February Featured New Releases
The Mercury Prize-winning, multiple GRAMMY- and BRIT Award-nominated band alt-J have announced their eagerly-awaited fourth album The Dream, set for release February 11, 2022. The Dream is an album of intrigue, beauty and humanity - a coalescence of everything that has made alt-J a global band with true staying power. True-crime inspired stories and tales of Hollywood and the Chateau Marmont rub shoulders with some of the band’s most personal moments to-date The album was created after a period of rest for the band following their seismic world tour in support of previous record RELAXER. It is a record that is the sound of a band growing as songwriters and storytellers.
Once Twice Melody is the 8th studio album by Beach House. It is a double album, featuring 18 songs presented in 4 chapters. Across these songs, many types of style and song structures can be heard. Songs without drums, songs centered around acoustic guitar, mostly electronic songs with no guitar, wandering and repetitive melodies, songs built around the string sections. In addition to new sounds, many of the drum machines, organs, keyboards and tones that listeners may associate with previous Beach
House records remain present throughout many of the compositions.
Beach House is Victoria Legrand, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist, and Alex Scally, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. They write all of their songs together. Once Twice Melody is the first album produced entirely by the band. The live drums are by James Barone (same as their 2018 album, 7), and were recorded at Pachyderm studio in Minnesota and United Studio in Los Angeles. For the first time, a live string ensemble was used. Strings were arranged by David Campbell.
The writing and recording of Once Twice Melody began in 2018 and was completed in July of 2021. Most of the songs were created during this time, though a few date back over the previous 10 years. Most of the recording was done at Apple Orchard Studio in Baltimore. Once Twice Melody was mixed largely by Alan Moulder but a few tracks were also mixed by Caesar Edmunds, Trevor Spencer, and Dave Fridmann.

UK eight-piece caroline's eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet - a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and O'Malley and
"Sometimes things sound much better when there's empty space," says Llewellyn. "Sometimes you might populate [a song] with too many things and forget that an element on its own is enough." Elsewhere on the record the band have employed a collage-like technique, combining snippets of lo-fi recordings from a myriad of different locations - a barn in France, the members' bedrooms and living rooms, the atmospheric swimming pool in which they also filmed sublime live sessions for `Dark blue' and `Skydiving onto
The growth that began as a scrappy guitar band above a pub many years ago is still continuing. caroline's astounding debut album is merely the first step.
Caroline by Caroline
Robert Glasper’s highly anticipated third installment to the Black Radio album series. Black Radio III, much like both of its predecessors, is a cultural moment that celebrates black love and resilience, features an eclectic group of talented collaborators, and is composed by Glasper who the New York Times proclaims is “probably the most prominent jazz musician of his generation”. An innovative and essential addition to Glasper’s seminal Black Radio series. Limited Edition Indie Exclusive Chartreuse 2 LP.
Like pausing a VHS tape, music freezes the frenetic motion of daily existence. Even if just for an instant, it calms the feedback loop of routine, engages respite, and provides perspective. Siphoning guitar transmissions and a dynamic vocal push-and-pull through a lens of cinematic production, Lo Moon deftly balance expansive soundscapes and eloquent songcraft. The Los Angeles based quartet—Matt Lowell, Crisanta Baker, Sam Stewart and Sterling Laws - ultimately use music to make sense of each day on their sophomore offering, A Modern Life [Strngr Recordings/Thirty Tigers].
“It’s about survival’’ observes Matt. “Navigating through all that’s thrown at us. Maintaining who we are and where we want to be. Music itself has been so powerful for us in our own survival, it can change everything in an instant. As a band, we’ve got a lot of reverence for it and strive for it. We don’t take it for granted.”
They never have either…
In 2016, Lo Moon materialized as a fan and critical favorite with the buzzing “Loveless.” It paved the way for their 2018 self-titled full-length, Lo Moon, which NPR hailed as ‘’shimmering, immersive and otherworldly. As intimate as it is anthemic’’. Meanwhile, Variety attested, “It possesses a rare balance of pop-inflected songwriting and dense atmospherics that hold each other in check rather than clashing.” Beyond acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times, NME, Noisey and more, Billboard named them among “10 Rock & Alternative Artists to Watch.” Between amassing over 50 million streams, the band performed alongside The War On Drugs, Glass Animals, Phoenix, and Air in addition to gracing the bills of Governors Ball, Lollapalooza, SXSW, All Points East and more. The group also made their late-night television debut on Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! followed by The Late Late Show With James Corden.
