unexpected. While it doesn’t appear to be the groundbreaking masterpiece some expected of the project, it is still quite a good listen and a nice bonus treat for fans of either band.
Listen: Full album (non-Spotify), “Come Down”
It’s rare that an album makes you wonder why anyone ever considered the artist to be a punk band in the first place. Refused is best known for their landmark 1998 album, The Shape of Punk to Come, which was nearly as revolutionary in the world of punk and hardcore as its name suggests and may still be ahead of its time almost two decades later. Yet, their first album since then is…none of those things.
Freedom sounds like what Muse should have turned into after Absolution came out. It is too riff-heavy, too modern rocky, and weird in all the wrong places. There is little to nothing here that is deserving of either the punk or hardcore labels. The songs aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re also not necessarily anything I want to listen to.
Listen: Full album (Spotify, non-Spotify), “Françafrique”
For a band that normally relies so heavily on atmospherics and sonic density, Tigers Jaw sounds pretty good with just an acoustic guitar. The melodies are strong and the harmonies shine through with everything scaled down. While it’s a pleasant listen and quite enjoyable for those who are already Tigers Jaw fans, I imagine the lack of variety in tempo and instrumentation could cause the album to drag right around the eighth track or so. Definitely not the best entry point to the band, but it’s nice to see a new side of the group after all these years.
Listen: Full album (Spotify, non-Spotify), “Teen Rocket”
Singles
I apologize for the lack of embeddable links here, but apparently the powers that be do not want the following songs featured on this site. Fortunately, both are quite worth the effort to click through to the host site.
Further evidence that we might have the album of the year on our hands here. Spraynard’s Mable not only features an adorable dog on the cover, but also sees the band travel further toward the “emo” label with their best songwriting to date. All three songs released so far are desperate, immediate, and life-affirming. July 10th can’t come soon enough.
Also the third track released from this forthcoming album, “Wait” finally sees Dan Andriano treading familiar territory, but this is far from a negative. This song is essentially how I expected the whole album to sound, a relatively straightforward pop/rock song rooted in a folksy foundation. This style from Andriano has sounded fantastic throughout his career, most notably on “Every Thug Needs a Lady” and “Fine” from his Alk3 days, but also on “Let Me In” and “On Monday” from Andriano’s Hurricane Season. Not to hate on experimentation, but sometimes artists just sound best doing what they do best. Hope to hear more like this from the upcoming Party Adjacent.
