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Black Mountain – IV (2016)
Black Mountain released their third album, Wilderness Heart, back in 2010 to mostly rave reviews, including an esteemed Polaris Music Prize nod. On April 1st, the Vancouver alt rockers will follow up...
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Sage – Sage (2016)
“I like to go for the things I haven’t yet mastered.” Ambroise Willaume knows himself well. In these few words, he sums up what seems to be the exceptional force behind his career to date : A young...
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Hipshot Killer – They Will Try To Kill Us All (2016)
Hipshot Killer recalls a specific era of ’80s punk rock. Owing more to the melodic likes of Descendents and Husker Du than to the usual angry suspects, the Kansas City punk trio has developed a...
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PCPC –“Ramsgate” (2015)
In the fall of 2014, Parquet Courts announced a tour with fellow New York band PC Worship under the nondescript stage name PCPC. Ramsgate is a live recording that came out of this short-lived...
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Bookworms – Xenophobe (2016)
In typically muted fashion, Nik Dawson’s first full-length under the reputable Bookworms pseudonym has slipped out into the world. It’s not like the stakes are especially high for this record but, in...
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Underworld – Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future [Japan Edition] (2016)
Underworld’s first album in six years starts with what could arguably be described as their biggest banger since Beaucoup Fish‘s ‘Kittens’ from 1999. ‘I Exhale’ distils all that’s good and deliciously...
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Unloved – Guilty of Love [Rough Trade Edition] (2016)
Guilty of Love, the debut album by Los Angeles collective Unloved, could be the soundtrack to everyone’s favorite B movie or the sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. It shouldn’t be surprising...
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Escondido – Walking with a Stranger (2016)
Escondido’s first album, The Ghost of Escondido, made for an auspicious entrance when they self-released it in 2013, establishing a high bar that a less talented duo might have found hard to overcome....
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Twin River – Should the Light Go Out (2015)
The Vancouver alt-pop band Twin River began as a somber folk duo, in which singer Courtney Ewan Bromley and guitarist Andy Bishop mostly sat “cross-legged on stools,” as Bromley told CBC Radio, and...
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Cullen Omori – New Misery (2016)
Former Smith Westerns frontman Cullen Omori release his debut solo album, New Misery, via Sub Pop. Though Omori was at first tentative about going solo following Smith Westerns’ dissolution, worried...
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HÆLOS – Full Circle (2016)
HAELOS‘ debut LP, Full Circle, brings to mind the heyday of trip-hop and British electronic explosion. All of the genre’s biggest characteristics are here — ethereal vocals, muted breakbeats, swelling...
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Ceramic TL – Sign of the Cross Every Mile to the Border (2016)
Recording as Egyptrixx, Toronto’s David Psutka helped to define the sound of London’s Night Slugs label. His albums Bible Eyes and A/B Til Infinity took techno rhythms, gleaming synth melodies, and...
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Richmond Fontaine – You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing to Go Back To (2016)
Some acts become cult concerns accidentally. Others seem to half-consciously pursue a life in the margins by their choice of musical settings and subject matter. Portland, Oregon’s Richmond Fontaine...
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The Magnetic North – Prospect of Skelmersdale (2016)
To inaugurate Britain’s second wave of post-war development in 1961, the small mining town of Skelmersdale — “Skem” to locals — was designated a New Town. Redeveloped to accommodate spillover residents...
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Meilyr Jones – 2013 (2016)
After nearly a decade fronting Welsh indie pop band Race Horses, Meilyr Jones‘ solo debut explores newfound individuality inspired partly by a post- disbandment, post-relationship trip to Rome, Italy...
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Glitterbust – Glitterbust (2016)
Who is Alex Knost and how did he end up in a band with Kim Gordon? Among the many questions raised by Glitterbust — the debut noise guitar record from this California duo — the most pressing one is...
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Grant-Lee Phillips – The Narrows (2016)
Grant-Lee Phillips has a voice glorious and strong enough that he could sing nearly anything and his loyal fan base would be happy to hear it. But after moving from California to Tennessee in 2013,...
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Solar Bears – Advancement (2016)
After three releases on the influential Planet Mu label, Irish duo John Kowalski and Rian Trench (known collectively as Solar Bears) deliver their third LP, Advancement on London-based Sunday Best....
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Zach Cooper – The Sentence (2016)
Zach Cooper‘s full-length debut, The Sentence, is an experiment in orchestral ambiance, a space offered up for reflection by the artist. Cooper takes old personal recordings ― high school demos, solo...
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Damien Jurado – Visions of Us On the Land (2016)
“I went looking for a new direction / Indecisive, undecided,” Damien Jurado sings in “Onalaska,” one of the eeriest tracks on his new album, Visions of Us On the Land. He’s singing in character;...
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