Following a tour with CHVRCHES, the musicians entered the studio with producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Miya Folick) to record what would become the next body of work. Various elements fell into place as they also officially added Sterling to the fold in the studio. Their old friend Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie), who co-produced their debut, eventually joined them for some of the finishing touches.
In the end, Lo Moon might just inspire you to enjoy A Modern Life a little more.
‘’The journey of making a record is always winding, every artist will tell you that. We found that all we needed was the connection to each other and the commitment to believe in the music and emotion in the four of us. Great art has the ability to transform, and transport and we know how powerful that can be. We hope this record does that for you and can’t wait to play it live. That will be the moment this journey feels truly complete.’’ says Matt.

Johnny Marr
Fever Dreams Pt. 1-4 [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Turquoise 2LP]
ON SALE $37.97 Vinyl: $28.47 Buy
In the wake of his time leading The Healers, Marr’s solo career has given rise to three UK Top Ten albums - The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and 2018’s Call The Comet. He now returns with his most expansive work to date, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. It was created during the long, uncertain period that followed the arrival of the UK’s first lockdown, when his focus was pushed into both his interior life, and evoking the emotional states of others. “It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day,” he says. “But I had to go inwards.”
The new album reflects his multi-faceted past, but takes his music somewhere startlingly new. “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing - really since getting out of The Smiths,” he says. “And I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. I think it’s the most ambitious solo record I’ve done.”
Napalm Death
Resentment is Always Seismic - a final throw of Throes [Limited Edition Red LP]
ON SALE $32.97 Vinyl: $24.72 Buy
Pike Vs The Automaton
Pike Vs The Automaton [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Opaque Orchid LP]
ON SALE $40.97 Vinyl: $30.72 Buy
2022 release. Matt Pike: "The album title, Pike vs. The Automaton, wasn't an ego thing for me. Billy and Jon said, "Dude, you should use your name in this. This is your solo project." I said, "I don't want to do that". The Automaton, in Greek mythology, is the big robot that's the guardian of the Gods, basically. It's a soulless, big machine named Talos. The big machine that's working against mankind at this moment. In Jason and the Argonauts, Jason and the Argonauts have to battle this big machine guy that protects the island. Basically, what the album title is saying, metaphorically, is 'Pike against the World.'" "I made a psychedelic rock record that Sleep and High on Fire fans would like," Pike says when asked for a Cliffs Notes description of Pike vs. The Automaton. And maybe if you're not a Sleep or High on Fire fan, you might like it too. I definitely think it's interesting; it has D-Beat punk, two-step. It's got everything and it still works together, it doesn't sound odd. It's just an off-the-wall psychedelic rock record."
Scorpions
Legendary rockers Scorpions return with their new album, Rock Believer, which was created in the studio during the lockdown in their home base Hannover. “The album was written and recorded in the style of the classic Scorpions DNA with core Schenker/Meine compositions. We really went back to the essence of what defined us in the first place,” says front-man Klaus Meine. He goes on to explain how the new songs came to have such incredible, fresh energy and fervor: “We recorded the album as a band, live, in one room, like we did back in the Eighties. We can’t wait to get started and finally play for our fans again.” The sound of the new album has massive energy, delivers a real adrenaline rush and shows uncompromising quality.
The record consists of awesome tracks, each one of them a lyrical short story, minimal poems in prose, presented in a lavish sonic guise, featuring the Scorpions’ characteristic trademarks from the early 1980s, yet produced from a 2020s perspective. The wealth of inspiration from their longstanding career is an overflowing treasure chest that forges an arc between yesterday and tomorrow. Rock Believer is perhaps the group’s most characteristic album to date – a recording by a band at the pinnacle of their musical art.
LP Packaging: 180-gram LP includes 11 tracks.
Sturgill Simpson
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Natural LP]
ON SALE $21.97 Vinyl: $10.98 Buy
In a career marked by risk-taking and rule-breaking, Simpson has previously challenged genre conventions with 2016’s soul-inflected A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won the Grammy award for Country Album of the Year and was nominated for Album of the Year, and 2019’s Sound & Fury, which was nominated for Rock Album of the Year.
Single LP on green & yellow color vinyl in same packaging as standard version. Full album download included. Ltd edition. Indie only.
Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude. I’ve been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I’m writing these words feels like a minor miracle.)
On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem—the “secret ingredient”—is surprise. Perhaps the same is true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett’s strings come in on “This Night.” But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on “Endless Summer.” It’s as perfect a pop song as you’ll ever hear—sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous—and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: “Is this the year the leaves don’t lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don’t come back to hover / I don’t mean to be a giant bummer but / I’m not ready / for an endless summer, no / I’m not ready for an endless summer.” I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics.
