Updated And Selected Videos and Albums About Rock Music
Showing posts with label New Albums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Albums. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Turnover - Good Nature (Full Album Stream)
The last album from Virginia-born band Turnover found a sweet spot between pop-punk and dream pop, but their influences are more sedate and smooth this time.
Pop-punk and lush, lovelorn indie rock were enjoying a slow and steady undercover flirtation long before Turnover released their second LP in 2015, but Peripheral Vision was the one that took it public. Awkward reminders of their Warped Tour-friendly formative phase occasionally popped up, but that was OK: Peripheral Vision became a surprise hit because there were apparently plenty of other pop-punk kids who were transitioning towards shoegaze and dream pop, and they now had a band of this ilk to call their own. But on Turnover’s new album, Good Nature, getting on frontman Austin Getz’s level requires more than an updated vinyl collection. He turned vegan, moved with his girlfriend from Virginia Beach to California wine country, and made a record that sounds like he’d been there all along.
“I found my religion/When nothing was ahead of us/That week in California,” Getz sighs on the starlit carousel ride “Super Natural.” It’s an extremely low-key way to begin an album, but it’s still a bold introduction if only in contrast to where he was two years ago with Peripheral Vision’s thrilling streaks of self-loathing, “Cutting My Fingers Off” and “New Scream.” Regardless of his current location, Good Nature is SoCal to the core, a warm embrace of the area’s soft-focus spirituality and the optimism of young, beautiful creatives without much to worry about.
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Friday, August 25, 2017
BRAND NEW - "SCIENCE FICTION" NEW ALBUM (2017)
The writing on the t-shirts was real: Brand New, one of the most transcendent rock bands of the new millennium are, for all intents and purposes, no longer with us. Please send flowers.To be fair, Jesse Lacey and company have been doing the danse macabre for most, if not all, of their 18-year lifespan, in the form of moribund lyrics and recurrent stylistic resets. At last, with the unexpected arrival of Science Fiction, Brand New’s fifth and final album, the quartet’s casket has been suddenly, spectacularly wheeled out on center stage. The record marks the victorious resolution of to the band’s eight-year stint in creative purgatory—the record’s been shelved, teased, and delayed too many times to count–as well as an end-of-days for their rabid fanbase, a large contingency of which remain terrified to confront it. Their trepidation is understandable. The only thing scarier than the apocalypse is witnessing the demise of a band that played such a formative role in people’s lives, only to walk away unsatisfied. Fear not: A stunning, sprawling sucker-punch of a finale equally amenable to die-hards and newcomers, Science Fiction is a worthy (if bittersweet) send-off to one of the most brutally honest, forward-thinking rock bands of the new millennium. Read More
Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins [Full Album]
It’s little wonder that Jonny Greenwood – lead guitarist of Radiohead and supreme overlord of all that is ethereal – dubbed Grizzly Bear his favourite band almost a decade ago: since then, it would be fair to say that the group have done no wrong. With critical acclaim, legions of fans and musical collaborators coming in from all angles, it seems that frontman Ed Droste and co struggle to produce anything that isn’t a grand musical triumph (even when it's just a contribution to the Twilight soundtrack). That, too, could be said for Painted Ruins, the group’s hotly anticipated follow-up to 2012’s Shields. Opening with a dullened orchestral hum, Wasted Acres soon descends into a thrilling intricacy – one that leaves the imagination swimming in a pool of smooth strings and twanging guitar. Before long, the introduction of Droste’s richly trilling vocal carries the record one step further, lending it a frank quality that could never quite be achieved by the group’s masterful instrumentation alone. As the album flows from soundscape to soundscape, you can never be sure when a dreamlike hush of electronica will explode into a random tsunami of rich, almost colourful sound. Driven only by the rolling of slack drums, tracks like Aquarian and Cut-Out are almost Beethoven-esque in their wild unpredictability, and unapologetic utilisation of every instrument possible. It's this quality that renders Grizzly Bear one of the finest art-rock groups to date. Whilst their run-of-the-mill, dream-pop contemporaries experiment with a range of distortion pedals, this band continue to show that use of every crayon in the box (or, rather, every seat in the orchestra) can create a true masterpiece. Read More
PWR BTTM - Album Review
PWR BTTM: Pageant review – explosive, emotional glam rock
Glam was as much a sartorial movement as a musical one – with glitter, platforms and androgynous fashion forming an exciting and, to some, frightening new visual language. Dressed in blouses and smeared, sparkly makeup, PWR BTTM certainly seem to hark back to the era with their aesthetic, as well as their brand of intermittently explosive rock. But the New York duo deviate from the glam template in tone – instead of arch, attention-grabbing camp, their flamboyance is simply a symptom of their earnest self-expression. Liv Bruce and Ben Hopkins – who alternate between drums and guitar/vocals – are both queer and use they/them/their pronouns.
During this debut they sweetly and pithily recount painful experiences related to this: Styrofoam articulates body dysmorphia, New Trick bemoans strangers who stare, and LOL rues a certain strain of vulnerability. But like all successful pop music, PWR BTTM can convert their highly specific sentiments into something universal – most notably in Answer My Text, which amusingly rages against the curse of the blank phone screen.
Marika Hackman - I’m Not Your Man [FULL ALBUM STREAM]
Hurrah for Hackman! The British musician has, for her second album, set fire to her twee-ish sound and risen from the alt-folk scene like a proper stomping pop star, all sharp suits and songs that brood with breakup angst and simmer with sexuality. Her pearlescent lightness is still there in her sweetly sung cut-glass vocals, but in place of acoustic twangs there are heavy lidded licks and an overall louche noir. Grunge and shoegaze set the tone this time: the diaphanous guitar chimes enveloping like a cape.
Standout track Good Intentions has an Alt-J-like intricacy to the rhythm until Hackman erupts into dissonant playground yeah-ing and L7-ish crunch, while Gina’s World and So Long have an excellent, lip-curling sultriness – bedroom pop gone sinister. There’s more straightforward upbeat festival indie on My Lover Cindy – the wry twist being that she’s not some mop-top bloke singing about a girlfriend – and Cigarette echoes her former beautifully plucked form. But make no mistake: this is a fiercer Hackman, joining the ranks of Wolf Alice and letting her inner swagger shine.
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