(CD Suggestions) Amen Dunes Freedom the Fifth Album from Damon Mcmahon Is His Euphoric Break- Through
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What to Listen to Next (CD Suggestions) Amen Dunes Freedom The fifth album from Damon McMahon is his euphoric break- through. Everything feels silvery and romantic, like a halluci- nation of the classic-rock songbook. Born Ruffians Uncle Duke & The Chief Their 5th album less concerned with what sounds hip than what feels good. In the Ruffians case that means reconnect- ing with the sounds they first heard on their parents’ turnta- bles as kids: Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, and pre- psychedelic Beatles. David Byrne American Utopia David Byrne’s first true solo album in 14 years is daring and open-hearted and contains highs a master can achieve when they rediscover a moment of unknown inspiration. Camp Cope How to Socialize and Make Friends The second album from the Australian trio hums with rage and retribution, executed with biting specificity and vast emo- tional range by singer Georgia Maq. Frankie Cosmos Vessel On Greta Kline’s third official album, pure love, self-loathing, and taxidermied dogs all find their way into her dazzling world of perennially inspired indie pop. Editors Violence On their 6th album, Editors retains their distinctive dark, grounded in guitar rock sound, but is laced with vivid, pop- focused arrangements and imagery. Field Report Summertime Songs Field Report return with their third album, a collection of folk rock combining narrative lyrics and the sound of the Ameri- can heartland. Holy Wave Adult Fear On their third full-length, Austin's Holy Wave continue to surf on dreamy, psyched-out washes of sound: distorted guitars, synth washes, echoing vocals and a locked-in rhythm section to cut through the fog. Hop Along Bark Your Head Off, Dog Led by singer Frances Quinlan and her remarkable songcraft, the Philly band’s third album is warm and spacious, filled with rich stories rendered beautifully in the abstract. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 Black Times On his fourth album with his father’s Egypt 80 ensemble, Seun Kuti delivers a smartly distilled primer on the power of Afrobeat. Algiers The Underside of Power The anger and disillusionment on Algiers’ debut were ex- pressed through its raw, unhinged mix. Here, while their out- look is overall less tolerant, it's voiced with more atmospheric control. Converge The Dusk in Us The ninth album from the metalcore architects is sharp and urgent. The band's songwriting shines as they turn their back on interpersonal torment to face something bigger and more existential. They’ve constantly refined their core—a jagged mix of hardcore power and death metal kinetics—while spreading and evolving their sound, too. No Age Snares Like a Haicut 2018 album of relentless riff-rock & savage art-punk from Los Angeles duo. It sounds like holding a power saw up to the sun. After their last album, No Age seem to have deconstruct- ed their approach and analyzed the blistering pieces, viewing them now in a reinvigorated and relatively more refined way. Roxy Music Roxy Music Roxy Music release an expanded edition of their ground- breaking debut album to mark its 45th anniversary. If you can believe it, this record came after just ten live shows together, easily sitting in the compendium of the best music released in the 1970s. Shame Songs of Praise Shame thrives on confrontation. Whether it be the seething intensity crackling throughout their debut LP or the chaos that unfolds at Shame’s shows, it’s all fueled by feeling. Shame carved out a niche in the South London music scene and then barreled fearlessly into the angular, thrashing post-punk that would go on to make up Songs of Praise. Simple Minds Walk Between Worlds Simple Minds are elder statesmen who’ve come to terms with their past, while making their best music of the century. There’s real hunger as well as craft on these eight stately, sprawling tracks. Tribulation Down Below Traditionalists no more, the Swedish band spend their fourth album exploring the divide between metal’s underground and mainstream. From end to end, Down Below relishes exploring the divide between metal’s underground and more main- stream access points. Tune-Yards I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life The fourth album by the art-pop, worldbeat band is a sophisti- cated, energetic, complex album that explores many themes such as the devastation of white supremacy and the freedom of accepting oneself in totality. The Black Dahlia Murder Nightbringers When it comes to melodic death metal bands, The Black Dahlia Murder have established themselves as one of the genre's most successful and well-known groups. They do it without the clean vocals utilized by many other melodeath bands, delivering nothing but growls and screams from Tre- vor Strnad. Nightbringers is their eighth studio effort. Night- bringers delivers all the heaviness, extremity and brutality fans of the Black Dahlia Murder have come to expect along with ample melody and first rate musicianship. It's both pun- ishing and engaging, an impressive combination. Brand New Science Fiction Brand New’s fifth album stands as a monument to their grad- ual evolution. Popular guitar music in 2017 has been undeni- ably shaped by Brand New, a band who has served not just as damaged role models but as a formative musical influ- ence. And this was all before they provided an example of what all these bands could aspire to sound like in their 40s without disowning their younger, more dramatic selves. Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile Lotta Sea Lice The collaborative LP from Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett feels like an overheard discussion between two existential misfits. They sing songs about writing songs, covering each other in the process. The Church Man Woman Life Death Infinity The amazing thing about The Church's 25th record is that it sounds utterly fresh, even as it's in keeping with their early albums. Rather than backing away from the gothy, new wave psychedelia of their youth, here they've embraced that aes- thetic and imbued it with the emotional maturity and poetic gravitas that comes with their decades-long space rock jour- ney. Blue Note All-Stars Our Point of View The legendary Blue Note label celebrates its 75th anniversary by reviving the Blue Note All Stars name and releasing this thrilling set from the cream of today’s jazz stars. Pia- nist Robert Glasper is a pivotal figure, producing as well as playing a leading role. Glasper teams up with bass play- er Derrick Hodge, drummer Kendrick Scott and guitar- ist Lionel Loueke to form a tight and powerful rhythm section. The trumpet of Ambrose Akinmusire and Marcus Strick- land on tenor saxophone complete the line-up. Propagandhi Victory Lap It would be easy to say that Propagandhi have been doing the same thing since 2005’s Potemkin City Limits, but that same thing they’ve been doing has been putting out absolutely stunning rec- ords. Few bands have made the monumental changes in their ca- reer that Propagandhi has, transforming from a skate punk band with above average political intelligence but fairly literal, straight forward lyrics, into a dark thrash/punk band with complexly poetic and politically radical lyrics, sprinkled with a dose of humor when you least expect it. Protomartyr Relatives in Descent Here’s a non-exhaustive list of topics broached on Relatives of Descent: talking horses, night-blooming cacti, the Flint wa- ter crisis, the glum sterility of gentrified neighborhoods. Few bands offer up quite as much text as Protomartyr do. The De- troit foursome’s fourth album is, like every Protomartyr album before it, a loose-lipped, allusion-loaded saga, the sound of a scarily smart dude plunging the vast recesses of his mind, looking to make some sense of an increasingly senseless world. Destroyer Ken Elegant and perverse, Dan Bejar’s latest album slinks around in the shadows like he did on Kaputt, synthy, sleazy, and newly paranoid. He remains one of the most evocative song- writers of his generation. British Sea Power Let the Dancers Inherit the Party British Sea Power’s music has remained seemingly impervi- ous to the modern age. They sound forever ambered in an eternal 1984 when bands like the Psychedelic Furs, New Or- der, and Echo and the Bunnymen were building a bridge be- tween caustic post-punk and stadium-sized pop. Waxahatchee Out in the Storm Katie Crutchfield’s fourth album features sharp, gorgeous songwriting. The polished production and urgent performanc- es ensure her exorcisms about the end of a relationship are deeply felt. Japanese Breakfast Soft Sounds from Another Planet Inspired by the cosmos, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner addresses life on Earth. Her voice shines over melan- cholic arrangements, evoking Pacific Northwest indie rock as much as shoegaze. Manchester Orchestra A Black Mile to the Surface Manchester Orchestra’s new album is their most confounding and thrilling work yet, with the most grandiose narrative con- cepts, production, and arrangements of their career. Thelonious Monk Les liaisons dangereuses 1960 In 1959, Thelonious Monk recorded selections from his song- book for the soundtrack to French director Roger Vadim’s film Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The lost tapes were never released until now. Oh Wonder Ultralife Oh Wonder’s extraordinary sophomore album exposes their huge talent through their insane ability to create such differ- ent tracks but still stick to a similar style. Frankie Rose Cage Tropicale With subtle tweaks to her sound, Frankie Rose shows that her glossy new-wave style can be a way of cutting through the murk to find clarity. Broken Social Scene Hug of Thunder On their first album in seven years, Broken Social Scene dis- till their sound to a vital essence.