Because of COVID, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like “Wild Loneliness,” were written from and about isolation.
I’ve been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to “Detroit Has a Skyline,” suddenly I’m shoutsinging along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to “Overflows,” I’m transported back to whisper-singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby.
Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together—beauty, possibility, surprise—during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let’s marvel now.
—Maggie Smith
Tears For Fears
The Tipping Point [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Grass Green LP + Litho Print]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
Some forty years into one of music’s most impactful partnerships, Tears For Fears have arrived together at The Tipping Point – the group’s ambitious, accomplished and surprising first new studio album in nearly two decades. An inspired song cycle that vividly recalls the depth and emotional force of the group’s earliest triumphs, The Tipping Point is the bold, beautiful and powerful sound of Tears For Fears finding themselves together all over again.
The Mercury Prize-winning, multiple GRAMMY- and BRIT Award-nominated band alt-J have announced their eagerly-awaited fourth album The Dream, set for release February 11, 2022. The Dream is an album of intrigue, beauty and humanity - a coalescence of everything that has made alt-J a global band with true staying power. True-crime inspired stories and tales of Hollywood and the Chateau Marmont rub shoulders with some of the band’s most personal moments to-date The album was created after a period of rest for the band following their seismic world tour in support of previous record RELAXER. It is a record that is the sound of a band growing as songwriters and storytellers.
"Rock and metal music have always been a haven for those who have bigger stories to tell; who have grander emotions to convey. For more than thirty years, Finnish figureheads Amorphis have done their best to carve their very own niche in heartfelt yet aggressive, melancholic yet soothing tunes. On “Halo”, their staggering fourteenth studio effort, the Fins underline their trailblazing status as one of the most original, culturally relevant and rewarding acts ever to emerge from the land of the thousand lakes. In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today’s pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos “Kalevala” into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, Amorphis combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honouring tradition without getting stuck in the past. The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is “Halo” highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It’s a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band’s long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band’s prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it’s difficult to grasp how Amorphis manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015’s “Under the Red Cloud” followed by 2018’s “Queen of Time.” “It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band,” says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. “Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums.” To the songwriter himself, “Halo” sounds both familiar and different. “It is thoroughly recognizable Amorphis from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor,” he elaborates. Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, “To me, ‘Halo’ sounds a little more stripped down compared to ‘Queen Of Time’ and ‘Under The Red Cloud.’ However, don’t get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big.” He’s right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental. That’s of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs Amorphis offered him. “Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him,” says Holopainen. “He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we’ve done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried Amorphis significantly forward.” Indeed. Setting off with the stormy grandeur of opener “Northwards,” Amorphis take us on an epic journey through the lands of the north, their rich cultural and historical heritage and musical traditions. This is not only an album for fans or metal connoisseurs. It’s a must for every imaginative mind out there with a soft spot for cinematic soundscapes, triumphant melodies and breathtaking dynamics measuring the borderlands of light and dark. However, no Amorphis album would be complete without the imaginative ...
Once Twice Melody is the 8th studio album by Beach House. It is a double album, featuring 18 songs presented in 4 chapters. Across these songs, many types of style and song structures can be heard. Songs without drums, songs centered around acoustic guitar, mostly electronic songs with no guitar, wandering and repetitive melodies, songs built around the string sections. In addition to new sounds, many of the drum machines, organs, keyboards and tones that listeners may associate with previous Beach
House records remain present throughout many of the compositions.
Beach House is Victoria Legrand, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist, and Alex Scally, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. They write all of their songs together. Once Twice Melody is the first album produced entirely by the band. The live drums are by James Barone (same as their 2018 album, 7), and were recorded at Pachyderm studio in Minnesota and United Studio in Los Angeles. For the first time, a live string ensemble was used. Strings were arranged by David Campbell.
The writing and recording of Once Twice Melody began in 2018 and was completed in July of 2021. Most of the songs were created during this time, though a few date back over the previous 10 years. Most of the recording was done at Apple Orchard Studio in Baltimore. Once Twice Melody was mixed largely by Alan Moulder but a few tracks were also mixed by Caesar Edmunds, Trevor Spencer, and Dave Fridmann.

UK eight-piece caroline's eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet - a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and O'Malley and Llewellyn's roots in Appalachian folk.
"Sometimes things sound much better when there's empty space," says Llewellyn. "Sometimes you might populate [a song] with too many things and forget that an element on its own is enough." Elsewhere on the record the band have employed a collage-like technique, combining snippets of lo-fi recordings from a myriad of different locations - a barn in France, the members' bedrooms and living rooms, the atmospheric swimming pool in which they also filmed sublime live sessions for `Dark blue' and `Skydiving onto the library roof' - with more traditional group sessions at the Total Refreshment Centre and their studio in Peckham.
The growth that began as a scrappy guitar band above a pub many years ago is still continuing. caroline's astounding debut album is merely the first step.
Caroline by Caroline
Robert Glasper’s highly anticipated third installment to the Black Radio album series. Black Radio III, much like both of its predecessors, is a cultural moment that celebrates black love and resilience, features an eclectic group of talented collaborators, and is composed by Glasper who the New York Times proclaims is “probably the most prominent jazz musician of his generation”. An innovative and essential addition to Glasper’s seminal Black Radio series.
Lo Moon
A Modern Life [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Smokey Clear LP]
ON SALE $25.97 Vinyl: $23.37 Buy
Like pausing a VHS tape, music freezes the frenetic motion of daily existence. Even if just for an instant, it calms the feedback loop of routine, engages respite, and provides perspective. Siphoning guitar transmissions and a dynamic vocal push-and-pull through a lens of cinematic production, Lo Moon deftly balance expansive soundscapes and eloquent songcraft. The Los Angeles based quartet—Matt Lowell, Crisanta Baker, Sam Stewart and Sterling Laws - ultimately use music to make sense of each day on their sophomore offering, A Modern Life [Strngr Recordings/Thirty Tigers].
“It’s about survival’’ observes Matt. “Navigating through all that’s thrown at us. Maintaining who we are and where we want to be. Music itself has been so powerful for us in our own survival, it can change everything in an instant. As a band, we’ve got a lot of reverence for it and strive for it. We don’t take it for granted.”
They never have either…
In 2016, Lo Moon materialized as a fan and critical favorite with the buzzing “Loveless.” It paved the way for their 2018 self-titled full-length, Lo Moon, which NPR hailed as ‘’shimmering, immersive and otherworldly. As intimate as it is anthemic’’. Meanwhile, Variety attested, “It possesses a rare balance of pop-inflected songwriting and dense atmospherics that hold each other in check rather than clashing.” Beyond acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times, NME, Noisey and more, Billboard named them among “10 Rock & Alternative Artists to Watch.” Between amassing over 50 million streams, the band performed alongside The War On Drugs, Glass Animals, Phoenix, and Air in addition to gracing the bills of Governors Ball, Lollapalooza, SXSW, All Points East and more. The group also made their late-night television debut on Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! followed by The Late Late Show With James Corden.
Following a tour with CHVRCHES, the musicians entered the studio with producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Miya Folick) to record what would become the next body of work. Various elements fell into place as they also officially added Sterling to the fold in the studio. Their old friend Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie), who co-produced their debut, eventually joined them for some of the finishing touches.
In the end, Lo Moon might just inspire you to enjoy A Modern Life a little more.
‘’The journey of making a record is always winding, every artist will tell you that. We found that all we needed was the connection to each other and the commitment to believe in the music and emotion in the four of us. Great art has the ability to transform, and transport and we know how powerful that can be. We hope this record does that for you and can’t wait to play it live. That will be the moment this journey feels truly complete.’’ says Matt.

Legendary rockers Scorpions return with their new album, Rock Believer, which was created in the studio during the lockdown in their home base Hannover. “The album was written and recorded in the style of the classic Scorpions DNA with core Schenker/Meine compositions. We really went back to the essence of what defined us in the first place,” says front-man Klaus Meine. He goes on to explain how the new songs came to have such incredible, fresh energy and fervor: “We recorded the album as a band, live, in one room, like we did back in the Eighties. We can’t wait to get started and finally play for our fans again.” The sound of the new album has massive energy, delivers a real adrenaline rush and shows uncompromising quality.
The record consists of awesome tracks, each one of them a lyrical short story, minimal poems in prose, presented in a lavish sonic guise, featuring the Scorpions’ characteristic trademarks from the early 1980s, yet produced from a 2020s perspective. The wealth of inspiration from their longstanding career is an overflowing treasure chest that forges an arc between yesterday and tomorrow. Rock Believer is perhaps the group’s most characteristic album to date – a recording by a band at the pinnacle of their musical art.
CD Packaging: CD 4-panel Digipak with a 16-page booklet includes 11 tracks.
In a career marked by risk-taking and rule-breaking, Simpson has previously challenged genre conventions with 2016’s soul-inflected A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won the Grammy award for Country Album of the Year and was nominated for Album of the Year, and 2019’s Sound & Fury, which was nominated for Rock Album of the Year.
It’s been a decade since SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS released their debut album together, and since then have been on one of the more impressive and unrelenting tears in rock ‘n’ roll, issuing two more hard-hitting, highly acclaimed records, and rocking stages all over the world. Enter 4, the Dave Cobb-produced highly anticipated studio effort from SMKC. True to the band’s expanding legacy, it’s everything you’ve come to expect from SLASH, MYLES KENNEDY, TODD KERNS (bass), BRENT FITZ (drums) and FRANK SIDORIS (rhythm guitar)… but also unlike anything you’ve heard from them yet. This time out, SLASH says, they captured a certain “magic” – the sound of five musicians and band mates listening to and playing off one another in the spirit of live, in-the-moment collaboration. “It has a very spontaneous, fun kind of thing to it, and I love that,” SLASH says of 4. “It’s the sound of the five of us just jamming together in one room.”
4-panel wallet with gloss coating, includes 12-page booklet
Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude. I’ve been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I’m writing these words feels like a minor miracle.)
On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem—the “secret ingredient”—is surprise. Perhaps the same is true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett’s strings come in on “This Night.” But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on “Endless Summer.” It’s as perfect a pop song as you’ll ever hear—sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous—and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: “Is this the year the leaves don’t lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don’t come back to hover / I don’t mean to be a giant bummer but / I’m not ready / for an endless summer, no / I’m not ready for an endless summer.” I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics.
Because of COVID, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like “Wild Loneliness,” were written from and about isolation.
I’ve been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to “Detroit Has a Skyline,” suddenly I’m shoutsinging along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to “Overflows,” I’m transported back to whisper-singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby.
Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together—beauty, possibility, surprise—during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let’s marvel now.
—Maggie Smith
Tears For Fears
The Tipping Point [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition CD + Litho Print]
CD: $14.98 Buy
Some forty years into one of music’s most impactful partnerships, Tears For Fears have arrived together at The Tipping Point – the group’s ambitious, accomplished and surprising first new studio album in nearly two decades. An inspired song cycle that vividly recalls the depth and emotional force of the group’s earliest triumphs, The Tipping Point is the bold, beautiful and powerful sound of Tears For Fears finding themselves together all over again.
The Mercury Prize-winning, multiple GRAMMY- and BRIT Award-nominated band alt-J have announced their eagerly-awaited fourth album The Dream, set for release February 11, 2022. The Dream is an album of intrigue, beauty and humanity - a coalescence of everything that has made alt-J a global band with true staying power. True-crime inspired stories and tales of Hollywood and the Chateau Marmont rub shoulders with some of the band’s most personal moments to-date The album was created after a period of rest for the band following their seismic world tour in support of previous record RELAXER. It is a record that is the sound of a band growing as songwriters and storytellers.
Scorpions
Rock Believer [Limited Edition Deluxe 2 LP]
ON SALE $43.97 Vinyl: $32.97 Buy
Legendary rockers Scorpions return with their new album, Rock Believer, which was created in the studio during the lockdown in their home base Hannover. “The album was written and recorded in the style of the classic Scorpions DNA with core Schenker/Meine compositions. We really went back to the essence of what defined us in the first place,” says front-man Klaus Meine. He goes on to explain how the new songs came to have such incredible, fresh energy and fervor: “We recorded the album as a band, live, in one room, like we did back in the Eighties. We can’t wait to get started and finally play for our fans again.” The sound of the new album has massive energy, delivers a real adrenaline rush and shows uncompromising quality.
The record consists of awesome tracks, each one of them a lyrical short story, minimal poems in prose, presented in a lavish sonic guise, featuring the Scorpions’ characteristic trademarks from the early 1980s, yet produced from a 2020s perspective. The wealth of inspiration from their longstanding career is an overflowing treasure chest that forges an arc between yesterday and tomorrow. Rock Believer is perhaps the group’s most characteristic album to date – a recording by a band at the pinnacle of their musical art.
Limited Deluxe Edition 2 LP Packaging: 180-gram 2 LP in a gatefold jacket includes 16 tracks.
Sturgill Simpson
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition CD]
ON SALE $12.97 CD: $8.49 Buy
In a career marked by risk-taking and rule-breaking, Simpson has previously challenged genre conventions with 2016’s soul-inflected A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won the Grammy award for Country Album of the Year and was nominated for Album of the Year, and 2019’s Sound & Fury, which was nominated for Rock Album of the Year.